I revisited King Albert Park today, deciding to get some groceries after finishing IPT at Maju Camp nearby. It was a slightly surreal visit, given that I knew that it was going to be demolished and rebuilt as some mixed use development probably by the end of the year. Walking up the slope into McDonald's, then through the restaurant to the back where Island Creamery replaced Video Ezy and the Spinelli's sprung up from what used to be a deeper section of McDonald's (if my memory serves me right), it was a bit weird to think that it would all disappear.

I mean, I grew up there. Not in the sense of the years in primary school, but my time in secondary school and JC, where I really consider myself as having become me, were all spent there. Studying there for Secondary 2 exams, Secondary 3, Secondary 4 even. Heck all the block tests and promos and whatever involved lots of time at KAP. Buying yogurt drink from Cold Storage and drinking it for dinner. Post-Huang Cheng dinners at KAP, or sitting at McDonald's and then waiting for 9pm to buy half-price sushi or half-price chicken. The uncle I bought my half-priced chickens told me wearily today that I was lucky the students hadn't come. And I thought to myself hey I used to be one of them too. It was nostalgia, good, thick and heavy.

And suddenly to read in the papers that hey, it's going to disappear. And it'll be replaced with a brand new building and brand new shops. Perhaps a new generation of students will colonise it. Perhaps if I get posted back to Hwa Chong to teach, I'll hear of my students asking each other hey do you want to go to that place, or whatever the new thing will be called. And they'll make it part of the tapestry of memories that wind through their youth.

People like me, we're old. Soon Serene Centre will go. Then it'll be Coronation Plaza. Maybe Bukit Timah Plaza after a while, perhaps Adam Road Food Centre. And there'll be nothing left for us.

The block leave felt like a mini-ORD. I was prancing around outside and reintegrating back into society when Sunday came too soon and yanked me back to the bunks of Seletar East Camp.

And if there's anything I've recently learnt, it's that I hate designing on the computer. Anything that doesn't involve pure program logic and involves making things look good instead of work, I have no patience nor talent for. I will not do this anymore, except to clear my obligations and then remember to steer far far away from this.

...

I think a column was published recently in The Sunday Times (probably the one that just passed), about the iPhone versus the BlackBerry. I normally try to steer clear of such debates because they lead to fanboying and when you consider the nature of the material, things get ludicrous.

But I think a point the writer wanted to make was that iPhones used to be carried by people who wanted to look flashy, while BlackBerries carried by people who wanted work done. Now, they've switched positions.

I quite disagree. I'm on both platforms (if you consider iOS on my iPod Touch), and I've had both good and bad points. I dislike RIM's BlackBerry World because it seriously lacks applications. I think the Apple App Store has gone overboard the other way though. I use my BlackBerry for work and staying connected, simply because it is made so well. The apps run snappily, are simple and there are no hidden menus or things I have to scrounge all over fun. Smaller screen? Fine by me, I'm not giving up my keyboard if I have a lot to type! I can type pretty quickly on hardware keys, but software keyboards are something I've hated since my Windows Mobile days. There aren't many apps, but let's face it: for a connectivity device designed for email, talking, text messaging and perhaps Facebook, we've got enough by default, thank you very much.

The iPod Touch however, is my mobile media centre. I don't need a hardware keyboard here, I should hardly be typing! Music, movies, maybe the odd game there; all I really need is a wonderful screen to enjoy everything on. And we have it there. Sure it ships with a ton of useful work applications, but I don't need 50 NotePad clones. I just need one good one. Are there awesome productivity things? Yes, but they'll never ever solve the hardware keyboard option. I need the tactility.

So in conclusion, I'd heartily disagree with that statement. From what I observe, people get the iPhone for fun. And since some people prefer convergent devices, they use it for work too, which it can manage. But I prefer to separate things. The other BlackBerry users I know mostly love it for connectivity. There's nothing hip about it, or cool. Just a workhorse machine that's...not very pretty.

But it works.

