Post 5km reflections

Came in 5th today. Not too good but it's experience for me. Finished in 24.27, Ryan came in about 23.40. Shows the standard difference.

Basically, made too many tactical errors in attacking and supporting. Turning was my major errors. Wasted quite abit of time on the turns, eating wash at the wrong places, letting people cut my turning. It's not that easy i guess and I'm not particularly good at races with turnings. It's a humbling experience to get totally destroyed by clever play by my juniors. A wake up call even. Have to be alert for longer races in future. Also will have to fight a train properly after the Chinese exam on the 2th Nov.

The postionings
1- Ryan
2- Lucas
3- Clifton

Have to learn to wash ride properly too. Had some difficulty finding wash to cling to. Its either i learn how to do it or be so fit to finish the race on my own. Anyway I've really learnt quite abit today and i hope i can learn from my errors. Congrats to the winners too.

Preparation for 5km sprint.

Tmr is the 5km sprint.
Learnt some funny stuff today, but wonder if it can be pulled off. Gonna have to rest well today. Out of the sun and tons of food. Tmr must fight.

Last day of school

1 year.
365 days.
8 760 hours.
525 600 minutes.
31 536 000 seconds.

Was it worth while?

slow.

Home alone till friday. I've been rushing around like a madman for the past few days because of my screwed up schedule(mostly because of the screwed up post exam act.) Wasted siao lot of money on cab fares.

Today's the worst actually. School normally ends at 240 on wednesday but they had this OCS thing all the way to 550 which gave me -20 to get to training. Hopped in a cab and reached mac at 630pm(the time everyone finishes). Went down there and chiong whatever I can. 1k rundown was timed and i didnt hit my previous timing from july timetrial.

I'm slowing down...

Think the main reason is not having extremely regular trainings in the past few weeks due to stupid reasons which i have only myself to blame and some being just totally out of my control. This has now showed its results. Seniors improving by leaps and bounds and me dropping further and further back.I need to rethink things again. Scheduling and priorities. For the coming timetrial, just whack, see how. After that then change all the things i didnt like about this post exam training period.

Cheers campaign ads

saw this on mr brown. laughed like siao also. Enjoy!
P.S- To every little thing in life! :P

Nat colours

National Colours was at Ngee Ann Poly. Had to skip a chem lecture i SOOOo wanted to attend.hahahaha yah right. Went to visit mr grandma at ghim moh before that. Haven't really seen her since primary school and it was clearly reflected in the dog's behaviour when i stepped into the house. Both the dogs don't recognise me anymore even those i have like known them since primary school. Bark bark bark bark bark...to think i used to bring it for walks somemore. It dare forget me!Spent some time playing with my baby semi korean cousin. Then left for ceremony.

Sat at the hall for like eternity till the ceremony started. Lucky there was the video to entertain us for awhile. The rest is quite standard. wear blazer,shake hand, walk, sit, eat, go home. Wonder why the school dont require us to wear blazer for sz colours. It's not like its less important or anything. It should be treated with the same importance. otc shook my hand twice....

O.o

Stunned me for awhile. Normally shake his hand like once a year.

Sam, Jeremy, me, Jori

ACS 1 : k2 500 pairing (2006)

results

I am truly blessed.

El A1: 80%
Physics:71%
Chinese: 87%
Economics:74%
Maths: 62%
Chemistry:78%

36/42 pts

Thank you for supporting me in my time of need. I am grateful.

food poisoning

Spent the whole of last night sitting outside the toilet just in case i felt like throwing up. Must be dinner. urgh feel like crap.

Aurora (Northern Lights)

gotta go see this in person some day when i can afford it.

pain.

Managed to cram 8 sessions into 5 days. That's all man. my body is uber aching. No more till tuesday. Today was 2 sets 5 km. after tosko make us redo the first set i was kinda pissed. Today didnt really follow his programme. I wanted to try other things. Which somehow involved me sprinting alot.

Really wanted to break 24 today because i felt really good. Came close twice but didnt manage to break it. It's harder than i thought it will be...Practised race plan for the second set but i think this timetrial will be a hard fight to break 24. Not enough time to get the power and the fitness. 2 more weeks?

Overall quite happy with today's performance. There were parts that required me to fight really hard and i did. And now i'm aching like siao...Have to keep up this pace till the time trial. + all the other factors that might come into play on that day itself. Must push just that bit more in this time.

...

Friggin slow now. Don't have the strength to maintain good stroking at high frequency. Rocking too much and stuff too. blisters are not helping. And it just so happens the whole world is down at macritchie today. Quite tough sprinting with so many things in mind to focus on. really thinking too much again.

Jori came down...and capped! First time i see! nahahahaaha...It's like that don't worry abt it.

:P

Went for lunch then to ryan's place for awhile to slack. Still aching.......Ryan's boat is damaged.
Nelo's are fragile objects...

training

Had a tough morning session with the seniors. They're getting stronger. I should bulk up too to keep up. Stroke wise was pretty good just lacking the fitness and the strength to pull the heavy water. Had like a 2 hr long weights session after that. Do until my arm started having spasms. That's my limit. Tried to force it but my arms wont push anymore. Too heavy...

Probably will go down later for afternoon session as well. Haven't decided yet. My hands got this blister that just burst and i can't grab stuff properly. But after awhile the pain will go away especially when your tired. So...i'll just wait till 3+ then see how.

