Hotline life

Waking up to another day's life in limbo was at 7:44am on my watch on Wednesday 29 December. Another incredible 8 hours and 23 minutes of sleep, my Fitbit informs me. I've never slept like this before. I'm waking at a time my body wishes with no obliged run on of activities. Even on holiday before I left New Zealand I barely ever rose after 7am. Now I do without fail. It's winter here now so 7am is still pretty dark outside. I'm still too injured to run so I've got nothing to get me out of bed. I notice some of the kitchen sounds from the downstairs floor. My parents-in-law are about. Even when my younger brother-in-law is about, I'm always the first one down, and at least one younger generation (if I'm generous enough to call myself that) is enough to form quorum for breakfast to crystalise. We have congee, the "yauchei" (a glutinous rice flour inflated ball that's cooked on new years eve, that is delightful to eat then, but deflates by the new year and becomes rather hard and chewy for the coming days) and some turnip cake, which is divine. My grandfather-in-law has already had his coffee. He has a habitual 3-in-1 instant coffee sachet every morning. Blame me for my foreign influence that a man who grew up before the Communist revolution in the 1920s and 1930s, lasted the Cultural Revolution, now likes coffee. He certainly has "rightist" tendencies. After breakfast I have a coffee, too.

I check out the latest news. Don't they know that the Rat brought the plague to Europe? The Year of the Rat is barely days old and it's bad news all round. The numbers of infected are higher than the previous days. A quarter of the reported deaths in China since that ball got rolling happened in a single day yesterday, mostly in a single province. Qingyuan had a single extra case but still in a city of 4 million it's not a big advance. The numbers for Hubei province are nauseating. I remember seeing the pictures of masses of people queuing just to see a doctor. The logistics of an epidemic are apparent immediately. There is simply no place for a surge in any one kind of sickness realistically. They would not have the redundant space and expertise to deal with even a quadrupling of cases, let alone a septdectupling (don't check the dictionary for this word); no place on Earth can really cope when the inevitable Black Swan outbreak strikes. I was reading a story about families queuing for quarantine and being denied it because hospitals have expected standards for quarantine and can only accept a maximum. "Come back tomorrow to check if there's space." Hubei will be a bloodbath. 

My wife drifts down for breakfast and I more forcibly say what I've already told her I've already been musing: We need to get out early. It's not just the rising numbers. It's the risk of our flight being cancelled. Or Guangzhou being "sealed". To be honest, from my reading of the numbers there is next to no risk for me of infection. I'm in a village with no signs of infection. In a city where the "reported" cases are miniscule. (Believe me, if there was a case even remotely nearby, the village would be "sealed". We have a friend who's village has been "sealed".) Access to our eventual flight is paramount. We already know that we'll be at least "soft" quarantined on arrival in New Zealand. Suddenly I imagine spending my quarantine away from everyone on a beach, 27 degrees at Piha.

And so it begins:. I check our belatedly bought travel insurance. Apparently it no longer applied for Coronavirus-related claims based on the date when I bought it. REFUND! Then it's onto the China Southern "hotline". Actually before that there was a lot of mucking around with apps and what-not to come to the conclusion that you had to speak to a person to sort anything. We called the official number. Engaged. We called it again. Engaged. We had lunch and over lunch and some deliciously infused baijiu, we shared our plans of an early departure with my parents-in-law. And also my father's stroke. It was an important chat to have - they understood but were also a little tense afterwards.

While lunch was in session I kept occasionally dialing that hotline number and eventually I got through to the.... Kenny G waiting music. Unfortunate for him, and also a range of other illustrious famous classical composers, Chinese public companies thrash some songs in the making of their infuriating hotline waiting music. It was also a bit unfortunate that I'd switched back to my NZ sim for the call to the insurance company before miraculously getting through to the hotline. I waited 30 minutes listening to that same classic Kenny G saxophone riff. It wasn't even the full song. Just the most familiar bit again and again with the splicing of the recorded voice suggesting us options. Knowing I had limited "Roaming" and was burning through my minutes, my wife dialed again and again and after the umpteenth time she also got onto the Kenny G bandwagon. Amusingly the waiting music was synchronised - we could play them on speaker on both phones and enjoy them without confusion: "We're in stereo," I mused. I tried to read my book but "pressing 1 to continue" was rather disruptive. I should have just watched a movie during the wait if my phone wasn't where I would have watched a movie. I ended my call and let my wife's phone "hold the torch". My wife then promptly passed her phone, the torch, back to me. I told her we'd stay on the line for two hours and then call it a day. Two hours and barely four pages of my book passed and we were still deep in Kenny G's saxxy quagmire. 

