k r i s a n d r o

I finally recovered fully from the flu that plagued me like a sticky booger that wouldn’t leave me for 3 weeks. However good that might sound, it was overshadowed by the fact that I have not been jogging since the onset of the flu and I am (almost) back to square one for my fitness. And guess what? My army half marathon is only 4 weeks away.

I am so dead.

On top of that, I haven’t been feeling up to my usual self lately and feeling quite anti-social. I haven’t been up to my jovial self on nor and definitely not updating my blog as often as I should considering that I should be on a campaign for the SG Blog Awards.

Hopefully, by the end of this post, I can finally get out of my shell…. or closet if you like, and get back into my old groove and continue to terrorize the social media world.

Be afraid. Be very… afraid.

It’s week 2 of my training and things are going smooth so far. I’ve clocked 30km so far with a good mix of interval training, quick and long runs. I also managed to keep quite strictly to the schedule without affecting my social life. Or maybe the schedule didn’t affect it because I wasn’t having a social life anyway. Haha!

I did face a little obstacle last Friday on the day for my 8km long run. I made a brisk 10min walk to the stadium beside Yio Chu Kang MRT from KuKuNehNeh’s place and to my horror, the stadium was closed for a rugby event. Not wanting to spend another 10-15 mins walking to Bishan Park for the run, I unwillingly spent $1 for a towel and $2.50 for entry to the nearby gym. And for those who knew that I nearly blacked out from a treadmill last year, it took a lot of desperation for me to decide to run on the ‘belt of doom’.

I had already planned to run a 6min/km pace and programmed it on the treadmill to only find it weird that I am exerting more effort than a 5min/km pace on the roads/tracks. Not sure whether to listen to my body or the treadmill, I decide to stick to the latter and continued jogging while I sped away. Another thing I hate about the treadmill is that while the display indicates that I am running pretty far away, I am still seeing the reflections of the same few guys admiring their muscles as they pump iron in the gym. So much for having good scenery during runs and clearing my mind.

As I approached the 3km mark according to the display, I really felt that the treadmill was vastly inaccurate as I am panting and losing energy faster than I should for a 6min/km pace. I eventually broke down mentally and ended the session after 26mins of running with no correct indication of how far I actually ran. Only fact is that I definitely did not meet my 8km goal and it was both frustrating and tiring at the same time.

Treadmills are seriously not my thing. It is troublesome to change the pace constantly. It is uncomfortable to run in an air-conditioned environment. The stationary view screws the brain up as I jog. The inaccuracy of the treadmill. The vast difference of feel on the belt and on the track/road.

[Image by zebra.paperclip]

I am swearing off treadmills for good.

With the every growing popularity of social media tools in the internet such as blogging, twittering, plurking,  facebook, friendster and WLM, it’s no wonder that people start to use less of other traditional forms of communication like landlines and handphones.

[Image from here]

I remember my first encounter with the internet was back in secondary school when I joined this ECA called ‘Media Resource Club’(MRC). The school purchased about 3 to 4 computers in the library and they are connected to the internet. I was with 2 other friends and we logged on to explore. I distinctly remembered going to Yahoo! and the very first term I search for was,

“Amy Yip”

WAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH!!!!!!

Younger generations won’t know who she is but let’s just say that she was pretty popular back in the days for her erm… assets.

=D

Anyway, I soon acquired my own computer and a 56K modem and I was connected! I used mIRC to make all sorts of new friends and stayed connected with them through ICQ. Papers constantly reported the dangers of the internet during those times and I understood them, but I still proceeded to meet people up. Before all this, I was this introverted geek and the internet really opened me up to chatting and meeting new people up.

Fast forward to now and I am still using the internet to meet a whole lot of people I got to know online through popular social sites and tools.

At least for me, the internet has made me more sociable and enabled me to reach out to a bigger pool of people. Whether or not these relationships can be continued and substained in the real world is still too early to tell. With the right mindset and correct approach, I strongly believe that the internet is a great tool for socializing.