Yup, I arrived back from KL yesterday night at around 11PM. Then I studied economics in preparation for today’s test for till like 1AM. Only managed to keep awake today during the test and lectures due to 2 cups of coffee. Anyway, I am too tired and busy to blog about the trip today. All I would say for now is that I got a disappointing 80th position for the 7KM school boys category, with a timing of 40MXXS. (actually the distance is definitely more than 7KM - more like 8.5K)
Anyway, thanks to everyone for their (belated) birthday wishes. And thanks to the HC X-Country Team for their birthday card I love you guys!
Allow me to share a video that I made (using iMovie 08) for my friend’s student council election campaign. A few screw ups here and there, but I think it is pretty well done.
Hey,
Tomorrow is my 17th birthday! Unfortunately I have not yet received any presents from my parents (yet), and I am leaving for Kuala Lumpur tomorrow afternoon (for a 7KM run on Sunday). So yeah, there will be no updates for you guys in the next 3 days.
Also, it will soon be the first anniversary of this blog. I never thought I would be able to keep blogging for so long, but there it is, it’s been almost 1 year since I have setup this blog. I still remember that when I started the blog, it was only meant to be a temporary mean to display some content while I tried to create a new homepage for iQuest Studios. However, due to my own laziness (yes I admit it) and procrastination, the new homepage was never done, and neither did I create my own Wordpress theme and iQuest Studios turned from a web development studio into nothing but my personal scripts portfolio.
But interestingly, even though there is nothing really profitable from allowing people to download your scripts for free, except for the very rare donation or source code purchase, I do really feel a sense of satisfaction to see that my script has received so many downloads. It always makes my day to see someone send me an email telling me what a great script I have created. I supposed I was too naive at that time when I actually thought I could make a profitable business model from creating custom web applications. Apparently I did not factor in my own time constraints, my limited programming knowledge (yes, it’s actually quite limited) and of course my own laziness.
By offering free script downloads, I don’t have to answer to anyone (except maybe the occasional bug report which I have to resolve), and I can release updates as and when I feel like it (which interestingly is usually during the exam period).
But of course, I divulge. I suppose I really owe my blog’s success to one person, Sam Lee, who of course sponsored my domain and server. Without which, I don’t think I will even be posting this today. And of course, you faithful readers, for whom I wrote every post for. Thank you for bearing with me through some boring unrelated posts, such as my duathlon trainings, or the older, more emotional posts.
To show my support and as part of my birthday celebration, I will be putting up the source code of ALS v0.03B Preview 2 for download for 24 hours on the 12 Apr (the day I wrote my first virgin post). However, I must seek your cooperation that you do not redistribute the source code and you do not remove any copyright to iQuest Studios. You will have to accept my terms and conditions when you download the source code that day.
Darn, I think I am kinda overcommitted this year. Firstly, this is the first year in junior college, and I must say the difficulty in subject content is really a huge increase from that in secondary school. Even now, I am struggling to cope with my studies.
Then I joined the school Cross Country Team, in a bid to better my running time for any duathlon races that I may be taking part. (I am getting my friend to teach me to swim, so one day I may just go try triathlon). Even though I only go for 3 out of the 6 trainings every week, it is still physically tiring, especially after a long day in school.
Then, there is my cycling training. Even though I have got no coach, I am trying to go for regular cycling sessions. This is because I realise that I can probably gain the most advantage in the cycling leg of a duathlon race. So that means another 3 sessions - 1 40KM session, 1 20KM session and 1 90KM session every week.
Following that, I am trying to get into the faculty committee for Athena. Now this is quite important to me, since it will affect my portfolio. I do not expect to make it to my school’s X-Country Nationals Team this year (next year maybe), so this means that for my CCA portfolio, I will have nothing to show. So, I want to get into the faculty committee in order to have something for my portfolio. (but also largely because it should be a fun journey to be in faculty committee)
Then in order to be in the faculty committee, I first have to be chosen to be the CT Representative (something like the chairman of the class). This means extra admin work from my Civics tutor (or form teacher) and Faculty Education Consultants (E/Cs) for me to do.
But it doesn’t stop there. There is still the Greenwave competition, in which I am taking part in. Again, it is quite a rush, as the judging is in July, we got about 3 months to finish the entire thing. But the cash reward is rather attractive.
Moreover, I agreed to join INSPIRE, which is organising a large scale mass charity run this year. Again, this promises a good portfolio, but it is going to take lots of time and effort. (especially given our tight budget) After all, the target number of participants is actually 10000 people.
Then last but not least, there are the numerous races and events that I am going to take part in. For example, I am leaving for Kuala Lumpur this friday, to take part in a 7KM run, and I am only coming back this Sunday (and I have got a economics test on next Monday). Then, the next upcoming event is the Team Time Trial (TTT) on the 13th April. Following that is the National Runaway Cycling and Skating (which I am taking as a 45KM time trial). Then of course, my much awaited City Duathlon is on 8th June. Lucky my race season pretty much ends there, though I am considering taking part in the OSIM triathlon relay (which is in July)
So, you can see that I am going to have a rather busy year ahead. Wish me luck.
As a duathlete who needs to train, I have been out cycling enough to tell you how unwelcome I feel every time I hit the roads. I know this issue has been debated many times, but I would like to express my own point of view.
Just recently, I was honked at while starting off at a junction near my house. I pushed off when the traffic light turned green, and I looked down to cleat my left shoe into the pedals. Then this bastard driver in a car behind me just honked at me, causing my to miss the pedal. And so I had to try again, and again the bastard just honked at me. In the end, I finally got fed up, and so when the car passed me, I just gave him the finger. I can still see the bastard talking to someone in the passenger seat (presumably his wife), probably complaining about why cyclists should not be allowed to cycle on the roads.