5km time trial coming up. Hopefully can perform better than my normal 5km which is quite slow.
_____________________________________________________________________

Back from afternoon session. Did a 6 km slowly.Free program main aim was feeling. Then drills.
Helicopter,javelin, draw strokes. quite standard. Nice and easy training. Clearing the lactic for tmr. I foresee weights again

:x

This will be the tough boring long tedious period of long hard rowing and weights to bulk up. It's gonna be tough but necessary to push the timings lower. 11 months on now and the aims i written down at the end of last year is finally expired. Time to write out new ones. One of them is to improve my marathon timings( >16km) and have more consistency. Achieved most of my timings that i wanted to this year. But next year is the big year for me and i really have to push very hard now to ensure i have some record to get myself out of army to continue. Next few years will really decide if i'll be able to make it big or not. 17-19 i feel is one of the most important years to transition into full racing. I need the time to develop and i really have to push hard to have some power to decide my future. Biggest plus will probably be the junior world champs. Where there will be world class people around. Must fight hard now.

Today i also learnt about huang jiao lian's story. It casts a pretty bleak shadow on the future of this sport in singapore. But i think we've really improved alot since he first came here. All we need now is for someone to break into the finals of a major international. Gotta eat more and bulk up seriously.Everyone has their own story. How you want to write it depends on you. This is my story and i'm gonna write it whatever way i want no matter how many people think i cant make it.

Time.

Now that I've got all the time in the whole world what should i do? Think i'll just spend more time on the piano and canoe and those work i listed yesterday. And i must cycle to the airport one night. Just for the sake of doing it and to be all alone.

Just received news about white. It just left portugal yesterday morning. Means, it'll be on the ocean in a tanker sailing here for 3 weeks. Quite a disappointed to hear it just left actually. I thought it left long ago. Nevermind. Paddle should be coming soon too.

math II

Crap lah. Was having gastric doing maths II. Really cant concentrate for nuts man.Looks like i'm gonna fail my maths. Most disappointing thing is that now that im feeling better i can actually do enough of the paper to get me a relatively good overall score. But looks like it wasn't meant to be man. Next most disappointing thing is that maths is the subject i spent the most on for revision this finals.

Looks like con. camp is a possibility.I'm gonna protest if i have to. I mean u give me a new test and i'll get my 6 pts if i was feeling so crap like when i did the paper just now. Well, life's always full of this kind of nasty surprises and i'm really not amused by this particular situation whatsoever. All i can do now is pray and hope for the best. hai

Predictions worst case : 5,6,4,5,5,4= 29 Best case: 5,7,5,6,6,4= 33

40 is still a long way...apparantly im not good enough.
other stuff to do:

1. complete my chem and physics IAs.
2. File my IB 1 work nicely so i can go through them easier.
3. read through medea and hadder gabler properly to plan my IOC
4. EE
5. Tok presentation

gah.

haze

The haze is horri-gi-ble! 150 right now...throat is itching as i went to train anyway. ah...the air is bad... Left abit more of chem to do before i'm done studying. do it tmr morning lah...brain die ready. I wonder if tosko's method of studying will do wonders for my grades. Study first thing i wake up the go train in the afternoon. I hope it works or im going con camp...

FROM this point on every letter in the many sentences is directed DIRECTLY at jeremy.

I tell u ready. If i have i will tell you one. So just stop asking nonsense and wait patiently for my reply. Thank you very much. Not everyone is like 'ahem' so lucky.

:P

canoe

The haze is really getting bad. Can't even see 1k mark at macritchie. Losing my feel of the water which isn't a nice thing. Medicine has this unbelievable power to totally disregard whatever fitness i build up. But its my first day this week, so can't be helped...slowly will get it back.

The moon is supposed to be BIG and BRIGHT. But it's so small. naaaaaaaaaaaaah, moon you disappoint me. Next week will only have 2 days of school! YEEEESSh! Can relax abit. After all that study, i think it's long overdue. But then again...nevermind i just wanna feel happy now.

:)

Econs

Econs looks good! surprisingly, I think i wont do so bad this time round. Next paper will be on monday so got some time to slack.

They finished marking physics papers ready... siao... wonder how i did...

i should go row later.

2 more. :)

Ahhh..

Today's maths was quite tough. minus like 40+ marks ready. gone case. Its only paper one somemore... out of like 120. Don't feel like fighting ready. Damn demoralising... .. . . .
Then kena tekan for not wearing school jacket...wth lah...as if its a damn big deal like that.
Days like this i wish i left the school.

Today is the official end of my SL papers. Now all the siao hard ones coming. Econs I, II, Maths II and Chem I,II. Tmr econ. Havent passed any econs test to this very day.Not a good sign. Gonna mugmugmug.

Predictions for SL : 5,7,5? should have been more careful...That's 17pts. 13 more to avoid the con camp. man i'm damn stupid lah...to think i was getting 34-35 pts last year...

Dreamt i was a journalist in some war. Then this siao guy take his shotgun and starting shooting and my crew. He killed afew so we all ran to the ocean nearby. Managed to lose them but had to run to the angola border. (wonder why angola?) Then they wanted to send me back to the war because i was a illegal refugee. heartless crap! So i told them i wanted to know their names before i die. for revenge? for the sake of trying to stay alive? I dunno. Wonder what i will do if i was really in that position where my crew is getting shot with a shotgun.

...
What a day.

good luck

1 more day. Good luck :)