Going to sleep now

After posting, I will hit the sack so that I will be able to stay awake tonight as I run the marathon route. The weather so far as been wet but it is cooling nonetheless. Hopefully it will be cloudy and breeezy through the night so that each and every participant can and will enjoy the race. Look out for tomorrow's post where I will share about the gruelling experience in my maiden full marathon attempt. Stay tuned.......

P;S- off to lala land after being 'attacked' by the zzzzzzz monster.....

24hrs to go....

In just 24 hrs from now, I will be on my way to start my maiden full marathon attempt. I will be starting at Changi Point and will run 42.195km through the night and will be running on the park connector network in the eastern side of the island. It is an exciting journey but I reckon that this will be a good experience for me and I gear up for the Stanchart Sg Marathon in Dec. Tomorrow's Sundown Marathon will be one that I will aim to complete it without too much emphasis on the time. Since it is my 1st attempt, my aim is to complete the race without too much difficulty. I have been increasing my carbo intake and I am looking forward to meeting up with fellow Sgrunner Forum members prior to the start of the race. Nothing beats having companionship when you are participating in such events.

Estimated duration of repair

I received an SMS from the Insurance company stating that the repair job has begun and it will take about 9 days or so for them to do a thorough job. It appears to be the same as the previous incident. However, the only difference is that I am doing a direct 3rd party claim which means that I need not fork out a single cent as my insurance company will pursue the claim directly from the other party. Thankfully I can get back my car before departing for the church camp.

Got hit by another car at the same spot

If you recall, 6mths ago on this date, 28/11, some moronic taxi driver rammed into the rear left portion of my car and damaged the bumper, boot lid and some other things. Exactly 6 mths on, 28/05 which is today, my car got hit at the same spot once again. The venue was just outside the multi-storey car park where I usually park my car. Weather conditions were similar: heavy drizzle. The only difference is that it was another privately owned car and not a taxi. Seeing that the driver was a retiree, I was prepared to be a bit leinent with him. However, his cockiness was something that I cannot tolerate which I warned him that he was in the wrong since he hit the rear of my car. He was a little more apologetic and about an hour later, we filed the insurace claim together at the same location of which he was prepared to let the accessors do the damage survey and replacement car. Within a 6 mths period, my car got hit at the same area with similar road and weather conditions. I just wonder is it because my car is so 'distracting' that other motorists are so attracted or rather distracted by it?

Pls don't ask me why there is no photo. Somehow or rather I cannot post any pics.

The race is never over unless...........

In any sport be it soccer, F1, badminton, tennis etc.....you can see the determination on the athlete's faces to win that coveted gold medal, trophy, the top step of the podium spraying that gigantic bottle of champagne. Sometimes, the negative aspect of giving up the fight or throwing in the towel will cross their minds especially in situations when they are lagging far behind or are feeling the fatigue. However, until the last second when the whistle is blown or the 1st car crosses the finish line and grabs the chequered flag, the race is still on. Anything can happen. Those behind might be able to spring a surprise or the front runners might fumble and make a serious error. The bottom line is this: Never declare yourself defeated until the last moment. Start well and finish well. If you did not win, that does not matter. What is crucial is the process and also enjoying every moment.

Monaco GP

After McLaren’s whitewash in Monte Carlo last season, few were predicting a Ferrari victory in this year’s race. However, all that changed after the red cars locked out the front row on Saturday. What no one could have predicted, however, was how just how unpredictable Sunday’s race would be.

On a day when it all went wrong for Ferrari, with both team and drivers admitting mistakes, McLaren made the best judgement calls. That, allied to some stunningly consistent pace from Lewis Hamilton, was enough to put the Briton back in charge of the championship standings…

McLaren

Lewis Hamilton, 1m 18.510s, P1

Heikki Kovalainen, 1m 17.282s, P8

It all seemed over for Hamilton after he punctured his right rear tyre after hitting the wall exiting Tabac on the sixth lap, but McLaren switched to a one-stop strategy and got him going quickly enough that he only dropped to fifth. He passed Alonso and Raikkonen when both made early stops, then outran Kubica and Massa and was thus able to refuel on lap 54 and stay in the lead. The final safety car could have ruined it for him, but he kept his head for a brilliant triumph which he described as the highlight of his career. Kovalainen’s car wouldn’t engage a gear at the start of the formation lap so he had to start from the pit lane with a new steering wheel. When he got a clear road he flew, but eighth and the final point was the best he could muster on another unlucky day.

