Tribute to a warrior

Just a view on the perspective from a random kampung boy, a write-ups to pay tribute to the warrior who transformed a small fishing village into the first world country, one of the most significant centre of economy as what we've known today, Singapore:

A lot of people once told me that Singapore is a place where everything is about money! But no one ever tell me that it's a place where everything is about corruption.

They say being there is about surviving from stress! But never one says that it's about surviving from criminal.

Many says that Singaporean are generally kiasu; but none ever says that they are generally lazy!

They might not like their own life, they might be taking things for granted and some even probably thinks that they deserve more... and it's all because that they CAN. They deserved to live and to think this way because of the very place that enables them to be a fighter.

..a lot of people respect the late founding father of Singapore, Mr.Lee Kuan Yew and look at him as the national hero; While there are also many who see's him as the great villain who took advantage of many people many things to reach where he are today. But regardless... it's undeniable that he is a great soldier, one who fights for what he believes in, and proved by action.

There is no public holiday, yet so many people decided to line up for hourssss just to send him their prayers and thoughts for the great man.
There is no extra leave for me, and *plottwist* nope I didn't go that far to line up for hours not sleeping to look at him.

But anyway.. like most, if not all of you, I've met alot of different people in my life. Some people put priority on their religion and says that it transcend death; some people focused mainly on money and says that it goes beyond generation; some people focused on being the norm because they say's that they can only be 'truly' happy when they are 'successful', be it in their achievement that they want to be recognised, or their effort that they wanted to be rewarded with reputations, fame, or a loved one.

For the story of a man who's focuses more on changing the life of other's than the fear of his own death. Here I penned down my respect in the form of a insignificant blog post.

General quotes amongst the Oditer: You can rest when you die.

Therefore, after having barely(or less than) 8 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours. I ain't going to nap for now, I ain't going to spend the time now socialising with friends on facebook/whatsapp that I so deprived off(maybe:P), nor am I going to the nearby mall to pay tribute to the late Mr.Lee.
..I am gonna jog till I felt like sleeping in the field, preferably under the rain. And rethinks why am I still not desperate enough to move on. And so my dear friends, for those who are fighting, someday we may cross path again and I hope I isn't still too far behind. And for those who are not spending it constructively... I believes that anything can happen as long as we are alive, no matter how good how despicable how pathetic how absurd or how wonderful things can be... thank you my friends and people who have always been an inspiration for me by being yourself!
Jia You! 加油！　*vroooommm~~~ 
#lamejoke #changemoodabitKay

Viper Challenge 2015!! (Part 2/2) - The Journey to the Viperc Den

The early missteps

My original plan was to reach Damansara via bus early in the morning and proceed to stay at my friend's house to catch a somewhat important pre-event sleep the day before the Challenge. However what turn out was that the bus driver decided to stop at middle of Kuala Lumpur at 5am morning and didn't give it a dam about the destination I bought my ticket for. Stranded without access to the railway this early in the morning, a good singaporean family kindly let me 'tumpang' their cab to reach KL central station, a better place for us to rest before other public transport starts operating. After a bit of hustle and minor travelling, I managed to meet up with my friend and reach his house around noon, I even get to meet one of my close friend of PwC before I leave KL central! =  )

The beating before the game

..however, all this early travelling with lack of sleep (been travelling since midnight 1am from Sg) started to give my immune system a naughty idea for an early morning treat in the form of sore throat D: When I reach my friend's place at noon, he have to go out to run an errand for his family so I decided to get a healthy chinese tea to calm my worrying throat. And for those who met me during the past weekend, they'd know better how that ends up: the kind lady at the chinese tea shop there served me with a supposedly healthy chinese bitter tea which ends up with a terrible adverse effect. With my body not accepting the the content of the bitter tea even after my tearful effort to drank it all, it decided to give me a nice warning of sleeping time and made me wanna instantly... faint? Or more like to fall asleep completely. I managed to found a nearby couch and quickly have a unproductive on-and-off nap for around two hours. With all the cold sweats and the body resetting its immune system the internal workout activity of my body seems busy enough to keep me barely alive for another day.

