Reckless

I had to have a giggle. It just seemed so silly. I met a competitor during one of my recent evening runs, and we ended up racing like a pair of panting dogs.

Running is supposed to be a beautiful - and beautifully simple - sport in the first place. That is, unless we forget. You might want to listen to the story how I sometimes forget.

I whizzed past a young guy that evening. Little did I know that I was sparking a battle. And that is ... yep, you guessed it: he got annoyed and quickly sped up and overtook me. At full throttle. As that guy ran in stride, he kept turning his head back to make sure I was falling behind.

I cringed, waiting for myself to catch my breath. Even if it would have made me sound like a jerk, I ramped up my accelerator and passed him without a polite "Excuse me." Fact is, politeness just doesn't exist when two vicious dogs feel being threatened and challenged. We nearly barked. Seriously. Oh, we would have barked at each other if not because of running out of breath. That's when that rival started to run ahead of me, and I was keeping my pace good enough to be a few steps behind. But not too far behind.

The idea is simple: I could keep good track of how much oxygen (or lack thereof) my competitor got in his tank (and mine, too). Speaking of which, I reminded myself the advantageous position to pierce him with a long-handled barbeque fork.

What a dumb race.

Still, reckless as this example is, it's fun to have such silly idea once in a while. Like me, you'll be amazed at how much you beat your last personal record (and advertise that record to show off in the next few days). Mine is finishing 8.14 km with a pace of 4.4 minutes per kilo that evening, in case you were wondering. Which is cool.

Present

We were once travelling to Malaysia with our thirteen-something-month daughter when the end of our trip brought her tears. That's grief reaction. Think about when you last spent a week's vacation aboard and what you would feel at the end of that pleasant week.

I do not know of anyone (child or grown-up) who does not long for a longer journey near the end. I do not know of any human creature who does not dream of never-ending itinerary without the need to go back to school or work.

The reality is we never seem to get all the hours of break we need or we wish.

This is why we teach our daughter to live in the present. “Remember to enjoy every minute on the road,” I told Jasmine when she asked about the time we will fly back during our recent Taiwan trip. “Dance the way Cinderella does without worrying about your glass slipper. Glass slippers will take care of themselves.”

Which is the entire point of travel.

Or should be.

Gacha

Hands up if you can’t answer the question what the heck “gachapon” refers to.

Chances are you will.

Just to refresh your declining memories (or maybe that's just mine), gacha is the onomatopoeia for the sound of the capsule toys falling from a vending machine, also named gachapon. Remember that familiar sound gacha, in the not too distant past, when you made a clockwise twist after inserting a coin into a machine? The greatest attraction is the suspense after the sound of “gacha.”

You’ll never know what you’re going to get until you crack open the plastic capsule, even though it’s part of a defined set of toys like Pokémon. We were brought back to the memories of gachapon during our Taiwan trip when my daughter lost a gacha toy. That’s a treasured rabbit toy of hers. My wife and I were sure my daughter won’t forget about the incident. She never did. To help her make sense of grief and the loss of a loved one, we decided to coax her into exploring new opportunities. Gachapons aren’t as ubiquitous in Taiwan as in Japan, but we were able to locate a handful of gachapon shops for Jasmine to try her luck on.

Don't get me wrong - I was not trying to get back the same rabbit toy and she knew she won’t. We simply let her experience one gacha after another. One surprise after another. With a smile on her face, she learned to give thanks for each gacha, and to expect the unexpected.

Nothing expensive. Nothing complicated. But completely fun.

Satiety

Before my Taiwan trip, I borrowed Julia Donaldson’s book Princess Mirror-Belle, one of my daughter’s favourite novels. On the way to airport, she couldn’t resist to let Julia Donaldson regale her with the exciting adventure of a princess with a mirror image.

Whenever this happened, I wondered if she would finish the book even before our trip began. It’s the feeling you get when you’ve failed the temptation and eaten all snacks before departure during your school outing. I knew exactly what I should do: I’d better load my luggage with a book shelf.

I don’t think there is a more perfect happiness to be found in life than this state, the promise of endless books on the road.

That’s never-gonna-be-hungry bookworm at play, unmistakably.

Race

I'm officially 47 today.

Instead of joining the workaholic rat race, I decided to take a day off on my birthday.

A break.

That's a good reminder to stop frantically adding bullet points to my bio and feathers to my cap. We've been working hard to achieve more and more, moving ahead to get new posts. Sounds too much, right? I pride myself on spending time to watch animated television sitcom Mr. Bean with my daughter yesterday, followed by reading few stories of Horrid Henry together before bedtime.

In fact, I'm lucky to find my daughter's school Beach Day falling on my birthday. Thus more than one good reason to take leave. The sun must have been too excited to celebrate my birthday, and we couldn't stay in the beach for the whole day without being overcooked. We returned home in late afternoon and suddenly it dawned on me that I still had time to exercise. I ended up having an evening run. My favorite part of the run isn't the pace. It's that for the first time I needed two numerals instead of one to log how many kilometres I've run.

But wait, isn't that another rat race? Yes and no. I'm not racing against anyone but myself. But at some level, every runner except the one in the lead is chasing someone.

Trots

What's harder to catch the faster you run?

This is a joke question from my daughter, and I'm tempted to give you the answer. But I won't. Instead, I give you another question: What is harder to hold the faster you run? Did I hear someone shouting the answer "Breath"?

No matter how confident you are about your answer, my personal experience today yields an even better answer: the bowel. Try as you may, it's a lot harder than you can imagine when you're trying to fight back the call of nature during your workout.

This morning, I came across an old article on runner's trots that appeared in JAMA almost 40 years ago, and then happened to get abdominal cramps shortly after my run tonight. Did I know the magic to beat a bout of diarrhea? Of course not. But I had a sneaking suspicion that running faster was a recipe for disaster. It was that simple - and that complicated. The only solution was to find the public toilet as soon as possible, that much was plain. You yearned to be quick but your guts told you not to run. Jeez, I paused my timer reluctantly and ambled to the nearest toilet.

But then, before I got a chance to celebrate my stopping a running accident, I found myself being locked inside a public toilet (after the clock struck eleven). Translation: spending a smelly night in the toilet until someone comes to open the lock and rescue me. Ugh. So, as I tried to take solace in the fact that my trousers weren't soiled, I waited. And waited. Until another runner happened to see me behind the bar, and grabbed a park warden to open the toilet entrance door for me.

If you fancy a joke to tell your daughter, my story will be a good one. At least my daughter nearly died laughing at mine when I got home finally.

Junie B. Jones

Last night I was at the hospital.

Then, after long hours of working, I brought home few library books. That's one of the best gifts for my daughter. Every time I borrow Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones books, Jasmine can't wait to finish the story on the same night. I knew pretty well that there was no exception today, when I borrowed Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! from the same series.

Jasmine's eyes remained glued to the Junie B. story when my wife tried to show her the new outfit she bought. My dear wife, please don't read the next paragraph.

Okay. Now that she's not reading, I can let you know my wife was jealous.

My daughter continued to read when we started dinner. One chapter after another.

That's the only time we won't mind when my daughter missed her dinner.