absolutum dominium

i love tt song by the pussycat dolls. it's called 'don't cha'. another one of my guilty pleasures after 'milkshake' and 'my neck my back'. yet another 'sex sells have hot babes prance around and shake their booty in your faces' type one-hit wonder... but unfortunately i'm finding it too catchy to ignore. esp when i am attempting to run. at least having the lead singer croon "don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" is much more preferable to my owned pained voice in my head telling me to endure.

but that is not the point of this post. the point is... well. actually there are a lot of points to this post. but the *first* point is this: i came home and just checked my email. the nus account one. and i receieved a mail tt states verbatim:

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Dear NUS Exchange Students,

You will be delighted to hear that your application for the SEP 2005/6 at the University of British Columbia is successful.

Please come to our Office to collect your acceptance package from me or my colleagues by 12 noon on Monday 6 June 2005. If you are unable to collect it by then, I will arrange to send it by post to your mailing address.

Yours Sincerely,
Calyn Ong
Registrar's Office, NUS

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YESH!!! british columbia and 1 year study break, here i come!!! woohoo.

but i'm getting ahead of myself again.

i realise tt training is the ONLY THING tt can compel me to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6.30am. nothing else can. well. except maybe back in secondary school. sometimes i don't understand myself. why i manage to drag my lazy butt out of bed even though i can't fully wake up till the jumping jacks or running bit of training. ok. admittedly the 'push-ups if you are late' punishment is a big factor.

so anyway today i was fucking tired. i couldn't sleep till 2am last night, which pissed the hell out of me coz i was tossing and turning in bed for the better part of 2 hours. and i ended up stumbling to sdba half-asleep. thank goodness for the walking company of my chick wendy, and wenya.

the running part was ugh... almost a killer. we did circuits on the track. i don't know how i managed to survive, but i did, just barely, until the run back and then my resolve just broke and i started having this major panic attack. and i don't know how it became so major since the distance is so short and i've obviously done worse, but really. it was fucking disheartening. GAAAAH. and just when i thought i was improving. sigh.

oh. but the track *really* rubbed off on us. all of us had red shirts, legs and arms. although i think i was the worst-affected, coz when i looked down at my legs and the front of my shirt, it really looked as if i had gone through severe domestic abuse or some kind of physical torture. i even heard some guy ask what we girls had gone through. you have to admit: the sight was quite... woah.

and tt was not even counting my back. the girls kept telling me tt i looked as if i had just murdered someone from the back. i knew it was going to be bad, but i didn't know HOW bad until i took off the shirt to rinse in the shower, and i was like OMG. it was so completely covered in bright red tt it looked blood-soaked. WOAH. i hope the stain can be washed off tho. tt is my all-time fave training singlet. sigh.

anyway after the horrible run (for me), we went down to row. the warm-up set wasn't tt xiong considering previous sets, but i realise tt i didn't fully recover from the run, because i found the entire set almost unbearably chuan, and i had so much difficulty breathing when i rowed. if not for the encouragements of jul my partner, geok, meiping and yirang, it would have been a lot worse for me.

in fact, i felt tt today's rowing just wasn't so good for me. as in i felt like i wasn't doing my best. i was tired more easily even though it wasn't as xiong as some other trainings, and for the life of me every time i forced myself to deliver a very good front catch, i just couldn't pull long. it wasn't a timing thing because in my opinion the timing was reasonable. it was more like somehow i still lack the strength. and it frustrates me coz it means tt everytime i don't deliver my optimum, the whole boat is affected and my teammates suffer more than they should. that is not the way to go.

ok. must get stronger faster. time trial is this sunday anyway. can't afford to panchek. ooh. but ah ping and yirang were good (if somewhat funny) motivators. during our race sets they would keep yelling commands to the back pack or the the boat... and because of all the adrenalin, ah ping sounded japanese. and yirang WAS speaking japanese. as in she was saying things in english, but with the obviously japanese accent. like "lon-gAr!" ok. tt was a bit funny.

then, as we were about to return back to sdba, the guys decided to try out a mixed set for the penang race. i'm in the mixed boat again. incidentally someone wasn't this time around. but it seems tt either a) we are placing a lot of emphasis on the mixed event; b) we expect winning to be attainable; or c) we expect a very tough fight and we want to show our best, coz the guys are sending down seniors as well as juniors this time. i found mixed rowing manageable; probably coz we're more used to the timing now, ezxcept tt i had a very bad stomach abrasion, and tt hurt.

in fact, i'm not sure how i even got a stomach abrasion in the first place! isn't tt kind of unheard of??? must be coz i have too big a spare tyre around my midriff, so when the fats rubbed against each other too much when i rowed i ended up abraiding them.

yuckz. it hurts when i shower and soap now. *sigh*

we finished off with pull-ups and the usual cool-down and debrief. talked a bit to johnny about our results and whether exchange was such a good idea. for some reason he actually think tt i might get on dean's list, but i obviously doubt it coz i haven't scored a single A, i have a C+ this sem, and us mere mortals are *nothing* next to the geniuses of law school with their ABBs and AAB type grades. i'll be happy to just get tt letter.

walked with mona (yes. i alternate between melissa and mona) to shower. spoke about a few things, like how our moms were somehow giving us both a hard time on a bad day, and later she was asking about how my dad solved his phone problem. coz last night this fucking china woman who has the hots for my dad sent him her picture as a wallpaper for his phone, and he was so panicked coz he didn't know how to remove it and he *knew* my mom would slaughter him if she saw it, so he came to me to ask me how to get rid of it. well, i managed to. but i also told her tt tt mad woman had sent my dad a whole LIST of her pics. and although i trust my dad enough to know tt he doesn't have anything going on with this woman, i don't know what kind of trick she's trying to pull. needless to say i have an absolutely bad impression of all china women.

and to update: apparently i removed the wallpaper from my dad's main display, but i didn't know tt she sent a wallpaper to his mini display too. wahaha. now i have to remove tt one too.

or maybe i should just be mean and let my mom see it. hmm.

and ARGH. i should not be made to wait for my turn to shower in the kallang toilets, coz when i get bored and high i start doing things like singing enthusiastically:

i like to moove it moove it
i like to moove it moove it
i like to moove it moove it
you like to? moove it!

and dancing around like a mad woman myself. yeesh. and it doesn't help when mona joins in too. i guess our team is ALL made up of si geenas, just to different degrees.

we went to settlers' cafe at north canal road for lunch. for the $10 student package, they provide lunch, a free flow of drinks, and unlimited access to their collection of board games from 2pm - 6pm. at first i wasn't enthusiastic coz i don't like board games and i didn't know where the hell this place was.

plus they were really short-handed when we came in. our lunch took 1 hour to arrive. and me and wendz were falling asleep on the very comfortable couches. well, except for the attempts to play 'jenga', 'uno', and finally 'taboo' with all training and race terms most scarily thrown in.

but once lunch had arrived, yirang introduced us to this board game 'zombies', and we all got totally hooked. i never laughed so much today till my cheek muscles actually hurt later when i took the bus home. we did our best to sabo each other, esp when it seemed obvious when someone was winning. we found all ways and means to sabo lydia by making her fight more zombies or by chanting for her to lose, such tt she kept complaining "what kind of teammates were we?" wahahahaha.

and then i got sabo-ed so much tt i lost and had to go back to the starting, whereupon pinxiu through sheer luck (wahaha) managed to win the game, much to yirang and wenya and wenting's dismay, coz they were only 2 to 3 squares behind her and away from winning.

by the time i got home it was almost 7. just in time for dinner. don't know why but i still feel really tired now. tomorrow i have to fulfil my otot already. no choice.