POST Pre-70.3

thanks to richard leong for the picture

This time, I was a little less clueless. But being less clueless means understanding more of the dynamics of the sport. It isn't necessarily a bad thing; except that by knowing more, you have more fears and anxieties. Well, more anxiety than fear for me. It builds up.. more and more each day as race day draws closer. Anxiety grew as race day grew nearer however, two days before the Singapore Ironman 70.3 race, I was more happy and inspired than anxious. phew.

I received a call from a friend of mine that Craig Alexander, the 2008 Hawaii Ironman champ was going to be at her shop giving a talk and signing autographs. So i decided to cover that event for our Australian subscribers and Tri magazine subscribers. I've met many sports superstars who are very proud and full of themselves but Craig was different. Maybe it's an Australian thing. Laid back, humble, encouraging, obliging and patient. Real professional. The more he spoke, the less I shot. I was engrossed in listening to some of the things he had to say.

Questions were asked about almost anything and everything to do with Triathlon and how the world champion does it so well. One of the things that made most sense to me and helped wash away some of the unneccessary anxieties was when someone asked him what he expected out of the race and he said that the race begins the moment we start training for it months ahead of race day itself. Race day is just the final day which your body performs the way you've prepared it too. Immediately i realised that we've been training all these months and yeah. Race day is just race day. If you're prepared, there's nothing really to be anxious about aside from the normal butterflies in the belly. You've trained hard and worked hard.. Time to trust yourself a little more and focus on the process because the outcome will take care of itself. I walked out of that assignment feeling that boost of confidence and inspiration which i'm sure Craig would have felt a thousand times more when he won his race in Hawaii. So amazing and humbling.

Tough Audience

That's what we were at the recent Temasek Polytechnic School of Design Graduation Show. As the school's alumni, we realise that a certain standard is expected of our juniors. Some delivered but some didn't. Some blew our did impress us very much. (: Congratulations to all of you graduates. I remember how tough art school was. Late nights, project based assignments which needed many developmental steps and approval. It was tough as students, having very little savings and needing a lot of material to work with. I distinctively remember our lecturer Iskandar Jalil (our country's cultural medallion winner and famous potter) throwing our pots down 5 storeys when he found them to have no aesthetics. Ahhhh how i miss those days when wild ideas were encouraged and eyebags were of fashion. Time to dig out some old class photographs and retro art work that i've done. I'm so outdated now. tsk tsk tsk.

Apparently there are such sunnies...

The Oakley XS Fives sunglasses for kids.

Kiddy Oakleys

I wished they made a line of Oakley Sunnies for kids.... Anyone from Oakley reading this? Please please start that line..so I can have my sunnies back.. Nate's insisting on wearing mine. Booo.

Foo Jia Wen, our family talent

About 18 years ago, I remember visiting my 2 year old cousin Jia Wen at East Shore hospital.. the little girl was standing against the wall, a real sick chicken but cheerful as ever. She was the baby of the family. My little cousin who's not so little anymore. I found out recently through a close friend of mine, Carol, that Jia Wen was in her Fashion design class at Temasek Polytechnic and into her final year of school... She was "a dream student", "neat, on-time with assignments and talented as well". When I heard that, I was extremely proud. Not only because i'm alumni at Temasek Polytechnic's School of Design but she's my cousin. Yay. I almost couldn't picture her being all artsy and conceptual. I know how hard it is in TP school of Design. They don't allow students to be indulgent. You can be artsy but you have to have concepts that work and have depth. I've been there and i've suffered and came out of it alive. So I could only imagine how good she was to receive feedback like that. Tonight, I went to support Carol and Jia Wen, at their Diploma Show, which showcases her final year work. I was blown away. Her line of clothing was inspired by old houses and architecture and textures.. Her concept, Ugly.Beautiful (see her works here) She's a natural talent and she's gonna rock the industry. Her work is precise, neat and of very high quality. I'm so proud of you and friends, look out for her works in the near future. (:

How can you not love this face

(:

Run to You.

And i will run the race, till i see your face.

Not by might, not by power But by the spirit of God Yes I will run the race 'Till I see Your face Oh let me live in the glory of Your grace

Random smandomes

I love blackforrest cakes and whipped potatoes.

And did i ever mention that i can't stand fresh milk?

