ytd aft trg, jul n i made our way to yih. It was great, my gosh. Yea, really, its great to study aft trg. tiring, yea, i succumbed to my temptation of the koon demon[copyright of wendy], but it was just 30min. But i managed to finish wad i set out to do, and MORE.

So, e 2 of us pretended we didnt noe its yunshan's bdae coz cheez was gonna come down ltr n we'd have a small celebration for her. When we reached, she wasnt at her seat coz she went to central lib and den when she came back, she looked for her wallet but cldnt find it. Apparently she left it in cl, one of the shelves, so she went back to look for it.

Came back, she told us tt her wallet cld not be found. Almost immediately, our hearts sank. Jul n i were sitting apart frm each other; she took e seat in btwn us. We stared at each other, with the helpless look on our faces. Like, seriously..isnt it supposed to be a HAPPY birthday? Y did things have to go so wrong?? On a special day somemore? But we cldnt do anything other den to just sit and continue doing our own stuff coz we are not supposed to know its her bdae.

Received a msg frm cheez asking if we wanted dinner from clementi. She had prepared the cake to surprise her. Made up a lie by asking if she wanted dinner coz e db guys r offering to get dinner for us. So cheez finally arrived, n we lured ys out for dinner at the bench near our lockers. Nice one cheez, e tea lights as decoration and cake AND dinner. heh
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Right now, i'm not sure if they want it badly. Whats e use if I, or just a few pple want it badly? Not everyone wants it as much, from how i see the attitude tt pple r taking. If it is in giving, and the more u give, the more u feel/receive, den why arent pple giving as much? If it is a certain aspect tt u do not measure up in, den jolly well work on it! Stop e self pitying. Sometimes u just wonder if u r walking alone? Pushing alone?
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Anyway, i've just checked wenya's blog. hah, she mentioned bout 31/10/05. I didnt noe e current photo tt's on my msn is in fact e photo we took 1 yr ago. N it's only today[aft reading ur blog, wenya] tt i realised tt bc gave e sweet coz of halloween. Yah, the TP days..[in fact i also have e pic of last trg, at e dinner table, where there's this unglam shot of u opening ur mouth to eat ur food. wahahaha. *bribe*]


Top Row(Left to right): Melissa, Angeline, Weiling, Yirang, Wenya, Lydia, Me, Amy
2nd Row(Left to right): Juliana, Wendy, Isobel, Boon Chin, Zhenyi, Geok Wei, PinXiu, Chee Ling, Meiping

looking back

dragonboat trg
Wahh..i totally enjoy water trg instead of land trg man. Ok for everyone's info, we had land trg[gym trg] on tues n i dun lyk it coz we'd b pumping irons n i'm sooo worried tt i'd b big n bulky n have those muscles tt makes my arm v big n all. Yesterday was so much more fun coz we had water trg at kallang basin. This time round i chose to b a leftie instead of a rightie coz i have this presumption tt if i paddle on e right all e time, i've have an improportionate body. hahaha.

Initially i was sitting e 3rd pair frm e front n maybeline was my partner..so paddling was quite ok. And den coach asked me to change position to b pacer[ie e front paddler]coz i tink he tinks i paddle quite forcefully. Yah so i was in front n being e pacer means having to put in more force into paddling coz u r cutting e waves n e inertia experienced is much much greater. Oh n there was tiz once he asked if we believed we can try 200 strokes non-stop n u noe..it's those kinda situation where a yes or no will b unfavourable for u. Like for instance we said..'yes we believe' n he went..'ok since u all believe den u all can show me..' and if we said 'no we dun believe' he'd say 'since u dun believe i'd make u all believe tt u can do it' tt kinda thing lahh. Wahh..it was damn shiong. And it was worse coz i was wearing contact lens n e salty sea water kept splashing into my eyes n i kept having e stinging eye sensation.

Coach even arranged for his previously trained dragon boaters to compete wif us. So it was an informal race kinda thing. 4 boats lined up in a line n we were gonna do a 100m sprint..which amounted to bout 55 strokes or so. Yes..and..we won!! He said to us b4 tt..'my boat nv lose..n since i'm on tiz boat u all better not lose ah..' During e 'race' i cld really feel tt 'one soul..one spirit' kinda feeling n it was damn shiok. Everyone paddling together with one accord..n e timing by e coaxen[dun exactly noe how to spell by anyway..she's in charge of e rudder at e back of e boat]..it's too gd to b put into words.

Straight after tt we paddled back, changed into our running shoes n went for a run. And we saw tingting. Wah quite cool coz in future we'd b competing against one another for a different team. And it's motivation to train hard. After trg e seniors said they gonna do pull ups[yeh..pull ups..no joke] n asked if we wanna do also. And not surprisingly, we said 'No'..but we juz went to go kaypo a bit n watch them do. So jul n i were pretty happy standing at our spot watching them do pull ups. And tt was when boon chin literally pulled me to ask me go do. Yah i did 2 assisted pull ups. Straight after tt she pulled jul to go do..n den maybel did. It was quite fun lah..not as bad as i envisioned it to b.

