Ramblings…

At boarding, I don’t watch much television. Honestly, in the last 5 days, I watched less than 5 minutes of TV. I don’t really get to read the newspaper much either. If half of world population suddenly turned rabid, I wouldn’t really find that out quickly either, unless someone told me about it, or if I sat down for a spot of tea with one of them rabid people. Only yesterday, when checking out the prices of the new Trek Madone did I realize that the US – Singapore exchange rate was like 1.3! I thought it was low, but had no idea it was at those levels. Its like living in a bubble!

Anyway, tonight, after a long run/bike/run I sat down in front of the human race’s favorite invention attempting to find a light hearted comedy. Unfortunately, at that time, all I could find was a movie about horses which I didn’t want to watch, and the news. So there I sat, watching the news. News is generally classified into two broad categories, that occasionally overlap: good and bad. After a while, I couldn’t quite take it- almost every single thing broadcasted to me tonight fell most unmistakably into the dark side! What must have concerned most viewers was the astronomical inflation of the pice of just about everything, especially food. And then there were all the protests surrounding the Olympics, in the very first leg of the torch relay. And Interpol giving serious security warnings to Beijing regarding the Olympics…

Forgive the whiny pessimism. but tonight, the news made me see the earth as a big fat powder keg waiting to go off. It seemed that all that was required is a small trigger to begin the next chapter of horrible history, another great depression, another red october. I was genuinely nervous. I sure hope and pray things turn around.

And yet, I am reminded of that awesome sight that I saw this evening while in the saddle. Riding along Changi coastal road, on my way back home, I caught sight of the twilight sky. The sun was setting on the other side of Singapore, some fifty or so kilometers away, and although I couldn’t quite see it, I saw its radiance reflected against the sky. It was nothing short of beautiful. Shades of violet and orange interwoven in a magnificent tapestry. Words definitely don’t do the ephemeral experience of that twilight any justice. Maybe the world isn’t that ugly after all.

 

Sprint Powerman 2007

Oh my, I had actually typed out this long thing about how the race went (really), but then the internet got wonky and I lost the post!

In summary, I had a lot of fun and the race went really well. 5.5 km run, 32km bike, 5 km run. God pulled me through all the way and I came in 26th!

Back to chem pracs…

 

Returned.

Its been a while since I updated though I assure you that I haven’t been in the bad mood that my blog was in because of the last (two) posts. Much has happened since then, including a weekend trip to Malaysia with the family. We drove up to Lumut, Perak, where I took part in a sprint duathlon, called Powerman, which was mighty fun; more importantly, I was blessed so much.

We left Singapore on Friday, and stopped in KL for the first night, staying at my aunt’s house, before driving up the next day. Because I was in KL, my family managed to spend some time with relatives that we normally see only a few times a year. This trip I had learned to fully appreciate them. Some of them really went through a lot of trouble to accommodate us, and all of them are really a nice bunch that I normally don’t appreciate enough. I should at this point include some nice pictures, unfortunately, we didn’t take any. Maybe at Chinese New Year next year.

The next day we left for Lumut, Perak; we had a hard time trying to find the hotel once we were in the town itself. Eventually, after we had checked in, we met up with pastor Henry’s family. Pastor Henry was a pastor that ministered to my mom’s family, many years ago, before most of them were Christian and before my mom was married. That day, they had met up after many years, and we went for dinner with pastor’s family.

Sunday, race day. More on that in the next post.

 

I can’t think of something interesting to type here.

In the past week, along with something like 119 other unsuspecting Year 5, I was recruited into the Gifted Education Branch as a temporary clerk. This was my first real job, and I sure hope my working life is nothing like the first taste that I got at Ministry of Education.

Actually, it wasn’t all that bad, I exaggerate greatly under some sort of truth bending creative license. While the tasks that we were given were tedious, and involved a lot patience, I had fun and learned a bit of something here and there. The company was pretty good too, it was pretty fun hanging out with my team mates, especially Gideon, Hadi, Clifton, Bobbie and Daryl.