Preparation of war:

As the sub-title suggest, war. The war must go on! I took a 2 hours nap before heading out at night for a light meal with friends and meetup with Kelvin who motivated me to take up ViperChallenge. He is a nice guy who looks overly mature for someone around my age. He had been kind enough throughout my entire Viperc 2015 experience especially during pre and post-event for fetching me around etc.
We were part of the mass 'manual labour' who volunteered for last year ViperC with overly under-recognised sweat and sweats. With a point to prove and alot of fellow friend's sake to win for we marched into Viperc early morning with much nostalgic feeling: The never-see-before clear sky where I can see the entire constellation of Orion with roughly only level 1 light pollution! (Far city light pollution is at minimal value of 3) It totally reminds me of last year when I spent the night in the middle of jungle with my Station 2.5 teammate under the very same sky.

With only 4-5 hours of sleep and some random pills from Kelvin we start the course with a readied heart!

Viper-Challenge!

https://fatsoslim.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/my-viper-challenge-2015/

Due to the lack of pictures and/or go-pro equipment there is isn't anything more than verbal description so show you what it was all about~ Therefore I enclosed a link here to someone's blog I found online with some interesting write-up and nice pictures of ViperChallenge2015! (Y)

The ever recognisable Viper Challenge obstacle is always the first and the last one. With increased number of obstacle this year, ViperChallenge greeted us with a reminder that IceBucketChallenge is not only Not forgotten, It Is Overrated. ViperC wakes up ur muscle with a new and improved obstacle from last year's ice water dipping into this year's major ice diving!! It looks fun and simple enough but the coolness and the chill that comes right after u went through the obstacle is a happy drug to your muscles... woke up? Good! It's time to move on!!

Dirtier Dirt and Muddier Mud:

With some dirt and muddy obstacles here and there, I got my first injury on my right knee when someone accidentally pushed me when I was trying to speed-climbing the slippery mud slide. With that minor injury on me, the crawling and the water obstacles doesnt make it feel any better, but at least it does make my knee clean! xD Along the way it totally feel like endless mud and water obstacles, with some of them being modified from last year ViperC: Like the jump over fire obstacle without a pool this year to end it cool, no more basic monster size tire workout for us, and so on. We keep looking forward for more fun ahead, and it wasn't long until you realise you are almost halfway there...

Choose your difficulty level:

With the Spiderman Shuffle being the only major stamina-killer in early course, the quick-mud take a change of game at around 8km - 10km route. Its a approximately 1km jungle trekking with quick muds everywhere~ Everyone have to go in pairs or groups so someone would be helping you up when you fall into the quick mud. The tough part of this course is Not the slow drain of your stamina, but rather... the mud vs your shoe!
With many participants end up with their war gear being sacrificed in this nasty obstacle... this is where the different types of Viperc participant started to differentiate themselves. Me and Kelvin helped alot of ppl along the way, I even try to break a semi-big tree branch to help some people who got stuck in the nasty mud. 

The next obstacles right after that was one of my favourite: the mini walls! The other fun climbing obstacles up to this point for me was the 'stairway to heaven': very simple series of climbing and descending and viola~

you'd do good as long as you warmed up enough and knows how to do a few basic climb :) [Google the pic pls coz it was awesome! :D ..and kinda easy xD]

Speaking about that... this year's obstacle was considered fairy do-able especially for the new-comers/amateurs. With the course kinda designed with alot of near-cross-path, the lack of volunteers on many obstacles gave many participant extra motivation to be skipping track if you are not up to the task. Especially when we reach this giant fun slides after about 14km through the course, I found out at the end of the day that alot of ppl skipped the track by following the nearby crowd going into the other direction and to their surprised it'd takes them to the end obstacle with around 7km skipped and 7 obstacles missed! Well, medal certs and tshirts aside, u choose your own goal! ;D

The fight takes shape!

Why alot of people wanted to skip courses and obstacles? If you are one of them asking the question, you probably didn't realised the fact that this course became lesser about 'leaving no one behind' and more about 'just get this done with' especially after the quick-mud.... when ViperC started to bare its fang on the participants!

With a series of climbing that requires upper body strength it even make it harder for us to keep helping ppl as we need to reserve strength for what lies ahead. Kelvin being the one tirelessly to talk to the volunteers and the participants accidentally lost his spec into the pool when he was going through the monkey bar challenge. It demotivates him alot especially when one of the on-site crew turned an eye away from his problem and didn't even bother to console him.

