Madness in October

What the hell did I get myself into, by signing up for THREE 10km run, two of them just a week apart????

And almost a hundred dollar poorer too.... *sob* The running tees had better fit me lor!

And what, over 24 years old had to pay more!? No respect! Why do all things nice has the cut-off age of 24?? Wah lieu..

Note to self: STFU and start running lar!

Melancholy

Watching the sepia-tinged After Our Exile brought about a sense of melancholy in me. Surprisingly set in (early 90s?) Malaysia, I watched with amusement the two Hong Kong leads sparred in accented Cantonese that I grew up with.

The setting is working class-typical; single-storey terrace house in a tired-looking housing estate, the corner unit with sagging fence and overgrown weeds, rusty road signs, dilapidated backyard with zinc roofing and the ubiquitous yellow bas sekolah, non air-conditioned of course. Everything was so reminiscent of my childhood home in Semenyih that I was feeling a bit homesick.

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So much has changed over the years.. The boy I snogged when I was 3 is now often elbow-deep in machine grease and can hardly recognise me.. The bougainvilla that mum so lovingly tended has been chopped down to accommodate another set of shiny wheels.. The garden that was once filled with pots of desert roses is unrecognisable now.. The town even has a TESCO now.. The prodigal cousin that returned home after a stint in behind bars is selling durians now.. I wonder if the townspeople has ever looked at us and mused about the family where "all their daughters has gone off to study in Singapore"?

Happy Merdeka; sorry I was one-day late. Better late than never eh..

I Really Should....

Curb my habit of shopping online
Have normal-sized feet dammit!
Read more books and less fashion blogs
Stop being such an annoying ass of an OCD
Run more (surpass the 5km mark and not die panting)
Tell him "I love you" more
Stop being such a pessimistic ass come Sundays
Stop impulse purchases from Watsons. 'nuff said...
Should take up the course and obtain a tourist guide license
Update this blog more often. Oops. Heh

Boys Don't Cry (this takes the cake)

My One Decade Milestone

My eldest sister recently marked her 20th year of being in Singapore, having arrived here for her JC studies. 20 years ago I was a wee bonnie lad of just 8 years old! She marked this milestone by reminiscing not too fondly of mugging for her weekly tests on long torturous bus rides, of hating the lectures and tutorials and well... the general suckiness of her JC life.

June this year marked my one decade residing in Singa-land. My earliest memories of this place were of the BKE, Xiao Guilin, the crocodile farm, the zoo and the Jurong bird park. Dad first drove to Singapore when I was 7 and we would stay at an aunt's place at Bukit Batok. I played the obligatory tourist and marveled at how my Singaporean cousins can speak English so well! They in turn, were strangely amused at my family's ways of speaking Mandarin.

Dad was (still is, actually) a fervent supporter of the renowned Singapore education system. Less academically inclined compared to my older siblings, I thought I'll be spared from the system. Dad will have none of that of course, and I found myself packing to study in a local polytechnic.

The first day of school was a day after my birthday. It was orientation week and I've never felt lonelier or more out of place. I looked different, dress differently and belonged nowhere. Life was pretty much nomadic for the first 4 years or so, renting rooms from almost all corners of the island. It was easy to feel homesick and I even looked forward to the backbreaking 6 hours train ride to return home. Understandably, the decrepit railway station at Tanjong Pagar really does hold a special place to my heart.

I consider my one decade here a significant milestone because the years have defined my growth and shaped my beliefs so much that I've become a totally different person, good and otherwise. I've tasted and in turn love freedom and independence, but at the same time also wished that I wasn't just ruefully watching by the sidelines my best friends progressing on with their lives with out me.

I threw myself into my studies and the eventual career choice was really quite a pleasant surprise. And it could not have been possible had I stayed on back home. It is through this that I have the opportunity to learn from and worked with people that inspired me with their passion.

Today, I do not have much material gains and am still struggling in striving to ascend the hierarchy of needs. But I pat myself for having come such a long way, literally and figuratively. Together my rock, I look forward to many more milestones that WE will achieve.

Italy, June 2010

Our wanderlust brought us to southern Europe this year, to the land of pasta and pizza for 12 days. It was also our 'real' honeymoon, so to speak. Why just Italy, you ask, and god forbid, why go during summer?! Heh.

Hey, if we survived 46 deg C in Dubai, what is a mere 30 deg? Plus, summer days are long and this gives us the perfect opportunity to enjoy the sights at a leisurely pace. Scrambling to outrun the sun setting at 3.00pm (eek!) is no fun at all.

Our itinerary was rather unique, that we started at the north in Milano and worked our way down to the south that is Roma.

During our journey, we were treated to soaring hills near the Swiss Alps, quaint islets on misty lake, Renaissance artistry that left us in awe that we stopped snapping photos of it because it just doesn't do the details justice, sea breeze that caressed our faces while we listened to the sound of waters lapping on banks of centuries old palazzo and piazzas, the marvels of ancient Roman civilisation that is so lovingly preserved...

The Pantheon

Rilek..

Piazza Navona at dusk

Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine

Blue Grotto, Capri

Pinocchio was a Florentine

Piazza Del Campo at Siena

Look ma, I'm not that short ain't I?

Summery blooms and bees hard at work at Como

Life is.. sitting at an alfresco pizzeria and grimacing at the price tag!

Shrimp on Antidepressant Not So Happy

The oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico isn't the only threat to crustaceans.

Shrimp exposed to the human antidepressant fluoxetine, also known by the brand name Prozac, are changing their behavior in dangerous ways, according to scientists at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom.

The shrimp become five times more likely to swim toward light, potentially bringing them closer to fishermen's nets and birds beaks.

“Crustaceans are crucial to the food chain. And if shrimps’ natural behavior is being changed because of antidepressant levels in the sea, this could seriously upset the natural balance of the ecosystem,” lead researcher Alex Ford said in a university press release.

“Much of what humans consume you can detect in the water in some concentration," Ford said. "We’re a nation of coffee drinkers and there is a huge amount of caffeine found in waste water, for example. It’s no surprise that what we get from the pharmacy will also be contaminating the country’s waterways.”

Drugs can get into our waterways in a variety of ways, including toilets, landfills and sewage runoff, according to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

Traces of those drugs end up in human waste, which then gets flushed down the toilet. Waste water treatment facilities haven't traditionally tested for pharmaceuticals and therefore haven't been able to remove all drug compounds before releasing waste water into rivers and oceans.

That's how drugs end up being fed to shrimp, Ford says.

“Effluent is concentrated in river estuaries and coastal areas, which is where shrimps and other marine life live," he said.

Read the full article here here

People whom have had near death experience often reported walking in a dark tunnel going towards a shining beacon of light, presumably at the end of the tunnel. In a horribly reversed role, the light here spells the end for these crustaceans.

Isn't this a vicious cycle, that we end up consuming waste that we dispose of in the first place?

I'll never look at my hae in the same light again..