Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Run along with the pros

One dreadful afternoon, Ali called me on the phone and asked if I wanted to join the relay category in the Malakoff University Duathlon race. And I said ok! I guess that was the effect of sitting next to my boss and the tension built has resulted to accepting Ali’s offer without thinking twice. And so, the registration has unofficially made me the first runner of the ‘Cekodok’ team (don’t ask who suggested the name =p) in the duathlon race.

Cekodok team consists of Ali, Ayman and myself. Ali memang a cyclist lah. Ayman pulak memang a runner. So Ali and Ayman both entered as the cyclist and the runner respectively. I am neither a cyclist nor a runner. But I do join some running events just for the sake of running. So they put me as the runner jugak lah! But since I am nowhere near a ‘fast runner’, they put me as the first runner (so if I fail, they can cover me up lah =p).

Then I realized it’s a 3.5km run-14km bike-3.5km run. I know it’s not a long run but that thought makes it even scarier. The shorter the distance, the faster they run. Ali said, “Takper, don’t worry, kita takkan last punya. I promise”. The thing is, I wasn’t at all worried if Cekodok lose. I was more concerned about being the last runner that arrived at the transition area. Gila I tell you when I arrived at the registration section, I looked around me and I see all the triathletes, the ironman, the number one runner, etc. With their running and cycling gear, I looked like those people yang tolong angkat-angkat stage, angkat banner or placing the sign boards. Hell, they were all pros!

Before the race, we actually went to McD to get sausage muffin for ourselves. I remember I enjoyed my last race so much because I had half of this muffin before I ran, and I felt more energetic than before. But I couldn’t get myself to eat, people around me were eating power bar/power gel and you expect me to eat McDonald?? Lain la Azman and Ayman, they all memang pro. I malu lah, so I didn’t eat. In my last few races, I have made two mistakes.

1. I started my 10k run with an empty stomach. Solution: Ali bought me Sausage egg McMuffin in the next race, and I felt good.
2. I started running in the front line, together with Ali, followed Ali’s pace, and I wanted to muntah already. Solution: In the next race, I made sure I let Ali go first, I just run with my mp3 , and ignored other people, and I felt good.


But why lah I never learnt my mistakes. In fact I have repeated the same mistakes in the race yesterday. I didn’t eat the McMuffin, so my stomach was empty. And since there were not many participants, I was standing there at the starting point with all the pros. So when the run started, I followed their pace!!!!!!!!!!!!! And with my empty stomach!!!!!!! And I am only an amateur!!!!!!!!

So guess what lah! Baru 100 meter or maybe less, my stomach was churning and my trachea was desperate to keluarkan the green liquid. Iyek! And it was sooo pahit. So that’s when I see everyone started to potong. Belum lagi sampai the Taman Rimba, I was pathetically walking alone.

Then, when I gained enough oxygen balik, I started to run and walk and run and walk, but mostly walk lah. When I was not even half way in the hutan rimba, the first few hundred people were already passing by for their second lap (2 laps for running). And I was not even half way through. When I was quarter way to the finishing line, some were already passing by for their second lap of cycling (3 laps for cycling). When I reached the transition area, I gelak dalam hati, there were only 4 bikes left, Ali’s, Azman’s, the tandem girls’ and I think there was one girl I potong at the finishing line. Azman reached the transition area dengan relax nya. I respect you man, I kept on saying that to everyone who asked me about the race. You are one damn cool guy. Hati memang kuat. He was the last runner, and he was smiling all the way to his bike. I wish I can be as strong as you. And I know I will! :) He wasn’t the last though in the whole race. Well done Man! I wouldn’t have the ability to complete just as how you did. And yes, Bukit Cinta (the cycling route) was not easy!

