The climbs

Well, the climbs were done in THE place that is closest to my heart so far and which leaves me in tears whenever I leave for long periods of time. Below are a few pictures, but they do not do this place justice. It's called Lacu Rosu (Red Lake) (for climbers, over 300+ routes on exceptional limestone!!!)


My father, his gf and their kid. The background massif has one of the multipitch routes i LED!


Bicaz Lake, the biggest artificial lake in the country (I think).


Cow doing yoga in the middle of the road.


There be mountains in the background.


The canine population of Lacu Rosu has to thank three wonderful dogs, two of which I've chosen when they were wittle puppies . Pictured is me with one of them (Bush) (I know Sandra will cringe when she will see this). They have grown immensely but I still see them as my little babies to the dismay of people passing the house. Below is Marian with Dark, and me at one of the climbing crags with Dark stealing the show.





And now, the climbing... Not that many days (still have to spend a lot of time with my family - haven't seen them in two years) but the climbs were amazing. I LED multipitch routes!!!! It was a super frightening feeling to be scared shit and still acutely aware that you are responsible for somebody else's life and thus you must get over the stupid fear or else you are never going to get out of there. I guess that sums it up. First up, a 40m 6a+ route with Edelweiss growing on a lot of its ledges! We were a bit early and most of them were still dried up, but still they were very beautiful.
Yours truly was frozen shit because the sun hadn't arrived to our neck of the woods.



Edelweiss, for sure my favorite flower. Here is how they look like when they are in bloom.

Another one (dried up)

The view (that lake is the red lake)


Frozen but happy Marian.


Me with ill fitting helmet.


Now, if this isn't the picture of happiness I don't know what is.


6b+? that I couldn't finish and had to downclimb


Proof of shame:


6a to wipe the shame:




Another multi-pitch route ... Involving two chimneys and a small roof



And this spectacular edge (have to go on top of it with super rope drag - I kept thinking: omg omg omg please don't have marian tight now :)) )

A happy Marian:

And finally on top:


The rest of the pics can be found here.

The best run of my life. So far.

30 km on a scenic route with snow covered mountains behind and in front of me. The first 5 km incredibly hard because of the sick slope and the dry, cold air (thank god my father, his gf/fiancee?/wife? and I scouted the route the day before so i knew blessed downhill awaited me after the 5 km). Sweet companion for the last 15 km in the form of a dog. She ran with me for the whole 15 km! Encouragement from seeing my father and adriana in the car, every time just around the bend. 2hrs:50 mins.

[WARNING! Pics of me in tights follow!]

Iasi

Well, first of all, sorry for not updating anything. I know that not having easy access to the interwebs is no excuse so I will not attempt to say anything. Hmmm... writer's dilemma ... should I dish everything out here or should I give it out one thing at a time?! Well... I guess I will go about it as soon as I have pictures to show what I've done. So I'll start with the later part of things, with Marian and I visiting Iasi, a very old and picturesque city, bursting with history and culture (and unfortunately, lacking jobs) Hell, who am I kidding?! It's gorgeous!! We did a blitz krieg visit that encompassed most of the important places in Iasi, from old churches dating from the sixteen hundreds to places to eat (as many as mihai and mariuca could find, being new in town) and amazing for me, to some pastry shops where they sell amazing saraigli (a cousin of the baklava), which is now officially the only sweet thing that I can really eat. To my shame I couldn't take that many churches (hell, I gave up after 3 of them) but I hope I will still get eternal salvation when the shit hits the fan. Lo and behold, the pictures!! Sorry about the horrible quality, but Marian forgot to bring Bobby so these are taken with my phone! Can you imagine, he FORGOT!!!!

1. Books!! If there's anything that I would stay forever in Iasi, then that is the number of book selling places like this one:


2. Contrasts!! The university in the background is called Alexandru Ioan Cuza, but the guy in the statue in front of it is Alexandru Lapusneanu. Minor mishap, I am sure ... Notice the tulips!


3. Statues! Everywhere! It would take me ages to explain everyone!! Writers, rulers, thinkers, teachers, lawyers, you name it, they have it! (Sorry about the phallic obelix)








4. Spring! There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing that brings out the beauty of a city than spring (not even everlasting summer like in Singapore). Observe ...







6. Memorial houses! Writers, painters, etc. everybody that ever lived in that city and brought something to this country will have his or hers memorial house. Covered in flowers, of course, because it's spring!! The first one that you see there is covered in lilac.




7. Style! Below is a mural in the University. Yup. There's this hall in the university that has its walls covered in murals by a very very famous painter.


8. Little glitches. Like the statue below. The pedestal says that it belongs to Stefan cel Mare, a famous (and brave) romanian ruler, but the statue itself is that of a polish general. Or the gipsy clan taking one of their own to be baptized. In a church! (may you live a long life little Colea). Or the cleaning mops hanging behind a famous tombstone.






9. Churches. EVERYWHERE! And they are absolutely beautiful and full of history and stories (the way i see it, anybody who was anybody in the old days built a church, a very safe way to redemption i suppose).









10. Last but not least, what good would a beautiful city do if you didn't have good old friends to share it and the c-cold with?

