Marathon

Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon has been a yearly running event which have been growing from strength to strength every other year. This year 50,000 people will once again pound the roads and tracks of Singapore in various events all with one goal - crossing the finish line.

If you were to ask every runner doing the full marathon of 42km why they joined, i do believe you would hear many different life stories which have inspired them to do it. As most would agree, running the marathon is "crazy". Putting one's body through all that physical battering requires a lot of strength not only physically, but mentally as well.

Personally, i have my own story to tell. This year would be my 4th consecutive year running in this event and here's my side of the story on why it's stuck on my calendar every first sunday of december.

2006
Me, myself and i.

My virgin year in joining the marathon. What the hell was i thinking?! It was more of a rash decision. All my other close friends joined, so i thought why not, for the fun of it. Oh fun it was not..

Before the run, i made some calculations to estimate my completion time. That being my first event, i made an ambitious 4hrs 30mins my target. Obviously that timing got busted real bad. By 2 additional hours.

That said, it was the most memorable run i've had in my life till date. It taught me a lot on how one's mind is stronger than he thinks it is and most importantly that achieving the impossible is in fact sometimes possible, if you dare to put your body and mind into doing it.

2007
Only you

Putting anything on the basis of completing a run is risky but putting your future on the result of one run was a calculated risk i was willing to take. It was a challenge that would have made a difference to the life that i'm leading now.

The motivation behind it is evident as i pushed through every stride of the way. What am i talking about? Well, i made a pact with myself to make her my gf if i could complete the run within a certain time. I did, and the rest is pretty much history. ;-)

2008
Reflection

Opposites exist. Front and back. Pros and cons. Life and death. Death of a friend affected me deeply in 2008 as it was a reminder of how fragile life is. It made me realise that wherever you are and whatever you do, nothing could ever prepare you for such a day.

It happened roughly 2 months before the run but nevertheless i still dedicated that run in her memory. It was a run filled with self-reflection knowing that regardless of what troubles we may be going through, what truly matters at the end of the day to our loved ones, is that we are still breathing and alive.

The run this year is stuck in one of my busiest year. There seem to be a lot of other activities happening during that period. So what's the story behind 2009? Well that's another story for another time. :)

Facebook

Facebook has pretty much been a part and parcel of our daily lives. Most of us would login at least once a day to check out the latest happenings with our friends and whatnots. Some would also compare this activity to that of stalking as you go around snooping into other people's profile pages and being in the know of things affecting your friends.

Interestingly enough, for me, its through this particular medium where i found my current love. There was some annoying application which i used to be active in (the irony!) and she just so happen to be on it as well. She clicked on my profile page and the rest is pretty much history as far as our relationship is concerned. We have been going on from strength to strength and whoever said online love wont last long? *shows fist*

On flipside however, facebook could also be a bearer for bad news. Exactly a year back, my dear friend passed on. The news of her passing caught on rather quickly on her fb profile page. The wall became a tributes page. It was also here that some who were mere acquiantance got the news and be in the know of things.

From the way i see it, the evolution of facebook has been instilled into everyone of us. It has become a way of living for most of us in this busy society. There are also some who refuses to join fb due to privacy issues. Having bosses who are also on fb is somewhat an inevitable thing in this digital age. So unless you're a real social butterfly, social media is the future of networking.

Depending how you look at it, it could either be a boon or bane. Finding a balance between reality and use of technology is essential as nothing beats interacting with someone in person. The psychologies behind that is for another story on another day.

So if you managed to find this blog, why not find me on fb: http://facebook.com/shamong

A S-League Awakening

Recently there has been a lot of flack regarding one Singaporean footballer who decided to quit the S-League to join some Indonesian club. He basically blasted local football standards and said that he had enough of it all.

For those who don’t know, yours truly is keeping up with the league since its inception in 1996. I was a season ticket holder for all home games played in Tampines Stadium. As the years go by, I grew disillusioned by the standards and now when I watch games live on TV, I either laughed my hearts out or simply cringe at the way they are playing.

No doubt yes I’m only an amateur as compared to any of them playing in the league but the standard of football here has actually dropped in my opinion since 1996.

Noh Alam Shah, the footballer in question, blasted the league saying he has had enough of the sub-standard refereeing, bad crowd presence and the stringent guidelines set up by the fas on the league. In its defense, the FAS said that if this was the case, then the sleague won’t have been one of the top 10 leagues in Asia. I thought that it was the poorest comeback anyone could offer.

What alam shah did was to voice the opinions of some other footballers and fans alike who like him are disillusioned with the league. The refereeing standards in recent games have got to be one of the most amateurish I’ve seen in a long time. The crowds have indeed dwindled and it is of no fault of ours.

The league has not received much media coverage since it started. Pre-season news were barely present, even if it did then it would have been one tiny column beside the obituaries page. You could be the top 10 in Asia but what were the criteria in deciding that? Definitely not through the playing standards on the pitch I reckoned.

What he did to me was an awakening to the league. Truth which they have found hard to swallow. Ernest Luis of tnp said that alam shah pointed out long time probs without providing solutions. I'd say even if he did present some solutions, it still won’t go down well with FAS. So why bother?

So well done Alam Shah for speaking your mind. All the best for the future.

Problems, what's new?

In our daily lives, we can never escape from running into problems, be it personal or work issues, all of us experience it. Even the most happy go lucky guy *ahem* has his fair share of problems as well.

Life would have been greater without these issues you'd say but to me without problems, life would have lost its meaning. If life was all rosy then we as humans wont push ourselves to any limits of the mental barrier to be better than good, greater than great.

