Of War and Peace..

DSCF0278
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
Long time never corresponded to you already. Really sorry. Not that I did not have the time, but I just did not have the energy to blog. Whatever, I am just lazy. Recently, I had been thinking about lots and lots of things. About what I am going to do after examinations. If all goes well, I will leave for Nepal to climb Mera, come back, work for a month, go for a diving course in July, go diving legally in some places, then go Cambodia. Lots of travelling that I would like to do. Afterall, you can only be young once. Guess, I had begun to see things more openly, and that money is not really meant to be saved in the bank, although my StanChart account really yield rather good interests. I had also though about my next semester. A semester whereby I hope that my Hall application will go through and that I will not join any freaking thing and just concentrate on the Singapore Triathlon and train myself up for an Ironman, if possible, by next year. A lot of reminiscence had also been done.

I remember my working days, as a gardener. A job which many people scorn off but I took it anyway, whether out of desperation or interest, I am still debating until now. Anyhow, I think throughout all my life, those were really THE days. I mean, they were really days that I had enjoyed thoroughly. Everyday, you wake up, have your coffee and breakfast, read the papers, then off to work. Toil and huff and puff and then 5pm comes and WooHoo! Time to relac one corner. I miss the evening sun, not that there aren't any now, but the evening sun when I could sit in one corner of somewhere high, sometimes a tree to read a story book or simply, take a nap and relax. Its those kind of really doing nothing after knowing that you had already worked hard and that you deserved the break that really appeals to me. Also, fiction is still the only kind of binded paper that appeals to me. Actually, action stories only please. haha.

The more I think about it, the more I miss it and the more I am coerced to think about quitting mountaineering altogether. Jieling said that life is just shiok after quitting, with the time that you'll suddenly have in hand. Wa liew, make me envious and tempted to step in her shoes. We'll see how it goes.

What happens if I cannot go Nepal, whether it is because I am just sick of the admin or because of the political situation in that country. I cannot really tell. But a plan is underway, a plan that will definitely make sure that I remained a fulfilled person at the end of the day. Coffee, sunset, a fishing rod, a pond and a good read. Man, I miss those days. Wake me up when this sem ends....

Of Wartime Looms...
Dear TomHa,
How you doing? It has been a long time hasn't it? Well, pretty much couped up with a lot of stuff recently and have no freaking time to update. Well, given that primary schools CA had just ended, I decided that I was to give my tuitees and most importantly myself, a break for the day. Taking things slow. Not doing tutorials (Not that I did them anyway), not doing any mountaineering related stuff. Just taking a sip of tea and read up on some of the old National Geographic issues that I bought along Arts the other time. Very nice pictures.. I wonder when I can take pictures to that standard. Weisheng said that I know the techniques, but it is just the lack of artistic talent that is spoiling my photos. Well, suck thumb.

Today, after stairs training in the morning, which is always torturous no matter how many times I did it, I went for a meal of Mac breakfast. It tasted quite bland, probably due to the training affecting my taste buds, but that is not the main point. I looked around for photographic opportunities only to find out that I forgot my camera, but never mind, I looked and observed anyway. Saw this kid looking earnestly at his father peeling off the wrappings of the Happy Meal Toy and then to smile so handsomely at the toy when it is handed to him. Very picturesque and thought provocative scene. Gone were the days when I can be so easily satisfied by a single toy, by a simple fare of fast food, by just the thought that it is Sunday and Dad's not working. The sheer innocence of satisfaction by all these small small things really made me feel rather old. I felt that as we grow up, we can no longer appreciate the simple things in life. We are bounded by the petty stigmas that had been imbued into everyone. Another thing, Mac's milkmshakes are back! At all dessert kiosks that is. Shall go and relive one of my childhood delight someday.

