Cripple Club

The A2 pulley is the most commonly injured of the five annular pulleys, and you can blame the common crimp grip as the main culprit. In using the crimp grip, near ninety-degree flexion of the middle finger joint produces tremendous force load on the A2 pulley. Injuries to the A2 pulley can range from microscopic to partial tears and, in the worst case, a complete rupture. Small partial tears are generally insidious, because they develop over the course of a few climbs, a few days of climbing, or even gradually during the course of a climbing season. Less frequent are acute ruptures that result during a maximum move on a tiny crimp hold or one-finger pocket. Some climbers report feeling or hearing a “pop”—a likely sign of a significant partial tear, although other injuries could also produce this sound effect.

Depending on the severity of an A2 pulley injury, pain and swelling at the base of the finger can range from slight to so debilitating that you can’t perform everyday tasks like picking up a jug of milk. Slight tears may be asymptomatic when the finger is at rest, but become painful during isometric contraction (as in gripping a hold) or when pressing on the base of the finger near the top of the palm.

Treatment of an A2 pulley injury must begin with completed cessation of climbing and discontinuation of any other activity that requires forceful flexion of the injured finger. Doing anything that causes pain will slow healing of the injured tissue and it may even make the injury worse. Therefore, the intelligent climber will cease climbing at the very moment of the injury so that the healing process may begin and the time frame for healing is most brief. By contrast, the immature dumb climber may try to climb through the injury, which certainly means a slower healing time and perhaps even a worsening of the injury.

While I cried (literally) last night and it still brings tears to my eyes every time i think about how long this recovery period will take (two to ten weeks until no pain with additional two weeks for FULL recovery) I can't help but to be grateful that it is my right index finger and not the middle and ring finger or else I would not be able to climb AT ALL. Of course now it's goodbye to any difficult hand hold and hello to Gripmaster, soft rubber balls and endless sessions of hated PT. And while I did hear the "pop" I am still hoping it was my wrist or something. Meanwhile, I am forming the "Cripple club" with Regina as guest member. We are limited now to doing pull-ups and hangs upstairs (she can do campus board as well, bugger). I will be putting a purple log book under one of the boxes upstairs. Of course, as Regina's ankle will heal soon and hopefully I will also heal, membership is neither desired nor permanent.

As for the "dumb" comment, yes I did try to climb but stopped when Jensen sternly told me to. And yes Doris and Sandra had to pull me off the fingerboard. Thank god i have friends who can kick my ass. And yes I had felt that particular finger to be not so great with a pain that I didn't know before, i.e. not joint pain but rather (i see now) pulley pain. I didn't know what it was, but hell, I DO NOW!!

I pay today

For my utter stupidity from yesterday. Just so you know, when I say that I am taking a day off, it means that I am taking a day off from CLIMBING. And thus I ran*. With my oh not so healed ankle and putting it in the ugliest, blackest, horriblest ankle guard (which makes my leg look like an elephant leg). So I ran and I hobbled yesterday for about 4-5 km. And today I pay. To say nothing that I have decided that the ankle is healed and as such will be climbing tonite without an ankle guard.

Stupidity. IT HURTS.

* Before you start frowning, I am also very stressed because I registered for Adidas Sundown Marathon and it's in 3 months and I haven't even started to think about training omg omg omg.

Over it

Whew! After all four of us (Marian, me and two other romanians for support) got on the bus 15 minutes before my presentation to go to the other side of campus and realized mid-way that it was right next door to our building and hence had to run back - and I mean it, seeing me in a skirt hopping (not running) and laughing like a maniac is NOT a sight for sore eyes, and after 1 hour or so of talking after my brain was mush from this morning's tutorials and after snapping very aggressively at one of the thesis committee members [NOT GOOD], yay, I passed! Thank you all for all the happy thoughts and encouragements.

I am giving myself 1 hour (until training) and 1 day off. Then I will start answering my blur lecturer's emails. Ha!

There are two students in Group 7 who are without project team. They met me on Friday after the lecture. I do not have their matric number with me , but I think both had NTxxxxx matric number. Can you do a quick check ...

Pfft!

The red dragon

Recently we have been calling Doris "Boris" because she's SOOO strong, kinda like a guy (hell i am just envious, could somebody please call me Claudius or something too!) So last night I had a dream about Boris.

You see, Boris was a red dragon and Boris the red dragon was the last red dragon in the world. And what Boris did for fun was to hop around in these fields of snow (yes, snow) and push snow with his forehead. And this is what Boris the red dragon did the whole day. Push, push, push. You see, Boris the red dragon never got cold and never had a brain freeze from pushing the snow, even though (i suspect, i didn't dream about that) this way of chillin' out is what probably killed his siblings. So Boris was pushing show and pushing snow (like one of those tractors that does that when the streets are filled with snow) when one morning glancing up from his pile of snow he saw a glimpse of a red dragon head some 1 km away. Whoa, needless to say that Boris the red dragon was very very very excited by the prospect of FINALLY not being the last red dragon in the world and not being so lonely.

So he jumped over his pile of snow and started running towards the other red dragon. And mind you, it was very difficult for Boris to run because the snow was soft and he kept stepping through up to his small wings and hands (i see now that maybe Boris couldn't fly) and it was very difficult to advance. Even worse, the red dragon in front started running away from Boris, only he too, you see, had the same snow problem. And so Boris chased the other red dragon for a very very long time. Every time he stepped on the snow he would think that the snow would hold and then when he put his weight on it it would just break and then he would be up to his chest again in it. And so they ran and ran until FINALLY! Boris the red dragon caught up with the other red dragon. And now imagine Boris' sadness (and mine too!) when Boris saw that the red dragon he was chasing was not a red dragon after all, but rather Dino from the Flintstones wearing a plastic red dragon mask. Pffft. Boris the red dragon was the last red dragon in the world.

