absolutum dominium

pretentious title aside, this post revolves around once again, dragonboat. see, i told you that once training steps up, my soul is automatically sold to dragonboat. oh well. hey, at least my brother claims tt i look fit and buff, even if 'buff' is not exactly the kind of word i would like to describe myself. buff is just not drool-worthy. i would like to be tanned and toned. not buff.

and i look mauritian again. kanina. i have a sunglass tanline. altho fortunately for me it's not as obvious as my livestrong tanline. sigh.

anyway training yesterday was well... ok. i had an agonizing 15 minutes before training brisk walking from kallang mrt to sdba. never ever miss 1 67; it's too much stress on the heart. the 15 min waiting time, the slow bus ride, the traffic crawl at little india... such that even when you get to kallang mrt at 8.40am you still have to rush over to sdba through kallang park, and the route NEVER seems as long as when you're racing against time. ARGH. dammit why can't i have a bus that just stops right outside sdba??? grr.

oh. but i think i found the shorter route. instead of cutting through kallang park you walk down the road instead, the one tt bus 16 goes through. then you take the underpass under merdeka bridge. it should cut off about 5 min from walking i think.

anyway i survived the walk. was just on time. thank god. my heart wouldn't be able to take it if i was late. the difference between punctual and late is push-ups for the whole team.

the water today was cold. icy cold. i love icy cold water. it was calm closer to the pontoon and incredibly choppy near the benjamin sheares bridge. felt kind of heavy with the tyre. i'm frustrated with certain things right now, but i guess this is not the best platform to voice out my frustrations. all i can do is put in the best tt i can and hope tt it is enough. but i will say this: rate is inversely proportional to technique.

i know tt it's frustrating for the ones who can't catch up either. it's not an isolated thing; i know tt when i get really tired and my deltoid goes numb it's very hard to remind myself of what to do (which is why i'm grateful when people keep shouting in the boat; besides raising the spirit when we're at a low, it serves as a good reminder of what we should do). and for some like myself it's very easy to feel inferior, like you're not good enough, just coz you can't keep up. but from personal experience it's just not an overnight thing. it takes time, practice and diligence. i've learnt tt as long as you don't jia zhua (eat snake) during practice, do your best not to compromise, even if at first you can't keep up slowly but surely things will fall into place.

and i know it is frustrating to not be at your peak; to not be good enough. from 1 uncredibly lousy runner to those who feel tt way about themselves, to those with injuries, my only piece of advice is: never to lose sight of the big picture. we understand tt we should always pull our own weight in the boat; we should never let others carry our weight for us. but in the event where even if we've pushed ourselves to the max, sometimes we just cannot continue because it will result in further injury. the ultimate goal is july race. we need full strength during july race, and even if it means compromising slightly now, if it's necessary to do so in order to be 100% in july, then it must be done. there's no point in pushing oneself beyond health if it means ultimately tt you may end up ruining your body forever.

it's not worth it. tt's my personal opinion.

no matter what the obstacles are now, just remember tt july 2nd and 3rd is the ultimate goal. no matter what setbacks you (and i) may face along the way to july, nothing is as important as being 100% then. so don't be disheartened now. we are all in this together.

oh. cool-down is approx 20 min now. it's partly a result of not being able to multi-task. a bit strenuous on the muscles leh.

thurs was lucnh day! unfortunately not tt many people could join us for lunch. but we finally got pinxiu down! wahahaha. hmm. i guess this means tt if we want people to join us for lunch, we have to book them early. ok. next week i better start booking more people early. i haven't had lunch with raine yet, and lydia too. it was perfect weather for beach road, but cindy had tuition today, so we just went to marina square again. the teh-o peng there is lousy. i don't mind paying $1.30 for it, but it was too damn bloody sweet and thick. not worth the money. wahaha.

conversation topic was well... we went back to pri school/sec school antics and cny religious traditions, particularly coz our dear yirang and geoks esp were such little monsters back in pri school! haha. laughathon again. i think we made very horrible students. and we all did tt whole "but we handed up our project to you!' thing with our teachers even tho we never did and had merely passed them blanks diskettes or disks with viruses or error messaages within. OH GOSH.

i went home early to erm... 'rest' for a while. tried to run; dammit running on your heels is like mission:iimpossible for me. i realise tt even when i walk i shuffle my feet along like a duck. 'tis bad 'tis bad. sigh.