I had not felt quite as furious as I had a couple of days ago, during one of our regular MIR meetings. The seniors came down, and in numbers. Just looking at that scene already tells me that they were there on agenda. They sat down and began to shoot us down. Saying that we are one of the worst bunch or something along the line. Saying crappy things like 'One day got 24hours, I don't see why you cannot train', 'I can count your trainings by the fingers!', 'MIR is commitment, and commitment is sacrifice!' and many many more. But whatever, I thought, a team is only as strong as its weakest, so no choice have to sit down and listen to all the shit and keep quiet. However, what they commented on those who went for biathlon and my Kinabalu trip was really the last straw. Biathlon is not like I today race, I today sign up. We signed up long time ago. Overseas trip is not something you want to go, you pack and go. We planned for it long long time ago. We even asked them for advice and things like that about what route to take, which airline better and etc... But what they did on thursday was really incredible. They began to say how unfocused we are, that we shouldn't have gone Kinabalu, sacrificing our trainings in the process. What the fuck!? I could not hold it any longer. I retorted, in the most unfriendly tone. It was those kind of tone which you hear and you know that there is some TNT in the end. Super angry. What the fuck are they trying to do? Giving us shit only when we are back and muttering nothing before that? I mean I am not unreasonable enough to go for Kinabalu when I realise that I am wrong to actually sacrifice team training for the trip. Seriously, I really did not think too much into skipping training before that. But if they jolt something into me, I would have certainly called it off! But no! The whole team knows we are going! No one stopped me! In those kind of situation, why wouldn't I go, given that I had the money! But we came back and then they gave us shit. CCB... If not for my liking for climbing, and all the work that I had done thus far, I swore I would have walked out of the room and say "Goodbye...Fuck you..."

Anyhow, it is not worth being angry this kind of thing. You have to sympathis these people as they are borned fucked up. Which is a sad thing. Another observance was that I was the only one who talked back. Teammates were rather silent, in fact, silent. I find it rather sad. Sigh... Like that how can?

Whatever, going to enjoy my simple things in life today and my mum wants me to drive her to buy 4D. Haha. Lucky woman.

No Dream Too High, No Journey Too Tough??

Reading at High Altitude
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
Recently, I am going through a mini depression, economically and mentally and emotionally.

Economically, I really do not know where my money are all going to. I am like doing 20hours of tuition each week for this month and yet, money is like always flowing OUT of my bank account. I mean, given that I had not even get most of the things that I want and need and that I am even trying to save money by surviving on bread and lettuces and tomatoes and boiled chicken that I coped from the fridge every now and then, I seriously do not see why the outflow outweighs the inflow by THAT much. I serously am not going to achieve my savings aim by the end of my graduation. Freak.

Mentally, I am seriously shacked. All the mountaineering stuffs, all the marketing stuffs, all the media launch stuffs and all the schoolwork stuff. Next week is hell week. I have like 4 common tests, a media launch for my mountaineering team and to top it off, I still have a thousand word essay that I still have no idea what the question is. Leader is breathing down our necks for our Marketing and Media Launch. I don't blame him. I am sure he is way way more shacked than us. Sometimes I wonder is it is my problems with time management, but given that ever since semester started, other than a few hours of sleep each day, some time for eating and lecture time for my naps, I seriously do not see where the other time had gone to. Every free time I have is spent researching companies to call and email, and clearing email like I am some NSF clerk, or training, or tuitioning. Now, I even have to subcontract my mum to help me with my own household chores which I seemingly can't find the time for. Man, wake me up when semester ends...

Emotionally, I don't think I have to say much. It is Valentine's next week.

Another weekend, somehow, I no longer look forward to each day like when I was young anymore. Throw me into a jungle devoid of responsibilities but my own survival ba!

Part II of Chicken year lookback had been pushed further back...

Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chicken

Glacier Travel
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
As requested, I shall update my blog.
Well, how should I start? Feeling rather rusty from a few weeks of inactivity from the blogosphere. Oh well, let me start with the photo. My teammates had been saying that the photo is probably the best photo that I had ever taken throughout my New Zealand stint. I cannot agree more. I find the lighting, exposure all in good balance and most of all, it really shows some action as we tackle a slope that really took most of the juices out of me. However, I am sighing that I am not inside the photo. A photographer's plight, I guess.

Looking back, I realise that I had not reflected on the year 2005. Well, I should think that it is not too late for me to reflect on the year of the chicken instead. Well, the year of the chicken saw me going backto row for the NUS canoeing sprint team, albeit for a short stint. Seriously, I found myself to be slower than I was in HC. Perhaps it is because I had only paddled for a short period of like 3months before self-ejecting myself from the team? I am not sure, although I am quite sure that I had put in quite the same effort as I did in HC. Hmm.. perhaps I was right to have ejected myself from the team. It was time to move on and moved on, I really did.

I found a new passion. Perhaps it would be more apt to say that I rekindled a passion. A passion for the mountains, a passion for climbing. Since young, I had climbed lots of trees in rural Malaysia. Be it to pluck mangoes or just to climb up to relac one corner, I just loved the feeling of being 'up there'. Somehow, I lost that feeling somewhere in my growing up years. Not that I lost it completely though, as my years are punctuated with a lot of trips to Ophir and camping in Taman Negara in Pahang. Very cool stuff. I just enjoy the great outdoors, man, very serene feeling. Anyway, I rekindled this passion after my stint with tree climbing in June whereby it is more than just climbing to pluck mangoes. It was far more technical whereby the complexity of ropeworks never fail to amaze me. With a rekindled eye for adventure, I proceed to join a club that I would not regret for the rest of my life, although seriously, the expenses are astounding. Haha.

