Kinabalu!

You know the one important thing that was NOT on my list but was absolutely important? A book! (and no, lonely planet does not count!) Anyhow, here's the story ...

Took the air asia flight from Johor Bahru (07:21) (to get to the JB airport, i took the bus from kotaraya terminal). I met an english girl called Miranda who was headed for Sabah and Sarawak for this month (going to climb kinabalu on the 26th - go girl!!), afterwards meeting some friends in australia, going to new zealand and then for THREE months in South America, whoa!!! We got to Kota Kinabalu on time and managed to board a bus (no 16) that apparently goes from town to the air asia terminal (not listed in the lonely planet guide book, good to know). In town, Miranda and i part and i head for the bus station and board a cab/4wd to Ranau that drops me off at the park gates (15RM).

There, after paying the park fees (15rm - entrance, 7 rm-insurance, 100rm - climbing permit, 80rm - guide), I went to change my reservation from the hostel at Timpohon gate to the one at Mesilau gate, because i wanted to do the Mesilau trail instead of the Timpohon one. It's 2km longer, but it's much much nicer, wilder and not crowded at all!!! At the resort reception, Surprise!! Apparently i had not made a reservation not even for the timpohon hostel - i had reservation for the Laban Rata (lodge at 3300m) but not for this one - but they have free space at mesilau! So no need to argue there. I buy a shuttle ticket for the Mesilau gate, but end up in one of the staff's car who was going there and dropping me off! Some australian guy also give me tea, noodles and some gloves: no, I was not begging for them, he just wanted to get rid of them and also was happy to ensure that i got to the top!

At the Mesilau gate i had a lovely lunch/dinner and walked around a bit. I started the trail next day at 8:10am. Did i tell you there were female guides? Yes, I had seen one the previous day at the Timpohon gate, and what do you know, she chose to guide me! The first thing she told me was "slow and steady". Well, I steady but I not slow! The trail is magnificent, much nicer than the Timpohon one which I descended on. You can see the Kinabalu ridge, bonsai trees, pitcher plants, and it's not so wide as the one descending to Timpohon.
We met with a german botanist on the way who was so absolutely excited that you have [insert name here] forest here, and that higher there's [insert forest name here] forest, and that this place is full of white orchids (saw three on the other trail) and rhododendrons and pitcher plants (pictured)! Yey!

Managed to get to Laban Rata in roughly 4hrs and 5 minutes (yes, i counted, it was important, ok?). And i got there first (i overcame an english couple that had left from timpohon gate) - arrived at 12:15 but check-in was only at 1. My guide decided that it will be ok if we leave at 3am instead of the 2-2:30 am period, and i was left by myself until that time. I took pictures, ate lots and lots of raspberries (a bit more on the sour side, but good!!!), played with the squirrels, cooked some noodles in my hut (I was all alone there, as in timpohon also). There were only large groups that stayed together so i could not interact with anybody. Went to bed, and at 2:50 started to descend to laban rata (my hut was higher) to get my guide (Rumia). Of course i was passing everybody that was going up!! So Rumia and I were the last to leave. After passing some guys that were stopping to rest, i ended up behind two english guys. Now, I would not have minded the misogynistic comments ("some bimbo turning back", "yeah, well, what do you expect", etc), but the part when one of them farted and didn't say sorry really got the best of me.



So I started to pass by everybody, with Rumia following behind. Around 3500 you get to this plateau (30-40 degrees inclined) with many false peaks. This is where i lost Rumia and overtook the last 10 people that were ahead of me (except the english couple, who was first on the peak). I walked ok, constant but with heavy breath, but one sip of water cured it. I got to Low's peak and froze my ass off with the English couple till sunrise. Beautiful pictures! Rumia later told me that she could have walked as fast as me but didn't want to freeze on the summit. Smart!!


Got down and started descending to timpohon. Managed a whopping 2 hrs and 30 minutes till the gate but was left with incredible pain in my calves and thigh muscles that lasted for 2-3 days (I'm ok now). Got to KK (a guy driving a pirate taxi took me from the bus stop opposite the park to kk for 15 rm) and then to the airport (bus no 16) and was left to kill my boredom (remember, NO BOOK?!) for 6 hours till my flight.


Things will be ok in the alps i think, i just need to get back my strength in my arms (especially my left arm) - i have started doing pull-ups and climbing. CLIMBING SUCKS!!! I now need special novice routes: whatever routes the girls are doing, i get big jugs and extra foothold, just for me!!

Flickr pictures here. Picasa ones (350) here.

Kinabalu list

Yup! The time has come for me to go kinabalu! Yupii!!!! I will be leaving on tuesday and coming back on thursday. It's about time i made a list of things to take. What better place to keep it up than in your blog, you might say... So here goes nothing!
[Draft]
- leftover cereal bars - give you energy - check
- torchlight - check
- sunglasses - check
- polartec jacket - check
- gore-tex jacket (in case it rains) - check
- 1 pair trekking pants, long (for the last stretch) - check
- 1 pair short trekking pants for the first parts - check
- 2-3 changes underwear - check
- 1 dry fit tshirt (first part) - check
- 1 cotton tshirt (Second part) - check
- pink cap :) (can be easily spotted)
- 2 changes socks (1 pair short, 1 pair long) - check
- lonely planet guide
- ipod - check
- bobby (that's my camera) - must charge!
- moneyz (unfortunately) - check
- passport + green card - check
- phone
- watterbottle - check
- elbow guard - check

If you feel that i've forgotten anything, pls comment!

You hear and see a lot of things ...

at conferences. I saw an inspiring thing and I heard the silliest, stupidest thing all in just one day!

First, I saw a blind professor giving a computer science talk. It was amazing! I didn't even realize he was blind until I heard the reader that read him what was on the next slide. You don't even realize how complicated things can get, like for example he could not integrate a video in his slides (must insert then change property - or is it drag'n'drop in powerpoint ?) and he had to alt+tab (reader aided) to a directory and open the movie from there. Or, when glitches happened like an empty slide he would have to go back and forth a few slides just to get back on track. It was so inspiring to see somebody deal so well with a thing like that, not giving up and continuing to do what (I suppose) he loves. Needless to say he was very smart and funny.

[Warning! Geekish comment coming!!]

And yes, girls and boyz, Microsoft is planning to take over the High Performance Computing (HPC) market!!! Their spear is the Windows 2003 Cluster shit something. Motivation? As given by some general manager something or other at Microsoft, and I quote: "we want to hide ssh calls from the user. they don't want to learn so we are totally hiding it from them". Wtf?! "We offer complete integration with Microsoft products, like Excel (is Excel HPC!??!!? sheesh!!) and Active directory". Brrrr! Anyhow, it gave me a good laugh and it was a great end to the day. Go M$, go!

FS = 0, E = -5, T = -15 => FSET = -20

Whoa! I'm so so tired after the Pumpfest competition this weekend! I still don't know exactly what the results were cause I had to leave to see the pirates. I know that San is second for the intermediate women (FINALLY! Welcome to open, girl!) and that probably Edwin (the new boss) is first for intermediate men. Whoa! I guess we're good, man!

I haven't posted anything lately because these days I have to attend a conference. Today it was in my plan to stay @home and sort out the 400 pics from Pumpfest and go to the conference later (around 11), but my supervisor wanted us to leave together from school at 08:30. Yup. Which means that i have to wake up at seven and come to school. Yey!! So here i am fast blogging.