H.O.M.E

Well, here i am finally at home. I will post pictures just as soon as I find a picture taking device. To make a long story short, our bags were stuck on Heathrow so after arriving at 00:35 am in Bucharest we had to go back to the airport to retrieve them. I've been having one helluva a time with my mother and my father and his girlfriend - seeing my dad and my mom together makes me really really happy that they divorced 24 years ago because otherwise they would have fought so much they would have screwed me up more than I already am.

Went to the dentist today and had one of my teeth extracted. Finally, good, cheap dental services!!! My dog is growing old but is still amazingly young at heart.

Tomorrow I am leaving with my father and his gf (she's one year younger than me, did I say that before?!) to some place where I can run 30 km in preparation for Sundown.

Catcha later!

If you cannot go back ...

Then you must go further.

This Tuesday I had planned my bigish run (before next week's BIG run) I was hoping to run until vivo city and then turn back and run to school ( a good opportunity, mind you, for me to collect all the presents that I have stuffed under my desk and bring them home). I was hoping that the run to Harbour Front would be 10km, and hence the whole run a whopping 20 km. The urgent need for such a long run convinced me to go forward every time my will faltered (in general before the 5km and 15km mark) and I engaged in my oh so common bargaining dialogue: "Maybe i should stop, my ankle hurts... Hm... I remember the next portion is kinda spooky... Where the fuck is that vivo city?... I hope I can rest at the traffic light... Why the hell am I doing this? A lot of people can run marathons without training ... Why don't I run 6km today and have the long run the day after tomorrow? ... Going up south buona vista when you are tired will be shit ... My ankle hurts ... South Buona vista is fucking long ... Shit i forgot to take the camelback ... what the fuck will i drink now? ... You are past your peak ... old and injured ... give it up ... If you would have taken at least your credit card you could have bought some drinks ... Why not stop at Vivo City to buy presents and run the long run the day after tomorrow? ..." *

Nonetheless, when I got to Vivo City and saw that I had ran only 7km I finally gave in and bargained. And the deal was to avoid going back and running uphill on South Buona Vista Rd (an un-phantomable prospect at that time) and go forth in a quest (! needed for the excitement) to follow the line of bus 143 either for 20km or until I die, whichever comes first, and then! take the bus home.

And thus I ran through Chinatown (crowded, even though it was 9 pm), to the tip of Orchard and then to the tip of Little India, and then back through Chinatown to about 1 - 2km or so from Vivo City. And for a first time in ages I did what I preach and actually stretched! This was because I really needed to cool down before getting on 143. Note to self: next time when running in crowded places, wear black running tights: like that, your sweat will not be visible and you will not look like you just soiled yourself! All in all, a great run, too bad I missed Sandra climbing at CA.


*a lot of shit-fuck and fuck-shit combinations, i see :))

Great deals at Harvey NOrman!

Dizzy

My liver does NOT love me. I think it used to love me, but it stopped loving me sometime between last night and this morning. Yesterday was orthodox easter and as it can be expected, we had to sit through a six course meal: appetizers (painted eggs, cheese, lamb pudding, eggplant salad), lamb soup, fish steak, lamb steak and dessert. As you can see, lamb is the main character here. And of course, the lamb dishes are not light, because lamb by definition is not a light meat. Jolly good cause I hate lamb. "Mary had a wittle lamb, wittle lamb, wittle lamb ..." anyone? I was fairly full after the appetizers so I just nibbled nibbled on the rest.

Anyhow, I called it quits after 5 hours and the fish steak because I really had to get to school to grade some assignments. The company was good to some extent with a lot of new people at the table which gave me the opportunity to thoroughly analyze and classify everybody (yes, that's what I do when i stare at you!, yes YOU!) It also gave me a whiff of home where sitting at a table for 5 hours on a visit and drinking vodka and beer and wine is normal. And then there were the characters. The "I'm-trained-in-eating-so-much-cheshire-cat" which chewed determinedly through everything showing signs of fatigue (sweat on the upper lip) only at the 4th course, the skinny rooster whose main act was showing off his iphone (he literally paused for effect when he took it out to call a cab -- I wonder, are iPhones rare in romania?) and whose second act were the two bimbos that came with him and whom he patronized with the grace of a parent talking to a 3 year old.

So after I submitted my liver to the terror of sniffing lamb, and after the indigestion-induced nightmares, I had to go climb this morning (at 7:40 am). I wanted to do the route Doris, Looi and I set on Saturday but I had to call it quits after dropping from 3 to 4, from 6 to 7, from 9 to 10, and lastly on 21 to 22 (how on earth did I do that move on sat?!) on repeated tries, with every fall making me feel super super dizzy. Seriously, climbing in the morning is not my cup of coffee.

Purrfect in 2 parts

Went to see "Cats" last night! I loved the costumes and the way the "cats" moved - very cat-like for hoomanz (I think they would have freaked sandra out - she's scared of cats). But due to the fact that we were on the third level up and very close to the stage (right above the lights) and more importantly very close to the speakers, we couldn't distinguish most of the songs. The music was great, but seriously, I didn't understand a thing. Were it not for one of our friends to explain what was going on it would have been a real guessing game. So today I am youtubing the Cats songs. So farrrrr, this is my favorrite(don't click if you don't like Andrew lloyd weber). And who of all people should we bump into but NITA!!!!! WOOO HOO!!!!! This was the second confirmed Nita sighting after she appeared at the pull-up bar on Monday!! Right after I was telling Ely about our loser club!

