The ugly truth

For about two years I harbored the belief that I am truly a climbing elephant.


Clumsy, fat, willing to use absolutely everything i had (i.e. trunk) to help my poor fingers deal with my weight, lack of flexibility, and lack of balance. Most importantly, being an elephant was directly linked with my lack of flexibility.

And then came last thursday. Because of a horrible route on the flat wall on which I could not start for the life of me, I realized that not only I am not flexible, but my arm span is really reduced compared to my height. Basically, my arms are too small and I am too unflexible to climb some routes. Add to that my very strong quads and my apparently unbounded roaring capabilities, and this makes me, yes you got it, a T-REX!

Conversation

ME (by chat): Whoa, have you seen 3 idiots? [sidenote- bollywood movie, 3 hours, very very nice)
VIC (writing from his work place): To be honest, I am looking at about 5 or 6 right now.

The pile of shit metaphor

[Inspired to write this by the girl with the cherry earings]

This applies to a lot of situations, but I made this up when the relationship with my ex was like: I loved him, he sort of loved me but he didn't, and he was not determined enough to let me go and, more importantly, I was not able to let him go.

I saw myself in our relationship like a person (with unlimited forearm strength - haha), hanging from a steel bar, very very high above an bottomless pile of very smelly shit. Green-brown in color if you must know.

My problem was this:

• The air around me was putrid because of the bottomless pile of shit I was hovering above.


• The fall was scary because I was very high above the bottomless pile of shit.


• The shiny and sturdy stainlessess steel bar was my only hope in life. I had limitless forearm strength! The bar defined who I was, what I liked, what i didn't like, our common friends, what I would do for dinner, my vacation plans, my traveling plans, our pile of memories, promises to other friends about traveling plans etc.


• The prospect of drowning in that bottomless pile of shit was not at all exciting.

The thing is, the scariest part is actually letting go. And vowing not to re-grab that particular stainless steel bar ever again. The fall was quick and the bottomless pile of shit actually had a bottom. And when I did hit it, I used my legs to push me up. I floated on various debris until I reached land, and that was that.

Although I have to be honest now and say here that I did not let go of the bar by myself that particular time, I used this metaphor to guide me in letting go many many times and in various situations.

Morale of the story is this: swimming in shit for a limited amount of time is better than smelling shit forever.

One picture Tuesday

One of the things I love about NUS is that it is a cat-friendly place. Cats can roam free, are very well fed, and some are even very very friendly. This boy here hangs out between business canteen, I-cube, and the rest of computing. He is very very friendly and very talkative. Go say Hi!




Actually, being a cat in singapore is really not that bad. Sure, you get clubbered to death by the occasional psycho-maniac (may you get clubbered to death too!) once in a while, but other than that, you are socially tolerated because you hunt mice and rats, you get food and occasional petting, and the weather is always good so you don't freeze to death. Not bad at all! Cats here are gigantic, which has to do I guess with the fact that the rats here are gigantic too! Most have a short tail (this is how they are), which is a bit freakish at first, but after you get used to that they are actually quite pretty. I am sure they speak chinese. However, I have not found any social discrimination from their part. To them, I am not an ang moh, but either somebody to accept petting from or somebody to ignore, same as all the rest. Singaporean cats, I heart you!

Giving away my babies

The nice website with my babies can be found here. Click and then comment on this blog if you want the book. Some of them are in romanian. First come, first served. The list can be found below as well. I still have some books at school but most are romanian sci-fi.