Maybeline jul n i went suntec to buy ankle socks n since we realised we were running late to meet e rest for dinner at Raffles City BK, i dunnoe who initiated e idea, but in e end 3 of us were seen lyk participants of e Amazing Race. We practically ran frm suntec to raffles city. Wanrou saw jul n i running n sms-ed me to ask me wad's gg on. And we oso zoomed past allan but didnt managed to stop to have a conversation.

Long entry man..i'm quite tired. Muscles aching a little n muscles tt i didnt noe existed r aching as well. It's sum particular muscle at my back. I guess we 3 r quite set on joining db? I dunnoe..ntg's really confirmed but i kinda pledge my loyalty to db lah..i mean..it's really fun..new experience =]
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The above is the exact blog post which i posted 1 yr ago, 14/08/04. Cant get to sleep so i went to read ky's blog where we previously posted our entries. I found out that 14/08/04 is a special date, very special indeed, Coz..

tt was the day tt i officially made geoks blacklist me as being e irritating junior who'd want to switch frm rowing right, den row left.

And tt was the day where i made a decision. A 180 degree change in my decision. A decision that i never regretted. To stay. Because of the 'race set'. Funny isnt it? How something tt seems so insignificant can have had such profound significance on a person?

That was the day my butt first landed on the pacer seat. And then there was no return..

That was the day i did my first pull up. 'thanks' to boon chin.

Looking back, I see a change. Ok, maybe its not tt accurate if i judge myself, but i can feel the difference. A difference in perspective, a difference in maturity. Most definitely, we have grown up. It is a learning process. Sets u thinking.

absence makes e heart grow fonder

after trg today, i went back to sch with jul to study. yunshan was mugging there also. quite productive i muz say, within a span of 2 n a 1/2 hrs or so, i finished reading 2 chapters of my econs text. well done man!

But frankly speaking, its really tiring. If i'm not wrong i juz KO-ed for 20 min. Or was it 30min? But no, yao4 ping1 cai2 hui4 ying2! Muz pia den can win! I'm going back to study next sunday!

Went to attend Mass at 530pm. Fr J.J preached bout being witnesses of Christ and spreading the word of God, through our actions. In short, we are living examples of Christ.

Sometimes i think many pple are cursing me. Like seriously..

For instance my parents. 'Wah u got trg on sundays also? U sick still go? Exam coming ah, u still wanna go?'

I'm quite sure they are cursing the person who's behind this.

Me.

I stand firm on my decision. Maybe tt explains why i'm sneezing so often now.

Tuned in to 933fm on my way home. Guang Liang's 'Di yi ci' and den followed by Harlem Yu's 'Qing fei de yi' How apt. ok..Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Was just thinking bout dinner conversation on thurs dinner. 20 pple went for dinner and we opened 3 tables. Damn funny lah. "Leos are v hua xin[change of heart]" wenya said. Den boon chin rebutted, 'R u sure? den how can u explain y cindy only sticks to either hai xian tang or ba chor mee soup EVERYTIME?' Yah its juz a generalisation. 'Aquarius...Cancer...blah blah' Yah horoscope. I admit, my diet is very standard. It's so standard tt u probably dun even need to guess wad i'm having for dinner aft trg, coz it's e same! And yes, teh o ping.

I'm not a person who explicitly show my feelings, neither am i one who'll blog abt it. I am a private person though i'm comfortable being with people. I'm not motherly[stop saying i have motherly instincts hrmf], n i probably wont go ard saying, 'i love my gals' It's just the way i am. I'm a hard cookie. Rookie. ahahah wadever. Dun complain; Dont think; Just Do. It is the sh*t tt we go thru tt will make everyone stronger. Thurs trg was great dun u think?

Strategy #22 to get rid of bad cough: yi du gong du

I have decided to stop taking my cough syrup n juz cough it all out. Give it to me man! Cold drinks, oranges, wad have u. Stopped taking medication today n i did get slightly better. Was thinking dun suppress e cough, juz cough it all out n i'd feel better.

If it doesnt work, den i'll use another strategy. Suggestions?

coff..urgh.

its a freaking irritating cough. dry cough and its feels ticklish so i cant take in a full breath coz the tendency to cough gets greater. if-u-noe-wad-i-mean. argh. Gd thing is tt my voice is back, and it doesnt hurt when i swallow my saliva.

The 'may cause drowsiness' does indeed work on me. I just feel so sleepy aft i take the medicine. cough syrup. wahahaha. Ytd i went for e 'how to write a gd essay' talk with jul and not before long, i felt tt it was extremely difficult to keep my eyes open.

