Let me show off a bit can? Can I show off just a little?

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...

You scored 93% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 80% Advanced, and 93% Expert!
You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!
Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!
For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.
Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

Hehee, what kind of language u want you want me to use har? Standard English can, singlish also can, with a mix of hokkien, teochew, malay, indian, vietnamese and thai or and chinese too if you want... flexi!! show off show off show off show off...

:) I love the legacy of proper grammar and vocabulary grounding and the learning of English in a systematic second language manner, the way that it was taught in the 80s...

Read the fine print.

Same old lesson, the devil lies in the details, read the fine print.

READ THE FINE PRINT AND NOT THE BOLDED LINES!!! SILLY!

Even if it is one hell of a mumbo jumbo out there, read the fine fine print. Unscrupulous people and websites earn money like this... But for how long maybe it doesn't matter, there will always be fresh victims out on the net.

Wells, lesson revisited, relearnt. Better not forget it this time, and luckily the amount isn't big but inconveniences are caused. Decided to have my credit card blocked and replaced. So it's like back to the good old days. Haha.

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Online personality tests, they tell you what you already know about yourself, giving you the reaffirmation that in this increasingly isolated connected world, is seemingly becoming harder to attain.

Then again maybe it is just the way we are trying. It is probably not the right way. It is probably not the right kinds of signals sent out, so the results are not what one thinks it should be.

There are just too few communication around in too much background noise and clutter. Too much distractions. Too many excuses. Too many questions.

I am insignificant. I am dispensible, easily forgotten, replaced. Is that it? Is that true? Is that what you not want? Is that what you actually want?

I am needed and laden down by too much work!! Do you really not want to be used and be depended upon? Is there really life outside of work? And family? And friends? What is family? What are friends?


"You do not mind following the lead of someone, provided s/he earns your trust and confidence of his/her capabilities. You are capable of leading when necessary, but you will always wait for someone to volunteer..."

But they say practice makes perfect; and you will only get it if you really hunger for it. Do you want it? Do you not want it? What is it? Others may covert it, others may not covert it. Others may seem not to covert it but actually am coverting; others are really not coverting for it but seem to be, others may just be, it. Or was the it for a gap and hole that needs to be filled but would never be satisfactorily be plugged? So back to the question, do you want it, for it? Does it matter? Why yes? Why not? What does at the end of the day? For one? For other's? For the country? For the world?

You reap what you sow, you sow what you reap. True? False? Will kindness and consideration beget kindness and consideration? Or it will lead to being taken for granted? Is it like sales, the quota is never-ending?

Friends. What are friends? Friends are what? Family? Lovers? Past-time? Hobby? How will it be, when will we know if we have been trying too hard, or not trying at all? Are we blinded by assumptions and expectations? We want to be unique? We want to be accepted? What are we? We are what? What am I?

What am I? What do I want? What do I need? What do I know? How do people see me? How do people like me? How do I like them? Will people remember me? Do I want people to remember me? For what? What for? Yes? No? Is there a need to? Is that a need for? Do I want it? Do I not want it? Do I want it and yet not want it? Do I want it but not have the guts to admit that I want it? Then again, what is it?


What is this feeling of joy and gloat over the rest that one is free and unfettered? What is this feeling of detachedness and loneliness over the circles that others seems to be in? Are the feelings the same? Cold, white, pure snow. Pure, and cold. Pure, but cold.

I don't know what to say. I don't know how to say. Words have their limits. They are too light. Feelings and insecurities are just it, feelings and insecurities. They are fleeting, as are words that are light... really? Not really? Really not? Maybe it is just me, for I am the reflection of the world around me, right? Smile and the world smiles back. _________ and the world _________ back. Fill in the blank for the rest of the analogies...

Can't have fresh snow in the tropics, unless it is artificial and connived. So the tropics will have to be either really extraordinary or forever be in envy of the coolness only fresh snow can give; and die trying to feel that little coolness in all the ways that will all seem wrong in the cold eyes of the world.

Little things...

Hehee, improvements no matter how small makes one feel good.

Jogged around the neighbourhood and managed to do around 4.9km in about 27mins. Ain't too bad for someone whose 2.4km timing used to be in the 14-15mins range some 13-14 years ago. :)

Nike 10k run... aim to finish it in 1hour 10mins? :P

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Another personal first, finally. And it really is FINALLY, I am driving out on the roads of Singapore on my own. Haha, very loser right? After so long... My parking sucks, but well I guess I just have to clock in more time behind the wheels...

Thought provoking.