I am so happy to announce you that last week i ran around 40 km. I did not run this weekend because of pumpfest and this absolutely atrocious muscle ache in my thighs due to my 60 plus knee bents done on the spur of the moment (i haven't been doing those in about six years or so). On monday i hiked my hill five times and for the third and fourth time i managed to slowly run half of it (carrying my 17kg backpack). For the fifth time i ran nearly 75% percent of it. How cool is that?! Yesterday did my 10 km then played tennis. Tennis was bad ... I sucked at it before stopping to play and now i suck even more. Nevermind, practice will resume on thursday.

And I have been saving the best for last! Ladies and gentlemen ... I have resumed climbing! I say, I have resumed climbing! Taking into consideration yap's, kesheng's and teck chew's advices (given at various moments in time), I am taking it very very very slowly. As in I have climbed for 15 minutes both on monday and on tuesday. It's very little, but but but but it's sooo goood ... And so difficult on my ego! Because, needless to say, I am so lousy at it like I've never been before. I have lost my confidence, I keep worrying "what if i fall". And that's the good part of it. The bad part is that finger strength (FS) = 0, E(ndurance) = "never knew there is such thing", T(echnique) = - infinity. I have to endure my humiliation and stick to it.

Gotta go!

LATER EDIT: of course i hit "publish post" and ran for it, only to find upon returning 9 hours later that the blogger interface said "your request cannot be processed, please try again later". Sheesh!!

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]

Whew

The good news is that I passed the QE! Yey! Unexpected, after the total fuck up with the virtual memory, but still very well received. I found out that the guy that made up the questions for the architecture part is an assistant professor who does research in 3D graphics. That explains the virtual memory part, but it does not explain them not bothering to check if it's in the reference book or not. As I've said before, it's wonderful to be reminded you're at the bottom of the food chain. It's a ... refreshing feeling ...

Kinabalu is coming in 12 days! I decided to rent a car since the park is about 80 km from the airport. This will also help me for the Alps trip since we'll both (M. and I) be driving and I haven't driven a car in a year or so. The Autobahn is a very scary concept for me right now

I must focus on my training. This week is the last week of climbing rest I am giving myself. It's been almost two months already since I injured my elbow and I can't stand not climbing anymore. I must focus on running, hiking, but also climbing with weights.

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.

I never learn ...

Not to take so many pictures - I put up the Rockmaster 2007 pictures. What I really hate about me taking pictures is that I always take a huge amount of them, and then it takes me two hours (in this case) to sort them out!

To check the gas tank every once in a while - I took advantage of my flat mates out of town and decided to cook last night, and of course that I ran out of gas right after I put the meat in the pot to fry! Lucky me! Marian called the gas company this morning (providing fire for his woman to cook the food! :) ) and they were there almost instantly to change it. Resumed cooking and the food was Oll Korrect. (I didn't eat any of it, because I had to rush to school)

Not to try anything stupid while injured - Like doing a pull-up on the rim of the lab door, which resulted in PAIN PAIN PAIN for me. IR iz stupid.

A lot of things going on

To continue my cooking spree, I tried Spanakorizo. It was absolutely delicious, the combination of lemon and spinach is truly something. Even though I must admit I put a bit too much of rice, which actually makes this dish Orizospanak :)

I went to Rockmaster 2007 this weekend and was so impressed by our guys and gals' performance that I decided to go climbing yesterday! How cool is that?! Well, I tell ya! It's NOT COOL!!! I should have waited another week as I promised! Sheesh! I never learn! I didn't feel any pain at first (except from my ego that is), but then my elbow started to go numb so I left the gym. As for ego pain, well, my endurance is GONE, I am afraid to lock on my left arm, I am scared of doing anything lest I injure my arm ... So there! Finger strength is reasonable though. Will resume climbing in one week, it's a promise. I was going to join the next competition (Pumpfest) but now I am not so sure about it.

Yesterday Marian was supposed to have a presentation of his research review and two professors from his committee were supposed to come, but guess what?! One of them forgot! And he was a junior staff also! So we stood there with our supervisor and the other professor and talked and talked and in the end decided to reschedule. The junior staff then wrote ample emails with his sincere apologies, including one to Marian alone. I mean how forgetful and indolent can you get?!! I am so sending a "gentle reminder" for my presentation. Sheesh!!

Our flat-mates are off to a Cambodia trip so we can actually soil and mess up the kitchen. Yay!! [It's so embarassing, after we cook and clean up, she comes and cleans again after us] I would have loved to go too, but I am saving moneys, remember?

Code name: Tom Yum

I cooked Tom Yum Kung and Pla (to satisfy both marian and myself, i took the shrimps while he handled the fish) on friday, after this recipe. For desert I tried a Mango (banana for marian) sticky rice, from here.



The tom yum was missing some more chillies as it turned out, but it was great!!! I like it clearer, as you can see. After we ate there was still a glass of soup left so i added some more chillies and drank it. It was amazing!! Pictures here. Also i was missing some lime leaves, but i improvised and used the limes' peel. I know i was wrong, but i couldn't find the leaves, alas!



For the sticky rice, the other fruit next to the mango is a durian. I love durians, and i had heard that they go well with sticky rice so I had to try it. It's great! The durian was kinda dry, it's not their season now i guess. As for the sticky rice, don't cook more thinking you're going to resuscitate it later, it does not work this way, the rice will get very dry! So sad!

Equal

I remember telling you that when i was feeling depressed i got me an emo haircut. Actually, i don't know about its emo-ess, what i do know is that it is short and the hair on my left side is longer than the hair on right side. All nice and dandy, exactly how i wanted it, since i don't like my hair to have an equal cut.

There was just one problem with this haircut: whenever i ran i would see my shadow in front of me (running at night). And I would see somebody with more hair on the left side than on the right side bobbing up and down, up and down, longer/spikier tail on the left side, up and down, up and down ...

So last night I had marian chop it off for me! It's still longer on the left side (marian is no hairdresser and neither am i) but I cannot see it when I run! Hooray!!

PS. I bet it looks funny from behind though.

Dear all,

It has been nearly a year since yours truly has had even the slightest drop of alcohol. Up until monday night, when i took three mouthfuls of Bailey's (cream of whiskey i think) which are still giving me serious hangovers. Why, oh why is that? Lots of small things have happened in these past days, so forgive me if this post sounds like a grocery list.

Inspired by the guy to whose birthday party i went (the guy i dun like) who cooked, i attempted something myself. I love cooking by the way, but i refrain from it because it drives my non-inhouse-cooking-only-eat-in-town-don't-mess-up-the-stove-or-kitchen flatmates crazy. So, while perusing the internet yesterday, i found a link (on a ruby on rails website of all places) to a blog of a greek girl who has a lot of greek recipes! And what do you know?! Lots of food that i know from back home is greek! To make a long story short, i decided to do these (had some left over cheese and flour). The only problem is that i had corn flour and not wheat flour, so I had to rush to FairPrice to get wheat flour (don't attempt to use corn flour!!). And I am so happy to announce you that i think i found some toilet paper made out of recycled paper! So cool! I have been looking for it for a while, since i really don't like to think that a tree has been cut down for me to [pardon my french] rub my ass. I didn't get a thorough look at it because i was in a hurry to get home, it was already tenish and i had to talk to my dad.