What did we do? Well, going into specifics would be inviting much flak from the Ministry, the school and quite possibly (if history is anything to go by) the law. The thing is, working for the GE Branch, somewhat resembles working for a clandestine government department like the CIA. We were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, to avoid looking at certain classified things as we carried out certain classified tasks, to not leak any information to parties that might want it, to always be vigilant and the list goes on. They even had cellophane tape that was printed with “Gifted Education Branch Secret” and the state crest, which was used to seal the can’t-be-named-documents.As you can tell, a lot of cloak and dagger; give us each a hand gun, a badge and mirror shades and we’re the secret service.

Today, I went cycling for the second time with ANZA, which is an organization of expats from Australia and New Zealand. They’re a pretty nice bunch, and have quite a few people who like me are not from Down Under or Middle Earth. After the first 12 km, it started raining, lightly at first, then really hard. Visibility was bad and it didn’t help that my contact lens don’t agree with the rain and that dirt was constantly sprayed into my face by the wheel in front of me. By God’s grace, I eventually arrived in school, very wet and dirty but in one piece. Had noodles across the road at Wah Chee, which by the way is really great, before waiting for my mom to pick me up.

I have at this point run out steam, although I have loads more to talk about and will hence end here.

 

The End.

At long last the period of testing and revision drew to a close this morning, hopefully there’ll be no more revision for a long while, although I’m pretty sure that the work will kick in before the Year 5 cohort can say: “Freedom!”. By the grace of God, the exams have gone well, and the revision and absence of fun distracting stuff hasn’t been all that bad either. None the less, I enjoy the change from trying to study to slacking.

As per the after exam tradition, I went out with the KKK (which is not the Ku Klux Klan, but the Kyle Koh Klub), and watched a movie. Unfortunately, we picked a Russian fantasy action movie called Daywatch, which was preceded by the prequel Nightwatch, which none of us had watched before. The result was that we spent most of the movie trying to make sense of the plot and the rules of the fantastical world of the film; it did not help that a single piece of chalk had the power to alter reality and that all the dialog was in Russian. It wasn’t all that bad though, having figured out the gist of the story, it was pretty satisfying.

Oh, and the over due Charity Bike’n'Blade post? Well, just take a look at the photos. There are like 400 more photos on the web if you’re interested, I just took those relevant to me.

 

Beauty.

Early one morning, you find yourself standing in a deserted car park in central Singapore, taking in the sweet morning air. The cool wind gently brushes against your face, and you look around taking in the foliage of the nature reserves surrounding you. The sun had just risen.

You feel your favorite jersey gently clinging to your torso and your shorts fitting snugly, the elastic in both prevent them from flapping around in the wind; your skin enjoys the comfort of the garments, much like two old friends meeting after many years of separation. You enjoy their familiarity- human beings must be creatures of habit.

Better than that, you feel your treasured racer lean gently against your thigh. Like the threads on your back, the mechanical steed has a pleasant sense of familiarity, but more than that, as you hold it in your hand you feel the rush of adventure surge through you and your heart reciprocates by upping the tempo. It’s time to set off.

You straddle the steed and don your helmet, but before you put on your shades, you take a look at the sky. Clear and wondrously blue, save for the genteel and almost parallel few layers of stratus clouds on the far end. The birds too seem to love the weather: a group of the feathered creatures take advantage of the clear sky to ride the winds, as they traverse their aerial dominion in formation.The shades go on. You clip into your pedals before spinning, slowly at first, letting the muscles adapt to the movement, then faster and with greater force as you intuitively shift to and from the different gear ratios. Before you know it, you go down a long slope, taking advantage of the decent, you shift to the hardest ratio and accelerate downhill. The thrill of speed and the wind in your face is exhilerating, it amazes you as the surroundings rush past you in a blur. Speed is beautiful.

But not as beautiful as what you see next.

As you follow the bend on the road onto a bridge, you notice a dark blue body of water over which the bridge is constructed. Flanked by what must be lush green mangrove trees, the reservoir is generally still and gently reflects the sun’s radiance.

For a moment, all you can do is turn your head toward a sight that is unrivaled by any form Helenic beauty. The reservoir must have powers that you know not of, because your feet which have been spinning circles for the last hour, suddenly pause, as though they too need to stop and take the sight in.

As you gaze at perfection set in the foreground of the flawless sky, you think to yourself, there must surely be a God out there.