Joining this club exposed me to a lot of things. First thing first, I was compelled to look for sponsors. We found some, but it was not enough. Hence, we had to fork out money of our own to fuel our course in New Zealand. Shall not elaborate much, but the trip to New Zealand taught me a lot of things, not just the deluge of necessarry technical skills, but also a new perspective on life. You risk your life in high places of the Earth, and then you realise that actually, one should really take life easier. It would be a much happier life. You realised that whatever that you had been worrying about is nothing compared to cherishing whatever you have. Yes, I am no longer concerned about being the fastest, the strongest or whatever in the same line. I had reached zen. Haha. You'll realised how weak you are. That in the face of adversity, no matter how strong you are, you will break at some point. Be huumble and ask for help. It is only right.

Argh.. very tired.. go and sleep first. There will be a part 2..

Mera

Mera
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
So it has been confirmed. That the team will be climbing Mera Peak, 6646m this coming semester break. I have mixed feelings about this. Afterall, the peak that I had researched most and felt like we would have most chance to climb and feel proud of because of its difficulty is being rejected thoroughly by the seniors and the directors and in the end, voted out by the team. Mera Peak, though high, is not really technically difficult. I would not say taht Mera is chicken feet, in fact I would just shudder at the thought of going up so high. Altitude is your worst enemy. However, Mera is not technical, and as 1 senior fondly puts it, you should be able to summit it if you just keep going on, keep going on and on. Nothing too technical about it. Perhaps it is my lack of experience or what, I am not sure. This certainly felt like canoeing again and I hate that. You just keep on going, doing the same thing and hope that you do it well. Pretty no brainer if you are all trained properly. Oh well, let's see if I even get to go Nepal in the first place.

So, it is the third week of the semester already and boy do I feel tired every single day. Not to mention that I picked an awfully inappropriate time of getting hooked on the anime 'Bleach' in this period whereby 24hours per day is really not enough. Tired everyday, dragging my feet everyday, things got worse when you have to drag your feet and your mountaineering backpack laden with 15kg of rice and stuff, not counting my books for school. Damn it. This is tough, but what to do?

I hate teaching things that I hated learning. I mean, I had always hated learning in school except for some subjects, and now here I am, disciplining kids for not doing their homework. Darn, how hypocritical. In the end, I find that I am just another lucky guy who just had enough in him to grind out sufficiently good results that should ensure him a middle class living in the future.

I hate running. Yesterday's training sums it all up. I ran in a crappy time of like 25min for 5km??!! What the hell? I just feel so out of breath and unmotivated. I mean, I am not like some people who can run on and on for like eternity and yet can take some joy out of running. I don't. I run marathons because it was one of my before-21 resolutions. I run because it is mandatory in all the sports that I like. I mean, if you have to fight off negative thoughts like "I am going to die, I cannot make it, I am a pussy, Why am I running in the first place? You are a damn loser, and etc etc" during ALLyour runs, and you have to fight them off ALL the time, would you like running? I don't, but I have to do it.

Wah, what a piece of whiny essay. It appears that I am really getting on my years. Perhaps I should watch some more episodes of Bleach.

Chire!
Senbonzakura... Ouch.

Past

Missing Home
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
Yesterday, I went to watch RV's 50th anniversary cultural night which was coincidentally in NUS' UCC. Well, found the whole gig rather stale, JiaJun's solo also like no power, making me feel like he is conserving. He did not believe what I said, well, good luck to him. I had never used to appreciate dance and I don't think I did yesterday too. The all-girl item looked like some indian dance with balinese sarongs, while the all-duys one looked like a lot of coolies re-enacting what they do normally. It was not a really exciting performance to put it this way. I guess all the cultural groups tried too hard to play safe. Oh, ELDDS, like what they were in the past, put up something that I did not understand again. The whole play was pretty meaningless, I find, well, this coming from a constant E-lit failure. So, no hard feelings yeah?

