Recyling Water~

It is only in the recent week did I realize the true meaning of recycling water. Previously, the concept of recycling water was more on a macro scale, where imagination would take me to the water processing plants that purifies used water to make it clean and potable. At home, the concept was more of reduce, by taking shorter showers, cleaning the car with a pail of water rather than a hose, turning the tap off when brushing teeth etc.

Over the urbanization years, especially from a generation not exposed to communal taps, we have taken the convenience of water from the tap forgranted. If we can afford it, why switch the tap off? This I feel is the greatest challenge facing us today. Some people may be aware of ongoing environmental campaigns, but because we are paying for it, and sometimes paying a premium, why should we be concerned about saving water? I think only when we think about people who live in non developed areas, where getting clean water means walking a few kilometres a day, can we cherish and apply the 3Rs to our water consumption habits, and in our small and sometimes meager effort, help to save the environment.

To be anxious is to live in the future. To be depressed is to live in the past. To live in the present, is to live contented.

If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.

~Tom Hanks

Windows Live Beta Writer

Another one of Windows Live’s new programs that attempts to integrate what you do on the net with Windows 7. Pretty cool I must say. It mirros the template on my blog so I see the template as I am typing this post.Also, there is Windows Live Messenger Beta which is also quite cool. Integrating MSN with social networking sites like facebook and myspace etc. Will be looking forward to more awesome stuff like these from Windows. Maybe its time to take a look at Windows Mobile 7??..haha

The Mini Grad Trip~

And so we've conquered Mount Kinabalu, if you define conquering as climbing to the top of the peak. However, it was a common feeling that Mount Kinabalu has conquered us. It is safe to say that we have taken everything the mountain has to throw at us as a deterrence from scaling to it's peak.

We set our footprints on the Mesilou trail, the less beaten path because of its ascending and descending paths and its longer distance compared to its counterpart. 8km of uphill and downhill is a thigh ache-er man. Prior training sessions at Pinaccle@Duxton's and Bukit Timah hill paid off a little, but could not prepare us for the entire climb.

Altitude sickness was something that we could not prepare for, and this was a factor that affected most of us, and I the most, with splitting headaches at 3314m on top of the thin amount of oxygen in the air which kinda took our breaths away, literally.

Then there was the downpour midway during the climb which according to Robbie who said the people at the mountain told him, Mount Kinabalu hasn't seen since January. We were so "fortunate" to experience this showers of blessings, which totally took the dryness from our shoes and socks, the warm heat from our body, and our morales away. We were WET. Like, really wet. Drenched from head to toe. Not very fun especially when the temperatures were sub 10 degrees. The chicken and mushroom soup at the Laban Rata Resthouse was a life saver. REALLY.

What goes up must come down indeed. For all the joy and sense of achievement gained from reaching the top of Low's peak, there's still the full 8km worth of downward descend to the Timpahan gate, the end point which I would aptly describe it as knee breaking and ankle twisting. We definitely felt older than old men, especially with a few of them passing us like we were old men to them.

The climb up Mount Kinabalu was definitely my most shiong holiday yet, and although the sunrise at the peak was not the most fabulous, it was the most hard earned. Some people might not even qualify this as a holiday. The stars we saw during the night climb was just amazing. The camaraderie we shared, and the encouragement of each other to keep going, was something we could not experience in our daily lives. I guessed the 4 of us reached our physical and perhaps our mental limits during the trip. Next up, Mount Kilimanjaro? HAHAHAhahaha....

"What doesn't kill us will just make us stronger."