army half marathon 2009

woke up at 340 am. ate banana nut crunch with milk for my breakfast. went to toilet to shit, get changed and quickly went downstairs to wait for my friend to come and pick me up.

started to run at 530 am. the pace was good. me and my friend ran at 6 minutes per km. but at 7 plus km, which was at east coast park, i lost him because he went to shit. and so i was on my own throughout the rest of the race. :(

at 18 km my legs start to gave away. had severe cramps at my thighs. and after that at my calves. cant even run. i dun even dare to stop to stretch. so i just walk the remaining 3 km, and finished the whole 21 km in 2 hours 12 minutes 20 seconds. my legs were cramping so bad that at the last 20 metres i wanna make a dash to the finishing line to mark a grand finale but the moment i open up my legs i feel a sharp pain and have to walk again. haiz so 遗憾. i am going to run again next year!!! and i am going to train hard so that i wun have cramps for the last 3 km!

the morale-boosting performances throughout the run was not bad! got pple dress up as transformers which i think is quite comical. some runners even stop running to take pictures with them. AND THERE IS A SMALL GROUP OF CHIO SEXY BELLY DANCERS. they are at the 19 km mark. i was already having cramps, so this give me sufficient reason to walk slowly and watch their performance. hahahahaha.

and at the 20 km mark, one uncle jog past me and encourage me to persevere on and even ask me to follow him and finish the run with him. i was so touched and asked him to go ahead cos i seriously cant run anymore.

collected my finisher's medal and went to the big grass area to look for leow chee leong and my pe classmates. but the first person i saw was MAJ Joshua. so we catch up a bit and shortly later mr leow found me. and its a good thing that he found me, cos he can be my cameraman!!! hahahaha. this kind of occasion of course must take picture.

we walked to bugis to have a celebration meal. as it was still quite early, most of the restaurants were still not open. dun feel like eating mac or bk or kfc breakfast. so we went to swenson for pancakes. yes i noe not much difference. haha. except the price is a bit more expensive.

lastly, let me present to you again, my number tag and finisher medal for AHM 2009:

the importance of first aid

this morning i went to east coast park with two of my pe friends to help out in a competitive run organised by the ministry. my role was as a time-keeper. speaking of which, i will be running 21 km tomorrow morning. although i am in the men's open competitive category, but i am definitely not running competitively. i just hope to complete the run in less than 2 hours 10 minutes. the last time i ran 21 km was in 2003, which was 6 years ago! wow.

anyway, once we finished our duties in helping out, we went to eat breakfast at the bedok interchange hawker centre. we started talking cock, and dunno how we reached the topic of outdoor camps.

one of the pe friends is already a teacher, let us call him CH, and he is two years my senior. so he was sharing with us his experience. he and his batch of pe classmates went to mount ophir for their camp. on the last day of the camp, a big tree got rooted from the ground as a result of the strong wind, and fell on one of the tents, crushing one of the trainee's head, and he died.

during that time, CH's tent was actually pitched straight in front of that tree. the tree fell diagonally and landed on the victim's tent. inside the tent, there were 3 trainees, and the victim happened to be sleeping in the middle, and the tree fell directly on him, so the other two trainees escaped unscathed.

at that time, the weather was very bad. it was 4 plus am. raining heavily. strong winds howling. immediately everyone got up and they removed the tree trunk away. CH happened to be a saf medic, and there were two more trainees in his group were also medics. so they quickly applied CPR on the victim.

the victim still remained unconscious. they decided to evacuate him to the foot of the mountain. but the thing is there was no proper medical evacuation route. there was no heli evacuation. there was no stretcher. therefore CH and the rest of the trainees have to build a makeshift stretcher, and all of them take turns to stretcher him down the mountain. the victim's weight was 90 kg. on the way down the mountain, they keep applying CPR on the victim. 4 hours later, they finally reached the foot of the mountain. and the victim was dead.

