On Sunday morning, I went for the Great Eastern women's run...one of those things that make you appear really fit and active but.....nah.....
I did several unexpected things that day.
For one, I woke up at 5.30 am. For someone who will sleep in as late as possible this is CRAZY.
KER-AY-ZEE i tell you.
Another abnormal thing is that i took the MRT at 6 something am to my destination. I used to be someone who rarely took the MRT, terrified by the overwhelming underpasses and the ravenous escalators scouting for stray body parts to devour. However, thanks to my friends, i am now an MRT convert. It's fun to take the train with your friends, kind of like navigating a labyrinth, each station an alcove representing a unique part of Singapore. you emerge from the train, the stations are generally homogeneous across the island, but when you're out of there, you know what you're met with will never be the same.
Perhaps I'll save my other MRT-related sentiments for another post.
And........i was wearing a vest. Something I tend to avoid for fear of overexposure of my arms.....and underarms.
Yes i am weird and conservative like that.
Of course, the most unexpected thing I did was to participate a 5 blinking kilometres run. I had made a rather ambitious resolution to run the whole thing...obviously I did not adhere to it. I was constantly making bargains with myself, like, walk from hydration station to the the bridge, and then run to the next kilometre checkpoint. In the end, Melissa and I just gave up and just talked about random things instead, like the brain in a vat and virtual reality theory and how Marina Bay Sands (where we were running) is what tourists are shown - what with its glittering esplanade and tallest ferris wheel in the world - but the real Singapore is hidden to the rest of the world.
I highly doubt i even ran half of it.
At long last, the finish line was finally in view. It was at this point that we started to run again (sprint), pretending that that was what we had been doing the whole way mwahaha. it felt so good to come in the lane they had created with barricades on either side with people crowding around them and the arch above us stating our timings. Like those things you see on TV where the champions are given warm receptions.
except we weren't on TV and we weren't champions and weren't being given a warm reception. We were just No. 0193 and No. 0194.
Ah well.
After that we passed all the tents and they were doing free massages services for the women who had finished. By men. Ugh.i felt SO SORRY for them. (the men). they had to rub the cellulite filled thighs of sweaty middle-aged women with their BARE HANDS.
After that Melissa and I were headed off because they said we could leave. We were walking on the twisty bridge that goes over the Singapore River. Like the nerds we are, we observed the lines on the ground and talked about different kinds of angles: adjacent, corresponding etc. and then...HORROR OF HORRORS we forgot what the term is to describe congruency and spent the next 5 minutes freaking out about how we had forgotten our school syllabus!!!!!! HYPERVENTILATION!!!!!!!!!
much to our relief, it was only a brief lapse in our genius.
After that frightening episode we went back into MBS and got lost trying to find the MRT station. after going up and down the escalators and peering into the casino and gazing unashamedly at the expensive displays, the familiar MRT sign revealed itself to us. Instead of dining at coffee bean which would have murdered our already sadly scrawny pockets, we bought buns at 7-11, costing us a dollar each. I wouldn't have felt comfortable eating at a rip-off restaurant anyway. Well, i do have a reputation for being slightly less generous with my money....
On the train again; people boarding; people disembarking.
What similarities the everyday act of commuting bears to gaseous exchange, i thought, the train doors as to stomata and guard cells.
sighhhhhh..........
Overall, it was an unexpected day.
