Of Sports
Dear TomHa,
Subcribed myself to another climbing forum, just to ogle at the beautiful pictures that are taken at impossible angles and altitude. Climbers and mountaineers are a really lucky bunch of people, whose passion (and of course, together with money) takes them to places beyond the wildest possible imagination. I am glad that I had joined such an interesting club, that opened my horizons to beyond Ophir, Tahan and Kinabalu. Woohoo! Life's an adventure, live it.

It is pretty amazing how friendly the mountaineering folks are. I mean, they might have an hidden agenda, but until now, I have failed to sense it, so I shall assume there are no hidden agenda! (I am an engineer in training.. I do lots of assumptions) Dannies just forwarded a mail from Charlie Hobbs, a mountaineer who opened an Old Mountaineers' Cafe in Mount Cook Village whom we met while drinking coffee in that cafe! (wa.. how come all my sentences so long one?) Anyway.. the mail's to check on how we are progressing with our trip to the Himalayas. So friendly and affable. Haha. Well, somehow, I have to agree a little with Cesare Maestri, the 'First' Cerro Torre summiter. If you even question 1 climb, then I'll have to question the whole of mountaineering It makes some sense. Although I am not going to agree on that he is the first Cerro Torre summiter based on the evidence featured, but, in this sport whereby the only trophy is your own satisfaction at overcoming yourself in a hostile Mother Nature environment, I guess trust is paramount in this sport! Otherwise, who is there to judge when, let's say, you solo Mount Everest? You trust the integrity of those who made summit claims and I guess that's all to it in non-competitive sports.

Robert quoted Ernest as saying that there are only 3 sports in the world. Motor racing, Bull fighting and Mountaineering. Reason being that you can die from these sports. The rest are just games. You can stop in the middle if you find something is amiss. The consequences from failing in these are just your pride and the abject disappointment that all your hardwork is nowhere comparable to the other competitors. Hence, it is games. Perhaps...

How would you define your own definition of Sport? I am still searching for it.

Dear TomHa,
Got this from the web...
Tourist lady: Does this train go to 9/11?
Man: what?
Tourist lady: I want to see 9/11.
Man: You mean World Trade Center?
Tourist lady: No, I mean 9/11.
Other tourist lady: Oh no, you want the E train. I had this problem yesterday. New Yorkers are so unhelpful

Stunned silence all the way to 42nd St.

--Downtown C train, 50th St.

Dear TomHa,
Exams finally here and I am extremely happy about it. A week and 3 papers more, and it will be over. So glad. Realised that the toilet is still the best place to refine your concentration, and yes, I am reverting back to those old O'level days of spending quite a long time in the toilet studying. In those days, it was C-lit and Geography, 2 of my most favourite subjects. The toilet shrouds you from every conceivable distractions and puts you through a hellish nasal experience. Lucky my sense of smell had never been very good.

I wonder what is the surprise about, that my sense of sight is actually my sharpest sense among all the other senses. I mean, people with perfect eyesight should understand that perfect eyesight does not mean that you have a very keen sense of sight! They must also understand that myopic people have perfect eyesight with their glasses on!! Is this too hard to grapple with?

7 more days..

Of Hmmm...
Dear TomHa,
I realise, in the end, that I am somewhat different a lot of my friends. Just finishd updating myself on WY and LDM's blogs and it appears to me that both of them seriously enjoys engaging themselves in intellectual workouts. WY more of the artistic side, LDM more of the philosophical, academic side. I have many other friends who are also like that. Like I think MOST of my MIR team mates are very technologically savvy, gasping at the utter amazement that I do not know what the hell dreamweaver is yesterday, Haha, and of course, I think I am just someone who had been thrown into an environment that was not really suitable for him and had to, like all humans in every situation, to try to survive as well as he can.

I am those kind of person who loves to slack, a kind of person whom I will call brain-dead. I don't like to think too much into things. I find it very troublesome and tiring. When you are tired physically, you sleep soundly on bed and feel refreshed the next day. However, if you engage yourself in too much intellectual stuff, you go to bed and get nightmares because your brain cells become too active and you wake up feeling more tired and in fact, scared. Yup this is my theory. And, like what I had said, how I even get into university, a achievement as I would note it to be is due to luck, not much of how good I am. I am just lucky that I can do the examination questions and get rather decent results after some due hardwork. I am those kind of person who would just love to sit under the scarlet evening sun, fishing beside a lake where some great mountains is overlooking. I am also those kind of person who love to walk amongst nature, cause the sweet air never fails to freshen me up. Yep, all in all, I am someone who aims to be a 'brain-dead' slacker with not a care in the world.

