Poison

Sometimes we do not realize that some of the words we use on daily conversations are not the best options there is. And even worse, these words bring negative energy, which I like to believe may have a subsequent effect on how we behave or react. For example, the word lazy, or in Malay, malas. You may not realize how often you use this word in your daily conversations, but let’s look at some of the classics (that I mostly experienced saying them myself).

“Hmm, malasnya nak pergi lari petang ni, mendung semacam je iklim khatulistiwa kat luar tu.”

Or,

“Aduh, susah betul la nak register race marathon online ni. Asyik sangkut je. Malas aku nak layan. Aku pirate kang baru diorang tau.”

Or,

“Hebat betul la diorang ni, almost everyday diorang update blog. Aku sorang je malas update.”

And you may have also heard about the “M-bug” flying around, haven’t you?

I know it is naturally difficult to reflect or observe our own behavior, and specifically our weaknesses. Having some little experience working and living in Japan for 364 days back in 2002, I generally concluded that one of the reasons why Japanese can be as what they are now today is that, they are not lazy. It is so obvious even in their conversations that until today, to be frank, I don’t know how to say the word “lazy” in Japanese language. For what I always hear, they would either say “I don’t want to blahblahblah…”, or “I cannot do blahblahblah…”. I never heard they say “I’m lazy to blahblahblah…”

It may be difficult to prove this scientifically, but somehow I believe using negative words may have direct consequences to how we react, or behave. It is such a poison to our little subconscious brains.

Talking about poison, don’t you think it is also a kind of negative word?

Especially when we talk about influencing another runner into doing something greater. Like motivating them to go for longer distance, or to run faster, or to upgrade from half marathon to full marathon. We tend to use the word poison, rather than any other positive words. How often have you said something like, “I want to poison him/her to do marathon”. Pretty often, right?

But, is it the best word to use? I mean, poison is a sort of negative word in this essence. So, when I woke up this morning and got a little sparkle of idea of what topic I want to blog about today, I came to think about this. About how we should promote using positive words, so that we become more positive minded and behave more positively.

Then I came to think, instead of using negative word like poison, why don’t we use the opposite and positive word like, fertilizer? Just like how we want to grow beautiful flowers or fruit trees, we would use fertilizer and not poison, right? And it would be much better especially when associating it with growing, or influencing, or motivating another runner into doing something better like a marathon. Don’t you think?

Perhaps we might try saying something like, “I think I want to fertilize her to do a marathon lah.”

Eeerrrkkkkk!!!

I think I’ll stick to the word poison lah.
At least it is a safer word. Hik hik hik...

Apa Khabar Ku?

Alhamdulillah diriku sihat,
Walaupun perut dah makin bulat,
Keje kat ofis berlipat-lipat,
Nak makan pun rasa dah macam tak sempat,
Nak baca blog dah rasa tak larat,
Nak tulis blog sendiri lagilah penat,
Tak lama lagi password pun tak ingat.

Tapi apa boleh buat,
Di dunia ini begitulah adat,
Sekejap lapang sekejap terjerat,
Bila senang bolehlah berehat,
Bila dah busy nafas pun tersekat,
Syukurlah badanku masih sihat,
Akal pun masih berputar ligat.

Walaupun cuma sekadar sekerat,
Cerita dah basi story dah berkarat,
Inilah aje yang aku larat,
Kepada korang masih ku ingat,
Pembaca setia dan juga peminat,
Waktu rehat ku dah hampir tamat,
Di sinilah aje yang aku sempat,
Semoga bertemu di lain tempat.

Oh, I miss group running so much...

Gambatte SCSM Runners!

Oleh kerana hormon pantun saya hari ini sangat tinggi menchanak, terpaksalah saya kumandangkan beberapa rangkap pantun merapu moden untuk tatapan rakan-rakan yang akan berjuang di tanah seberang Selat Tebrau pada hari Ahad ini.

Pulau Pandan jauh ketengah,
Gunung Daik bercabang tiga,
Training dah sudah prepare pun sudah,
Waktu berjuang tiba masanya.

Pisang emas di bawa belayar,
Masak sebiji di atas peti,
Flight dan hotel sudah dibayar,
Jangan lah sampai tak jadi pergi.

Pucuk pauh delima batu,
Anak semilang di tapak tangan,
Mulakan langkah satu persatu,
Berhenti halfway dibuat jangan.

Buah cempedak di luar pagar,
Ambil galah tolong jolokkan,
Korang semua pelari tegar,
Apa nak takut apa nak heran.

Tuailah padi antara masak,
Esok jangan layu-layuan,
Pelari dah ramai bersesak-sesak,
Yang penting jaga keselamatan.

Modal berpantun dah makin kurang,
Otak dah beku idea dah tiada,
Good Luck All The Best kepada korang,
Semoga berjaya di Singapore sana.

P/s: Oh ye, pesanan penaja sikit. Adalah dengan ini ingin dimaklumkan bahawa EnAikAY tak masuk acara marathon kat SCSM tahun ni ye. Jangan percaya kepada dakyah-dakyah yang disebar oleh parti "Lambung Sakan" tu. Sekian, terima kasih. Hehehe.

Maintenance Is Better Than Repair

We are all used to the quote which says “Prevention is better than cure”, right?.

