Mei Hoe hurried me home from her mum-in-law’s wake. I was quite worried that her husband would have to stay awake by himself. When she told me that outsiders should not stay behind, I felt like telling her that I was already half her god son and thus should not be considered as outsider. I left at around 1am and walked very fast that it took me only nearly twenty minutes to reach home.
I took my supper, which was the leftover curry, together with bread. I was very tired and went to bed at 3am.
I woke up after 9am and went to the office two hours later. I did fourteen chin-ups, which was one less than the day before. I was alone in the office and felt very tired throughout. I was not sure if it was due to the melatonin or my own health. I was working on the tuition agency’s administration pages before Jingkun came over and we had a long chat.
I reached home at 8.30pm and fed Lucky before taking dinner and continuing with my work. Lucky disturbed me as usual.
I worked through my new website and went to bed at 8am. I woke up at 3pm to continue with my work.
In the evening, I was planning to go down to the gym after missing it for a week but my younger brother called and we decided to go over to Amara Hotel for dinner together with mum. I went down to find my mum before we crossed over the road together. I saw my younger brother going up the escalator sneakily and we thought he was trying to play hide-and-seek with us. My mum dragged me to the lifts. In the end, my younger brother explained that he was trying to look around and not trying anything funny.
He bought a set meal from the Hong Kong food stall and my mum got her Thai food, which was pathetically little in quality. I had a Korean chicken set and it was rather costly. After the dinner, we shared a bowl of sea cucumber dessert. We finished the 7pm Taiwanese show “Love” before leaving the food court.
At night, I went jogging with my younger brother at the third storey and completed seven rounds in an area smaller than my usual route. I was surprised that I was still able to do eighteen chin-ups when my entire body was weak.
Jade messaged me in MSN and I reminded her to remind me to sleep early, and thus I went to sleep after 3am right after she went offline.
I woke up before 9am and continued to lie around the bed. My mum made half boiled eggs, bread and milo for my breakfast. I went to the gym at 11am and that was one of the earliest times I went. I felt bad for not going down for the past four days when I was too engrossed with my work even though I did not make much progress. I was completely ruled by my sleepiness and almost blackout in the gym. After the workout I struggled on the chin-up bar for twenty pulls.
The bank salesman came over to settle Tze Khit’s credit card transaction. After that, we left the gym together with his friend. It was drizzling and thus he decided to dine at the new Japanese restaurant along the way, which was just a few metres away. They dragged me in but I did not take anything since I might be meeting Regina with her friend soon. When Regina finally replied me after 1am, I asked her what time she could make it to Vivocity and she replied a single word “soon”. I quickly rushed home and washed up.
I reached the destination at around 2pm and started walking around Daiso. I paid a visit to the pet shop and finally the arcade before I went to the concert area to boot up my laptop where the internet connection was slow. Nothing much could be done.
After 3pm, Regina finally SMSed me that she had reached but her replies were far too weird. I went down to find her at Toastbox and she treated me transparently. Together with her friend, we went to the Burger King in the most awkward atmosphere I had ever encountered, just like best friends turning into strangers out of a sudden. I knew it was a wrong choice to go out but I never knew what was going on.
We found a table at the Burger King immediately. She dragged her friend along to get food without saying anything to me. I lost my appetite. When they returned, she finally spoke up and asked me why I did not go and get my food but I merely shook my head. Her friend began to astonish me with his outspoken character, being creative and blunt, he had endless examples to compare things, and sometimes quite offensive. I was quite amazed with some of his jokes in my lostness and sleepiness. Sitting right opposite them, I felt awkward when Regina was far too quiet and thus I kept my eyes at the next table at the kids.
After eating, Regina started taking her work out. I thought she was going to start doing her revision the entire day there until her friend discouraged her. When he started asking her to choose over going to his or her house, I was quite stunned until he told me they were friends since primary six. His suggestion to catch a movie stunned me once again for I thought he was going to revise with her together after our lunch or meet-up. I finally got a chance to ask him what was wrong with Regina when we were at the toilet, and he assured me that she was quiet for she did not want him to bully her more. So much for his crappy jokes, I thought it was true, but still, she behaved far too weird.
As we walked around the shopping mall, her friend pulled her hair and held them in the most annoying way often. Whenever he put his hand over her shoulder, she snapped the fingers away immediately but she did not look angry at all. I was amazed over her tolerance and their closeness. When he mentioned about how lousy her boyfriend was, I was totally lost for I thought she was just having a weird hard crush on a wrong person but was still in the safe zone. I did not try to correct him since he definitely knew more than me and it seemed that I did not have any reason to talk.
They planned to go to Sengkang and I had no idea what they had in mind but I remembered her crush was staying there. It was totally not a good idea to join them since things were going too weird for me and that I had many work on hand, moreover, I was going to view dog with my younger brother in the evening.
