2058 Steps Up, Up, Up!

Last Sunday early morning I woke up at 2:30am after a rough three hour sleep. I got dressed, packed my bags, doubled checked the things I needed to bring and my dad drove me out to pick Ryan up. We got him from Centerpoint and then headed down to the Kuala Lumpur Tower. Why? We were gonna run up to the top of the tower by stairs.

Friday, just before midnight, Lydia messaged me asking if I want to go for the KL Tower International Towerthon Challenge. She had told me that she was going for the run a few weeks before. I also had wanted to go before with Song You but we decided not to because we felt that it was a very difficult challenge, that was just after Chinese New Year. Turned out that Calvin was not sure if he could make it for the run and so decided to bail out so Lydia had to look for a replacement or the ticket would go to waste. She asked me first and said that she would look for someone else if I can't go. After checking with my parents, I informed her that I'll do it, because heck, even if I'm not confident that I would be able to do it, I wanted to challenge myself (and also spend time with her).

The challenge was divided into categories, Men's Open, Women's Open, Under 18 and the Disabled. The Men's and Women's Open were further divided into age groups and the flag off for the race was split into different times. Ryan and I were in the 18-39 age group and the flag off was at 5am. We were required to be at the starting point at half an hour earlier so it was indeed already proven a challenge to be up at the wee hours of the morning to be there. Lydia and Kayla are in the Women's Open aged 18-39 (duh) and their flag off is at 7:15am so they got it good. Troublesome part was Lydia was texting me until 11pm giving me details about the race which were not very clear on the website, when what I was trying to do was sleep at 10pm.

After getting shots of Redbull that was given out for free at the starting point, Ryan and I got ready to run when our turn was on. The organisers were letting the participants run up the tower in groups of 300 so it was our turn at the fourth batch. Ryan had hurt his feet and thighs just the day before the run at work so he was already in a pretty bad condition. At the start of the race we were welcomed immediately by a slope which we had to climb up to get to the tower. This really put us down because bloody hell, it's a damn slope. I almost had leg cramps and Ryan punctured halfway up, before we even entered the tower's entrance. We jogged until we got into the tower and the stairway shaft up the tower was hot, humid and the atmosphere was full of sweat and all sort of urea salts. The stair railings were already coated in sweat, the walls and floor had spots of sweat imprints left from tired runners who took a break, it was crazy! Everyone was slippery and glistening in sweat, the stairs was narrow enough for only two people to run side by side so when someone came up next to you and your arms brush each other, that gross slippery feeling, never mind. Each floor had four flights of stairs.

When we got to the fourth floor, Ryan had to stop and take a break. He told me to go on ahead so I went. All the way up I just kept going and going, I could see the participants in front of me take stops by the side or at the water stations (that were giving out 100plus instead of water, geez) or at some doors that had air conditioning blowing. I just had the thought of making it to the top so I can quickly finish and see Lydia before she and Kayla start but when I reached somewhere around the 16th floor, it finally hit me that I was pretty damn high up in the tower and the sides of the railings were nothing but all the way down to the ground floor. That thought scared the shit out of me because of my fear of heights and my motivation changed, I wanted to quickly make it to the top of the tower so that I can get out of this awareness and fear. I however made one stop on the 18th floor because I was getting very tired. My legs got heavier and heavier until I couldn't pull my leg up to the next step but remembering some running tips, I swung my arms higher and closer to my body to pull my legs higher. There were signs on the wall to tell us the number of steps left to complete the run that I used to countdown to the top and before I knew it, I had completed the run. A man congratulated me as he handed me a finisher medal and a security guard directed me to the next water station, which was down a few flights of stairs. I was exhausted! Several times in the hot and sweaty shaft I had wanted to vomit, either from being tired, from drinking the 100plus or from the putrid stench of various sweats from more than a hundred men. We had to wait to take turns to take the elevator down and I wanted to wait for Ryan so I sat down and chilled. Checking my time, I figured that I had completed the run in 35 minutes. Again, I am impressed by my time. I still believe that I am fairly unhealthy because of the lack of exercise and low stamina, I guess my endurance is good.