On other related news, I must announce here that yesterday morning I finally said "Hello" to my toes and knees in forward bending pose by MYSELF!! After all those days when my favorite yoga instructor's wrists were cracking (i kid you not!) from pushing me, yesterday was the big day! Well my delight didn't last for long because he hurried from where he was in the studio to tap my knees with his index finger to remind me to KEEP THEM STRAIGHT! For you see, his main problem so far has been to make sure that our elbows and knees are straight and that we are aligned correctly in the pose. What can I say, he has a thing for straightness. You could show super improvement in one pose but all he would care about would be if your hands are straight and so on. Whereas other instructors would tell you to bend your knees if you cannot do, he will have none of this nonsense. And with me I must say he has a handful of pushing and pulling. Because you see, out of his entire class, when everybody is bending down or flat on the mats, I am always one of the very very few that is 20 - 50 cm higher than everybody. And he bears it nicely until at one point I guess he just can't take it anymore and he comes and pushes and pulls (and shows no mercy of course). For example "downward facing dog, bring your right leg front, split your legs" brings out a very audible snigger of "YEAH RIGHT!" from me and I seriously try to split my legs but only manage 20 - 25 cms or so from the floor. This is where he comes in. I see him coming towards me, I smile a "Don't you dare!!! Please?" kind of smile at which point he might go to somebody else but would still come back when it's time to split my legs with the other leg in front. He might give me his hand to stabilize me (my hands can't touch the floor) or he might not (depending on how wobbly I am) and then with a swift kick which would make even zidane proud he would push my heel maybe 2-3 cms forward and my hamstrings into screeching agony. And while his next call of "bring your leg back, downward facing dog" would have everybody graciously bring their leg back, I slump to one side and slowly, very slowly, and with minimum grunting (I try!) retrieve my forward leg and in a circular sort of motion bring it backwards, then I move my upper body on the mat again (by this time I am sort of almost off the mat and lying on the floor). I would seriously laugh about this but considering it took me 6 months to touch my toes I wonder how many years it will take for me to do a split?

I hate "graduating"

Today was my last training with the team as an official member and thus I left early to make sure nobody remembers or realizes (sandra and tecky had already realized that it was our last training so maybe some other people would too). In customary claudia fashion I left early because I really really hate goodbyes or any ceremony that resembles them (that is why I really hope they will hold the goodbye dinner while I am still in Romania - like that, I will not be reduced to tears like the unbelievable sissy that I am). My time in the team was spent less climbing (mostly due to injuries) and more policing [some] people around. I guess this is half because maybe I am a bully tough by nature and half because my dog self really really hates whiners. And scatterbrains.

Nonetheless, I loved being in the team. Firstly because of the girls and the fun fun times we had together. All the silly named clubs - Loser Club (Nita and I couldn't do pull-ups) and Cripple Club (Reg and I were/are injured) and the goofy things that we did to forget that a. training is hardd! and b. we're weak!! Secondly because of the structure and discipline of the training (especially the last two years, hell! especially the last). Structure! Discipline! I love! Thirdly, because let's be honest ... once you pack all your things in one big black suitcase (and some shoes in Marian's one as well, ahem!) and you move to the other side of the world, chances are you won't get to know and befriend that many people*.




* and you will lose all your friends back home. One amazing realization of my first year in the team was that the team people had other non-climbing friends in Singapore and I was wondering how could that be?! until I realized that they had been living here for their entire life :))

Scientific Proof

Yes ladies and gentleman, I am now in the possession of scientific proof that technique and footwork are not important in climbing. What IS important is the force with which you PULL the handholds. Allow me to demonstrate.

Given below in Newton's third law of motion:

"Whenever a particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction. The strong form of the law further postulates that these two forces act along the same line. This law is often simplified into the sentence, "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Let A be the climber and B the handhold that he/she is pulling on. From the above law, we have that whenever A will pull on B from the wall towards himself/herself, B will pull A in the opposite direction, thus pulling A into the wall. Hence, no matter how you step and what you hold and so on, provided that you pull at your handhold with enough force, the handhold will pull you back into the wall.

Q.E.D

Corollary: Mr. Pan's "Crimp harder, step harder!" can now be replaced with "Pull harder, pull harder!"

Soon I'll have my Mondays back

One more hellish Monday to go and finally I will be over and done with teaching for this sem. I particularly hated this sem's teaching because my so called lecturer was totally absent from manning the teaching on the tutor side. Miss-haps on her side include: giving a one-line project specification in which she basically asks students to choose their own topic and later altering it to add more confusing and un-explained lines and THEN not scheduling a meeting with us tutors such that we know what to tell our students. This resulted in a continuous back-and-forthing and contradictions between what she says and what we/I say.