Sitting on 67 as it traverses the Bukit Timah route I've taken for the last 7 years, I can't help but feel a twinge of yearning when I spot students milling along the bus stops from Coronation Plaza to Sixth Avenue. I look at the construction going on for the Downtown Line and feel happy and sad at once, for the future generations of Hwa Chong students (I dislike the term 'Hwa Chongians', it feels so forced and unnatural) and sad that the Bukit Timah I know is going to change so much.

The bus speeds on past Hwa Chong and I look at the Central Plaza, missing the days I spent as a student worrying about everything and anything. I remember the days outside Coro where ECCube seniors and juniors would all head for dinner on Fridays, or KAP when we felt like it. I think of Yong Chye and all the crap food we ate during Huang Cheng and then remind myself that we still ate it anyway and had a soft spot eventually.

There will always be something in my heart for that bunch of landmarks, where I truly grew up. Sometimes I wonder if this is perhaps how Colin Cheong felt when he wrote seventeen, which still remains one of my favourite novellas.

...

Working with Zoe and Kimberlyn over the past week with the kids has been awesome, and in more ways than the usual. Getting a chance to work with two juniors from Hwa Chong (they're 3 years younger, 10 batch compared to this relic from 07) has been both a trip down memory lane and a bit of a chance to review my own journey. Listening to them talk about stuff like Dance Night, Orientation and all the CNY fac dance competitions just remind me that watching it as a senior will never approach the feeling of being there yourself.

The kids are awesome as per normal, my throat begins to give way by Wednesday and we all head out for dinners together, just like how all the Discovery Vacation Camps have been. I run around scolding little children and then almost immediately melting into goo when they flash me those shy smiles (there almost always seems to be at least one quiet and shy child who's so sweet in each class I do).

I love working at DVC precisely because of this, the chance to play with children and have them hug you or hold your hand because they genuinely like you, or to see them smile because they are happy. There are no false smiles, or painted faces that hide stabby knives, no veneers to cover the ugly inside. I like children, they're honest; a reflection perhaps, of our once-innocent selves.

I sat on the bus the whole time with Lonely Planet's "Europe on a Shoestring" open the whole time, trying to plan for Ops European Wombat. It shows the freedom I have now, something that I can only do because I'm old enough, and have worked hard enough to earn/save the money to do so. But I'd just as gladly trade all of these freedoms and responsibilities for the days past when it was just so much simpler. They all come with baggage, baggage I want to dump, but can't.

Sundown wasn't too bad, now I look at it. Then again, I mostly forget the pains of the runs a couple of days on. It was pretty decent, since I hate heat, but the route was a little boring and I was very slow, averaging 7:00 per kilometre when running and 9:00 when walking.

Still, it was cramp-free (because I started walking once I felt the cramps appear) and I didn't want to push too hard, thanks to Team Bravo duty the next day. And I recovered within a day, unlike last year's SCSM which took 5 days to get back to normal!

The 1224s from New Balance were awesome, though I realise that I'll have to deal with salt intake issues and dampness for longer distances, because I just sweat too much. My shoes were soaked from it and are just about done drying. (36 hours on!)

I ran the first 12km or so with Anna and Yini, which was pretty fun. Crapping and laughing helps take the mind off the starting grind where I'm trying to find my stride. (and 1 hour of standing in queues and 1/2 hour standing on the bus was draining from what should have gone into the run!)

Hydration was sufficient and the chilled 100Plus (slightly sweeter formulation than the normal one) was a godsend, especially since I didn't have dinner and so it more or less constituted my blood sugar relief. I'll pay more attention to race nutrition though, next time. The Newton 30K will be a torture if I don't eat right.

I crossed the finish line slightly under 3 hours, which was about 35 minutes off my PB and very very disappointing, but I'm over it now, more upset and guilty over my $8.60-one-man-prata-and-maggi-goreng binge at Jalan Kayu at 3am before I booked in for duty.

And I resolve to do better and try harder.

Now to make it happen, which is always the hard part :P.

...

I'm really looking forward to the break this week, I need to get away from it all.

The last time I did something like this must have been just after BMT. 157 days to go.

I've been exploring The Fray's newer material which I got hold of quite a while ago but never really got beyond You Found Me and the really radio-friendly hits. And so I've been stuck on Syndicate for a while, especially the keyboard bits which are wonderful.