----------------------------------------------------------

after that incident, there were no more overseas camps for the future pe trainees.

so the purpose of writing the above incident is to let everyone know the importance of first aid. the first few minutes in a life-threatening situation are vital. how you respond to the emergency is extremely important in helping the victim to recover and in preventing permanent disability. i attended a first aid course in march, but i am guilty enough to admit that i forgot 50 percent of what i had learnt.

upon hearing CH's story, i feel ashamed. i am in deep admiration of his readiness and situation awareness in applying CPR to the victim when the tragedy occurred. but let's say if i am with a class of students, and something tragedic happens (touch wood), will i be able to react accordingly and applied whatever i learnt to save a person's life?

therefore i am now reading my first aid handbook that was given to me during the first aid course. i need to brush up my knowledge on first aid. who knows next time when something happened, and i am the only certified first aider around, and it is up to me to save a person's life.

so right now, i am going to share with everyone on what is CPR.

CPR stands for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.

Cardio refers to he heart and pumonary refers to the lungs.

CPR is the process of circulating oxygenated blood to the brain, heart and other vital organs of a person who is unable to perform this for himself. Without this oxygenated blood a person will die.

CPR involves blowing air into a person's lungs by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to get oxygen to the brain, and pushing on their chest to pump their heart to maintain circulation.

You can only perform CPR on someone who has had a cardiac arrest.

A person who has had a cardiac arrest will be:
- Unconscious and showing no signs of life
- Not breathing


WHAT TO DO DURING CPR:

1. Check for Dangers
- Find out if scene is safe
- What happened?
- How many casualties?
- Anyone who can help
- Identify yourself as a first aider, "I am a first aider, I am here to help".

2. Check responsiveness.
- Tap his shoulder. "HELLO! HELLO! Are you OK?"
- If no response, give a trapezius squeeze
- Still no response, shout to someone, "YOU! Call 995 and get back to me!"

3. Check airway
- Check neck for injury
- If no neck injury, do a head tilt chin lift
- Check mouth for obstrution

4. Assess breathing by putting your ear above his nose/mouth region
- If no breathing, give 2 blows, each blow lasting one second

5. Check for pulse. If no pulse, start CPR
- locate ribs cage with index and middle finger
- run the two fingers until the tip of sternum
- place the heel of the other hand next to the index finger
- interlock your hands
- compress 30 compressions, follwed by 2 blows
(count: 1&2&3&4&5&1&2&3&4&10&1&2&3&4&15 ... all the way
until 1&2&3&4&30!)
- repeat for 5 cycles

6. Check pulse. If pulse present, check for breathing. If pulse not present, perform CPR again.

7. Assess breathing. If no breathing, perform RESCUE BREATHING.
- Blow; count 2 a-thousand, 3 a-thousand, 4 a-thousand, 5 a-thousand; Blow
(do this for 12 times)

8. Check pulse. If pulse present, check breathing.

9. Check breathing, if breathing present, conduct a rapid body survey.

10. Conduct rapid body survey.

11. If no visible injury, place victim into recovery position.

12. Monitor vital signs.

13. Reassure victims at all times.

----------------------------------------------------------

These are the conditions in which a first aider may stop CPR:

- victim regains pulse and breathing
- you are replaced by another trained rescuer or paramedic
- a physician tells you to stop
- you are too exhausted to continue
- the scene becomes unsafe for you to continue

gi joe!

went to vivo to watch gi joe with darling.

very nice action packed movie, with super cool characters, and my favourite character has to be snake eyes! the way he use his samurai sword to kill pple is simply so 帅!

(gi joe cooperate with transformers?! wow that is so damn cool!!!)

here's a biography of snake eyes taken from the IGN Entertainment website:

Bad guys wear black, according to the old saying, but GI Joe has it the other way around. Snake Eyes, the black-clad ninja commando of the GI Joe team, is (usually) on the side of truth, justice, and the American way, while his nemesis Storm Shadow (the one in white) works for Cobra.

Underneath the black costume and eyeless visor, he’s actually an American, a veteran of the Vietnam war. He and the man who would later become Storm Shadow served in the same elite reconnaissance unit, and later traveled together to Japan, where they were inducted into the Arashikage ninja clan.

There, they grew apart – while Snake Eyes resisted the temptation to become a hardened killer, Storm Shadow honed his assassination skills in every way possible. He eventually betrayed the group’s leaders, abandoning the Arashikage to sell his skills to the rising Cobra terrorist army. In the wake of his betrayal, Snake Eyes returned to America and lived in seclusion for several years (with no company except for his faithful wolf Timber) until General Hawk, an old comrade from his days in Vietnam, tracked him down to recruit him into GI Joe.