I tried that challenge twice and end up holding one arm on the bar(again!) while the other arm couldn't reach the extremely high 3rd ring, which is exactly the reason why this obstacle was given the name 'epic journey'. Right after that Kelvin seems even more demotivated as many ppl realises that the more time you spent not moving, the harder it will become! It doesnt matter whether you waits for friends, or tries to help other people, the longer it gets, the more the scorching sun will take its toll on you. With friends started to split up and we decided that we doesnt have any spare energy tank left to be the kind samaritan around, we quickly proceed to the remaining obstacles. At this point of time, my voice still haven't fully recovered so I couldn't talk much nor shout, and with Kelvin recently lost spec, it's a team with the poor voice and vision display. With just two of us left to take care of each other, the 'leave no one behind' motto takes the form of the 2 ppl left in group.

For the warrior

Along the way undoubtly there are more obstacles, physical challenges and body constrains that came into the picture. Kelvin being the smart guy around carries various cream and products that ease muscle pain. He started to have major issue of recurring muscle pain when he tries one of the obstacles and fall down on the crumbling sand which made him rolled the ground. To my surprise he still endlessly try to beat all the obstacle coming in our way of beating the ViperChallenge!

The 2nd obstacle that I failed is one that I am not happy about... the 'nerve of steel'!! The challenging part was that the metal rope was so slim that u either have to be fast and strong enough to hang and move along before your body weight wins in a fight of weight vs stamina.. or you have to be tactical enough to lock ur arms and legs around the metal steel to make it slightly easier, with a price of painful drag of skin when you to move while hanging on the metal rope. My muscle began to feel tired when I was more than halfway over the pool underneath, as I look ahead I saw only two choice: brace myself towards the remaining distance to beat this obstacle with the expense of possible stamina overhaul, or give up at this point to save the energy on what's to come.

My choice? I end up slowly drop down to the water... And on my mind? I really wanted to beat the final obstacle no matter what it takes, and I would hate not being able to finish more obstacle before That final one!

ClimbMax

This is already the part when ViperC challenge this year shows you that the toughest of obstacles are always the last to come. With the last few obstacles being the toughest among all the obstacles, you don't even have time to be excited; conserve stamina, save energy, be as tactical as possible to beat it fast so you don't have to waste too much of strength.

What comes next is the 3Meter wall called 'Rapelling Wall', infamous for the amount of victims that it 'consumed', I became extra careful and tries to move quick but not too fast climbing the wall with the rope attached... however like most ppl do, my arm strength just couldn't pull my whole body up quick enough to climb the whole 3 meter, I stepped down, stopped, rested for a while and rethink my strategy: I would really hate not to conquer another obstacle, and having failed the previous obstacle, I owed to beat this one!
After some rethinking and watching how some other ppl do it, I found the right method of doing it and with another strength rush on me I give it another shot and starting to pull myself up via the rope with my body flat sticking to the wall and leg spread forming a M shape and stand on the tiny piece of wood nailed there: pull the rope, push the legs, stick the body to the wall, repeat, conquer! It takes energy to reach on top but it takes much more to come down via very unfashioned way of me using the last bit of my energy to ensure a safe landing (alot of ppl hurted themselves because they lost their strength/grip on holding the rope when descending)... with almost a cramp on my thigh I rolled and land on my butt.. ouch!!

Shortly after that, as I regain my strength to move on ahead, I saw Kelvin climbing back down from the very same obstacle without much trouble. With that little bit of strength left and all that muscle pain, I guess he still can nail it especially when its something that requires more skill than strength.. impressive guy!!
And with just some more challenges left in the game, one of the last strength-killer was the 'Define Gravity' obstacle! The giant slanted plank that required you to move upwards by speeding ur way up if you are an super-athelete, or u can be tactical about it by having ppl forming human pyramid ladder to help you up.
Being one of the final few obstacles left around for you to conquer, it doesn't stops here. Once u reach the top, you will only realised that unlike last year, the back of the slanted wall is not flat land for you to just land on it, but rather a big distance for you to slide down along the sand to reach the ground level. There was two random guy around who helped me up my letting me climbing via their shoulder, with a small burst from the wall I reach my arm to the guy waiting on top to pull me up to finish this obstacle. Right after I felt that sense of accomplishment, I looked at and realised the cool guys moved on ahead without giving me a chance to say thank you; and as for Kelvin, he tried to conquer the obstacle solo way, but as he was sliding down due to lack of momentum to reach the top, his foot began to give up and he rolled on the ground again... yiks! He pull himself up as we march towards the remaining short distance before the victory... the ramp of Triumph!!