I tried giving it a chance thinking that it was just psycological but the moment i taste it, man it makes me throw up and makes my system react violently.

And I really prefer the Original KFC chicken to the Crispy Chicken.

Hahaha.. on that note, there are some very unoriginal people out there that can't come up with their own lyrics for their song... time to sing a different tune baby.

Let's hear something else for a change!

Some don't even know what they're singing.

They think they do and claim to be doing it but it just isn't happening.

Sometimes we claim to sing praises of a situation but when given the change, the first thing that comes out of our mouths are negative. Some claim to be positive and giving and sing praises of others to look all righteous and almighty.I love bursting the bubbles on bubble wrap. I've never watched matrix. one or two.

I love blackforrest cakes and whipped potatoes. And did i ever mention that i can't stand fresh milk? I tried giving it a chance thinking that it was just psycological but the moment i taste it, man it makes me throw up and makes my system react violently. And I really prefer the Original KFC chicken to the Crispy Chicken. Hahaha.. on that note, there are some very unoriginal people out there that can't come up with their own lyrics for their song... time to sing a different tune baby. Let's hear some new sounds.

Whatever happened to Lauryn Hill? Let's hear something else for a change! Some don't even know what they're singing. They think they do and claim to be doing it but it just isn't happening. Sometimes we claim to sing praises of a situation but when given the chance, the first thing that comes out of our mouths are negative. Some claim to be positive and giving and sing praises of others to look all righteous and almighty.

We complain too much.

I love bursting the bubbles on bubble wrap.

I've never watched matrix. one or two.

Ilove blackforrest cakes and whipped potatoes.

And did i ever mention that i can't stand fresh milk?

I tried giving it a chance thinking that it was just psycological but the moment i taste it, man it makes me throw up and makes my system react violently.And I really prefer the Original KFC chicken to the Crispy Chicken.Hahaha.. on that note, there are some very unoriginal people out there that can't come up with their own lyrics for their song... time to sing a different tune baby.Let's hear something else for a change!Some don't even know what they're singing. They think they do and claim to be doing it but it just isn't happening. Sometimes we claim to sing praises of a situation but when given the change, the first thing that comes out of our mouths are negative. Some claim to be positive and giving and sing praises of others to look all righteous and almighty.I love bursting the bubbles on bubble wrap. I've never watched matrix. one or two.

Cravings

I'm craving this:

soon baby soon.. right Lynn and WY?

Da seee swimmmm

Felt great in the water except that a lot of us had trouble swimming in a straight line for the most part of it. AND THERE WERE SO MANY SEA BUGS!!!! attacking our eyes and noses and some managed to get into ah plat's shirt! Managed to get cut on both toes from the rocky sea bed but it only started to sting after the swim when sand got into them... But no major drama if you know what i mean (; How quickly time flies. Soon we'll be focussing on the next event...

Mountain Bike 100km Marathon

sometimes, sunset pictures are too pretty to ignore

Little useless information that u never knew but went "ahhh" after reading it

Kinder Eggs are sold all over the world excluding the United States, where the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act prohibits embedding "non-nutritive items" in confections. Additionally, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall on the eggs in 1997. Kinder Egg-like confections are available, but only in a plastic? form filled with small candies and/or stickers. There are some stores in the United States that sell genuine Kinder Eggs, often in conjunction with other imported British or other European sweets, although their importation is technically illegal due to the 1938 law and 1997 recall.

SUPRISE!

i LOVE Kinder Eggs they are so yummy and the element of suprise is even better.

Ladies and Gentlemen.. let me introduce to you the new packaging for the Kinder Joy egg.. It's sophisticated and brilliant.. I was expecting the egg to be the same on the inside with just a new form of packaging. But when I opened it, it looked like this:

JOY! Hurry go get yours!

ok a little more on the Kinders now that i've opened and eaten them...

The edible parts include milk and white chocolate with the 2 balls which taste the same as the Ferrero Chocolate (which makes sense because Kinder was first made by Ferrero Chocolate company in 1973)

Delicious.. and the toy?

Totally cool.

Ahhh... nicee...

This is a long overdue post but its nice going through the old stash and finding something uplifting every now and again....

inspiring...