I hate coughing. to be precise, i hate e feeling of coughing badly. It just brings back bad memories of e time when i was a kid and i had this really bad cough n mum wld have to bring me to see a specialist once every 2 weeks. Yah, a sickly child i was then.

Was kinda touched by wad someone said. She mentioned, 'i realised that the more i give, the more i feel for the team' Truly, age is not an indicator of ur maturity level. Perhaps circumstances do force pple to grow up and to mature in their thinking.

Wad i feel wld be the most appropriate take home msg frm today's trg--U are much stronger than wad u think u are.

Or at least, we make u realise e hidden potential of how strong u can possibly be. How far can we push? How far can we go? Trust!

it takes me 2hrs to leave comments(stickers affixed) for 23 rowers in e team for their gym sheet.

argh i hate the feeling of falling sick. I dunnoe if its from tianjin or just yih, but aft studying ytd in yih, i actually had a sore throat. Perhaps its finally my turn to fall sick? Since everyone who came back from tianjin has ald fallen sick.

My throat's hurting with every saliva tt i swallow. I cldnt breathe as regularly aft gym but i felt like it wasnt too bad, so i pushed on with the run. Yirang was my voice box coz it hurt when i shout. Thanks gal! throat feels like its suffering from abrasion.

Well in the end i still shouted. 'U all better jolly well count tgt!!'

I will recover fast.

Head-in-the-cloud ideas by someone. "We need engineers. Science. The physics of rowing.." *insider's joke*

interesting~

smth i learnt in econs lect last fri. This lecturer teaching marcoeconomics is really quite funny. ok not funny funny, its that kinda witty funny.

If u've taken A level economics, u'd know a lil bout govt spending to boost the economy during a recession. Coz govt spends, then thru a multiplier effect, will cause the Aggregate Demand to increase.

This is wad my lecturer said," to increase AD there must be an increase in govt spending. even if they have no $ to spend, let them have pple dig holes in roads n then fill them up again. In fact i highly suspect tt's wad e govt is doing now. If u look ard u, havent u notice that there's alot of construction workers pulling down the walls at the hdb flats, den re-painting it over and over?"

The very day i went home, i observed. Yah maybe my lecturer was right. A lil eccentric but it cld be true. There are pple drilling and dunnoe wad their doing but since last yr, they've been drilling to put barriers, den now they r taking them off. I seriously dunnoe wad they r doing, perhaps its e govt injecting $ into the economy so S'pore dont slip into a recession?

Sociology is another subject tt interest me. the lecture on religion. very interesting indeed. ok it challenged the whole notion of religion. it says that ultimately, it'll be the religion of society.

For today's Mass, wad was preached was how to reconcile secularism and to be religious. There's no in between. How to stay firm to ur beliefs in a secular world? How apt.

clueless

yea i'm clueless bout wad to blog abt.

i juz woke up from a 3hrs nap. Declare officially tt sunday is my rest day cum build up latent energy day. After coming back from church, i simply recharge and take a good long nap. Frankly, this sem i havent been taking any naps in the weekdays, or saturdays. Naps are such luxuries and it nv exceeds 20min. It'll just be laying my head on the yih table n resting, den aft which i'll wake up and pia again.

Basically bring forward all the tiredness and recharge in a 3hrs nap on sunday. ahhhhh. nice.

trg ytd..hmm. cin was naughty, gave me abrasion near on my left thumb. was shuffling between 2 small boats, observing..pacing. Back to pacer seat, it felt all too familiar. argh, same mistake came back when i sit in front. it was naturally corrected when i sat behind. Y the difference now?

ps: fc is not Fabulous Cheez. wahahahahh. but cheeling, u r fabulous lah. :]

conclusions

i've concluded tt..

-my butt is allergic to reservoir water. First it was MacRitchie, den it's Bedok.

-if i choose to dress up on non-trg days, the instant thing that people will ask is, 'u going out with fc later ah?' or 'wah cindy now very girl hor?'

-_-"

for the past 2 sems when i dressed the same, it wld be 'woah cindy, for a person frm fac of science, u dress up quite well'

-when i dont smile, people are VERY afraid of me.

-others think i look very different from last time[sec sch] compared to now. which i personally dun think so

Just some random conclusions tt i feel like blogging, not much actually.

i dun quite know wad to blog actually.

till i have the time to blog again, den i'll do so.

2 races down, 1 more to go.

10 pics

My room mate[Yuen Ching] and I. P:S i did not bully her, ie make her do push ups.

The 3 of us doing stunt at Tiananmen Square. Yeh, Come on let's Kungfu Fighting, HUR! *poseur*

The imfamous 'I'm your father!' pose.