Which I did! (After four months or so of silence on his part) He seems to be his old cherry self, enjoying his life with his new found (one year younger than me) love. All is good. Life goes on.

Last but not least, when my paycheck arrives, I will cook: Tom Yam Kai or Tom Yam Pa (chicken or fish - whichever marian decides), a sour and spicy thai soup that i absolutely love!! (i adore the seafood one, but marian doesn't like seafood, alas!) And as desert i will attempt a "Mango sticky rice", picture here. ETA: friday evening, i promise to put up pictures. The greek tiganites that i cooked were so absolutely delicious that i wolfed them down [*slurp].

Pequeno vals

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! First, i must try to change the reservation from the 12th of december to the 6th-7th - chances of finding available seats: close to zero.

Secondly, I must go into town and buy a present for somebody i don't like (and more importantly, sombebody who has done me harm in the past - which i try not to forget ... but i always do - "dog personality, i have!") - it seems i am the only one who knows where to buy tents (other than the 20$ ones) in singapore.

Thirdly, I went to the Rockmaster climbing competition on sunday, to support the girls. And the intermediate routes were HARD man!!! I don't think i could get as far as our girls ... and now i am in open!!!! And injured!!! Whoa!! I will go for the next competition (2-3 June), but only for the singlet. I will try to start to climb next monday (one week from now) - of course i will stop at the first sign of pain, i promise!

Last but not least, youtube the title, it's a nice song, enjoy!

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!

Geeks `R Us

Finally moving my desktop to Feisty Fawn today, when i noticed an interesting library name. And I quote from the Ubuntu web site:

"libsexy is a collection of GTK+ widgets that extend the functionality of such standard widgets as GtkEntry and GtkLabel by subclassing them and working around the limitations of the widgets."

You kinky developers, you!!

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 :)

Ramblings

Seems like ages since I've written here! Well, a lot has happened!

First, my exam went better than last time but i'm still not satisfied. It seems that the professors which make up the questions have a really dark sense of humor, or else I don't know how i could explain only virtual memory questions for Computer Architecture (virtual memory has only 8 pages in the computer architecture book, as opposed to, let's say, cache with a whooping 200 pages), volatile memory questions for databases (wtf?) and a question that included the term "exponential backoff" (as in CSMA/CD, as in networks) for the operating systems question. And, as with last time, there's still no possibility of feedback. why? Because they don't care, that's why. Enough with the ranting though ...

Since i cannot climb i've been avoiding all climbing related blogs, posts and emails. This means that i'm not reading any of the climbing blogs out there, i am not reading the team emails and i am not writing any team emails (not that anybody would answer my emails anyhow) It gives me a sick satisfaction to turn my back on everyone, even though virtually.

I restarted my training, I ran a total of 31 km last week, a total of 12 this week + 8 km in walking up hill with my trusty (and heavy) backpack. Yesterday was a killer! My body has forgotten how it feels to carry something heavy and was rebelling yesterday, that's why today IR is taking a day off. I plan on starting a mild conditioning process, probably doing pullups with my good hand, leg raises and body tension.

Aconcagua related news, tomorrow i'm going for plane tickets (again). I found an itinerary on Zuji: Singapore-Frankfurt-Sao Paolo (Brazil)-Santiago de Chile ... It only takes me 2 days (2 DAYS!!!!) to get there and 2 days (2 DAYS!!!!) back. I hope the agency will be able to find a better route (especially now that i know the airport codes and i can help them! - I think they were searching for another airport in santiago .. that's why they didn't find anything) ... Tomorrow is the day anyhow!

Happie Labour Day!!!

How I celebrate Labour Day? Through working!!! Yey!!! There are a lot of small things that i need to catch up on. Also a lot of small things that I need to talk about.

Today I am resting my fingers, since they feel now as they used to feel after 5 days of climbing in Railay. That's because i was soo scared that i would end up with absolutely no finger strength that i went up and bought this really tough silicone thing that i squeeze. I bought the hardest one and now it's almost like a very very soft rubber (yup! i squeezed a lot!) I know it won't help in the end but it's got a very high psychological factor!

when i was a very very young girl my mom had this looong blue skirt that she used to wear. I remember how i tried to wear it a lot of times, but either it was too long (short legs) or i didn't fit into it (too fat). When my mom came here she left it for me. And now it fits! (I still have shorter legs than mom, but i am wearing heels) Yey!!! how cool is that?

I am catching up on my running also! Boy have i been a busy bee! I ran 11 km on saturday, 8 on sunday and 6 yesterday! I hope i can squeeze something in today also, but i think my heels will be the end of my running streak! Anyhow, i was last night number 85054 in the world! can you imagine that? My time of 22 minutes and something seconds for 5k is also among the fastest in singapore (for girls that is!)

Enough bragging, back to work!

Just silence

Climber I am, Golfer's elbow I have

Yup. The pain has a name!!! And a way to cure it: ABSOLUTELY no climbing for 6 to 8 weeks (from the day I last climbed, not from the day of injury -- i asked!)*. He insisted that i do not climb (probably saw through me) and said that if i do climb it will get much worse. So... no climbing ... I am watching my hard earned calluses turn into girly skin again and i hate it. I am reading all the team 's emails about meetings and climbs and all that and i feel so depressed and excluded in some way. I feel so frustrated by the fact that i know it's going to be hell to get back in the shape i used to be and no amount of running, finger strength training or anything is going to help me.

I feel bad about whining also. So yeah. The first part of the qe went well. Still have computer architecture to pass, then i'm out of the woods.

*I am going to the Tampin bouldering trip though (in 4 weeks time). Even if there are no easy boulders, i will be the team photographer

It's quote time!!!

I know i've promised silence until friday, but i'm supposed to return this tomorrow, so i'm adding in some quotes from "A Man Without a Country", K. Vonnegut

"Foreigners love us for our jazz. And they don't hate us for our purported liberty and justice for all. They hate us for our arrogance."

"[...] as a result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida [...] we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jug-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appallingly powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed. In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were."

"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and i don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people wanted to be class president."

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

[wrt the president's state of the union]"what George Bernard Shaw said about this planet: [...] I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are, they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum."

"I came to speak ill of Swedish engineering, and so diddled myself out of a Nobel Prize."

"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap."

There are many more, the whole book should be quoted. Vonnegut is an amazing writer.

Out of office notice

Dear blog,

Please accept this notice. I will be out of the blogging world because:

a. the qe is coming (27 & 4) + deadline on the 2nd.

b. i cannot climb (i am in A LOT LOT LOT of pain)

c. all i can think about is that my climbing is going to suck after this is over (if it ever is over).

Hope to find you all nice and dandy. See you on the 27th.

The Lyrid meteor shower

Yup. Today when we got to school around 1 PM and greeted everybody with "good morning!", it was because last night we watched the lyrids meteor shower! Yey!! well, not exactly! See, it was supposed to peak last night, and we were supposed to go around 3 am to the kent ridge hill and watch it from there! But ... marian put the alarm but his phone was on silent ... So we woke up merrily around 4:30 AM, and went to the fourteenth floor (there's a small garden there) and watched it from there!


