Cleared Round 4!

Round 4! Start!

The fight begins from the bed. Psychological warfare starts from the time you wake up. You think you're good enough but the person sitting next to you will try their very best to bring you down. You try to keep your spirits high throughout the two and half hours of something that should be enjoyable.

Aim high, hit lower. Always be on your guard! If you identify flying with boxing, then the left hand guard is HSI, right hand guard is the Altimeter.. and your aim is always the Altitude indicator.

As the fight ends, there was no clear winner. The judges retreated to delibrate on the show they had just seen. Finally the verdict is out! The contender won with just a narrow margin! The judges weren't exactly impressed. He just slipped through this final stage! He's victorious! Its marginal but a win is still a win!

I guess I'm just blabbering out the words of wisdom from my instructor as well as what just happened this afternoon. Not a fantastic finish at the moment but a closure nevertheless. I think I should be going head over heels about it but I'm not. Not sure what's missing from the picture. Arghh.. for now I just wanna relax for a while. Tomorrow I'll worry about improving myself. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

My heart goes out to the rest who's in my same predicament. I really hope all our guys from 126.07 get through this unscathed. God do I pray everybody will be fine.

The Beginning of the End

22nd September was suppose to be a day of celebration. Instead, it became one of the devastating day of this new career. I thought I was ready for anything that comes my way. And I couldn't be far wrong. But I've moved on. Retry is the word. You can only rise up stronger everytime you fall. I have to admit that my flying was marginal. Is there any exterior motive involved? I don't know and I don't care. The next time I fly, it would be so good that nobody could dispute it with any exterior motive and no weather be it good or bad could stop me!

Apart from flying, Mark and myself had been busy trying to sell off our car.. our faithful and loyal Nissan Pintara that brought me safely to Augusta and back. The roaring of its Porche engine marks our presence everywhere we go. It marks (hopefully) the end of our stay here. How soon is the end is yet to be seen.

Once the deal was sealed between us and the buyer, I quickly took the chance to take a photo with it since I realize I had never taken any photo of the car with me in it. 2.4L engine is definitely a very powerful car but I have a feeling that this would be the biggest c.c. car I would ever own for now. Having said goodbye to a piece of metal, its back to concentrate on my confidence building flight tomorrow.. and then another shot at my ticket home!

Patriotism From Far Away?

I'm not sure I'm that patriotic. But reading about what's going on in Malaysia outside of the country somehow makes your heart burn with desire to see the country move forward. It is sad to say we have come to this crossroad. I like my multi-cultural friends. They're unique in their own way and that enriches your life. But politicians are harping on it as if its a sin to be of different skin colour. But at the same time, I'm a strong believer of equal rights. When they say give special privilage to the bumiputera they are being hypocrete as well. I heard grudges from the Sarawak bumiputeras (Dayaks) where they are also sidelined.

‘I Have a Dream’ - Speech by Martin Luther King Jr.’

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Results of City to Surf

Obviously City to Surf happened last Sunday but we've just seen the official results published in the local newspaper. Before the run, organizers issued us with a transponder which we tied to our shoelace. At the starting and the finishing line, we're suppose to step on the mat at respective location to activate the transponder and to record our finishing time (quite cool).

For the event that we participated which is the 4km run, only the top 2000 results were published. All of the guys from our course who participated manage to get into that list (of course). Quite surprising considering Macha just recovered from his hamstring pull two weeks earlier and the rest of us literally stopped jogging the same time he got his hamstring problem. Talk about giving him our support and being united (just another excuse to slack). The results are as follows:

Nicholas (hehe.. they got his name wrong) in 357th place!

Uvaraja aka Macha at 372th place

Hao the Stretch at 470th place!

Tristan (instructor) with his long legs managed 453th place

And myself at 363th place!

Anyways, Nic and I just casually talked about our 20 days fitness regime beginning with a 6km run tomorrow morning and increasing in distance by 1km everyday to a maximum of 15km by the end of our target period. Personally I did 8km run yesterday and another 6km today. The main question now is can we maintain this discipline? We'll find out soon.. for now its good nites everyone everywhere in the world!

This is how I celebrated Merdeka Day

What I did last week

Since I still can't sleep after my insomniac post, I thought I might as well just write about what I did the week Sandeep was here which is last week of August. Thanks mate for the encouragement... so I might as well give a weekly report until the day I leave Perth which I really really hope is very soon.

Trying out Hog's Breath Cafe has been one of our aim. Coincidentally when our Crack was around and we had nowhere to go for dinner, we decided to try HBC. Appearently the signature dish is the slow cooked rib steak. When they say slow cook they mean 18 hours of cooking. All of us tried Mega cut of the portion which is worth it. This is one of the most thick portion of steak I ever tried. I had the special blackened sauce rib steak with vege and baked potato on the side. Coincidentally the cut that they gave me was shaped like the Australia continent!

That week as well, we went to Yummy BBQ for dim sum and Happy Meal for chinese. At Happy Meal we ordered tons of chinese food unfortunately there's no photographic evidence. There we ordered so much that the waitress was shocked. Most of the staffs there actually made a bet whether we'll finish the food or not. As usual, our appetite never let us down.

Towards the end of that week, most of us 'volunteered' to join the City to Surf run. Because we 'volunteered', we participated in the shortest run which is the 4km. In the end it turned out to be fun event for health freaks and some horny guys trying to 'cuci mata'. Big crowds of 30,000 participants liven up the event. I manage to run, tumbled and continue running to finish the race. At the end there was a medal presented to all those who finish the run.

This is the crowd for 4km run/walk. The bulk of the other runners had started earlier for the 12km and the half marathon.

A walking sunflower

Bored after run, we tied the balloons to make an impressive string of baloons which eventually we let loose

Insomniac

For the last few days my sleeping pattern have been haywired. Nowadays I can't fall asleep after midnight. In fact, my bedtime used to be around midnight. My sleeping time has shifted to about 5 to 6 hours later. I'm now officially on Europe time. And when I sleep, I could sleep up to 12 hours straight and that just messes up my sleep the next night. This morning is no exception. I guess I might as well bore myself to sleep by writing something here.

Just now Nic and myself went to pax Bunny's 1st flight with Dave, an instructor known for his super-duper-high standard in flying. We were surprised how nice he was departing from the various stories we've heard before. So I guess rumours are not exactly correct or it might just be Bunny's charm. I guess on first impression Bunny scored big time tonight.

Unfortunately for him, we were caught unaware of the weather building up in Pingelly, one of our waypoint for tonight. It was kindda scary because we didn't actually know what we're going into and the weather information was rather limited in the air. So we made the most prudent decision of all. Divert back and live to fly another day.

Now, back to imagining that my bed and pillow is just like this fluffy cloud and I might catch a wink or two.