No I haven't given up on chicken or anything like that. Blasphemy... its the type of chicken and which parts. Seriously, you can peel of the skin off a plate of chicken rice and clump it together, then imagine... "omg that damned thing almost went right into me and turned right into flab."

So yeah, chicken is still the most powerful food in the world. But things will try to stain its ultimate purity.

Anyway, been feeling a little down today. Its easy to get caught up doing the things you do until you stop and ask yourself, why the hell am I doing this again? I guess that goes for my intellectual projects... like mugen or the musical. But its easy when you enjoy it.

Things are different for the more physical projects, like training. It can be very dangerous to lose sight of your goal. Because once you do that, you will dread training, you will think why does this crap require so much discipline? You can't remember that its so fun to go out in the open water.

Its like when you wake up. Can you ask yourself what you are waking up for exactly? Do you want to wake up for that? If not, then might as well go back to sleep, right?

I constantly remind myself of the reasons that drive me to do something. There must be a damn good reason for everything. "Its fun", or "I dunno" are poor reasons which will lead to a waste of time. And sometimes when you lose sight of it, you can always wack some pushups to wake you up.

I have had to remind myself of my reasons for training these past few days as well. Sometimes you dread it so much... but when your actually there or doing it you enjoy it so much. Wacked the wts in my room just now. Sometimes it takes a concentration curl rep, where you're at your limit and that dumbell is inching its way up and you can feel your small little muscle fibres snap one by one, to tell you that your alive.

So why the heck do I train? Why do I want to push myself so hard? Am I a coward? Do I hate to lose that badly?

You could say that the people who train to be number one, are so insecure about their own worth, that they want to prove it to themselves that they are better than what they think.

Or maybe they are just tired of being looked down on, that they want to make it to show everyone.

Optimist/Pessimist view. One could say there is no one truth, only perspectives on facts or situations. Or what some people psycho themselves to think.

I used to look up to the seniors in the dragonboat team. And I couldn't believe that I couldn't accomplish what they have accomplished. That drove me at first. Then I met my Bro. He inspired me to work up to be like him, and I felt honored and grateful that he would accept me to train with him as his padawan.

I never beat hong before he left for NS... I could beat him in weights, but not pullups or running. Short of about 5-10 pullups from his 35 max. Running was more difficult due to runners knee.

Then before he left things were looking down for the team. Not enough guys, and that screwed up race. Totally screwed up. I didn't want to depend on the team anymore. I came over to canoeing, I would have my own race. Hong always said he wanted to join the canoeing team because it was an individual sport and he was dissapointed in our team. I would make our dream come true.

Then He left. I had no more target to beat. Instead just memories of him, the seniors, and faint glimpses of the strong opponents. Some other seniors in the team who were stronger in some areas, but weaker in some areas. I was the senior now. With my own padawan tagging along for extra trainings. Goal-less... Sensei sparked my interest in canoeing... I told everyone that I'm aiming for the gold. I'm improving fast but is it fast enough?

So now I'm left in a transition period. I am moving towards that gold, but I need to find my reason fast.

I want to become stronger. I will prove that someone who had a piece of shit level of fitness in year one will beat the secondary school and up school sportsmen. I will prove that you can work your way up from crap and beat those who are up there and take things forgranted.

Tomorrow I leave for penang for the mixed dragonboat event. Ben said he picked the couple of guys whom he felt were of higher calibre than the rest. Somehow I'm not flattered. With a team that mostly gathers together after the exams 1 month before the race. With crap attendance... maybe I'm looking down on us too much. But those guys had better not get happy with our silver for the mens ivp event. Even if we had a distinct disadvantage with number of rowers. The currents and lane were in our favour, enough said. And if they get too happy with how little they put in and how much they got from the race result, then we're screwed.

I know, not all of them are like that. Quite a couple have a genuine interest to improve. But the few of us is still not enough to row the boat.

Next semester will be a headache.