"Should we end it?" she asked. 

"Let's keep it going," I said always with that fear that we might have been the next in line when we hang up. After another half an hour, I also thought we should give up and went downstairs.

Grandpa was in the yard on a fine, but cool, afternoon reading the newspaper. My parents-in-law were out fixing a fence to the veggie patch. We went for a brief walk but my wife didn't feel well with her cold and we decided to turn back. Once back, we mused with the now returned parents about the "hotline" coldness. My father-in-law said we should call the English hotline. We laughed at him then but still used both phones in calling the Kenny G appreciation line for the English service and the Mandarin service. Grandpa, though mostly deaf, tweaked with the feeling of stereo sound. It persisted while we read our respective novels. "Badminton?" my wife asked after tiring of reading. I agreed and tried to put her phone through the window outside while still attached to a charging cord. We got outside with racquets and all when I noticed that the "English service" line phone was producing a different sound. It was repeating the phone number of the caller - this was different to the repetitive mantra of the recorded I - I quickly told my wife to pick up and then she tossed the phone to me. (My father-in-law's strategy worked! The English line was faster!)

The lady spoke English well. Since we rang the English line it would be bad form to start using Chinese. As would have been the expectation, changing the date of our flights was exorbitant. After probing with all sorts of possibilities (and almost certainly keeping more never-say-die patient Kenny G fans in suspense) it was clear that it was a substantial pound of flesh, equivalent to buying new tickets. Since we had her on the line, we chose our seats for our original flight and hung up. Expedia couldn't help us choose seats. Since we called a combined total of about 4 hours, the least we could get is our seats chosen, if we were to keep the existing flight.

It was still 8 days to the flight. Tracking back 8 days, so much had happened. Now it was a simple equation: buy fresh one-way tickets and go back early at the price of our original return tickets; or hunker down and, dare I say it, enjoy our last week in China. The last bit was what I thought about most. The whole fuss and fluster of sorting out an exit plan, and also the holding mode we'd been in meant we weren't doing what we were planning to do: Spend quality time with people who might not be around or as able bodied when we next come. They're also people who, if it all "goes to pot", might rely on us to get them through. 

At about 9pm I told my wife that I wanted to talk about the situation. "Let's go early!" she said. "Well, actually I was going to raise staying." It defused a difficult conversation. I'd thought she might want to stay longer. And she thought I would like to go early. Now we could pick how we wanted to handle things knowing that the other person was open to a range. It could be shown to be a foolish choice within any 24 hours but we decided to stay until our original departure dates. 

And so it was a day of to and fro and ending where we first began. I'm writing this on the Thursday after the Wednesday. On the Tuesday I was writing that there was a total of 80 deaths; two days on there are 170 deaths (doubling). On Tuesday there were 39 cases in Guangdong and now there are 311 cases. But only 6 in our city. Looking at that number again I'm filled with doubt for Guangdong. Even with China's extensive system, those are big numbers to hold in quarantine. Especially with Guangdong sending medical staff to Hubei to staunch the bleeding. 

Restive festive

In the fourth day of the festival and things are not that festive. Tan-qin (the visiting of relatives) has been cancelled for the first time in memory, perhaps in history. It's such a habit that the days are regimented: First day of new year, there are no visits; the second there is for particular relatives; then the third day of new year there shouldn't be any. But in the circumstances, with the public advisements and general fear, it has been very minimal. My in-laws have visited a couple of times. Otherwise it's been immediate neighbours who would come over anyway. The youngest son next door has been over two several times but presumably because there isn't much to do. It's not really festive at all.

