Had an awesome day in the water yesterday.

Got to use one of the red twins, which are my favourite racing Ts, because the black tamil tigers are so damned heavy... and the 218 brasca.

Sensei coached our strokes some more and I finally got the right angle during pull it seems. Still need to check entry depth though. Could feel the surge from every pull now... awesome :D

Samantha and joyce were in the K2. I think samantha was really crazy yesterday, laughing and giggling in the boat. She really loves this sport. Even yelled out to me to "Catch is if you can!", and I eventually did ahuahua. Then we were going to pace and I think they aet my backwash and capsized. It was damned hilarious... 2 girls screaming as they rotated slowly in the boat into the water.

Tried the K2 with yongqiang. Not bad for our first attempt... we managed to cover some 40 metres before we capsized. Mainly due to his good balance. Then we capsized and had to swim so long back to shore... and after we bailed... I felt something stick to my leg.

At first I thought it was a leaf... then I looked down and saw the shape and OMG IT WAS A DAMNED LIVING THING!? And yeah, kicked and screamed and lost my right shoe in the water. Had to fish my shoe back with absolutely no visibility in the water while hoping I didn't fish that damned sucker fish instead.

Then I mightly swung my paddle and created torrential currents to scare the suckerfish away... but it just kept going back and stuck upside down at the bottom of the k2. So we very swiftly towed the boat back to Sensei and He identified it to be a doctor fish. Not poisonous, not blood-sucking... but its damn annoying.

Tried the K1 after that... managed 2 strokes on my first attempt... its hard to balance that thing...

Went and paced with the ACJC team for a set. They've got one pretty fast rower... their more toned rowers are slower than the bulkier or heavier rowers. Kinda the same for hwa chong. Then why is it those damned skinny indians on our team are so fast.... nevermind... I have to beat them all.

Went to suntec to eat lunch then I headed back to kallang for dragonboat.

And for the first time in my 2.5 years in dragonboat I saw a sight to behold in the waters.

Some angmoh team... rowing a 24 crew dragonboat -

- Wearing outfits like angels and santa claus

- With a small christmas tree on the front of the boat

- Singing christmas carols while rowing

- And their coxswain who was dressed up like an angel had wings...

wtf...

It was greatly appreciated and quite amusing to the team though. Crazy americans...

I guess Christmas is coming.

omg I just played... the lord of the rings theme out on the piano. Come to think of it that melody is pretty captivating... although I condemned the damn thing previously because all it sounded like was C A, C A C A, C A C A, C A C C B B A... But apparantly the supporting harmony pushes and pulls this otherwise monotonous melody to new highs and lows.

Result of listening to the lotr soundtracks

The sung jazzy gollum's song is awesome... fabulous chords... although the lyrics are kinda depressing...

"where once was light, now darkness falls."

"Where once was love, love is no more."

"Don't say, goodbye..."

"Don't say, I didn't try..."

"These tears we cry, are falling rain."

"For all the lies you told us, the hurt, the blame"

"And we will weep to be so alone."

"We are lost, we can never go home..."

Depressing rite? Plus the melody I think can make a depressed person go and commit suicide.

Well, back to work...

Felt really overloaded during the weekend and wasn't feeling too good. So skipped training and the church camp. Woohoo.

Took the time to complete final fantasy X at last. Damn game... final boss battle has the boss doing one attack to do more damage than my max hp to my whole party in one move. Wtf? Died... 10 plus times, finally beat him by throwing out everything I had in desperation to rape that bastard before he had a chance to touch me. Awesome storyline, so I went out to get final fantasy X-2.

Damn thats a stylish game. They kind copied some aspects of charlies angels, but that helps a character driven story somewhat.

Had a good rest during the weekend so was ready to hit training again but sprained my leg... no idea how, so missed canoeing land training and went to do weights, then met up with Winston to swim. Freestyle sprints, I've never swam so hard since... dunno when. Till you feel yourself crawling so slowly when its supposed to be a 100m sprint.

Then DB training on tuesday... leg extensions and sprints from the previous day kinda took its toll I guess, we did more dashing. Could feel my legs not able to push hard, unable to feel the usual glide in the air, then saw the rest of the guys slowly pull away. Haha crap. Still ran until whole body went cold and lungs felt like they were going to burst although my legs were going to give way.

Jonny collapsed during the second round of dashing and just curled up on the side. I worry for the amount of stress he's giving himself, on one hand, nothing will get you further than to push yourself even during some sort of weak point, however aggrevating an injury might just make things worse or more serious, and I don't think his ligament's completely healed yet.

Had slight difficulty with the 5 sets of 10 pullups after that... I think my pullups are dropping liao... still remember the time I was chasing after tianhong for 10 sets of 10. Time to wack the bar again.

Weights with my training partner again, Thomas. That bugger is quite zai. Almost as zai as me as weights and pullups, but his running's better. I guess this would be a good opportunity to even out our weak points. The weights routine was quite siong... had to crawl out of the rowing machine again after squats... bloody legs damn weak lar... buck up you slackers.

Had a talk with Thomas after training about why he's always rushing off and so seriously after training. He has to wake up to sell vegetables at 4am to earn a living. Paying his own school fees, and everything while studying. He's finished NS and all, but its still hard to work, study and manage ccas at the same time. He told me to "treasure your life". I guess at times we do take stuff forgranted. But its this situation that I can concentrate on projects and ccas rite now. He's had his time during secondary school with his rugby and all. I guess he misses those days.

Kind of stressing out with ccas and managing this mugen project at the same time, but at least things are looking up.

Finally got some pics from the forum uploaded to webshots under my pics on the left side.

Feel kinda shacked these few days...

We won a silver for the ivp mens event, losing to NTU by less than a second, and got a bronze for ivp mixed event. Kind of a big thing, considering we had 19 rowers when the other teams had full 22 rower boats. More of that another time, I guess... not sure what's wrong... skin around my arms feels funny sometimes, and its peeling in odd ways.

Started during the cruise... could feel all my hair standing sometimes. I think I'm either having an odd reaction to their soap, or the pressure/altitude of the boat. Sheez... Oh well, lets shed to a lighter, fairer me!

During the race days felt kinda down too. Must be an overexpenditure of chakra.