slack

and overdue entry, but not as overdue as na'im's. haha.

last tuesday i went for my run again, and this time round i made it further - to the huge playground at west coast park, where the mccafe is situated at. i think in total i ran around 3+ kilometres? maybe closer to 4km. but i didn't feel as tired as i was the previous week. maybe my pace was more relaxed, and in any case running in a park is much more relaxing than running along the roads and haveing to brave the fumes for those huge ass container trucks that always zoom by to the port. it was quite a nice feeling to reach the playground, at the time when the sun was about to set. after heading back to school i popped by for the muslim youth intelligentsia series. well, alot of questions were posed but hardly any answers were given. in any case it was alot of poeple just trying to impress each other with what they know (me included) and no more than that. well in any case i had no interest in the topic whatsoever. the next one, where the theme will be the synonimity between being malay and muslim, sounds interesting. next week's talk on the science of the end of the world sounds rather interesting. i think i'll have to skip my runs then for this tuesday.

after training on wednesday me and na'im had the sepupu (cousin) challenge. i challenged him on how fast we could et our roti prata. i had 2 eggs and 2 plain, he had 1 egg and 1 plain. and by the time i was done with mine he had only eaten his egg prata. haha. anyway when it comes to something i like to eat i suppose i will eat it fast. haha no such thing as enjoying the food slowly for me. unless you throw me something that i loathe (spaghetti, for instance) then i will probably take my time over it.

yesterday we pulled off the 100 people mob gag on amirah and it was fun! but damn it i was so caught up with it i didn't capture the thing on video, even thought i was holding the digicam. damn it! i feel so guilty, because only i saw the whole thing happening from the back! it was nice, but i wished everyone could have seen it for themselves. what happened was we were walking up the slop after training, and everyone was walking around amirah. then from the back i shouted bomb! and everyone else reacted by squatting down and tucking in their heads! haha. it was a pre-rehearsed move already, and amirah reacted likewise! it was funny because she just followed what we all did. it's just wasted that i couldn't get it on the camera damn it! anyway we got our inspiration from this youtube video, in case you haven't watched it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj0Ma2CsHME.

yesterday i also went to my paternal grandparent's place. a mini-celebration of my cousin's birthday. in any case nowadays i like to listen to what my grandpa, my uncles and my dad talk about. it's very interesting to hear them talk about alot of things. yesterday was about fruits, johor, work accidents, certain history sites of singapore etc etc. very interesting stuff. and i've been asking around to find out how old their grandparents are as compared to mine. because the thing is my grandpa is 79 this year, and my grandma isn't that far behind. even the maternal step-grandma is well into her 70s too, and if my maternal grandpa was still alive today, he would be 79 too. well yes, my family is abit aged. usually by the age 80, alot of malay people would have great-grandchildren already but it won't happen anytime soon in my family just yet.

in any case it was interesting to hear the conversations. and my grandfather is certainly an adventurous kind. he likes to go around anywhere alone, and for his age he's still quite active! haha. he even knows the fish soup at the banquet in geylang is nicer than the one at vivocity. he's brave enough to take the public buses alone in and around the jb area (and i have been criticised for going to jb alone to shop!). he knows the processes of how a body is exhumed in singapore. and because he grew up in singapore in the 1930s, so he knows what singapore was like before world war II. like how areas like bishan, serangoon (the very plot of land on which my grandparents' flat is) were cemetaries. how areas like cambridge road (near farrer park) were full of fruit plantations and nurseries. and kolam ayer was a pig farm area! the area around cedar girls' school today was where the hindus used to cremate dead bodies in the open, and the smell of the kerosense would just waft around the whole area. and he used to work as a grass-cutter once! haha. seriously i've no idea what he worked as in his youth. as far as i know by the time i was born i think he had retired already by then.

he still does gardening as and when he can in johor i think. in any case he's one of those bigwigs among the boyanese pondok community i think. haha. because boyanese people used to live in pondoks around the farrer park area in the interwar years especially, so they were a really closely-knit community. my dad knows people from the pondoks too i guess, but as for me - well, let's just say this boyanese knows not a single boyanese word, much less know who's who in the community. in any case my grandfather sounds like someone great! haha. although one thing in common that me my dad and my grandpa has is that we like to go around places alone. haha. it seems my grandpa likes to 'merayap' around on his own. my dad does this too on a saturday, when he'll just take buses and get lost somewhere in and around singapore to sightsee. i do that myself when i go to places alone, to find out how this place looks like and what not. and the other thing in common is the temper. my grandpa and my dad has a horrible temper. so do i. haha. so yes, do not rub the wrong side of me. this is a warning. haha.

even my late maternal grandpa - i think he's something like a bigwig among his community. they have some nickname for him as a form of respect of that sort. all i know in his youth he was an avid biker - owning up to 6 bikes at a time! haha. and he played badminton regularly too. but he was the soft-spoken type, unlike my paternal grandpa. although i was also not sure what he worked as in his youth. oh yes i've mentioned this all before about my grandfathers on my blog. now i remember. i'm making it sound as if my grandpas were/are really great people in their own right. well, at least in my minds they are! haha.

well it's just that i find it amazing to find out how my grandpas were in their youth, and how they can still stay active even when they are in their twilight years. my only wish is that when i grow old like in my 60s and 70s, i still can fend for myself and still be able to think with a rational mind. when i hear of stories of people just not taking care of their parents in their twilight years, it makes me sad. i pray that i will not be among those who do so, and i don't want to be treated like that either. people who never fend for their parents in their twilight years incur the wrath of God, and that isn't nice at all. in any case, i always wish even in my 60s or 70s i can still go around singapore on my own, still be able to play badminton with my friends and still go out and do alot of stuffs. or even have the sane mind to read.

that was a very long and random entry. ok sorry people.