Cekodok wasn’t the last too.. heheh… Although I ran 3.5 km in 28 mins (gila cekodok), Ali made his 14km cycling within half an hour, and Ayman finished his 3.5km in 10 mins. So overall, about one and half hour lah! *wink*

Thank you Ali and Ayman, for giving me this opportunity to feel what it is like running with the pros.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

UM Duathlon Series




Izrin, Ayman and I have registered ourselves in the Mixed Relay team for this Saturday's (26/07/08) Duathlon. Izrin will be our first runner and Ayman will do the second run while I will cycle in between their runs. All 3 of us have been joining runs together since March 08 and this Saturday will be our first time racing together. The main target is to have fun and expose ourselves to Duathlon which is completely new to all 3 of us. Azman will be doing the race as well in the Individual Men's University Category.

The details of the race are as followed:

RACE SCHEDULE
:: UNIVERSITY MALAYA ::
FRIDAY - 25 JULY 2008

3.00pm – 3.45pm _ RACE BRIEFING @ Pusat Sukan UM
3.45pm – 4.30pm Powerbar Duathlon Clinic @ Pusat Sukan UM
3.00pm - 6.00pm __Race Number collection @ Pusat Sukan UM

SATURDAY - 26 JULY 2008
6.30am - 7.30am __Race Number collection @ UM Race Start
_________________(Pusat Sukan UM)
7.30am - 8.00am __Bike check in at transition area
8.15am _________Short race briefing
9.00am _________RACE START for Individual and Team
12.00pm ________RACE CUT OFF for Individual and Team (3 hours cut off time)
12.15pm ________Prize Giving Ceremony

RACE DISTANCE (Changes)

3.5km run – 14km bike – 3.5km run






Hoping for a great weekend ahead...

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Lulu Alani

Alalalalalalalalalalala.....

Congratulations to Myra and Adri for their beautiful newborn baby girl, Lulu Alani. Weighing 2.8kg, she looks so healthy and adorable.

Myra was initially due on the 23/07/08. We would have expected Myra to give normal birth. She was an active pregnant lady during her 9 months of pregnancy period. She could survive the working tension, goes back very late at night; she even drives her own car up to the last two months of her pregnancy period. She even walks faster than I do. So who wouldn’t have thought that she would give birth cara normal?

Unfortunately there were some complications to the mother. Her blood pressure was relatively high than normal. So she did the c-section, Alhamdulillah, everything was ok.

When I arrived at the hospital earlier, I didn’t have much chance to talk to Myra. She looked so tired and she could not even talk. I kissed her cheek and she was sooo busuk, hehe.. Congratulations mummy busuk! You have delivered a gorgeous baby girl.

Muka mama ke papa?

Congratulations you two!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

A simple decision

Making decisions is part of people’s lives. Whether it is a big or a small one, a difficult or an easy one, a short term or a long term decisions are dealt with different measure. Have you ever woke up in the morning and the first thing in your mind was a decision to be made? Or one morning when you open your eyes, you just had this funny feeling that you have never thought you would have?

I am never a spontaneous person. I have difficulties in making decisions in my life. I find it hard to choose between A or B. Because I know I have always chosen the wrong thing and choosing would mean I am making a mistake. That is one thing that I am always afraid of in life…making a mistake.

Yes, making mistakes will make you wiser and stronger. Experiences will teach you to be a better person so you know what lies along the bad direction for you to choose the right one. But I am afraid of losing, because for me, failure will only weaken the strength and barren the learning phases. At the point you get up from your deep fall, you’ll realize you have lost all the moment in time and there is no way you could turn back.

Being too conscious of making the wrong decisions, I have in fact making constant mistakes in my 25 years of life. Just when I thought I am back on track, I kept on seeing it coming through my way. Then another question reached my satiated head. Upon realizing my mistake, should I respond? But if I do, I might regret, and if I don’t I will suffer. I have been standing stagnant in my life facing one predicament that I have never had an answer to.

