absolutum dominium

for the lack of a better title.

i feel ashamed for my lack of updates. what's the point of keeping an online diary to chronicle your life when you don't bother to use it?

anyway just a brief (well... not really) recap of the past few days... ok i correct myself. a brief recap would read like this: training. family + church. training.

saturday was training. our best friend the doughnut made its maiden appearance for the pre-july race training. and circuits kill me. as always. and on sunday i went to church for some thanksgiving mass for the novena church rcia with my parents. it was well... i tried to get my parents to renew their marriage vows since the priest offered free marriage vows renewals services, but my mom as usual played the proverbial unsentimental wet blanket and refused to go up, even tho my dad looked really excited.

oh, and there were testimonials from 2 new catholics who underwent the rcia programme. the 2nd testimonial-giver spent half an hour telling us tt the "rcia changed her life" (altho we were not given an insight into how this was made possible), and proceeded to thank the priest, the priest, her godparents, her parents, her uncles and aunts, her friends, jesus mary and joseph, all the saints etc etc etc, and from my pov it looked as if the priest had fallen asleep in his chair. no, seriously, his head was leaning on his right hand has if he were deep in thought, except his eyes looked closed. i turned to my dad and said tt nowadays even religious testimonials ought to be vetted. keep them to a min of 2 pages please.

but boy the applause at the end of the half-hour-long testimonial was resounding.

after hi-tea and mingling with the adults and hearing some of them wax lyrical about their astonishing contributions to the church and all the voluntary work tt they have done to secure their places in heaven, my dad dragged me shopping with him. he wanted to get a new phone. i wanted the sony ericsson k700i, but in the end i let him buy the snazzy nokia 7270 in place of my phone. so i gotta wait some more. sigh.

and then in true dad fashion, he asked ME to read his manual and teach him how to use his new phone. so he hands me the box and tells me to assemble the phone, charge it, learn all the functions and teach him how to use all of them. and then when i'm going through the stuff on the menu he grabs his phone back from me, fiddles around with everything, tells me he doesn't know what to do and asks me to explain everything to him, except tt:

1. i haven't even really looked at anything in the phone.
2. he refuses to hand over the phone so i can't see what he wants me to look at.

talk abt frustrating evening. and tt was after i went with him to get the phone, came home to help my mom cook dinner, and then help her wash up and sweep the floor. argh.

that was sunday.

i woke up at 5am this morning (this being monday) to sneeze. i sneezed for 10 min, blew my nose into a whole wad of tissue, and then went back to sleep hoping tt tt was the end of it.

well. i woke up again at 7am and my nose woke up with the rest of my body. oh, and for once i was awake even before my mom! wahaha.

anyway speaking of whom, i realise tt my mom has a number of facial expressions. scarily angry, sad, disappointed, the "somebody's gonna get a hurt real bad" expression... but i've never seen the sian diao expression.

till this morning, where i peek into the prayer room where she's conducting her morning prayers and she sees me awake at this godforsaken hour carrying my bag, shoebag and paddle, and she asks with wide-eyed incredubility where i am going, and i say in 1 word: "training".

anyway when i'm walking to sdba from the kallang park area, i notice tt the compound is completely empty. so i think: hey, we're prob one of the few fanatics training here on a public holiday. and tt i'm nice and early and can just nua on my own till more people come.

until i reach the entrance. and there, squatting outside (okay, more like sitting down on the curb) sdba is about 2/3 of my team, paddles and bags in tow. apparently we've been locked out coz sdba isn't even open. and i'm a little horrified coz i need the toilet, and when i tell our boss, she says with a perfectly matter-of-fact tone tt everyone else ALSO needs the toilet.

upon which i whack her on the head with my paddle.

actually, to clarify, 1) it was not the blade. it was the handle. 2) i didn't whack her very hard. 3) it was accidental. really. there were no ill-intentions at all. i just had very bad control of my paddle. yes, tt's it.

so anyway some security guard cycles up and finally opens up sdba! YESH. so you see people discreetly rushing to the toilet. heh. and then we have our run. i try to run on my heels. it works for 5 steps till i realise tt i'm too slow to get anywhere. and besides the in-labour-cannot-breathe-smoker's-lung-capacity shortness of breath, my hammies (the muscles, not the animals) and calves (the muscles, not the animals) totally act up. i love short sprints i realise, coz it seems to be the only time i can perform. but once the short sprints end my muscle aches come back with a vengeance. ARGH. it's hard not to be frustrated. thank god serene was my partner. she was such a motivation to me. the runs get longer and longer to me, painfully so. i don't know how i survive them. seeing sdba never feels SO FUCKING GOOD as after a run. really. i'm grateful to all my girls who came out to cheer for me, to spur me on, to run back with me, to offer me water and to ask if i was ok. even tho i might have been too tired to show proper appreciation, i really am grateful for the show of solidarity.