Aww i am so sad to be giving them away. But please please do not make me happy by not taking them!
-- Antologie SF Vol. 3
A.P. Cehov -- Logodnica si alte povestiri
Alan Weisman -- The World Without Us
Alex Garland -- The Beach
Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Alfred Lansing -- Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - Jensen
Arkadi, Boris Strugatki -- Picnic la marginea drumului
Arthur C. Clarke -- Ghost from the grand banks
Arthur Golden -- Memoirs of a Geisha - Nandini
Brandon Sanderson -- Elantris (ro)
Ben Okri -- Starbook
C.B.E., Sir Chris Bonington -- Annapurna South Face: The Classic Account of Survival
Chuck Palahniuk -- Lullaby
Clive Cussler -- Walhalla (ro)
Dan Simmons -- The Terror
E. M. Forster -- A Room with a View and Howards End - Nandini
Ed Viesturs, David Roberts -- No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
Ernest Hemingway -- The First Forty Nine Stories - Seth
Garcia (Gabriel Garcia Marques) Marquez -- Un veac de singuratate
Gary Jennings -- Aztec
Geoff Ryman -- Air
George Orwell -- O mie noua sute optzeci si patru [MUST PROVE THAT YOU WANT IT] Bogdan
Hamish MacInnes -- The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters: True Stories of Rescue from the Brink of Death
Haruki Murakami -- What I talk about when i talk about running - Doris
Haruki Murakami -- Padurea Norvegiana (ro)
Heinrich Harrer -- The White Spider - Shu
Heinrich Harrer -- Seven Years in Tibet - Shu
Ian Mcewan -- Atonement
Ian Rankin -- Dead Souls
Ian Rankin -- Hide And Seek
Ian Rankin -- Tooth and Nail
Ian Rankin -- The Falls
Jeffrey Eugenides -- The Virgin Suicides
Joe Simpson -- Beckoning Silence
John Gribbin -- The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors - Jensen
John Keay -- The Mammoth Book of Explorers
Jon E. Lewis -- The Mammoth Book of Climbing Adventures - Jensen
Jon Krakauer -- Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster - Shu
Jonathan Kellerman -- A Cold Heart - Nandini
Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book
Jonathan Neale - Tigers of the Snow: Sherpa Climbers
Jostein Gaarder - Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy - Nandini
Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains of the Day - Jensen
Lily Prior - La CucinaSofia
M. Bulgakov - Diavoliada
Marin Preda - Marele Singuratic
Mario Vargas Llosa - Matusa Julia si condeierul
Marion Zimmer Bradley - Negurile
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Markus Zusak - The Book Thief - Sofia
Matei Calinescu - Portretul lui M
Michael Ende - The Neverending Story - Nandini
Michael Moore - Stupid White Men: .and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Bogdan
Mihail Bulgakov - Maestrul si margareta
Mike Horn - Luptand cu imposibilul
Mircea Cartarescu - Nostalgia
Mircea Cartarescu - Orbitor
N Steinhardt - Jurnalul fericirii
National Geographic - Fotografia - Ghid Practic
Nick Hornby - How to Be Good - Shu
Nigel Shepherd - Go Climb
P.D. James - P. D. James Omnibus: ""A Taste for Death"", ""Devices and Desires"", ""Original Sin"" - Nandini
P.D. James - The Black Tower - Nandini
Philip Pullman - The Amber Spyglass
Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles - Nandini
Razvan Radulescu - Teodosie cel Mic
Shusaku Endo - Silence - Nandini
Sir Chris Bonington, Charles Clarke, Clint Willis - Everest: The Unclimbed Ridge
Stanislaw Lem - Solaris - Sofia
Stefan Agopian - Tache de catifea: Roman
Stephen King - The Eyes of the Dragon - Nandini
Umberto Eco - Baudolino - Bogdan
Virgil Ierunca - Fenomenul Pitesti
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita - Andreea
Walter Bonatti - The Mountains of My Life
Yann Martel - Life of Pi - Doris
Bohumil Habral - L-am servit pe regele Angliei
F. Scott Fitzgerald - Cei frumosi si blestemati
Harper Lee - Sa ucizi o pasare cantatoare
H. Hesse - Cele mai frumoase povestiri
Agatha Christie --- Ucigasul ABC
P.G. Wodehouse --- Jeeves si spiritul feudal

The little engine that could

Sort of.

Two weeks until nepal and my training still focuses on rock climbing. My aim is to climb harder these days because I won't touch a handhold for three weeks. The problem with climbing just a wee bit harder is that my unaccustomed body rebels and gets injured. Sure, you would say (and so did I), injury is ok because anyway you are going to rest for three weeks, wether you want to or not (usually not). Sadly, this is not the case.

On Friday we climbed mostly on slopers and pinches. I set a route that Sandra said was shouldery, but I did not see it as such and I tried a few times. Lo and behold, by next morning I was experiencing the first signs ever of a shoulder injury. I am hypothesizing here that a shoulder injury is much freakish than your usual torn pulley tendon (been there, done that) or your golfer or tennis elbow (been there, done that), specifically because you experience a weird disconnection from your limb. Something like: before you and your limb were happily connected and doing all right, and then suddenly there's a painful something that seems to pull your arm (left, in my case), away from you. It has gotten better but I am not climbing today - responsible, I am! (yeah right)

Thank god for modern backpacks though, because I was still able to train on Saturday morning. This time it was MacRitchie (10+ 2km) with a pack that weighed around 12 kg. Managed to finish it without major events, but I don't think I could have had i not had most of its weight on my hips. I also noticed that my performance on Saturday morning trainings (12 hours after climbing) is worse than my performance on wednesday night trainings (24 hours after climbing). It could be that either I am accumulating fatigue or that I am getting older and as such need to rest more. I AM looking forward to sleeping on the plane to Kathmandu (7 hours mofo!). In view of this, tonight is light running rest night!