i met my bro for dinner at clementi. we had western food at tanglin halt again. it's like a tradition. then adjourned to holland village tcc. introduced him to the wonders of the tcc warm chocolate lava cake, which is really really heaven. and gastronomic sin. and we just talked and caught up on each other's lives where we left off since the last time. and he was telling me tt he didn't want to be a heartlander. he didn't want a 9-5 job, he didn't want to go home to his 5 room hdb flat and watch tv. he didn't want tt kind of life.

ironically, nor do i. i don't want a hdb flat. i want at least, a studio apartment in river valley. i don't want a nissan sunny (or i don't want a husband who drives a nissan sunny). i want my own mazda mx-5, or at least my own bmw 5-series by the time i'm 35 or 40. i want a country club membership, i want a non 9-5 job. i want to make something out of myself, something i can remember and be proud of. i don't want to be ordinary. i don't want to live a life of mediocrity. i don't want to die and be forgotten in the sands of time like so many people before me.

but i acknowledge tt i am complicated. tt i am demanding. tt i have expectations. we've discussed it. some people are heartlanders by fate, and some people are heartlanders by choice. the latter choose to be simple. to keep life simple. to find joys in simple uncomplicated things like coming back from work to a home-cooked meal, to spending time with their loved ones, to watching their fave tv show after a long day at work, etc. they're contented with what they have.

unfortunately i don't think i could ever be contented with what i have. i dream too much. WE dream too much, me and my brother. we want things from ourselves and from what is around us tt is not available at this juncture. we can't settle coz we push ourselves too much.

my brother is in a bit of a quandary coz his gf likes to keep things simple. not tt we would disparage tt because there is a beauty in simplicity, one tt sometimes i wish i could emulate because it would be easier to seek happiness through contentment, than to constantly seek some kind of meaning out of life through the kind of achievements tt i push myself towards, because the possibility of disappointment and the feeling of emptiness is always higher. but for him i know tt he will be able to reach a compromise, to discover what it is tt he really wants out of his life.

for me, maybe i'm the lucky one coz i'm single. i can afford to be headstrong, to be idealistic. to fight for whatever i want in life, to be a go-getter, to set targets for myself and to fill my life with activity so as to derive meaning out of it. as i think about it more and more, i realise tt i may never be able to settle for simplicity. it sets me up for a lot of disappointment i admit; already during down periods when i have nothing i find constructive to do i feel so unbearably empty inside, but i can never stop seeking for something more in life. i believe we were put here on earth for a reason, and i will never stop finding out what tt reason is.

i guess i won't be able to be happy with someone who's too different from me. some one who chooses to keep it simple. i guess it's class-conceit or the arrogant mindset of the bourgeosie, but i may never settle. when i stop dreaming i confront all these incompatibilities head-on, and tt alternately makes me both sadder as well as more resolved. i used to believe tt we didn't really have to look at the long-term. sometimes when you like someone, no matter how incompatible you might both be, as long as there was a mutual liking, anything could be overcome through compromise and communication. my view hasn't really changed much, but it has changed in 1 big aspect: tt is, anything can be overcome through compromise and communication, but only if tt person has a similar mindset to yours. if the mindset is completely different, compromise and communication won't even occur.

speaking of which, don't you find guy-girl relationships so much more complicated nowadays? sometimes i wish i was back to the past when things were so much simpler, where there were no layers and undercurrents. now it's so difficult to maintain a friendship with a member of the opposite sex without speculation or questions as to whether there is a physical attraction in addition to just tt 'innocent friendship'. it tires me, these questions. apart from people like my brother and a few other guys, i can't sustain friendships with guys because people talk, people question, and we get so affected by peer pressure tt we just fuck things up.

it's ok in a group, but people like me like meeting one-on-one. i enjoy doing activities with people, but when it comes to friends i value i just want to talk to them, to ask how they are, to find out about their lives, to keep in contact. and tt can only usually be done through one-on-one heart-to-heart conversations over coffee, or dinner, or a walk somewhere, or something to tt effect. the problem is tt all these one-on-one meetings are the ones tt cause the most confusion. and i am sick of it. i'm sick of the mind games, the second-guessing, the questioning and the speculation. can we just keep things simple for once?

anyway today will be a rare occasion tt i shall be home. have to sweep the garden and vacuum the floor today; father's orders. oh, and pack my room too.