dont.wanna.study.

Man I've got it bad.

I am fidgety, restless, edgy, anxious, hair-pulling, jump-up-and-down, just-wanna-scream, exams-be-gone, hate-hate-hate, let-me-go-HOME-already!!!!

Really can't bring myself to study. I'm sure I will get into it if I only picked up the book and START. But yeah, I've definitely had it worse than last year. Guess recent events have made me want to just be with my family and friends at home. Like now. So many things running through my head. Heh. Definitely not my finest Spring.

It's Labour Day today so my working friends here are free! And these working peeps, man, do they treasure their public holidays. So Navin and I went for a tramp with Zhi and his pals. 6 guys, a gal and a frisbee. =) Had a great time, really. I loved it. I loved the tramping, the sun, which then turned into rain, the sea, the beach, the picnic food. Absolute loved it. Oh but I suck at frisbee. As usual.

Auckland Marathon's in 6 days. Exams in 4. Exam's over in 18. Home's in 32.

Come on, Time. MOVE.

Wear shorts. They make you happy.

I forgot to blog about this important bit of my weekend that made my entire weekend.

Summer's inching closer here, which means I can finally wear shorts out without freezing. So yesterday when we went shopping in Dress-Smart I was strutting around proudly in my shorts.

This girl in General Issue comes up to me and said "I know this is random, but are you like a runner or a gymnast or something?" and I stood there thinking was this a trick? Where's the camera? Funnily enough I actually found myself wondering whether I should say "yes I run" or "yes I was a gymnast" or "yes i did both!"

"Yea I'm a runner", I figured I should be current.
"You have awesome legs. I could tell. =)"

And that was how wearing shorts made my weekend. =)

Because it is time to update the blog

I have had a pretty awesome week actually. Or maybe it is because I handed in my very last of assignments and did my very last of presentations for the year. Which resulted in full on liberated relaxed feeling from Friday onwards, when in fact, I haven't even had any exams yet. heh.

For the record, I did a presentation on Patellofemoral Pain and got 25/27 for it. Not bad aye? =) It was a proud moment, I must admit.

So, due to lack of photos, which is due to the lack of enthusiasm to snap photos, which is due to the dysfunctional camera button on my phone, I do not have photographic evidence of my awesome weekend. But I shall recount them as best as I can. Warning, this is going to be a little dry and report-like.

On Friday night I made lamb chops for Yee Lyn, Wensze, Irvin and Navin. I had bought extra for the flatmates but most of them weren't home except for Andreas, who was lucky to have some. It was good, I must say, for a first attempt. Lemon, salt, pepper, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and a dash of merlot. Oven-grilled to perfection. well, almost. =)

Then we had ice cream, walked around Auckland city, caught the last remaining minutes of the Lights with Telecom at the Viaduct. Yee lyn was flying off the next day so she was a little emotional. she didn't want to leave! I'd kill to be in her position!

Saturday was spent at work as usual. I biked to work because Shrek is in the workshop (again!). well he's getting a new radiator put in. I am a lot stronger now. I seem to cycle faster and faster. What took me 25 minutes back then now takes me a little aver 17 minutes. Awesome huh?

After work I came home to an empty house. So I got Navin to go out again. We went to the Chocolate Boutique which is awesome, as always. Then we went walking around. And I came home by about 10.30. Spoke to my parents, and went to bed.

This morning I was supposed to run to the French Market. It was only 8.8 km but it started to rain when I ran out so I ran back home, showered and got Navin to come and pick me up. The French Market was awesome. Lots of nice gourmet food. Albeit, a bit expensive. I bought myself some turkish borak, and a packet of paella. They were alright. I've had better. But the setting of the market was cool. And I foresee going back. =)

After the market was lunch with Navin and his friends at Spices Thai. I always make the mistake of ordering very common food. Simple stir-fried beef n veges and rice. I should've taken paad thai. owells.

Then it was Dress-Smart for shopping. I had promised myself not to buy anything. Instead, I just went window shopping for trail running shoes and found some pretty nice ones. Thinking of getting myself a new pair to hopefully be worn during the next Perak Ironbound Challenge? haha...*dreams*.

I've got 40 days to home. The anticipation is killing me! =)

Diwali

Have you ever been to an Indian concert? I haven't.

Till last night.
I went to the Diwali Festival here in Auckland and it was really quite impressive. I never knew the Indian community here was so huge! I've never really attended any Diwali festivals back home either so I can't really say I know much but I reckon it was comparable.The Diwali Festival here is a 2 day long annual event and it had foodstalls, henna tattoos, performances, bollywood dance competitions, fireworks, and of course lots n lots of lights. It was quite an eye opener, and I really wanted to try a lot of the foods but me being typically Malaysian, wasn't really prepared to pay so much for food I know definitely didn't cost so much back in Malaysia. Seriously, $5 for dhosai? You've gotta be kidding me. Eventhough some of the food i probably couldn't get back at home, those authentic Indian foods. Then again, I haven't explored Brickfields much so I wouldn't know. =)Anyway, the funniest part I thought was when Navin decided we should join in the crowd at the concert. Everyone was jumping up and down with their hands high up in the air and before we knew it we got pulled into the center - Yee Lyn, Wen Sze, Andreas (my flatmate) and myself. 3 chinese gals and a white guy. haha...the Indians kept saying "Put your arms up! Put your arms up!" and imagine the thickest, most pronounced Indian accent you can imagine. it was good fun. =)

Was definitely a change of scene here in Auckland. Who would've guessed that I'd attend my first Indian pop concert here in Kiwiland.

pink & purple

Dianne, the massage therapist who works for Configure in Sylvia Park walked in with a bright pink & purple top with loud flower prints on them and a huge bright purple headband in her hair. She always had a sunny character, but even this was a little over the top for her and I kinda assumed it was in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness month here in NZ where everything turns pink.