Giving away my babies

Here is what I posted on Facebook today. Am writing it here for the benefit of the only person I know that does not have a facebook account. Ahem.

Dear Jenny, Shu, Eli,

I am moving out of my apartment and will be moving out of singapore in the future (me hopes) so I cannot bring my babies with me. And since it's very expensive to ship my babies to Romania, I have decided to pass them to the only three people in Singapore (well, plus Sandra but she don't have no account), that I know are readers.

So, that being said, would you be interested in taking some of my books? If any of you says yes, I will make a list of the books for you to choose from. Please take them, your house must be filled with books, if not for you, then for your future kids (oh my, i suck :)) )

claud
ps will post this on e blog too for san to read

Truth is, it costs 225 SGD to ship 20 kg of books to Romania. I think I have about 40 kg. Brr.

Welcome to the real world

1. My prof has applied for a research grant on which he plans to hire me as a post-doc (with a very good salary btw). I would be very happy with this except I have a few restraints:

• I would, again, most probably, be the only one working on this project


• I do not really want to stay in Singapore, it is very far from home! I want to go to europe. Hell, even the US. It's still closer ...


• It would just mean more and more work all by myself though (with $$ comes more work work work)

2. There is no news of the grant yet.

3. In the meantime, I have started to apply for a lot of jobs, out of which at this point in time, one in particular looks very promising. In the process, I have asked the prof and another two Dr. if they would be my referees. All of them said with pleasure, etc. I need 3 reference letters for this promising application.

4. So the prof comes back from his sabbatical and starts to tell me that next year (jan) he is going to hire me as a post-doc (increased $$) in a field that is totally unrelated to what i have been doing for the past years (he does not yet know the project!). And, says he, if the grant gets in, he will switch me to work on the grant. And, after my Dr.Dr. gets confirmed, another more $$ in for me (regardless if i am working on the grant or not)

5. And then he says. I have not yet sent in your reference letter and I have told Dr. X not to send it as well because I wanted to talk to you if you still want to go ahead, considering all this (i.e. point 4), do you still want to go ahead? And I am like WTF?! I wanted to shout but I answered nicely and politely that yes, I want to go ahead (and then some more bla bla bla)

6. I feel strangely betrayed and scared shit because I am still applying for cool jobs. What if they don't send out any letter? What if he gets pissed at me for leaving and then makes Marian's life a living hell?

One picture Tuesday

This year we caught a single day of sun when we went climbing in Romania. We climbed an easy route on a very wet wall. It was scary as hell, but it was truly worth it.


As usual, Dark waited for us at the bottom of the clif.

The promise

Last year I made a promise to myself to run at least one marathon every year. This just goes to say that one shouldn't make promises when one is riding the wave. This is because last year when I made this promise, I had already ran two marathons so my task for the year was done. But I had also sworn NEVER EVER NEVER EVER to run Sundown marathon ever again. Not even if they come to me with the route and have me approve it. The memory of those stairs, of the volunteers sleeping on the side of the street, and of us rambling through the busy parking lot at 5 am in the morning looking for the finish line is deeply engraved in my memory. So this basically left me with having to run the Standard Chartered Marathon this December. This is no big deal, as I enjoy the run every time.

Things were great but then we decided to go to Nepal to trek the Annapurna Circuit. And we are coming back on the day before the marathon. A balanced person would say: fine, register, and then if you are NOT tired after hiking for 300 km, going up and down between 1000m and 5460m, and after a 8hrs flight from Kathmandu to Singapore, then you can actually run it. I know myself very very well so I decided not to register AT ALL. This is because I know that if I do register then I will run no matter what.

So I refused to run the Sundown marathon in May. And I can't run the one in December. This leaves me with a window of about two weeks to complete my yearly running goal. So how?

Well, this is how: I will run my own marathon, in East Coast Park, with Marian on a bicycle as a support crew, spectator, and cheerer. I will handle the registration and the finisher t-shirt. In the previous years what kept me going was the finisher t-shirt (vain, i know). This year it's going to be the promise of a seafood dinner in East Coast Park woo hoo!

Event: East Coast Park Personal Marathon - ECPPM
Date: 19th December (Sunday)
Flag-off: 4:30 pm
Venue: East Coast Park
Cut-off time: 9pm

Other spectators/runners are welcome :)

Vietnam, baby!

