Dog faces

Leaving for Singapore very soon ... i find it harder every year to leave my mom alone. And this beautiful beautiful place, but as we say, ... too bad people live here. Anyways, while flying off, here's a couple of dog faces i shot during this trip.

This is Dark. He's a spoilt, little brat that misses his master dearly (not me).


This is Bush. I love him. He loves me. It's that simple. Would I have never thought I will ever get to say I love Bush, ha!




This is a mutt. He followed us to a summit and then we gave him some food. no questions asked, no strings attached. I wish I could take all of them home, but I can't so I just grind my teeth and bear it.






This is Bingo. My baby, my soul, my oldest love. Ha!

And because I like to keep you on your toes ...


Singapore, here I come!

Benediction

So a junior staff in the UK Foreign Office is a little bit tired and stressed after all those meetings and stuff. I can relate to that, since all this writing I have been doing in the past few weeks have left me dry as a raisin. Right now all I want to write is "Fuck it, I'm done!" in the conclusions chapter.

But this, this is truly hilarious:

THE government apologised to the Pope last night after an official paper suggested he should be asked to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a Benedict-branded condom range on his state visit in September.

The document, drawn up by the Foreign Office as part of a briefing pack and sent to officials across Whitehall, also suggested Benedict XVI could demonstrate a hard line on child abuse by “sacking dodgy bishops” and launching a helpline for abused children.

The government’s papal visit team also recommended that he sing a song with the Queen for charity and apologise for the Spanish Armada. [...]

One suggsted that Pope Benedict should be persuaded to spend a night in a council flat in Bradford and “do forward rolls with children to promote healthy living.

Read it all here.

An evil ploy ...

Yesterday I got a letter in the mail from school:

Dear Ms ***,

teamNUS Nite 08


Congratulations! You have been awarded the Honorary Award in recognition of your outstanding contribution towards the promotion of Climbing in the University.
....

Woohoo! had a stupid grin on my face for about five minutes ... And then my brain started kicking in. Somebody from the team (coach Jubs, captain, vice cap) must've nominated me. I frantically re-read the letter cause I suddenly remembered Jups saying "We have something more evil planned for you!"

And there it was: not only do I have to attend the prize giving festivity, but I must do so dressed in the proper attire. GASP!!!

Dress code: Men - Shrit & Tie, Ladies - Appropriate Equivalent

Important note: on the day of the event if you are late for registration or dressed inappropriately, you will not be receiving your award on stage.

STAGE. PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE. LIGHTS. STAGE FRIGHT. I KNOW I WILL TRIP. aaaa!!!!

Long long days

Yep. Things have not been wonderful Chez Claudia these past few days. First, there was Friday. Mmmm ... Friday was good. Up until the point we decided to play tennis. And I started to play with Maria first, who's just learning tennis (not that I'm better, but still). Then I played with Marian, whose mind wasn't in the game for some reason or other. Which got me really pissed, because my mind WAS in the game, and I wanted to play. So. I set up this rule. For every point that he loses or whenever his mind wasn't in the game, he would do 5 push-ups. The same for me. So in the end, the score was 85-65 push-ups. 85 for me, 65 for him (needless to say that after I put up this rule, his mind was instantly in the game :)) ) So I ended up having to do 85 push-ups. Actually, Maria did 9 for me, so I only did 76 in series of 10. Only my ass. The next day, I could barely take a cup of tea to my face. Sunday morning, I could barely use the air con remote control. To top it up, I just realized last night that I lost my ipod Friday night when we went to the pull-up/push-up bars. Yup. My nice, red, ipod. With my nike-plus sensor. And with my nice engraving "Stop being a dreamer, Start being a doer" (which you can see I made it up myself). Sheesh, life sux.

Saturday, to my shame, instead of going to Rockmaster (very very close to my home) to cheer for the novice and intermediate climbers, I went shopping! the whole day!! There's no excuse for me, but I did it because I am officially NOT climbing (until tomorrow) so I didn't want to see anybody climb. Shopping was good though. Long time (maybe three months) since I've done it.

Sunday, well ... played tennis for two hours from nine to eleven in THE FUCKING MORNING. Then dozed by the pool. Then dozed some more in MacRitchie reservoir car-park, where I waited for ONE hour for the guys to show up for our trek. No, I was not early. Not by much (10 mins). It will be fun to watch them do push-ups though. Cause you see, I was so traumatized by my push-up experience that now I am making them do one push-up for every minute they are late after their 10 minutes late allowance. Cool. Life is good when you get to torment people. The trek was the only good part about my weekend I guess. It was marvelous. We went jungle bashing for about 20 minutes- not really a jungle, it was more like a normal forest from back home, but still it was great to be a bit secluded and in the wild (this is rare in Singapore).

