Signs of Thaddeus Cheong's death?

SINGAPORE: The family of teenager Thaddeus Cheong, who died at a triathlon selection race on Sunday, is not blaming anyone.

This was despite the apparent lack of medical personnel on site, at the time of the incident.

Thaddeus had been eager to represent Singapore at the upcoming South East Asian Games.

The 17-year-old Raffles Junior College student started training for it three years ago.

He even participated in races in South Korea last year, to gain some competitive experience.

On Sunday, Thaddeus had completed the SEA Games trial in good time.

His parents said he finished the race in 2 hours and 9 minutes, which is about 3 minutes faster than the qualification mark.

But Thaddeus collapsed after crossing the finishing line.

He did not respond to his parents, who had rushed to his side.

Doctors failed to revive him and the teen died in hospital from cardio-respiratory failure.

The Triathlon Association of Singapore (TAS) said although there were no medical personnel on site, the coaches present were all trained in first-aid.

Thaddeus' parents said TAS has been very good to their two sons who are triathlon enthusiasts.

And for now, they just want to remember Thaddeus, who did them proud.

"My son enjoyed the training very much, he was very determined... always looking forward, sometimes he would ask his daddy to wake up early and bring him to train... he really enjoyed it," said Thaddeus' mother Angeline Wee. - CNA/yy

I believe everyone in Singapore is equally sad and shocked to hear such a piece of news. However, I made an amazing discovery.



During the recent TAS Inter-Collegiate & Schools Biathlon Challenge 2007, Thaddeus did not complete his race. According to Jiexun, who participated in the event and competed against Thaddeus in the Junior Colleges Divisions Senior 'A' Boys category, he said that Thaddeus dropped out of the race but he did not know the reason.

As can be seen from the above picture, there is a "DNF" remark under Thaddeus' name, which stands for "Did Not Finish".

The race was held on the 21st of April 2007, approximately 2 months before the unfortunate incident happened.

Were there already warning signs that were overlooked?

Jiexun said that perhaps he dropped out of the race because of muscle cramps, but then again, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that his withdrawal from the biathlon in April has a link to his death.

What do you think?

昨夜过后

枕头还有你睡过的凹陷，
指间还有正在抚摸你胸肌的错觉，
嘴里还有你咀嚼薄荷口香糖的气味。

空气中还有那股从你身上散发出来的，
既陌生又熟悉。

弥漫着的似曾相识，
我沿着它的召唤在床上往左翻，
一叠的五十元钞票上残留着昨夜放荡的腥味。

“找到了！就是这个味道！”

Mugging Progress

Mathematics:
Everything except Vectors and Complex Numbers

Chemistry:
DONE

Geography:
Globalisation
Uneven Economic Development

Chinese Literature:
《命运的迹线》
《药》
《最宝贵的》-- 意识流手法

As of 12:30PM 24th June 2007

（刻意）被遗忘的SMS

Let's see. I sent an SMS to 3 girls at around 11:15 AM today, asking them the whereabouts of our Block Test 1 answer scripts.

Time Check: 8:23 PM

And none of them replied.

Only Marcus did. And I appreciate his immediate response, though he did not really help much as he was equally uncertain.

可能她们正忙着温书，没时间查阅她们手机所受到的信息。

Wow. Then they must be some profressional, full-time mugger. An ordinary white-collared worker only works from 9 to 5 in an air-conditioned office. Their working hours is from 10AM to 8PM and still counting....

In any case, how long would it take to check your inbox? What's the purpose of owning a mobile phone if you refuse to get yourself in touch with the outside world?

拥有手机是为了方便我来联络别人，而不是方便别人来联络我

If that's the case, I would say that you are a selfish person. If the whole world thinks the same way as you do, do you think you will still be able to contact people, since people would adopt your same mode of thinking and refuse to let themselves be contacted by you?

What goes around comes around.

可能她们刚换了手机号码，因此我所发送的简讯无法传到她们的收件箱里。

Based on past experience, whenever someone changed his/her contact number, it wil accompany a major revamp of his/her MSN nickname, which will clearly state his/her new contact number.

Or an influx of SMS from that person using his/her new number.

Or you would receive a surprising (surprising because people usually won't e-mail each other unless they form a group for their on-going school-based project) e-mail from that person, reminding you about the change.

反讽吊诡的是，随着科技的日新月异，人与人之间的关系更趋向于冷漠，心灵上真诚的沟通也越来越缺乏。这种人性的演化，与当今科技的发展，根本就是南辕北辙。

科技缩短了远程距离，却又同时拉长了近距离的接触。

Or can I therefore conclude that girls are more unwilling to help out when it comes to academics, since the girls are the ones who did not reply to my SMS? The ironic thing is, two of my female friends confirmed my hypothesis.