There have been many other incidents, such as cars brushing so close to me that their side mirror almost hit me, or drivers honking impatiently as I was cycling uphill. May I remind you that we cyclists are not powered by engines that use up precious fuels and contribute to global warming, but by our own legs. If you really think it is so god damn easy to climb up a slope on a bike, why don’t you try it yourself, instead of just sitting in your comfortable car, honking at me and emitting carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other air pollutants from your car exhaust.
Now, there are many reasons why we cyclists (especially those with road or time trial bikes) have to stay on the road. First off, most of us do not live near east coast park. Any other parks are probably too small to provide a long enough distance for us to train. (each cycling trip is normally between 40-100KM). Moreover, most of these parks’ bike lanes are dominated by mountain bikes, which are often incapable of reaching high speeds. It is very easy to crash into one, and believe me, that crash will come at a huge cost to us, especially those of us with carbon frame bikes.
This also applies to the various short stretches of bike pathways that we now see in some areas. The bike paths are often not wide enough to allow for safe overtaking, and more often than not, you can see pedestrians walking on the bike paths, even though it is meant for the bikes only. And again, these bike paths are usually very short, covering less than 3KM.
Pavements are also out of the question. Given the high speeds usually involved in cycling training (around 30KM/H), and the number of people walking on pavements, an accident will be inevitable.
Unless we have dedicated bike lanes on the roads which are actually wide enough for safe overtaking at high speeds, it would simply seem that drivers have to share the roads with us. Do they think that just because we don’t pay road taxes or ERP charges, we don’t deserve to use the road? Let me remind you, if we can afford a road bike (usually at least S$1k+), we almost definitely already have a car and are actually paying road taxes. Especially those with carbon frame time trial bikes - if they are actually willing and able to fork out S$4k+ for a vehicle powered by their own 2 legs, then they definitely own a car in their family. (probably a BMW or Mercedes) So in truth, we actually bear part of the road taxes.
Therefore, I appeal to all Singaporean drivers out there - please be considerate and share the roads with us. If you wish to overtake, and we are taking up more than 1/3 of the lane (which is because of various dangers near the curb such as potholes or broken glass bottles), then just change a lane and overtake us. Why are you so lazy as to flick a finger to switch on the signal light and turn the wheel a little? Instead you must come and squeeze us, knowing that you might just brush one of us accidently (that one brush will probably cause us to crash). Also, if you think that a cyclists is traveling too slowly, there is no need to honk, just change a lane and overtake. By honking, you will not make us go any faster, and will just get us irritated and give you the finger. In the end, it’s a lose - lose situation. Surely you are not in that much of a rush that you cannot even spare a few seconds traveling behind a bike?
If Singaporean drivers can be just a little more patient and considerate, the roads will be much safer for both cyclists and drivers alike. After all, there is less chance of us crashing into your precious car if you keep your distance from us right? Now I will end off with a cool video from the London Traffic Police.
Firstly, sorry for not providing any updates to ALS or ICF for so long. So sorry that there has been hardly any progress on any of the 2 scripts in the past erm.. 5 months. And I am sorry to announce that there isn’t any scripts updates. BUT..but I am going to restart work on the scripts from today. Just give me a while to get used to the code and continue from where I left off. I am pretty out of touch with coding.
Secondly, thanks for your continuous support for this blog despite the fact that I post on a very irregular basis. The blog is nearing 35K - that is 35,000 unique visitors, which, I must say is quite an achievement. The number of downloads for all the 3 scripts that I have written totals to about 7000. I shall now resolve to blog more often from now, despite my hectic JC college.
Thirdly, the weather was pretty bad for the past week, (which was actually my school holiday) and I did not have the chance to train much at all. In fact, as I am typing this, it is raining outside AGAIN. Then, the bad weather made me catch a flu, and I even got a fever. HOWEVER, I got an aero helmet. I got it from another triathlete for S$200, which is quite cheap (relative to original price of an aero helmet). But actually coming to think of it, it may not be exactly that worth it. After all, I don’t think I will wear it often during cycling training, maybe except when I am training in aero position. But never mind, I shall not regret my purchase.
But today, I shall not be blogging about my training, which sadly has been the main focus of the past x number of posts. I know you guys are bored of reading my duathlon training progress reports.
No, today, I shall be commenting on how authoritative our school can get. Apparently, they are now monitoring our Internet activities as well. A few weeks back, my friend told me that our school’s Discipline Master paid a visit to their class blog, and found pictures of “flagpoling” - which is basically the act of ramming a guy with his legs spread open into a flagpole. Apparently he forced them to take down the pictures, and had a chat with the class representative (which is that friend). I was quite shocked when I heard about it, but I can understand the school’s actions - after all, such pictures may affect our school reputation.
But it doesn’t stop there. Just a few days ago, another friend told me that his blog is under surveillance by the school. Reason? A few sharp (and not exactly stinging - but that’s my opinion) remarks about another blogger from our school. Well, apparently the other guy can’t stand a little online flaming, and ran complaining to a teacher. And BLAM, now the school is reading every word that my friend wrote on his blog. Oh, and my friend had to make a public apology. Ouch. What happened to freedom of speech.
Seriously, to tell the truth, knowing that school is waiting to jump on a single word on your blog out of line with the school policy SUCKS BIG TIME. I am going to ensure that the school never finds my blog. Haha, kinda hard when I listed my blog URL on the school portal. But it’s time to take that down.
Anyway, I realised that I got lots of commitment this year. Hope that I can manage. Time to sign off =)
I love you guys!