The height of triumphant
It was around 1am noon with the hot sun still burning on our skin and stamina... when I finally reach the back the Stadium, here it is, waiting for me... the 'ramp of Triumph'! The obstacle so iconic as ViperChallenge finisher that was inspired by American Ninja Warrior's Warped Wall obstacle. The one that I set my eye on to beat it since last year... climb, jump, rope, humans, whatever it takes me to beat that, I will. With all the remaining energy saved for this very game-finisher, I waited patiently for my turn as I saw more and more ppl failing the obstacle and.... sliding down!? O_O With the location of bomba(fireman support)'s water spray changed, I felt like this is kind of a let-down for someone with expectation :(  Last year right after you conquered the Ramp of Triumph, you will gather behind this very finisher with water spraying all over you via the nearby fire truck until it reaches around 20-40 ViperC finisher gathered around, the cameras will fly around you and the host will begin the countdown for your last spurt of victory to the finishing line with much joy and excitement.

As for this year's one, the fire truck was placed right before the ramp, so the longer u wait, the more ppl who tried the obstacle with their newly drenched shirt etc will make a nice sliding ground on the ramp, which make it even harder! D: I used all my strength for a sprint towards the ramp and before I was even ready for a jump to reach the top or whoever waiting there to help me, I slide down hopelessly like all others while my heart rant painfully for how powerless I am.

I asked Kelvin to move on ahead while I wanted to conquer this Very Badly. Very. However my throat and my body decided that it's time to end the deal of our peace agreement and I cough relentlessly as my body grasps for air that my throat does not happily allow for. With the last spurt I gave to the ramp a failed attempt to beat the obstacle, I tried to replace my anger with energy; being desperate, I took off my shoe, readied my whole body strength, calm my mind, and stepped out in front of the group of girls who are hesitant to tried to grab the rope to climb the ramp. With not much time to spare for everyone, one of the guy in the group saw me ready to go for the rope and decided to run ahead first to attempt on the rope climb to the ramp, despite all the kiasu-ness or the macho-ness the guys wanted to show it's simply to exhausting and time-consuming to try to comquer it solo style... with only 50/20,000 participant who did that single-handedly last year, I knew that I wasn't even going to try for the 2nd time to sprint and jump on the ramp all by myself. I saw the guy sliding down on the ramp right in front of me as his lose his grip and his armstrength trying to hold on the rope for too long without successfully climb to the top of the ramp.

Without a second thought nor another moment of hesitation I rushed to the ramp, holding the rope trying to climb upwards to the top; as I keep pulling with all my strength with my feet walking almost vertically, it reaches the point when gravity and the slippery takes in and I began to fell with my feet dropping down.. however I was still holding on the rope and ready for the last jump to reach the top; I shouted as my feet sliding down with only my arm holding on the rope. "Pull me up!" A rather failed attempt to reach out to the random helpers on top as my voice was still worst than a duck quackling and with the helpers on top not realising I was there, I pulled my whole body up and my feet back touching the ramp with my knee bended ready to make the short jump.
But instead, when I jumped a bit I was reluctant to risk it all by letting go of the rope, so I pushed all my strength into placing one feet on the top of the ramp, and I made it! ..with a far-king pain-rush on my left knee left thigh left leg I gave it a final pull-rush on my arm to pull my body ahead and pushed my right leg and the whole body to a flip-of-faith with my left leg as the pivot foot to flip on top of the ramp! The volunteers and other people on top of the ramp saw me and quickly hold my whole body down preventing me from falling and ask me if I am okay. I replied with 'leg cramped man but at least I did it!' I couldnt say more with that super sore throat and that pain-rush :') But I did it... and... the happiness was short OTL (this is emoticon for being sad)

