Looking for a light

This post has two things which I wanna highlight about the recent going-ons here in Aussie.

Sending Haiyum Off

First was saying goodbye to my friend Haiyum, who is returning to Singapore for good after 5 years over here in Perth. I only knew him this semester but suffice to say I couldn't have gone thru the semester (so far not too shabbily) without him. There are actually 6 people who are in the postgraduate room, but he is the one who is most frequent in the office, so yeah I would say that he is he closest post-graduate to me, literally and figuratively speaking.

I guess from now on it will be quite lonely in the office, cos most of the time it will probably be just me. Haiyum is actually 36 this year, and I really respect him for taking the hard step to go out to a foreign country and try and upgrade himself. The only other person whom I know did that was my mom, who finished her bachelors at the age of 43, so I am very priveleged to know such people in my life.

He also told me that he was not going to sell-out, and he was alright with a decent paying job as long as it allowed him to do what he loved. An attitude that I respect, and I wonder myself if I can not sell-out as well, cos yeah selling out is a pretty common thing in Singapore, especially if you're taking a generic degree, but anyway, thats another matter.

So yeah I sent him off on Wednesday night at the airport, and I could see he was quite sad because yeah its been his home for the past 5 years so I would understand too. Well at least he is coming back to his wife. Also, he lives near Jaslyn's place which for those of you who know where I live would know is about 5 min drive from my place. So yeah hope I get to meet up with him.

But of course I wil always remember his work ethic, which I feel was a real inspiration to me, so I hope to be able to work hard or as hard when he is not around in this coming semester.

Half Marathon

The other thing that I have been preparing for is doing my first half-marathon run, I'm not aiming for much because I have never finished that distance in my life before, but I would say that if I can come under the 1:45 barrier, I would be proud of myself. I can't say for sure that I have trained very hard. Its hard to train alone most of the time, cos you can't pace anyone, but I have been working consistently over the past 3 months, making sure my core is strong, and also that I cover the mileage consistently each week. I guess the one stumbling block would be the vicious Perth wind, which can really slow you down. Most of the time the headwind picks up on the way back, so you have to take advantage of the tail wind when you feel it behind you.

I will share more when I get back, leave you with some pics of the running route, taken off the internet, cos obviously I won't take any when I am running.

Most of the run (about 19km of it) will be along the Swan River, and the backdrop will be the cityline.

I will then go across a bridge known as the Causeway (duno why I cannot find the picture on the internet, to cross over from the City side to South Perth side (which is where the photo above was taken from, and will start running southwards to the Narrows bridge, which you see below.

This is the second bridge that I will cross, the Narrows bridge, which goes back over the river, so I will run from the left to right, back onto the UWA side and head back to UWA which is towards the top-right of this picture (can't be seen from this pic).

So yeah, alright I shall go now, pack and head to school for prayers. Here's hoping for a smooth run, and the meeting of targets.

Missing all,

Az