Hence the only plus point of the show was meeting some good old friends and also, some good old teachers, not much on the teachers side though. I had not seen Chee Harn and Wee Seng since J2 and meeting them in the concert hall was just such a jovial occassion. Meeting Fiona (Jono GF) was good too, given that I kop some of her subway cookies from such a short impromptu meeting. Hope to see them more in the future. Ailin saw Huimin and brought her up, and boy, girls change a lot, especially RV girls after leaving the suppressive 'only short hair' school rule behind. Seriously, if I were to see her in the street, I couldn't possibly have recognised her. A lot other girls are the same. Gosh. I guess the only good thing or maybe a bad thing is that I remained the same, not much change, only that my hair is no longer bowl shape with a slit in the fringe as Yewei fondly describes it. Ha. Those were the days.

Time flies. I was in sec 4 when the school celebrated their 45th anniversary. And now, I joined them in their celebrations as an audience. Funnily enough, there were no Birthday Cakes. The launch was even more funny, with Tharman beating those chinese drums for so long, I doubt even Ms Ek knew when he should stop. Ha. Getting old. Just awaiting for CNY to drop by for a visit at the moment. Need a break. And it is only the first week of school and no tutorials yet.

日月双辉耀金喜！

Of Dreams

DSCF0481
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
You wake up, rub your eyes a little, roll up the curtains, grab your spectacles from the cupboard and whoala! A gigantic mountain greets you a very fine morning ahead. You turn to the other side, whoala! Another spectacular view awaits you. Mountains are about the most beautiful things that one can ever set sight on on this green green earth. I was lucky to have seen them, was lucky to have scaled them, was lucky that I was that lucky. However, 好景不常在, you get back to your home and then reality strikes you down hard, and fast. That's life.

Some people asked me why the heck do I want to risk life and limb to climb mountains. To challenge myself physically? Not quite. I am not like some of my canoeing team mates who enjoy torturing themselves. I hate running, I hate climbing stairs, I hate everything that I had done to my body at the expense of the comfort of sitting in front of the TV eating my favourite keropok. Yes, I am a weirdo and yet I do these things, to the extreme that I do them more than maybe others do. Am I making sense? I doubt so, but sometimes, in life, you just carry on doing something just because the momentum is there and you just cannot stop. It is like being stuck on a maths question and you just do not want to give up, wasting precious hours and papers and ink to find that in the end, you had just missed out on one freaking square root. Perhaps, again, I am the only one.

Back to the question again. Why mountaineering of all sports? Because I want to relive all that I had seen in my geography texts. Geography is about the single subject that I had taken and enjoyed thoroughly. Although I must concede that in the end, i am still rather weak in it, failing to recognise a serac or a morraine from topo maps or just the simple differentiation of cumulus and nimbus clouds. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. No matter. geography is about the most beautiful subject that I had ever taken, and I want to experience the beauty first hand. The Kiwis are a lucky bunch of people.

I have so many things that I want to do, and seriously I am finding myself with a serious lack of time. I still have not complete my tour of South East Asia, having only went to Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, if you want to count that as well. Also, given that I don't really consider myself having toured Thailand completely, I still have so many more to go! I'll like to have a look at the Mekong, want to go to Indonesia to see their terraced plantations, go Brunei to see oil (Although a lot of people say I would get the chance once I go back to SAF), go to Cambodia to see lost ruins, go Vietnam for I cannot remember what, and also Myanmmar and Laos, and Philipines! To see their cliffs and what-nots. I live in a very colorful region, and that's something that I should feel lucky about, should I not? Interested in joining me?

I like Nepal, and I would try all in my calibre to get my feet on their soil, but somehow, whether I make it or not does not seem to matter anymore. I am already mountain-trained, as long as I revise with myself constantly, the skills will forever be there. Afterall, I do not think that plate tectonics will ever move faster than my lifetime to displace away those mountains.

So what's the point of this entry? As I ask myself everytime I finish writing an entry. Hmm.. dream big. When I watched LOTR, I told myself that I will go to NZ. Dream became reality and I am very happy. Dream big... Dream... I am tired... Yawns... Nights and Big Dreams!

Dear TomHa,
Haha, finally, I found my marathon photos. Whoosh... look at those muscles and sweat... Either I had sweated to that degree or I had drenched myself with some ice water to wake myself up. This is near the canoeing 1000m mark, ie under the Sheares Bridge. Recollecting... I was almost dying at that place, until some kind onlooker gave a bottle of very cold ice mountain. Drenched myself in it and all the way to 4hr 15min!! Must thank a camelbak uncle who encouraged me all the way from there although in the end, I was like an ingrate who sprint the last 200m, leaving him in my dust... Haha. He finished a minute behind me. Feeling rather guilty now, come to think of it.

Well, back to producing worksheets for the academically challenged!