the times i run at NUS

I enjoy running at NUS. I know its not exactly the sanest thing to do, considering that sometimes I run the slopes deliberately. Its this strange sense of catharsis, of clearing up certain thoughts. And here they are, as I went to run, and the thoughts that came up.

The first time I ran at NUS, it was the first year, and it was all so emotionally exciting, with many ups and downs - and that was felt in the run that I did - the strenuous uphills and the relaxing downhills.

But as I ran again, the feelings are different. It is still the same run, but the runner has changed. The slopes now mean something different - no longer the rawness nor the intensity of the slopes, but something else, that just slipped my mind. There was something that I grasped... the hills, the slopes, of the going up and the going down. It might not have been about the journey that we take, but about an experience through life.

The challenges of life will always be with us - in school, out of school, and after school. The destination matters, but the process of the journey is as important as the destination. I remember noting that I would want to come back to USP and mentor the students to think about their lives and how to get there. I think about the sobering fact that I would not have thought about doing sociology. In fact, if I were to come to FASS in my first year, I would instead have been hot-headed about political science.

As Dr Ryan says, Steve Jobs' connecting the dot backwards is too simplistic, but it is a beautiful narrative nonetheless. Its amazing that I stumbled into Dr Don's class - a semiotician, and how I got infected with certain ideas, and how all of that has led me in my current direction... deep insightful stuff...

And so the slopes on NUS mean something different to me now, though I still can't quite get it.