Agence France-Presse
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Aussie coach sells training program secrets to China - report
An Australian swim coach has sparked a storm after admitting selling the training program used by his protege Jessica Schipper for "big money" to the Chinese girl who beat her at the Olympics.

BEIJING (AFP) - An Australian swim coach has sparked a storm after admitting selling the training program used by his protege Jessica Schipper for "big money" to the Chinese girl who beat her at the Olympics.

Ken Wood sold his top-secret training methods, which transformed Schipper into a world-record breaking 200m butterflyer, to the Chinese coach of Liu Zige, according to News Ltd newspapers in Australia on Sunday.

Previously unknown, Liu came out of nowhere to win gold in the event here and shatter Schipper's world record by 1.22 seconds in the process, leaving the Australian a distant third.
It was only China's third gold since its prime at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when it won four.
"They pay for the programs," Wood was quoted as saying. "They pay good money, big money. I wouldn't help them for nothing."

Wood denied betraying Schipper, saying he hadn't trained Liu since Australia's Olympic trials in March.

The 78-year-old, in the coaching business for 40 years, did not reveal how much China paid, but reportedly said the poor money he received as an Australian coach forced him to seek work from others.

Woods, who runs a high performance swim school north of Brisbane, offers a program for elite swimmers on stroke technique, weight training, diet and preparation.

Liu has trained at the school three times over the past three years, along with her coach Jin Wei, a former breaststroke expert who has his own swimming club in China's Liaoning province.
Woods admitted he was torn by the sight of Schipper being beaten by Liu, who he calls Lucy because he can't pronounce her name properly.

"I feel bitter-sweet, I do," he said. "Money is one thing, I have to make a living, but Jess is my swimmer, I've brought her through since she was a 12-year-old - and Lucy has beaten her."
Asked if he had cost Schipper a gold medal, Wood replied: "I don't know. I can't answer that. But I wanted Jess to win. My heart is with Jess. I wanted gold for her. I didn't want Lucy to win."

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates admitted to reporters in Beijing that Australian coaches were low-paid or voluntary and were forced to seek income elsewhere. But he said that training overseas swimmers should not be seen as unpatriotic.

"We are not a country that can point the finger at poaching," he told Australian Associated Press.
"Remember from the establishment of the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) in the early 80s, by the time of Sydney 2000, in our Olympic sports we had almost 200 foreign coaches in Australia.

"And that was one of the major reasons that we improved our position."
Coates added though that Australia needed to do more to retain its top coaches, and that a plan would soon be in place to do this.

Liu is not the only Chinese swimmer to train in Australia, with rising star Zhang Lin, who won a 400m freestyle silver here, being aided by Grant Hackett's old coach Denis Cotterell.
Zhang finished seventh in the 1,500m final Sunday, with Hackett second.

http://sport.sg.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1627566

Primal Needs of a Nation in a Brave New World.

The nation's desperate bid to increase birthrates brings about odd ideas to one's head.

I thought retro-fashion has already gone passe, but apparently not. Matchmaking is even being suggested as a solution for the busy, overworked singles! Creepily an image of a whole new brave world surfaces, like an apparition, like a foreboding omen...

Legalised porn to try to turn on busy and tired out couples... Horizontal workout to improve overall stamina of the other kind... Subsidies on tonics and Viagra... Invention of a pill that erases the need for sleep... Time allocated for making babies... tax rebatable... singles to pay extra non-baby taxes...

Compulsory matchmaking sessions for all singles under the age of 35, deserters will be charged. Being single to be criminalised... partners to be allocated by the government... progress to be monitored...

All these to be carried out while maintaining the annual GDP growth of X%...

Just imagine...

Directions.

"It doesn't matter where the wind, comes from. You just need to do a port tack and keep going on straight. You will get there."

"Wah, he didn't give room to me, I want to go protest him."

"That one is probably an IRC class one ah, so fast!!"

"Turn to starboard!"


Normal sailing terms and jargon, nothing special. .. ?

The location of this conversation?, On PIE in an old Ford car with 6 race officials after 3, or was it 4 or 5? jugs of beer. Hmmm...

On the outside, looking in.

The 5 day work week seems to have help the stork within my circle of friends and colleagues.

Baby photos adorn facebook profiles and blogs. Suddenly a 20-30++ year old friend becomes an infant and so it seems to the uninitiated. It will be interesting to see in a decade or 2 how experts and current infants alike will react to their parents posting their baby and perhaps growing photos in blogs and facebooks...

