don't run on an empty stomach.

not literally, but today i tried to be king by just chionging to the stadium the moment i woke up. bad choice. after around three months of non-activity my first workout ended up close to disaster. or at least it felt like it.

towards the end of my measly laps i felt like fainting. i mean i've never fainted before so all i can give is a rough estimate and approximation and all i can say is that i felt like fainting. so i started doing sit-ups and it hurt all the more.

i barely made it home. (remember i don't take buses)

now i'm enjoying myself blogging. lol.

at the end of all those silly exams, i think it all boils down to one single word. all right, A Levels are over at last. many of you are asking what's the taste of freedom like. haha in just a few days you'll get it and you'll understand. then after a while you'll be like..

SO?

wa its like we DESERVE freedom all the while. so we're just back to where we just came from. nice. cz said it right during one of the post-exam chats. i was commenting on how life was fricking meaningless now, and well he said we just have to create the meaning for ourselves.

after all, since everyone dies in the end, life must be pretty meaningless for everyone right? RIGHT LOL. so i made up my mind to do the things i like. the past two days, i could say that i am entirely satisfied with the way i'm making progress.

i've been starting to read more, banging away at my piano more (lol), and best of all i haven't really touched any computer game. i only played runescape for 10 minutes. such discipline was never present in me during my study days.

i think its cos the next best alternative always seems like the best when the first alternative is to study. that's why when you get a slight taste of freedom in the form of computer games, you uncontrollably latch on to it. whereas now i have little desire for computer games because there are so many other things i could do.

the more you are forced to do something, the more you want to get away from it. that's all i can say from 12 years of studying with MOE. recently there was an article about how MOE enforces rigid learning and takes away sides of creativity.

..which is exactly the argument MOE is trying to counter with uh, thinking schools learning nation. i say screw all this bullshit that's not going to make us any less mugger. the education scene is not going to change in the next few years and i feel very thankful for that.

i mean ja though it takes away creativity and stifles your mind and stuff, it teaches you how to pia. 硬着头皮 they call it in chinese. so i'm not blaming the system. even though others are undoubtedly going to dispute that by claiming that i'm being a pussy by finding studying a difficult chore.

but everyone has their weak points. not my fault i have low concentration (like H+ ions of ethanoic acid in aq. solution hahaha) and that making me sit down for an hour is already equivalent to putting me into hell for that duration or longer.

anyway don't let's get started on boring talks about education.

i realised i forgot to talk about the odyssey. basically chew goon and i went hiking after econs on tuesday because we were bloody drained. i mean what else is there to do after an econs paper? study for case study?

PCB RETORTS WITH A RESOUNDING NO.

on the way to the bus stop with goon and chew, i think one of us was like "wa so early go back alr ar." then obviously the other two of us must have been in unison, because it was 5pm and we were going to waste youth if we went home to sleep.

so i suggested we go to bukit timah. the route was rather straightforward we took a bus there before. being spontaneous and excited seals, the rest agreed. thus began our trek. we timed our walk and after a while i started to regret bringing my j2 econs notes (read: SHIT LOAD.)

by 20 minutes we arrived at macritchie. that's not very good time but considering we were talking cawk along the way, i guess it was acceptable.

by 40 minutes we were talking about irregularity reports and trying to brave the trail of the forest. not to mention it had rained the night before and that made the place super muddy. not a very good idea but soon the chocolate smeared our nice white shoes. bloody hell.

approximately an hour after we left RJC, we arrived at adam road just outside the 5km track. fricking cawk if i had ran we would have arrived in half the time. or less. or more, considering the weight of my pack. we sat down to clean off the dirt from our shoes, and in hindsight i find it hilarious, because what was the point of wiping our shoes..

..when more was to come?

we thought it was a straightforward route. past macritchie, down lornie, right into adam road then we could go to the food centre to have a meal before taking the bus back. well, by 157, indeed it is. unfortunately the stupid LTA didn't think about pedestrians trying to walk to serene centre.

so we were faced with the daunting task of crossing the entrance of an expressway. there were alternatives, of course - but they included the likes of crossing the exit of an expressway. not much of a choice either.

i expressly made my intentions clear that i wasn't about to die 3 days before i ended A levels, and i was fucking serious when i made that claim. thus chew, who had a rough idea of how to get to bukit timah, led us into the long valley of adam drive and the real adventure began. (you think macritchie is scary?)

well it was a long way in and we saw super rich expats driving in at high speed. then i assume more residents also sped in as who the hell would actually bother to enter this god-forsaken place? i can assure you that no one would. unless you've just finished a very trying econs essay paper.

there was one bloke who drove in that signalled to me that there was a dead end. that was after we walked past house 13, and by the way we alr figured that out. at the start of the road was a sign that read "adam drive house nos. 1-16." and a dead-end sign. but we were hopeful, see.

confirmation that it was a dead end left us fucking pissed, to put it mildly. thinker, leader, pioneer. we had to live up to the motto of our school. and just because cars couldn't go through, i pointed out, it doesn't mean HUMANS cannot go through. neither of us really wanted to turn back anyway..

..so on we went.

at the end of the road was some kind of fenced up area, i'm guessing its an army training ground or something - we'll find out next year. i half-thought of going inside one of those houses to ask for a drink. thankfully we had the luck to be wearing long pants, because the shithole was swarmed with mosquitoes. not enviable when you had a paper the next day and you want to scratch.

but obviously we didn't. and we saw a muddy track leading off to some place we couldn't quite see. as if there had been divine intervention and that path had been made for us. so we followed it. broken glass and other shitty things didn't stop us. we felt on top of the world, though our shoes probably didn't.

anyway the disgusting construction mud of a very disgusting orange colour was beginning to taint our shoes with.. themselves. so we were thinking "wth this is sick" while at the same time never failing to venture forward. shitty, no doubt, but hey 吃得苦中苦，方为人上人。

on we went. at the end of the orange path was a construction place. like we saw cranes and it was simply impossible to walk on. i don't know how to describe it but basically it didn't look like it was leading anywhere remotely walkable. we saw the PIE beyond us and even so getting there meant crossing a more-than-two-metre wide ditch. not a good prospect.

lo and behold, however, there was a forest clearing by the side. for some reason i think chew saw it - and yet again we believed that the gods must have been on our side. according to chew's reasoning - "if there is a path leading in, it must lead somewhere. so we follow the path."

wise words, and no sooner did we spot the path did we advance towards it. one hour ten minutes. and the undergrowth was fricking dense. this time the mosquitoes were all the hungrier and i got two to three bites in just making a few steps into the clearing. hell.

i very much wish to continue the story, but that will be for another day. i suddenly feel like doing something else. haha till next time then.

navy seals ftw!~