But, this world where got so simple one...

I have to make money, to help out my family, to support a family when I grow old and also, the money to slack. I need to have contacts, as no man is an island, need to have friends as you'll need companionship in the end, need to have education in order to have the skills to make money. Compound to all those would be the expectation of the society to have you being a responsible and capable man to be recognised, and many many other things, how to slack?

Only a person who had been through the worst can truly enjoy slacking, at least that is how it is, I think.

Jefferson that I know a little about everything, at least everything in what we had conversed about thus far, but I can be taken apart very simply if you just dive a little deeper into the topic of interest. To me, knowledge, never makes me feel satisfied spiritually, never. Perhaps it was due to how knowledge had been forced into my brain by myself, by external forces, but the main point is that knowledge never fills me up spiritually. My knowledge of many things is still my social tool. My superficial tool is just there for me to be able to strike conversations with people of variable interests. Superficial knowledge to get superficial friends. Nice...

However, I am still grateful to have friends. People whom I had been through shit and pain and beautiful moments with.

Dear TomHa,
This girl looks damn hot in the commercial.

Of A Freaky Day
Dear TomHa,
Today is one of the weirdest day that I had experienced throughout the year. Yes, one of the weirdest as I had experienced worse. First, had my last CA for ME2101 which concludes this module. The very weird thing is that I know how to do all the questions, which is a weird concept ever since I entered Univerisity and that I tuitioned till late in the night yesterday! Wow, other than some careless mistakes here and there, I manage to solve some of those harder questions which the others are complaining about! Hmm.. but like always, simple questions are my downfall... Oh wellzzz..

Next, I went for the only lecture of the week, a marketing module, and always, I fell asleep in it, nothing to talk about, but I went to consult a Prof after that regarding some Frequency response concepts. Funny thing is that I had always hated his lecture and his nasal voice but I enjoyed consulting him just now. What... then he began to nag a little, telling me about why he just refused to provide solutions because he felt that students nowadays are not talking to each other as in his time, which is kind of true. The number of ME pupils that I know can be counted with 3 fingers.. in fact, other than Wenyang and the ex-canoeing team-mates and my current mountaineering team mates, I know no one else! Sad life. Sometimes I wonder what I had been doing all this while. My university social life is really sad..sad..sad... But i am too lazy to do anything about it! So, blame no one...

Well, the weirdest thing happened when I was running along Bukit Batok road. There was this stretch of mango trees and today, many of them are producing mangoes. No, I do not pluck them when I run, and the stench of mangoes that fell and break apart on the ground is terrible, especially when you are fighting for air when running. In any case, one mango fell on my head and it cracked open. How can such thing happen one? Alamak. My head hurt and I stopped a bit and let the pain go away for a moment and crap, opened mango + sweaty head is not an entirely pleasant nasal experience. Decided to finish running anyway, since got only a km more. But aiyo.. the stench was unbearable... It was one of the most freaky thing that can happen to you. To think that I thought I run rather well today.

Well, please stop your strikes, Nepalese. I know democracy is great but please get back to work as that is about the most practical way to help your country grow stronger than protesting.

Sigh.. Nquist plots follows.

Of Rebels and Peace
Dear TomHa,
Had an interesting conversation with my brother today. I do not know how, but we suddenly came upon this topic of the short form for brother, 'bro'. Do you pronounce it as 'Bro'? or do you follow the original and pronounce it as 'Bra'. Very funny. We then started to call each other bra to the very irritation of my mum. Haha, but if you think about it, it really should be pronounced as 'Bra', isn't it? Afterall, bro can mean bronze or things like that...Haha.

Anyway, I think I am rather obsessed with climbing these few days, as the insanity of the exam period is catching up on me. Been reading a lot of National Geographic and I realised that there is a branch of the popular National Geographic Magazine that is called National Geographic Adventure! A very cool read and I really recommend it to anyone who likes cool photos with action and majestic nature intertwined together in a single page. Woohoo! This is way cooler than a pack of Fluid mechanics notes. This month's issue has Cerro Torre, arguably the hardest mountain in the world, in terms of number of successful conquests. Just looking at its picture always make me realise how feeble man is in contrast to the majesty of Mother nature. However, I think the Razor of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica is comparable to this Patagonia's technicalest of all technical mountains.

