Long day : 0530-2300

Finished watching the news on CNA. There was not much update on the news as they have reported the update every half hour. The number of death is reported to be 19,000. Not 90,000. Timothy Goh did not pronounce it very clearly eh... He even fumbled on it the 1st time during the news update.

It's saddening definitely, but it also shows how the world is coming together to help the countries affected. UN, EU, US and Australia pledging money in kind and Japan, Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Singapore sending teams to help out? there are definitely other countries which are sending medical aid and manpower to the country as well, but I have only listed those which I remember. Sigh. Pakistani-ruled Kashmir seems to be the most affected. India and Pakistan still have not resolved their issues over Kashmir. Perhaps this might be the event to help them resolve their differences, just like how Aceh sat down with the Indonesian government to 'talk it out'.

Last week was the Bali bombings. Yet again. Totally unfair. The Balinese are not even Muslims. And that's why they hate them for being 'servants to foreigners'. These people do not have the respect for humanity at all, and totally do not deserve to live at all. But why must they go all out to harm others who have done nothing to provoke them? Totally incorrigible. It's a sad world out there when these so-called 'martyrs' attempt to rid the world of those who seems to oppose the lifestyle of Islam. They have got the ideals of their own religion so so WRONG. No religion would encourage killing of innocent lives. Argh. Why do they just not understand?! I'm so full of contempt for them. YIKES.

On a lighter note, I went for a run at East Coast Park this morning at 0730! Woke up at 0530! Ahhh... It?s because this is a run organized by the sgrunners forum group of runners. This is the 2nd 'get-together run' and it was a huge turn-out! For over 20 odd people turned up, with some of them bringing their spouses along. I have a photo below! :) Jingyi helped to take the photo. It was a nice shot!

I was actually late and I got Balasing's number, hence sms to inform him. Arrived only at 0740 and there were only a few guys there, with me the only girl running! The rest have gone off. Geez. We warmed up for a while before hitting the roads at 0749.

It was cloudy in the morning and the views of the sea at ECP was so mesmerizing. There was a thick layer of mist that shrouded the surface of the sea and it was beautiful. There were many other morning runners, joggers, walkers, tai-chi ah-mas and ah-gongs, campers and cyclists. It was bursting with life at 8am in the morning! How I wish I were living near the park. I would be very disciplined to go run there every weekend in the morning!

I was running with Balasing, Renotaram and 3 other guys who did not introduced themselves and seemed to prefer keeping to themselves. Oops, their 'slow' pace which would allow them to chit-chat was my normal pace actually! :p I did chatted once in a while with Bala and Renoh but after a while, I left the 2 of them to talk while I tailed behind them by about 1 metre. However, they would slow down at times to talk to me or they would talk between the 2 of them and then slowed down, or Renoh would run off somewhere to drink water and then catch up with us behind. So all in all, I was able to maintain my pace comfortably without pushing myself too hard. We ran in the opposite direction from Bedok Jetty all the way to the end to the highway before turning back and then ran towards Bedok Jetty. I was keeping up with them. Not too bad, considering I have not done a run more than 1hour after the tooth extraction.

After we passed the hawker centre, Renoh and the 3 other guys ran to drink water at the hawker centre. Bala had his own bottle of Gatorade while I simply ran on without water. Mmm... Judo has certainly trained me well for water tolerance! I did not know where they were going to run to, but I separated from Bala at Bedok Jetty as I ran into the jetty while he continued on. I wanted to turn back after a visit to the jetty. It would be more than an hour already and that's about the distance I intended to do today.

It would be good to see where I would be able to run till, since I had someone to pace me. I dunno whether Bala slowed down for my pace, or maybe that was his intended pace as well, cuz he wanted to do 15-20km. I was starting to regret until I ran towards the end of Bedok Jetty and I must say that it must be one of the most beautiful places in Singapore when it's going to rain! The dark clouds were rolling in and the winds were so strong. Momentarily reminded of the day when I took the enormous ship to Athens from Turkey. That was a beautiful thought to occupy my mind. :)

I jogged on the spot for a whole 5 minute before I ran out of the jetty again. It was so stunning. How I wish I had a viewcam at that moment. Because of the long jetty that protrudes 200m into the sea, one can get to view the entire coastline of the beach. How amazing. There are no tall buildings to obscure your views and the skies and sea seem to merge into one as the ominous-looking clouds rolled overhead. There are the regular take-off and landing of planes in the distance as well. My oh my. How I long to fly again. Sigh.

Anyway, I ran back to meet the other runners and was caught in the rain for about 3-4 minutes. Luckily there were some shelter from trees along the way and it was a passing rain cloud only. I clocked 1hour 22minutes for the run today. Good run.

Actually DO spotted me and called me as I actually wanted to run to the beach to cool down. My wisdom tooth site hurt quite a bit after the run. Not now anymore. I met Bee and later on, mythos(&wife), clive(&wife), sotong(& wife), yankeeII (who was so helpful to get the NB certs for us as he went down to the SPANS clubhouse), t@z, kay, dreamrunner, brokenrunner, cyberkinetic, kops21, laokayu, fatty? there should be a few more, but I cannot remember who already. All those names mentioned are their nicknames on the forum, for it?s impossible to know them by names!

Jingyi was already there at 10+ and I talked to her for a while while wating for Minghui and Xiangbin to arrive. Jing helped a few of us take the photo!

I bidded farewell to the runners who already settled down to have their Mac?s breakfast and joined Mighui to cycle. I twas a tough decision as I wanted to chill by the beach to read my book actually. Cycled for almost 2 hours in the end and was damn tired and hungry! We cycled real far, all the way to Changi as they have built new tarred roads where it connected ECP to the Safra chalets and then onto Changi. Jing and XB bladed real far too. They only arrived back at the shop at 1350, and we all started at about 1115! Whoa!

I bathed and MH waited for me, before we adjourned to KR for lunch! Yippee. My pasta and potato and pita and corn muffin! Yummy! Love my carbohydrates.

Jing and XB joined us about 30mins later. We stayed inside the A/C comfort of the restaurant till 3+ before making our way home.

Jing's flying to Beijing for work tomorrow! What a lucky girl! Have fun!

I?m transferring to a new department tomorrow too. Gotta wake at 615! Better go sleep now!