We stopped by the Candy Empire where she hesitated over getting some candies. I had a hard time resisting myself to tell her to grab them all. Her friend solved her problem by asking her to look at her wallet to see what she could afford. The shop was a good babe attraction.
When they were entering the train’s entrance, I bid them goodbye. As they were going down the escalator, he was still pulling her hair and I saluted to her tolerance once again.
After reaching home at around 5pm, my mum packeted dinner for me and I dozed off while waiting for my younger brother to return. He got home around two hours later to tell me and we waited for a while for the seller to send the dogs’ pictures over. As the seller was too demanding over the ugly dogs, we decided not to give up the viewing with our budget.
I started working on Bianhong’s photos. Though my mind was still filled with blankness from the day’s weird encounter, I was able to make good progress with the design work.
I started the day editing the photos taken at Gold’s Gym a month ago to resize and add watermark to them. I made several mistakes when using the automation function of PhotoShop and thus, lots of time was wasted with the hundreds megabyte size of photos. Meanwhile, I also chatted with Vanessa and went to bed before 5am, after sorting out the photos.
My mum woke me up to ask me if I wanted to have half boiled eggs again but I dozed off soon after that and she left the house without checking if I was alive. I woke up at 2pm and quickly filled the two eggs into my stomach.
My mum returned not long later and saw the cold milo on the table. I had problem chewing the fried rice she cooked for lunch for my stomach was not empty.
I went to the gym in the evening and Bobby had brought his cute daughter down because she had injured her eye and he wanted to take care of her. He showed me how pampered the little princess of his was. Andrew went down too and we had some chats over my non-profit websites. After the end of the day one training session, I climbed onto the chin-up bar and was surprised that I could still do twenty times.
After working out, I stayed behind to play with Bobby’s princess as Bobby guided Le Tian on his training. Bobby shared his views on money-making before the four of us left together.
I reached home at around 10pm and quickly took my dinner. Meanwhile, I uploaded the photos for Gold’s Gym’s Facebook fan page. While waiting for Jade’s usual ultra slow replies in MSN, I gave up and went to bathe after 11pm.
I broke my record and went to sleep at 3am. Nevertheless, it was not easy to doze off. I woke up after noon and had lunch with my family at the coffee shop near block 7. It was taken over and managed by Food Loft. It was an interesting meal with the old drinks stall helper who screamed loudly over to the drinks stall in her high pitch whenever someone ordered a drink. The girl sitting over at the next table was quite cute.
After the brunch, I went to the gym straight away even though I noticed that I did not bring my water bottle along. It was a slacking Saturday and I wasted lots of time hanging around due to my stomach not giving me face again. After going to the toilet, I rested for a while before resuming my second training of the week. The four sets of pulls-up dropped from 15 to 12, followed by 10 and 8. After the workout, I had some usual nonsensical jokes of his old experience from Bobby together with Shaohui.
I had a very restless evening. My elder brother played Condition Zero with me for a couple of hours.
Yesterday morning, my bag was heavier than usual with my sports gears. I did my second set of chin-up for the week and had less two pulls than the previous day. Soon after I got back to the office, boss asked everyone to go down to carry some flip chart up and I was almost killed.
Lunch was quite frustrating for we planned to go to Bukit Timah food centre but Dorothy insisted to go to West Coast, and thus, we had some debate and almost had to go in separate ways. In the end, we overrode the opposition’s rule.
There was one western food stall sticking the “no western food available for the time being” notification and another one told me they were not ready yet. Luckily, there was a third stall. I had a plate of chicken cutlet and it was one of the softest cutlets I had ever taken. My stomach was further filled by the extra food ordered by them.
After lunch, Jingkun and I took Dorothy’s car towards Dunern Road to get some pastries, while the rest took Daniel’s car to get egg tarts at somewhere nearby. It started drizzling and the rain came down big on the way back to campus. I was very stunned to witness that Dorothy’s car’s front glass was so foggy that we could hardly see far under the rain. It was not long before I started to get dizzy. There was this little fear within me somehow.
Kumar and Alif were both inside the staff room. Kumar started making prank call to Salim and we had a good laugh over it. I checked the timetable and realized the lab was empty, and thus I packed up to open it for them. That was a good deed from me for the rest of their classmates started coming in soon, drenched by the heavy rain. They announced Bukit Timah was badly flooded.
I stayed inside the lab until after 6pm when everyone had finally left. I left the staff room together with my two bosses and got to hear interesting stories from them on the way down.