Monday. Public holiday. Had it in my mind to go to work. Canceled the meeting with Cherlyn - i was supposed to belay people on the route we set on Wednesday. Then, instead of going to work, I slept the whole day. Yup. The whole day. From twelve to six pm. We played some tennis in the evening and that was that. A lot of tennis, a lot of sleep for me these days. I miss my red ipod.

Just another day, for you and me ...

Baby-sitting last night was horrible. One student was exactly 1 hour late for the 1 hour test. He was convinced that the test was starting at 19:30 instead of 18:30. I let him take the test, because I was waiting for another student to take an extra quiz. Ended up having to stand for a whole 2 hours - and i was wearing high heeled (for me) sandals.

Heard through the grape-vine (through the blogs i stalk) that Nita and Fen are attempting to climb mt Kilimanjaro (5885 m). I'm happy for them, yupii! I wonder when the season is. Looks like it's end of August. A bit down by the fact that they didn't ask me anything about gear, climbing, training, etc. Could've loaned some gear if the time is right - i.e. i'm not using it. Bah.

My mood is not helped by the fact that the rain woke me up this morning. Yay! While I absolutely love a good rain, I don't love it when I have to walk to school through it.

Just to cheer me up, here's a picture of Hitler! He's a very VERY VERY friendly and talkative tom that hangs around our condo.

Geek humor

To fully appreciate this, you must know that Ruby, Python, Pearl and Smalltalk are programming languages.

"Once you have these classes, you'll typically want to create a number of instances of each. For the jukebox system containing a class called Song, you'd have separate instances for popular hits such as ``Ruby Tuesday,'' ``Enveloped in Python,'' ``String of Pearls,'' ``Small talk,'' and so on. The word object is used interchangeably with class instance." [Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide - D. Thomas et al.]

The sad part is that I actually laughed at this. I R rulz.

How I start my day

If it's a Monday like yesterday, I probably am grumpy and all I can think about is a nice cup of coffee. I come in the office and grab my oh so special cup that I bought from home, with Mom, from a very special place to me. Well ... NOT YESTERDAY!! Because some idiot in my lab accidentally broke it because some other idiot (me) left it near one of the office arm chairs. Bugger. Talk about manic mondays. The idiot made amends and bought me a 9.90 (he left the price on) coffee set which i hate, because my cup was irreplaceable. Plus, the cups are small, so not really suitable for me.

Today i start my Tuesday watching the gloomy weather outside, the rain pouring and all that and thinking that I once again left the windows wide open to my room and yes, rain is going to fall inside, and yes, the floors and carpets will get wet, again. And oh, the fact that it is raining also means that I won't be able to run during lunch time as planned. Today is my last run before the marathon, but more about that coming soon, watch this space!

What I generally do is read blogs! yes! I am a stalker! I read all the team's blogs, and some blogs of some marathoners (for inspiration! These guys are amazing! There's one woman that is 3 - THREE times Ironman! omg) - Perhaps it would be great if i started a blogroll.

To end this on a geeky and unrelated note, here's some lolcode. For starters, the well known "hello world":

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

PS it's raining so strong now i can't see the building across the square.
PS2 OH NOES I just had this bad bad trip: what if there's a storm like this on Sunday and the marathon is off? Now i have something new to stress about!

The Speed Of Light

[Geeky post]

Ha! I have a deadline coming very very soon so I started to use Eclipse heavily. Which of course made my desktop running on 512 mb of RAM to choke to death - i was at the point where I would write something in Eclipse and then have to wait for a couple of minutes to see what I had written (god forbid some typos!!!) So after careful hints to the Supervisor he wrote to helpdesk, said his students needed more RAM and here am I, P4 3GHz, 1GB of ram, Ubuntu FF with Compiz-Fusion!!! mmm ... (full of supervisor lurrve right now) Everything is nice and snappy, including the Compiz-Fusion (code name for fancy window effects). Gutsy Gibbon is coming out in a couple of weeks, can't wait!!

On the other hand, I have a cold! Yay! First one in a couple of years (it's because running boosts your immune system). I am planning to treat it with lots of vitamin C, Tom Yam Soup and a 12 km run tonite! Yup. About the run though ... I'll try to run ... if I feel in any way weakish I promise to stop. Gotta go now, WORK!!

