Dad.

sometimes, i envy those people who come home to their dad's arms. i dont get such privilege since i was 5. my dad's still here, but he has another family to take care of. He was hardly there for me when it comes to the unforgettable moments in my life. he wasnt there to send me off to my first ever Sea Games, neither was he there on my second games, he wasnt there for me when i first got my heart broken, he didnt see how much i suffered after my knee surgery, he didnt celebrate my 21st birthday with me, and recently, he didn't attend my graduation ceremony. i know he would if he could.
but I'm always, always, always thankful everytime i get to see my dad, hold his hand, hug him, and reply to his "I miss you" and "I love you" SMSes because I know he'll always be in my heart and i'm always in his.

sometimes, u just know.



i love you, dad.

10 ways.

how to tell if you're having a good day:

1. you rowed 16km on water and not feeling as though you're gonna die.

• water need not be super flat. wavey waters are fine. add to the challenge. ups your balance.
• presence of winds are perfectly okay. windless days are mood killers.

2. stepped on the weighing scale and smiling to yourself, knowing that hard work has finally showed some results.

3a. having absolutely no work for the rest of the day.
3b.which translates to being able to finally change your blog skin which hasnt been done so for the longest time.
3c. which also translates to being able to take long afternoon naps stretching up to 3-5hrs.

4. being able to set the alarm clock and press the snooze button at any number of times, without worrying about being late for anything.

5. waking up looking forward to a cool, refreshing shower.

6. waking up to whats cooking in the kitchen. (provided mum's at home and she's not cooking fish/sotong/prawns/gross seafood)

7. walking to the grocery store to buy cartons (note: cartonssssssss!!) of drinks.
because you are damn thirsty, you wished your lips had leftover juice from yesterday you constantly lick them.

8. having the mood to bake, which comes only once in a bluemoon.
(downturn: but having no moolahs to buy the ingredients. and having no maid to wash the utensils for you)

9. breaking fast with the family.

and 10. saw the face of the one you love. :)

amin.

14km.

my WEDNESDAY went like this:
7am-9ish am: rowed 14km with shaun
11am-4pm: reached home and slept like a pig for 5 hrs
6pm-9pm: met up with dilz, yatay and sha for buka @ 18chefs
10pm-now: home

no work day = SLEEPING day = awesome :)
i dont usually take afternoon naps but today's nap should be banned from being called a nap.

nap;

verb (used without object)
1. to sleep for a short time; doze.

5 hours is definitely not a short time. but nap or nappy or not, SLEEP IS GOOD.
but NOT with contacts on. NO.
i know. when i plonked myself on bed i was like, "ok 5mins and i'll go take out my contacts and wash my face." 5 mins became 5 hours.
i woke up with a red eye and 2 pimples. woohoo.
im amazed at my ability to sleep anywhere everywhere anytime all-the-time.
i can sleep for 12 hours, like how i did after YOG was over. and still slept well at night.
i used to sleep here, there, everywhere so much so that my ex-coach gave me a name: sheba. i dont know what it means but i would have guessed it means lazy-ass-rower-who-won-a-bronze-medal in bitchy-coach language. probably.

today's row was OARsome. (i love that word: OARsome)
i felt as though i was on REDBULL or smtg but i havent touched any caffeineted drinks since eons ago (i know caffeineted is spelt wrongly but i dont bother checking it up, really) OMG IM GONNA BECOME A TEACHER, but PE teachers dont need to know how to spell, do they?

YES. ROW. yes, 16km. weather was superb. although the last few laps the waves were oddly CRAZY. like really. but i love love love it. it felt so good. i dont know what motivated me to row so good that morning, but it just felt OARSOME. woohoo. fave word.

i know i was supposed to row 18km (coach says it'll be my new fave number). but the other rowers were already leaving the water, i dont wanna get left behind. im worried the loch ness monster under the murky waters of pandan reservoir might eat me up. u never know. pandan has the WEIRDESTTTT creatures in the world.

oh talking about creatures,
there was a spider on my boat today, which i only realised when i was on water. the spider went for a joy ride with me. woohoo.

and while i was showering i heard a loud SPLAT. like seriously it sounded like how its written:

SPLAT.

and on the floor, a few inches from where my slippers were, there was a tail-less lizard. it was huge, fat and like almost black. SO GROSS pls. it has obviously died because a few seconds later, there were ants crowding around it feasting on the stupid dead lizard. i think it fell from the fan. ew.

last weekend, while doing stretches on the benches in the toilet (on a mat), i removed the mat and saw a splattered dead spider. oops. HAHAHA.