Next, she formulated the midterm wrongly such that one questions had 3 possible answers (b,d,e). Because of an unfortunate sickness of her husband she couldn't grade the midterm and as such we graded them for her (150 scripts each) using her answer (b). Then when students go to her to ask about said question she says and I quote: "go talk to your tutor".

Next, it was uploading the new tutorials but not sending us neither the tutorial nor the solutions (I got the tutorials from IVLE and luckily they were the same as last year so I had the solutions - wrong as they were - from then). Next, she uploaded two tutorials in one file (i.e. Tutorial 9&10) without letting us know which was which (there were 5 questions in that file, so then I didn't know which tutorial had 3 and which had 2). She again reused last sem's tutorial but changed the order of the questions (ha! - but only in the questions and not in solutions of course).

Next, and I think is one of the worst, she gave the students an extension of the deadline for the code until the very day in which they have to demo their code to me (which means that I can't view the code b4 they present). Not only that, but she didn't let any of the tutors know. ANYFUCKINGONE. Which of course led to me being high-jacked in class. Pfft. I know that the code extension is for her to up her good feedback points from the students, but still... Top everything with a less than great class this sem and thus my mondays were hellish. Hellish because I try to recap the important points discussed in lecture BUT either (a) students do not attend lecture; (b) the lecture quality sux; (c) students suck so I end up in talking and trying and talking and drawing and talking for three-fucking-hours.

In no particular order, here is a list of things that I did when my brain was mush on Monday afternoon:

• Bought two laptops instead of one.


• Bought plane ticket home and did not think that mom's bday was around that date, hence missing it by a week


• Lost confirmation number for US Visa appointment - trying to get it now -> cannot call US embassy until 2:30pm GOT IT!!!


• Stood in line at DBS bank holding a form and frantically calling Marian who was in the middle of a meeting with the Prof. to tell me what to do with the form


• Being depressed and scared shit that I will not get my passport back from the US Visa in time for me to leave to Romania - apparently they only hold it for two days (provided I get the confirmation id) hence 21 april + 2 = 23 April (leaving on the 24th) - but last night all I could think about was that they hold it for like a week or so


• Writing demo schedule on the whiteboard based on student options for all my 17 demo groups and then copying it wrongly. Realize mistake after erasing said whiteboard.

Wow I finally let it all out - I had problems complaining about her because of her husband's illness but wow it really needed to come out.

Vigilante Drive

Memory is an amazing thing....


Pfft! No shit Sherlock! When I was training for Aconcagua I used to RUN up the Vigilante Drive hill carrying 15-17-20 kg. I'll say it again: running + carrying. It is with the memories of me running effortlessly uphill carrying weights that I descended on Vigilante Drive last night before climbing training. With the thought of doing a "light" speed [ha!] workout of only 3 hill reps, then quickly back up the long and windy south buona vista drive and go for training.

Reality struck me about half-way in the first rep when I don't know what I was thinking about or looking at but my body had a very good chance of taking over. And I suddenly found myself stopped in the middle of the hill, panting and grasping for air. I was utterly shocked at the cheekiness of it all! But fret not, I showed it who's boss! I stopped again but this time by my own will just before reaching the top...

To make up for it, I watched myself closely and did not stop at all on my second [and LAST - what? I am out of shape!!] hill rep. However, I did have to stop twice again going up south buona vista. Maybe I was just tired yesterday. Ah well ...

LATER EDIT: In a precedented attack of lameness I just went running. Was planning to run from school to home, the usual easy-peasy 6/7 km route that I normally run. Four km into the run and I just stopped. At one bus stop. And got on the first bus that I could take. I do not know what I was thinking when I allowed myself to take the Ez-link card (I know that whenever I take it I will find some stupid excuse to get on the bus - or pray for heavy rain). Today, I just didn't even feel like giving myself an excuse. I just stopped and subsequently got on the bus. To make matters worse, I was wearing my 2008 marathon finisher t-shirt. Pfft. Suck, I do. Improvement, I need.

Student feedback

The good:
1. very knowledgable and teaches very clearly
2. nil
3. Gaves us alot of constructive feedback for our project
4. Well prepared, dedicated, goes the extra mile.
5. very helpful
6. Claudia likes to analyse the main points in our tutorials, which makes it much easier for us to grasp the
main concepts of software engineering.
7. Nil
8. Helpful, understanding.
9. clear teaching, very approachable :)
10. co-operative and pleasant
11. Summarises the whole lecture! I learnt more from her in 1 hour than the lecturer in 2 hours! she's
wonderful! Explains what we need to know clearly and she's very nice =p
12. good interaction with the class. gives a summary of the important points after every tutorial questions done.
good at explaining difficult concept.
13. very helpful. she is very good in tutoring.
14. knows the content well explains well
15. Straight forward no nonsense teaching, clear and good.
16. Straight to the point Explains clearly Flexible Friendly ... [blah blah blah]

The bad:
made some bad assumptions about the requirements of the project. [?]

The ugly:
Be less patronizing during project evaluation. It's not funny. *


*It's very funny to me!! Mwuhahahahahaha!!!

