NR stands for new record. After school I ran to catch the bus and found the 9700 hovering at the traffic lights. I was lucky the guy let me on. Foreigner status probably earned me a spot, or should I say 'dumb foreigner'. The 9700 also takes the most direct route and is possibly the fastest bus back, maybe the 1000 is quicker.
It made at least 2 stops at traffic lights that a slightly faster driver would have gotten through, and I didn't run from the last pedestrian crossing, so I reckon I can still take 3-7 minutes off this time. This is the world of the triathlete. Time driven! Efficiency seeking!
I expected today to be a horror movie in slow motion, but you know, I've had days that were a lot harder to get through, and where I felt a lot more tired. The sunburn on my shoulders wasn't too bad, and since I got the aircons blasting from early on, managed to refrigerate the classrooms enough to make it quite pleasant. On top of it, most classes had at least 25-50% students absent (on camping trips), and my last class, usually a nightmare with 12 hyperactive students, was just little old Louis, (well, he isn't so little, but if it is just him and me, he seems to shrink a bit). Yes, just 1 student instead of 12. Bonus!
One of the reasons I think people like me do triathlon is that we find our lives a little less fulfilling than we'd like. We are seeking a challenge, some fun, some way to express ourselves that is fresh and exciting and can't be called work. Triathlon though, is hard work. My training for this one basically boiled down to the few runs I did from the bus to school and the bus home, and the cycle I did with Fransa. I barely touched my bike since the Ironman, except to get it from Corneli's apartment to mine, and I swam a few times, but always in waters boiling with arms and legs, so I never got going. The interesting thing is that, although my body is tired and sore, my spirit is refreshed and feeling a new sense of challenge and urgency, and this is the core, the dymanic, that we seek in triathlon. I arrived earlier for school, unintentionally of course, than I have done in weeks, and also made it back in the fastest time ever. That seems to suggest the fuse has definitely been lit.
On the bus I noticed a Korean guy studying English from a textbook. He was about my age or older. I pulled out one of my business cards/name card/miniature photo albums, and gave it to him, saying, "If you need help studying English, I can help you." He later introduced himself as Cheh.
That may be the first time I've explicitly used those cards for their primary function. They also perform the optional service of advertising my blogsite. I'd like to know that a few people are reading what I am writing, although I have to admit, sometimes I don't realise that people are and wish they weren't.
The World Is Flat is proving to be a useful and educational read, despite the fact that I have some reservations of globalisation hitting some huge speedbumps in the near future. While in Sokcho I felt an important sense to believe more in dreams than in memories (be more future than past orientated). While this seems necessary, I can't help thinking that all the faith, motivation, good will, intentions and strength just cannot hold when the centre falls apart. If the context changes, and an Energy Crisis is a MOER of a context, no matter how religiously you've put all your ducks in a row, the waves are going to turns it all into debris and flotsam. Even so, we still need to move forward with confidence and consciousness, and that's where the focus of our concentration should be. We should not look at things continuously so that we end up paralysed. What we look at should instantly give us some rationale or purpose towards an impulse, an action.
Today has been incredibly humid, with pregnant clouds holding the noxious car created pollution hostage. The air feels full of vapour, like the feeling you get when you burp but hold it in your mouth, and you can taste it afterwards. Yeah, it's somewhat like a fart's breath under the clouds.
Going to make spaghetti now for dinner and set my watch for midnight. Not going to sleep a minute after that. You can hold me to my oath...
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