Bad things: city lights! (so not too dark); saw only 3 meteors


Good things: i had only seen 2 shooting stars before, so this totals it up to 5!; there's going to be a big one on the 5-6 th of May (in the southern hemisphere it's expected to reach 30/hour) ... so this was training if you wish.

Displayed is the only picture we took.

Speaking of training, i have resumed my climbing (though very very very light). Re-scheduled the doctor's appointment for the 26th of april.

Later edit: after climbing today my elbow was numb (even though the climb was ok). self-imposed pause until the 26th. drats!

Shame

In an unphantomable exercise of democracy (unphantomable because DEMOCRACY does not happen in romania very often), last night an un-elected parliament (un-elected because when we vote for parliament we vote only for the political parties who can put any person in parliament) voted to suspend an elected president (for whom i voted btw). While I feel that it is good to have this as a display of democracy, i can't help to feel the injustice of it all. I feel neglected as a voter. It does not help that one of the members of parliament said and i quote "Mr. [enter president's name] has been threatening us with the electorate. Are you afraid of the electorate? What is the electorate?" [stupid f*k] So yeah...

I have finished reading "cat's cradle" and loved it all the way. What i loved most, besides it being exhilaratingly funny and TRUE, is the following idea: the people of San Lorenzo (island country in the middle of the Pacific) are very poor, their life expectancy being around 35 years. However, they are very very happy. Why? Because of a very important pact that their leaders (the political and the religious one) have done: you see, the political leader threw the religious leader and the religion he was preaching in disgrace, and any follower found practicing that religion is bound to suffer a gruesome death. The thing is, everybody (including the political leader) is a follower, and the religious leader is never ever caught, even though search parties are supposedly going out for him. So you see, the people are poor, and hungry, and full of diseases, but they are happy, because their lives are filled with excitement, because they feel that whatever it is they are doing is important (by the fact that it's illegal even though it's noble). There's more to it than what i just said, but i am not very good at reviews or story-telling for that matter. I put some quotes below.

"She hated people who talked too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind."

"This here is a re-search laboratory. Re-search means look again, don't it? Means that they're looking for something they found once and it got away somehow, and now they got to re-search for it?" (now THIS is personal)

"Hazel's obsession with hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon. Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company [...] and any other nation, anytime, anywhere."

"The hand that stocks the drug stores rules the world. Let us start our Republic with a chain of drug stores, a chain of grocery stores, a chain of gas chambers, and a national game. After that, we can write our Constitution."

"I do no say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays."

"If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself."

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!

Inspiration

Inspired by Kesheng who is going to collect the results for his xray (something i would never do if i were feeling better) and finally giving up to marian's bickering, i decided to GO for my appointment tomorrow with the orthopedist, even though the consultation only is 85 bucks. I really really hope we can get those moneys back ...
And yes, i was seriously contemplating not going, even though the pain in my elbow after the extended climbing sessions this week was giving me second thoughts.

Last night i ran 6.67 km at an astounding pace of 4 minutes 47 secs per km! It's an improvement ... for my hikes the least i got was 10 something minutes per km ...

LATER EDIT: just wanted to say that marian has been threatening to tell my mom about my elbow (which would start a never-ending discussion about how "you should quit this, honey, it's not girly enough" or "it's not safe" or "you should be using your brain more" (wtf?!) )! So there [throws fist in the air] !!!

LATER EDIT2: Students shot at virginia tech university. Omg ... [whew .. the only romanian grad student i know in the us is in columbus, which is not in virgina - my us geography sucks]

IR iz going to the theatrez

Yup. A romanian theater company are in town, going off to Sydney, and they will be performing tomorrow for the romanians here too.
I am going to see "The Lesson" by E. Ionesco and a play by Chekhov whose name would translate to "the buffoon" but I can't find it anywhere listed in english. I can't wait, it's been so long since i've seen a play!

Today i saw the funniest thing in the canteen: do you know the two piece cue sticks, that the pros have, they disassemble them and carry in a box? Well this guy had two piece chopsticks! Or is it four piece chopsticks? And he had this cute little tiny box for them too! Yey!

In climbing related news, I bought myself the ticket from Milan to Bucharest - 19th of july, 72 euros, so cheap! (actually not so cheap, i really need to start saving)

I climbed yesterday and this morning, but the climb this morning was really tiring, and i didn't do much: climbing in the morning is so different from climbing in the evening, your muscles are so stiff! (or maybe i just need a rest day) I was supposed to meet alex at 8:30 at the gym, but i knew he wasn't going to be there after he said last night: "don't wait for me if you get there first"... I only climbed from 8:20 till 9, will resume on wednesday.

Bursting with enthusiasm...

i went yesterday on my hike! Managed to do 8.5 km yesterday, added value from the extra hill plus from the fact that i started from home and returned there, as opposed to other days when i start from home and end to school or vice-versa.

Afterwards marian and i went in town for me to make reservations for the aconcagua trip. An what do you know ... the tickets aren't out yet! They will be out 6 months before the date, not 8 months!!! Marian says i'm so excited, it's a wonder i didn't go last year to buy tickets!!

Then we came back to school and worked a bit and then went climbing!! Yey!!! i could only do a easy endurance route and then played a bit of flash comp. I couldn't do anything special cause my elbow still hurts (it hurts a bit more than yesterday right now, i suppose it's from the climbing) Anyhow, here are the rules for the flash comp (after negotiating them with marian again today - he felt it wasn't fair): we each set a route and then:

• 1 point if you do your route


• 1 point if you do opponent's route


• 2 points if you FLASH opponent's route


• -1 point (intially -2 points, but marian felt it wasn't fair ... TO WHOM?? he's the one setting impossible routes for him to do, while i set fair routes, mind you!!) if you don't do your route

So there ... overall score: 2-2 after the renegotiation (we played two times, marian set routes that go to the left and forced me to use my left hand ... bugger). We will be playing again today!

PS Did you know that the official language in Chile is spanish (will start brushing up after the qe) and that Chile has a female president? cool, right?

Hasta la vista

A huge yellow bruise is spreading across my elbow, going halfway down my forearm and halfway up my biceps (to the back). Now if i remember my bruisology, yellow means that it's healing, right?

As of today, i am not wearing my sling anymore. It still hurts alot, but i want my hand to get used to the hardship, cause tomorrow we (me and my left hand) climb.

Ole

Disclaimer

Because I am seventy something posts down the line here, i thought it would be nice to explain the title and lack of content thereof of this blog. First of all, the title is "[She] blogs about photography and graduate programmes" and i started it just before i left home to (further) pursue my academic career here in singapore.

Why did i leave home? Lotsa reasons, amongst which the fact that i think that for a latin nation like mine, that smothers its children until they're maybe, thirty, it is very important for one's inner growth to leave soon and experience life in a totally different culture. Second of all, after working for ibm for a year or so as junior/senior programmer i got sick of the industry, found it waay too stressful, decided that for me it was important to have a job that allowed me to be mediocre, but still gave me the moneys (and the time) to be able to CLIMB, in any form, be it bouldering, sports climbing, or mountaineering. Singapore is a good choice when it comes to bouldering (lots of gyms, plus one on campus, with very very nice peoplez!!), but totally lacks mountains. Yup. This is an aspect i initially neglected, and sometimes is coming back to haunt me. From the stressless job, i still don't know...