Emotional problems however, can be taxing to the people affected by it and even worst for the person experiencing it. So many a times, we slip into depression when we cannot cope and feel that life as we know it, is going against us. All in all for some, the thoughts of suicide would cross their mind.

Suicide doesnt solve anything, in fact it adds on to the current problems that one has. It implicates loved ones as they have to now cope with the loss of losing someone close suddenly and bear the burden of his/her problems.

Then they are some who literally pass the problem on to someone else and expect them to solve their problems for them. Asking someone for help is commendable but taking the easy way out and expect your problems to go away just like that is as good as leaving your fate to someone else and making him/her run your life for you.

Naturally as humans, we expect help but we dont really want to hear on how best to manage these ourselves. We just want to see it solved and get on with living life.

Life is like swimming in an open sea. Along the way we will get tired and just feel like going under. But right at that moment, most would resist it, refusing to give up and try our level best to get help. Even when there is help, we still need to make an effort to make the job easier for the lifesaver. If we dont, then he/she would let you drift away back to the open seas.

At the end of day, only we can help ourselves. Others are there to lighten the load but we need to make good of that lift so that all efforts are not wasted.

Happy Teachers Day!

Once there was a teacher who was teaching maths. The school he was in allowed teachers to conduct class tests at will, as long as they submitted one of the many tests for grading. So this teacher picked the test where he felt the majority of his students did well.

Unfortunately there was this student who did badly for that particular test. The teacher disclosed the results to his students and he felt that it was only right that he consoled his student. He told this student to not be discouraged or despair for the test merely constitute 10% of the total coursework.

To which he got this reply from the student: "Don't be sad sir." the teacher was surprised by that reply and asked, "why do you say that?"

And the student smiled and replied, "cause i know you're a good teacher.." :)

Happy Teachers Day to all teachers!

That Rally

Ok this is a bit slow but I caught the national day rally 2 weeks ago. Every year I look forward to these rallies not to specifically listen on what government policies or initiatives there are in the pipelines for the nation, rather I tend to see how the PM does public speaking. I think politicians all around the world have this ability to not only speak well but to also inspire (think Barack Obama).

But this year, PM touched on something which I think what makes us uniquely Singapore, and it was something which made me listen more intently, the race and religion issue. He deems it sensitive but something which must be discussed from time to time. Normally, these are shit stirring issues which should be kept away from the public eye but he decided anyways to discuss it openly with the approval and support of his whole cabinet.

I will spare the details of the speech but honestly throughout the whole speech he was being politically correct about the whole issue. To me, it was as good as it not being discussed, albeit it being a refreshing changes as compared to previous rallies. He particularly mentioned 3 things which should be done to maintain the peace within the nation, and that struck a chord with me; in fact it should do the same with everyone else. Don't hard sell your religion (aggressive preaching); be tolerable with each other and extremism; not integrating with other faiths.

Truthfully, if you were to really look and see, you can most definitely see these things happening around us. It is like a swan that swims gracefully on the surface but look beneath and you can see it paddling furiously. Only a minority group is actually doing them but if that small minority group manages to escalate the issue, you would really have a situation in your hands.

This was the same Singapore which has been through racial riots and also riots with regards to the Maria Hertogh’s case and almost 50 yrs on, we needed to be reminded of the vulnerabilities of own home. These issues I believe have been taken for granted over the years that we all feel that it’s completely ok to stereotype one another and express our feelings openly disregarding the feelings of others and their community. Keep things which you think isn’t appropriate to be discussed to yourself. Addressing unhappiness over something could also be done tactfully. Lastly also be mindful of your actions, be considerate to others and do what’s best for all. No one is restricting anyone from doing what he/she needs to do for their religion or race practices, but do so bearing in mind that we don’t live in this space alone, we live together sharing one common ground. Although now there seems to be a lot of other flacks about this issue, from university students and whatnot, I do feel that all the points brought up are valid and we need to look at it from multiple angles to fully comprehend it and take it into our stride.

Personally I feel it’s a very dicey issue so one must really be tolerable towards things. Although PM's message wasn’t awe inspiring and the effect was pretty subdued, I still feel he got the point across that it is something we cannot risk breaking.

Social Butterfly

Have you felt excited about meeting new people? Mingling around with people whom you don't usually meet and sharing with them some of your main interests. Or maybe meet up with like-minded people, perhaps someone who shares that same interest with you? How about people you meet through the internet?

Well I for one can still remember how I used to meet up with people whom I would know from internet chatrooms last time, when mIRC was still popular. It was a time when Internet was becoming very popular yet people would still want to interact with each other face to face. This usually excites me for you don't know what kind of people you might meet. However amidst all the excitement, this socializing thing (or some of us would rather call it networking) is really very tiring.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very ok with interacting with people through digital means of MSN, Facebook, Twitter, etc. but meeting up face to face is whole different ball game altogether. A couple of observations and also based on personal experience. Firstly, you want to create a good impression of yourself to people. You don't want to look stupid and you won't want to look too smart either. People tend to want to be somewhere average just so they won't be judge (you never know what kind of ideals these new people that you're going to meet has).

Secondly, you would want to pick out the right conversations. These conversations usually tend to be very generic. But it's what happens after the generic conversations are over that truly makes or break someone.

Which brings us to point number 3 on why socializing is tiring, wittiness. Conversations tend to flow when either one of the party is witty enough to build on the conversation itself. Little bits of intellectual humour helps bring a conversation to a whole new level with people looking at you at a different light. It's how fast and light hearted humoured responses you can come up with in the few seconds which builds an impression of you further.

I could go on but these 3 points alone is enough to drain someone out and usually half the time you can see people hanging out by themselves in the corner of the room trying to take a break from all these. So yes it is tiring but one can't do without it and expect to progress high in life. Unfortunately.