还是我的人缘真的那么差？

Updated: The first reply came at 9:36 PM

Mugging Progress

Mathematics:
Everything except Vectors and Complex Numbers

Chemistry:
DONE

Geography:
Untouched

Chinese Literature:
Now touching on 《命运的迹线》、《药》and 《雪山飞狐》

On National Service

This is my second freaky post, but I am still going to say this: I am actually looking forward to National Service.

This exact same feeling was also experienced when I ended my secondary school days and was about to start a new chapter in JC.

It's a kind of excitement -- excited over the unknown, excited over a new environment and a new phase in your life. You know, you get excited over something new, at least for me I do look forward to immersing myself into an new environment.

And of course, you get paid a few hundred bucks a month to be fit. Period. It's two years of no-brainer's work.

Personally, I feel that all those horror stories about how physically and mentally daunting National Service can be is overrated. Judging from all those rules and regulations and facilites that Mindef has to pamper us, I feel that NS will not be as tough as it sounds. (Unless you guys are talking about the HORROR stories of meeting the supernatural on Pulau Tekong, which I firmly believe that these encounters would be the only terrifying part of NS)

Or perhaps I've been successfully brainwashed by Mindef through their constant propaganda messages and ads on local media.

Nevertheless, I would expect some form of physical and mental training during NS, but I seriously doubt that it would THAT demanding.

So, NS, here I come!

On mugging

I know this will make sound like a freak, but I am really deriving pleasure from all these mugging for the upcoming Block Test.

I actually enjoy this process of learning -- acquiring new knowledge and refreshing/reinforcing my acquired knwoeldge.

Learning need not be something dreadful or tedious. It depends a lot on your attitude I guess. And maybe also on your chosen subject combination. If what you have chosen coincides with your passion, I guess learning is not just a chore that every dutiful student must complete. Rather, it becomes something like a hobby, something which you enjoy doing, something which sparks your interest and enriches your body, mind and soul.

I'm glad that I am following my passion. I am, in fact, looking forward to the beginning of every single day of my holidays, knowing that I will be learning more about my areas of interest. Of course, the thought of locking yourself in stressful conditions for about 3 hours each day when school reopens is dreadful, but for now mugging reamins pleasurable.

No stress. Just an enriched soul.

山盟海誓 (By Rachel)

山盟海誓 怀念曾经的爱恋
可惜 承诺早已被时间搁浅
逝世在 浩瀚无边的海面

蒙住双眼 我寻找 遗忘的眷恋
你站在远离我的天边
叹息 心再也无法 连成一线

挣开双眼 咸咸的泪水 模糊了视线
回忆 伴随在我身边
可我却 无怨无悔 无怨无悔

海誓山盟

曾经许下的
海誓山盟，刻在海岸边的岩石上。

任由岁月无情地风化，承诺
灰飞烟灭，变成沙。

而海岸线的变化，
是承载着多少刻骨铭心的回忆的
沙，被海风卷起带到另外一个海岸线
堆起另一座海誓山盟。

100 Things About/You Wanna Know About/33rd Councillors Will Remember About the 33rd Students' Council

1. Genesis and her crooked/sloppy/staircase-liked fringe and hairstyle.

2. Heng Jie and Erik

3. Guo Tong and Shuo Nan

4. Terence and his gayness

5. "Why are you so angry? Why is everybody angry with me" Why does everybody hate me?" by Joshua Ting

6. Lionel Chen Hui Raphael, or Chen Hui Lionel Raphael. Whatever that i,s you go do your permutations. The point is, we will remember about RAPHAEL.

7. Terence and his "You will die of breast cancer" curse.

8. Erik and his holy circle

9. Wilbur Shee Shu Fen the Rat!

10. The second, smaller rat that was caught on the day when we handed over the Council Room.

11. Our 冬暖夏凉 Council Room. It felt warm during rainy days and felt cooling during the dog days of summer.

12. Our flat Mid-Autumn Festival (MAF) centrepiece

13. Our 嫦娥 on the MAF citygate that has rebonded hair, long enough to have "rabbit ears", yet not long enough to grow beyond the shoulders.

14. Mr Sam Lee and his "Who asked you to light the fireball?!?!?!" during our one and only full-run for MAF.

15. Mr Remedios and his magical fingers that managed to fix the MAF lightings web at the last minute.

16. How Lady Luck always smile at us for all our 7 major events, ensuring a smooth flow of the programmes at the last minute.

17. How the weather was sunny when we were having War Games during O1 2007 despite the fact that it was the monsoon season, and that the rain only came when war games had ended.