1400 km

Well, 1400.98 km logged to my iPod to be exact, since April 5th, 2007, in a total about 1 year and a half of running possibilities (1.5 mths in aconcagua, ~2 months in the alps, 2 ankle sprains, 2 after/before marathon tapering periods) . Not bad but not extremely good either. Today's scheduled speed workout turned out to be a fluke. I wanted to do 6 sets of 1 minute sprint (run as fast as I can), 1 minute jog. I don't know if it was the extreme heat (I forgot to say that I was running at 12:32 pm) or my lack of shape, but I could only muster 4 meager sets, with at least two of them me giving up on "running as fast as I can" at about 40s into the 1 minute sprint.

Running in extreme heat has several advantages. First of all, there is absolutely NOBODY on the track so you can run in your sports bra and get a tan! Secondly, you will be much much faster when you run at night because the air will be cooler and you will feel like flying. Of course, there are several drawbacks as well. One would be the fact that you have to squint your eyes to see forward, resulting in quite a dizzying effect. Secondly, as I found out today, you feel like you are running through molasses and hence your progress might be a tad slow. Lastly, when you come back to the lab you might scare random people in the elevator with your super flushed face and very messy hair. The sight of me after today's run is an experience no innocent by-stander should suffer so close after lunch.

I feel ...

like somebody took a baseball bat and hit me with it repeatedly. Boulderactive 2009 has left me incredibly tired and sapped. This year I didn't climb (alas) but only helped out and it was even more tiring than last year. This will probably be my last year helping out (and my last year competing ?)

Open Men finals were exciting as usual, harder than the previous ones, with Ben conceding and changing the ending for the last route to make it more "finishable". Other than that, had a lot of time to think and ponder. Realized that I do not like to watch people slack while other people are working (resulting in a lot o glares from my part). Realized that hard working times (and coffee!) bring people together. Realized that the road of recovery towards sticking those crimps again will be long, hard, and windy. Realized that I do not like (bordering dislike) beautiful (not handsome, but beautiful) men. They have no need to make up for lack of looks and hence are vain.

An all time mental low and high at the same time. I must've looked very downcast when the open girls were climbing because at least two people passing by yours truly's blowing station said something along the lines "never mind, there still are competitions left"... If anything, being injured and watching the girls climb* has cured me forever of the competition high and has finally sunk in the fact that, if possible, I will climb for the rest of my life. An all time high for seeing San get into the Open Women finals and do a great job of it (flash one route and finish another) plus qualify above Salfarina (albeit with an injured shoulder). WOO HOO!!!! I feel we've come a long way from the intermediate finals for Boulderactive 2007. Of course, the "we" here is purely by the osmosis probably guaranteed by the oh so many training sessions together. And not to forget Regina winning third in Intermediate Women, a very long way from the whiny spoilt chicken climber that she was when she joined the NUS team. Now, less whiny, less spoilt and definitely very very brave. Again, by osmosis, I am feeling very very proud.

*this and seeing Jensen purposely ignore a bonus tile (extra points) because it was uncomfortable and he wanted to see if he could do the route regardless of rankings.

Stuck in the lab at 10 pm

The greatest fear that I have when climbing mountains is not that I'll die and leave all my loved ones behind, but rather that I'll die and the people that rescue me and/or try to help me will find me with dirty underwear*.

a very common case once you spend more than 2 weeks away from a washing machine.

Fellas!

I passed the "FACE CREAM TEST!" (Did I just say that I passed the face cream test?!) Yup. This Sunday I grabbed my bottle (?) of the pictured face cream, and, swiftly using my right index finger, squeezed about 5cents worth of cream out of it (with my left index finger i can squeeze about 1$ at one go). Yup. Not (that much) pain, actually no pain at all if I recall correctly, just a horrible feeling of weakness. Next proposed test is to be able to make a fully closed fist with my right hand. Which. I. can't.

In other news, this weekend is packed with action from Boulderactive (alas, not taking part), which means that everything else (running, project elephant, and more importantly, WORK!!) will be put on hold. I hope it will be worth it as I know (and hope) this is my second last boulderactive ever (hopefully graduating by next year and going to live in France for everybody in singapore to come and visit, woo hoo!) This year I am setting routes for intermediate women and yet again, whistle blowing. I guess it takes a certain type (good lungs too!) to do a mindless, 3 mim repetitive action for 3 days in a row!

Pfft. Just thinking. For the amount of injuries that I have sustained, you would think that I am at least a world class climber by now. This just goes to show that will power sans talent can take you only so far.

I just can't say no, now can I?

So here's the deal. About three months ago I embarked upon an excruciating journey of liberation, leaving Elephant land, and going towards, I don't know ... the light?! in what I have since come to call Project Elephant. As any indoor activities literally make me puke (except for gym climbing/bouldering), I could not embark on this journey alone, and hence I recruited a colleague to go with me. After sharing so many twists and pushes and turns, we have also become friends (but this is another story). Anyhow, needless to say that this friend of mine enjoys yoga very very much. She has progressed from a noob (like I still am) to doing scorpion pose, crow pose, headstands (HEADSTANDS, people!!!) and almost doing handstands (HANDSTANDS, people!!!) Her utter passion for the sport (?!) has made her attend classes were i nearly broke my joints, nose and knees and furthermore to attend them with a higher frequency than me. Which brings us to last night.