Fortunately in the last day, the number of cases for the city have not changed significantly. We are on 3 cases, which is what we were on two days ago. That might mean that all the Wuhan infected people were more or less in care. No more cases in the next week would probably cause everyone to take a big sigh of relief. But there are a few possible reasons not to rest or relax vigilance. Like all viruses there can be healthy carriers. Presumably some of those arrived with mild or no symptoms and are infecting people over a longer period of time. And those three cases also may have exposed a large number of people before getting to the hospital. These are both very plausible scenarios.

Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary language learning, and one such term for me is "fung1 sing4" (Mandarin: Feng1 cheng2). I heard this a few times before knowing the meaning. When I heard a word I don't know, my ears, being originally non-tonal ears, relate it sonically: Fung6 Sing4, is another term for Qingyuan city, but a more fancy, poetic way of saying it (literally Phoenix City). It took me seeing headlines in Chinese to know it wasn't fung6 Phoenix, but fung1 seal up, a word with a different tone. Just after new year it was decided to fung1 sing4 Wuhan, to seal it up so no people can get out, to control the epidemic. Then neighbouring cities were also fung1 sing4, all in Hubei Province. With the sudden announcements rumours flew that Guangzhou would be fung1 sing4 as well but the vice provincial governor came out today and said it wouldn't happen, that everything is under control. (Which you might also expect them to say before they fung1 sing4!)

But that's when a new term came in "fung1 cyun1". By analogy, this was easy to get: sealing villages. Sealing cities was about keeping the virus in. Sealing villages, with the examples I've seen, seem to be about keeping the virus out, where village leaders have blockaded roads and said that "if you leave, you're not coming back". I'd heard about it and wondered if it were real. Then our Aussie friend who is also visiting over new year has had his villaged fung1 cyun1. I imagine, with the current methodology if a case of the virus is found in a village it's a reason to fung1 cyun1. I can't imagine that villages would just seal themselves off without a near and present danger, so I think perhaps there was a case in a nearby village. He'd know about it if there was actually a case in his own village. 

Days are pretty long right now without the usual festivities. I get by eating, drinking and reading books. I'm currently reading Jia (Home) by a renown writer, Bajin. It's set just after the overthrow of the Qing but before the Communist overthrow. It's quite interesting because it reads like a Chinese Downton Abbey, with the whole noble family and the whole upstairs-downstairs relationships with servants. 

I put the paragraph in above to distract any readers and myself briefly from the general tone. We've now been told by four different people: Go back to New Zealand early. It's hard to argue with it but, by the same token, it's almost unthinkable to leave the elderly parents and a grandparent here during this time. They would have no immediate support, and if either they or their main local support (my sister-in-law) had an issue, they're on their own. Besides me taking leave of the situation mentally and thinking how grand I am in a historically significant event, it's kind of a bother to be in this predicament. 

Key facts for today and yesterday:

- Guangzhou city itself updated its confirmed cases from 14 to 39 today. (That boggles the mind, almost a 300% increase.)

- In the epicentre, Hubei Province, yesterday between 00:00 to midnight, reported 371 more cases and 24 deaths. (This virus has been around since later Christmas and now has a total of 80 deaths. That means 30% of the deaths so far were yesterday in a single province. Tomorrow will put that in perspective. It's expected to be on an exponential rise.)

Outbreak

There is that certain thing about a virulent, contagious disease that lends itself so neatly to the horror genre. There is the impending fear of infection, the suspicion of others and the things around you, the suspense in the incubation period, the disgust factor of the symptoms and, in the movies, the certainty of death. Such a disease also lends itself well to the media news, where the use of modal verbs can, could, may and might can jack up the street cred of a worse-than-average flu to the potency of the Spanish Flu. I've enjoyed books based on epidemics and watched a fair few movies with that theme, too. And if I'm honest, I am the kind who gets that weird fascination of reading the news reports from outbreaks like Ebola. Now of course I get to live through an epidemic up close in China.

It would be interesting to know how much fear could have nixed the plan to come to China. From yesterday I started to hear people I know biting the bullet and cancelling their flights here. I'd known about the disease for a while before coming. As part of my preparation to come I'd listened to lots of Cantonese radio (SBS in Australia), which between forest fire updates also had the reporting in December of this certain unknown disease that originated in a wet market in the inland city of Wuhan in Hubei province. It was also claimed to be under control and when I left there were no cases of person-to-person transmission. This changed pretty quickly after I arrived as a greater proportion of the news was taken up with reports. There isn't much doubt that information was held under pretty close control to avoid panic. But now, needing to make sure people take it very seriously, the outline of the range and extent of the illness are becoming pretty clear. Majority of provinces have at least one case. Qingyuan, the city where I live, has had its first case.