Ola muchachos!!

My right jaw is growing to kingdom come! I look like Elephant Woman! Why, oh why is this happening? My wisdom tooth is growing. Although I didn't have any pain at all when it first broke through, now that it is growing it is absolutely horrendous. My gums are the size of China and and and I can't eat! Only soup for me for now. Marian suggested that i chew on something rough (i.e bread crust or similar - does crunchy nougat count?) to reduce the size of my gums, but this nearly brought me to tears when I made meself a Camembert sandwich on rye this morning. I could barely go to sleep last night but I managed to do that in the end by recollecting and reinstating (by word of mouth) all the nice routes I have climbed.

I didn't run my 13 km yesterday. I feel so guilty about that. Instead I played tennis. Who knew that 3 months of not playing will turn me into such a disaster?!? Also the balls were new ... It was horrible, I kept shooting airplanes and saying I'm sorry, and f*ck and sh*t. All in all a very disturbing experience (at least I outran both the guys, hihi) which has made me decide that friday night is going to be my tennis night.

Our owner increased the rent for only 100 sing dollars which means that we're staying! not moving at the end of the year! No searching for new apartments! Yey! She rulz! [Of course Marian would have been responsible for moving me as well, since I would have been away].

A vos,
EW

Army half

Just a short post because my feet are aching a bit [no, I am not writing with them, but still]. Competed in the army half marathon today (that is 21 km to you). Woke up at 3:45 am to get there around 4:30 am. Race started at 05:30 am. I never stopped, which is an improvement from my lonely runs. There were so many people running next to me that it was embarrassing to stop, so thank you all. There was this short guy that kept on sprinting then walking, sprinting and walking, what a silly way to waste energy ...

The first lady finished in about one hour and a half (according to Marian) and I finished roughly in 1h 55mins. Pretty reasonable considering I was aiming for 2hrs 30 mins. Congrats to everybody there, especially those veterans .. There was this granny-like woman that finished in front of me, respect man!

[Granny like woman ... sheesh! I think I need some food and a lot of sleep]

There must be a reason ...

why I'm so sleepy. Let's see: could it be that I've spent my nights (till 1am generally) watching Wimbledon? Or the fact that I have been overdoing it with my training? I haven't eaten as many fruits as I normally do? Hm ...

1. Watching Wimbledon
I normally am a very early riser: I wake up around 6 am by myself. Of course, this means that by 10-11 I am in bed, snoring. [Gee ... I hope I don't snore!] For the past week I have been going to bed around 12-1 am.

2. Overdoing with training
Haven't done anything unusual, but I do remember failing to hydrate and eat after my 17 km on Sunday.

3. Not eating enough fruit
Ok, fruits and veggies are my thing!! I must eat them or else I feel heavy and tired. I ate 1 chocolate yesterday - I don't eat chocolate or anything sweet except once every few months when I suddenly need sugar. So there, I ate one chocolate. And one bag of jelly fruits. And one (three) slices of pizza last night. Ok ok, I got it!

That's it, I am going home to recharge my batteries. Training programme for today: climb (17-1900), run (19:00), tennis (20:00). I need to sleep.

IR iz philosopher

There is a word that really disturbs me when I hear it: "expat". I resent being called an expat because it has such an aggressive meaning, at least for me. I think this is because you can divide it into "ex-pat", where "pat" is the first part of a romanian word meaning country (or latin word for that matter, "patria" = lat., country). My country has not disowned me and I have certainly not renounced my citizenship to my country. I don't feel less of a romanian or more of a singaporean by living in Singapore. What does living abroad make you? Confused, at least! Do you carry a part of your country with you wherever you go? If yes, how do you carry it? Is it in language? In habits and upbringing? In friends and community?

If it's in language, then I am totally losing it. I am starting to feel that when I start to talk or write in Romanian it's like I am recovering from a stroke or similar. My thoughts are starting to form themselves in a mixture of english and romanian that is disturbing me when I start to talk in either language. Maybe it's because of all the books in English that I have been reading. Maybe it's because I haven't had an intelligent conversation with my romanian peers (Marian excluded) for months. Maybe it's because I should be keeping this blog in romanian (or start a new one?). I still have to figure it out.