I am not blogging about my graduate programme, my phd or whatever, because, one year down the line i still don't know what it is all about. I like to think that i do have a job and i constantly remind my mom that "I am NOT going to school but to WORK". I still have to pass my qe, which is coming in two weeks time and for which i haven't studied yet. I found research very difficult to do, because it requires you to stay motivated throughout the entire process, which is really hard to do, at least for me, and at least now, when i still have to take classes (it seems that 5 years of undergrad is not enough for NUS) besides doing research. So I refrain from blogging about phd because i don't want to rant here all the time.

I am not blogging about photos because i have discovered that i am not good at talking about photography. I can't look at one of my photos and write this amazing story like i've seen people do. When I look at my photos all i can see is: too exposed, no subject, too in the center, not enough colors, etc... I would love to post some of my photos but i can't from behind NUS (and i am blogging from school work), plus i haven't had time, with the qe coming and all, to take as many photos as i would like. And posting older photos seems lame, but i will give it a shot though.

PS another reason i am posting about this is that i can't tell you how my morning hike went because i didn't go! I woke up early, and very fresh, but i just had a dream about my grandfather being dead so i decided it was not good to go. i will go tonight!

LATER EDIT: Kurt Vonnegut died today, so sad ...

Arriba senoras!

Last night did I have it bad or what? I managed only three times up and down my hill, feeling like Sisyphus at times, (by the way, the road is called Vigilante drive - arriba! arriba! andale! andale!) because the backpack was sooo heavy - I think it has around 17 kg, but it feels like 50 to me, especially going uphill. Downhill was a peach yesterday, even though i could feel it this morning in my right knee. So because i was so exhausted by last night's endeavors i did not go at it this morning, but i am planning a comeback tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning i also plan on going to the gym to climb, because last night's attempt was denied by the girls who kept shooing me off the wall whenever i tried (inconspicuous as i am) to climb my 8A (8 moves, ALL jugs) routes. Also i am not going for training on saturday, but i will secretly come to the gym to climb. I know, it's not a secret anymore, but i don't plan on anybody finding me in the gym, since i have the ultimate advantage: i can wake up very early!!!

Climbing is also denied to a number of other climbers, among which jensen and kesheng stand out. Especially kesheng, since we got injured at the same time! Yay! But he can still do pull-ups, which is so cool! (Omg, if only my mom could read me know: I have never in my life thought that I could envy somebody for being able to do pull-ups!! Tomboy i am, graceful lady i will never be.)

Lazy, lazy, lazy

On a happier note, my arm is feeling better and better - I can scratch my nose! So today I decided to resume my training... Put the alarm at 6:30, then 6:40 when I stopped it, said I was going to lay down for a bit ... and woke up at 7:25 pissed and scared. In the end i didn't want to go but decided to go - would have felt a total loser if I didn't.

I changed backpacks (I am now using a bigger one) and also upped the weight a bit (to what is now I think about 17 kg). I didn't get very far though, because it was 8 o'clock by the time I was exiting my street, and i realized it would be around 9:30 - 10 when i get back to campus sweaty and carrying this huge backpack (70 liters). So i stopped my workout - can you imagine the shame of it all, when the Nike+ sensor lady said: 5 minutes and 54 seconds; 0.54 km .... and a total of 26 calories burned!! Anyhow, I will resume it tonight, and for tomorrow i plan to leave the condo at 6. Yup, that's a promise.

LATER EDIT: just realized that even though i can scratch my nose, i can't press Alt+Tab! Oh... the curse of the geek ...

LATER EDIT2: Actually it's not the curse of the geek not being able to press Alt+Tab - it's the curse of the phd student which instead of working is reading all these damn blogs!! Just thought i would be honest for a change

Injured I am

Yup. This has been one of the truly horrendous weekends of my life. After an excrusiatingly simple fall i took this saturday i managed to sprain my left elbow really really bad. Did my whole life flash through my eyes when i fell??!?! No! But i did see all the consequences if my elbow were to be broken: bbye climbing, bbye alps, bbye kinabalu. For now. Anyhow, I went to the emergency ward on saturday (after endless negotiations with marian - i didn't wanna go, i dun like doctors, u know). The experience itself was funny, first the xray guy asked me if i'm "poignant", then they took an xray of my forearm instead of my elbow, and then the doctor talked to me like she was singing hip-hop. And she told me that the xray is inconclusive (i.e they can't say whether it's broken or not) and i must go to the orthopedics clinic today again (don't call them, they'll call you). She bandaged my arm, (my forearm looked as big as kesheng's!), gave me a sling, painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs, and off i went.

So I spent the whole weekend wondering whether it's broken or not and thinking how lucky i used to be when i was able to tie my hair and open a door for instance (to say nothing of climbing). In lieu of my imposed break from climbing, my climbing dreams have started again (if i don't climb for a while, i start dreaming about it). In this dream i was only climbing with my right hand (which i will probably do, come this tuesday - i hid my climbing shoes from Marian, in case he gets some smart ideas!) This left me really drowsy this morning, so i couldn't go for my walk up and down the hill. I will restart tomorrow, cast or no cast on my arm (i hope no cast, because if i need a cast then i definitely need screws in my elbow as well).

Happy Easter!

LATER EDIT: they just called me: next appointment is on the 18th of april (WTF?! so late?), dr. j.k. lim, 2:30 pm. If they think i'll go without climbing or training till then they are badly mistaken.

LATER EDIT2: just talked to Jups: he said that if you're injured during official training then you get part (or all) of your moneyz back (moneyz spent on the medical bills of course). He also asked if i can write an email to the team and say how it all turned out, so i will write after i find out how to go about with the university health service for the moneyz.

Excuses I have not

So, I took the day off yesterday! So what?!? On tuesday, apart from my morning workout and climbing, I went running with kesheng, which left me on wednesday morning feeling sore from (almost) all my muscles - even my a.s.s. muscles were sore (good thing though, it means there's something there other than fat!) So I took the day off!! So what?!!? Later in the afternoon I went with Marian to buy Pasha a birthday present. We bought him one of those nice pillows - it's shaped like a turtle to symbolize his/ours slow (but STEADY!!) progress towards getting a Phd. Also it's very useful since he has been sleeping in his lab for the past three years! (I suppose you save a lot of moneys on rent)

Marian got me this wonderful present: a Nike+Ipod sensor plus connector - you put it in your shoe and it tracks your workout. It's wonderful and not so wonderful, since now i really have to work out. Plus i found out that my hill (that i thought was 600m) is actually 300m! It's very inclined, but still, 6 minutes for up and down??!?! carrying only 12 kg? How, oh how, will i ever be fit enough? For today, it took me 1h 10 minutes for 7.32 km: my house to the hill + 4xhill + from the hill to school.

Ok, and I admit!! I fell off the "no shopping" wagon! I shopped!!! but it is a very very nice blouse (expensive though) and i promise i won't shop for the rest of the month.

