| the saturday past |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|01:02 pm] |
| [ | here am i |
| | office | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  calm | ] |
he parted the heavens for you and i. that lazy afternoon which saw the blues and whites from our canvas translate into the colors of the sky, but how they pale in comparison! |
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| running |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|12:06 am] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  good | ] |
i went running last night. it was the first time i hit the roads after everest, and the first time i felt my heart pump hard since i came back to sea level. i forgot to bring my trusty polar watch along so there was no way i could tell how fast or how long i've run. it must have been God's grace because for the first time in a long while, i remember how much i miss running for the sake of running. |
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| summit to sea |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|11:46 pm] |
| [ | here am i |
| | home | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  blessed | ] |
i saw an underwater kaleidoscope of fishes and sharks and corals and sea cucumbers. i saw a sprinkling of stars and distant islands lit with hope in the night sky. but most of all, i saw you holding my hand as we dived into the deep blue, exploring the world with bated breath. |
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| your love puts me at the top of the world |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|04:25 am] |
| [ | here am i |
| | home =) | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  blessed | ] |
"For the battle is not yours, but God's" - 2 Chronicles 20:15
thank you for all the prayers. it was a tough climb, but it was worth every step. |
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| because i'm waiting in office on a friday night... |
[Mar. 13th, 2009|08:39 pm] |
The BBC came up with this list of 100 books.
Apparently the average number of books from this list that people have read is 6.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Tally your total at the bottom.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X +
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien on the bookshelf
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte on the bookshelf
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee on the bookshelf
6 The Bible X +
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte on the bookshelf
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell on the bookshelf
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens on the bookshelf
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare on the bookshelf
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X +
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger on the bookshelf
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams read halfway
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis read halfway
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X +
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hussein X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X +
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding on the bookshelf
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X +
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X +
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X +
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov on the bookshelf
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac on the bookshelf
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens on the bookshelf
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker on the bookshelf
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgon Burnett X +
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce didn't finish it, don't ever want to finish it
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath X +
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens on the bookshelf
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro X
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White X +
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom X +
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X+++
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X++
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
23
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| 20 days |
[Mar. 1st, 2009|11:49 pm] |
| [ | here am i |
| | home | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| | calm | ] |
just 20 days more.
suddenly, it seems too far away and too near at the same time. |
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| it's late, but it's been a while since i've done one of these |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|12:21 am] |
| [ | here am i |
| | home | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  accomplished | ] |
You are grocery shopping for 6 items.
1. Produce: celery
2. Bakery: mushroom quiche
3. Meat: lean beef
4. Frozen: ice-cream
5. Dry goods: seaweed
6. Dairy: cheese
You are on weekend getaway with only 3 articles of clothing allowed.
1. shorts
2. singlet/tank top
3. bikini
You are being eavesdropped on through the day for 5 key phrases or words you use.
1. really?
2. you're an idiot
3. ohmygod
4. to be honest
5. sorry?
What 3 things must you do every day?
1. have my breakfast leisurely
2. surf my usual sites
3. exercise in one form or another
You have a whole afternoon all to yourself. What 5 activities might you be doing?
1. reading
2. visiting the museum
3. painting
4. swimming
5. biking
You’re on a quick visit to the Zoo and can only catch 3 exhibits.
1. flamingos!
2. elephants
3. giraffe
You scored tickets to 4 live TV show recordings of your choice.
1. eddie izzard
2. will&grace
3. whose line is it anyway
4. friends
You can choose 3 scoops of ice-cream.
1. chocolate
2. lemon sorbet
3. mango
You need to name 5 things in your lost wallet to reclaim it.
1. nric
2. uob lady's card
3. ocbc plat card
4. stamps
5. my house key
You are at a job fair choosing 4 dream jobs.
1. artist
2. wrier
3. explorer
4. food reviewer
You’ve got a chance to tell your old high school self 4 bits of advice.
1. don't let your education get into the way of your learning
2. there is not right or wrong way
3. don't compare, it never pans out anyway
4. don't be afraid to pursue art |
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| sometimes i wonder |
[Feb. 26th, 2009|12:16 am] |
|
if i'll miss stairs after everest. the immediate answer would naturally be NO ARE YOU FREAKIN' CRAZY. but then i know that somewhere in the future, on a quiet weekday night, i'll probably wish that i was sitting at the block 22 basketball court, drenched in my perspiration. |
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| write or die |
[Jan. 29th, 2009|04:01 pm] |
| [ | am feeling |
| | amused | ] |
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| 3 days |
[Jan. 22nd, 2009|03:17 pm] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  cold | ] |
(photo courtesy of jen gotch)
monday, tuesday, wednesday
3 days of medical leave
here's to getting better
and feeling better |
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| so i'm back from outerspace |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|05:19 pm] |
| [ | here am i |
| | home | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  hopeful | ] |
the summit of camel peak, china
more thoughts when i'm settled down. hope your new year was a blast. |
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| even with the same people |
[Nov. 25th, 2008|12:46 am] |
| [ | here am i |
| | home | ] |
| [ | am feeling |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | bobbing to |
| | silence | ] |
some things change, and some never do...
