Chanced upon this picture while I was surfing the net today. A picture that symbolizes power, in my opinion the most powerful picture in boxing history. Ali standing over Sonny Liston (the man who knocks out his opponents with his non-master hand). He has the perfect body, the roundness of his upper arm muscles, the toneness of his chest, the arrogant look on his face.
There are many greats in this world but only one Greatest.
It’s been more than a week. Everytime I try to make her smile or hold her in my arms, she frowns and ends up crying instead. It didn’t used to be like this. We were so happy in the past. I was her favourite uncle, she would talk her googoo gaga language to me only, she would flash her teethless gums at me whenever I poke at her cheeks, she would lie on my bed for long periods watching my TV. And when she cries in the middle of the night, I could easily pat her back to sleep on my shoulder. What’s different? Am I emitting a different smell? Am I looking different because I’m tanner? Or is it the mammoth pimple on my face that’s scaring her? I hope this is a phase she needs to go through. I hope she comes back to me.
Enjoyed good food at Siemens today. They sure know how to pamper us. With 2 tea breaks and 1 lunch, I didn’t feel hungry at all the whole day. It was a very impressive place. Very nice, clean and technologically inclined. Looking at their Collect-and-Place machines, I stand in awe of German engineering. How proud I would be if this had been a Singaporean Patent. But sad to say Singapore is zero on the patents list. So many things happening in fractions of a second. Do I really want to do this? Pursuing the micro seconds? The micro meteres? Why can’t we all just take life one step back and be in less of a hurry? Is all this stress incurred in the workplace worth it? But without all this micro improvements, we wouldn’t be seeing our Pentium 4s and Ipod Nanos today. Can we do without Pentium 4s and Nanos? We should have stopped when the world found the Walkman.
The watch I bought for Alice was too big so I brought it back to City Chain and asked the guy to punch an additional hole for me. Ok I admit I was naive to think that they could punch holes just like those already on the watch. Turns out that he punched a very very ugly hole, using this silly hole puncher. I really didn’t know what to do, I was slightly angry (was I entitled to?). I asked if that was all he could do for me and he said yes. Then I walked out of the shop…the mild anger turned into sadness. haha.
So I went to my gu zhang’s shop for help (quite desperately). And he used a metal punch, heated it up with a lighter, and pushed it through the rubber material. That made the hole much better though it was still far from what I imagined it to be. My gu zhang told me that if any other customer came in and asked him to do the same thing, he couldn’t care less. If he had charged (say $5) for punching that hole, the customer would have made a big hoo ha over it. "You only burn a piece of metal and poke it through, you want to charge me ($5) for that?" But what he will not realise is that my gu zhang would have been charging for the trade secret, not the worksmanship.
Anyway, does this prove something? Do older and more senior workers really have less to offer to the industry? Are younger, more highly educated workers really better? I say ginger still is old one hot.
In my 4 years in school, yesterday was the 1st time I swam in the pool at SRC. New goggles, new trunks, wah very excited. hehe. Swam 24 laps, then wait for Alice to bath swim another 4 laps. Tried freestyle but couldn’t even make half a lap and my lung was burning. Came out of the pool and felt the familiar pain in my left shoulder. Damn, the old injury from throwing too many jabs against the heavy bag. Come to think of it, the shoulder was the one absorbing all the impact when using the non-master hand. The pool left a good 1st impression on me. Plus it opens at 7am, perfect for early birds. Definitely will try to swim some more. Free one leh.
I think because I did not get a chance to workout in the week that just passed (2 quizzes back to back), I sort of wanted to make up for it. Don’t really know why but I feel really fat if I don’t do some form of exercise. And the muscle aching feeling after a workout always justifies the late night kway teow goreng pattaya, so in order to enjoy supper with peace of mind, i got to hit the gym. Friday I went to the gym in the morning. This time I ran on the track instead of on the threadmill and I realised there’s really quite a big difference. it’s much easier on the threadmill. And when I was doing the flamingo stance ( stand on one leg and hold the other leg up) to stretch my thigh, I couldn’t balance myself. Normally when I do it in the gym, I can balance perfect. I guess the atmospheric pressure on the track is higher than in the gym (enclosed). Then just before my tennis appointment with Hoe, it started to pour again. So we ended up in the indoor court playing vollyball again. Wah long time never play so forearms were all blueblack for a while. When the rain stopped we decided to play tennis and for the first time, I used the roller. Hehe, pushing the roller around, we were tired even before we played any tennis. Tried out my sis’s Wilson mid size racket with the purple "vagina" shock absorber, it worked reasonably well. But seriously I got nothing to complain, it’s free. Night time was pool time as I played race to 11 with Wang again. Passed by MOS on the way to pick up Wang’s girlfriend and my god, the queue was still long at 1am! Is this place overhyped or is it really that good? Guess I would never find out. When I lay down on my bed that night, my legs…they were so overworked…haha…no wonder I have all those varicose veins.
