It has been quite sometime since I’ve posted something relating to photography. Late last year, I was doing a series of abstract/candid themes, including Bus Ride and Dreams.

Other than taking landscape photographs, I also enjoy experimenting other types of photography (although I can’t say that I excel in them). This series involves capturing of movement, and also the using of unconventional angles in photo-taking. I hope you enjoy this new perspective of seeing objects of daily life.
 

Thanks for viewing!! 

Phew! To trust that I’ve the discipline to wake up at 530am to meet my running friends for a 22km Macritchie run! Really a good way to start my day.  

I need to start recording my mileage to keep track of my training prior to the KL marathon, so I guess I’ll just start writing a weekly summary of my runs.

Monday: Home to school, 6 rounds sch track - 5 km, 30 min 31 sec

Tuesday: CBD run! Slow, relaxed jog - 6.6 km, 51 min 37 sec

Thursday:  Amk - Bishan - Thomson - Xinming - Bishan - AMK (loop) - 10 km, 59 min 32 sec

Saturday: Macritchie Reservoir - 21.6 km, 2 hr 34 min 

Total mileage clocked: ~43.2 km

Total time: ~4 hr 56 min 

Before I end the post, just wanna share a few pictures that were taken on Tuesday’s CBD run. It was the 1st Anniversary of this weekly run event, so the turnout was considerably larger than usual, with a lot of 1st timers (including myself). After the short run, we had a mini makan celebration and it ended only at almost ten. Which explains why I slept late. Serve me right!

A “全家福”

The run. It was already all dark, close to 8pm. Can spot me? 

Ahh.. the moment everyone’s looking forward to.. food! Its was supposed to be a potluck, so each of us contributed some stuff, mostly finger food.

And of cos, not forgetting the cake! 1 year old. lol

Ok, this is gonna be a super short post, since I’m already so tired from a whole day’s work.

Anyway, in summary, this week’s pretty good. Although I’m still as busy as ever, I managed to find time to run. And for those of you who’re wondering why I always run, it’s because I’m training for a marathon. Lessons’ been quite fun lately, but I hope that my students are able to absorb what I’m teaching too. (You all are able to, right, right?)

So, yeah.. I’m kinda forced to say the following lines..  I love 2 Unity!!

Hmm.. but then, I love my form class 2 Grace too! (By the way, we’re gonna put up CNY deco soon.. must win!! )

Ok, I shan’t be biased. I really enjoy teaching 2 Justice as well, especially the last lesson, where I got a little confused by all the ‘unusual’ questions asked by the class. lol

Yeah, guess that’s so much about this post. Too tired to blog properly.. I’ll need the next 2 days badly to recharge my energy!

PS: eh, I love 2 Grace ‘06 , 2 Purity ‘06 & 2 Faith ‘06 too.  

Well, after a little break from posting my travelling pictures, I’m back with more photographs of Cambodia’s lovely children. In developing countries like Cambodia, though the kids are poor, they live like the most care-free and happiest children in the world.

When we were having a toilet break from a few-hour journey from Phnom Penh, I decided to walk around and  see if there were anything worthwhile for me to snap. I came across this group of kids playing during lunch time, and took some pictures of them.

Ain’t she cute? I’ve trouble photographing her though.. she doesn’t know how to smile in front of the camera, and she kept turning away and running about!

These 2 kids were one of the many people selling food along the roadside. I eventually bought a preserved mango from the girl above. 

I guess that’s all for today. Anyway… WEEKEND’S COMING!!! Haha.. I’m gonna have a 20km run in KL on Sunday. Pray for good weather..

The weight of these study notes overwhelms Mr Table, though he still refuses to give up. Poor thing.

Oh.. this crap post is my 100th post. lol

It was 5.30am on a cool Sunday, yet I was already up. Today would be my first time joining some of the SGRunners forumers for a Botanic Garden Run (BG Run). I’ve always wanted to find people to run with because it can get rather mundane running alone at times. After not being able to join a few previous runs (due to work commitment and poor weather), the sky finally showed mercy today by not raining in the morning.

All excited, I packed my stuff and took a bus to meet the rest of the people at the old SMU (now NUS law fac) compound. And so I finally met the forumers who I’ve seen posting actively in the forum. There were Tiwazz, Astrogirl, Petia, Eugene, Yakman, Dasher, Run3, Charlotte and Renoh. By the way, those are their forum nicks, and apparently most of us were calling one another by the nicks rather than our real names. (Haha, it certainly reminds me of my secondary school day, where I used to hang out with "chatters" who I knew through "Teleview". Then, we also called each other by our pen-names.)

So, after a bit of warming up, we were ready for the run! It was an approximately 15.5 km route, where we started from old SMU - Bukit Timah Rd - Ngee Ann Poly - Clementi Rd - Ulu Pandan Canal - Buona Vista MRT Station (water/toilet break here) - Holland Village - Holland Rd - Botanic Garden Minden Gate - Cluny Road - and back to old SMU. The whole run lasted about 1 hr 45 min, including a water/toilet break. 