(at kim's brother's wedding) |
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| death cab for cutie, live in singapore |
[Aug. 13th, 2008|10:57 am] |
| [ | am feeling |
| | cheerful | ] |
pictures dedicated to the kim, who due to unforseen circumstances, missed out on possibly the nicest act we'll see in a while.
you're so cute when you're slurring your speech but they're closing the bar and they want us to leave... |
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|
| the glass castle |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|12:01 am] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  tired | ] |
“I’m starting to feel like a rat in a maze,” he told me. He hated the way everything in Phoenix was so organized, with time cards, bank accounts, telephone bills, parking meters, tax forms, alarm clocks, PTA meetings, and pollsters knocking on the door and prying into your affairs. He hated all the people who lived in air-conditioned houses with the windows permanently sealed, and drove air-conditioned cars to nine-to-five jobs in air-conditioned office buildings that he said were little more than gussied-up prisons. |
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| death cab for cutie |
[Jun. 21st, 2008|06:14 pm] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  awake | ] |
my years of waiting paid off.
they’re coming.
august twelve is going to be a glorious day. |
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| i am ready, i am ready for the fall |
[May. 19th, 2008|10:17 am] |
| [ | am feeling |
| |  bouncy | ] |
[steve aoki gracing 17 jiak kim street]
the night before saw me shuttling between steve aoki at zouk and the cut chemists at odeon towers, brought in by the good ppl fr the worldwide festival. what a sin to have these 2 gigs on the same night. |
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| 2009, here we come! |
[Mar. 26th, 2008|09:39 am] |
| [ | am feeling |
| | content | ] |
A fellow climber once joked that climbing is "long periods of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror".
Usually, each climbing expedition factors in anything from a few days, to a few weeks of waiting time at base camp, as a precaution against bad weather, when no movement up the mountain in possible.
Although waiting out bad weather at base camp is less strenuous than a treacherous slog up ice cliffs at higher altitudes, it is by no means easy, physically or mentally. With every passing day spent at altitude, even at rest, the body deteriorates in reaction to the lack of oxygen in the air. This in turn leads to slower brain activity, general sluggishness, loss of appetite and eventually, muscular atrophy. Most of all, waiting takes the biggest toll on one's mental state. The heightened state of anticipation, when met with the headwall of frustration at being unable to move any higher, can be agonozing to bear, especially when physical deterioration begins to set in after long exposure at altitude.
After climbing around the world for the last 4 years, all of us could probably fill tomes on the downside of waiting, twiddling your thumbs, feeling your muscles shrink by the day and still not having a clear day to move up the mountain. However, we've also waited though enough bad weather cycles to know that unforseen halts in our climbing schedule are part and parcel of the entire expedition experience and these also have to be overcome before we can reach the summit.
This year, we're doing a rather different sort of waiting.
The Singapore Women's Everest Team will aim to be the first all-women's team from Singapore to summit Mount Everest in 2009.
We have postponed our Everest expedition by a year because we're still seeking additonal funding to send the minimum number of climbers up Everest. We will aim to summit Everest in Spring 2009, sometime in the middle of May, when a suitable weather window opens up and the perennial jet stream on the summit ceases to blast everything standing into Tibet.
Coming after 4 years of climbs, six-day a week training regimes, publicity blitzes and fundraising drives, all of us were heartbroken when the decision was made, but we have accepted it as another obstacle to be overcome in our long journey to the summit of Mount Everest.
Since our decision to postpone the climb, we have been devoting ourselves more than ever to our fundraising campaign. It meant the world to us when our current sponsors received the news with great understanding and support. Some of our sponsors even interpreted our postponement as good news, as we now have an extra year to extend our partnership and generate more public awareness together!
It was especially heartening when our family, friends and supporters rallied around us to cushion our disappointment with their support, at a time when we all needed it the most.
So not to worry, all of us have bounced back with renewed energy and a positive perspective! With an additional year to go, we'll have more time to execute some ingenious fundraising ideas and extra time to prepare ourselves physically.
Following the stellar success of our Cho Oyu (8201m) expedition in Tibet last year, all of us are confident of our bid for the summit of Everest. The final leap for all of us to make, is to raise enough money within this additional year of time that we now have.
"The mountain is always there", as one of our wise mentors used to say and what's more important than recognizing that, is knowing that our team can overcome this unforseen challenge to wait another year. If Rome wasn't built in a day, then an expedition with the magnitude of Everest is definitely worth the anticipation.
Obstacles are put in the way of success not to deter us, but to allow us an opportunity to reach even higher. When we step onto the summit of Everest next year, figuratively, we would already have climbed it more than once. |
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