Last night i talked to M. on skype - next week i am going to make reservations for Santiago de chile - Chile here I come!!! We're supposed to meet in santiago on the 13th of december - initially we were supposed to meet on the 14th, but M. said he's not starting a journey on the 13th :)) Targets: Parinacota, Gualatiri and Aconcagua. I still have to buy (after the alps) some high altitude boots, ice crampons and a big backpack ... Cool! Shopping!! [i am incorrigible, i know]

I also admit i am selfish - i have been reading this article about how the Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia is melting and all i could think about was that "what if parinacota and gualatiri will melt before i get there?"(they're at the border of chile with bolivia), instead of thinking about those poor people that will lose their water supplies... and how we're all going to die if global warming keeps up...
Enough with the admissions/confessions and all that, back to work!

An author I am

Even though the conference is weak, and i didn't even get to go. And the research is lousy and all that (since i am more focused on climbing than on research), it still feels good to see one's name in print. An online too! This is to my first paper! May there be many many more!

Moving back to safer territory, did 3 routes again of the kent ridge hill. I found a hiking trail going uphill, but as all things singaporean, it is paved!! And not so frequently used, judging by the large number of cobwebs crossing the path (yuck!!!!) The biking trail is not paved though, so maybe I will give it a shot tomorrow.

Kukup

Oh boy was it a busy weekend or what?!
On Saturday we went on a Kukup tour organized by the GSS (graduate student society - sole purpose until now was to organize the sentosa beach party, now it looks as though they are progressing to organizing kukup trips). Kukup is a fishing village on the most southern point of the peninsular Malaysia west coast. Got it? Most southern point of the west coast ... I guess the need for tourists is big. Anyhow, overall the trip was ok, the food was fresher than here in singapore, but other than that I'm afraid it was extremely boring. We went to a pewter factory, for a walk around the village (took some nice pics), for a short boat trip to a fishing farm (saw a horseshoe crab!), back for lunch and then off we went to a handicraft center to see some batik painting and then ... [tam ta! tam dam!!!] shopping in Giant. Yup. Giant!!!! Wtf? I guess it was the only place they could think of that could safely contain so many people. Us romanians were always late no matter what the occasion. I realized that I hate going on tours, and probably i will never do it again. While the benefits of having a guide are obvious, having to stick to the group, be in places at a given time [or else!] is really not my idea of traveling.

After the trip ended Marian and I went to the new interns' place for some romanian beef soup and some eggplant salad. Yummy (not as tasteful as it should be, though)!!!! Next weekend I'm cooking some beef soup to show marian how it's done. And the weekend after that some eggplant salad (one of my favorite dishes) - i've been dying to cook it, but I know it will drive maria crazy (the stove will get dirty and i will clean it, but it's never enough for her).

The general pictures are here; my bestest are here.
On Sunday I came to school to study. This morning I did 3 sets of the kent ridge hill (it takes m e half an hour to get there, half an hour to come back, eighteen minutes to climb three sets - this has got to be optimized!!)

P.S I would post a picture, but it seems it's impossible from inside NUS. Will try to post tonite when i get home.

A Man Without A Country

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you different."

"I am going to sue the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, manufactures for Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! [...] And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am now eighty - two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."

"[...] Do you know why I think George W. Bush is so pissed off at Arabs? They brought us algebra. Also the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which Europeans had never had before."


Kurt Vonnegut

How I wish ...

The day had 36 hours! This would give me 12 hours to sleep and 24 hours to work/climb/read (not necessarily in that order - work should be last). Just went to the library to get some books, I ended up with a performance analysis tome and three of Kurt Vonnegut's novels: "a man without a country","slaughterhouse five" and "cat's cradle". I hope we will be reading vonnegut for this book club I'm in, i am reading "a man without a country" now and I cannot stop.

I should be working of course, but because my latex crashed inexplicably - i cannot remove it, i cannot purge it, dpkg gives an out of this world error that i can't even find on google, so i decided to reinstall linux. Yup, that's what I am doing right now, reinstalling linux (and still able to blog, how cute!) I would have installed Feisty Fawn, but my gaim client crashes with it, so i am still stuck with edgy eft.

So much for the geeky talk, back to more important issues. First, the sleep problem. I truly need my beauty sleep, you know ... If I don't go to bed by 12 am max, I turn into this grumpy, spaced out person ... The problem is that I wake up around 6 am every morning without any alarm clock, so I really need to go to bed early. If i don't get enough sleep my face gets twenty years older, so I must avoid that also. One thing that makes me envious of singaporeans is their capability to power nap. You don't know what "power nap" is? It's a term christer and i invented during the climbing trip to Kuala Lumpur last year, and it is used to describe the singaporean's secret knack at being able to fall asleep whenever sleeping occasions occur: like during bus rides, long taxi rides, on the matresses in the gym, virtually anywhere possible, given a time span of more than, let's say ... five minutes. We would take a cab to batu caves (christer, kesheng, john and i), get in the cab, talk for a while, and then BOOM! Sleep bomb!! Christer and i would find ourselves left alone to chat: john and kesheng being out for the trip. I wish i could do the same, i suppose you get some secret energy boost from it. Even so, I don't think it's actually sleeping, more like dozing off, because i can't explain how someone who looks like sleeping is able to get off at the right bus stop. Anyhows, kudos for being able to do it, I can't!

Last but not least, starting tomorrow my training begins. Marian has cooked up some evil training scenarios, which include an everyday trip to kent ridge carrying 15 kg, climbing (carrying 15 kg) on the vertical wall in the gym (for matterhorn), running and conditioning.

When, oh when, will i be able to climb extra, go to school, work, read and sleep? To quote my aunt-in-law's late dad, god rest his soul, "you'll sleep when you're dead"!

Boulderactive on my mind

It's been three days now, and still I have the buzz in my head. I did not know that helping with a bouldering competition can be such an addictive experience. From helping in setting the routes, to the F1 team (the people that clean out the routes after a category finishes and sets the routes for the next one), to judging, and, my favorite activity, blowing the whistle. You see, the whistle is very important, as it helps climbers manage their time, so I felt important for a change :)

Last but not least, the Open categories ... Omg those people really climb at a different level!!! I saw Beatrix Chong climb for the first time in my life and she really really is impressive! And Salfarina Mohd Drus, i mean omg, her biceps is the size of my leg, and i'm no flamingo bird if you know what I mean... I don't know the name of that Open climber from Malaysia that won the open, but he is my new found idol! He is so smooth in climbing without being massive ... yummy... (I just discovered after seeing the pictures that I am one of those massive climbers, and i am so sad ... Fret not, I'll try to find a way to lean myself down)

How did the competition go for me? It was and still is the sickest joke of my life. Here's why. In qualifiers rounds I couldn't finish any route, but I got the bonuses, which got me in the finals (why? why?) In the finals, I couldn't start on the first route, which left me crying for my 3 and a half minutes of rest. I mean literally crying. Why I was crying, I can't say, out of spite I suppose, out of suddenly realizing that I suck at climbing? Second route, I got to the bonus, but instead of going for the nearest tile, I tried to go for the farthest ... WRONG! Third route I flashed. Needless to say it is the first route I ever finished and flashed in a competition/mock comp ever! It involved a small jump for me to the ending tile, and it was very hard for me to focus and really give it a shot, seeing how usually I fall just before the end. But I managed to control meself and I am really proud of it. Fourth route, you can imagine i couldn't ... So, I got third place! Which gets me into OPEN!!! You know ... the open cat I was talking about just now ... aaaaaaaaaaa

Anyhow, lessons learned: the routes we set for ourselves in the gym are much much too easy. I should do more leg raises (for the roof route ... i couldn't step), I should train harder...