As for friends, gimme a break! It's almost useless trying to keep in touch with all my friends from back home, so I limit myself to a few, and then only through YM. As for friends here, I suppose acquaintances is more of a better word. Friends as in you-can-wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-no-matter-what-
pat-on-the-back-kick-in-the-ass are very hard to come by. Most people in the romanian community*, or at least with those I have come to know, unfortunately generally occupy themselves with gossiping about others. It's hard to make friends when gossip is your only subject: you run out of gossip material, you cannot confide because you know you end up as gossip material, and it's so puerile it's annoying!! So you're left with acquaintances, maybe go to a movie sometimes, out to dinner, maybe sometimes shopping (though very seldom - I think it's more comfortable to shop with friends) and stuff like that.

Community is out of the question, by the above reason. I think a defining trait of romanians is that most of them are more preoccupied with what others are doing (or with how badly the others are doing) to take a good look at themselves.

Maybe you are a citizen of your country no matter where you go by your habits and upbringing. By the food you eat, by what you think is polite or impolite, by the way you greet people or the way you give presents. Who knows? Maybe you're a citizen of your country by the way you remember your country long after you've left it. I remember the smell of silver fir trees and snow on a very cold winter morning, on a balcony in a house overlooking a troubled river, in Lacu Rosu, Romania.

*[As for making asian friends, it's hard enough to be an ang moh here, let alone one that always speaks her mind, and can be thought, by some local standards, well ... nuts. Nevertheless, I have found more compassion and friendliness in my asian friends than in my romanian acquaintances here]

My head ...

did not stop pounding all day yesterday from lack of sleep from the other night and because i watched the whole season 2 and half of season 3 of grey's anatomy. You gotta love a good soap opera sometimes.

The lack of sleep is due to the fact that in a unexpected act of friendliness from my part I asked most of the grad students in my lab at my home over night to watch the UEFA Champions League (Marian just disowned me) final. (I sometimes get these attacks which i later regret dearly) Yey ... not so yey because it started around 3 am and ended around 5 am. The guys arrived around 11 pm. I made them watch climbing videos (cs graduate students => chances of them actually playing a sport close to zero) and they seemed impressed - at least by the deep water soloing. Besides that, they played [drums in the background] Monopoly (!!!) and seemed to be pretty entertained by it.

I am trying now to get back to work but I am in a very dreamy state.

Mastercard moment

1. Plane ticket to Buenos Aires: 2900 SGD (1450 Euro)


2. Plane ticket from Buenos Aires to Santiago: unknown 80USD without tax, return


3. Number of stops: 4 - Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Buenos Aires


4. Number of days spent travelling in and out: approximately 3 per trip


5. Me with a stupid grin on my face holding the reservation slip: PRICELESS!!!

P.S Please excuse the dark circles under my eyez: IR is very tiredz. Also excuse the strong color of my t-shirt: IR wants to wakes up everybodyz in the labz!

Today isn't the day

... when I go to get my tickets because Marian played football last night and his left calf muscle is not feeling oll korrect. I am fantasizing about posting a picture with me holding the reservation slip in my hand here on this blog.

In other news, I am keeping up with my training (but that's already old news). It's getting harder and harder to wake up in the morning at 6 and go on my hike after i've ran the previous night. So I'm thinking of running and hiking in alternate days (i.e one day do nothing in the morning but run at night and the next day hike in the morning plus light conditioning at night).

I am trying to get my life in order after the exam and also cope with not climbing. Even though not climbing is only for one month, it seems like a lifetime for me. My evenings are now empty (used to climb on alternate days) and all my dreams now are climbing related (they're more nightmares than dreams).

For aconcagua, i need to learn spanish! Yey!! [Senoras et senors, who left their mobile phone on snooze in the lab!??!?! It's driving the rest of us loco loco!!!] I wonder if there are any podcasts with "learn to speak spanish" - i can listen to them on my hikes (running is out of the question though - can you imagine me running and going "unos, dos, tres"?)

Just saw the funniest thing: this yellow humming bird had a go at my window! After deciding it was not tasty enough he went on the balcony rail and started removing the paint that was chipping away! Way to go birdie!!

LATER EDIT: 7 hours later and the humming bird is back!! It's the same one i think, at least he has the same behavior. I wonder if he'll be interested in a flower or something :)

Ice-nine baby!