BMW Sauber

Robert Kubica, 1m 17.933s, P2

Nick Heidfeld, 1m 20.251s, P14

When Kubica took the lead from spinning Massa on lap 16 it seemed that perhaps this was going to be a really big day for BMW Sauber. But a graining set of rear tyres in his second stint cost him dear, as did Hamilton’s great strategy switch, and only fast pit work when the team changed him from wets to dry tyres late on put him back ahead of the Ferrari. Second, nevertheless, was a great result for the team.Heidfeld had an appalling weekend, but seemed set to make amends as he was up to fifth by lap 12 when Alonso assaulted him at the chicane. The resultant heavy damage sent him tumbling back down the order, on a Sunday he would rather forget.

Ferrari

Felipe Massa, 1m 17.886s, P3

Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 16.689s, P9

Massa looked in control in the wet early stages, but gradually this one slipped away from him. He lost the lead to Kubica after spinning at Ste Devote on lap 16, got back ahead in the early stops, then fell behind again when Ferrari had to switch to dry tyres as the track dried out. Third was a disappointment after the high of his pole position.Things went wrong for Raikkonen even before the start when a wheel location problem put Ferrari beyond the three-minute warning signal on the grid and ultimately resulted in a drive-through penalty that dropped him from second place on the 13th lap. Then he needed a new nose on lap 27 after an off at Ste Devote. Thereafter he was running fifth, a long way behind Sutil, when the second safety car threw him a lifeline. He muffed that by losing control exiting the tunnel when the race went live again on lap 68, and took his nose off again on the Force India. Ninth just about said it all for the Finn, as he lost his championship lead.

Somtimes you win, sometimes you lose....

In anything that you do, it is not always a case of winning without losing. As with the case for Ferrari, it was quite a disappointing afternoon at Monaco with one of their cars finishing in 9th and 3rd but their arch rival Mclaren managed to pull off a win. Full results are not available at post time but the world championship has just gotten even more exciting.

Popular Bookstore and Adidas Warehouse Sale

For 2 days in a row, I went to expo for the above. Angela had wanted to purchase some stuff from the Popular Warehouse sale while I decided to take a look at the Adidas stuff once again. True enough, I managed to find another two pieces of apparel which cost $44 in total. It was a white top and track pants. I cannot imagine the damage if i bought it at full price at their stores. I reckon it can be used when I have CCA or on PE days. Gosh, in total I have spent $103 in Adidas stuff. And they were bought on credit! Thankfully I can pay it in my next statement as I just received the current one. That means, i got to freeze my credit card for a while.

My time in NIE is up

Today marks my last day at NIE as a trainee teacher. Come Monday the 26th, all of us will have to report to our schools as full-fledged teachers. All the skills and knowledge that we learnt over the past two years will now be turned into applying them at the right place and under the right circumstances. At the bottom of our learning curves is where we are now. How we change the gradient of the curve will depend a lot on ourselves.

I had wonderful coursemates and today after the maths survey thing (it was like taking my O and A level maths all over again), we headed to Expo to see if there were any things we could purchase. I managed to buy a black (as usual) polo tee for myself. Bought a lime green polo tee and another white supernova top for Angela. I then proceeded to Millienia Walk to pick up my race pack items for the Sundown Marathon in just 8 days time. I might post the number tag tomorrow.

Monaco GP

Ferrari's Raikkonen seems to have the edge in the free practise session which ended earlier in the day. (Sg time) However, the actual highlight will be the qualifying on sat and the actual race on sun. Many say that overtaking in the Monte Carlo street circuit is one uphill task given the narrow track and tight corners. However, watch out for the start finish line and the chicane at the end of the tunnel where drivers try to out-brake one another. This will certainly be an exciting race. Let the battle begin...

666th post today....it rained...Finally!!!

After another warm day, I was prepared to take another cold shower before hitting the sack. Usually, I will take a cold shower after dinner but the humidity over the past week has certainly made me take another cold shower before bedtime. However, when I was on my way back after buying dinner, it rained and it was quite heavy. Though it only lasted for about an hour or so, at least it cooled the place down a bit.

Dinner was pretty 'sinful' as we had chicken rice with prawn mee and char kway teow. Guess we succumbed to our craving! In fact, these local delights are so widely available that it is quite hard to decipher which are the good ones. The general rule is that, if there is a perpetual queue at a particular stall, it must be of a certain standard but then again, to each their own.

Monaco GP: The 1st street circuit of the season

As the teams head to Monte Carlo for the highly anticipated Monaco GP, all eyes will be on the BMWs, Mclarens and Ferraris to battle it out on the tight and twisty roads. However, do not write off the other teams as they might just pull a good lap or two. Perhaps we will be another team at the top step of the podium? Who knows?

I reckon that this weekend's race will be one that will give a preview to what the Singtel Singapore GP will be like. Being the other street circuit in the world and the only one in Asia, the Marina Bay Circuit will be the 3rd one which runs anti-clockwise with Istanbul Park and Sau Paulo being the other two. I am now making plans to look for good spots so that I have hear the engines roar and also perhaps catch a glimspe or two of the 20 cars.