It struck at the worst possible time, too, just before Chinese New Year when people move en masse back to their hometowns from the cities. If the situation had been handled quickly and smoothly in Wuhan it might have been a different picture. If it had been a city besides Wuhan it might have been a different story. Wuhan, which I have only been to just the once in 2013, is a hub for the high-speed train network. It's also home to a large number of universities for students all over China. Being a super-city for its region with 11 million people, it's also where a huge number of people in the surrounding cities go to work. It's almost go a royal flush – it's just short an international airport to be a real winner in the "not good places for a virus" game of poker.

Feelings on the ground? My family is clearly jumpy. My wife had what was clearly a cold but on Thursday she insisted on going to the hospital. We donned masks as 90% of the other hospital visitors did, a complete change from the past. Afterwards we went to the mall to buy some last bits and pieces for new year, about three-quarters of people were wearing masks. And this is the day before the first case was announced for the city. My nephew has also been sick recently but the dates of the start of his sickness aren't in line with the believed outbreak. But still doubt breeds irrational fears. While people explode festive firecrackers outside to bring in the Year of the Rat.

Solo

It's been over two weeks since I began this short period of living alone. It is a strange change of being, but strangely familiar. The food I'm cooking is quite similar to that I'd cook in my previous single life: vegetarian (although now with occasional fish!). Unrestrained early risings for random fitness (it used to be walks, but now with swims!). Extended reading of books without really worry about time. More strangely though, I'm not staying at work for long past the usual "knock off" time. I had thought that without the need to take someone home I'd stay longer but I've barely done any overtime.

There is the whole "being apart" though. We haven't been apart too long in the past. Very early on, when we weren't living together, I went to NZ for three weeks; there were another couple of weeks when I was on practicum in Shanghai; then there was the business trip for about nine days. That's pretty much it. But with modern communication, there is a weird state of longing without missing. Physically alone ever though the voice and words travel freely.

I've had a pretty good period of swimming. We're lucky to have a 25m pool just 8 minutes walk from home. On the weekends it's relatively empty and I can get a lane to myself. On weekdays the "squad" is there from opening times and I have to share a lane. My injury still persists but is noticeably less troublesome than previously. It isn't a problem for swimming and I hope that it helps me recover so I might be able to run. I'm dreading the thought that I might just be about good enough to run the day I travel to China on Friday. But perhaps that's good: China would reduce my chance of overdoing it. The roads aren't good for running; it's hot and I'll be busy. I still don't know if I'll have the space in my luggage for my usual gear. Also, this problem could still linger far longer than my trip. If I'm being philosophical about it, it might be good for me to be injured till I go to China, because with solitude could come the urge to overdo it and get injured again.

If there was any blessing in all the lack of running, it's that my reading is surging unabated, as is the language learning that accompanies it. I finished of the Mao biography, my longest Chinese non-fiction book, and surged into a really good novel To Live (活着). It was made into a movie I haven't seen, but the book is griping. In three days I've read 130 pages and should read it all before I leave on Friday evening. This importantly lets me leave with a new book in my hand.

I've also put a lot of time into listening to Chinese, especially Cantonese. My ears are now "up to speed" and, in terms of listening to news and current events discussions, better than it was before. I've taken to watching Mandarin dramas to sharpen up too. The combination of reading sometimes and then listening sometimes has a catalytic effect, one skill adding an edge to the other. It's something I always tell students to do, that not many have the persistence to do.

My solitude will be broken in four days. As with an injury, it's important to know how to treasure life both with and without the things that are important to you.

Overturn

They say that blinking plays an important role in memory. Each time you blink, you create a memory. When there is a lot of information to process you blink more to parse what you are seeing. Days and nights could be blinks in our lives too, with sleep, another tool in memory creation, playing its role. The turning over of the calendar is like a longer term temporal blink to break a multifaceted, complex, series of changes over 365 days and put them in some kind of perspective. By writing a blog, I'm committing 2019 into a kind of long term memory to be accessed later if needs-be. It's also the basis for making goals in the year ahead.