PS. In the quiet words of Ionuca, twentyfuckingseven.

PPS. Even though today I am teaching and still working, I had a very good climbing session with the girls (san, zx, shu, and lala en passant) and gerry, teck, and cherlyn stop by to give me mah present: durian puffS!!!!!!!! I would post a picture with the puffs, but alas and hour has passed and only 6 are left (and counting) and nobody seems to want one! doris gave me one big huge yellow head, one plastic whack stick omg and a green-stuck-in-the-bottle-umbrella! Woohoo!

Growl ...

I haven't blogged lately probably because I haven't had the energy to muster even the slightest form of self denigratory humor. To make a long story short,

• A new teaching sem has started and my lecturer is determined to do the least possible amount of work. To the extent that she has set a project topic for a four people team entitled "Design and implement a vending machine simulation program". Yup. Only this. No project spec (the students are required to do that themselves), just some sketchy deliverables for which i had to give "suggestions" which were copied straight away from my email. Top this up with the new students who are as confused and blur as ever. And what pisses me the most is when they try to bullshit me. A very risky strategy on their part, because I. never. forget. (this kind of thing)


• My thesis proposal presentation is scheduled on Monday at 3pm. I will give this presentation after my 3 tutorials in the morning, which generally leave me sapped.* This means that I will probably fuck it up. No big worries, it is only the biggest thing besides actually defending my thesis.


• I have been going through my 80 slides with my supervisor for three times already and every time he has a new way of presenting things. Pfft. Still haven't had a chance to repeat this presentation. It's ok though because tomorrow I will be giving a rehearsal in the lab. To which only my prof, the prof that i suspect will be my external advisor, and the rest of the lab will attend. Yup. No biggie.


• My climbing injury list is increasing instead of decreasing - ankle (check), fingers (check), flapper (check)


• I am running out of patience with everything and everybody and am walking a very thin line between total shutdown and uncontrolled rage. Am fantasizing about taking next tuesday off just to give myself some me time.

[*] This is because the education system here has turned its students into cyclic Receive-Memorize-Recite machines to which it is very hard to explain abstract notions.

Bollocks

Nothing better to further one's academic career than to meet one's committee member while one is dressed in tights (with big fat ass) and going for sekret, middle of work day-you-should-be-in-the-lab training session.

Sandra and I completed the warmup and fingerboard session in about 40 mins and were joined by ZhaoXiu for the projecting session (~1 hr). We set some pwetty hard (OMG HARDD) routes that triggered our individual and still oh so common weaknesses: Pinches and Slopers. The Crimps are definitely the more holdable nowadays. Who would have thought of that?

On a hand by hand evaluation, my left hand is definitely the weaker of the two (probably because of my injured elbow) and thus transforms to chicken-bingo-wing whenever any form of strain (i.e. holding pinchy crimp) is put upon it. As for my right hand, all attempts to summon muscles to hold the black pinch on my route were met with an absolute silence. Maybe I should do a rain dance before training to help the summoning power.

To top it up, I AM climbing with a (still :( ) injured ankle and thus even the small quantity of extra balls and dynamism that I had are totally absent. I will not commit to a move that I don't know 120% that I will stick.

Today's resolution: During each climbing training do three sessions of hanging on slopers. Starting tomorrow. I wonder if all this will ever end. Maybe one day I will wake up as Dave Graham. Or maybe not.

Finally celebrating

Chinese new year, that is. After really really trying to go to the Sentosa Flower Show but being turned back either by my ankle or by the huge mass of peoples going to it as well, on Monday Marian and I finally set foot on Sentosa. Still, A LOT of people there, but nevertheless the flowers were pwetty. Below a few pictures of pwetty flowers ... And then some more text ...












Yesterday's mock comp was Badd .... i tried to climb and on one route did quite a good effort but on the rest my attempts were half-hearted. On the first route i couldn't even step my right leg so i had to hook which was even worse. Ah well... shit.

Doris gave me a get fat Chinese New Year pack and I am loving it! I always enjoy biting into something and not knowing what it is or what it would taste like. And to my surprise, I even found figs! in one of the parcels. Figs! I mean, who would've thought figs would find their way as a cny treat!

Updates from the front

Well it's the year of the bovine now so happy new year everyone or Gong Xi Fa Cai and so on and so forth. The singaporean govt has kindly given all of us a total of 4 free days (Sat, Sun, Mon and Tue) in which to celebrate leaving the year of the rodent and entering the year of the bovine. It's going to be one hell of a year for everybody, or so I'm told. Besides the financial crisis, all animals except the rooster and the snake will not be faring well. The dragon I'm told, is in big shit.

The reason for the spiteful tone of this post is the fact that yes, I sprained my right ankle again. It's as bad as usual though not as bad as when I penetrated (ha!) the mattresses at climb asia only to climax (ha!) on the wooden floor with a loud crack. This new sprain has left me utterly incapacitated for these entire four days. Bygone are my plans to start running for sundown, or to go and do some yoga or anything. Yup. Stuck indoors with nay a book to read and only movies to watch. We are now watching BBC's "Planet Earth" and we are amazed.

Instead, I am reveling in the new doorway pull-up bar that I found, thanks to my anon commenter (owe you a coffee!!) in queesnway. Here it is, in all its glory. I've been doing, well, pull-ups on it. I plan to note my max pullup every week. This week it was a meagre 10 squirmy-wormy pull-ups. I hope to improve. I WILL improve. Hell ... i'm doing one every time i pass under it, and by next week i will take it up to two!

