A "Fool" Print

This was perhaps the night when everything seems to go wrong. To briefly talk about, I and Ka Liang had lost our way on our cycle to Toa Payoh. Then, Ka Liang's friends had difficulties in finding us and we arrived deeply late at the rendezvous. Before even started, one of the bike had some problems of its front derailleur. Eddie and Calvin were only able to fix it incompletely. Added to the woes, there were news of another biker having their typre burst and was stuck at the nearby Esso Kiosk. Thus, the group decided to cycle over there to meet him first.

As a consequence, we were late at our set-0ff time. This time, the route would cover from Toa Payoh, Upper Bt Timah, Pasir Panjang to Fort Road and returned back to the starting point. There were few inexperence bikers in the group, which nearly caused an accident at Upper Bt Timah. Subsequently, while cycling to our way East Coast Road, the leader had made a wrong turn, plus a dispute was nearly occured from one of the bikers with a taxi driver for no reason or whatever so. Finally, the group decided to take a break at the Merlion status before proceeding any futher.

I decided that I might have enough for one night and cycled with Ka Liang, his father and friends to Lau Pa Sat first for supper before going back home. At the hawker center, a lady sitting at our back was furious with the service from one of the stalls, shouting and throwing plates around. Luckily, after a few hassles, her boyfriend managed to drag her away and i was able to have my peaceful "dinner" at last. Yes, I was having my dinner at 12.30am!! :(

After 48 years, Singapore has finally realized its dream of wining an Olympic medal today. There was a mix of anxiety and excitement before and after the match. Many of the Singaporeans were eagerly watching and listening to the event's broadcast. Everyone in my office was feeling excited and proud of the country's achievement. Backtracking, we had came close to achieve this dream in the last two Olympics. Disappointments were met, but Singapore has never given its dream. It took faith, talents and resource in realizing this goal of us and we have made it of today!!.

That reminded me of a book I read recently titled "The Last Lecture". The book focus much about realizing your childhood dream. Back to myself, I had met with setbacks to earn a degree from University. Three times of getting rejection from admitting into local University, then faced with financial crisis while studying in overseas. It looked upon me at that time the dream was nearly impossible, as considering the series of situations faced during that time. However, with a good support from my parents and family, i had made it. Without their support, I wouldn't have succeed as I could be as then. Subsequently, by a stroke of inspiration from someone I hold dearly, I gave another attempt to earn my Master with NTU giving little hope of success. After two long years of waiting, i filled up my application and clicked on the "Submit" button. The rest was the application process i had to go through. Surprisingly, it went smoothly apart from giving up my full-time job to take on the task. With a few sentences exchanged with my family, I'm all set to go and earned my Master with good results.

Perhaps it was my stubbornness and willingness to take risks that I would achieve this little dream of mine. Looking forward, i still in search of other goal to reach. As now, given myself of another three more years, I hope to summit K2 before any of my health conditions deteriorate due to the passage of time. Time after time, i wondering if K2 would be my final destination or would i able to come back after that? Questions will remain unanswered unless I ever try to do it..

Michael had offered to give a ride to the Kallang river and we met at 6am. There was limited parking space at the veneue and we had to circle around to "shop" for one parking lot. Many of the runners were having the same problem. I could see runners running up to the starting point, presuming they had parked their cars far away. PS and Alber were late. I called out to PS that the run for women had flagged off. Instead, she wanted to join in with the men's run. However, probably, seeing so many macho men and embarrassed that she was the odd one out. She made a U-turn and began her run before reaching the starting line. ha.. Nevertheless, she made her way back again... From afar, i could see Chairman and few other Safra runners were making fun of her. heehee.. hopeless...

There was a delay for the men to flag off. The run started at around 7:20am, about 15mins late. I was running together with Freddy, Jimmy, Melvin and etc. As if there is a curse on every PI run, my stomach felt queerly and i could hardly breathe during the run. Perhaps, it was the long suffering of my cough that affected my breath. After intake of water at the first water point, my stomach started to make funny noise. Gosh!! Which meant i had to slow down my pace.

This time, the route took us from the Kallang river to the Open door stadium and made a loop back to Golden Mile complex for two rounds. I couldn't count how many loops i had done, because every of the scenery looked the same to me. The weather was cooling today with little drizzling for the first hour. Alvin Ong was managing the second water point, and cheering up for me. Good buddy. :)

The difficulty in breathing had caught up with me. At the last hour, my pace was slower with some of the runners overtook me. Nevermind, i ran my own race and my target was to do a 1:40. Finally, in the last lap towards the finishing line, i managed to overtake 2 more runners and reached the end point within my targetted time.

While resting, Chairman announced the actual distance was 18.2km instead of 20km as planned. Sad.. Which meant i missed my timing.

In the afternoon, I was sharing a cab with Simon to celebrate Jamie's birthday at the PUB recreational club. Then after, i got to rush over to Mount Alvernia Hospital to visit Alvin after his back bone surgery. Next, we settled down at Jone's cafe at Dempsy road for a high tea before eating up the durians at my place. Finally, I met up with Michelle for a good dinner at Muratama and a an enjoyable dessert at Laurent's cafe. A full day event. Cheers!