2018 was a busy but overall "good" year. I started off injured (my knee after bouncing on a trampoline) but busting through the doubts eventually broke through the 3:30 barrier in the marathon by the end of the year. It ended with injury a fall at Omaha and then surgery on a hernia. Work started with the endless problem solving of having moved into an only partially adequate new site with several staffing issues but it was my responses that by year-end had me awarded the Supreme Care Award (the highest award our company gives). For family, it was the year also that I managed to get my in-laws to New Zealand, and just in the nick of time because events in early 2019 would have nixed it if it had been any later.

In my more instinctive moments I have said 2019 was a "dog" of a year. Two family crises have undoubtedly tinted it with a financial shade of red. My recent injury, which I drag into 2020, has also put a damper on things too. But a general look over those three aspects, health, family and work, I can't say it's much down on 2018. For running, I managed my goal of 3000km almost 2 months early. Though I had wanted to break 3:20 in the marathon, 3:22 is still a very satisfying number. And a 1:29:58 in the half was also a large monkey off the back. Work-wise, our school is going from strength to strength and my prominence in the school is only greater. An unexpected bonus in the closing days at least partially makes up for the blood letting earlier in the year. 

Probably another redeeming thing in 2019 is that I am doing one thing that I enjoy more: reading. And I'm only reading Chinese these days. I'm really making hay with the time that I would otherwise be running. All my recent reading has really fleshed out my knowledge of recent history in Asia, specially China before and under Mao and also North Korea. My current book, which I should finish before I go to China, is Mao: The Unknown Story. There is a sinister story about my first attempt at reading this book here. Regarding the book itself, my wife and I have discussed a lot about whether it could really be objective. The author, who penned the story Wild Swans about how her family suffered during Mao's Cultural Revolution, could be said to have a bone to pick. But she does it with a lot of new evidence to show how her narrative of how things happened could be plausible. It makes sense of many of the odd little side stories that don't stack up well without some underlying story. The Long March is a great example, where it would be impossible for it to succeed without some outside forces at work. There were a lot of jaw-dropping side facts: Zhang Xueliang died in Hawai'i. Ch'iang Chingkuo's wife was from Belarus. When you have a lot of vague knowledge about history, it's nice to have a narrative to make sense of it; hopefully one that is proximate to the truth; and some facts that nail down and enliven the stories too.

Last year I made some goals. This year will be about consolidating things financially and pushing things professionally. Regarding running, I make no goals because I'm not sure if this recent setback is "one of those injuries". But health, I look to change my manner of activity and switch a mindfulness over what I consume. 2020 has a nice ring to it and I am positive about the future.

Eye-catching

Having had a blog for 15 years, I now have a lot of data about what topics people incidentally land on. To be clear, I don't have many views for individual new posts (most posts will have no more than 10 views) but over my whole body of work I have 287 views per month. There is probably always a level of passive "stumbling" on my ramblings, either through coincidental matches of words in search terms or topics that I have touched on that have been, at a time, well searched. 4 of my over 750 posts have 400 or more views. What are these posts? And is it the actual topic, an eye-catching title or an inadvertently popular search term?

Without wanting to make the popular more popular, the number one post on my blog, ever, is a 2007 post called "Re-addiction". The title itself might have caused it to be found. I can only imagine that many of the over two thousand views were people who went to this post seeking help for a crushing compulsion for crack cocaine, and instead found the comments of a nerdy guy gushing about cracking cryptic crossword clues. It could have been that, but also plausibly because I included the name of a particular compiler, the late, great Kropotkin who did have a weekly crossword in the Herald. At various times it was hard to find online guidance about his clues. I know because I searched for a time at a time. His clues were particular enigmatic to the average cryptic fan and a very possible search term.

With only a third of Re-addiction's view count was 2011's “没有天然的对错，只有必然的因果”  which came in second place. With blogspot inaccessible in China, it's unlikely that the title itself was a reason for it (which was a line for motto of a Cantonese radio host, meaning "There is no inherent right and wrong, only the inevitable cause and effect."). What was the hook? I have written many posts about languages (specifically Cantonese) and language learning. I still don't know what made people stumble on this one. That being said, it was a special post for me. I had stumbled on something that made a breakthrough in my language learning.