Running together with a group certainly helps in improving my speed (although I was trailing behind the rest for most of the time). I bettered my 10km timing by half a minute (insignificant, but still better, right? ) and felt stronger throughout the run than when I ran alone.

Photos and map courtesy of Dasher

After completing the run, we went for a breakfast together at Mr Prata just opposite the old SMU stadium. 2 kosongs and 1 egg made me a happy man . Anyway, the new running friends that I made are really nice people, being warm and friendly to the new people who joined in the run (me and another two new ones). I definitely look forward to having more runs with the SGRunners forumers!

The Run

First part:

Total Distance: 10 km (minus 1 km+ which involved quite a lot of walking)
Total Time: 58 min 42 sec

Break of about 10 mins 

Second part: 

Total Distance: 5.31 km
Total Time: 34 min 04 sec

It seems that I could never consistently keep my desk tidy, even after the major clean-up late last year. In fact, recently, when a colleague came over to my desk to brief me on something, she was trying to hide her disbelief (that a teacher could have such a messy desk) by refraining from dropping her jaws. I was a little embarassed by her expression and apologised for the mess that she saw. She even bothered to put it nicely by saying "Oh well, I guess you work better this way!" Well… -.-"""

So, I’ve decided that one of my New Year resolutions would be to keep my desk neat and tidy, and to make it a point to file in all my paper and dispose of any rubbish that I’ve left on my desk throughout the day before I leave school everyday.

And I’m glad to announce that I’ve been keeping my desk in an acceptable condition for the past 4 days (and more days to come)!!

Tada! See? I’ve even bought trays and such to organise my stuff neatly. And yes, the flag is still there. I love Singapore what.

Angkor Wat is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built for king Surtavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city.

The largest and best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre - first Hindu, then Buddhist - since its foundation. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture, and has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag and being the country’s prime attraction for visitors.

Below are more pictures that I’ve taken inside Angkor Wat.

Under the morning sun, the towers resemble bricks of gold.

At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. 

One of the many altars in Angkor Wat.

A tourist praying in front of a Buddha statue. Tourists are to make a donation after praying. 

The other side of the alley.

This is a view of the tourists attempting to climb the stairs up to the upper part of the temple. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of gods. 

The panoramic view of the temple from the top of the stairs. 

This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas.

A monk sitting at the steps of the outer area of the temple. Interestingly, he was smoking.

A little out of point, but we spotted this horse grazing the grass freely when we were about to leave Angkor Wat for the next destination.

That is all I’ve got for Angkor Wat. You can view more pictures at my photobucket album here.

Group Photo!  

Angkor Wat is a must-visit place if you go to Cambodia. Words are never enough to describe this majestic temple. I hope my photographs do justice to this beautiful place.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

My self-portrait

Sunset at Angkor Wat 

Hope you’ve enjoyed this series. I’ll be posting more pictures of the inside of Angkor Wat (with write-up) when I’m free. Meanwhile, enjoy life!

This post is gonna be very random, and it’s more of a summary of my first Friday of 2007 than anything else.

School:

Well, first day of school on Wed was much better than I expected! I got into my form class 2 Grace (well, Grace again! I’m fated to Grace.. lol) and settled some administrative matters with them. Since there was much time left before they were to get to the hall, I also lay down my ground rules and my expectations from them for the rest of the year. I think this class is good, and I hope my thought is right.

— 

Anyway, side-track a little.. During these 3 days in school, I’ve bumped into a few of my former students. It’s funny how teachers usually feel that "the more mischievous students are the ones that we tend to feel closer to". (Now, I don’t mean that the better students are snobbish. They are lovely students too, just that the way they express themselves is different from the mischievous ones. )

A couple of times when I walked past my former "hyper-students", they would call me from afar and shout "Yo, cher!". During my form-teacher time with my new Sec 2s, 2 of the "hyper-students" walked past my class and even stood at the corridor and waved to me! Though others may see such gestures as inappropriate, I silently appreciate such moments. The feeling of receiving such greetings from my students is simply indescribable.

Coffee with friend: 

Well, that’s so much about school. What’s a better way to end my overwhelming first week of school than to meet up with my friend for a chat over coffee? Though we didn’t meet for a long duration, it was an enjoyable session.

Breaking my personal best timing for 10km!

I’ve been complaining to my friends about not being able to run due to work or bad weather for the past few days.. and finally I was able to go for a 10km run this evening! Despite the initial somewhat heavy rain, I decided to go ahead. And it was indeed a good decision.. ‘cause I’ve achieved a new personal best for my 10km timing.. which is almost 4 minutes off my previous best timing! And because of that, I got all happy and high after the run.. till now! (Bet you can imagine my absurd "high"-ness by counting the number of exclamation marks I’ve over the post.)

For personal track-keeping: 

Total time: 59 min 19 sec

Total distance: 10 km

Pace: 5:55 min/km (Average); 5:03 min/km (Max)

Yea, so I guess that’s about it for this post. Well, I said it was gonna be very random! Nights!