Kachua, Mingfa and I started off the evening by squeezing into Wilson’s car to watch the channel 8 show. It was our plan to not set up the volleyball net for the Filipinos who had been taking it for granted. However, Weitat arrived with Tony, Gin and Eugene and they went into the hall straight away, and thus we followed suit. We simply sat by the side and our plan worked.
This evening, there were fewer people, however, my side, together with two uncles, was enough to form two teams. They played seriously. I only got to play in the third game. My team was generally weaker than others and in my last game, it was worst. However, being “one of the star players”, I played serious and intensively with the Filipinos. Quanru uncle and his wife started asking why I played better than usual for the night. In fact, my legs were giving ways throughout the evening and I was simply testing my limits.
After volleyball, we sat by the side to cool down, leaving the court to the Filipinos again and our tactic worked. They tore down the net. I felt it was not a very tactical move since it appeared that we were the slackers.
Mingfa and Jingkun left earliest. The rest of us planned to go to Commonwealth for wantan noodle but Mr Peh invited us to join him near the Clementi MRT. After we got there, Mr Peh arrived with the Filipinos and I was quite “sian”.
I started off yesterday morning in great delight. I met the cute QA students and Julian kept me entertained throughout the way from Clementi MRT station to the campus. Another great thing was to witness the bus driver going down to help the wheel-chaired student up the bus. Great people made life beautiful.
I proceeded straight to the chin-up bar for the first time this week and managed to complete another set of 12 pulls. I did not know I could do it since my entire body was still weak from the body checkup the day before. I did not expect Chi Chiang to witness my pathetic struggle in my bag containing the laptop.
I went for early lunch with Jingkun. His timetable was quite different from the rest and I was not bothered for the day. We went to West Coast together and even though we chatted quite a lot, we actually took shorter time than usual.
I found myself a normal classroom to avoid all the noises and especially the freezing air-conditioner. Having spent the afternoon with the new project and some aliasing of work, until four plus, Weiming asked me to help him to close the lab. I ended up debugging PHP codes for them and suddenly, Weitat called me to inform me there was a meeting going on.
I was very late for the meeting and when I opened the door, the big bosses were around to give me a shock.
My plan to stay a healthy lifestyle by jogging on at least every Saturday evening did not sustain after two weeks of trying.
The route to my beautiful destination, Marina Barrage, was far too polluted by all the construction works. This discouraging fact, of course, was not the prime factor, but time was.
I loved girls-watching but I could control my eyes if anyone worthy wanted me to keep my eyes off them. This was one of the reasons I hesitated to go down to the Barrage again.
This day, I had exerted myself at the chin-up bars with Rachael, Amanda, Andy and Alvin, doing a maximum of twelve pulls with two fingers from each hand. I could have done better since I did not do any set on the day before. In the end, I almost failed to jerk my waist up to the top of the bar. When they requested me to do again, I knew I was helpless.
“Gone with the wind, to a faraway place, pushing my lungs further.”
Taking my sore throat and coughing lungs along, I made the move to have my jog again with my head a little spinning like as if I was going to run a fever soon. Somehow, my phone’s memory card gave me problems and I could not play mp3 on the way. My numbed body and brain allowed me to pace faster than before.
At the junction near the club house, I went straight and turned right to the Marina South Pier instead of turning left towards Marina Barrage. I took around 17 minutes from Singapore Conference Hall to reach my destination.
The stairs were crowded with smokers and cigarette butts were all around. It was different from months ago when I last went over. I did not rest for long before I proceeded home as the darkness was overwhelming the sky. I took another 19 minutes to go back.
Sweating out was good enough to relieve stress but not sadness.
I finally got to play volleyball again, missing the previous week’s session due to my FYP meeting.
I was utterly wrecked even before the game because of the ultimate lack of sleep and my two continuous days of chin-ups before reporting to the office in the morning. I totally sucked at chin-ups already, being only able to struggle to get the count of ten with the laptop inside my bag.
Mingfa came down earlier to meet Weitat and I. After we went to Weitat’s house to get his stuffs, we went to IMM to join up with Kachua. Dinner was the Ah Mei café’s roti prata with their iced milk tea. We walked around for a while before going back to the campus for the game.
We had another team, Sports Right, coming down and thus it was more crowded than usual. We had to take turns to play and I could only get to play four sets in total. I was totally exhausted after my first game. When the ball went very high, my head was spinning. My entire body was weak and both my shoulders were aching. My leg almost cramped. But at least, I was quite satisfied with my overall performance. My team played calmly until the last game. Wilson did extremely well.
I was lucky that Kachua was around and he sent me home.
In the morning when I decided to take my own sweet time and eat before going down to Boon Lay Drive to meet up with Jolee, I received a call from Francis at 11am. He told me Jolee would be going down only at 2pm and he wanted me to go and take the keys from James at the office.
