Life is a one take movie

Just feel a bit low today. One Kilkenney beer and it still did not solve the problem. And truthfully, I have only myself to blame. Anyway, its one of those days, I am bogged down by too many worries at work, I have been on panadols every other day for the last 3 weeks+, wish to not have any more instant noodles, wish for more than 3 hrs of sleep, not feeling worn down and just plain not be bothered by the fact that I am not able to respond to things I need to do.

Life is a one take movie. One of my old friend's mother passed away on Sunday. I did not manage to attend the wake. Since when did I have friends with parents who pass away? The first thing that hit me was that I am really getting old. The second thing which hit me is that I really hope she had a peaceful and fulfilled life, which I am sure she did. And when it comes to my time, what do I wish to see on my tombstone or recited at my wake? I feel very under-achieved in life and having lost so much time on useless worries.

The processor is really tired.

Social Business

Book introduction excerpt here
I bought this book over the weekend. I read it last night, the first two chapters - the prologue and the introduction, albeit having one of those incredibly exhausted days.

Muhammad Yunus is indeed a genius - a worthy receipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (together with Grameen Bank) in 2006. When the Nobel Peace prize winner was announced, I was a bit surprised to hear of this unknown man - such is the world of information and capitalism, that those worthy causes which do not generate profit and publicity does not gain much worldly attentions.

Here is a man who developed and built Grameen Bank, igniting the microcredit revolution, and at the same time, working on loans to poor women to conduct business and creating the social capability for them to lift themselves from the poor via small businesses. Loans were all less than USD 100 and yet it was capable to enable these women to be entrepreneurs and start new businesses for them to survive.

This book talks about a new idea which I found refreshing - social business. The idea of a social business is about a no profit, no dividend based business which seeks to address social issues ie. poverty, malnutrition (the example was contribution and establishment of Grameen Danone which provided yogurt to the poor in Bangladesh using a no profit scheme and at same time distribution channel of the Grameen women, enabling the poor to be part of the scheme).

The introduction itself was captivating, it addressed why World Bank, Governments, NGOs and Corporations with CSR intent was not able to address the social dilemmas but it required a new form of business called social business where these issues could be discussed.

A worthy read.

Beijing Olympics Torch Relay Fun Run - April 20

Photo credits to Hon You, from pacesetters/KC's blog site.
Pic 1 : Sieh Kok Chi, Olympic Council, with supposedly an "original torch". Everyone was quite hyped to be standing so near the "torch". Apparently Sieh ran as well...


Pic 2 : Starting line for the run...
Pic 3 : Me, with some "pia" spirit at the end, trying to speed up to potong someone...
Pic 4 : My buddy Wai Fun, also most loyal to the Olympic spirit, greeted by the samsung supporters on blades.., she is not a regular runner, but bravo to Orange Run last week and Olympic Torch Fun Run this week - great achievement...
Pic 5 : The finishing line, a bit informal but quite rah-rah as well.


Location - Dataran Merdeka, distance, around 5.82km (as seen from pacemaker blog)

This was the fun run I was not about to miss. Although it was hardly advertised and boasted a distance of only 5km - this was a good and relaxing run and also a great spiritual run for me as I uphold the Olympics as the greatest sporting arena for the modern world.

Probably two lines of strict opinionated thoughts - the Olympic Torch Relay has been to many countries and disrupted many times by pro-Tibet or human rights activists on China's stand and treatment on the Tibet issue. I am, and I think very much all whom I know still stand strong on that the Olympics is a great sport - do not mix politics with the Olympics. The effort of the athlete and also the spend on staging the greatest event for 2008, and for Asia to hold this center-stage in Beijing, this itself is a testament of the meaning of sport. I support the Olympics meaning and uphold its principles, and this was what the fun run was for. I hope the real Torch Run tomorrow will not be disrupted, and from what was advertised, we are targeting 80 key Malaysians who has contributed to sports and sponsorships to take the 16.8km Torch Relay, starting at Dataran Merdeka and ending in KLCC.

Despite a small crowd, it was very heartening to see people of all ages, young and old, take on this race, have the spirit to wave the sponsor's flags at the finishing line and also having a great simple sunday run.