---

meeting up with the girls was fun, as usual. bulan puasa pun gossip tak maintain, serious. TSK. us VS tudung girls. omg, when will we ever insaf and wear one.

and recently, i feel so loved by my friends. they totally understand me.

dilz: "aisyah, we vote u to plan our hari raya outing."

aisyah: "why me?"

all: "cuz youre the free-est."

wow, the convenience of assumptions. with 6 days a week of trng, 3 schools to coach for netball and 5 clients. im the free-est. wow. i love my friends.
and for the upcoming iftar with the guys:

aisyah: "we have to book first."

wafi:"thank you aisyah."

fazli: "yes, thank you aisyah."

thank you friends.

i feel like im just going through this phase of the fasting month. the only thing that differs what ive gone through for the past 2 weeks from the other weeks that ive been through is the fact that i get REALLY thirsty, hungry like all the time and fell REALLY tired and weak throughout the whole day. there must be more to fasting than just feeling awful, right?

mum wakes us up for sahur at 4:45am everyday. most of the time i dont remember what i eat for sahur. whatever is served on the dining table goes into the stomach. i miss having to fight for space at the dining table. there used to be 7 of us vying for a table of 6. now theres only 5 left. but only 3-4 will be sitting together to eat. abg al would probably be sleeping still or on his xbox or refusing to sahur just cuz man u lost. abg dani would be in front of his computer screen, for the past 100 yrs or so. my mum's husband (who is obviously not my dad if not i would have already referred to him as dad) doesnt talk to us. sometimes, i feel that they're just housemates. i hardly speak to my own brothers even other than being called fat at random times by them or commenting that they're growing a tummy or like yesterday was one of those random sibling moments when we watched the spore-haiti match on tv together (more on that later). i dont feel like a family unit anymore. its sad, really. i hate growing up. sometimes, i have to admit i miss quarrelling with my brothers. at least we're communicating, albeit loudly or violently. now each of us are leading our own private lives where friends are placed at a higher priority than yr blood sister/brothers. the least we can do now as a family is to go out for family dinners. dont put up yr hopes high on seeing my siblings and i having a picnic at the beach with our mum or kiteflying at marina barrage. it would be just WEIRD.

havent been training much during the fasting month bcuz of the yog but boy, whenever i hit the waters, i feel like i dont have any energy left to do anything for the rest of the day. it sucks, really. that awful weak lousy feeling esp in the afternoons, esp when the sun is scorching hot. yr throat starts to dry up, yr lips start to crack, yr limbs refuse to obey ur commands they go haywire and yr head feels as thought they weigh a ton. i know all these symptoms make me sound like a loozer, but it had been really, really tough. but so far, Alhamdullilah ive managed to survive a few days of training, work and fasting altogether and its down to another 2 weeks or so. and the hardest part of all this is doing it alone. people may pity you or look up to how strong or determined or enduring and persevering you are, but they will never truly know what it feels like to train at 7am in the morning and having to live through the day till you get the next sip of water at 7pm. i guess fasting makes you stronger mentally. insyaAllah it will.

oh and yeah, yog for rowing is like overrrrrrr. i know. time flies. but the period was pretty hectic for the NTOs. i had to leave home at 530am to catch the early (probably the first) train to kallang and making sure not to miss the shuttle bus to marina. coming later than 7am would put u in nic's bad books. so it has been pretty normal not to sleep after sahur. tiring, definitely. but the most disappointing/disgusting thing that i saw at marina was the bunch of malay/muslim volunteers whom conveniently decided that they would not be fasting and ate in the eyes of many. not that it matters to me if they'll be punished by God but its such utter disrecpect to the holy month of Ramadhan. who am i to tell them that they are wrong. i know i myself isnt treating the month at its best but still, i still adhere to basic respect. seriously. what has the world come into?

the singapore juniors did pretty okay. i dont know how they feel, really. dint talk to them much. they were busy with their stuff, i was busy with mine. my role as an NTO at the finish tower was exciting. the FISA council member will announce to the room the winners of the races and i have to report them to the umpire boat at the finish line to guide the winner to the media pontoon to be interviewed. exciting, i tell you. met the official timekeeper guys from Omega who were really friendly and funny. one of them has a daughter who's 14 and almost as tall as me and bigger than me and the best thing he said was that im small for a rower. i know right. judging from our (Asian) sizes and that of the ang mohs, how are we ever gonna be on par with them in rowing when height really does matter? sigh.