HSBC Women's Champions and a lot of SUN

i think this was somewhere between the 5th and 6th hole

It was raining all week. The weather was glorious and we were prepared to get all wet and messy covering the HSBC Women's Champions golf tournament over the past 5 days. We were so wrong. Instead, it got very hot. VERY VERY hot. So hot that I got dehydrated on Thursday and lost a lot of salt which probably left me to cramp up later in the day. Friday got so much worse in fact i think it was the worst of all days. You just stand there, with all the equipment, ripping apart all your muscles, keeping still, controlling every muscle so as to not make any unecessary noise and disrupt play. It's just uncomfortable. I don't mind the heavy weights but the weather just zaps all the energy out of you. You grow tired and dehydrated too quickly. By Sunday, i was spent. I started getting a headache and am still having one, from the heat and now have permernant panda eyed markings as well. With this special tan lines across my face, I could play a character from some super hero movie except my super powers would be being over-tired. The one thing which kept my spirits up and distracted me from the heat every once in a while was meeting up with Jeanette on the course. We've made it a tradition to take happy snappies (as we call them) on the course during every golf coverage. Otherwise the game would be too serious. You've got to remember to have fun in whatever you do... Take a minute or two, smile and freeze that moment forever.. It makes the monotony of life a little less painful. Of course having good friends around for a laugh or two makes it all sweeter. Having said all this, still.. better hot and sunny than wet and muddy. (ya. now that it's over)

Us "LOCAL" photographers...

So this happened yesterday during our shoot of the HSBC Women's Champions Golf tournament press conference photo opportunity.. We were standing on Cavanaugh Bridge huddled at the end, standing in rows, trying hard not to block one another as we shoot World number one golfer Lorena Ochoa and some other golfers riding trishaws across the bridge towards us. Perfect scenerio of the international stars in Singapore right? Actually a little corny but editors love it. SO.. Straits Times photographer, some other papers, the wire photographers such as AP, AFP, EPA, stand together in the 2nd and third rows, giving each other enough space to shoot. In front of me were two western photographers, i believe one of them was from Getty and the other was shooting for World Sport Group or maybe Getty as well. I really don't know and don't care. We're all there for the same purpose anyway so it doesn't matter. Everyone is there because we earned our spot in our job and obviously understand each other's needs for shooting.

So this is when it happens.

The English photographer in front of me says in a loud whisper to his other western friend, thinking no one can hear him or understand his english accent: "If any of these locals jump in front of me, they're definitely getting an elbow.." snigger snigger..

I WAS SO INSULTED.

I had to run that line through my head again because i really couldn't believe what I heard.

I work with people from all over the world in the AP and we have so many english, australian, americans working in ASIA and they NEVER EVER refer to their local colleagues as "LOCALS".. they call them "photographers" or "these guys".

So i blurted out to my CHINESE and MALAY very competent and talented colleagues: "Did you just hear that racist remark?"

His friend then hears me and tries to defend him by saying: "He's kidding.. NO really. He's seriously kidding." All i could reply him was: "I'm a local wire photographer. What does that make me? Hybrid?!"

And that was it.

Totally uncalled for, tactless and totally unecessary.

Sigh. I was uncomfortable about it inside but decided to let it go. We've got 4 more days of intense golf to cover and i'm picking my battles.

Must be a photographer thing

Must be a universal thing because all these photographers i know have at least one outfit like that:

ok for those of you a little slower: its the cheq shirts, the cargo pants and the timberlands and the domke camera bag to accesorise.

The Angus Burger Oh and Edison Chen was there too

Introducing.... the Angus Burger.

Not that the news wires would cover such a breaking news story of a launch of a new burger by Carl's Junior but you see, Edison Chen was there. And with a story like his going around, it made sense to be where he was so as to please our subscribers... The Hong Kong press were all over the place, Hyatt hotel (where he was staying while in Singapore) started to look like a media circus and ooo I think we heard screams and glass breaking from all that pushing and shoving at a media event. I on the other hand would like to give some credit to the organisers of the event which he was gracing, by putting up this oh so yummy burger picture.

Go try it. I did and i haven't touched burgers in 6-7 months and i didn't feel one bit unhealthy after eating it. In fact, it was very very good.

Life's little pick me ups

Just as you think you're feeling really out of it, a little surprise comes all the way from Texas....

(:

Thank you so much for the thought.