Alex Brennwald

During the last term, we were engaged in pretty serious Hollywood affairs. Please see the result below:

Again, time is flying. Xmas is already omnipresent in Singapore (I will post a Xmas special in due time about the asian Santa, promised...). Unfortunately, we aren't blessed with many presents so far, but we have a bunch of work to do. At least something...

Ronnie and Jörg

Mark and Rachit

Another Sunday morning session at our place. Groupwork is taking over private life, very good. We're solely but surely zoning in the professionals' everyday lives, so there's nothing to fear for our future...

Luckily, we had some nice dinners too. The crabb-feast is to mention here in the first place: delicious! After traveling to a place a bit furhter away form Bt Batok (the place we live) and the city center, we were able to find this devine seafood center (Aven. 3/4, Blk 232, Ang Mo Kio, for the insiders). The exclosure of all liabilities didn't stop us from literally digging in. Have a look for yourself...

No comment...

Fresh crabbs

Heavy duty

Camera is this way, Jörg...

Hello Mr. Crabb

Jennifer feeding the guai lohs

War guuuut, jaaaaaa...

Just a few pictures for your interest. More text is comming next week after the Singapore Marathon...

Back I am. Still healthy (a bit sore though) but all good. I've spent a great weekend in Malaysia. Well, it wasn't all about sight-seeing, shopping, and hitting the dancefloor, no. Serious running in the jungle of Genting rounded up the trip with a slightly more competitve edge.

When I first heard about the Gentig Trailblazer, I was pretty sure that I have to start there. 15k mud race through the jungle on difficult terrain with rivers to cross, steep trails to rush down and climb up again, and in the end an obstacle course to pass consisting of gullies, mudholes and other calamities seemed to be just right to have a bit fun...

Hotelroom with a view

Lee and myself at the gullies

First of all, it's to mention that Genting is not around the corner and that the race itself is a team event. Easy solution to two problems: right, find a local who knows how to get there and runs fast. After a few posts on SGrunners.com I found Lee (-> his blog), a Singaporian guy working in Hamburg spending his holiday back home. Great. After a few chats and a meeting, everything was set up. So, we ended up sitting in a bus together travelling to KL to spend a day there (sight-seeing, shopping, and partying with Kelvin and Dave) and hit the trails together afterwards. We slightly overpaid our hotel, but got a very nice view on KLCC and the city center.

Gullies, tires, tubes, etc.

Crawling, climbing, balancing

The race itself covered a distance of 15k (the long version) with 300m to descend and climb up again. The trails definitely qualify as heavy terrain: very steep descends secured with ropes, slippery transitions, tree-trunk underpasses, mudy river crossings, and tough climbs. The trail itself was actually chopped out of the jungle and quite demanding. Before arriving at the finishline, the obstacles shown above have to be passed. Several breast-deep mud/water holes, steep climb obstacles, tires, tubes, gullies, and crawling through sand awaited the runners. In the end, everybody was covered with mud, sand, and water. Nice...

Lee ready to dive in the mud

Swimming Pool for X-runners

For the team of us, the race went pretty well. We clocked within the traget time of 1.30h and finished 4th in the men's category.

I don't have Lee's pictures yet and official pictures as well as a movie will be posted on a later stage.

The pictures in the following section are from different sources:

The following pictures are linked from KC & the Sunshine Runners and under their copyright.

That's me and Lee

River crossing

In the gully

step descends

open trail

climbing up again

Well, the first term is over. And half of the time in Singapore too. We are here now for 20 weeks and we definitely have a few stories to tell. Not in the last few weeks though since we've spent most of our valuable time learning for the exams. The result are not out yet, so we still don't know whether we did better than in the mid-terms. Let's wait another two weeks or so and see.

Mark studying hard

Typical signs at Uni

These are pictures of a typical day at Uni. Studying hard with other guys in one of the learning and group rooms. These rooms are accessible for students 24/7 and it's rather normal to spend a few nights learning on Campus. This seems a bit strange for lazy Swiss HSG students, but here in Singapore it's normal to hit the desk till dawn. And it's actually not that much of a hassle if you get used to it once.

Late-night session at NTU

Presentation Innovation class

In the recess class after the exams, the all-night sessions didn't want to stop. And not surprisingly, the willingness to spent long nights at NTU is zoning in at zero, especially with receiving emails from peer-students catching a few rays in Thailand or another beach spot. But nevertheless we could tick off another course what hopefully eases the workload for term two. We will see. The presentation at the end of the week didn't go that bad, so the effort finally paid off.

Change of guards

Exams are over; Party at Zouk

With the end of the exams and the recess class, life came back as well. After a long wait (nearly 20 weeks), we finally found time to go to the city and do the tourist tour. Change of guards and other things were nice to look at on such lazy days when the workload drops. Finally, Ronnie and I rounded off the day with the best Laksa ever at Vivo-City (big mall). Food pictures will posted on an other occasion.

I will spend the weekend in Kuala Lumpur and Genting. There will be a jungle race on Sunday. I'll keep you posted...

After a long break this is the first entry for weeks. Sorry for the long pause. As you can imagine a lot of things happened in the meantime. In short, we messed up our exams, I was able to run fast, physiscal well-being was off limits sometimes, and University still keeps us busy. But first things first:

A few weeks ago, we had to write our midterm exams. For the first time in my academic career I have been exposed to this examination mode; and I think it's not that bad at all. At least, it keeps you on track throughout the whole term. But on the otherside, it's stressful to have so many assignments, papers, and exams that in end all just marginally count for the final grade. Unfortunately, the two mid-terms didn't go well. Therefore there's still a lot of room for improvement and we'll definitely tackle the final exams in an different manner.

Start of the X-Campus run

After the X-Campus run

But there were other things too. Although not completely off campus, but at least not academical. I took part in the annual cross campus race (6.5km) and finished on the 8th place (out of 350 students). I was pretty happy about that since my shape is not good at the moment. I even got my first medal, yipeee... Further on, I signed up for Singapore Marathon (2. december) and I plan to race a trail run in the jungle in Malasiya (river crossing included). I'll keep you informed.

Unfortunately, there are some bad stories too. All of us got food-poisened two weeks ago. I won't go into detail here, but it wasn't pleasant at all. I really hope this was the first and last time. The recovery took us, especially me, quite some time. But at the moment we are all healthy and happy again. Just a sprained ancle is still keeping me off running but it will be better soon, I hope.

Rachit's engagement party

Vel, Jörg, and myself

Last weekend, we've been celebrating Rachit's engagement at the staff club on campus. Was pretty fun indeed. It's good to hang out a bit more often with the guys from the MBA program and the staff club is the right venue since it has the cheapest price for beer in whole Singapore.