Footnote - As this was just a 5km run, and also incredibly unfit, I had a first hand experience in dashing to the finishing line. I was racing this girl, for the last 50m, and we "sayur" one other lady - in the end I lost to her, I think I was running like it was 100m race - it really brought a smile to me as it was just plain fun to put on the speed and run like no tomorrow, even if it is just to the finishing line. I wish I had run a bit harder along the way, I probably missed a medal (top 20 only) by one or two minutes, finishing around 39:00 min at very easy pace.

Two Days and Two Monuments @ Sydney on April Fool's Day

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, site of fireworks every new years day...
Ah, I told you I was there for two days, this is the evidence. It was a great sunny day.

Magic turns people on....

I guess you give everyone a bit of time and put them into dinner and dance fancy dress theme, they are very creative. Magic was the theme of the simple but magical dinner and dance last Friday. Photo credits from the photographers, Kok Leong, and mostly Chin Geh (whom I stole most of this post since I could copy it).

The wardrobe was a clear winner of the best dress event. The guy who can think of the weird and unique spend as little as possible, understand what is needed to socialise his idea of best dress is definitely a smart young man.

Men who put on eyeliner or body paint deserve mention as superhuman effort to try to look good and can spend some time on it. In today's society, this is also an exception...

There was evil and tail pulling amongst even my most goodie two shoes team members. Women who smile and chooses to dress as witches are suspicious. So are good guys who can look extremely evil under camera.

There was a bit of flesh baring as well... again women held their ground with nice flat tummies and the sex appeal won the day for the best performance event with a bit of belly dancing - eh when was that magical?






Whatever turns the younger generation on.... it was a fun night!

Trailblazers Hunt 29 Mar 2008

This was the first treasure hunt for the year for our team. After announcing internally to my regular team that we should target to conquer the top 5 position this year, it was a slow start fro the treasure hunt season, thus finally in end March we got the chance to get onto this hunt. Of course the disadvantage was that the usual suspects of experts had already a few down their belt for the year, and were more fresh... and of course it was another CoC.

There were a few things at stake here, we agreed we would go for Kiwanis Hunt (which was quite expensive and some of us a bit tight on schedule), if we emerge top 15 and of course the standing promise that if we ever achieve our top 5 breakthrough I promised that after this "breakthrough", the next hunt after that I will drive my car for the hunt!

The bad news is that of course we messed up, and probably turned up more than the Kiwanis participation limit for the hunt, and did poorly in overall compared even to a team whom we know with two members who were our colleagues and were not regulars.

The good news (I'm ever optimist) is that I think we manage to break our thinking rhythm. We finally had some patience to figure out the sequence of what to be looking for and worked as a good team to find some of the answers. The only problem remains in that we had two weak areas - one was on treasures, and the other was not being careful to decipher and match the whole clue, causing us to drop a few route questions rather carelessly and figure out some of the difficult ones(!!).

So what do we need to do differently? I think we need to think about our approach clearly again, as definitely this was not good encouragement to be always hunting in the middle of the pack, and if we dont do something, nothing will improve.

One thing I noticed was how I was always told, treasure hunting is a sport. It is emphasised again and again by the experts. I do not disagree with this statement, but the beauty of this sport is that it is controlled by the brain. I know in my team, we have the capability to be the best because we have that capability within reach, whilst running a race really requires adequate conditioning of the body, conditioning of the mind was indeed more within reach than the body. But one thing I wanted to see more, in every sport, the most interesting thing is enjoyment, I do find the treasure hunt community to be a bit tight on themselves. To be honest, what is wrong about laughing about yourself or be more friendly after or before the race? Even during the race, nothing to stop you from giving the friendly competitor a bit of devilish smile. I find it odd that those who heckle the organiser are really the average joes, whilst the winners keep quiet and tense and hide their "interest".

Our time will come...

KLIM 2008 - The beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning?

Picture credits - Vincent Leong

Blogging in reverse, I admit I had a good race. My race strategy was to take it easy as I had a terrible week of being too busy, and a lack of good practice for the last few weeks except for weekly runs (thanks to our running SIG!). The most I've ran before the race was the Circuit Run #2 within the last month and the GE 20km for the last 2-3 months. In between we had some fun weeks racing in double hills. With the nasty dry cough, I was not certain I would run about a week prior to the race, and also with the week following which I had to travel to Sydney immediately after the run. In the end I did the race because I had sacrificed my sydney trip going earlier because of the run. Again, my race strategy was simple because I knew this year, the time is longer for half marathon, 3.5hrs.