But maybe today I have changed my fate in some ways. And it takes only a tiny affair to snap. It may seem unfair on the surface. But accumulation will make it impartial. And I should stand on my own two feet to trust my own gut feeling. Maybe I live and think better if I am 7000 km away from home…

Abong and Lina




Walimatul-Urus


A friend of ours, Irman atau nama tidak benarnya Abong, married the girl of his dream on the 10th July, 2008. The holly matrimony was beautifully held at Masjid Wilayah with over 100 guests witnessing the love unity. I personally have not seen Abong for quite some time now but when I saw him walking from the car towards the foyer with his best man, Fairul at his side, I knew that he was ready to be someone’s husband. He walked with full confidence. There was no trace of 'Abong', the ‘housemate’-of-Llandough-Street, the boy who during his Uni days used to come to our house and cook, bring his guitar and karaoke with us until late night, yadda yadaa... No trace of 'Abong', in fact, he was all Irman.



The bride


Waiting beautifully




The bride and the hantaran




Irman Hadi Dzulkafli




Presenting Mas Kahwin to the bride





The wedding ring



The first kiss (eh ye ker? :p) after diijabkabulkan



Mr Irman and Mrs Lina


The exquisite wedding reception was held on the 12th July, 2008, at Concorde Shah Alam. Lina was sooooo indescribably beautiful. She is even beautiful without make up, what more with Sue Cantik’s touch on her face; she looked like a glowing angel. She had lost a lot of weight (oh I am sooo jealous!!). She was glowing and looking so radiant. I adored her gorgeous wedding gown so much. Had it tailored in Jakarta with only one introduction by a friend. The tailor didn’t even draw a sketch of the gown that Lina described she would want to wear. The sketching of the gown was literally written in words instead of drawing. Lina put her full faith in that tailor, and it turned out exactly as how she wanted it to be. Amazingly beautiful and reasonably priced too.


Walking down the aisle



Melangkah ke alam bahagia



The wedding gown


If I can remember the story correctly, told by our MC, Syah, the couple met in the UK on a holiday trip. A common friend of theirs had the intention to bring this two together and secretly arranged them to be seated in the same car. Abong was attracted to her instantly (chewahh). Later, after the trip, he tried to find ways to talk to her, so he called her and asked for her email address. He told her he wanted to send the trip’s photos to Lina (konon-konon lah). That was the starting of the bunga-bunga cinta.



Looking at the future


Together forever



The Emcee, the best man and the usherer




Cardiffians



With Su and Adzimah




The MC practicing his lines


Us


Friends of the couple



The whole event went so fast and just when I was happily catching up with some friends, I realized that we had come to the end of the evening. We didn’t leave immediately; instead the Cardiffians went up to the couple’s suite to spend more time together, since Abong is going to take his wife to Bahrain in August, to where he is currently attached to. The boys, apa lagi? Makan nasik lagi dengan lauk pengantin lah!


Melantak lauk pengantin. In the pic - Bertz, Syah and Bach. Captured by: Ali




SELAMAT PENGANTIN BARU ABONG AND LINA


SEMOGA BERBAHAGIA DAN BERPANJANGAN



Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Stress mode

Spending two hours on the road, where on a normal rush hour traffic condition, it will only take me 45 minutes and on a smooth traffic condition, I will only need 15 minutes to the same destination, was not nice to start your Monday morning with. To get to my client’s office, I will have to depart four exits namely USJ 4 exit (took 20 minutes where the exit is just next to my house), USJ exit (with only two bloody exits it took me 10 minutes), Subang Jaya exit (took me 15 minutes to get out from subang jaya) and one hour and fifteen minutes had been wasted on Federal Highway to reach Selangor exit (Selangor pintu gerbang).
The news on the radio announced that the bad traffic was expected due to road blocks as there were going to be some demonstration by the PKR or something, oh well.. I didn’t bother to know. People have got to rush to work and some stupid citizens intending for demonstration. Seeing my petrol indicator moved half a bar really tics me off. Lagi-lagi when the police were not even checking on the cars. For the love of god, they just blocked two lanes and stood there like police traffic. Betul-betul menyusahkan orang!!! Don’t they know that working people in general suffer Monday morning blues? Reached client’s office at 11 am and that was the starting point of a bad day.