One week in Vietnam! Loved the food but hated the motorcycles and the noise. Cheese, bread, pate, and last but not least, kefir!

Communist propaganda. It left a very very sour taste in my mouth. Although to be honest, for a communist country, Vietnam is incredibly capitalistic.




Beautiful French buildings:
Tainted with propaganda":



Uncle Ho everywhere:


And motorcycles. No regards for traffic direction, speed, signs, anything. Now we know why the speed limit in Ho Chi Minh City is 40 km/hour.


Visited the War Museum. It was quite impressive and I did not find it at all biased or full of propaganda as I was told before. War is cruel and it does hurt civilians, no matter what we think. And yes, napalm and agent orange are illegal according to the rules of war. However, things got a little bit out of hand in this respect on the second floor, where there was a room that showed how other nations rallied for Vietnam during the war. And in it we found this picture, showing a Pro-vietnam Romanian demonstration in the seventies. We all know that these were not spontaneous but thoroughly organized by the party.


Between work, the prof and us visited the Cu Chi tunnels, where the Viet Cong hid while the americans where having their way with their country - napalm, agent orange, the works. The viet cong answered with bamboo traps, among other things:


The tunnel we visited was enlarged for tourists:


But it was still damn crammed. On our hands and knees we went:


A lot of things can be transported on motorcycles. From goldfish:


To tonight's dinner in a fancy restaurant:


Could not go inside the Notre Dame Cathedral:


But we visited the Mekong Delta instead:


And a bee farm:


Who knew pomelos grow in trees?


Or starfruits? [Click to enlarge]




Got ferried on some canal by locals:


Wore the hat!


So did the prof!


Cobra wine! Pictured is a dead cobra holding a cobra penis in its mouth. Who cares about animals anyway?!


Everything was chocolaty: the mekong, my ice coffee, the palm flowers...


I wanna see more of Vietnam!



Pics available on picasa, as usual [hover for link].

One picture Tuesday

Because we are training for the Annapurna Circuit, we have replaced the "Saturday morning lazy cleaning of the house" with "Saturday morning huffing and puffing" in Bukit Timah (but about the hills of my life in a later post).

In Bukit Timah you meet a lot of people. From people minding their own business, actually WORKING for a living if you must:

To people chilling on the azure blue:

And whom you actually disturb with your presence:

To people seamlessly integrating technology in their life:

And using technology to improve other people's lives as well:

Annapurna Circuit Trek Summary

And the reason why these days I am giving up on my Monday training with the girls (which actually translates into doing an incredible amount of pull-ups or variations) to go run uphill either in Kent Ridge park or in Bukit Timah nature reserve. Below is a summary of the Annapurna Circuit. Hopefully we will be fit enough and the wether will be good enough for us to finish it.

Day 1. Besi Sahar --> Bahundanda
6-7 hrs, 510m ↑
- Ngadi is an alternative for the stop-over
- Bahundanda - one of the prettiest villages in the trail

Day 2. Ngadi/Bahundanda → Chamje
5-6 hrs, 420 m ↑, 260 m ↓
- Bahundanda - one of the prettiest villages in the trail

Day 3. Chamje → Bagarchap
6-7 hrs, 940 m ↑
- marijuana fields, rhododendron
- Tal village good for a break
- suspension bridge

Day 4. Bagarchap → Chame/Bratang
5-6 hrs, 550 m ↑
- must register at the police post
- Bratang: apple orchards, 2 inns, quiet night

Day 5. Chame/Bratant → Pisang
4-5 hrs, 640 m ↑
- alternative is Humde/Hongde higher up, 1.5 hours from Manang
- forest of pine and cedar
- valley view (best!) - Sabje valley

Day 6. Pisang/Humde → Manang
4-5 hrs/1.5 hrs, 350 m ↑

Day 7, Day 8 (depends) acclimatization and rest day in Manang
To do:
- climb ridge north of village for great views
- climb point 4695 (strenuous climb)
- visit Bhojo gompa
- great view at View Point Cafe
- there is a doctor here, 30 US consultation
- free Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) lectures

Day 9. Manang -> Yak Kharka
3-4 hrs, 620 m ↑

Day 10. Yak Kharka → Thorung Ledi
3-4 hrs, 340 m ↑
- slow and steady wins the race


Day 11. Thorung Ledi → Jarkot - THE BIG DAY
6-8 hrs, 1040 m ↑, 1620 m ↓ to Muktinath
7-9 hrs, 1040 m ↑, 1720 m ↓ to Jarkot
- passing through Thorung La, 5400 m
- stop for lunch at Muktinath and visit around (must visit!!)
- can stop here also if no more strength
- must leave Thorung Ledi at 5 am