Bizarrely, with over 600 views and in third place is an cheeky one liner, "A gentleman will walk but never run.".  It was just one line. Literally, the post was a title: "Saintly Notable Quotable" and that one liner which I said to a friend during a long walk after he dashed across the road. It is initially unfathomable what was found by Google in this post that helped so many people find it. I think that the only thing that would compel incidental people to find it is literally people trying to find the name of the song by searching a line from the lyrics of Englishman in New York by Sting, which is where the line "a gentleman will walk but never run" comes from.

The last one with over 400 views, Forum Rules, from 2009 is another unusual top ranking post. It was one that I wrote prior to going to China. I was trying to expose myself to more Chinese websites at the time and was looking at comments about the US Open where many of the respondents were writing clearly racists comments about Serena Williams. I found and translated the forum rules for the page, which were in line with most of the rules for Chinese sites. It is well known that a political post would be taken down because it endangers "social stability" but these clearly egregious comments remained without any response from the moderators. Were the majority of the accidental readers searching for "forum rules" or perhaps "Serena Williams" (the latter of which there'd be many websites and articles). I don't know.

The next four posts had 125 views, 56 views, 55 views and 52 views respectively, one of which was the one I wish were number one, Never trust a eunuch, which I wrote while I started reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Chinese classic.

Bee with butterfly wings

In my bush-marauding youth, I cannot recall bee stings. Wasp stings, yes. Bee stings, no. I guess I was never the bare-footer that others were, but still I had plenty of spring and summer days in the thick of things where I'm certain the laws of probability should have made me a better target for the bane of bees. Fast forward to a few years back when I skipped onto the drive at my mother's place and felt an unusual discomfort on my toe. I casually swatted down on my foot thinking a prickle or some such must have been lodged, only to recognise a bee tangled in my sock. The stinger was on the outside of the sock but had gotten through to my skin. It wasn't terrible but certainly memorable. Fortunately removing the sock removed the stinger and in the end it was very mild.

Bringing the lens to recent times, two weeks ago in fact, my wife on another memorable day got stung for the first time in her life on a little suburban stroll when we stopped to take photos at a cricket oval. And now barely two weeks later, while at the Parnell Rose Gardens, a bee decided to check the underside of my watch and got lodged there. I felt the sting but saw the little creature before any instinctive flicking. I had to remove my watch first to remove the bee, which was rather hard to do without squashing it more. Once released, the bee feebly flew off to its certain death. With the watch off I asked my wife to try and remove the stinger. The difficulty level of this task was quite a lot higher due to the forest of hair on my arm, but after some clearing the sting was removed.

I was fascinated my the sensation. It wasn't that bad overall, but had occasional pulses of intensity. Then it more or less dissipated by the time I got to a chemist. Several hours later though the swelling moved from the site of the sting to the joint. Now any movement of my hand causes discomfort. 

I hope it goes by tomorrow because we're off to the Waitakeres!  

The demands of others

An extra special day. Three days from the end of the year. Each day packed with meetings and when not an intense series of performance appraisals, student meetings and activities. The morning of my appraisal with my line manager. The receptionist walks in:

"The big boss is sending me e-mails. He wants me to buy gift cards."

I hand her my credit card and head to my appraisal. It went well. It capped off another intense but successful year. I walk out and pick up my things to head off to another campus for a meeting but before I left my receptionist said:

"The big boss asked for $1000 worth of cards but your card would be over the limit." It being for the big boss, I diverted her to my line manager to use her credit card, and went out the door.

The meeting was another kick-in-the-butt to remind me that in my flustered lurch from one meeting to another I hadn't followed through on my action points, and I returned to my home campus with a sense of urgency to direct things to make sure things were happening. What I found was a surprise.

My receptionist was agitated: "The big boss asked for more gift cards! We don't have any petty cash now." This disturbed me - why was the big boss using the receptionist at my campus to buy cards and not his usual helpers. She told me that she'd sent our Student Support officer to buy more, but against her direction he hadn't taken the petty cash at all, but had decided on his own to buy with his own credit card because petty cash is pretty vital. I called him immediately and stopped him on the point of buying them and called our finance director.

