Of Swimming, Tigers and Being Loved

So Stringbean due to the unfortunate weather conditions and my less than reliable pair of lungs, have been on-and-off again. But this morning, I woke up to sunlight streaming through the crack in my curtains, meaning yes! The sun has broken through the dust particles in the sky andit is a morning that I could swim.

So off to swim I went, probably the first time in a week and a bit.

Stamina, as expected was at an all-time low, my arms ached during my freestyle and I was finding it difficult to remember the twist my core. But, stroke count has improved massively! I’m quite, quite chuffed by this one, and hoping I’d improve some more!

***

I like swimming in the mornings. Mostly because the only people at the pool early in the morning tend to be the elderly, there are few younger people i.e twenty to thirty somethings in the pool. It does not make me feel weird, actually, younger people make me feel very weird. It’s this bizarre competitive feeling that inevitably crops up when they’re there – like I can swim better and faster than you. And there will inevitably be a mad dash through the pool where we’re swimming as fast as we can and we’re both thoroughly exhausted at the end.

Older people don’t really bother you, they’ve been there for years, whilst us young uns are faddish – we’ll move on to the next hip and happening exercise regime when the time comes. But they’re quite chatty and they do talk to you in between laps.

One older man asked me today where I’ve been. “Haven’t been seeing you around.”

I pointed to the sky. “Haze. Been affecting my asthma.”

“Ooh? That’s not good.”

I smile, about to continue my next lap when he suddeny said, “You should go to the zoo.”

This is the point where I pretend to understand what is going on. My training in government has helped me a lot.

“Eh?”

“Yes, the zoo. Get some dead tigers. You should eat some of them. It will help your asthma.”

I really should start a list of the bizarre things I’ve been recommended to eat that would help my asthma. So far, colostrum, alligators and tigers top the list.

Though, I guess people are trying to help me get better so I should not feel so ungrateful. Or perplexed.

***

I am feeling very much loved. Like uber-loved. I’ve been writing without chapters for my story, it’s not a habit that I recommend but I started doing so due to Nanowrimo. As some of you may know, Nanowrimo requires you to do a word count, and so I did without chaptering to help the word count.

I was telling Eizwan yesterday that I’ve been having problems seeing where I was going, since my story feels like one gigantic chunk as opposed to smaller digestible pieces. Eizwan said he’ll see what he could do and just left it at that.

This morning, I woke up and in my Inbox, Eizwan compiled my writing into one word document, broke the story up into chapters and even created a table of contents that links to the chapters.

After the swim this morning, I’m on a real natural high!

Stringbean postponed?

So…it is a dull, grey Wednesday morning. I woke up early thinking I’d go for a swim but with the haze become a bit of an issue lately, and early morning, with the mists and the rain, sometimes it’s not easy to tell whether the grey skies are due to a lovely shower or smoke billowing from Sumatra.

Well, it helps that I’m oh-so-lazy and it’s just adding to my list of excuses to drag my sorry ass out of bed to go swim. So instead, I assure myself I’ll go swimming in the afternoon after I ascertain that the dull skies is just typical monsoon weather as oppposed to unseeing dust particles just waiting to wreck my lungs.

Heh.

***

It’s a terribly boring week this week but after the excitement that was this weekend (of seeing Manchester United and spending nearly 4 hours in total of traffic – lovely), I’m rather looking forward to doing nothing.

Well, almost nothing, I really have to finish my novel. I know I’ve been saying that for the past year already – starting to sound like a broken record – to think that future generations will find that statement quaint! – starting to sound like a skipping CD – dang, that’s quaint too! It’s all mp3s these days  – anyway, I really have to stop saying certain things and just do it. I blog about it mostly hoping by making public declarations, I’d shame myself into doing something with my life. Instead, I find my shame has no bounds, I can blog about it and not do it.

Perhaps I find inspiration from local Malaysian politics? – I kid. Let’s not talk about Malaysian politics, it’s cumbersome, tiring and frankly uninspiring.

But I really want to finish that damned thing, I want to get around to editing it and then start something new. And then I can flog the thing, I’m not optimistic, it would be too hardbreaking to be optimistic at this point.

Alright, enough blogging. Time for some breakfast and to do some work.

Operation Stringbean Explained

So….haven’t been blogging in a while. I have an excuse though. Whatever free time I have these days is usually spent sleeping since in between, I have to work, my still-unfulfilled-ambitions as a novelist, Stringbean and the wedding prep. Urgh. Wedding prep. Let’s not talk about the wedding for once, lest I explode with the fury of a volcano that’s just been waiting and waiting till you know what?! Kablooey.

Yes. Let’s not. Thank God I have one year, because I might just kill people had it only been six months. Breathing in and breathing out. Staying calm.

Ahem. Anyway. Reasons for the naps? I’ve been string-beaning.  I have to admit, I quite like this operation I made up. My mum wakes me up on certain days to remind me to string bean. And friends ask me “How’s stringbean?” I find it catchy and somewhat motivating, this desire to look like a stringbean.

So in between writing, work, napping and Stringbean, that leaves very little time for me to blog. I’d open the New Entry page and promptly fall asleep at the table, forehead on table, fingers on keyboard and a cat on my head since cats take pleasure in your discomfort.

But since my blog has sort of taken the place of my diary, I am compelled to document Stringbean since it is quite exciting for me. But of course, not all forms of exercise is interesting for the reader, so I’ve chopped a chunk of for your benefit, alright?