my my my my my my my my

in the mood for something a bit raw.

Wind and Walls

chaos

About 30 boats rounded in the next 30 seconds!

leg of lamb

hand(s) of sailor.

time trial

introducing:

the portland hill time trial. known to strava as 'road to the heights'.

this is the bike.

before.

after 5 minutes.

the beast!

now the route.

start your watch as you enter the left bend and begin to climb.

 the first steep right corner.

levels off for a bit.

climb up through fortuneswell.

flat section to catch your breath and look up to see the dirty big hill looming before you!

approaching the big right corner.

this is the steepest bit.

from a different angle.

the endless climb.

views of weymouth and the harbour.

one last left before the summit.

 there's always a message on the side of this hill.

approaching the roundabout - the end point!

almost there!

finish.

5 and a half minutes of lung-busting effort!

training

is like fighting a gorilla. you don't stop when you're tired. you stop when the gorilla is tired.

-greg henderson

refresher

 so -

*deep breath*

- it has come to this.

come this 30th july, i will be lining up with 40-odd other lasers on the waters of weymouth. it should be pretty special!

i've taken some twists and turns to get to this point in my journey; there have been some hard lessons along the way, moments to savour and treasure, times of doubt and uncertainty. part of the reason i stopped blogging was because there were moments simply too difficult to face. coming back to this site reminds me of a simpler, happier, less stressful time... i didn't want to ruin this site with copious grafitti.

the life of an athlete is an extreme one - is there any other profession where your emotions are so inexplicably tied to the level of your performance?

(here's where the other half of my brain says 'actors, musicians, artists - their emotions are the performance!')

i have been tremendously lucky to have had a lot of support and assistance from lots of people along the way. insert thank you speech here.

being my first Games i cannot bring too many expectations out onto the water. but yet these races come by only every 4 years and i cannot help but think how often you get an opportunity like this to really do well and leave your mark.

so i've had a week in sweltering singapore to relax, refresh and not worry too much about sailing. which isn't that easy. i can't help but think about it can i? forgive me.

in that time i've seen the jezabels. funny that i study in sydney but had to come all the way to singapore to see the sydney band. they'd be really good if only hayley's pipes were as impressive live as they are on record.

And saying goodbye to the sweet simple life that you knew
Ooh hoo, toodaloo
It's true
You're through
Through with the old world...

my week ends on monday. then i return to weymouth to join forces with my buddies kristian ruth of norway and brett beyer of australia. 43 days to the start gun!

buzz

something fresh:

bonobo - black sands

st vincent - the strangers

bauhaus - bela lugosi's dead

the tallest man on earth - the wild hunt

danny macaskill - way back home

fleet foxes - helplessness blues

beirut - santa fe

laura marling - the muse

the tallest man on earth - love is all

bon iver - i can't make you love me

cold war kids - robbers

not even pete townshend does pete townshends anymore

pick. mute. strum. bend. loop. pedal.

pedal, pedal, pedal. racing against the clock. racing against time.

time is the ultimate victor. so, mediocrity, or a shot at glory? take your pick.

doremi

oceansize

found out recently one of my favourite bands have split up.

done

after 3 windy events back to back, today's breeze ended on a bit of a whimper, 8 knots hiking petering out to a patchy 2 knots of breeze. at least we got 2 half races done - the radials only did a few practice starts before racing was canned for the day.

a quick roundup of my results from this latest european circuit:

hyeres SOF regatta - 21st in silver fleet, 73 overall, difficult, frustrating light air regatta, many learning points, some happy moments from the first and only strong wind day where i posted a 17 & a 14, as well as the 6th on the final qualifying day.

delta lloyd regatta - 53rd in gold fleet. the windiest regatta i've ever done! happy to make gold fleet but unhappy that i was unable to handle the survival conditions as well as the guys around me...

skandia SFG regatta - 58th in gold fleet. good first day, just about hung on to make gold fleet again, but failed to really make an impression again, didn't have the legs to last the duration of the regatta.