So last night was my scheduled running night, in preparation for my blitz-krieg-i-wouldn't-advise-anyone-else-to-do marathon training. I was planning to run home following a smooth and known 8 km route. My plans crumbled to the ground when said friend asked me if I want to join her for yoga (ashtanga) at 8:45 pm. As i cannot obviously say no, I say yes. But then I went on to say "of course, you realize that i am making a big sacrifice in renouncing my run" (but very very happy inside because this meant that i would have to do a run on the track - and since i can't run around like a carousel elephant for 8 whole kilometers, it would have had to be halved). But then said friend (with friends like these, who needs enemies) said "Why don't you run to yoga?" Now what was I supposed to say? I don't know the route, never ran it, will not commit? I don't want to run that long? (Especially after she said "how long do you want to run for? 10-11 km?") I don't have any clothes to come back? (she would take some for me) And thus last night I ran an unknown 11-12 km route to Raffles Place (from NUS). While I had a good idea about the distance, I didn't know how the run would be. And while I do notice roads/ crossings/various buildings from the bus and can reproduce them if needed, nothing compares with pounding the asphalt like a mad ... peacocky elephant. Because you see ... the advantage of running home and in the dark is the fact that you can wear anything. So for last night I had paired my hot pink very short shorts with my yellow lime singlet. A sight for sore eyes, what can i say?

So it all went as good as it can be expected, with me occasionally scaring unsuspecting grandfathers that were just enjoying the night breeze on some bench or other... Until i got to the intersection of havelock road to some other road. That was the point until i had memorized the map, thinking that from there on i just somehow make a right and I reach the yoga place. But noo... when i got there, the right turn wasn't as obvious. So, after several traffic lights, i worked up the courage to ask some fellow runners that were waiting at one stop for the way to raffles. They seemed to be from a running group as they were wearing matching singlets. The leader (guy in front) told me the directions and i was about to thank him but then he said "or you could just follow us". Pfft! And of course, I said yes. Not only am i arrogant enough not to refuse a challenge but I am stupid enough to tackle it heads on. It's nothing more gorgeous to start sprinting at the end of your run. Because you see ... those guys were pro. And they were fast. And so I had to keep up with them. And that i did. It killed me but I did. I was right there next to the leader. Yup. Nothing gave me away. I didn't huff, i didn't puff. Except for my heart monitor. It went on beeping like mad. Beep, beep, beep beeep beeep ... My heart rate was around 170-180 bpm and my easy exercise was set to maximum 160. And these guys were not listening to music. And when I said "sorry for the beeps!" one of them replied, "nevermind, it's a distraction" ... And now comes the worst part. Your pinky-lime elephant (wearing knee guard and ankle guard on the same leg) was running through robinson quay and clarke quay and what not, which are some of the busiest eating/hanging out places in downtown Singapore. And they are packed at night. Yup. Running through the middle of it all.
The guys finally left me to die in peace when we reached boat quay and from there on I had to push myself really hard to even jog for my last 500m. To the corporatist guys that were heading into boat quay but stumbled unto red faced, sweaty, crippled, pinky-lime elephant muttering uncomprehensible things to herself in what appeared to be romanian, I apologize.

cca 11.5 km . 5:15 min/km

Milestones

Today I finally managed to spray myself with perfume using my index finger! Or otherwise put, I managed to use the perfume spray bottle with my index finger. Woo hoo! I didn't feel any pain, just the weakness and numbness one gets after trying to use a limb that was in a cast for long (I should know, I broke my right hand, TWICE! In adulthood!). I know it sounds kinda lame but it is a great great thing! Anytime soon I will be able to use the face cream bottle as well!

Today also marks the first day of my-run-during-lunch-time-on-alternate-days program (you see, I am running a marathon in 2 months and a half and I haven't trained AT ALL). Today I will run home and back because this morning on the bus i read san's message that said to bring our team singlet to school. TODAY. This is because the phone and I, we just don't click. So in appreciation of this milestone, I will be wearing my pink running shorts so watch out for big fat white girl in very pink and very short shorts leaving the Science building about 1pm today.

Today also marks the first day when I am running two OSs at the same time: MacOS and Ubuntu, woohoo! Below is the picture to prove it. Those two little creatures on the right spend their entire life mocking my work. The furry one even has the audacity to sit on my rock from the summit of Aconcagua and tell me that I could do better things with my life. That is why he has a red collar on, such that I can strangle the sucker every time he oversteps the line marked by the black monitor cable.

Stupid

Because protein enhances muscle and tissue regeneration and because well, i still am injured, and because well, milk has a high content of protein (9.3 g per 250ml serving) here am I drinking, yuck, milk. I am a bit sick of it already since I drank about 750 ml in 20 minutes or so. I wonder what milk + watermelon + apple + 2 pineapple + 1 papaya will do to my stomach. Oh, and one spicy tom yam soup as well! Suddenly I am not feeling so super smart... Stand by for updates!

From hero to zero ...