"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say" Vonnegut

In light of this, yesterday i was feeling a bit down and feeling like i was living in Macondo (Reasons? listening to traviata all day? approaching exams? no climbing? no studying? hmm ...). I did not go to the doctor (should have), but i did get me an emo haircut. Also, here's an excerpt from a conversation of mine with andreas, my new zeeland-living in england-met him in romania climbing - friend. A couple of days ago, a romanian intern lost the key to his cabinet. Called the help desk, and they said that somebody will come and will change the lock. Nobody came, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Here it is:
03:59:40 PM) szaboclaudia: i am definetely living in sa man (e.n. sa= south america)
(03:59:47 PM) szaboclaudia: there are 3 romanians in my lab
(03:59:58 PM) szaboclaudia: climbed up on a desk
(04:00:01 PM) szaboclaudia: trying to open it from the top
(04:00:08 PM) szaboclaudia: have you seen romanians at work? one works and three stand around and give advice
(04:00:13 PM) andreas: I need to study a subject that provides me with the structure to learn what I need about this
(04:00:29 PM) szaboclaudia: then indeed you need to go to school
(04:01:55 PM) andreas: to support a family and live the kind of life I want
(04:01:55 PM) szaboclaudia: so ... instead of doing bills today and all that
(04:02:10 PM) szaboclaudia: you decided to sort your future
(04:02:33 PM) szaboclaudia: *sort out
(04:02:37 PM) andreas: that and the bills
(04:03:07 PM) andreas: and....
(04:03:25 PM) andreas: I am also trying to buy land in Wales
(04:03:39 PM) andreas: so much to do
(04:03:46 PM) andreas: better get doing it
(04:04:03 PM) szaboclaudia: ok
(04:04:07 PM) szaboclaudia: now it's 3 romanians
(04:04:09 PM) szaboclaudia: 1 indian
(04:04:11 PM) szaboclaudia: and 2 chinese
(04:04:25 PM) szaboclaudia: one chinese is wearing a basketball player outfit
(04:04:30 PM) szaboclaudia: and slippers
(04:04:41 PM) szaboclaudia: you know the kind? the fluffy rabitty ones ...
(04:05:30 PM) szaboclaudia: indian has left
(04:06:06 PM) szaboclaudia: romanians are trying to move the desk (it's 3 meters tall)
(04:06:17 PM) szaboclaudia: updates from the front ... are you reading this?!!
(04:06:48 PM) szaboclaudia: aaaaaaaa ...
(04:10:26 PM) szaboclaudia: 4 romanians
(04:10:28 PM) szaboclaudia: 1 chinese
(04:10:34 PM) szaboclaudia: the other sat down at his desk
(04:11:22 PM) szaboclaudia: aaaah ... grad life at its best!
(04:11:35 PM) szaboclaudia: and me ... NOBODY to share it with
(04:21:02 PM) andreas: yes I am here
(04:21:09 PM) andreas: just doinfg stuff
(04:21:43 PM) andreas: busy day for a day off
(04:26:57 PM) szaboclaudia: it's 5 romanians now ... 3 on the desk
(04:28:17 PM) szaboclaudia: ok they're done

Allez! The play was great! Horatiu Malaiele rulz! i will post about it tomorrow, cause i got a special autograph from him and i need to take a picture of it!

A series of unfortunate events

Marian decided on the spur of the moment on Friday to join the new interns' field trip in Malaysia yesterday and had a really great time from what he tells me. I wish I could say the same about me though ...

First of all I had trouble sleeping, probably due to the long phone call I had with m. on friday evening about our plans for the expedition(s). Anyhow, i managed to get up, dressed and head for training, while still being a little dizzy. Got to climb asia and started to climb, but I was feeling a bit tired after my prolonged climbing session + run with Cherlyn on friday, so the climb wasn't that extraordinary. Anyhow, since it was very very crowded downstairs, I nearly dragged Nita upstairs to a much lighter (climbwise and airwise) environment.

I started to try out Daniel's route which involved a standing up from a sit-in. Definitely NOT my favorite since I cannot for the life of me do that. Anyhow, I fell. With my right leg (again) between the mattresses (what are the chances of that!??) and on the wooden floor (I don't know if it was wooden, but it felt like it). I heard a snapish sound (looking back, it was more like the sound of one bone griding over another), and then PAIN. It was more painful than any broken/torn/sprained/cut limb I have ever had before. It brought tears to my eyes and I think i frightened the girls when I started to cry.

Anyhow, the boss was there in no time with the mandatory pack of ice, they got my leg elevated and all that. The girls told me how Vincent had a bad dream on Friday of how one of the guys will get injured on Saturday during the training! He was close, what can I say, I'm no guy, but I am a tomboy, so ... I finally regained movement in my toes in about half an hour, so everything seemed alright, except that BOULDERACTIVE is coming NEXT WEEK and I needed to be able to climb!!!! So Yixiang came up with this wonderful idea for him to take me to his sensei (chinese doctor) for him to have a look at me.