18. Daphne and her "Gao Wei!"

19. Daphne and her "Do I make myself clear?"

20. Pamela is a bimbo in Mrs Ang's eyes...

21. Erik and Yen Shan's bitchiness

22. Wai Lumn and her (middle) finger

23. Wai Lumn and her "Soon Huat! You suck!"

24. Lionel and his act-cuteness and his Boxer's (Animal Farm's Boxer) working attitude

25. Yeah.. Politics exist in council. I shan't elaborate further. Bribe me for more information.

26. Mrs Ang and her "Your grandfather ah!"

27. Mrs Ang and her waffle recipe. You are prohibited to alter her recipe or you SHALL die a horrible death.

28. Everything that comes out of Samuel Ravi's mouth IS suggestive.

29. Jin Rong is a horny bastard. He flirts with Mrs. Ang (or was it vice-versa?)

30. Samuel Ravi and his tortoise-shell bag that costs $300 and weighs a tonne.

31. The "称" "霸" banners cannot be use in future matches to cheer on our athletes because the school administration claims that the banners have provocative content. Yay, one we got one more person who rolled his or her eyes after knowing the above news.

32. Liwei and Hong Yi?

33. Two councillors nearly got attached. Both of them had confessed their love for each other to each other. But somehow, from what I know, after an overseas trip the guy suddenly changed his mind...

34. Two councillors are attached to each other.

35. Yen Shan and his video-cam, which he used to film all those who are, to put in a nice way, "idling around"

36. How 3 councillors, who they think that they are popular and well-liked in Council, are thrown around like some playball by the I/Cs in CNY Comm because the I/Cs refuse to let them join their respective sub-comm. Well.. there's a reason (in fact, there are MANY) why they were not wanted by any sub-comm I/Cs...

37. Terence bitches too.. and a lot in fact.

38. Everybody Loves Pang Ying! <33

39. Chio and Jie Yi

40. Hwa Chong nearly had a new Mass Dance. It was choreographed, but the idea was scrapped at the last minute due to various reasons. (Actually, I forgot the reason... but it was a valid one)

41. Miss June Tan and Mr Remedios scandal

42. Mr Remedios is Eurasian.

43. Each loudhailer costs $133

44. Most, if not all, stocks in Welfare Room are purchased from Sheng Siong Supermarket.

45. Jia An and his "You know what I mean..." when everybody don't know what he actually means!

46. Kah Leng and her ULTRASOUND!!!!

47. Jasmine and her unwavering determination to master the Chinese language.

48. Ming Jie and his OMG drawings... Haha.. thanks to him we can have such gorgeous and magnificent CNY decor.

49. Liwei stones.

50. Allison moos.

51. As from what I know thus far, 2 council girls are attached to non-council guys. 4 council guys are attached to non-council girls.

52. 3 council guys are known to be very desperate for girls.

53. Sharm Oh and her "let's close our eyes" motivational speech! *Touched* *Motivated* *Hails Sharm Oh!!*

54. A male councillor "accidentally" touched the breasts of a female councillor. Oh well, i heard that it wasn't really "accidental", but I will give him the benefit of doubt.

55. Yuani's big, enormous, gigantic, humongous, gargantuan, large, massive, round eyes.

56. Charmaine Chua's husky voice.. Ooh.. husky.. sexy.. ;)

57. Qin Pei's Apollo Dance... sizzling hot! pssssssst......

58. Ming Jie and Jasmine's KI debate during GMs. Or you would remember the statements that they make which the mainstream, GP students would not comprehend.

59. Daphne's cheeks.. and how they were often being pinched by certain people.

60. Sharmaine Oh and Jia An

61. Council owns 4 school flags on wooden poles, 2 large pink loudhailers, 1 small red loudhailer, about 6 cheering banners, about 8 cheering boards, loads of Artemis and Athena shakers and about 800 clapping balloons.

62. Song Jun and Cheng Xian's creativity on bridge announcements

63. Song Jun's lameness, spastic and his ability to kill conversations.

64. Song Jun's remarkable talent in song composition! He composed our batch's farewell song and co-composed the our batch song! And he knows how to play the piano even though he did not attend any lessons before!

65. Chern Wei and all the random emails he sent to enlighten us with some wise words he found circulating on the World Wide Web or to brighten up our day with some really hilarious jokes. Either which no one really bothers to read it after a while. (Hmm.. he didn't send this to us when we were classmates or when he was the President of Aphelion council back in high school days)

66. Carmen and her niceness

67. Pang Ying and her niceness

68. Siow Yi, Wai Lumn, Qin Pei and Pang Ying can carry one canteen bench by themselves and they often offer their help to carry benches! Girl Power!!!

69. Qin Pei is Shanghainese!! No.. she's not PRC.. she's a true blue Singaporean... just that her dialect group is Shanghainese! How cool!