KTV songs

Went to YouTube and searched for many of my favourite songs in both mandarin and cantonese. That certainly reminded me of the KTV session that I had with 4 other coursemates last week. I recall one of my church friends who is in the chorale asking me to join them of which I replied:" Cannot lah, my voice CMI (cannot make it)" However, this friend of mine retorted:"Excuses only la! Can sing Cheung Hock Yeow (Jacky Cheung) songs still dare to say your own voice CMI?" I guess singing in the choir is not my calling for now though it did cross my mind. For now, I think I will focus on my upcoming role as the team 2 host master.

Short week ahead

Since tomorrow is a public holiday, it will be a short week. Friday will be the last day of this enrichment program and after that, I will be reporting to my permanent school. Perhaps I should start bringing in some things so that I can 'set up shop'. Need that standing fan in my classroom.....

Heat wave

For the past few days during the enrichment program, the lecture theatre was one huge freezer. Not that I am complaining but the moment I step out into the open, I can immediately feel the humidity coupled with the warmness that will make me prespire. When I went running this morning, the heat could be felt even though it was only at about 10am. By the time I reached home, I was totally soaked. Not that I am complaining but it was a great running cum sweating session. However, the heat will really take a toll on one's performance so I am looking forward to running through the night which will be cooler. The only thing that will affect adversely will be that of fatigue. Looks like I have to have on hand a few more satchets of energy gel and hydrate a little more often throughout the run.

Last 2 weeks to the Sundown Marathon

I am down to the last 2 weeks before the Sundown Marathon. Looking at how I have been training so far, obviously it has not been as good as compared to my training intensity for the Stanchart 07. Since this is my maiden attempt to complete my 1st full marathon and it is through the night, my immediate task is to finish it without too much difficulty. Most probably I will try to complete it in about 6.5 hours. Only when I attempt to run the Stanchart Marathon 08 will I then set myself a timing of maybe ???? hrs.

Farewell

I really enjoyed teaching 2S and 4A over the past 10 weeks during my TP. These 2 classes have their uniqueness in their own ways be it academic or otherwise. I learnt heaps from them and enjoyed many moments with them. Though there were times when I got a little tough on them, there are no personal attacks at all. I could see that some of them had the potential to do well academically but they just got carried away by their playfulness coupled with some laziness. I hope that they will take the recent SA1 results as a good gauge to their own proficiency level. Do make full use of the June holidays to do some revision but have some time chilling out with family and friends as well.

KTV session with NIE coursemates

The 5 of us went to Teo Heng KTV for our long awaited singing session. It was supposed to be during the last week before our TP but due to certain constraints, we had to postpone it. Finally, we managed to let our vocal chords loose. It was a solid 4 hours of songs from as far back as the 70s till the latest hits. I managed to sing my favourite Jacky Cheung songs both in Mandarin and Cantonese plus some other of my all time favourites. Perhaps we could have more of such sessions during our breaks. What say the 5 of you??? ;-P

Turkish GP

Though Hamilton managed a second spot and closed the gap between himself and Raikkonen, Massa did a hat trick and won the Turkish GP and this brought him up to par with Hamilton on the world drivers' title. The Finn is still leading at this point in time while the Italian team further extend their lead in the constructors' title.

FInally

Don't know why I cannot post for the past 2 days. Now that it is up, hopefully I can post some photos of my 2 TP classes.....got to go now....

Massa is back

No wonder that Ferrari’s Felipe Massa loves Istanbul Park. On Sunday afternoon he owned the place, and nobody seriously looked like challenging him as he sped to his hat-trick of victories here to move into joint second in the driver standings.

Sure, Lewis Hamilton pulled what seemed a brilliant passing move on him for the lead on the 24th lap, but it transpired that the Englishman was on a three-stop strategy for McLaren, and soon the way was clear again for Massa as Hamilton stopped to refuel and retain hard tyres on the 32nd lap.

Hamilton had sufficient in hand over Kimi Raikkonen, however, to keep the Finn in third place and to reduce his championship points lead to seven as they sped to the line 3.7s adrift of Massa, and separated by only four-tenths of second. The MP4-23 had been sweet on the harder Bridgestones, but still clearly didn’t like the softer rubber that Hamilton had to don for his final 13-lap stint. After the race the team revealed that tyre durability concerns had in fact prompted the three-stop route.

Into fourth and fifth places came the BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, which lacked the sheer pace to play anything other than leading supporting roles this time out.

Fernando Alonso further boosted Renault with a solid sixth place, surviving a minor brush with Raikkonen in the first corner, and seventh fell to Mark Webber after another solid performance by the Australian for Red Bull. Nico Rosberg took the final point with eighth for Williams, and was followed home by David Coulthard in the second Red Bull and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli as the last unlapped runners.