At first I thought Jolee was doing it on purpose but she was actually sick. I knew well I needed not rush myself like usual. But when I got to the office, Francis seemed shocked and told me James was at the show flat already. Then he told me that there were many walk-in clients and James could not handle it.
At first I felt heaven was unfair but later, I realised it was a crap. I would not rush down specially to get those free money and I felt it was quite an insult to treat me like a fool. Instead of taking train down there, I took a longer way to take the bus to office and then had to walk a much longer distance to the MRT station, which was so stupid.
James passed the keys over to me and I was alone until Alvin arrived. Jolee reached at 2pm and she started teaching me things. In the late afternoon, she even went out specially just to get me packet rice and also a packet of lime juice for she claimed that I needed vitamin C badly for my dried skin; the skin on my face was peeling off badly.
I received a call from Kelly later and it was viewing again. Jolee and I walked to Jurong Point together and later, I dozed off immediately on the train. I walked from Ang Mo Kio MRT station to block 554 and was quite disappointed to realise it was a walk-up again. Then, I waited at the fourth storey for Royston to come. I was surprised that he did not introduce the flat to his clients. Then he explained he had told them to choose one out of the five JTC houses he was showing them to.
Living room and common room
Master bedroom, attached bathroom and storeroom
Kitchen
Common bathroom
At around 8.10pm, Kelly called me and she sounded quite irritated. I realised I forgot to call the co-broke agent for I thought he would call me when he arrived. He was waiting downstairs instead. I was quite lost after that and thus did not say much. It was also the first time I went to that flat and I did not even know the estimated valuation. I guessed that viewing was a disaster and probably a waste of my effort.
After reaching home, I went straight to see Uncle Sam. I wanted to go for a jog but was worried that James might come anytime to get the Boon Lay Drive keys from me. As it was getting late, I gave him a call and he told me he would not be coming over as promised, and that the next duty personnel would collect it from me. I thought he should at least inform me of the changes.
So, I went down for a job after at least more than four months of slacking. I went to the pull up bars with my whole body so exhausted by the beach volleyball games and swim. The muscles on my arms were aching badly but I was still able to do fifteen chin-ups with struggle. Then, I started jogging and knew it from start that I was not capable of doing anything good. It was the worst of my timing as expected, reaching to 15’41 for just six rounds.
My elder brother bought a door pull-up bar for nearly $30. It was extendable and both sides had to be screwed into the frame of the door.
I was not sure how strong it was and I doubted the firmness of the wall.
It seemed to be able to maintain even my elder brother’s weight for now and it had also held me in the air for seventeen pull-ups but with great fears.
I must admit I am really a coward now because I cannot afford to fall even from that low height. Ever since after the operation, my left ankle has been failing me, or perhaps it is me who has been failing it. After a few volleyball games where I repeatedly strained it, I get so depressed of my recovery.
Even though I had fallen asleep so early at around eleven that I had missed my show "康熙微服私访记", it didn't help me to get up on time. I remembered pressing down the alarm clock's button myself, so it wasn't the clock or anyone else's fault. Logically, it wasn't a surprise that I'd oversleep since I hadn't ad enough rest for the past few weeks; the previous days were just pure luck that I could get up on time for camp.
I took the first shuttle bus, changed and rushed to 2SIG parade square. I was late of course but still eligible for the test. It was great to have Kim Hock, Sam, Wah Chuan and other friends around. The organisers were smart to put us into the same detail, forming in total four details.
Chin-ups were easy for me as usual, but I seemed to be too arrogant that I lifted myself too high at chest level. I was just stupid but not so bad that I had stopped at twelve casually. Next was shuttle run, which I still didn't dare to "jam brake", but still managed to get 9.8 seconds. Sit-up was tiring for me that I had to pause at thirty-eight and then complete another four. We proceeded to standing-board jump and I was teased after removing my spectacle because I took quite long to find the starting line which was actually quite tough to locate since the mate itself was black as well. I made the first try of over two hundreds and fifty centimetres. I didn't take off smoothly and I didn't know the requirement to score perfect, therefore I wanted to go for another try and ended up being teased again since I had already scored the five points.
Kim Hock impressed me. He wasn't good in his jump but his perseverance was remarkable. He didn't want to give up after the fourth try. I didn't expect him to get his ideal score since his energy was most probably drained up. His greatness was a motivation to strife hard and it drove my spirit high.
Unfortunately I couldn't do a good job in the 2.4km run. I wasn't a good runner ever since after the college days and my injuries had dragged me down on my stamina so much. So, I could only get the silver award.
It was after the disappointing test, I experienced bad pain when I tried to climb up stairs. I had another 2.4km run during the afternoon for the Healthy Lifestyle, after which even climbing down the stairs hurt my knees, especially the right one.