... in three weeks flat. Sometimes, there just comes a day when no amount of optimism and putting things in perspective (could've broken my ankle, injured another finger, could be smoking and fat) can sweeten the pain. Today I climbed novice routes for boulder circuits and did some 10 min ARC. While it was good and the finger for the short time that I used it behaved quite nicely, still... I can't climb with the girls anymore and not only that but I can't share in any of their routes or excitement. No amount of empathy can get you to "route talk" properly. All you gotta do is do the route, and then you can talk, share and encourage. I did try some of the moves after they moved to different walls and i cannot do them to my immense frustration. It's a terrible case of over-visualization when I know I can/could do the move and then I get to the route and bail out in the middle of it (or worse, at the beginning) because I just can't hold the tiles. The truth of the matter is that given a serious injury, you just are not there anymore. It's like you're that weak (did i ever tell you how much i dislike weaknesses?), whining person in a room full of psyched people and at some point in time you become almost invisible. It gets frustrating and painful to some extent to still have to say that you can't do this and you can't do that because of this injury that you sustained eons ago. To say nothing that the mere repetition of the words "can't" just makes me want to puke.
Top this up with the fact that now I turned all my energy on the novice girls which most obviously freaks them out and you get a very interesting me. Today I left early just to prevent myself from trying any stupid things or even worse, stalking Ely and exhausting her to death.

Bah.

His and hers

And after this, I promise, no more cooking posts. For him, pineapple fried rice (note to self: next time, maybe 3 red chili peppers is a bit too much):


For her, grab-whatever-veggie in your fridge day: broccoli with grilled chicken breast (good protein for a bad finger). Note to self: lime + black pepper is amazing!!

Claudia can cook ...

but always with a quirk. Like the time when i did cinnamon rolls with an old, deflated yeast. Or when i didn't know how much cinnamon to buy and i bought five packets and after 3 batches I still have 3 packets. Or when things go right but only for the even versions: like version 2.0, 4.0 of any dish will turn out excellent while versions 1.0, 3.0, 5.0 will be but a pale copy of the others. This week is thai cooking week chez claudia's, so if you don't hear from me or marian for a week please send somebody down to break down the door of our apartment as we are definitely dead from food poisoning.

This weekend started marvelously with a much too sour but very good and extremely spicy (by Marian) tom yam seafood with chicken soup:


Next we had mango sticky rice sans mango (couldn't find any at Fair price) but with bananas and grapes. It's very filling so we shared this portion (and I ate another portion only of sticky rice sans milk or fruits by myself the next day)



Lastly, basil minced chicken sans basil and sans wok (now my kitchen is filled with oil splash spots):



All dishes feature steamed rice sans steamer but nuked in the microwave. [Excuse the poor pictures, we were in great hurry to eat]

D2

Pronounced "DeeToo", he's going to be a very very good friend of mine from now on*. The picture doesn't do him justice though (just to show you that having a DSLR doesn't mean one can't take crappy pictures) He is wonderful and I truly like him. Almost half-way to installing the apps, but I am pretty much there. Hopefully by the time installation is over i will be able to provide a better picture. The background picture is from the summit of Dufourspitze (I hope this mac will not be a frightening experience like that one, though :) )

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB51.0073.B06
SMC Version: 1.32f8
Serial Number: W88502E91AX
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

(later edit)
Applications that i am installing (in no particular order):
[An older list of applications that marian likes/needs ; a new list coming soon here. It pays to have obsessed boyfriend!!!]
-splitconcat
-textmate
-springy
-disco
-speeddownload
-flip4mac
-office
-ntfs
-perian
-xcode
-eclipse
-stellarium
-bibdesk
-iwork
-cleanapp
-coda
-coversutra
-omnigraffle
-macfuse
-macfusion
-candybar
-xee
-skim
-yep
-macports
-latex
-dropbox
-netnewswire
-skype
-messenger
-secrets prefpane
-vlc
-the unarchiver
-delicious library
-tunnelblick (for stealing internet from starhub)
-iphoto (ongoing secondary-school-like debate with marian on which one he thinks i want to install: iphoto, aperture, lightroom :)) )

*He makes a sound similiar to R2D2's when he starts.

It's time to get a new laptop ...

We interupt this special programme to give you the latest news about the greatest (pfft) of them all, who else but me. I have been idling lately and slacking (alas) in an attempt to recuperate after the mind numbing torture of december, january and half of february. Just to see how mind numbing it was, i'll spare you the details and tell you that yesterday I ordered TWO laptops instead of one (not my fault entirely except the fact that i clicked - mindlessly - on all continue buttons until the very final screen). How low can one get, mind you, after one has missed a plane? Well, apparently there are lower thresholds than that. Thank god i didn't have enough money in my account or else I would be spending the whole weekend on ebay. So yeah, I'm getting a new laptop! Yay! I'll save the introduction from when it's delivered, but I just wanted to point out the reasons for me getting a new one. So, as the title says, it's time to get a new laptop when:

• your old one has missing keys - it happened because an unforeseen circumstance whereby i ripped the keyboard because a) it sucked, b) i had a bug, and c) marian was nagging me: I put everything back (imagine my rage) except the "3" and "backspace" key


• they keyboard on your old one sucks BIG TIME but you have no control over it since your laptop was a gift


• the DVDROM drive works once in every 5.4 tries (tested)


• when you plug in the power adapter you get zapped if you touch any metal part on your laptop (like screws) because of some isolation problem


• you are sick of covering the black spots where the paint is smudged with stickers saying "Ubuntu: Linux for human beings"


• you are so depressed over your finger injury that you harbor fantasies how you can spend all your rest time away from climbing by doing something great like programming, and hence you need a tool!


