Saturday, January 24, 2009
Didn't go for my usual saturday morning soccer today because of 2 main reasons. My sister is coming over for a reunion lunch this afternoon with my brother-in-law and I promised my mother to stay home for it. Basically, I'll be having 2 reunion meals today,one with the family (before the actual big one with relatives from my father's side at the usual restuarant tomorrow) and one later with my secondary school classmates. Told myself I won't be eating rice today for both meals, it will be just meat and vegetables. It's not been easy trying to maintain this discipline so far, especially with cny round the corner.
There's so many stuff I want to eat, pineapple tart, egg rolls, the delicious food cooked by my mother and soon to be consumed by my relatives. However, I told myself with ippt coming up and the need to stay in shape this semester, all these sacrifices are worth it. My mother thinks I'm crazy but I told her that abstaining from these food is not as bad as smoking or drinking. I still remember I managed to stay away from my favourite mee goreng from the cai fan stall in school until the 11th or 12th of school - when I finally finished and handed up in my troublesome geography project. It was a mini-celebration of sorts and I had to indulge myself in some sinful food. As of right now, meals in school consisted of soupy stuff, no mee goreng or western food. The only sinful meal I had so far was perhaps my bak chor mee but no more than once a week.
I'll probably got alot of explaining to do during the annual visiting because I know it won't be nice to refuse food given by friends and relatives but I hope I can find a way out. Needed to rest my calf muscle and my hamstring after running for 14km yesterday after my geo tutorial ended. After seeing what happened to Prabz, I knew I couldn't take chances. Soccer will always be a game that's present but not my hamstring. It's been more than a year since I last attempted more than 10km at one shot and I'm pretty surprised that I kept going after 10km. Since I was lazy to walk to the src, I decided to do the running at the astro turf instead - all 44 rounds of it.
To be honest, I never like running at the astro turf because it was deemed as being show-off. This semester for me, I've been kinda lucky, having friends I know playing ultimate frisbee or softball nearby so I didn't really feel lonely. The added advantage of running there is that there's the toilet and drinking facilities nearby and I use objects at the pitch to keep myself motivated. One good example would be how I placed my water bottle on the flat portion of the hose spray (there are 4 of them to water the pitch) because I needed to refuel myself after like every 12 rounds. Running in the late afternoon now is no joke because the weather even though windy, is still quite terrible. The weather was so hot that I consumed one bottle of water after 20 rounds and thank goodess for Mizi who was having frisbee training. I managed to shout to him to help me refill my bottle.
With lots of nice food that will surely entice my tastebuds over this festive period, it's struggle between consuming it or just consume them and worry later. I probably got to work a little harder to burn all these calories if I do but then again, I already plan to run before I go visiting if possible. I was supposed to do an entry after a soccer game last saturday but I felt too tired and lazy to do so. A "visiting" team came down to the street soccer court and asked whether they could join us. They were kids no more than sec 1 or 2 so you could imagine in terms of height how small they are. When I play soccer with friends, I usually take it easy but the tempo was increased when I saw how arrogant the keeper was. He was just blatantly siting down when his team was attacking - total disregard for my team. In the end, I got so pissed off that I started ramming shots at goal, shots that were powerful enough for kids their age to create some sort of fear. Even my friends asked me whether I'm all right.
I first notice that I tend to put on weight/mass at the thighs area instead of my tiny calf. The DEXA scan I took under one of my pe modules last semester confirmed that it's true. Most of my weight tend to be centred around the thighs area and which is why during army, I tend to work on them because I realize my shots in soccer can be alot more powerful. One scene that will always be remained with me and make me feel guilty was how I wanted to blast one shot at this tiny boy in goal. However, I didn't in the end - not because I wanted to be nice guy but I saw how he turned around to protect himself and his own head. Deep down inside, I told myself I'm a pe teacher and I can't be doing such stuff to children who are younger than me. The damage had already been done to them in terms of the scoreline and there was no need to further humilate them even further.
That tiny boy also got quite a bit of stick from his friends after the game and I felt pretty sorry for him. Things like "You will never make the school team if you're scared of balls like that" were being said to him. I was like thinking at that age, I would be scared too. Poor chap really.
Ok, I'm off to have my reunion lunch. Hope it's going to be good weekend for everyone!