Day 12. Jarkot → Marpha
7 hrs
- Jarkot: peach trees, nice fortress town
- as we leave Jarkot, turn around and take photo

Day 13. Marpha → Kalopani
4 hrs
- flat OH YEAH!!
- views: Dhaulaghiri (8167m), Nilgiri Central (6940 m) and South (6839m), Annapurna I (8091 m)
- looks like it can be mixed with previous day

Day 14. Kalopani → Tatopani
6 hrs, 24 km, steep ↓
- HOT SPRINGS MAFA!!
- Dhaulaghiri lodge is closest to the springs

Day 15. Tatopani → Gorepani
6 hrs, climb up, steep: 140 m ↓, 1750 m ↑
- Poon Hill MAFA!!!!!! - very nice views of all the mountains, good for sunrise, sunset pics
- SUNRISE!

Day 16. Gorepani → Hille
downhill hard, rock staircase

Day 17. Hille → Pokhara
- hike to Beni town, take cab from Beni to Pokhara
- looks like it can be mixed with day 16 s.t we can stay one day in Pokhara

Pokhara: - relax around the lakeside, take pictures, trek around the lake, etc

Quasimodo

I have been slouching for as long as I can remember. I like to think that it is because my back muscles are so big that I am always hunching forward, but, truth is ... I just slouch. I have tried everything form: asking people to hit me when i slouch to: trying to walk straight. So basically, I have not really tried much.

Until I joined yoga for project elephant. After that my posture greatly improved and I was able to walk straight again (to say nothing that I was finally able to touch my toes)

I quit yoga this year in January. Reasons being that I wanted to concentrate on running, climbing (injury-free, this time), and on writing my thesis. I achieved all three objectives this year so I am really proud of myself for that. However, in quitting yoga I lost two important things, namely, my posture, and a friend I had made through yoga (come to think of it, this second one does not count because if i lost said friend so easily, it just means we weren't really friends). So I lost my posture.

About a month ago San, Dor, Mar, and I were walking through Taka and we spotted this:


The english says: "It chest out posture"

I could not resist it so I grabbed it instantly. At first, I said it was for my mom. But truth is, the arm loops are very tiny so my mom will not fit into it. So here I am today:




Notice the cool shirt: Vietnam-bought for only 10 SGD! And yes, I did put a pink teddy-bear on top of the cluster rack behind me.

One picture Tuesday

I have just returned from the land of motorbikes, bad internet and good food so I have manymanymany things to do and no time to find a picture. So here it is, for the first time seen on the internet, a picture of me from high-school! Guess which one is me!

Good morning Vietnam!

Here I am in Ho Chin Minh City! The land of the zillion scooters, where crossing the street is a fucking adventure, best coffee in Asia (me thinks), and good good good food!


I love eating with Marian and the prof. Marian is a very very fussy heater, but when he is with the prof HE HAS to eat. So he eats things that he wouldn't eat even if promised to give him 10 children: like spring rolls, funny meats, weird cakes. He eats those now without beating an eyelid. He even agrees when I ask him how nice they are! :)

Hopefully tomorrow's internet connection will be much better and i will be able to post some pics.

Interaction between me and the hotel reception desk.

Me: "What is the name of the wi-fi network?"
Them: [pause][weird look] "Um, no?"

One picture Tuesday

A couple of weeks ago Marian and i were hydrating in preparation for the 2010 Safra Army Half Marathon. We bought two 1.5l bottles of water and started drinking. Here's how our bottles looked after 3 hours.

After Aconcagua, where I had to drink around 5l of water per day to decrease the effects of altitude sickness, I have become quite the little hippo. Guess which bottle is mine?

Why I hate Singapore

• It's VERY clean and VERY safe - sometimes, it is just very septic, and very boring. There are no scary rides in the amusement parks.


• The seasons NEVER change - it is always summer. It is never cold. Sometimes, if you try really hard, you can see some signs of spring, but those signs would look like summer for other people.


• People here are not friendly. They are not unfriendly either.


• Chinese people do not want to lose face. So they never argue, fight, yell, scream, etc. in public. Unless they are drunk. Coming from a latin-balcan society, sometimes I miss that. (I don't miss it that much, mind you)


• There is no bread and cheese culture. Coffee mostly sucks.


• The rocks in Sentosa are fake.


• Shopping and eating are roughly the only two national sports that Singaporeans love to play.


• People read at most newspapers (no books) or sleep in the subway or buses.