Today, in spite of all reason, Marian and I went to the gym to ah, well, try to climb [grins]. My attempts were pathetic. I can very well climb for a while on jugs and using only my left leg, but if I have to do any moves that involve my right leg, well ... I am stuck or I lock my left hand in ways even i didn't know it was possible. To say nothing that I can't just jump down (tried it and lading only on your left leg is NOT pleasant), so I must downclimb and thus waste a lot of energy. I set up a route called "Five Golden Rings" (Marian is responsible for the funny move that breaks the flow), a very easy endurance route for the weaker novice girls. To reminisce the times from our Perlis trip (btw, I still haven't cleaned my rope or my draws) when we sang "Twelve days of Christmas" to smithereens and back, those that end the route must sing "FIIIVE GOOLDEN RIIINGS" or else the route is not counted.

San and Claud's Sekret Sweaty Fridays!!!

For the next three weeks, i.e. 30 Jan, 6 Feb, 13 Feb - 10 am to 11:30 am, here's the plan:

1. 1 round around the gym plus warm-up:
   
   
   
   • up and down on every wall except enterprise and slab, our favorite
   
   
   • no jugs except when coming down on 38 degree wall
   
   
   
   


2. upstairs for fingerboard woo hoo!
   
   3 sets of:
   
   • hangs medium campus board hold: 6x6
   
   
   • touches large campus board hold: 3 times each hand alternate
   
   
   • laddering medium hold: up and down alternate hand
   
   
   
   


3. Project session 50min-1hour: 2/4 hard routes either from monday's session or focusing on our own printed-in-black-and-white-in-html-confirmed-but-can-ammend weaknesses:
   
   • San: pinches & deadpoint
   
   
   • Claud: slopers & crimps & deadpoint
   
   
   • Doris: (LE) slopers & medium difficult moves on shitty footholds
   
   

In search of the perfect pole

With a smooth, metallic finish ... with nice, rubber grips ... with shiny, oh so shiny and cold to the touch surfaces, perfect for those hot hot hands ... mmm ... Long but not so long as still to fit crammed places purrfectly ... and sturdy, yes sturdy, to stand the test of the oh so many types of hands that are going to grope it ...

Yup ... You got it ... I am looking for a ...















DOORWAY PULL-UP BAR!!!

Everywhere I go they tell me that they are out of stock and to come back, hear this, after Chinese New Year! As if everybody in singpaore is buying pull-up bars for their grandma or something... Sheesh! I went to Carrefour and Giant (noob of me) and of course they don't have it there. Then I went to two World of Sports and to the basement of Taka (as advised by looi) but still no go. And to a AIBI in plaza singapura. Btw, World of Sports sells socks and columbia and salomon outfits, a lot of sporty shoes and sandals but I couldn't even find a skipping rope. I guess, like some of the things here, "sports" is always about wearing the right outfit. So please please if you have a confirmed sighting of a pullup bar [in a store], leave a comment.

In other news, the boss is in new zealand which is equal to a -20 on my motivation. Climbing trainings have started. I manage to survive them but the next day i am somewhat sapped of energy. To be honest, after monday's training I went to yoga on tuesaday morning then I went back to the gym to set a route and to climb a bit (such a bad idea) then I went running, only to collapse in bed at about 10 with absolutely no recollection of anything I said between 8 and 10. Maybe I am growing old or the thesis proposal was more sapping than I gave it credit. Ah, time shall tell...

New working environment

My working experience just did a major turn for the better (i hope). While literally almost crying when saying good-bye to my Ubuntu this morning, I must say i enjoy the slicker mac that Marian forced upon me. Goodbye extremely long uptimes, hello confusion and numerous restarts. But still, it works.

It's just so sad and pointless

It makes me want to scream!!!!!

Remember last year when I wrote how one romanian died after summiting Aconcagua because of appendicitis? Well, he was accompanied on that trip by his wife who stood by him in a tent at 5700m and watched him die. It turns out that she killed herself a couple of weeks ago.


Returning to our more mundane problems but still related to the title of this post, I am submitting my thesis proposal today yay.

Realization

It's when life grabs you by the shoulders and spits you right between the eyes.

Adidas Sundown Marathon is coming on the 30th of May. Last year I was harboring wishes about running the 84 km distance, but I gave up on those plans when I realized that I will be in Romania at that time. But plans have changed and apparently I will be back in singapore by the 27th. So I can run! Yay!

So last night I was still harboring dreams and butterflies about running the 84 km. Will it take me all night? Can I do it? etc ... Only when I got home did life's saliva hit me. I mean, COME ON!!!! After the standard chartered marathon I totally stopped running (ok, not totally but not that much either) and now I am barely running 5 km with all the huffs and puffs of accumulated fats and aches from scrubbing floors and typing too much (i.e. sitting down). I haven't checked it out but I think you're supposed to train humongous distances and such. When am I going to do all that? I mean with climbing and project Elephant and work (I kid you not, I am seriously working now) ... WHEN?

So I wiped the spit from my face with a big *SIGH* and I think I'll be running the marathon. Notice the "think". It's not the distance that scares me, but ... Downgrades, I hate.

Ha! [Updates from the front]

Nothing better than cycling in Pulau Ubin from 11am to 2:30 pm without any sunblock to roast your back! Top that with a one hour yoga class on Sunday where my oh-so-friendly instructor pushed my burnt back to the limits!!! But! Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I can reach my toes without bending my knees in a forward bend! I know that many many many people out there can do this, but really, they shouldn't take it for granted, because there are other puny inflexible, fat mortals like myself who can't!