Saturday morning play tennis again! Damn siao on man. Even can wake up at 7am and take bus to school. But Saturday’s session was beneficial because I realised that the game is more about positioning yourself best to strike the ball, than how to strike the ball hard. Went home Immediately fell asleep on my bed, then woke up to go for tuition.
Today is the day we celebrate Alice’s birthday. We went to Outback. Always wanted to go and now that somebody’s giving the treat, Mai Tu liao! Wah when they served the Prime Minster’s steak, I was taken aback. The piece of meat was raw! It looked just like how a piece of meat would look on the butcher’s table. Luckily before we asked the waiter to bring it back to the kitchen to recook it, I suggested that we slice through the steak to see how’s the texture like inside. And amazingly, the inside was cooked. Wow…anyway, it was quite nice…unique taste…but a tad too bloody for me. And the meal was not cheap…plus the fact we did not order alot (1 soup 1 salad 1 appetizer 1 main). I presented the present I bought to Alice after we ordered our food. Hehe, seems like the correct choice, so it’s a happy ending. Come tomorrow is officially the one week break, but the one week break is a time where seasoned students would know…it’s actually a time to play catch up. Sigh…and I consider myself seasoned.
What inspired me to write something after being lazy for so long is the occurrence of 2 incidents. Last Thursday at the ping pong room in SRC, I found a Motorola handphone on one of the ping pong tables when I entered the room with Hoe. Not very sure if it belonged to the other guy who was present in the room at that time, I acted like I didn’t see the phone and play ping pong with Hoe. Wah it’s been a long time since I last played and made worse by the fact that I’ve been playing tennis recently, I felt really awkward striking such a tiny lightweight ball, compared to the green furry one that I’ve been hitting recently. Anyway, when the guy (PRC) went out for a while, I immediately went to check out the phone. Erm….it’s one of those really humble phones…hehe…so humble that I’ve never seen it before. It belonged to a PRC. Without hesitating, I gave it to the staff at the SRC after we finish our game. Hoe was impressed, but I wasn’t, because it’s such a humble phone.
Yesterday, I was doing my usual rounding at the library looking for a computer terminal. I saw a pouch on one of the terminals. The terminal was unoccupied. The computer screen said "Press Ctrl Alt Del to log on". Many words flashed in my mind. Handphone. Ipod. Nano. PDA. Suddenly I felt nervous (Can you believe it? A pouch makes my adrenaline rush?) I took the pouch and put it into my bag shamelessly. I went to another computer terminal and sat down before opening the pouch to check out my treasure. A Motorola Razor (black). Wow…I found it…it’s mine…All of a sudden I felt like Smeegirl (Mmmmmyyyyy Prrreecioussssss). The urge was so great, I wanted to switch off the handphone and take out the SIM card. But instead I flipped it open and called the last dialled number. I told the fellow that I have found his friend’s handphone and within a minute he came to collect it from me. 5 minutes later the person who lost his handphone came over (looking quite flabbergasted) and expressed his thanks. To tell the truth, I did not feel great. I felt kind of stupid. I could have done so many things with the handphone. It’s not a cheap phone mind me. Sold it….gave it to my sister so she can have couple handphone with my brother-in-law…use it as a spare phone…Sigh. But at least I kept my promise I made to myself. I can’t imagine the struggle I would have to fight if I had found a N70 or N90. Would a good deed generate another? If I had not lost my handphone (beloved) recently, I would have taken the razor for myself for sure.
First time blogging in school….hehe…feels quite paiseh. Back to my ANSYS program.