NUS girls and NTU guys. Btw, check out our pose. Isnt it familiar? The flex muscle pose..hmm

Bing1 Tang2 Hu2 Lu2--a crazy addiction

Race site: Tang2 Gu3

In Penang it was a minimart, in Tianjin its a bian li shang dian[convenience stall] We got our mineral water supply from here

Something I felt was worth TP-ing. Guo Da[not long zhou] but Guo Da Yao Fang

Zhenyi getting the airbrush tatoo on her neck

Didnt make it into the finals but for made it into placing category. It is the equivalent of a Regatta plate finals

Tianjin

ok where shd i start?

I know..

Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn turn....Come on let's kungfu fighting! HUR!
[insiders joke]

Lots to say, but i shall be brief. Many photos, but i'll limit to posting 10.

Our adventure to tianjin all began at the airport. No wait, it was when my whole family decided to send me off by walking me down to the bus stop where grace's dad was waiting to drive e jurong pple to the airport. Got so drama or not? Yah, whole family. dad, mum and bro.

Airport
only when we finished bubble-wrapping e 1st 12 paddles did we realise tt chee hong had prepared 2 paddle bags for us. *diaoz* 5 guys came down to send us off, quite nice of them.

Food:
Other than the 1st day's lunch, the other days it was prepared in buffet style. it sounds nice, but, hmm..the food is too salty. No enticing continental breakfast but i can live with that. If you think the food is bad, then u havent seen the toilet, obviously. Shant elaborate on that point.

We had debrief every night at room 811. Chee Hong and Sean's room. Talk abt being high tech. we watched a video clip each night to evaluate our day's performance, ie for test water and for the race day itself. Almost all debrief session, someone wld say he'll make it short but in the end it stretched to 2hrs...who huh? N then there was another someone who juz totally blabber bout smth completely opposite of wad i said initially, leaving a very constipated look on my face[according to wenya] Like seriously..

There was ample time for RnR. On the 1st day, we went to this place[i still cant remember the name] and the lao ren[geoks, bc, zhenyi, grace, jul n i] went shopping and our agenda was mainly to eat. Talk abt the craze over bing tang hu lu.. Named ourselves lao ren coz we r no longer like the younger ones whose agenda wld be to buy loads of stuff. Somehow we chanced upon an airbrush tatoo stall and decided, 'Hey let's get a tatoo!' Wad started out to be the 6 of us tatoo-ing a dragon on our necks[lefties tatoo left while righties tatoo right] turned out to be a team affair. We pulled everyone to do it. Looked damn cool with the tatoo! Ok, the not-so-cool part was having to endure the process.

Race day:
water was really cold. The wind was very strong towards our last race set, the placing event. Felt so cold when u r wearing the trg jersey. Bc n i finally understood how jack and rose can die in the show Titanic. Yah, freeze to death. Our warm up drew plenty of attention, as usual. Main thing was to focus and not get distracted.

Was a very demoralising 1st set. e 2nd set was much better, timing and coordination wise. the reason we lost out was coz according to IDBF rules, you can only sit to row. We follow the rules. However, standing stroke orginated frm china, and we were up against 2 teams, both china teams and they stood up to row. Of course, this race is organised by china, so obviously standing to row is permitted. tears shed aft the set. I stayed strong..we had no reason to be crying. 3rd set was the placing event. 'hey, we got ntg to lose. let's just be steady and row a gd set alright?' i said.

You juz know its a gd set when u hear all the beastly cries[angeline] frm the back, the front, the 'kiyah!'[yirang], 'shang!!'[boon chin],'lai..steady'[myself] the resounding '7,8,9,10..STRETCH OUT!'[whole boat] To put it in chee hong's exact words, 'its the feeling tt u snrs havent felt for quite a long time ald rite?' N yes, its the feeling that keeps you wanting to come back for more. But, it's juz the tip of the iceberg, definitely. We came in 2nd for the placing event. Came up, had a debrief for tt set. Critical success factor no. 3: guy being so touched tt he was teary eyed and saying, 'Now i understand how u girls work'

Truly, wad matters more? A gd set but dun win, or being so blinded abt e thought of winning tt u forget wad matters most.

There's always room for improvement. One must never grow too complacent to think tt this is it. Truly, there exist a thin line btwn confidence and complacency. This is only the beginning.

I leave u with 10 pictures.

Oh crap, photobucket is not cooperating. so i'd post e pics another time.

Things i learnt during the trip:
-DB guo hai
-fuzzy wuzzy bear likes..
-wad can u bring to a picnic?
-hei zi ma[wah], bai zi ma[wah wah]
-hei zi ma[hur], bai zi ma[hur hur]
-tt the team imitates the way i luff. ie 'hur hur hur'
-tt sean noticed tt i havent been smiling so much compared to b4, n den the team starts to make me smile by bursting out in 'hur hur hur'. -_-"

the list goes on.