All it takes was me trying to help pulling up another participants, and right as I was stepping off the back of the ramp... the back part of the ramp with the stairs was made of steel. And it felt like my feet being burned at every mili-second I was standing there, I rushed down the stair while I saw a guy in front of me doing the same burn-hurt running with his bare feet shouting 'fug! fug! fug!' all the way until both of us hide at the shade behind the ramp and scream painfully hoping the pain would go away sooner...


quick ending journey
Let's not waste more time on how pathetic we became... we took another 1 hour hanging out around there greeting friends under the hot sun while Kelvin tries to make a hopeful attempt at the lost and counter to recover his spec and hopefully by now as I am writing this he would have recovered his new but recently-lost spec. We didnt spend much time taking photos around nor did we stay long enough to chit chat with other ppl. sorree~

And thus my ViperC ends with a happy declaration to my station2.5 crew and all ViperC friends that I did it and I can now gladly say that "being part of the crew last year was 2.5 times harder than running through this year viper twice!! If you can survive as crew last year: 3 full days of  sunburn, rain, sleepless day and night, endless work, underappreciate effort and all that ranting from superior... you'd already won ViperC challenge!" To the friends made throughout that experience, you are the best!! (Y)

..and thus my weekend ends up with me not planning to meet up with most of my friends as even now I m still mid-way recovering my ready-to-get sick anytime body... geez. I wish I can just have a quiet 15 hours sleep and everything would be alright I m sure! XD

..till next time people! ciaoz  ;)

Viper Challenge 2015!! (Part.1/2) - Overview of the whole experience

This is a simple background write-ups about my Viper Challenge 2015 experience~

A little back-story

Back then when Viper Challenge first organised in Malaysia(Asia) two years ago, my friend Wai Leng told me about the event and urge me to go and give it a try for something that seems challengingly fun! After a little google-ing about the event, it seems a little bit too extreme for someone unfit like me D':

The evolution:

During the 2nd year inception of Viper Challenge into Asia, the event received an overwhelming respond due to the fun element instilled within the physical challenge itself. With the growing trend of physical event in Malaysia, many saw this as the golden opportunity to set another life goal on the line. To conquer Viper Challenge!!

The one-a-kind motivation:

As for me, I signed up as a volunteer of the event and got accepted to help out for this amazing event during last year October. It was nothing short of fun knowing all the amazing new friends around as we get along very well trying to survive various on-site hardship while trying endlessly to motivate and to help out the participants to go through the challenges despite many of us being fairly mistreated.

After the event, being the friendly one around Kelvin suggested that we join ViperC for the next coming year as a prove of the strength of our friendship, if we can survive the worst while helping ppl to win, so why can't we win? xD

ViperC tale 2015 prelude:

Being the scaredycat around, I steeled my heart and signed up for the event!! Hence the name Viper_Volunteer_14 was founded, we wanted to do it for our friends who couldn't make it or still wasn't ready for it yet.

By now I can say that.. it was an awesome and amazing experience!! Before I introduce to you what lies ahead on viper challenge 2015, the downside of it was that we kinda think that the management of event backfired and there wasn't many returning crew despite being offered as senior crew to help out. Kelvin talked to many on-site volunteers and they doesn't seems very happy... as for me, I was busy helping ppl around and was really surprise on different people's take on this event. 

Expectation Gap:

Many said that this is not a competition but keep urges us to run ahead, it was a good motivation however I think Kelvin is the one who truly comprehends the motto of ViperC: LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND. He is a truly impressive guy as we felt like part of the event trying to help each other out rather than leaving random participants behind who could use a little hand.

The other down part was that the planning of the entire tracks was made a little bit off-goal. It feels like last year viper was a 'essay exam question' and this year one on a 'multiple-choice question' level: with many accessible shortcuts to skip tracks, lack of volunteers motivating and helping in some obstacles, and more freedom of option to skip the obstacles, ViperChallenge seems like a ViperDare course for the new comers. It does make things alot easier! But I think the motivation level is comparatively lower compared to last year's one... if you were to push yourself ahead to beat something but the shortcut lies ahead of you, no one helps you to win and many just skip thru the obstacle not even having the thought of trying it, how motivated can you be?

That being said, if you are someone who is up for the challenges. This year ViperC is not a very merciful one for the one who seeks achievement! =D