But for now one has to gasp and kowtow at the juggling powers of the modern working mother as the staffroom becomes one milk expressing factory, with shifts. One more duty to perform apart from marking and lesson planning and meetings and eating and chilling milk in the freezer while worrying about the hygiene and toxicity of chilling packs, of vaccination dates and diaper stocks and calling the parents and counselling deviant students and hoping that one's own child will not turn out to be like the ones counselled...

Life is definitely not the same. Joy, angst, trepidation, fulfilment, reponsibility, duties, commitment, pride, fatigue, uncertainty, love, excitment, expectations... what is there that I on the outside will know?

Toi khong biet va khong muon biet...

Time flies, oddly I miss trying to figure out Tien Viet, maybe I might go learn it up officially, ironically in Singapore where it will definitely be more expensive. Haiz, always on the outside, looking in...

Luck hasn't been too good for this week and the previous one.
"Go ahead and take me for granted." seems to be printed on my forehead.

Breathe. Ok la, minor irritations. Nothing too major, so just got to let it go and go.

So tempted to just go on a solo trip again. Hahaha.

888 report on 988 morning...

Had yet another episode of sleep paralysis which was pretty bad and am now a little apprehensive about falling asleep... urgh, but sleep i will have to eventually. Just no more lazing around on bed as that tends to trigger my episodes. -.-

The Beijing Olympics opening ceremony was really grand, Beijing really put up a really impressive show.

Though it feels odd to see Li Jiawei being Singapore's flagbearer. I know I am being petty and this is small matter, but it tells alot of the general psyche of the management of the sports and perhaps the government? Guess this is the red dot's survival instinct, pragmatism and absorption of migrant talents.

It's China's pride, right? The news said otherwise, Shanghainese weren't that concerned of the Olympics; they are more excited of the World Trade Forum or exhibition they would be holding in 2010. The rural poor in China was excited but no one seemed to remember their existence. Hmm... city to city rivalry and widening gap of the have and have-nots replaying in a larger scale perhaps? And of course there will be the usual dictractors who will want to drag in other political issues to try justify why China is not fit for the hosting. This is a colourful grey world with too many shades.

China wanted to showcase, and showcase she did, we can debate on whether she should or should not do this and this till the cows come home, but well, she did put up a good ceremony, and that itself has to be given credit. Then it is show's over, back to business and hopefully things will be done to for the better.

Oh wells, that is on the international stage, in a more intimate level, it's my friend's ROM today. Missed the actual ceremony as I was unnerved by the paralysis, but managed to go for the dinner. It is interesting how sometimes one clicks with people and not some other. I met this friend of mine not more than 10 times in real life, and yet we click. There are some others whom I can face everyday but have nothing much to say. Heeh... long weekend ahead. :]

Internal diagnosis.

A chance meeting with an old friend showed me just how small Singapore really is. Or maybe everyone is just 6 degrees away from one another. Then again it could just be the kind of profession that I am in. It was afterall, all related.

This chance meeting forces one to make a comparison of what happened before and now, and in the meantime questions one what happened in between. It makes me sit up and then sink into the pit of pondering and self-reflection. Why then? What now?

Who am I? What are my values? What do I stand for?

Am I like the rest? Am I part of the problem? Am I in denial of what I should be doing for what I want? Am I just weak and whiney? Am I doing not enough?

What do I want? What do I stand for? What are my values?

A chance meeting with an old friend shines a light so bright and unconcealing on weaknesses one wants to hide and wish it gone.

But knowledge is key to the lock called passion; or was it the other way around? Or it doesn't really matter? The next step will be execution... Here I ponder.

Just one of the lousy weekends.

Think I have lost my touch as a race officer. I suck at pin end anchoring and estimation of the tides and laying marks. The current had been strong no doubt and I hadn't had enough strength to pull up the anchor. So moral of the story? Start training and be stronger...

What did we have? Drifted mark, entanglement with boat, entanglement with mark and anchor line, snapped flag pole, protests and therefore staying till 815pm at the centre and having a smacked tailbone.

Ok la, still not that bad huh, just really stressful and ugh, wanna swear off race officiating at a point of time. 吃力不讨好。。。Then on the other side of the coin, one learns to appreciate more and with more experience, one gets stronger and wiser, hopefully. -.-

Which side of the coin will you be?

Which one comes first?

The chicken or the egg question?

The hands-on experience or the training?

Is it just going through motion or it really adds value?

Is the means to the end necessary if the end comes before the means?

In a fear of being taken advantage of, are you then in turn taking advantage?