Other than that, I postponed my decision of not spending moolah on stuffs till maybe next month. This is because the chinese new year sales are in town! So I will either not go out at all, or, ah well ... My plan so far is to stay out of any bookstores because I don't need anymore books. Actually, I need, but there's no more space!

Training starts today. I will say nothing more, except that we are doing weighted pullups, fingerboard, and projecting some routes which yours truly will be setting in about 2 hours time. Oh, and my elbow hurts again. Bad. Bearable. Big deal! See, the three B's of injury prevention :))

I still have my kamikaze spirit! We ventured on the mountain bike trails on Sunday. Yup. Considering that when I am riding a bike I can only turn left, have to get off the bike when I have to go over a kerb, cannot lift both hands, cannot stand up and such... I still managed to go through the Blue square trails without falling more than 5 times and pushing my bike uphill more than, what? Six-eight times? Looking forward to that time, maybe 10 years from now, when I will be good enough to justify investing in a bike of my own.

Endurance

Just finished reading "Endurance" by Alfred Lansing. It describes how Ernest Shackleton's and his team of 27 sailors and what have you attempted to cross the antarctic ocean. Their ship (the Endurance) was caught in ice for about 10 months until it finally sank because of the pressure of the ice. We are around 1916 and thus no helicopters and satellites to save their sorry asses. And what did they do? They saved themselves. And how?

From October till April they stayed on some ice floes. Then finally in April when their last floe (called Patience Camp) got torn in two, Shackleton ordered his men into boats. We are talking about normal boats. In the Antarctic Ocean. After five horrible days at sea (it was cold, wet, no proper equipment, they were drenched in salt water (apparently your skin turns white and mushy)) they finally landed on an island called Elephant Island.

Now they couldn't stay here forever so Shackleton and 5 other men boarded the sturdiest of the boats (pictured) and started sailing for South Georgia. They sailed through the Drake Passage which is the shortest path to the southern most point in the south american continent (Cape Horn). Now I didn't know then, but I know now, the Drake Passage is one of the most horrible places with respect to water on this planet. It happens right where the Atlantic crosses into the Pacific. At that particular latitude there is no other land for the entire circumference of the Earth, which means that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current can flow without any obstacle. It carries a huge volume of water (about 600 times the flow of the Amazon River) through the Passage and around Antarctica. Here is a video of a big russian ship facing a storm in the Drake Passage. It's a very big ship but notice how it gets trashed by the waves. They sailed for 15 days (the last 4 without water) until they reached South Georgia.

It wasn't over yet, because they still had to cross uncharted mountains and glaciers (which nobody had crossed before) to get to the other side where there was a whaling station. [Wiki] "The next successful crossing of South Georgia was in October 1955, by the British explorer Duncan Carse, who travelled much of the same route as Shackleton's party. In tribute to their achievement he wrote: "I do not know how they did it, except that they had to—three men of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with 50 feet of rope between them—and a carpenter's adze"" Shackleton and two others did this in 36 hours non stop.


They say that the chief of the whaling station started crying when he saw the state Shackleton was in. The experienced whalers told Shackleton that they had lived their entire life in that station and had never ever even thought about crossing the Drake Passage in a small open boat like the one. Finally on August 30 the rest of the party on Elephant Island was saved. NOBODY died. For example, the entire Franklin expedition of 129 people had perished in 1845 in the Arctic, Scott's party to the south pole died in 1912 - uncomparable, but still. Nobody died.

The family motto of Ernest Shackleton was:
Fortitudine vincimus - By endurance we conquer

Google books has a limited preview of Shackleton's book.

The two places in the world

I would absolutely kill to live in, are ...

• France - for the cheese and the climbing and the bread and the alps! and for southern france, and for the je ne sais quoi ...


• Alaska - for the cold, the snow, the mountains, the absolute wilderness and silence.

New Year Resolution

I don't make new year's resolutions*, because I don't keep them. My resolutions are generally mid year or they happen when I get a kick in the ass. However, this year I've given it some thought and after a very long deliberation chose to settle on one. Yup. This year, I will run the standard chartered marathon in under 4 hours. Don't laugh, it was either this or run the North Face 100km run in October. Yup.

*My other new year's resolution was three years and 5 days ago when I decided to quit smoking (but it coincided with me moving to Singapore so the new year per se didn't really matter.

In which I draw the line and count!

Urgh. Just trying to get over the extreme tiredness that I am feeling right now. Baked some absolutely wonderful cinnamon rolls but forgot to take a picture of them. They were a major hit at the New Year party (pictures and post tomorrow). All nice and fattening (cause anyhow I don't eat them cause they are too sweet) for all the ladies, muhahahaha!!

I came to school today to climb with Sandra, Doris, Jiasheng and YJ. I think I will make it a lifetime tradition to climb on the first day of the year. It just feels so good. And believe it or not, I was very nervous when I climbed my first route of the day (and year), because I kept thinking that if I don't flash then my whole year will end up being crappy climb-wise.

Before I leave my desk I just wanted to have a moment to remember 2008.

• January - Chile, Aconcagua. I never knew I would be able to bear so much. Lost a friend.


• March - Boulderactive (not the last for open women) and! with the help of Vincent, I bought my new best friend, my Northface backpack.


• April - went Ipoh to climb. And. I. sucked. Wake up call and decision NEVER to take so much time off from climbing.
  
  Started training with Nita and Mei Fen for their trip to Kilimanjaro.
  
  Discovered running in Mac Ritchie Reservoir and Bukit Timah hill.
  
  Met Tracy.


• May - LAST for Rockmaster. A good kick in the ass is one step forward, I always say ...