We can prevent a car accident from happening by driving in safely manner, and by being alert all the time. Of late, we see lots of people using their handphones while driving. And more dangerously, they even dare to read or write text SMS while driving. I used to do that too, but I’ve slowly stopped doing that, in the name of safety. I’ve seen a real video footage of a nasty car accident caused by a driver who was not paying attention while driving. His car knocked down a female pedestrian crossing a road, and she died.

In that particular scenario, the word “prevent” plays the most important role. Those are the scenarios where we can prevent something bad from happening.

But, when we talk about health, how do we prevent from something bad from happening? I mean, talking about disease, or sickness? Can we prevent everything?

Let’s just take an example on dental care. How many of us who rarely get dental problems think that taking care of our teeth is also part of healthy living? For what I know, most of us brush our teeth once or twice a day because we want to get rid of tahi gigi.

Bila masa pulak gigi kita pandai berak ni? Woops, pardon my budu language here.

In actual fact, taking care of our dental is one of the most important aspects of health. Just because we seldom get toothache, that doesn’t mean it is not important. And the way we used to prevent from dental problems to occur is by brushing our teeth, at least once a day. But as we also know, brushing our teeth alone is not enough. We need more than that.

Just as we need to send our cars for maintenance servicing so that they do not eventually cause a massive repair job, same thing for our teeth. At least once a year, we need to send our teeth for a maintenance servicing, before we end up with a massive repair job. That is, if repair is still one of the options.

Not being a good boy, I’ve neglected this maintenance service for a good four years. The last time I visited a dentist was more than four years ago, when I had to do the very painful root canal treatment. The moment I stepped out from that dental clinic, I never made a visit back again.

Until yesterday, when I can’t take it any longer with some food keep on sticking up in between my teeth every time I eat. I finally made another visit to the dentist. No, I didn’t go to Taiping to see Doctor Julinda (she’s busy running). I just went to a nearby dentist for some scaling, polishing and some filling up work. Furthermore, the validity of the dental insurance from my company is going to end in 30 day or so. Hence, better make use of it.

The scaling job was a bit nasty. We are talking about a bunch of teeth that has not been ‘serviced’ for several years. Not that I have a bad breath or rotten teeth, but it made me belief that brushing our teeth alone is not enough to properly clean them. That’s why it is recommended that we visit the dentist at least once a year.

The normal polishing job was ok. I asked about whitening too, but I don’t want to spend RM300++ just to get a sparkling white teeth. Yeah, I may be a drama-man, but I’m not a celebrity. And let’s not talk about the whitening process using laser, which costs more than a thousand Ringgit (I better save it for Cervelo.. hihi).

I had to fill up three small holes in my teeth. My jaw was sore from the non-stop jaw opening action. The price for filling up has raised quite tremendously lah. I’m not whether sure it is due to the professional workmanship, or the cost of the filler material, or to compensate for the lack of dental patients coming into the clinic. All in all, I spent a good amount of money, of which I can get myself a new pair of running shoes. Inflation, inflation… sigh.

The funny thing was, the dentist who was very friendly kept on asking me about where I work lah, about what I do at work lah, what kind of products I design lah; all during the time when my mouth was wide open and she was using her tools to clean up my teeth. How to answer lah?

“Hokher… hulut haye herhange hachang hi, hachahane haye hak hakhap?”

Letting The Curtains Down

Apart from the months of April and August, December is another month in this year where I do not participate in any kind of competitions. No running, no triathlon, no swimming, no cycling, no nothing. If there is such a thing as 'resting competition', I might change my mind though.

On a slight look, 2010 is the year where I joined the most races since I started this little endurance and multisports stuffs back in 2007. I cannot deny that this is among the most awesome experience in my life – to see how far I can expand and extend my mental and physical limitations. I pushed my speed limit, and I pushed my mileage limit. Not that I’ve reached my peak yet, as I know I can still do more and do better. I strongly believe, the more effort I put on the training and preparation, the better I can become. And so can you.

That’s why it is so simple to be better in sports. You just need to put more hours on your training, and keep on looking for more efficient ways to get the best result. The difficult part is to stay motivated. Because, to get better in sports, it takes lots of time.

Having done this endurance multisports for close to three years doesn’t make me the best of all. My performance curve is no where near to showing any positive inclination. Fortunate for me you may say, because I love doing sports and getting my sweats out on daily basis even if I have no more competitions to participate. But, living in my real life, there are times where others things come higher in my priority list.

Saying that, I hope it is proper to say that I’m letting my curtains down, for now. I need to take some time off to rebalance my life to suit the current needs, which mainly evolve around family and career. It doesn’t mean that it was unbalance though. I just need to rebalance it.

The good news is, I will still be around. I may still do the geli-geli long runs or gelak-gelak LSD, or swimming, or cycling if I have the opportunity. I may still go for run or to the gym on daily basis – as part of my fitness maintenance program. I am still active in sports, although not as much as when I was preparing myself for competitions. Living a healthy lifestyle is still what I will continue to embrace and promote.

The bad news is, this blog may be more boring lah.

But, it has always been boring, right?

P/s: Yeah yeah, I know I still owe you my Malakoff Powerman story. The story is now stuck at 50%. I have no idea when I will continue the story, or whether I should continue the story. Dah basi sangat dah...