Going on to the rainbow

Been in Sydney this past week for meetings. Reminded again what a nice city it is, with great skyscapes, a view of the harbour and amazing weather. Spent half a day just sailing around on a yacht in the sunny Australian winter. Completely awesome. Also managed to make my way down to lindy hop night in Newtown. While there were more people there this time, the level of dancing wasn't amazingly high. Still, it's always good to go dancing in other scenes. About the only thing i don't like is the high price of food here -.-

Another regret : not getting to run in the Sydney Botanical Gardens (especially since it's right opposite my hotel). Will definitely have to bring H back here so we can explore more.

Ran into an old secondary school classmate online. Reminds you how small Singapore is. Also brought back some not so good memories of me bullying this classmate, but then again, who likes to be reminded of his own bad behaviors in the past?

Interesting phenomenon : Wizard rock!

These next 3 months are going to be very busy. Army Half marathon coming up Aug 26, along with a very tight training schedule and being accountable for the first time this year in September for business results. Both exciting and intimidating. All good!

Ajantis is all excellent....

The Mckellan of Physics

So i went to watch Asian Boys vol 3 with a friend this past Sunday. Couple of reflections

1) Somewhat didactic, with 2 characters onstage debating different points of view that didn't break much new ground. Felt like watching Alfian's plays in school again.

2) The part of the play that covered relationships was a lot more poignant. At the end, the main character says... "this is the only way i know how to be happy". The point that the character was making was that we don't choose to be gay, especially given how much more difficult it is to be gay than straight. That's true, for me, at least. If i had a choice, i would probably choose to be straight. But i can't. I can't imagine being as happy with one of my gal pals as i am with H.

3) On a lighter note, the first half of the play was set in RJC. Given that Alfian is from the same year as me, and that the novel is set a couple of years before i was there, a lot of the references felt eerily familiar :P

Exciting thing that happened during the play : Ian McKellan showed up! So cool! And he does sound as magnificient and stately as Gandalf in real life :)

Bought Harry Potter book 7 on Saturday and finished reading it on Sunday. Brought the book to a nice close for me, with all loose ends tied up. But no, i won't reveal who died....

Got my final set of credit card bills. My god, i did max out the credit limit on my American Express as a result of the 5 week office trip. That's kinda scary. I don't want to get used to spending that kind of money -.- Hopefully, things will be better with this upcoming trip (going to Sydney for business).

And i'm taking another mega-windy journey in November. Singapore-Beijing-Detroit-St. Louis-Hawaii-Beijing-Singapore. Again, hoping i won't spend too much money then.

We'll see....

Ajantis must be frugal!

The price is right

All about money and schtuff this post.

Feeling somewhat broke now. Just paid my whole income tax for 2006 at one ago, followed by two really expensive dinners. Funnily enough, these were my first two fine dining experiences ever in Singapore, and they happened within a week of each other. Total damage for the 1st dinner, over $1k, split among 3 people (cos we were treating the groom for his bachelor party), while the 2nd one was $360 for 2 persons.

Worth the experience and the food, but not something i would repeat again.

Good thing the stock market went up, along with all my stocks :P

Speaking of money, i'm really tempted to buy the Wii..... turns out the modified version (that allows you to play pirated games) is available in Singapore AND you can download games through bittorrent!!!! Wii sports, here i come! What a great excuse to get exercise while playing video games!

Other ravings :

Need to lose weight ; gained 2-3 kg on this last overseas trip, and feeling it in the pants, and in the comments by office colleagues. Was doing well until the fine dining dinners (yet another reason to take a break from those for a while)

Going to Sydney again end of this month for work. That should be fun.

Sore from my first 13km run in a while. A backrub sure would be nice right now. Need to start ramping up for the Army Half Marathon.

Ajantis is sleepy and will now conk out...