• June - Climbing in Krabi with Marian. Happie couple times. Climbing in Krabi with the team. Short, but good!


• July - Alps, Matterhorn. Came very close to dying. Putting things in perspective.


• August - Army half. Almost quit but made it in the end. Marian decides to train for the marathon.


• September - Discovered cycling in Pulau Ubin. Cool!!!
  
  Decided I don't want to be an elephant no more (be more flexible) so I joined yoga.
  
  Reached the Nike Plus 1000 km mark. Which means I ran 1000km in about a year and three months. Not bad.


• November - Did night running in MacRitchie. AMAZING!!!


• December - Marian and I run the Standard Chartered Marathon. And finish decently in under 5 hrs, a good team building exercise.
  
  My friends leave for home for ever and I feel lost without my posse.
  
  Climbing in Perlis with the team. I give myself a pat on the back for some progress in lead climbing. And one good kick in the ass for being too blunt sometimes.
  
  I spend the last two days of 2008 scrubbing floors and moving furniture.

I Heart 2008!!

We interupt this special programme ...

to post a video that Vic found. Finally, Sting and Edin Karamazov with "In My Life" by the Beatles. Scrumptious. It sounds better in real life tho, trust me.

Climb Malaysia (II)

[Ah, nothing better to start your overcast Monday than Beethoven's 9th. Irony, I likes!]



After the disappointing experiment of Gua Kelam it's no wonder that the next days found us in Bukit Keteri. On the first day, what started out as a rainy, let's-get-back-to-the-hotel-and-sleep-the-whole-day thing ended up in very nice routes. And we climbed and we climbed ... The rock was nice and sharp and the routes much harder than the routes in Thailand with the same difficulty. From this point of view, I hate thailand, it made me think I can climb hard(er) routes, only to be thrashed by Malaysia...





In the afternoon, Doris and I went up into the caves of Bukit Keteri. The view from upstairs was magnificent. Other than that, nothing spectacular except I banged my head on one of the cave's ceilings. Stupid, I am.




We goofed around in the caves











Watched the guys get whacked by a 8c+ ...



The next day while the rest of the team went Thailand which was just across the border, Sandra was kind enough (Thanks, SAN!!!) to stay with me in the wonderful town of Padang Besar, where there was. N.O.T.H.I.N.G to do. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do. We went around some shops in the bazaar and then settled (with Cassandra who also stayed back) in a nice halal (did I mention perlis is a very strict muslim state) Thai coffee shop for about 2-3 hours. The food was very good, especially the Tom Yam, and I got to exercise my super power of ordering-by-pointing (where you point to the food on somebody else's table and say "Satu" (one) with the additional raising of your index finger, just in case). Next we found the bus driver and retreated to the air-con comfort of the bus, where we slept/read until the team came back.

Climb Malaysia (I)

So after a grueling 14 hour bus ride in which we sang and most of the team slept,




and after a very good night's sleep in Hotel Federal in Kangar, in which i switched off within 10 minutes of lying down, the first climbing day found us in Gua Kelam Park. Or whatever it is. The routes were un-eventful climb-wise. The climbs were easy, but!


My first climb of the trip found me on a route that was next to a route that Planet was climbing. And that route. had. a wasps'. nest. So I got stung twice. No biggie.


We switched to some other short and easy routes. My leading mental was good. Much better since I've realized that my inner talk was bad.


Lunch and a short rain found us eating inside a chinese temple. I was probably the first caucasian to visit those remote parts because people really never stopped staring at me. Ah well ...


The second part of the day found us going through this very very nice and big cave to some other crag. Yet again we found wasps (they were to disappear later), so we retreated to our morning climbing spot.





I started leading a 6b but by the second bolt it started to pour again so I had to downclimb. We spent the rest of the day just bumming around and watching our team mates play silly yet enjoyable card games.


All in all, the first day was disappointing. I wouldn't go back to gua kelam for anything, not even for the chili plants or for the fake waterfalls.

Backk!!

Safe and sound, only bitten by two wasps. Updates asap.

Dropping by for a quickie

Leaving for Malaysia for 1 week to climb in about 6 hours. It is now 01:01 am and I am not asleep which spells trouble for whomever will be close to me during the 16 hour bus ride (OMFG) from Singapore to Perlis. Thank goodness we are chartering a bus!! I am looking forward to 4 glorious days of climbing, even though I feel bad because I am leaving Marian to move the both of us (yes we are moving, but this is another post). On the other side, I will come back a saner me, and from this benefit he will. These days have been full of cleaning, saying goodbye to friends, buying new pairs of shoes (1 orange, 1 golden, and 1 black) and new blouses (3 green). The sales have hit town and so I am recycling my old shoes and buying new ones (happens every two years). I miss climbing and I hope to get enough of it in the next days.
Rope - check

Runners - check

Money - check

Shoes - check

Passport - check

In my life

Heard this song last night (duh, 28 years since John Lennon was shot) sung by Sting and accompanied by Edin Karamazov on the lute. It was amazing!! Spent the whole morning searching for it, but I wasn't able to find sting's version on youtube. It gives a very mellow tempo to my very slow and sore (from the marathon) day. Sting is [still] hott!