"It's a scam. Ignore it," he said immediately. I hopped around the receptionist desk and looked at the e-mails to read the e-mail aloud while on the call.

"Hi Naomi, I'd really like to give some staffs a surprise..."

"That sounds like the big boss," he said. 

But unfortunately it was the first time I'd seen the e-mail and I knew straight away that the finance director's first instinct was correct. The e-mail address was obviously a fake. And then the next horrifying thing I read, not aloud because it hammered the point home:

"I want to give it t them now. Could you scratch the code off and take a photo and send it to me?"

Then I saw the stack of cards on the desk. All scratched. All obediently sent to the "Big Boss". Our company had been defrauded by a scam to the tune of $1000. 

It was unbelievable that the receptionist fell for it. Not only that, the Student Support officer that sits next to her almost used his own money, which would not have been recoverable, also falling for it. Ultimately, my and my line manager's naivety and lack of checking also added to it. It was her card and she decided to pay it back from her own money. 

It certainly changed the flavour of the week.  

Glass with butterfly wings

It would be curious to know to what measure the legends of the past, the superstitions, the miracles and magic were explainable by the curious power of randomness to conjure up the unlikely. When you think that the proverbial butterfly wings can churn up a hurricane, it might not cause much strain to believe that inadvertent acts can cause rather improbable outcomes that in turn from their sheer unlikeliness lead some to ponder whether there were mysterious forces at work. 

And thus was my weekend's intrigue. My wife and I were home and keen to take advantage of the apparent sunshine and blue skies by going on a loop walk to the village and back. I had my normal glasses but it was so sunny outside that I thought I'd head to the car to swap into my sunglasses. I opened the door, went in, put my normal glasses in the divider between the car seats where I kept my sunnies, shut and locked the car and left.

It was a pleasant day but it quickly turned eventful as Christy, after posing for a picture beside a lush cricket oval, received her first ever bee-sting. Fortunately there was a well stocked first-aid kit in the shed next to the oval; there were tweezers; they had a cream for the sting; and we left the area quickly for lunch. We went to a cute Italian restaurant I'd been meaning to go to and then we went home for a brief rest before we got in the car for some more distant errands. 

When we got in the car nothing seemed awry. We drove first to a shop to buy Metamucil. I went into the back seat to grab a shopping bag, because not many places have carry bags any more. I also grabbed an umbrella from the backseat because the weather had clouded over and it was starting to spit. Fortunately the rain was never heavy and I didn't use the umbrella in the end. We got to the shop. I put our purchases into the shopping bag, threw both the umbrella and the purchases into the back of the car and then it was off to the Chinese supermarket. The weather was fine, yet again, and we vege-shopped, picked up the dry-cleaning and then drove home. And it was when we got home that something weird was noticed. I went to switch my sunnies back to my normal glasses, but there were no glasses in the divider.

At first I didn't tell my wife. To be upfront, for all my apparently normal intelligence and cognitive functions, I can be very absent-minded. No person wants to hear the groans from others for yet another misplaced wallet, phone or set of keys. I wanted to check if I'd somehow managed to take them up to the flat but a casual check of the house, my pockets, the shopping bag with the Metamucil and then a not so casual look in the car through the divider, side pockets, glove compartment, boot, backseats and ground around the car failed to come up anything besides a lot of general rubbish. The car was pretty clean inside by the end! 

I went up to the flat and admitted to my wife that something had disappeared. She didn't groan. We generally pieced together the same sequence of events that led to the present time. We both knew the glasses had to be in the car. My wife ransacked the car for good measure with no outcome. At no point during the earlier drive had I changed to my normal glasses but perhaps, we thought, I somehow pocketed them and then dropped them? Had I even put them in the car in the first place? we pondered. Perhaps I had got the sunglasses out but pocketed the normal ones on the walk before the drive, only to remove them from my pocket and place them on the restaurant table, from where I left them. None of the actual physically possible scenarios were plausible. (A walk by of the restaurant confirmed that implausibility was not to be the case.) But there must have been some sequence of events that lead to the situation. My glasses had completely vanished from a locked place where they should have been. 