We took a taxi, got there, Y. talked to the auntie (older lady) there (no english, please!), got me registered, and we started waiting. And waiting, and waiting. My leg was not swollen (almost half as it was last time), but the pain was big, but I was still feeling a bit awkward when this girl came in with a whoa! swollen ankle. Eh, we all have our pains and ailments ... I finally got in to see the sensei. He looked at my ankle, probed a bit here, a bit there, then he said that since I only sprained it two hours ago, he cannot rub it (thank God!!!), but that he is going to do acupuncture (Shit shit shit!!!). Did I tell you how much I hate needles?!!? Ever since i was stuck two weeks in the hospital and had a penicillin IV once every 6 hours (on the outside of your palm it's the most painful) i totally loathe needles.

Anyhow, he put one needle just below my knee, which got my whole lower leg feeling numb. Came back a while later and twisted a bit on the needle and got my leg feeling number ... The pain was going down in the ankle, anyhow ... Came back a little later and took that needle out and stuck one on the inside of my left wrist, just below the palm. Yikes! I was thinking "I hope you don't hate amos (amo - white/red head - pejorative) dear dear uncle!!" My middle finger and my ring finger suddenly felt like thousands of spines were stuck in them. He got me to move my right foot up and down for a while, and that was it (if he would have come to twist the needle in my palm i would have run, guaranteed)!! He put some clay like thing and wrapped it around my ankle, it felt really really cool and calming! He said to come on monday, but I won't go if I'm ok! Everything seems to be ok for now :)

I left and called my grandma in Romania to tell her about the wonders of acupuncture (she has rheumatism). I finally managed to get home where I took a black pepper salmon with rice takeaway , got into bed with a book, two bananas and the food, read/slept/read/slept/read/slept/slept till today!! Marian called me at one point from Malaysia, asked me if everything is allright (i said yes), then he asked "no broken bones, legs, anything?!" So i couldn't go on lying and just blurted it out, I hope it did not ruin his trip.

I wanted to go climbing today, but marian is totally against it and it feels like I should give my ankle a rest also, so I will be climbing tomorrow, just before they're taking down the tiles (so sad)...

Chinese New Year day 7

Don't you just love it when certain celebrations take up to a week in festive joy?! Too bad it's not about something that is part of my culture though... So, to sum up this past weekend .... TIRED TIRED TIRED TIRED!

On friday evening i went to my supervisor's home for cny dinner - the whole thing started at seven and ended at eleven (7eleven?) It was quite fun, the food was exceptionally good (i ate like a pig), and apart from seeing my supervisor in shorts there was nothing terrifying about it. Came home around twelve something then left for training saturday at 8. Came back from training around 4. Saturday is the seventh day of the Chinese new year. According to sandra, it's everybody's birthday that day. Soo ... happy birthday everybody!!! For presents please mail them at 32 dover rise ...

Now the training was ... tough, i lead two 6as and my first 6b ever!!! Redpointed them of course, i am still too scared to hang in there till i drop. I am so lame at this, if it's a tough move that goes just about the bolt i'm done, i can't go, i need to rest and think about it... It's really really lame ... Jups said something that made me think though, he was yelling while i was trying to go for this ledge: "come on, just go, like when you boulder!" What do you mean like when you boulder? - simple: the fall i might take is the same as when i would fall bouldering. Easier said than done, though ... Anyhows, i am brooding over this, i brooded over it last night at 10 am when i went running! I managed to finish 12k. I rulz. I also tried a roof top rope, it's really really funny - i fell even though i was not pumped but i was feeling extremely heavy!! Ha ha! Need to lay low on those kaya buns (kaya = a sort of coconut jam)!!! Of course, after you fall you cannot go back!

M. asked me what mountains i am considering for the alps, i told him matterhorn, but that i'd go with whatever he wants. I don't even dare to dream about matterhorn, omg it would be soo great!

Last night we went into town with alex, the new intern (Pictures) and we managed to arrive at the celebrations for the end of cny. It was kinda cool, they even had fireworks. Anyhow, i read my chinese horoscope for this year of the pig (i'm a dog by the way, in case you haven't figured it out yet), and it said that my luck was ok (at least careerwise) but that i would have problems holding on to moneys this year. Well what do you know ... let's see ..

• 700 euros ticket home


• 500 euros the alps (at least, not including my way back)


• 3000 euros aconcagua


• ??? presents for people back home

Omg i gotta start saving!