4:57

Amazingly, we finished. I had a stitch about the 17km mark, brought on by the fact that I drank to much. Note to self: MODERATION!! We got at 21 km after about 2 hrs. I gave Marian my knee guard at around 22 km. He hit the wall at around 27km. He says that he couldn't hear me when I was talking to him. At all. Brr, horrible. Anyhow, we had a power gel, we walked, we dragged our feet, had some more water, some more 100 plus, i told him what was happening, why he was hitting the wall (they say your body runs out of glycogen from carbs and has to switch to fats) He was running but more walking that running. Anyhow, I think what got him through the end of the wall and running again was one particular runspirator. He was a big caucasian with a bell. Yup. one of those bells that you see on cows in Switzerland (or so they say). This marathoner was walking and this guy was right behind him banging the bell in the marathoner's ear yelling "I'M NOT GONNA STOP TILL YOU START RUNNING!! I WILL NOT STOP TILL YOU STOP RUNNING!!" ... So the poor guy finally started running and the runspirator finally stopped but told him "YOU'D BETTER NOT STOP, I'M WATCHING YOU!!!!" After seeing this, Marian started running :)) Better run through the wall than have somebody bang your brains dead, I always say. Marian hit a second wall at around 37 km. I'm not sure if this was a wall or he only had breathing problems - from the 35km mark to 37 we run only on one side of the road, while the other was FULL of cars, buses and stuff. It was horrible. Exhaustion gases are not something you want to breathe in so far down in a run. I am very proud of us that we finished. Am very proud of Marian for enduring what he did and still finding the strength to run just a little bit more, and then a little bit more again.

I wore the romanian flag on my back. For the first 20 km or so, it also had a piece of paper on it saying "Romania", but because I kept putting water on my head, the paper finally tore. Nonetheless, 200 meters or so from the finish (and going a bit uphill on esplanade bridge) another runner (singaporean) told me "Good job, Romania!" : I was yet again encouraging people around me run - this is an achievement, I am very shy towards strangers, so sometimes I just say in a very little voice, "come on, come on" ...

I'll just make a list of people/things that I saw. I am too tired to write coherently (next year I will try to run under 4 hrs. Running for 5 hrs is gruelsome).

• Somebody's printed t-shirt saying "Running for presidency next"


• Somebody's piece of paper saying "I am running on the power of my own farts" - he ran out of fart-o-power around 30 km (if you are going to write something that stupid, at least make sure you are damn fast)


• Somebody limping wearing horribly worn out shoes; poor guy looked in PAIN. Good thing a friend was walking with him. A new pair of shoes would have gotten him a long way.


• Somebody carrying a backpack (not a water-camelback), but a big school bag. I'm pretty sure we overtook him, I would be very upset with me if we didn't.


• The bell guy moved just before the 41km mark. Thank you.


• The Kenyans or whatever, running in east coast park. The then first two guys were literally running shoulder to shoulder. FAST!!!! Whoa!!!


• The guy in the brown singlet. He would be walking and us running behind him. I would say come on, come on, seven/six/five to go! He would start running, then we would stop to walk, he would overtake us, then he would stop to walk, i would coax Marian into running some more, then we would overtake him again, I would say come on, come on ... and so on...


• Doris just before the finish line. THANKS for: being there, texting me at 3 plus am, taking the above pic, cheering for all the runners!!! I also cheered the kenyans with a big ALLEZ!!!! So sad to have missed Cherlyn, but at least we had a good excuse!!!


• One runner was bouncing a tennis ball from time to time. I guess it was a good distraction. I don't know about other people, but a marathon is definitely not boring.


• The very pro looking evacuation SUVs. Around 39 km people were dropping like flies. Must've been the Ferraris.


• The Ferrari expo at 39km. Oh why?

A nice odd number

Queued up for 2 hours to get the race entry pack for this year's Standard Chartered Marathon! The queue started from the MRT, and it had about 150m until entering the expo hall where you were in the queueing pens. No pasta this year unfortunately, I was looking forward to cooking it. Goodie bag is also a bit disappointing, you can see that we are going through recession. Ah, life is cruel. As always, the guys' running singlet is much nicer than the girls' one. It definitely has a material that I like more, and a nicer blue.

First nightmare

After my previous foray into almost missing out on important events for which i've trained and trained, it is no wonder what last night's nightmare was about: You see, it was marathon day you see, and, see, the marathon started at 05:30 am see, but um, we woke up at 1:30 pm. So I wailed and I screamed and I wailed some more, and I screamed some more. Not only that, but rushing to the marathon I had forgotten not only my watch and iPod but we didn't have any food! (looking back, this is a totally different scenario, isn't it?)

And I say to these nightmares: Bring them on, sista!!

Namez

[Took a break from blogging because my wisdom tooth is finally out and I have been enjoying the benefits of solid food. Good, solid food, mmmm.... Like breadsticks, rice, veggies, meat, mmmm ... Went to climb asia on Friday to buy myself a pair of green climbing pants, yupee!]

Why is it that inventors don't name the things they invent using such that the name reflects their own name? Is it modesty or they don't think that the products will survive? Or is it because they know they would sound bad? Like EdisonWire, Beller etc. Or is it because they invent so many things that their names will confuse people? Like DaVincier would it be an airplane or a submarine? Or are you considered an inventor iif you build and work your prototype, and it is accepted by the general public as it is? Why isn't the rabies vaccine called Pasteurite? (quite a good name, right??) Then like that everybody know who invented what, and CREDIT will be given (a good sign of a good future academia is their sensitivity to giving credit, i guess :D)

On an utterly unrelated thread, Doris named my left fat thigh John and my right fat thigh Tucker. I am now officially eating for three. I have tried to google John Tucker but all I can come up with is "John Tucker Must Die", and to that, I fully agree. May we have a very short life together.

Jitters

Last year, this was me:



Nita's sms about Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon on 8th december raised some nerve-wrecking questions. See, the problem with performing well the first time around you do something, is that you expect to do the same or even better the next time you try to do it. Well, that isn't the case for me, and I usually don't.