• There's rarely a good play or a ballet or a concert.


• A percentage of middle-class singaporeans have at least one maid (usually treated badly by the kids - at least) - usually from the philipines or indonesia. The singaporean kid that grew up in such a family will not know how to change a light bulb, iron his/her clothes, cook, sew a button, etc.


• There is a set of rules or steps to be followed for everything. The moment you do something that does not fall in those steps or something happens that is unspecified, everything comes to a halt. Nobody wants to take responsibility, nobody wants to move an inch. Everybody is happy to delegate or wait for the supervisor to decide. And so on and so forth. - granted, there are steps and rules for mostly everything, but sometimes there aren't.


• Kids are stressed with exams since primary school. When they reach university they are unable to think outside the box. I would say "Think" only, but thank god! that is not entirely true.

Why I love Singapore

• Durians! - it's as simple as that. A fruit. Calorie-free* too! (well at least in my book:D)


• It's VERY clean - as in septic, sometimes.


• It's VERY green - it's at the tropics!


• It's VERY safe - as in, can go running at 2 am in most neighborhoods and nothing will happen to you


• Climbing with Sandra and Doris. A pleasure!! And sometimes, during my fat/weak days, a curse.


• It's summer all year around. Bring on the sandals! Skirts! T-shirts! Flip-flops! Air-con!


• For some of my friends, I am the only caucasian they have ever met. Or, after Crystel came here, their favorite caucasian. Ahem.


• While for caucasians I am of average height, bordering on shortish, here I am tall! My hair is light brown, but here people see me as blonde!


• The variety of cuisines you can find here is amazing!


• Fruits, fruits, fruits!!! Pineapple, mango, guava, papaya, soursop, dragonfruit, rambutan, starfruit, apples, pears, plums, grapes, jackfruit, DURIAN, mangosteen, all-year-round!


• TOM YAM! - my favorite soup, right up there with my grandma's borscht soup, I need my almost-daily fix of this spicy and sour soup. Or else.

*Apparently some people say a durian has 800 calories. Yeah right! These people don't know my truth: it has ZERO!

Three Gauls and One Roman

This is the name our team is going to have for Climb On! 2010! Although one of the gauls might not be able to actually make it. Climb On! is a climbing festival, basically a climb-all-you-can-until-you-die kinda thing. Last year I think we spent a lot of time in the mall having lunch and we didn't climb that much. This year the Roman is a noob. The strongest gaul might not be able to make it. Which leaves me and Marian as the defending gauls.

Sadly, Marian really fits Asterix.


Because this means that i am left with Obelix. Even sadder, my butt really fits Obelix.


I haven't submitted the forms yet and truth be told, I am actually considering to change it to 11 Gauls and 1 Roman but I am scared the gaul that might not able to make it will not get it.

A series of unfortunate events

1. I joined the climbing team a long time ago and I met Sandra.


2. Sandra introduced me to peanut butter about 3 years ago. I still blame her, because I had not been aware about this delicacy sprouted from the refined american cuisine. The fact that it sprouted really does not bother me, but the fact that I can get easily addicted to it, does.


3. On Monday night I had to return to the lab to work after training. I knew I would be famished and I was scared I would do something rash and like raid the snack machines, so I bought a small peanut butter jar (fat), a carton of soy milk (protein), and some bread (carbs). It looked perfect for a post-training meal and i enjoyed my two slices very much.


4. On Tuesday I started to help myself to tiny spoons of peanut butter, every time thinking that "This is just a tiny one, it's the last one!"


5. Today I went to get the vietnam visas and when I came back I decided to read a bit about vietnam. And since this was entertainment and I can't do entertainment without munching, I reached for the peanut butter jar. What's left is just a tiny half a a teaspoon pod on the bottom of the jar*. And i thought i was dieting, yes i did ...

*It's done. I licked the jar clean. I am never buying peanut butter again.

One picture Tuesday

Engrish at its best:

Facebook withdrawal symptoms - Part II

Oh noes, what to choose, what to choose! Several things are pushing me in opposing directions ... First there's:

The guilt - Text message from doris: "you needa be back on facebook ... hien typed a super long happy public note about [promoting finally to inter] and tagged everybody [but you]"

Then there's:

The productivity - definitely increased. Or so I thought, until I discovered the zillions of blogs I had been neglecting since I started stalking camping on facebook. And then productivity was back to its normal self. Drip. Drip. Trickle. Trickle.

And there's:
The pride - Making a new facebook account would just mean that i have no spine and that the motherfucking corporatists win.

What to do? what to do?