Honda’s Jenson Button was a lapped 11th ahead of Heikki Kovalainen. The Finnish McLaren driver, who started second, was desperately unlucky to have to make an unscheduled stop for fresh rubber after two laps, having picked up a slow rear puncture following minor contact from Raikkonen's front wing - which sustained some minimal damage - at the start.

After that Kovalainen fought back from the rear of the field and had some great dices with Toyota’s Timo Glock, in particular, and Rosberg, before dropping back in his final pit stop. He finished ahead of Glock, who again showed his fighting spirit, Rubens Barrichello, whose 257th GP outing did not produce anything to shout about for Honda, Renault’s Nelson Piquet, Force India’s Adrian Sutil and Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel.

The latter duo both stopped at the end of the opening lap to have repairs made after Giancarlo Fisichella’s unhappy weekend came to an end as he overtook Kazuki Nakajima - by flying over the top of the Williams. Neither the Italian, who landed his Force India in the gravel, nor the Japanese, who got to the pits minus his rear wing, were able to continue. The other retiree was Sebastien Bourdais, whose Toro Rosso dumped him in the gravel as the result of a technical failure.

The result leaves Raikkonen with a diminished lead in the world championship chase with 35 points, ahead of Massa and Hamilton on 28 and Kubica on 24. Ferrari extend their advantage atop the constructor standings, heading BMW Sauber by 19 points, with McLaren a further two adrift.

Ferrari 1-4 for qualifying....McClaren 2-3

Felipe Massa put his Ferrari on pole for the Turkish Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon, for the third consecutive time in Istanbul Park. But the two McLarens of Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton lined up second and third and they will be doing their best to frustrate the Brazilian’s aspirations for his hat-trick of victories here on Sunday.

Massa set the pace when Q3 began, with a lap of 1m 27.896s, but it was a good job that he was able to improve that to 1m 27.617s as Kovalainen punched in a 1m 27.808s on his second run. The Finn showed absolutely no ill effects after his nasty shunt in the recent Spanish Grand Prix, and seemed very happy with his car

Hamilton had been very fast in Q1 until Massa beat him, but was unhappy with his McLaren’s ultimate performance on his second try in Q3. Where Kovalainen made the medium Bridgestone tyres work for him, Hamilton admitted that his choice of the harder tyre was not the answer.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth for Ferrari and it may be that he is running more fuel than Massa. The Finn lapped in 1m 27.936s, compared to Hamilton’s 1m 27.923s

Who will reign in the Turkish GP this weekend?

Ferrari? McClaren? BM Sauber? Which will reign in the Istanbul Park circuit this weekend? The red scarlets are the ones to beat but don't write off the silver arrows or the BMs as yet. Perhaps some of the middle runners like the Hondas or Toyotas or the former champions Renault could spring some surprises. Let's wait and see.....

SA1 maths

I am now looking through in detail the marked scripts of the SA1 maths for 2S. It is a mixed feeling of joy, disappointment coupled with encouragements to try to motivate them to press on despite this minor setback.

Was packing up but then.....

Opened the mailbox and saw THAT letter. Surprised that it came so early, I opened it. The contents were to my liking as it was exactly what i requested. So there is no need for me to pack up.

Will go through the SA1 english paper with the class tomorrow. I hope it will be a wake-up call for them. However, I must applaud those who did well. Keep it up.

1 team withdraws.....

Super Aguri withdrew from F1. As at post time, there will only be 10 teams and 20 cars left on the starting grid....In fact, some of these backmarker teams are just there to fill up the grid as they cannot match the front runners nor midfielders....

A nice song

Testify To Love

Colours of the rainbow
All the voices of the wave
Every dream that reaches out
Reaches out to find where love begins
Every word of every story
Every storm in every sky
Every corner of creation
Lives to testify

Chorus:
For as long as I shall live
I will testify to love
I will be the witness in the silences where words are not enough
With every breath I take
We’ll give thanks to God above
For as long as I shall live
I will testify to love

From the mountains to the valleys
From the rivers to the sea
Every hand that reaches out
Every hand that reaches out to offer peace
Every simple life of mercy
Every step to Kingdom come
All the hope and every upbeat
Speak what love has done

Going shopping

Apple & banana (47sec & 1m17sec)

Final week

Next week will be my last for this TP. Indeed it has been a very rewarding journey as I had learnt so much not just from my CTs but also my students. Compared to the TA last year, I am able to execute tasks and manage other things better. Though there were times when the going was tough, it was nonetheless worth the effort as that honed some of my skills. As my charges face their main papers next week, I wish them all the best and have that they will be able to excel in all their subjects.

Battle of the 'A' brands