kiel week regatta - 28th in gold fleet. good moments, some good starts, but still making mistakes around the race track and not always thinking clearly and making good decisions.

i did manage an impressive start in the kiel week day highlights video though, hiking hard out to the right with simon and kristian. watch it here (i appear 3 times!).

elizabeth is doing the medal race tomorrow!

bon iver - woods

uh oh

more changes on the horizon...

matryoshka

xkcd hasn't been maintaining its standards, but here's a peek into the nanoscale world...

when i first read 'never make a layout of the area you're in' i thought it sounded really similar to what that juno girl (ellen page) was told in 'inception'.

the sweet hereafter

i have grown very excited about the new album from jesse sykes and her swell crew, called 'marble son'.

pleasuring the divine.

ceiling's high.

birds of passerine.

they play in stuttgart on 30 april. hmmmmm... this might make up for my missing eric bibb, rodrigo y gabriela, vienna teng...

one little step at a time.

this song made me ridiculously and disproportionately happy this evening. 

the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.

little wing by jimi and stevie.

i think i've found out why i don't enjoy clapton's style of soloing, especially live. it's got no sense of direction, as though it's rooted firmly to the same spot. little wing's solo is travelling, it's on the move... and it doesn't really matter where it's heading really.

in fact, get a little lost.

and celebrate the little victories, however little they may be.

barcelona 0 - 5 arsenal

turn some more leh!

'i downloaded a book, and it hung on my kindle.'

how times have changed. how tides have turned.

if we turn, turn, turn,

turn turn turn

we might learn, learn.

bleah.

leyton orient 1-1 arsenal

validation that the world has been turned on its head.

arsenal 2 - 1 barcelona

the world is turned on its head.

unimpatient

my post-lunch nap turned into a 2 hour snooze, slightly throwing out my plans of an afternoon study session.

(instead of making up for it, here i am blogging.)

i dreamt that my P6 English teacher had given us a test, where we were supposed to watch this wacky video of a bunch of people in a car being tailed by another car, and write answers to questions like 'what did the lady in red do before she yelled out' or something like that. it would be an interesting idea compared to passage comprehension in psle i guess. i wonder where my teacher is now... she's one i won't ever forget i think. she made me cry once.

the school term finished yesterday. amazing eh, only 5 blog posts ago i was just starting this 10 week long course. one week of study before the exams, and then i'm flying home for cny on feb 11.

to celebrate the end of school, i first went to prince of wales hospital to help a friend do a breath test as part of his medical research. reminds me of my vo2 max tests which i haven't done in a while. i look forward to seeing what can be analyzed from that!

then i went exploring on two wheels, planning to head in the general direction of georges river. i found a cycling track that follows the road to the airport before crossing a bridge and then winding through some grassland and finally emerging alongside the botany bay waterfront, whereby after 23km and about an hour's cycle i pulled up at georges river sailing club, venue for the recent nationals. great route, like east coast parkway but infinitely better, i must bring kwong some time.

australian open concludes tomorrow with the final between djokovic and murray. a few things have really impressed me.

1. both novak and ferrer were remarkably error-free. even while scurrying around the baseline for upwards of 3 hours, they were still hitting groundstrokes from every part of the court with unbelievable consistency. the single-handed backhand simply cannot hold up to this much punishment, as evidenced by the alarming number of shanks federer made.

2. nadal won me over in his post-match conference. despite the significance of the match, and even though he looked like shit, he refused to discuss his injury and only insisted on giving credit to ferrer.

as usual, there's some music to be shared:

dzihan and kamien - stiff jazz

found out this morning that dm stith was opening for sufjan stevens at the state theatre tonight. i knew about sufjan being in town but didn't care so much for him... but stith! so of course the tickets are long sold out.

gotta be un-impatient for the climax in this one.

rodrigo y gabriela play at the enmore on 20th april. i've been ridiculously late in giving their 3rd album, 11:11, a listen (stream here), but i've been very impressed, and the title track especially has captured me on first listen. a 11/8 tribute to pink floyd.

ok, to the air conditioned common room to study. and be distracted by kim and li na.