He’s adept with any number of weapons or none at all, having been trained in many unarmed fighting systems. Typically he favors a long Japanese sword, or compact, concealable machine pistols. While he doesn’t suffer from any physical speech impediment, he is almost completely mute by choice, and never reveals his face if he can help it.

In the 2009 GI Joe movie, Snake Eyes is played by Ray Park, who dons a faceless black costume very similar to earlier incarnations of the character. As before, he’s a former member of the Arashikage ninja group, and he shares a past with Cobra operative Storm Shadow.

----------------------------------------------------------

here's something random.

mr foo shin, you have your own football club!

.


.

.

wassup man. hahahahaha.

i have a mask!

today i went to darling's house, and she help me put on a facial mask. haha.

darling said i look like a thief who is going to rob a jewellery shop. but i think i just rob a mama shop will do.

after removing the mask, my face feels so refreshed, and so smooth. very shiok! so for guys, do put on your facial mask now!

best national geographic pictures

my hall friend colin sent me an email with the best national geographic pictures. these pictures are really amazing! so i shall share some of them with you all.

very nice, yes?

southern ridges!

taken from the NParks website:

The Southern Ridges comprise a 9-kilometre chain of green, open spaces spanning the rolling hills of Mount Faber Park, Telok Blangah Hill Park and Kent Ridge Park before ending at West Coast Park.

It is an area steeped in history and is home to some of nature's greatest gifts of flora and fauna. It is also one of the best spots in Singapore to catch panoramic views of the city, harbtour and the Southern Islands.

-------------------------------------------------------------

so today, darling and i went to the southern ridges. this morning it rained cats and dogs, and i was afraid that we may not be able to go, but thank goodness in the afternoon it stopped raining and the sun came out shining brightly, which made me perspire like mad throughout the 9 km walk. but well, i shall not complain, because sunshine is still better than rainfall.

we started the tour of the southern ridges at marang trail. the beginning of marang trail is found behind seah im food centre, which is at exit D of harbour front station.

MARANG TRAIL

from marang trail, we reached MOUNT FABER

and from mount faber, we walked quite a bit, and also ho lan a bit, but in the end we managed to reach our next destination, HENDERSON WAVES

next is the CANOPY WALK

after canopy walk is ALEXANDER ARCH.

we had a nice walk at Hort Park, which is being established as a garden hub. its a really nice place, with beautiful plants and flowers. their grass is very suitable for picnic, and i think the grass at fort canning park can go fly kite, because the grass at hort park is so short that you can lie down and wun feel the grass pricking your skin. so maybe nx time BUTS can be held at hort park, so that there is not a need to bring picnic mats.

hort park also has very interesting exhibits. we went inside a glass house, and i think this is the most ideal house, well-furnished, and has alot of greenery. i think everyone will love to stay in this kind of house.

and we saw some interesting animal sculptures in the form of leaves. we took pictures with them in different poses, which i think is quite funny. hahaha.

went to queensway shopping centre and i bought a pair of new street soccer boots (my yellow and green color adidas street soccer boots spoil already haiz ultimate sadness), and this time is white and blue color! i think i shall be more 低调 in wearing shoes, cannot always choose those shoes with very AA (attract attention) colors. i also bought a pair of nike tights for my half marathon this sunday.

and its home sweet home. lessons tmr at 830 am. seriously i quite enjoy going to sch as a student. cos i think this will most likely be my last chance as a student. unless in future i take up masters in physical education, maybe can go australia or taiwan. woo hoo. ok lah talk cock only. dun think it will happen. :p

saturday post

today i have to miss rag 2009 because of tuition. by the time i finished my tuition at 2 pm, darling sms-ed me, saying that float is already over, but the good news is kevii won the best float award!!! wow!!! that is really extremely happy and great news! congrats kevii! :)

went to toa payoh safra with leow chee leong and mak hong sen to collect our army half marathon race pack. the race pack consists of a very ugly tshirt, some charcoal facial wash, a voucher to some beauty salon which is endorsed by dai yang tian, my race number tag and some pieces of salon-pas. btw the race will start next sunday, and the flag-off timing is 530 am!!! so i have to wake up at around 4 am, and take cab to the start point, which is at esplanade bridge. the end point will be at the padang.