• you just got accepted in a conference and thus going to the states and think that buying a laptop is the best way to save money - although, to be honest, I couldn't possibly take marian's laptop ... I think he would die without his precious mac book pro, even for a week

Snooping is not for the faint hearted

So here I was in the MRT going somewhere when I spotted this 40-something-on-the-fat-side-white guy who was reading guess what from, yes, a Amazon Kindle! Omg I oogled and oogled him, I stretched my neck to its maximum just to see the screen and the buttons and the size of the text when all of a sudden he scratches his balls. I twitch nervously because this was not my idea of a kindle reader. Hell, i was planning to get one of those in four years or so! Then a skinny, leggy, poor (not much money to invest in garment for her short pants) girl walked by and he oogled her. I also oogled cause I was staring so much at his Kindle we were one and the same by now.

Weeeee!

Just received an email from Jensen telling me that I can climb on Monday 23!! Wohoo! First of all, I want to say that I was amazed that somebody would take the trouble to write a 1 and a half page email detailing a recovery training plan. Then I was devastated when I misread 23 March instead of 23 February! After that I had to wipe my sweaty hands because reading about the stuffs that I am allowed to do (basically just climb on easy handholds) made my palms very very sweaty. Imagine, on Monday I can climb for a total of 25 minutes. TWENTY FIVE!!!!!

I am so happy just thinking that I can move on the wall (regardless of the tiles I am holding) and just get a whiff of how it feels when climbing ... Of course, I was planning to sekretly climb on Friday after the pull-up session with Regina .. I will not do that now since Monday is only 4 days away. Needless to say that I did not climb yesterday. By their power and weight combined, San and Doris made sure that I was on the wall for about 1 minute just to warm up my fingers. Bullocks. I am becoming more and more tired of the fingerboard upstairs. I am sick of doing pull-ups with my index finger pointing to the ceiling (you should try it, it's very weird) . I guess what I want to say is that I am sick of doing pull-ups. I guess Monday's 72 pull-ups have something to do with that as well...

I set a route for the intermediate women mock-comp on Saturday but only "eye powered" it, so if the moves will be hard the ladies are welcome to kill me, pinch me, hell, feed me!! :))

The do do

Because doris' plea (hell, had it been bullying, i would not have caved in) is pretty much what keeps me from climbing even the easy novice women routes (i wonder if they will still be easy when i'll resume climbing*) I thought I would just do a little bit of research on her accidental and totally unrelated namesake. I give you, the dodo bird!

First, the name: pejorative, Some ascribe it to the Dutch word dodoor for "sluggard", but it probably is related to dodaars ("knot-arse"), referring to the knot of feathers on the hind end. According to Encarta Dictionary and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, "dodo" comes from Portuguese doudo (currently doido) meaning "fool" or "crazy".

Appearance: According to artists' renditions, the Dodo had greyish plumage, a 23-centimeter (9-inch) bill with a hooked point, very small wings, stout yellow legs, and a tuft of curly feathers high on its rear end. Dodos were very large birds, weighing about 23 kg (50 pounds). The sternum was insufficient to support flight; these ground-bound birds evolved to take advantage of an island ecosystem with no predators.
I wonder how they managed to become extinct without any predators. Maybe they all went crazy with boredom and jumped into the water.

Courage and meat: the dodo was entirely fearless of people, and this, in combination with its flightlessness, made it easy prey. However, journals are full of reports regarding the bad taste and tough meat of the dodo, while other local species such as the Red Rail were praised for their taste. It is commonly believed that the Malay sailors held the bird in high regard and killed them only to make head dressings used in religious ceremonies ... I see potential here ...


*Which will be tonite and no amount of persuasion will change that. I have spoken.

Itsy bitsy finger

why do you still hurt?


Pfft. Had the most depressing Saturday ever. Didn't go to training and hence I spent the WHOLE day in bed. Yup. I read 2 murder novels and ate a lot of junk food and chips and orange juice. And the only movement that I did was to the bathroom and back. This type of behavior is very rare for me. Hell, I can't even stand still for 10 minutes ...

Sunday I came to my senses and spent the whole day in bed again. Except that I ran 4 km in the morning and 4 km in the evening. My ankle is finally allowing me to run, so at least there is one happy point. I ran the second time because the first run was horrible after such a long time off running on a hilly terrain (and after stuffing my face with potatoes and chicken - my junk food of choice - on saturday).

Today I will go to training and probably do (a lot of) pull-ups and abs. Maybe, just maybe I will do some projecting on the novice women routes. This of course will be possible if the itsy bitsy finger doesn't hurt. At all. I am the "mature" climber here and will not be climbing to the pain (pretty horrible for me as well as I have a very high pain threshold).