YOG not only took coach away from our regular trng sessions, it took nadz away too. he has been staying at the village since forever, and i havent seen his face since the last day of the races. best thing is that he hasnt been texting much, i assume he's too caught up with the bustling activities at YOV. drew said i should give him some time and space. so is not texting the entire day giving him all the time and space that he might need?
sometimes, im too tired to even bother. really. why make someone a priority when he only makes you an option. i refuse to get hurt this way. the more i care, the more i get hurt. so i should care less, really.

oh and how can i not mention the match between the singapore cubs and the oscar-winning haiti actors-cum-footballers last night. im never really a fan of singapore football, blame the s-league for that. but yesterday i was hoping really hard the cubs get into the final cuz i heard they were awesome and i saw them play and they were pretty good. but too much attention, media and pressure put them in an over-confident, big-headed position. thus tragic fell upon them last night. but i was so so so omg super frustrated at the way the haitians played after they scored the first goal. they're time wasting techniques were so ridiculously annoying it was really an eye sore to watch how each and every one of them fell and clutched a part of their body and rolled on the turf as though it was an ACL tear (cuz an ACL tear is the most painful thing tt could happen, trust me). DRAMA MAMA HABIS. seriously. even mum was pissed. i would have applauded them for good play if they dint had added in the oscar-winning acting. really.

okay, i promise myself not to sleep beyond 12 am every night. ive been having these awful block nose one minute and runny nose the next minute sickness it annoys the shit out of me. and the fact that theres rowing tmr morning and i cant sleep aft sahur. boo.

work's gonna start pretty soon i hope i get a school with a super understanding principal. insyaAllah. i dont know if im looking forward to work at all. but im sooooo not looking forward to tell people drg hari raya visitd that im gonna start teaching. cuz that would mean that i wouldnt receive any green packets. and it would be waaay too early for that to happen. CANNOT.

okay, the flu meds starting to take effect. ARGH. bye.

ugh. i cant stand horrible organisation skills.
and assumptions that people around you know everything.
our lives dont revolve around you, you know.
am i the only one who feels this way?
seriously.
noone makes aisyah pissed on a monday night. not monday, please. :(

1. i dont know my role during yog. yeah push me here and there. tell me if im not needed, i would have helped out with the CEP team where i know my efforts would be much appreciated.
2. you dont support my training. i bet you dont even know if i come down for trng or not. i could go broke from the 238509243 cabs i have to take to the trng cntr and never come for trng any more for the rest of my life and you wouldnt even realise i was gone.
3. you send out an email assuming that everyone understands yr excel spreadsheet.
4. you send out an email NOT stating that we're supposed to report at this place at this time and hoping that we could figure that out by ourselves.
5. and you dint tell us what uniform we were supposed to wear. is it the m size uniform that you took for me insisting that its the right fit for me. or could we wear anything we want?
6. so where am i supposed to go now what do i do now.
(a) i have trng, which i am so not looking forward to but i know i have to go for. because if i dont go:
(i) coach will slit my throat.
(ii) i'd be kicked out of the team.
(iii) i dont deserved to be called a national rower.
and i want none of these.
(b) i have work, which i'd rather go to even tho the people i work with can be bitchy, because i get paid and with the money i am able to top up my ezlink card and pay for cab fares so tt i can train every morning.
(c) i have to go to marina, where i dont even know if im supposed to be there in the first place and it'll make me really, really, oh my god, really pissed if i were to spend my time there doing absolutely nothing at all.

and nothing you do helps me make my decision.
ugh.
reason #01 why i left you for a yr and a half.

PISSED. OFF.

my client expressed her concern today abt my trainings and the approaching fasting month. she said that i shouldnt train too much, id get dehydrated and its really bad for my health. sweet of her to say such things but i wish i could do that. i wished it was that simple.

im left with $xx in my bank. so pathetic, i'd cry. 90% of my money went to topping up almost everyday and cabbing to training cntr, work, back, forth. the pain. UGH.

and sometimes i wonder if im the only rower/athlete/sportsperson/whatever you call these grps of ppl who are not interested in stuff like other athletes, record timings, these and thats of the sports, other than being passionate about the sport itself. i love rowing, i really do. i cant imagine myself without it. (ok, bedek. actually, i can. aisyah without rowing is aisyah a yr back- a 173cm blob of fat. ew.) yeah, as much as i love rowing and i'd marry my boat and oars, i dont visit the rowing website often, i dont go gaga over other rowers, i dont read about rowing, not news, not competitions unless they're held ard the region. they just dont interest me. and i wonder if that makes me less of an athlete, moreover less of a rower. :(

and most of the times i wonder if all these effort and hard work are worth it.

yes, i do wonder alot.

im tired. its 11:50pm and i should be sleeping. im gonna have to row with my favourite teammate tmr. im so excited im gonna die. im so looking forward to training.
ugh.

dear God, if there's one thing i wish for right now, i wish i wont ever, ever lose motivation to row. InsyaAllah.