After half an hour, Ryan finally made it up and we took the lift down, which was cramped with sweaty full grown men. That ride was probably the worst because it was hotter and sweatier than the stairs. Ryan and I overheard two foreigners comparing their time, one was 15 minutes and the other was 14 minutes. We were speechless.

When we got out, we were handed a bottle of water and a banana. The women were starting to run already so Ryan and I quickly went to look out for Lydia and Kayla. We didn't wait long when we saw Lydia come up and we snapped photos of her as she ran past, Kayla came up from behind but she didn't notice us. After they were gone, Ryan and I went to get more refreshments and we collected our bags that we left at the bag collection counter, then we sat down and rest as we wait for Lydia and Kayla to finish.

It was over an hour when Lydia and Kayla finally got out from all that human traffic. We took a few photos and planned to head home but since we were taking the LRT from KLCC, we decided to walk around before going back. We first stopped by the park outside Suria KLCC and we played around for a bit, climbing on this structure and on some poles (that used to be this net play gym and exercise things I suppose). Here I had a shock when attempting to jump up at a high horizontal pole because I was able to grab on with one arm, which I wasn't able to do before. I suppose rock climbing really did pay off after all. After that we had lunch at the food court and then we checked out Petrosains and Aquaria before taking the LRT home.

Edit: The race results came out, I got 32:23 minutes. Pretty damn good but the results isn't in my name but Calvin's. Sob. Ryan, Lydia and Kayla got 1:11:23, 1:04:03 and 1:05:47 respectively.

Couplet

You'll be the sun that brighten up my days,
and I'll be the moon that lights up your darkest times.

Couplet Leveled

Listen to the darkness of a thousand hearts,
one so deep it pulls you in parts.
Tangled in strings that is the arts,
it's like you're caught in a web of darts.

The first line of the first stanza was such beautiful prose,
but it was only a line that my brain brought to pose.
A couplet was formed after some consideration,
the second couplet was bullshit made for justification.

Lost in the Erratic Showers of Colorful Lights and Darkness

It's been a year since I last received my diploma in animation but I haven't got myself a proper job yet. I spent the remaining of last year working from a part timer to a full timer in Hamley's and learned a lot of skills in franchising and selling but that hasn't really given me any proper allowance because the pay does not suffice to give real meaning to "making money".

I had the drive to go start studying all over again in a new field, that being nursing but now that I've gotten a larger picture, that flame had died out and now I'm lost in the dim lighted world again. I have a few things I want to do that could make me a living but those ideals do not show light in this country. I'd very much like to be involved in health science but not as a doctor or nurse. I figured that I'd rather do jobs along the lines of a caretaker or therapist, those kind of people who take care of others but are not nurses, instead work at old folks homes, retirement homes or homes for the disabled. I still want to learn sign language and braille and maybe help children who are mute, deaf or blind. I want to do volunteer work to help the needy, assist shelters or charities organised by religious groups. I want to do those kind of things but my family members keep calling them a waste of time and that I should pursue studying again if I really don't want to stay in the animation industry.

For the past three months from the straight road to nursing, I had been shown more paths to take and being indecisive, I can't decide on what I want to do. People would ask me, "What do you want to do for your future?" or "Where do you see yourself ten years time?" and I would be completely helpless and clueless without answer because I really, exactly, have no idea what I want to do. Listening to countless motivational talks from many people only gave me momentary effects and then I would be clueless again, not having a single idea which path I should take, where I should go or most importantly, what I want to do.

Every day passes by in the blink of an eye and here I am, still lost, only guided by a single faint light of motivation named Lydia. But I cannot rely on her as my motive in life because she has her own goals and so should I. I always want to make the most out of life by going places and constantly learning things without being tied to a single location but the hard grounded ideals of the modern society doesn't make that life seem realistic or possible.

Hopefully I can find my answers soon because despite hating the fact, time is in fact passing by quickly.