Material from the new Stars album has leaked (or maybe released?) and I'm really anticipating it, it's been quite a while since their last proper full album came out in 2008.

So amid the massive amounts of duty that I cleared last week and along with my weekend, I spent some time thinking about some of the short term things I want to do and I think the easiest conclusion I came to, was that I need to plonk a big fat list on my wall and do it. I need to clearly define it.

So, short term, here's a draft:

1. Catch Stars in concert again.
I don't know when I'll get a chance to do this again, but I really want to. The last time I caught them in concert was when they came to Singapore and played the night before I enlisted. Even if I have to fly to Canada or the US to do it, I will do it once more.

2. Climb either Rinjani or Pinatubo.
This will be tricky, thanks to cost and preparations, but I want to climb one of them. There must be something addictive about this. And truth be told I want to try something different.

There are others, but I'll leave this for now.

...

so when the wheels left the tarmac last night, there was a part of me that left too, a tiny fragment that latched on. but how would the distance matter anyway, when it's been like that for so long?

So Ben and I finally found time to catch How To Train Your Dragon, which I decided I wanted to see when I saw trailers back in February. The rest of the guys had already seen it on very cheap tickets thanks to Siheng and E, so we pretty much were lagging behind everyone.

Only 3D shows seem to be available, so we ended up paying $14 a ticket. But it was pretty worth it. I loved the show and the visuals were spectacular.

But the best part really, is still the soundtrack. I'm not an instrumental person, but the orchestral pieces are really fantastic, unlike a lot of other soundtracks which rehash the same motif without even bothering to vary the way it's fit in.

...

So many things to do after ETEP, it feels like I've put my life on hold until it ends. Plus it happens that uni exams end after ETEP anyway.

One more week to it.

( Introducing Professor Lan Yingjie of the University of Maryland. )

So, all you business undergrads struggling out there, you can drop me a call. I'll try channel some of the Maryland guy's brains over the Pacific :P.

Edit: dnwq insists my Google-fu is not strong. He has unearthed the email address and the resume of the REAL guy. The only thing I admit to writing though (yes, thank you, oliviachee), is this.

All of these though, are better than the other Yingjie Lan, abusive Public Security Bureau Associate Chief.

Summed up nicely, "so you're either an abusive public officer or a nerdy grad student". Darn.

12KM MALE OPEN					
MALE FINISHERS					
PLACING	NAME	        BIB NUMBER SPLIT 1 TIME (4.6KM)	SPLIT 2 TIME (5.5KM) TOTAL TIME
649	LAN YINGJIE	517	   20:28:28.04	        40:05.69	     1:19:36.96

Given my flu-ridden condition (though I really shouldn't have run at all), placing 649 out of 1020 is quite alright by me, somewhere just below average. The only bugbear I have is that the run pretty much whacked up my systems for the next week, so I'm still not feeling well.

The route was pretty decent, and I was aiming for a timing below 1 hour 20 minutes once I saw the crazy amounts of hills. I'm satisfied with my timing for the first split, which means that my 5km timings should have improved to sub-25 minutes. Split 2's timings are really whacked up though, because the hills all started from the 4.6km mark onwards and I decided to go easy there and not whack myself too hard.

Felt a bit of a cramp at the last 100m again, which seems to happen a fair bit, so the next time I do something of this length I need to hydrate myself properly. The only thing I'm really surprised about though, was the heat (and correspondingly the dehydration I ended up with) and my lack of endurance for hills.

More Kent Ridge Park runs, anyone?

Yingjie gets email from NUS Office of Admissions and Office of Alumni Relations at the same time. One addresses him as "Prospective Student", and the other "Dear Alumni". So, what is he? NUS student-to-be, or NUS student-gone-already? Or do I matriculate into alumni-hood?

CONFUSING LEH?

...

This week I kind of realised a lot things about myself and my perspectives that have changed. I'm glad for them, and I'm glad I got a chance to talk to Ben about them. It's important to know and discuss it I suppose, just so that I can watch out and grow.