A few kg's less, a few kg's more

I remember mentioning about that one cheesecake per week thing.

It's still on.

*Flashback...*

This morning was one of our most intense (or some might put it, "siong") training so far. A time trial of a bit more than 2.4 km I think, and then a upslope sprinting exercise. Or should I call it a (sprinting x 10) exercise.

Shagged.

But good shit it was. Really an exhilarating experience, giving your all to just sprint forward. That's why I love sprinting so much. So very much.

As for that 2.4 km time trial, I found out that the advice that our officer gave us was really useful. That it's easier to run up the slope with small but fast strides than with slow big strides. Hmm.

...

A few days ago I told Kelvin over MSN that I volunteered for the G1 Family day Karaoke session.

I can still remember his *HAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...*

I think he would've ROFL'ed even more when I told him that the song I chose was "Tui Hou" (Reversing) by Jay Chou.

And then I was told to choose a back-up song as Tui Hou was quite a new song and the karaoke version may not be available yet...

So now I'm troubled as to what to choose for my back-up song. I originally thought of "Hei Se You Mo" (Black Humour) by Jay as well but was told that I simply could not hit the high notes.

How?

I might very well choose the song only on the day itself (which is this Friday).

I had Hokkien fried noodles for dinner. And today's going to be my cheesecake day.

*rubs hairy tummy*

...

Been in a Jap drama frenzy recently... 1 Litre of Tears, Ima Ai Ni Yukimasu, Sekachuu, Nobuta, GalCircle etc...

Ima Ai Ni Yukimasu moved me quite a lot, maybe because of certain aspects of the story like the warmth of family, and also because it's a story about choice. Choice between living a long life and being loved by the one you love.

Ima Ai Ni Yukimasu, starring (left to right) Mimura, Akashi Takei (who played his role damn well!) and Hiroki Narimiya

GalCircle, hmm I watched it because of Erika Toda (again?!) and Fujiki Naohito (Aya's doctor in 1 Litre). Besides the cute girls, the drama was quite meaningful. It's a story about an ethnic Japanese cowboy (played by Fujiki), raised in Arizona, who returned to Japan to look for a girl (presumably a relative). He ended up in Shibuya in Tokyo and had encounters with various girls in the largest Gal Circle in Shibuya, called Angel Hearts. During those encounters he managed to help those girls with their personal problems due to his straightforward and honest nature. Some of the lead actresses of the drama include...

Erika Toda (of course...) who plays an underdog in the GalCir, who joined in because of her friend.

Emi Suzuki, who plays the leader of the GalCir, whom I think didn't become a leader by mere chance.

The pleasant looking Yui Aragaki, who plays an prominent member that wanted to replace the leader.

This is youth!

Well...

I shall trace back to the event which I still call the most humiliating moment in my life...

The moment when my last IPPT (Individual Physical Proficiency Test) 2.4 km run ended. The moment when I realised that given my timing, I failed the run.

It didn't hit me that hard; I actually had the mood to go for Karaoke after that... but it really got me wondering... how could I possibily fail that?

Since then I decided that I should resume my habit of jogging (ironically I became even less concerned about fitness after BMT)... but I could at most do it once a week...

Recently, however, due to certain changes which may be made in the SAF, I got the chance to join a physical training programme set up by one of our officers to prepare us for the next IPPT.

So I finally got a chance to reclaim what I've lost... the 2 chin-ups (excluding the 2 I can do now)... the PASS grade for my 2.4 km (and hopefully my best timing, 10:56), and lose what I unintentionally gained these few months: the few kilos.

There was once I got a bit depressed due to that few kilos I gained... I almost thought I would go anorexic. Almost... especially after the day when I suddenly couldn't do one single chin-up (the reason turned out to be exhaustion of my arm muscles from the badminton game the day before).

Some things happened that made me realize once again that being fat is NOT a sin.

Even so, I've got to cut down on supper... only one cheesecake per week!

OK back to the training... it's daily! And getting more intense by the week! So far we mostly jogged... around our camp area... did staircase runs up and down 22 levels (that was good shit, man!)... and... more to come in the following weeks I suppose.

And really, going back to work after washing up really made me feel like I've gone back to my JC days of daily jogging... nothing beats spending time in an air-con environment after working out good sweat!

The SAFRA Mount Faber Pool Incident

This was the very first time in my life when...

I got a cramp while swimming.

Hey it was damn painful, man! Normally my muscle cramps occur when I just woke up from bed. This time round it occured when I'm wide awake, so I learnt how scary it can be. The part that always got cramped was my calf muscle. and when it cramped, the whole thing was, like, it gave me the feeling that it was twisted to one side.

Now that I got a chance to take a look and feel it, the whole muscle was really twisted to one side, and it was like, what Max appropriately described as a "tight bundle".

I thank my God that I was not right in the middle of the pool when it happened. I was swimming near the side, and about to venture towards the middle.

Phew.

When I managed to get out of the pool clumsily, Yichuan helped me do some stretches. Good thing there were experienced people around... otherwise I would have just sat there and stared into blank space until the cramp disappeared. I mean I wouldn't have wanted to stretch it because of the pain.

And now to other stuff.

The VCD series of Nobuta Wo Produce is finally available in Tampines! Haha I wanted to watch Erika Toda (who plays Misa in Deathnote movie), that's why.

Naturally, I bought it.

And I got a new bag as well, since my current sling bag, big as it is, is tearing at the sides already.

Jyaa-ne!

"V"ery nice

Well...

I got an mp3 player for my birthday!

Haha it was a joint gift from my colleagues, who supposedly heard me saying that my previous mp3 player (the then "current" mp3 player) was of a size of 128 Mb, in a time when 1 Gb was the new norm.

So... I'm now a proud owner of the Creative Zen V Plus!

Sorry for the anticlimactic image quality, but VGA...

My player already has the silicon skin on when I took that picture. I'm "gifted" with super oily skin, you know... and the moment I touch the player's shiny black casing... finger stains appear! So I had no choice but to buy the skin, which, due to its being an "original" acessory, cost $25!

I bought a new set of earphones as well, to go with my new mp3 player! This time it's clip earphones for me as I feel a bit uncomfortable in the ear after wearing in-ear phones for too long.

Nice colour, don't you think?

Now that makes me look like SSG Kururu...

Kururu and his trademark earphones

Last Friday we had branch cohesion and we visited the Mint Toy museum. Basically it's a museum set up by a toy collector who wanted to showcase toys of the past to educate the future generation... so there we could find toys which mostly date from decades ago, and were bought by the owner (an engineer) at sky high prices!

And the Japanese at that time was already the global authority on toys... in terms of quality.

One of the things I learnt was that my current, seeming expensive hobby of figurine collection will pay off in the future!

Albeit a very far future... maybe about my grandson's generation, before the toys now will be called old. Then maybe a small Keroro figurine can fetch about... a few hundred bucks?