after collecting the race pack we went to this nike factory outlet at west coast plaza, because mak hong sen got this 40 percent discount nike voucher. when we reach there we were traumatised. there is already a long queue forming outside the shop. so as we were queuing behind, leow chee leong went to the front to take a look. he came back and told us that the queue inside the shop for making payment also very very long. then as we were still queuing outside, those pple who just finished making payment warned us that need to queue for TWO AND A HALF HOURS just to pay for your purchases at the cashier, because the discount is so good and every single mother's son/daughter are buying things in BULK. upon hearing that, some of the pple in the queue got turn off and walked away. but the 3 of us still continued queuing.

so finally is our turn to go in. wow the prices are really good. very very cheap. already got fifty percent discounts on most of the products, and on top of mak's 40 percend discount voucher, its like paying only 10 percent of the original price??!! no wonder so many pple buying so many stuff, and no wonder the queue is so freaking long. so the 3 of us also get turned off by the super long queue at the cashier, we decided to walk off without buying anything. but i must really admit that the prices are really CHEAP. DIRT CHEAP.

we walked around west coast plaza. i want to recommend this bread shop at the basement 1 level, called oishi. the D24 DURIAN BUN is damn nice!!! must try!!!

then we had zhi char at this coffee shop opposite the plaza, and i ate crabs again! this time is black pepper crabs. haiz so sinful. tmr when i play soccer i will run as much as i can to burn the excess calories.

ok i going to sleep. good night everybody!

homecoming

went back to my nus hall kevii for homecoming. its great seeing many old friends and catching up with them. its great seeing jenson and jenny, dr seow and mrs seow, the RFs whom i frequently chat with. but honestly speaking, as every year comes for me to go back, the more 生疏 i feel. maybe there will come a time that i wun be bothered to go back anymore.

ok let's talk about the float. float is very nice! i really hope they will win something this year. i cant really say much about the float, cos i was nv involved in building the float during my hall life. so i can only say is nice or not nice. basically from the pirates year (which was in 2006?) until now, all the floats are very nice, except that i think this year's is the nicest.

all rite now the float dance. i quite like the float dance! have nice transitions. geraldine filled up the role of lead dancer superbly. watching her dance is amazing. the male lead dancer not bad too. i like the part when the male lead come out with the numerous pirates. got the 气势.

and now comes the room for improvement. i think the cheerleading portion needs alot of room for improvement. they are not stable enough. btw i dunno whether there is this cheerleading component inside the judging criteria. cheerleading is nice, but if u dun do it well, then its not nice, and then minus more marks. so might as well dun include cheerleading? cheerleading will nv be our forte, cos we only started practising when float dance is coming, not like other halls who practise every week or every day?

anyway just my five cents worth of views.

today's weather is very hot! i keep perspiring non stop just by sitting down eating or standing up chit chatting. wassup man.

to all of you who feel like giving up

a truely inspirational video.

whenever i face any difficulties in teaching, or face any difficulties with attitude students, or whenever i lao sai, i will watch this video and tell myself not to give up.

severe diarrhoea

this morning when i woke up, i went to the toilet to brush my teeth. as i was brushing halfway, i felt a sudden urge to answer the call of nature. so i quickly throw the brush down, rinse my mouth, slam the door, sit on the toilet bowl, and there goes my first round of lao sai.

after the first round, i was feeling damn weak, like want to die already, and even want to vomit. so i decided not to go to sch today and rest at home. subsequently, i had five more rounds of lao sai. :(

went to the doctor and he gave me 2 days MC.

upon reaching home, i took my medicine, and lao sai 2 more times. haiz...

darling came to visit me. i am really very very touched. upon seeing her i felt so much better. this must be the strength of love. she accompanied me by the bedside, and we chit chatted. we also watch 学警狙击 together. i am now at the 28th episode! 2 more episodes i will finish the whole series! thank u darling for coming down to visit me. i love u so much.

tomorrow i also wun be going to sch. and i also wun be going for the mauritius dance practise. so sorry guys, i have to pang sei you all again.

oh shit, i feel the urge again, i am going to the toilet for my 9th lao sai session. :'(

sunday post

today i went to chinatown with my parents to look for good travel packages to europe. we went to this travel agency called SUPER, which is at people's park complex, on the 3rd storey.

and here's the deal that we got, at 2938 per person:

- 13 days to eastern europe, and the countries include poland, budapest, vienna and salzburg

- flying by emirates. from sg fly to dubai for 7 hours. have a break of 2 hours at dubai airport. then fly for another 5 hours to reach eastern europe.