but once the hard(est) part was over for me, it was into the water. 2 small boats. with 2 tyres. well. you KNOW training has stepped up when you do the "2 small boats; 2 tyres" thing. i was in the boat with 7 people at first, and the warm-up set to benjamin sheares bridge felt so *rrraaaaarrrrggghhh*. the water felt so heavy i thought we had been rowing with a tyre... but it turns out we hadn't.

but i thought the morale for the tyre set was good. i could feel the boat i was in rowing together (the people in front of me at least; cannot see the people behind leh), could see geok and wendy (directly in front) give their all for every up 10 and up 5, could hear mona shouting "very good! yes, this is it!" from the back... and i have to admit tt was damn motivating. we should do tt more. besides "jiayou!" and all the subtle reminders to each other and ourselves, we should remember to acknowledge effort. it's very encouraging. :)

anyway yesh. training is stepping up. my arm felt like it was burning... and then feeling disappeared and it was as if i was rowing with something tt didn't belong to me. all my muscles ache. including my legs. wahaha. and i know for a fact tt all my teammates feel exactly the same way! but i think tt we're progressing. we're not race-ready yet. for one thing our strokes have room for improvement, our timing has room for improvement, and we don't have tt elusive ~chemistry~ yet... wahaha... but i'm confident tt as long as we push ourselves hard and as long as we look out for each other and keep each others interests at heart, and remember tt we should carry our own weight in the boat for the sake of each other, we'll get there. :)

i can't wait for penang race!

ooh... our trainings are getting longer and longer. think it's coz of the cool-downs and debriefs. i think we need to set aside at least 4 hours for training now like this.

and walking from sdba to the stadium to bathe, mona suggested tt i learn to cox. actually i want to leh!!! so exciting! so cool! but... i think right now i'll just do the whole circular thing. and since coxswain is spelt "c-o-x-s-w-a-i-n", i was wondering why it was pronounced "cox-son"? we ended up betting (or agreeing to bet) tt it was as usual, a david thing. he calls coxswain 'cox-son', and as a result the rest of us just stupidly follow him. and i was wondering why for the 1st year of my life as a rower i couldn't find the word 'coxson' in the dictionary.

we had lunch at millenia walk food junction. yirang was a bit quiet today. i'm glad tt she's back with us, even though she's not fully recovered and can't contribute normally. but some injuries take time to heal. i know you're very frustrated girl, but be patient. you're doing your bit by being here, contributing to team morale, helping us check our strokes and timing, etc. so don't let things get you down. and jul, if you read this, i hope you recover soon. take care of your wrist.

but anyway i digress. yirang and cindy are our original si geenas. they call it the jurong air. but we've come to realise tt the seniors have a si geena (closet) in ah ping, who seems incredibly compatible with cindy, and has been... horror of horrors, compared to david. i can't wait to see who my roommate for penang will be. fortunately for myself, i think i can room with anyone at all. just give me poker cards, and don't sleep too early.

exciting. i hope our hotel faces a beach. can watch sunset and sunrise. hahaha.

after millenia walk the nua-gang popped over to pac coffee to nua. we can't drink coffee though coz the food ban's been imposed! but we spent about 2 hours there, just talking abt training, last year's experiences, each other's siblings (i have none. sob. nothing to contribute to converation) etc.

love spending time with my teammates, both within and outside of training. i think team bonding is essential to this team for the race, because if we're not bonded, how do we trust each other enough to carry each other's weight, to have the same heart, to have tt chemistry?

contrary to popular belief, bonding isn't achieved through training alone. of course, a presence in training will def draw a team closer, but it's not just within training, but also what we do outside of it, the meals, the nua sessions, the outings, the activities etc, tt make us comfortable with each other, tt draw us closer, tt strengthen the bonds between us.

so the next time we ask for people to join us for lunch or dinner, just go ahead. it really won't kill you. and at least now you know why.

argh. i still have training tomorrow morning. i need to sleep. now.