Although the focus of this year's race is for us (marian and i) to finish together (or should I say together finish, with an emphasis on together), I can't stop fretting about our performance. Will we be faster? (not really, haven't trained that much, i feel) Will we be slower? (i think so) By how much? Will we make it? AAAAAAAA!

JAWS

Had the most horrible weekend in the history of IR. The whole of my right lower wisdom tooth is coming out. It had emerged about six months ago but now the whole volcano is rising. My jaw is huge. I didn't sleep at all friday night. Barely slept on Saturday night, and last night I managed to go to sleep at 1:30am and woke up at 4 am again only to fall asleep fitfully until seven. I cannot function with sleep deprivation. I have been eating soup for the past three days, and even though I love soup, I am now officially sick of it.

In order to forget about the pain for a bit I went climbing on Saturday and managed to finish my 3x20 minutes endurance sets, even though I was distracted by Jia Wei and his routes. Saturday night Marian finally found out what's wrong with me, and he advised me to chew on something tough (his dentist had advised him to chew on a bread crust) on the wisdom tooth such that the gums will cut and the tooth will be free!! free! I tell ya!!. No bread crust chez Claudia, so I chewed on four almonds. And I remember every one of them. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Sunday morning found me with a jaw the size of China thanks to the augmenting effect of the almonds. Went to yoga, had some soup (yay!), then crawled back home. Couldn't focus to read or write so I went running. Yesterday was the first day of my interval training. Did 5 minutes jog, 3 minutes sprint (and the sprint was proportional to my tooth ache). Did only four repeats (instead of six) because I ran out of track and I didn't want to turn back. So far so good, I love it.

Watched CSI Miami before going to bed at 10pm. I used to like Horatio about three years ago when I was watching CSI, but now I think he looks and acts like a very spooky Cheshire cat. And now starts my agony. I couldn't sleep, so I played with marian's iphone until it ran out of batteries, listened to music, heated a sock in the microwave oven (to make it hot to apply on the jaw of death - about 1,2 seconds are enough), chewed on a banana, walked around, changed my sleeping (ha!) position, moved on the floor, moved back on the bed, cried, then i finally fell asleep around 1:48 am.

Weekends, I hate.

The smart[er] post I promised last time

I think too much. Not necessary smart thoughts or anything, it's just that I really think too much. Every move that I do while I climb, every action that I take, I must think about it. Generally, this happens after I climb or I do something, at which time I think about how stupid I was.

Like when I saw a notebook with "Exercise your right to free speech" stamped on every page, I laughed. Why? Because it's ironic that in such a tight-lipped society like this one, the way to exercise your right to free speech is by writing things down on your personal notebook, which nobody will read (or hear) - is speech vocal or not, btw? Or is it a pun like really "exercise" as in practice? See, I think too much. Again, not necessary smart thoughts.

So, I finally realized that I think too much when I lead climb. And I think wrongly, which leads me (get it?!:) ) to not committing fully, or to giving up, or to finding excuses and so on. This and my previous observation about how some people are ego/comparison-driven climbers has been my food for thought these past days.

Did a bit of research (reading up a very nice book) and here (TADA!!) are some things that indeed, do distract me when I lead climb:

• negative inner dialogue - "shit, I'm too far from the next clip", "this crimp is shit", "mayday, mayday, mayday", "abort, abort, abort", "omg, this is hard", "shit, just get to where sandra fell then you are can fall too"[1], "shit [2], i can't do this move", "i am not flexible/dynamic", "i can't reach"


• reacting - this happens rarely and not while climbing, but in real life, when i am upset about some stuff and take it out on people (like my mom, for example), whom i know can take my behavior. [3]


• hoping and wishing - "i wish the hold was better, then I can hold it", "i hope i can finish this climb"

[1] - Comparison, you evil bitch! Although in this particular case, it is somewhat positive, because it helps me get past the already shitty holds that sandra, (bless her crimping power, woo hoo!!!) held, it is still, comparison, an evil bitch.
[2] - A lot of "shit" in this post, ain't it?
[3] - Just realized that "reacting" happened while mountaineering. When we were going down Matterhorn and I was frustrated that a) we didn't summit and b) it was taking horrendously long to come down and c) we had a very good chance of not living, I told our rookie "We're lucky if we make it out of here alive", a totally unnecessary remark which would have troubled the poor soul had he heard it.

Totally shacked

Climbed today from 09:30am (exactly) till 11:10 am (exactly). Did 20 minutes ARC around the gym with 20 minutes rest. Would not have been able to make it past the first set without the company of San, Dor, and Teck Chew. It's amazing how the presence and absence of people can influence a training session. Now I am totally sapped, my forearms and biceps (do they really exist?) are still quasi-pumped. It is definitely not the best time to start strengthening my Related Work section. My supervisor says it needs to be stronger. Titanium? How can i strengthen something when i'm so weak? [enter here 5 minutes of self pity].

Wanted to write something smarttt todae but i. just. can't.

Forgot to mention the elusive presence of Jiasheng who stopped by just to watch us bicker and bully Doris. And also to make me chase him barefoot, but the story about that particular revenge will be the subject of another post :)

Happie

BIRTHDAY!!!! To Marian!!! Woohoo!! happie 27th (a nice odd, cube number too!)!!!!

Ran about 20 clicks yesterday for Marian's birthday. It was a "ok" run. We got to see Orchard and North Bridge Road full (and I mean FULL) of hookers and drunk people [puking]. A different sight from your normal, septic Singapore. At Clark Quay we even saw a police team by the side of the road. They were watching the hookers on the other side, not doing anything. The hookers were watching them too. Hey, do you think we walked into a stare-down?! Would hate for that to happen!!