- meals are 100 percent catered for.

- because we chose emirates, we got 2 nights of free hotel accomodation at dubai. so after 12 nights at eastern europe, we will spend 3D2N free and easy at dubai. woo hoooo!

so i will be flying off on 9th december, and coming back 15 days later. haha.

and i signed up for Standard Chartered Marathon, which is on 6th december. so i only got 3 days of rest after the marathon before flying off. hope i wun suffer any muscle strains or hamstring damage after the run.

ndp preview!

tonight i was actually going to bring darling to east coast park to eat seafood. but then after my tuition at 2 pm, i was on my way home, and i received darling's sms, saying that she got 2 free tickets from her friend, and asked me whether i wanna go. so i immediately said yes without thinking! hahahaha.

i can say that the crowd control and security at the esplanade is very very organised. i was really impressed. good job to the organisers!

my first priority in going to the ndp preview is actually to watch the leopard! being a tankee during my ns days, i enjoyed the training with the SM1 tank, even though its quite siong. but those days of training were really memorable. now SAF has phased out the SM1 tank and bought the new LEOPARD tanks. how i wish i can train on the LEOPARD tank too, but i think its a bit hard to fulfil this wish.

but anyway, i was also very impressed with the show that combined army, airforce, navy, civil defence and police force! actually i really loved the whole parade.

i like the red lions who parachute down to the floating platform, and they are so zai that they din hit the tall skyscrapers, and they landed perfectly on the ground.

i like the navy that chased the terrorists who were on their water scooters.

i also like the chinook that hovered about 50 metres above the sea, and the divers from naval diving unit jumped inside the sea from the chinook.

i like the part when the SAF soldiers come up to the audience seats in their full battle gear. the audience were so excited to see them. but too bad they din come close to where we were sitting. :(

and i really loved the parade segment. during my ns days, i dreamed of marching in the national day parade as part of the guard of honour. but i also dun think i can fulfil this dream. hahahaha.

(the indian guy is the parade rsm. the chinese guy is the parade commander.)

(colours party and guard of honour)

finally, the fireworks on that night were impressive.

and finally finally, I LOVED THE GIRLS WHO DID THE POLE DANCE. too bad they were too far and i can only see how chio they are on the screen. haha. yes you will be shocked that they showcase pole dance on ndp. but its true man. they also put up a concert segment where u can hear songs from the old times and the present. very very nice. :)

in conclusion, its a very nice ndp, very very interesting to watch. thank you darling for getting the tickets! :)

so after the ndp preview, we went to no signboard at esplanade for our dinner cum supper!

we ordered drunken prawns, signature tofu dish, bamboo clams and chilli crab! the chilli crab really power. got alot of crab roe. eat until damn shiok.

but the whole bill is 142 bucks!!! the crab alone cost 42 bucks! but nvm lah, i think its worth it to spend extravagantly once in a blue moon. some more its also a celebration dinner for the end of my practicum, and the end of darling's preceptorship.

yup so that's it for my saturday! :)

fond memories of b_dok vi_w

the place where the nie trainees are housed at:

this room is inside the library. the good thing is that we are on our own, nobody noes wat we are doing. over here we can watch dvd and play computer games. if we do that in the staffroom we will give the impression to the other teachers that we are too slack, so we will kenna more sai-gang. the bad thing is when students come into the library, they will peek into the room and give a cheeky smiley face. and if i happen to be in the room and saw them doing that, i will go out and give them a piece of my mind. haha.

so for my last pe lesson with my classes, i planned a badminton carnival for them, and this carnival got 4 different stations, which comprises of footwork, strokes, service and physical fitness. it takes me around half an hour to set up the whole area nice nice. shag man.

and these are the prizes i prepared for them. since i got 4 classes, i have to prepare 4 sets of prizes. bought them at the ntuc outside the sch, cost me 29 bucks. although the prizes are not that outstanding, but i still hope they appreciate my effort.

after the carnival, i debriefed the students, and presented the prizes to the team captains.

ok that's about it. i enjoyed my teaching experience in this sch. i dun mind coming back here again for next year's practicum. but let's leave it to fate on whether i will really be coming back.

----------------------------------------------------------

friday night went to nus for dance practise. the choreography for the guys' segment has completed! yay!

haiz i still find myself a bit out of place among the rest of the zai dancers. must work harder and improve more.