The Great Gatsby Affair

We got all dressed up last night to attend the 2009 George Washington Ball presented by the American Association of Singapore. The Theme was "The Great Gatsby Affair" and so we dressed in our best 1920's style clothing.

For the guys it was easy. Put on a hat and an art-deco inspired tie and you're pretty much ready to go. In a pinch, a tuxedo will serve you perfectly well.

For the women, though, it was much harder. You might find a feather boa hiding in the back of your closet, but very few women can just produce a flapper-style dress you haven't worn for a few years the same way a guy might pull out a black pin-striped suit.

We almost didn't go when we couldn't find the "right" dress. But just two days before the event, Deanna found a dress shop with a black dress with beading said 1920s. She even referred a friend who also needed some last-minute flapper fashion for the occasion.

Of course a new dress means new shoes and a new purse, too.

We tried to find a feathered headband to complete the look. We went to a couple different costume stores. But the first one only sold dance costumes, and the other one only had a couple broken, dirty rentals. And nothing in the right color.

We finally decided to just make one ourselves. I found everything we needed in a craft store. As a bonus, they also carried strings of pearls in bulk spools. I spent the last few hours before the ball making a pearl necklace and the beaded feathered headband you see below.



Deanna was a little apprehensive about dressing up at first. After putting everything on together, she thought it might be a bit too much. We've never been to the George Washington Ball before. We have a couple of different friends that went before and they said they always just wore normal formal attire -- just a standard tuxedo and evening gown. This was the first time that they had a theme. All the previous years, it was an ordinary formal ball, so no one knew what to expect.

People must have been ready for a change, because almost everyone dressed up in theme. Some people were dressed more than others, but we definitely fit in fine.

I think having a theme made the affair a lot more fun than just typical black tuxes and dresses. If we're still here in Singapore next year, I hope they continue to have theme events rather than just ordinary formal attire.

Sprint Aquathlon

Since learning how to swim, I've been training to build up my speed and endurance so I can compete in a triathlon. To motivate me to stay on track, I signed up for the Singapore sprint series.

The Sprint Series consists of 3 races building up to a triathlon.

• Race 1 was an Aquathlon - a 750m Swim / 5km Run, at Tanjong Beach on Sentosa Island, which I just completed.
  
  
• Race 2 will be a Duathlon, a 3km Run / 15km Bike / 3km Run at Upper Seletar Reservoir on the 15th of March 2009.
  
  
• Race 3 will be the Triathlon, a 750m Swim / 20km Bike / 5km Run, at Changi Beach Park on 19th April 2009.

Before the 1st race, I was mostly worried about swimming because I'm still learning, and I've never had to swim in race conditions. On the other hand, I was not concerned at all about the run, because I know I can run a 5k without trouble. But during the race I swam faster than I expected. And unfortunately, I ran slower than I expected.

I used up a lot of my strength in the swim because people kept crashing into me. I was warned that you get tussled around quite a bit during the swim. But nobody really explained just how many arms and legs would be smashing down on me, pushing me under water or interrupting my stroke. And I never anticipated how much getting bumped disrupts my swimming. In the pool, I have OK timing with my strokes and breathing so I can maintain a steady pace. But in the race, every time I got hit, I lost my sense of timing. It made me swim faster, because I was constantly trying to pull away from whoever was hitting me. But it also made me swim spastically because I got hit from every direction.

I wasted a lot of strength trying to swim away. I finished the swim faster, but by the time I got to the run, I was worn out.

About half-way through the run, my stomach started feeling "hot," and I had to slow down and walk for a bit until it passed. I got better and continued the run, but I was a little disappointed that I had to walk in the middle of the 5k run.

I forgot to note my time when I came through the finish gate, but I think I finished the race in the middle of my age group. They haven't posted the race results online yet, so I'll update the blog when the race timings and standings are released.

Before the next race, I'll put a little more thought into staying calm during the swim. I think I'll also put more effort into my running. Once I get better, I want to move up from the "Sprint" distance to the "Olympic" distance. The Olympic distance is also known as the "international distance" or the "standard course." It will be double what I'm working on now, or 1.5mm swim / 40km bike / 10km run.

But I still have to finish the sprint series before I'm ready to move up to the next distance.

UPDATE:

The final results are out. My times:

750m Swim:	0:17:29
Transition:	0:02:22
5k Run:	0:26:50
Total Time:	0:46:43
Overall rank:	241 of 780
Rank in my category (male age 40-49):	53 of 143

Food Republic

The Singaporeans have a cozy relationship with food. As I noted in one of our first posts, food is very important to Singaporeans, and they keep plenty of it around, so you'll never go hungry in Singapore.

In fact, Singaporeans find eating so important that they feign sovereign nation status for their eateries. Hence we find pastry shops operating under the name Donut Empire:


There is a popular chain of food courts operating under the name Food Republic:


And you can buy sweets sold at the Candy Empire:


And one more "empire," the Imperial Herbal & Singchi Tcafe:

I Qualified for the Singapore Biathlon

I just completed my swim trials, and I passed! That means I'm qualified for the Singapore Biathlon on Saturday the 7th of March, 2009.

I'm especially excited because I just started learning how to swim after we moved into our condo here in Singapore.

Its the first time I've had regular access to a swimming pool. And I'm not confident in my swimming. So I've been worried about being able to qualify.

The Singapore Biathlon is a 1.5km open water swim followed by a 10km run. To qualify, they make you complete the full 1.5km swimming distance in under 40 minutes. Judging my own swimming progress, I thought I had about 50/50 chance to qualify. I qualified with a time of 32:28, which is much faster than I expected.

The reason I was doubtful was because I never really timed myself before. The reason I never timed myself is because I didn't own a water-resistant watch.

Actually that's not quite true. I bought a cheap plastic watch that claimed to be water resistant. And it was. Once.

Fortunately, my wife surprised me this week with an officially-licensed Ironman(R) Triathlon watch that is water resistant to a depth of 200 meters. Thats deep. Even on our Big Scuba Weekend in Borneo, I've never been deeper than 26 meters. You need special equipment, training, decompression stops, and special blends of oxygen and nitrogen to get close to 200 meters deep.

This all makes the warning on the watch kind of funny: "Watch is not a diver watch and should not be used for diving." How else do you get to 200 meters if not by diving?

Back to the topic, there is one thing I regret about signing up for this biathlon. When I was registering for the race, I blindly registered for the men's open category. No big deal. But it didn't occur to me that I'm old. I qualify for the men's "veteran" category for age 40 and up.

This was the first time I've been officially classified in a "senior" category for anything. The Singaporeans are pretty strict. Once you register in one category, they won't let you switch. Its against the rules.

Its not going to make me swim any faster or slower, but I think I'd rather to see my results posted against the other struggling 40-somethings rather than all the sprightly members of Gen-X, Y, and Z.