Ouch.
I crashed into the first hurdle.
Again.
A bit of deja vu here isn’t it?
I guess what they say is right though, that it is through your mistakes that you learn the most and not your successes. I realised that I’m starting off too close to the line, I need a foot and a half back at least or I will come up to the first hurdle too closely with 8 strides.
Keeping that in mind, my subsequent runs of the day went much better, but the scars on my legs and the bruise plus swell on my left ankle reminds me of that lesson learnt.
I must say the thing about getting older is that you’re more easily embarrassed and afraid about falling down, but you have to remind yourself that if you don’t fall, you’ll never learn.
You really just got to let your ego go, and keep the task in mind. This of course is easier said than done, with many elite athletes around the track when I fell.
‘What a noob,’ was what flashed through my head, thinking to myself about what those athletes that saw me crash would think.
Maybe so, maybe so, but then so be it.
I would be the first to acknowledge that I pretty much am still a noob at this, but that won’t stop me from trying, and more importantly, that won’t stop me from getting up.
Come on legs, see me through.
A Singaporean Decathlete 
The ego is a real pain. Totally agree with the part about getting embarrassed and getting older. But chances are, 90% of the time, no body even gives a damn (Thats what I keep telling myself) Nobody remembers our falls or stumbles, because they are too busy dealing with their own lives and problems. We think the whole world is watching us, but, not. They probably got back to what they were doing 10 seconds after seeing you fall. Keep going my friend. If there is a wall, break through it.
Yeah bro, that’s the funny thing isn’t it, that our natural tendency is to over-emphasise the event when the truth is no one really gives a damn, so why bother anyway? As the saying goes, why so serious?
Fall, laugh at yourself, get up, keep going =)
Anyway bro you have a flickr account don’t you? I just gotten one and plan to start using it soon. Do let me know your account name (can drop me a mail if you don’t want to put it here), I’m sure you have some awesome pictures of your travels in there!
Hey bro. No problem. You should be able to find me at http://www.flickr.com/welzlnxq . Although I have to say that my flickr account is pretty much inactive. I recently placed some pictures I took from China there (1 weeks ago), I had not logged in for at least a year prior to that.
I have seen your latest post on photography. Great to hear that you are being drawn towards it. I guess you know that I started out with a D40X. But over the last 2 years, I have been experimenting alot with “my” photography and learning what it means to me. I understand now that just like what sports is to you, photography is a form of expression for me, just like many other things I do, playing the ukulele, doing triathlons previously, running etc.
I read an article in the first issue of a magazine called “Underscore”. And the author wrote, images are a false sense of reality. I guess it is obvious from advertising and all that, and I began to question what I was trying to portray. What was my images trying to say. What did I want to communicate?
When I went to Germany I used film, shooting with a golden half (http://www.blurb.com/books/1599918), and I think I have shown you this before, and you said that the photos were very raw. I loved that word, raw. Now, I look back at those photos and I feel amazed at it, and that I managed to take all those scenes. It portrayed something nostalgic that I could never achieve with my D40X.
Now in China, I am shooting with a digital harinezumi II. I wanted to achieve the effect of film but cut the cost of processing. The effect is somewhat there, but the pictures that I shoot are now different. They speak out differently, and after 4 months, I already feel that it is a style that I don’t wish to go into further.
I have already placed an order for a polaroid camera, because I think it is another form of photography I wish to experiment with. So as you can see, my “photography” is changing with me.
“Art is anything that pushes our thought in important yet forgotten directions.” -Alain De Botton. I believe that any photo in which the photographer can look at it and gain satisfaction is a good photo, because he has somewhat expressed himself in taking it. And therefore, while we can take the opinion of people or so called “experts” into consideration, we, ourselves, ultimately decide if the photos we took are “good” or “bad”.
And for me, I feel that writing is also one of my strength, and have therefore tried to combine these two forms of expressions together.
It would be great to catch up with you in person and we can share more on this hobby. I will be back in Singapore after 3rd of May, and should stay put (at least for now) there for the next year to complete my degree in NUS. Haha.
Here is a quote from Bruce Lee (I am pretty sure you have seen it before, and I even feel that I got this quote from you, but I can’t remember) that I love and it comes back to me from time to time:
http://www.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=bruce+lee+there+are+no+limits&um=1&hl=en&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&tbnid=LbL_KBNsddq1LM:&imgrefurl=http://dudelol.com/there-are-no-limits-bruce-lee/&imgurl=http://dudelol.com/DO-NOT-HOTLINK-IMAGES/quotThere-are-no-limitsquot-Bruce-Lee.jpg&w=1370&h=679&ei=pquWTZOTBI6PceqG3Y8H&zoom=1&iact=hc&oei=pquWTZOTBI6PceqG3Y8H&page=1&tbnh=106&tbnw=214&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&biw=1366&bih=653
Hey bro, you know the funny thing was that conversation between us about the photos you took in Germany with film shaped the way I take photographs as well. It still stuck in my mind the words you said about how people aim to take a perfect photo, trying hundreds of shots on a sunset just to get the perfect one they think how a sunset should look like. This then leads people to chase for this kind of scenes only to realise that they don’t actually exist.
I like to think of my photos as a slice of life from my point of view, as how I see things through my eyes and in my mind. And in it’s raw, honest and accurate form, show that life is perfect as it is. I’m still learning my way around the dslr manual controls mainly to get the camera to reflect what I see and I tend to stay away from post editing unless the picture is inaccurate in my opinion to what I saw (usually white balance errors).
Thanks for the quote and yes I do look forward to seeing you in Singapore! Will be back quite late though, probably sometime in August. But neverthless take care and as always, be perfect. =)