Nature wants me fat

I always eat more in preparation for a longer run. Well, truth be it, I always eat more. But since yesterday's training, when my fingers literally shouted: "Lose weight, bitch!", I have made a resolution to eat more only (ONLY!) when i will be going for a run.

I have recently found a longer run around campus, which clocks about 10km and has two hills in it: one is about 3 km long, the other about 100 m - in preparation for "Nepal OH YEAH 2010" pre-graduation trip (this only implies that at some point in time there's going to be a graduation trip as well) My plan now is to run this route everyday if possible. Today was one of those days when I was supposed to run it.

So I stuffed my face accordingly at lunch, and afterwards, clocking a salmon with salad and mash, humus with bread, one pack of seaweed and one pack of cashewnuts (how the last two are actually good for runners, I do not know! But they are very good for gluttons yum, yum, yum).

Of course it started pouring right after I finished lunch and it has not stopped since, which makes my pre-run stuffing useless. And I literally can feel how everything i ate is meeting back on my behind to discuss layering possibilities. Nature truly wants me fat.

Facebook withdrawal symptoms - Part I

Number of times I wanted to check Facebook (approx):

• On Monday: 40


• On Tuesday: 30


• On Wednesday: 2*

*Only because I had to stand in for my supervisor for the whole day so I had no computer access.

One picture Tuesday

Now this is what I call true bling!

Facebook account gone!

Well, my account has been Claudia Facebooksux for as long as i can remember. I was an active facebooker :) although i did not allow any applications and I did not like it when people asked me to share/give them animals in farmville or whatever - so i was pretty harsh on them (i.e. i ignored them).

Today I tried to login and found that my account has been disabled (no warning, no anything - I guess the facebooksux in the name was really putting them off). In Facebook's own words, asking why my account was disabled, I got this:

"Profiles created to represent celebrities, pets, ideas, or inanimate objects are strictly prohibited.
People on Facebook want to interact with their real friends and the people they know in the real world. Since fake accounts can damage the integrity of this environment, they are not allowed to remain on the site."


On the problem with fake names:
"Facebook is built around real world interactions. Operating under an alias detracts from the value of the system as a whole. Users who operate under fake names are also prone to abuse. We take this standard very seriously and remove fake accounts as we become aware of them."

Then, when asking why i did not get a warning:
"Depending on the severity of the violation, it is not guaranteed that you will receive a warning prior to becoming disabled. Unfortunately, accounts that are disabled for severe violations of Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities cannot be restored."

And then, when asking what i could do to restore my account - sadly, I will not make another account but i do not want to lose contact with ppl I was in contact before - like RME's links, dodo's camping on facebook etc - here's what i got:

"Please upload a government-issued ID to this report and make sure that your full name, date of birth, and photo are clear. You should also black out any personal information that is not needed to verify your identity (e.g., social security number). "

Sad part is, my account was not fake and I did not "damage the integrity of this environment". The irony is that indeed, Facebook sucks :)

Facebook withdrawal symptoms, here I come!

Will I blog till I am 90?

I don't really know, but what I really hope is that by the time I am 90, the title of this blog would have changed, at least not to include "graduate programmes". Here's a video of a lovely and inspirational 90-year old granny blogger.

Amazing how technology sometimes reaches out to people from the older generation.
My 78-year-old grandmother uses her computer to Skype with me. She is loving it! And so am I! It does make the distance shorter, even for a little while ...

Breakfast odissey

I have been trying for years to find the perfect breakfast formula to suit me. What I have managed to find in all these years is that, unlike Marian who has been eating the same thing for breakfast ever since I've known him (I kid you not, the man eats 4 slices of toast with butter and honey and 1 and half glasses of milk EVERY MORNING if he can have it), I need variety in my life! So far, I have eaten for breakfast:

• borscht soup


• polenta with cheese


• polenta with yoghurt


• steamed broccoli with cheese


• cabbage stew


• rolled oats with fruit and milk


• weetabix with fruit and milk


• [HOW COULD I FORGET THIS?!] chicken rice soup and coffee

In the past weeks, i have switched from my rolled oats to weetabix. I love the texture of the weetabix and the taste! (Cardboard!) However, I noticed that after i eat the weetabix I get VERY hungry, VERY soon (like when i reach the office in the morning, I am ready for lunch). Turns out that unlike rolled oats, weetabix has a HIGH GI, which makes it unsuitable for breakfast for me. This might be the reason why i am so famished so early. Or it might be, as Sandra aptly puts it, that i am a "bottomless pit".

Funny breakfast foods anyone?