70. Jian Yang is dao.. but he's a nice guy at heart... And he's hardworking!! Unlike some others...

71. There are many councillors who seldom open their fu*king mouth and cheer during each cheering event. All are guys from my observation.

72. 3 councillors from our batch were suspended from Council. Probably the highest number in the 33 years of history of Hwa Chong Students' Council.

73. Ming Jie's self-debadging to make a statement

74. When a councillor is suspended, he or she will be debadged, i.e., he orshe will not be allowed to put on the Council badge unique and made exclusive to only councillors. nd no, Ming Jie was NOT suspended by Council -- he's merely demostrating a protest against something. Bribe me for details.

75. Khang Chiang and I were at loggerheads. But I guess things are okay now.

76. I was backstabbed by some faculty heads before. An explanation was given, but I was still convinced that I was backstabbed. Bribe me for details.

77. I bet only councillors know how to correctly do all the 5 mass dances.

78. Thanks to Shuo Nan's artistic abilities that we can have the amazing and intricate CNY Banner, the elaborate and exquisite CNY Board (that was under-utilised, but certainly caught the attention of many) and the couplets that measured 16metres by length, 1.8 metres by width.

79. FFCS. "From Far Cannot See" or "Far Far Cannot See". A council term used to self-console when there's a bloop/glitch on a banner/centrepiece/any other forms of decor. Or used when councillors are too lazy to correct the mistake, or lack the time to correct it.

80. Heng Jie and her fetish for Xiao Mi Mi Cai Fan

81. Erik claims that he has a crush. But we deduce that he has two actually.

82. One male councillor is attached to his junior from his Orientation Group.

83. You can hear Genesis from 10 metres away.

84. Joshua's queer habit of permutating the syllables of a person's name. Like he would call you "Jie Heng" or "An Jia".

85. Hong Yi weighs 85 kg.

86. Erik Can Cook!!! Yes! He can whip up mouth-watering dishes of any style.. Haha.. I guess living alone overseas does make one more independent and hence better master culinary skills for survival.

87. Yen Shan and Jia Li; Erik and many 34th Council girls...

88. Yuani and her short and sudden spurts of words that can come out at an supersonic speed of 300 miles per second, with a lot of (long) pauses between each spurt.

89. Samuel Ravi and his duct tape wallet. (Yes, his wallet is entirely made up of silver-colour duct tape. You just use strands and pieces of duct tape and keep wrapping each other until you form the structure of a wallet.)

90. Allison (seductively) crawling on the floor in the promo video for ECACO.

91. The 33rd has got 5 PRCs, possinly the most number of PRC councillors in the 33 years of Hwa Chong Students' Council history! Tian Cheng, Pang Ying, Jiang Zhou, Shuo Nan (yes, he's from China and he's 2 years our senior) and Meng Tian (yes, she's from China too. Don't be deceived by her Americanised accent and by the fact that she takes KI).

92. And no, Guo Tong is not a PRC. She's a true-blue Singaporean. Not everyone with two-words name are PRCs.

93. Tallest guy in Council is Peter, standing at 185 cm. Tallest girl in Council is Guo Tong, standing at 171 cm.

94. Shortest guy in Council is Song Jun, at 162 cm. Shrotest girl in Council is Jasmine, at 154cm.

95. Kah Leng and Joel Haw!!! Hahaha...

96. The magnificent CNY decor (Oh, was this mentioned earlier?) and not forgetting the stunningly gorgeous CNY banner and couplets! =D

97. Open House 2006 balloon web which was hung above the Central Plaza! And how we stayed back until 10 PM the previous night just to blow 600 balloons and carefully stored them in... I forgot where!

98. How we stayed back until 10 PM too to fill up 3,000 water bombs in preparation for War Games the next day. And how we carefully transferred all the water bombs and covered them precariously using canvas sheets, canteen benches, canteen tables and students' desks, fearing that there would be a midnight downpour that would burst all our bombs.

99. 老东西！！

100. All the late GMs and Internal Elections we have...

**********************

There are just so many memories we have about Council. Not even 100 things can finish listing them all.

一转眼就到终场，太多的回忆要收藏。心里总有个地方，我永远不会忘。

咖啡甜品

晚餐的甜品伴随着咖啡，
咀嚼这回忆所留下的美丽。
怎么苦涩分离，
淋湿那嘴角的甜蜜。

From 过路客

烛光晚餐

牛排是一人份的晚餐，
晚餐是一个人的烛光，
烛光是没有你的浪漫。

浪漫是独自吃着微酸微甜的水果沙拉开胃菜，
而你不在。

你的不在是红酒在玻璃酒杯里
旋转，跳跃，
我闭着眼。

孤独看不见，有从蘑菇浓汤冒出的
白色精灵，沉醉了
客厅灯光微弱。