Things are back to normal otherwise, my ankle still hurts, M. mentioned the "M" word ... as in Matterhorn, but only if I do well ... So, that's about it :)

Yeah kids, It's here!

Boulderactive is here (or it's going to be starting from Friday, anyway), but I just got a feel about how it's going to be since last night.

So, we set routes and tested them last night until maybe 12 - 1 am, then watched Dosage IV (omg Dave graham's finger tip was brrrrrrrrrrrrr - for those who haven't seen dosage IV ... david graham totally cuts the tip of his index finger when going for a very sharp crimp), then mei fen, liu li and I went to sleep or tried to, anyway ... Thanks to liu li i had a jacket cause i forgot to bring mine!

Anyhow, cherlyn and vincent set and tested some sick brain route on the slab wall until 3 am, and i finally managed to get some sleep around 5 am. I woke up around 8, and just left, came home and went to sleep again until one. I came to school but of course I cannot work now, because I am very very dizzy, as I always am when I don't get enough sleep.

Performance wise, I have a very sharp wrist pain and my ankle is not doing so good, so I am pretty sure that I will totally screw it up. That's why I am planning to have as much fun as possible. Last night instead of writing down the routes I took photos of them, so now I have to centralize the data when i get home (which is going to be pretty darn soon). I will try to put up a photo of last night, one that doesn't have the routes in it, mind you, it's hush hush...

Updates from the front

This is your favorite GI reporting live from the outskirts of research! The army's ankle is doing fine, but still our combat unit was unable to climb today due to enemy pressure in the west region. However, we managed to do some pull ups this morning on the campus board.

We were ambushed in our 9 am siege of the gym by Nita who had been climbing since 7 (must follow the example set by other units and give more to our Climbs) and by Jensen who came to bring in some ammo (shoes).

We are still feeling amazingly full after last night's dinner in the mess hall: swiss rosti with poached salmon for the ladies and sausages for the gents.

Over and out

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)...

A name and a face

Hurray! I finally have a name and a face for all the peaks that we are going to attempt in december - january! [drums drumming in the background]
Ladies and gentlefolks, the peaks in the order of height are as follows:
1. Aconcagua - 6972 m

2. Guallatiri - 6071 m

3. Parinacota (pictured) - 6342 m

I can't wait! It's so good to have a name for those peaks! M. says that we are going to do another one if we have the time. Guallatiri and Parinacota are volcanoes! Guallatiri last erupted in 1960, Parinacota erupted last in 290 AD +/- 300 (how small is 300 in volcano years if you can plus/minus it!!!)

Disclaimer: those peaks are not difficult climbwise, they involve minimum ice climbing (for the last two), and just good training for Aconcagua (if you take the normal route, which I think we will ... although my feet ache for the polish route)

Since we still are on a climbing related tone, Boulderactive is coming! It's probably the most important bouldering competition of the year, it's organized by us, so the pressure is [VERY] high! I am trying to get as much climbing in as possible, before they get the tiles down from the gym, so this is why I've been so silent. This year I am in intermediate category, but from my point of view I am a very well trained novice, so no striking performances from me... The target is for all the girls to qualify for the finals (wtf?!), but I'm trying to ignore it and to put a more positive target on the canvas, like maybe, climb my best, enjoy the comp and the organizing and all that.

Copyright: The photo is taken from Peakware and the author is Edilson V. Benvenutti. All rights reserved.

Geeky questions, Ltd

Why, oh why is this happening to me?
Why do I have to restart the bloody winblows because it refuses to see my flash drive?
How can I mount a flash drive in windows from command prompt?
How can a flash drive get BURNED in windows?
Why does it take five minutes for windows to restart?
Why is it that it takes ten minutes after the reboot in winblows for my computer to manage to breathe?
Why doesn't winblows see the flash even after I gave it a reboot (it had maybe one week of uptime, can you imagine that?)

Why does skype consume so many resources (I know the answer to that question, but it needn't be so, right?)

Why is it impossible for an application developed in dot net to run on a windows platform, even if it is an exe file?

Is there any linux application that makes installers for windows?

Is there any ide for fast gui development ide, such that I won't need to use vs2005 and can get on happily with my life in linux? (Omg, I never realized how comforting the Ubuntu splash screen is ...)

Why can gaim put my various accounts into one bucket, such that I don't have to worry about being logged on or not, and yahoo!messenger cannot?

Why do I have to do this, instead of simple, snuggy research?

What happened to all my pet projects? Am I comfortable with dedicating all my free time to training?

Kina baloo

Just found the purrrrrfect training place. It's a 500 m 50 degrees something slope right here close to the school!! It takes me 6 minutes to go up and down it. Last night I only managed to go 4 times, cause I had just upped the weights (I think I am close to 12 kg by now), and it took me about 20 minutes to get there. Cool!!! I was getting sick of going around the campus, plus the hills are not that challenging.

I have booked kinabalu also, they didn't have anything available on the 31st of may because it's a private holiday, but they did give me a slot in for the 12th of June!
Yupii! So I am traveling in the middle of the week! How cool is that?

I also booked the flight, it was cheaper than on the 31st! (only costs S$125 for the return ticket) I also bought a S$7.5 Air Asia insurance, I wonder what it covers...
Mt Kinabalu - 12th - 14th of June Here I come!

I still haven't figured it out how I will get from Kota Kina baloo to the kina baloo park, but I have 3 months to figure it out, don't I?

Manic Monday

Mmmm, after running 10 km last night, talking to me mom until ten something, then watching "Volver" until midnight, you can imagine my reluctance in getting out of bed this morning.

This weekend was quite full: I went to training on saturday, where of course I sucked (after my previous bragging on friday), then I came home and slept a good part of the day, eventually woke up in the evening, had dinner at this wonderful thai restaurant where they have the clearest tom yam soup (they didn't put as much seafood as they used to, though) and went to see "Letters from Iwo Jima". In the end got to bed around one. I am not a night person, really, I hate going to bed late, especially since I wake up at six (no alarm clock needed) every damn morning.

Sunday was a bit quieter, we spent the whole morning cleaning the apt, then in a futile attempt to save some moneys we went to buy something for me to cook. Ended up with marian eating at kfc. I didn't give up though and cooked poached salmon with white sauce and potatoes on the side. Mmmmmm .... No pictures yet, I left bobby at home, but I will upload one tonite. After eating we got around to play one hour of tennis, where I whopped marian's behind, with a great score of 4-3 at games. How can those people play 5 sets I wonder, when it took us so long???

Things to do today include: WAKE UP!!!! and making reservations for kinabalu - i wrote them an email but no reply yet, so i will call. Over and out.

Good news

Pssst! Psst! Over here! Shhh! Shhh! Don't let anybody hear me, or else things might start to go wrong! I have some good news to tell today ... I think my climbing is getting better! By a small notch, but still, it is something to brag about... Last night was the first time in a long long time that I left the gym without feeling like a total loser, so I am quite happy about it! I am whispering because absolutely every time I start to brag or be happy about anything in my life, things start to go downhill really fast, so I am trying to keep this one very secret.