Thought today would be a better day. But I thought wrong. With my boss hanging around at my client’s place, the working environment is not anymore peaceful. We are already behind time, and our deadline is due in two days time. However, our dear manager does not seem to understand the meaning of deadline. Manager is not supposed to be on field anymore, but our beloved boss is always available. And when he’s around instead of leaving us alone with our work meeting deadlines, he sits there happily asking us all sorts of questions and asking us to do all sorts of things that are not even in our audit procedure.
To cut short, he looks into matters in details that sometimes not even material to the financial statements. Before he joined the firm, he was working with Bank Negara. It is nothing peculiar for Bank Negara to look things in detail. But it is foolish for an auditor to do that. A regulator and an auditor work differently.
Of course a regulator like BNM concerns about fraud error in the company’s financial statement. Hence, they put the responsibility to the management of the company to detect and prevent fraud from happening.
Auditors on the other hand are responsible to give opinion whether or not the company is stating an unbiased financial position and performance. And opinion is given after we have performed our audit procedure according to risks identified in the company. We are only giving opinion on material matters that cause misstatement to the financial statement hence; we don’t look into small figure that does not give material effect.
But boss, why la things that shows 98% lower than our threshold also you want us to investigate? You are wasting our time and our cost. At your level, you should be sitting in office and review the files. Bukan come to client’s office and increase the cost while happily being a nuisance to your staff.. Adoii.. boleh mati wooo!!


To my boss,
Please act like an auditor, not a regulator nor a person in charge in the management team. We are here not to find fraud (it is management responsibility to address that risk). We are here to tell the world whether or not their financial statement is presented fairly (unbiased). Notice we use the word ‘fair’ instead of ‘true’? Because we only look at items that are material to their financial statement. Please refer to International Accounting Standard Board Framework. And please don’t bother us with more technical issues as we need to submit our work to you by Thursday.

Thank you,
Iika


Back to my stress-mode.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Wet Barbecue

Last week (03/07/08) Azman, Ikhwan and I went to Sg Chongkak to treat ourselves with the greeneries, cooling surroundings, the river and some food galore.

We were there by 1030 and were probably one of the first few that day. As soon as we reach our point to settle down, we wasted no time in preparing the grill and charcoal.

The firestarter Azman brought made us laugh. It is called COCKBRAND. And the chiller box he brought with him is labeled LITTLE PLAYMATE



Halfway grilling the giant chicken breasts it started raining heavily. We continued anyway with some shelter and ate in the rain. It was very chilly since we were all drenched with rain.


The chefmaster preparing the meal;




Ikhwan playing with COCK brand fire starter;





6 Giant chicken breasts:




Me making sure the chicken is not burnt:




World's largest and hardest lamb chop:

Sorry - Buckcherry

Oh I had alot to say
Was thinking on my time away
I missed you and things weren't the same
'Cause everything inside it never comes out right
And when I see you cry it makes me wanna die.

I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue
I'm sorry about all the things I said to you
And I know I can't take it back
I love how you kiss, I love all your sounds
And baby the way you make my world go 'round
And I just wanted to say I'm sorry.

This time I think I'm to blame
It's harder to get through the days
We get older and blame turns to shame
'Cause everything inside it never comes out right
And when I see you cry it makes me wanna die.

I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue
I'm sorry about all the things I said to you
And I know I can't take it back
I love how you kiss, I love all your sounds
And baby the way you make my world go 'round
And I just wanted to say I'm sorry.

Every single day I think about how we came all this way
The sleepless nights and the tears you cried
It's never too late to make it right
Oh yeah sorryI'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue
I'm sorry about all the things I said to you
And I know I can't take it back
I love how you kiss, I love all your sounds
And baby the way you make my world go 'round
And I just wanted to say I'm sorry.
I'm sorry baby.I'm sorry baby, Yeah.I'm sorry.

I am sooo in love with this song~

Monday, July 7, 2008

What are you running for?

Before the run

Ali's obsession towards the blue vest aunty.