One picture Tuesday

The little engine that could ...

Went for army half marathon yesterday! The night before I was a little bit scared because although I had run very often, I had not run long because of lack of time/drive etc. Sadly the night before we spent it watching re-runs of "The Big Bang Theory" and eating very salty roasted sunflower seeds.

I say this because 3 km into the run both of us were very very thirsty and had to stop to refuel. And then poor Marian had a stitch because of that and an entire saga broke out for him. I had given him a pair of my socks to run in. Turns out they were too tight for him and gave him multiple blisters (a big one on the right foot and 3 smaller ones on the left foot).

This year we ran past the Marina Sands resort. It has a small hill right next to it, and i had thought that this would be it. I actually was thinking that maybe the singaporeans had complained that the Sheares bridge is too steep (it is damn steep!) and so the event organizers had taken it out. Turns out, they hadn't, and Marian got to experience it right smack in the face.

All in all it was a good run, Marian did his best, got a personal best, and we almost made it below 2hrs! I feel a bit pissed because I know that I could have made it even better - 1:46 would have gotten me in the first 10 for women's open, as I pulled 4min/km at the start and around kms 16/17/18. That's when I left Marian to battle his demons on his own. That being said, I could have pulled on and wait for Marian right before/right after the finish line but decided against it. The high of finishing together was again, unmeasurable.


The run left me famished! Because I am feeling guilty, I will post below a list of all the things I had to eat yesterday. It's a lot considering that i started to eat at 8:00, slept from 12-3pm, and stopped eating at 7pm.

• One of the cereal bars they gave us at the finish line


• Vegetable laksa - but only the veggies as it was too heavy


• Auntie Anne's parmesan cheese pretzel


• Korean bibimbap - not all, it was not good


• 20000000 dates


• One ice-cream


• 2 servings of cabbage stew


• One pack of roasted sunflower seeds


• 2 or 3 thick slices of bread


• 125 g of feta cheese


• One starfruit


• One apple

Mastercard moment

1. 22 years in school: 8150 USD (12 * 200 + 5 * 150 + 5 * 1000 )


2. Taxes for the last semester: 1000 USD


3. Examination fee: 400 USD


4. Amount of paper used to print: 5 * 500 pages

Happiness, dread, anxiety, of finally submitting the thesis to the university: Priceless.

Relations

A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.

A Ph. D. student is a machine for turning coffee into crap.

One picture Tuesday

Because yesterday the hairy leg came back from Rome, I didn't have time to post, so I am giving you not one, but TWO pictures from our trip to Ikea this saturday.

Doris found her rug:


And I found my new love:

Am becoming the village crazee

Five years ago I quit smoking. I did not use any fancy technique from some book or other or anything of the sort. I stopped cold turkey and I started running. This was horrible for me (running i mean) because I was unfit and I was a smoker and i was running in singapore, where at first it feels like running in a sauna. But anytime I wanted to light up I would remind myself about the first running experience and I would ask myself if I wanted to go back to that. And I didn't so I would not light up. Why am I telling you this story?

Well ... this is the corridor where business and computing students come to smoke. NUS is a non-smoking campus and as such smart students find sekret smoking areas.


The problem with this corridor is that the window with the little piece of paper on it is the window to my lab. The window is right behind my desk and the windows are not properly sealed. Which means that whenever students come to smoke here (despite the 5 no-smoking signs, one announcement that clearly describes the fines if anybody would catch them smoking), the smoke comes into my lab. And it first hits me and my unsuspecting lungs.


Do we foresee a problem here? Oh yeah! Let's have a closer look at the piece of paper on my window:



Yup. For the past month or so I have consistently shooed smokers from there. At first I was polite and nice, but depending on my mood and the lack of coffee (coffee makes me nice) my shooing has ranged from "please don't smoke here, the smoke comes inside and I have quit" to "please don't smoke here despite all 5 signs. Please go. Like NOW!" And today I am happy to announce that I think word got out.

Yesterday I was sitting at our dinning table (don't ask) and reading somebody's master thesis*. I glanced up and saw a couple (him and her) going straight for the smoking place (they can also sit down, so it's mighty comfy too!) Then he stops short, points towards my window and probably tells her: "We must go away from here, the smoke will go there and the she-devil will come and kill us all!" She looks towards my window and at the same time catches on to the fact that I am looking at them and smiling - or grinning, or smirking. I could clearly see her tell him "Oh My god!" as they rushed away from my window. Mission accomplished.

*Master thesis about social networks. Second line of the introduction writes "Fackbook".

The reason why I buy socks so often