Standing at the starting line, I cannot believe that after so many runs (3 KLIM half marathons!), and four half marathons last year (KLIM, GE, Penang, PJ) I had not managed to get rid of this butterflies in my stomach feeling when I step to the starting pen (kandang!).

The loop this year has changed slightly, I was disturbed by the change because after the initial loop around KL and back to the starting line in the beginning, I noticed a good 16 minutes had gone past! When I did not manage to reach the drinks station after running for 45 minutes (it was supposed to be at 5km), I started to get weary and slowed down. This was probably my mental self also checkpointing myself that I could push myself as I needed to travel later in the day. When I slowed down, before Federal Highway, PL and JS passed me.

Surprisingly TY passed me only much later, closer towards the Sungei Besi - he is a very steady runner - he paces himself well for his large build. At the Sungei Besi turn, I was shocked to find that I had approximately touched almost 1:30 something, and this was indeed bad news but my great mind thought, well I ran the extra 16 mins at the beginning. This was when I started to really slow down after 11-12 km, and did half of the remaining race half walk and run. I shuffled past two of my companie's younger guys after about 12km near Pudu, it was such a thrill I was not last!!!

Most enjoyable difference this year was indeed the Adidas rain showers at the Sultan Ismail last stretch, who cares if I had wet shorts or wet vest, it was a cool shower!!! When I made the end I was just around 3hrs, it was a disappointment for a runner to get worse year after year, but I was quite pleased with myself, nevertheless this was also a point for me to reflect - I think I want to give up the sport for next year if I go on this way. How am I every going to go for the marathon distance? I think about it and wonder if I have to get back to the basics or quit the sport.

Postscript - Tonight, I took a box and put in my half marathon finisher medal this year. I had in the box, a collection of medals from 10-21km races throughout the last two years+ when I started running. It is a great achievement, for a person who is not an athlete inborn, but every race I see great motivational people and people who want to stretch themselves, and every year, I get more of my team to join the race. Racing is a lonely sport - as you run against yourself, but one which you feel scared in the beginning, want to retire in the middle, and a great accomplishment in the end. People ask me what I think during races, this race I ran without headphones and MP3, guess what, I was just thinking of whose butt am I following. Perhaps this lack of sensible thinking is why I really enjoy myself!

What a long week!

Phew, what a long week it had been.... and I have just gotten a small fragment of time to blog, but I do think the long week will not finally end until end of day tomorrow.

The week started the beginning of last week, when I had a roller coaster week, I was doing almost 5 different things every day / different critical things and projects related areas for the week. When I reached Thursday I was almost wiped out and I had even more on Friday. This is almost when I started to control my timing for the weekend.

Saturday - AM Trailblazer treasure hunt
Sunday - AM - Ran the half-marathon at the KL International Marathon, PM boarding a overnight flight to Sydney ex Singapore (with only 3 hrs sleep on the flight and some sore legs)
Monday - AM - reached Sydney hotel with 30 mins to spare before my training starts, PM visited a university friend whom I've not seen for many years
Tuesday - AM - day started at 8am, ended at 3pm. PM - went for a whirlwind tour of Sydney from Sydney Harbour Bridge/Opera House, boarding a ferry to Darling Harbour, visited the Sydney Aquarium, then had my Krispy Kreme doughnuts for dinner, and then a bunch of concalls
Wednesday - AM - day started with post office trip to send stuff to my brother in Melbourne, and then boarded a flight back to KL ex Singapore
Thursday - AM back to work, skipped both presentations I had, did lunch with client, and another bunch of concalls, a tender opening announcement, and finally to pick up costumes for D&D and camera equipment from brother at night.
Friday - D&D

And I am so completely drained... but I survived! I am not proud of this mad schedule, in fact if anything, I think it has finally cracked my need for speed.

When I was walking towards the pier in Sydney, on a bright Tuesday afternoon, in Sydney. I was really thinking, I need to quit this rat race. I had been coughing and suffering a lack of rest for the whole almost two weeks, and when I was walking towards the pier with a coffee in hand, with no hurry, I felt the world suddenly slowed, and I was walking down a road in sydney, going to see one of the most beautiful and famous sights in Australia. Why should I not be doing this more often? And for a good afternoon, I stopped coughing.

The soul is screaming for a rest!!!!