Today is the day when I make reservations for Mount Kinabalu.
Proposed departure date: 31st of May.
Proposed return date: 3rd of June.
Estimated budget: $$.
Estimated training level: -- (as in minus minus)

I hope it won't be crowded, because it is a school holiday, but I think it will be ok if I make reservations early like this (I have to reserve a bed at a hut at 1500 m) Also I must book a guide. I think the whole point of guides on Mt Kinabalu is not to help tourists get to the top (it has stairs for crying out loud!) but to prevent tourists from wandering around unsupervised in the jungle and destroying everything.

Anyhow, it's going to be a great experience, I will get to see how I handle altitude, I will try to make the climb really fast (in Kinabalu you actually climb the whole 4100m, since you start from sea level, not like in the Alps for example - not that they are actually comparable, the Alps make up for it by their difficulty) and at the same time carry a load similar to the alps - maybe I can get my guide to let me carry his stuff? That would be so cool!

300

We went to see "300" last night. If you still can find it in you to take in a hero story, please please go see it! Go see it in a cinema, don't pirate it! It's really worth it. Although it was not as stupendous and fantastic as the trailer and marian wanted it to be, it's still a wonderful story, very well told. Leonidas is really a figure to remember, not as much as Xerxes, though. They did a really good job at portraying the Persian army as I think the greeks saw it - the allegories were subtle, but not so subtle as not to be caught by most ;). On the other hand, I think they overdid it on the last battle scene, for me at least there was so much ketchup flowing at one point that I was getting quite bored. I also didn't like the men, did they really have abs like that? Wrapping it up: courage, determination, freedom, madness. I like!
Overall grade on imdb for me: 8.

PS. I am still amazed that they let the movie go on without censor, it's really quite something for Singapore.

On my way to school

It's amazing how you start to notice things when you have a camera hanging on your neck. It's the search for the best subject for your photos that gets you to notice things, I guess. I'm sure I would not have seen the leaves falling and the humming birds humming had I not had Bobby (that's my camera) with me, even though I am quite observant (I once noticed an eagle flying above a very crowded mountain town, you know).

I have been trying to take Bobby to school for about three weeks now, and this morning I finally remembered to take him. I would have wanted to catch a picture of Adolf, the cat that looks like Hitler (Adolf is not his/hers real name) but apparently he was in a very important meeting. Adolf hangs out with this big black cat (Rommel?) on a patch of green next to an HDB. Besides Adolf and Rommel, right next to the HDB, there are at least twenty - thirty pigeons every morning (I guess they are fed by some people there). The pigeons swirl and swarm, but Adolf and Rommel pay absolutely no attention to them, being very very busy with the affairs of state. I hope that one of these mornings I will be able to get an audience with Adolf. Rommel ignored me completely today, so the shots of him are not very nice either.

Geek fight!!

Or .. The geek fight that could've

It all happpened with Andreas bragging on friday about how he managed to install Aiglx and Beryl on his edgy eft distribution and how it was all looking nice and dandy. That gave birth to a sneaky plan in my not so sneaky mind: go home, secretly install edgy eft (i had dapper drake) , install aiglx and beryl and then rub it in Marian's face!! Him with his macos and his eye candy!!! I can have iCandy too!!

I would have installed them on my machine at school but i had a test with my supervisor and I was really really really stressed: what if i wrote something so absurdly stupid that he couldn't face me no more? Unfortunately, i bragged to marian BEFORE i managed to get around doing it (busy weekend climbing and visiting looserland).

This proved to be a tactical mistake. Last night, as i was crawling into bed for a well deserved rest, marian was getting ready to install feisty fawn (i really don't want it, cause it's still not bug free it seems) on my computer. So i guess i lost the geek fight that could've ...

Marian is definetely a better geek than i am! Hoooray!!!!

I've been to looserland

Yesterday.Mock comp at the school gym. Intermediate cat. Just us, the powerpuff girls.

I started first, because i don't like to hear everybody cheering for somebody else and me wondering if the route is hard or anything. Four routes, 3 and a half minutes for climbing, 3 and a half minutes for rest. To make a half an hour story very short, i only managed to finish one of the routes, one that everybody else finished.

First of all, my mind was somewhere else during the climbs, because otherwise i cannot understand how i could've missed some footwork. Could it be because i was nervous (scared shit) ?? I dun know, probably ... Second of all, due to over gripping the tiles, i was pumped dead after the first route (which involved a launch ... needless to say i didn't finish that one) The second route was too crammed, the third route involved a jump, so i barely got it together at the last route. Charlene (aka The Mouse), Sandra and Shumei finished three routes. I was not the only one with a bad day, the same seemed to happen to Ning Feng, who, after telling me to relax and focus on the mental part, he went and totally ruined his first two routes, but in the end pulled it together for the last two. Good for him! Needless to say my day yesterday was totally ruined, went and got a case for my ipod - even though the new generation ipods seem to pe scratch proof, they're not! - shopping therapy, had some dinner and afterwards got into bed with a good book (saw "dead's man chest", it sucked).

Today however, i went back to the gym and tried the routes again, competition style, with marian timing me (i'll go again later but this time i'll decrease the resting period). Couldn't finish the last route now, but finished the crammed route. First route was still impossible, but after the mini sets i figured it out: there was this two finger pocket in which i was not stuffing my finger's properly, only putting in the first 2 thirds of my fingers, must've thought i was a guy or something, to have that much finger strength!! The third route (the one with the jump) is still impossible. I realized that when i am not stressed i am not overgripping the tiles (no shit, sherlock!)

My take on how things are going is this: either i am growing weaker or the routes are getting harder. Anyhow, i just wanted to say that i've been to looserland and it ain't pretty!

Sacrifices

When i said that i am a dog in chinese zodiac, i meant of course that i am loyal, playful, hard-working etc (not modest as you can see). However, there's another image of the dog that portrays i r: the image of the stray dog walking in the rain, tired, hungry, but who continues to walk to somewhere, not giving up his purpose. Well ... that's how i feel now.

Firstly, M just upped the stakes a bit, including some 6000 peaks in the andes, besides aconcauga. This is so accidentally cool! However, it involves around 30 something working days of leave (instead of the paid 20), which means that i either have to get my supervisor to agree to pretend i only left for 20 days (i really don't like this, one thing is for me to lie, but making another lie is really beyond my understanding), or to take extra 10 non-paid days of leave. I will try to contact whoever is responsible here at NUS, maybe i can get a sort of special leave or something, in exchange for a photo exposition. It will also mean an extra 2 weeks worth of moneys for me. Since i am not rich (read ... i am always NEARLY BROKE) this means that i really really gotta start saving.

So the sacrifices start now. I was planning to go to the Phantom of the Opera show that is showing here this spring. I am not so keen on Sarah Brightman but i absolutely love Webber, so i would have paid the moneys (the cheap 70 bucks ticket of course), but now, in the grand scheme of things, i gotta give up on it. As a consolation, i am now listening to jesus christ superstar.

I will be going to "300" though, the ticket is only 10 bucks and marian has been driving me crazy with it.

I really do not enjoy making choices like these, usually i just go "oh, the hell with it! moneys come and go!" but this time .... aaa

In the quiet words of King Leonidas, via marian: "Spartans! Enjoy your breakfast, for tonight we dine in Hell!"