Drenched in peluh, with Ayman who was the fastest of us three

It kept on getting better everytime. The last time I joined a 10k run was during KLIM08. 10km without proper training is not easy. I have not had time for any training during the day. Ok, let's not say training lah, coz I am not a true runner, or a devout trithlete. I really do this for fun. So doing training sound sooo kuat to me. Not suitable for someone who merely runs at 8.5mins per km. I should at least run for 45 mins everyday just to keep myself fit. But then again, do I have the time? Nottt!

To answer Siemen's question what am I running for? My answer would probably, be.. "I am running for lurveee" haha.. I just enjoy being in the crowd. I love to see their enthusiasm and their excitement, their obsession towards running. I have always admired their spirit and willpower from the first day I signed up for running. The thing with running is, you dont only see genuine runners flooding the running event. You get to see the different mixture of people join together with one mission. "To complete the run". It gives you the satisfaction. But of course la the satisfaction that I get is not the same as the fulfillment and contentment as the first one thousand people (you can guess already that I am normally at the last thousand people =p).

This 10k run wasn't as bad as the first time I ran for 10k. Prolly because I had egg Mc Muffin in the morning? :p Thanks to Ali for the tip. At least this time, I managed to run more than walking.

Earlier before the run, Ali told me that he will be doing a back track to the running route to look for me immediately after he finished. But he could not find me. Not that I lost my way, but because I was too far away from the finishing line, that if Ali were going to look for me and run back with me, he'll be doing a 14km run instead of 10!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

1 minute too late


Shall I say yesterday was my second running event? Unless if I pathetically counting Subang 10k which I delicately ran for 3km Fun Run..so yeah, yesterday would be my third. The McDonald Olympic Day Run started its route from Dataran Merdeka to don’t-know-where and back to Dataran Merdeka. I particularly wasn’t paying attention to the surrounding of the route I was taking. Considering my sense of direction is pretty weak, I didn’t even know how I came about to Bukit Tunku. Well, even though the route was hilly, I really enjoyed the scenery.

The whole running path (well, more like a walking path for me), was in fact very cooling and captivating. The smell of the wet grass, the sound of tweeting birds, and the sight of the green surroundings, really made my waking-up-early-Sunday-morning became worthwhile.

Before the run started, I told Ali that I wanted to be at the front gate. I didn’t want to be at the back because I was too afraid that I will be left alone due to my slowness, and I was terrified that I might lose my way back to Dataran Merdeka. I let thousands of other people ran at the back of me, so that I was at least convinced that I was on the right track.

When the gun went off, I started to run. I shouldn’t have followed Ali’s pace though. But I did! In view of the fact that I am in the mission of losing my ugly 10 kilos, obviously I didn’t take dinner the night before, and had nothing in the morning. So the attempt of running at Ali’s pace with an empty stomach had almost made me collapse. I started to slow down when I hit the 15th second (read it carefully, not 15th minute) and I was pleading for oxygen. I went up to the pavement and I tried to budge away from the thousands of people behind me. I could feel that my face turned burning red and I literally felt my head was blazing. So I started walking lah! I was only running down the hill, hoping not to fall.

By the 50th minute, I realized that I was mostly surrounded by veterans and school kids. I was told that the cutoff time for the 7km run is 70 minutes but at 55th minute, I was just reaching the corner to Jalan Parlimen. Luckily the last bit of the route was not mountainous anymore. So I started to run but reminded myself to do it at my own pace, even though it takes hours to complete it. The most important thing is, I enjoyed the run, got my free t-shirt and at least burnt some calories. I finished the 7km lengang-lengong-walk in 71 minutes. Slow enough, not able to witness Ali queuing up for vitagen, milo, coke, ribena, cornetto for God-knows how many times. However, hoping to say hello to Siemen’s run with some adequate training beforehand.

My new shoes are very comfy..yeayy.. and i like it. My birthday present from Ali. *wink*. And oh, congratulations to our friend Fairuz, for completing the run within cut off time, considering this was your first time.
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