Nepal is experiencing turmoil, at an increased degree as it is even covered on Channel U and 8 news. In the past, only Channel NewsAsia is concerned about it. And guess what, I am actually reading about it on Straits Times, which had ignored the existence of Nepal for as long as I can remember. Will be monitoring it closely.. Sighzzz... Humans are ugly... as always...

Oh yah, before I forget. Shouldn't Li Ao, as a politician and a thinker or whatever his profession really is, be more diplomatic in his words? Being so brash does not help anyone or in his matter, any ties between any countries.

Of The Time of The Sem!
Dear TomHa,
I think I had told you about this before, but do let me reiterate this point again. I just LOVE exams. It just so signals that It is the END Haha. Yeah, work hard for a few more weeks and then endless fun awaits, I hope. Haha.

Well, recently, especially the last 2 weeks, I had been pondering about somethings. First, it is why I would be wanting to go Nepal in the end, when my parents are not all that willing to let me go? Really weird. I was adamant that I would not go to Nepal, given what that was happening over there. Been pondering about this for a while and the need to find an answer was more so amplified when WS asked why I kao bei-ed so much at the beginning when in the end, I am going to make the decision myself. Hmm... Firstly, BJ's mail about his friend returning safely from Nepal was a great confidence booster. Next, Darren's father's Nepalese friend is not saying Darren is siao to go Nepal anymore, at least not that I had heard of it. My mum's not nagging about the matter, not that she is showing approval though. Lastly, I got inspired by the few National Geographic that I bought which talked about exploration. I will talk about them in another post, I hope, but yeah, all these summed up about all the reasons why I made a 360 degree u-turn in my stance about going Nepal. Maybe another reason is that I thought that money is not enough? Hmm.. But there's Aik Soon money then what.. although not as much... Hmm... Argh...

Been watching a lot of 大长今. Very nice show.Ignited my passion for cooking again. Cooked 饺子yesterday, 拉面the day before. My　拉面 still tasted like shit and look like 面粉果then拉面. Yucks. I wonder when I can make things as good as those palace girls. Hmm...

Of Mis-Orientation
Dear TomHa,
I seriously do not know why I even signed up to be the web IC. I mean, I know nuts about designing a webpage and yet here I am, putting myself into a position of utter discomfort. I know nuts about HTML, as can be seen from my blog whereby the only things I really know how to do is to Bold Things, Italicise things and nothing else. The rest are just stuffs that you can do just by following instructions. Darn it. Perhaps I had wanted to learn something new, but at a time like this? With exams around the corner? Oh crap. Well, hope I can survive that without much hiccups. Removed something from the site and still cannot get it up. Hope the team does not notice it too soon. GRRRR... More googling and more books for me.

Well, been going easy on myself for the weekend, after that many tests and the sucky marketing presentation last week. Gosh.. They had really taken a great toll on me. Lucky I sprained my ankle last assessment and thus could find a reason to not exercise too hard. Thanks for the break. Blessing in disguise I think. But, the main point is that I had survived it. Very good. Kinda proud of myself, haha.　If I can manage to figure out how to do the website properly, would be even more proud of myself, afterall, I had always been rather apprehensive of computer related stuff and that I scored better than average for my programming last sem was just because I had done good things in my previous life. That's all to it. Why am I talking about this IT thing so much?

Daming is getting more and more academic nowadays. Good for him if that's what he wants. He says that I still do not know what I want. Hmm.. Kinda agree with him. But there's been one thing that I know that I had always wanted. To live a carefree and relaxed life, just like Yoh of Shaman King. However, aswhat he says, only a person who had worked and pushed himself really hard will appreciate what a carefree and relaxed life is. Very true, and I guess what i am doing now is to push myself to my limit and see what happens...

A look back at my blogs of this sem. A revelation: None of them had been funny. All are rather whiny or just screwed attempts by me to illustrate my grandiose ambitions. Guess that pretty much sums up what that I am experiencing?

欲上青天揽明月。。。