The best thing was watching the sunrise from the Merlion. Really really nice and peaceful. This was our last big run before the standard chartered marathon on the 7th of december. Would have wanted it to be longer, but we were tired and cranky, and hell, bored! so we put the run to sleep around harbour front. Had a drink and dried up, then took the bus home to a nice breakfast cooked by yours truly.

Later lunch and movie with our friends, hanging out and laughing. Talking with mom in the evening and frantically searching for our house key which we forever lost apparently.

Weekends, I like.

Ego

The Ego is a mental entity, a crude and ruthless ghost masquerading as our "self". It is a mental construct, produced by socialization, which rewards and punishes us with feelings of self-worth. The Ego lives by comparison. It identifies with events in our past and then compares our history to the histories of others. This comparison leaves us feeling better or worse than, but not equal to, others.

While I was in the woods ...

it seems like the whole world decided to post blog posts, emails, articles and stuffs.

Been stuck in the land of project submissions for the whole day yesterday. By the end of the day my brain was mush. By the end of the night's training, my body was mush as well. We did (in this order, designed to sap you of any energy you have left): pull-up contest (we didn't lose, yay!) to which i contributed with 20 pull-ups (2x10), some PT that I seem to be blocking out of my mind, and flash comp. It's been a long time since we really climbed and I had a lot of fun. The open men had to climb with us and they didn't seem to be having any fun (our routes were boring and easy, i guess), but too bad for them! IR really enjoyed herself. Afterwards crawled home and into bed.

SUNDAY!! We had the most amazing run ever! Ran for about an hour and 15 minutes on the Macritchie reservoir 12 km route. This means that we did trail running! It was such a pleasure to run in the cool jungle, with absolutely nobody on the trail, away from cars, exhaustion gas and traffic lights!

The jungle was so cool and free of people (not of animals, mind you) because we started our run around 7pm. Yup. It was pitch dark people, there be no lights in the jungle. But! I had my trusty Petzl headlamp (pictured). This gave us about 1 - 2 m visibility. At one point we were sprinting (running the polar zones training - this requires you to run at about 60% of your maximum heart rate for a while - 30 mins, at 70% for another while - 30 mins, then at 80%-90% for yet another while - 5 - 15 mins) uphill and/or downhill, jumping on/from protruding roots, rocks, stumbling into mud puddles. All while we could only see 1 m or so in front of us. So exciting!!! (just realized how much i enjoy getting dirty while running - gives me such a REAL feeling compared to running on singapore's clean streets)

We saw 2-3 birds with red eyes (because of our light, but still very freaky to see one flying towards you). One bat flew past us (too close for comfort). We scared the shit out of one toad who was taking a stroll on the human-free path. We confused a lot of moths with our light. It was fabulous.

News in the geek world

• Dumbo aka TickCross aka CrossTick learned about perfect numbers!! After she learns about Fermat's last theorem, maybe we can talk about the greatest number in history ... 42 ... And we could then figure out how my Nike+ sensor functions.


• Marian got his SSD hard drive today!! An early birthday and XMas present from all of us (this is the problem with geeks, you'd better not surprise them if instead you can share the burden of a expensive gadget)


• The deadline for the software engineering project I am supervising is tomorrow. My students are marveling me with their unfounded confidence in their programming skills. All would have been much easier if they had started coding early and would have asked me stuffs.


• Windows 3.x era is over. For most of us (not me, I had System 7.0. Snob!!) it was our first graphical/windows based operating system. One of the most stable Windows versions, too!

Scales

Just general thoughts. Will not start writing here about why I climb and so on (save you all the mushy stuff) but I seriously gotta get this off my chest before I explode. Ok.

A question that really ticks me off is something along the lines of "what was the hardest (in terms of grade) route that you did today?" I hate that question. Not "what was the nicest/funniest/challenging/great sequence route that you did today?". Not "what was the route that showed you where you need to improve?". But "what was the hardest". That and "I clinched x place". I do understand that for other people the only way in which they can improve is in a "friendly" (my ass!) competition with other climbers, but it just gets on my nerves sometimes.

Other than the scales of value imposed on us by society, the only scale(s) that I will live by in this life are those that I impose on myself. And the only person that I allow to raise the level of the scale is myself. You are not a better climber than X if you can climb 9a or 12a or V15 or what have you and X cannot. You are not a better climber than X if you spend a week learning the moves on one 8a and then drop like a fly at the first bolt on a 6c, while X has been climbing "with the girls". You are a better climber because last month you couldn't climb 12a because you just couldn't get your mind around dyno-ing from crimps to crimps and now you have improved and you can! The only one that "you" can compare yourself with is you. Period. You are a great climber if you know just how far to push yourself. If you know where your limit is such that you rest and relax even when others are still trying the route. You are a smart mountaineer for example if you know when to call it quits (but that is another lesson).

The scale is not 6c,7a, 7b, 7c etc because when you will not have time to train you will have a meltdown. The scale is easy, ok, still ok, hard, "omg this is not for me". It's "comfortable, challenging, uncomfortable, MENTAL, "I seriously need to improve"". Climbing mates are not A - "climbs 8a", B - "climbs 6c", C - "climbs better than me, still", D - "i don't take climbing advice from her cause she climbs only 6a", ... X - "one of this days I will climb better than him/her", Y - "I did this route and he couldn't". Climbing friends are (will spare the names so as not to get mushy) A - "will not take any bullshit from me so I have to try my best", B - "gives crazy routes", C - "gives routes with crammed moves that I can span, woo hoo", etc.

Humility.