"You're looking like summer today!" I smiled at her, glad to see such brightness in the gym on a rainy day. and she said to me, "Would you believe me if I told you I just came from a funeral?"

I was quite surprised. She smiled but with just a tinge of sadness, she told me she had just attended the funeral of a friend's daughter who died at the age of 11 because she couldn't get a heart transplant. Her favourite colours were pink and purple and she had asked everyone to wear that on her last day of her life.

She was born with multiple complications and was waiting on a heart for a few years now that she had come to a stage where even if she had a heart transplant it wouldn't do her much good. Her organs were pretty much dead and she was surviving on life support. So she had decided to pull the plug where she would survive for about another 20 hours. In that last day she played Foosball for the first time, painted butterflies, ate ice cream and had all her friends and family spend the entire day with her in her ward. She sang and clapped along to songs and when she knew she was ready to go she told everyone she was going to bed.

She was 11. And her favourite colours were pink and purple.

I guess when life weighs you down, brave souls like hers give you a little boot in your bum to remind you how lucky you are to be walking and eating and laughing and singing and driving and dancing and doodling and running.

Even if you could do only 2 of the above, you're still able to do 1 thing more than that little girl.

Make use of it.

Wear my badge!

My cousin, Caryn has kindly made me a badge to further promote my Running Blind Cause. So if you've got a website, blog, myspace you can put this badge up on your site.
Now if you're wondering what I mean by Dream manual, because a few people have been asking me, it's just a manual on how to dream. u know, like a driver's manual? Yeah. And the whole purpose of me running blind for the Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation, is because I'd like everyone to have the opportunity to have dreams...dreams that you and I were fortunate enough to be given the chance to pursue simply because we were born able and healthy.

So the dream manual encourages people to dream. and not just dream...but dream BIG. and chasing it. Which is why I run this race with a blindfold across my eyes. Dreams begin from imagination. From seeing yourself in a cognitive visualisation. And for most of us, to begin dream, we have to close our eyes, block out the barriers, and let our minds go wild.

Here's the code:

<a href="http://www.ammado.com/community/109444" target="_blank"><img style="width: 180px; height: 280px;" src="http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6448/170x278.jpg" alt="Dream Big" border="0" /></a>

Hamilton Half Marathon

I was quite happy to sign up for the Hamilton half marathon because I haven't been to Hamilton (about 70 minute drive from Auckland) and because I havent had a race in a while, so my training was starting to get a little purposeless. I need the constant race environment to just keep me in check and ensure I keep going.

So when I woke up on Sunday morning and saw torrents of rain pouring down, i knew it wasn't going to be fun. The weather was about 12-14 degrees and as Tegan, Sarah and I drove along the motorway heading towards Hamilton, the rain only got heavier.

Standing in the rain at the start line, shivering and soaked to the bone before the race even started, I had one thought on my mind. Daddy. If this were in Malaysia, and I had signed up with my dad, I would've woken up to see a piece of paper underneath my door saying "Raining, girl, go back to sleep la, Love, Dad". And I would've gladly concurred, as i bury myself deeper underneath my fleece blanket at home.

But nope, when you're in hard out kiwiland, u become a hard out kiwi. 21km, 14 degrees, pouring rain, doesn't warrant going back to bed.

It took forever for me to warm up. I kept feeling like I had to pee. I tried to run faster to warm up more. My shoes squeaked. I was so not enjoying this race at the start.

But then the rain slowed down a little after about 6-7ks. And I felt like I was just the right temperature to run. I had Tegan in sight and was wondering to myself whether or not I can keep up with her. I could tell I was running at a pretty fast pace, faster than I usually would for 21km. But I don't know if it was the cooling rain, or the fact that I have been training my hamstrings and glutes, or both, but I felt a lot stronger. I wasn't tired going this fast.

It was a lovely route along the Waikato river and in the Hamilton Gardens. I loved it. If only it wasn't raining. I hit the turnaround 10.5km mark in about 56 minutes. I was thinking, man, this could be a PB!

It started to pour heavily again. The second half of this race was dedicated to keeping up with Tegan. She was an extremely strong runner and I wasn't sure if i could keep up. But I tried anyway. I made the gap between us closer, but it took effort. When I was close enough to overtake, I wondered if she'd try to overtake me as well. I always have this fear that if I overtake someone, they're gonna try to up their game and overtake me too. Then we'd both be racing at a pace too fast to keep up with.

So I think I ran behind her for a km or 2 and finally overtook her about 4kms from the finish. I figured if she came up next to me I could race for about 20 odd minutes. But she didn't. Which is good for her as well, because this was her first half marathon and she showed that she could pace herself well. Giving in to temptations to race was something most amateurs fall for and end up burning out. not trying to be an expert, but i've been there. :).

so i completed the 21kms in 1 hour 50 mins. Really great timing for such crap weather. Really great timing even on a good day! Tegan came in about a minute or 2 after me. Sarah did her best time as well. I say we're all pretty cool to have gone on with it even in the cold pouring rain.

yay us! :)

Happy Birthday Sarah!!!!