I slept that night without knowing where they were. We got up the next day planning to have our normal Sunday but also with a brief scout of the Metamucil shop and the Chinese supermarket. First I took my wife to the gym while I had coffee. While there, another grand fine day crumbled into messy rain. After her workout, we got back to the car but as we drove to Dominion Rd for lunch, the heavens were clearly breached and a Singaporean monsoon came down on Epsom. By the time we parked, the rain had stopped but I still decided to grab the umbrella just in  case and we went to a new noodle house ("A Noodle Less Ordinary"). There I leaned the umbrella against the wall and we had our noodles and left.

It was on the way to the car that, holding the umbrella horizontally, I felt through the synthetic material that there was something unusual inside the unopened umbrella.

I knew what it was immediately. 

It was ridiculous. 

How my glasses came to be in there was beyond me. We'd never opened the umbrella at any stage over the two days and it was never near the divider between the front seats. The umbrella had just lain on the back seat and was always been put back on the back seat when returned. If the glasses had been in the umbrella from the get-go, we'd taken the umbrella out twice and there were plenty of opportunities for it to fall out both on Saturday and Sunday, yet it appeared in the umbrella just then, safe and sound.

It was just like a magician pulling a rabbit from behind your ear, where it had been all along.

It was reminiscent of a time in our first year back. We went to the Butterfly Valley near Thames. It was a nice little excursion. Butterflies galore, as you'd imagine. We wanted to get a fridge magnet butterfly for Mum, so Christy chose and bought one and put it in her handbag. I saw her. Even the shop assistant saw her. We went straight to the car where Christy proceeded to open her bag to play with it but could not find it there at all. Mystified, we retraced our footsteps, even asked the shop assistant whether she recalled where we put the butterfly. (She recalled it had gone straight in the handbag.) We checked the floor. The path. And we both ransacked the car. 

But that butter had flown. 

It is a story we often tell. We never found a trace of the butterfly since then. If only I knew then what I know now and checked the umbrella.

Under watching eyes

I'm rather starting to miss running. I've been out of action now for a month and psychologically it's rather tough. I feel quite different: I don't have the energy I did. Probably because I'm still eating like a marathoner, I seem to be putting on weight. And I'm rather groggy in the morning. How was I getting up at 4:15am before? I pulled out of my final event of the year selling my entry. 

But there is an opportunity cost to running. During this rather hectic streak of running since the start of last year, I've barely read. My only break from running was my surgery but that was during a time I was hosting guests so I didn't read much. But after my marathon I began what has been a hot streak of reading!

It started with Wandering Earth which is a short story collection from Liu Cixin, the same author as The Three Body Problem trilogy. Some of the short stories have characters from the trilogy but perhaps in a parallel universe as the plots won't fit together. But they were clearly from the same universe. And it was clearly so attractive that we ordered the book in, not waiting for our trip to China. The title story became a movie which earned $700 million in China. Although Wandering Earth was not my favourite story from the collection, it was very memorable: Irregularities are detected in the Sun to show that it is near an event within that would trigger a massive expansion that would engulf the Earth. The first instinct is to get into spaceships and run but the nearest planets are all gassy and toxic. Solution: Put some massive boosters on the Earth, put on the brakes and fly it out of the Solar System and park it in the orbit of another star at the distance of your choosing. Just as he did in the trilogy he's thought about how it would actually happen with the physics of doing such a change. Getting out of orbit with the sun takes a lot of time and effort bringing the Earth first into an elliptical orbit that flies close to the Sun a few times before getting enough speed to exit. Overall, a fascinating adventure. 

It was probably wrong of me to start with Wandering Earth because two years ago in China I bought a pile of books, only one of which I'd read... And I'm just over a month from going back to China and possibly buying more books! But I got straight onto the job with another short story collection, Mr No Problem by Lao She. I'd read some of the authors of the Republic of China period (after the fall of the Qing Dynasty) during my university years, all translated. Lao She was one I'd never read but he was one of the big ones. He grew up in Beijing but lectured in London and Singapore before returning to China. Most of his writing was before the Chinese Revolution, and thus it was all rather free and sometimes frivolous. He wrote satire, social commentary, whimsy and tragedy. As the were short stories each story launched you from one state of mind to the next. I read half the stories before strategically leaving the rest for my flights and travel. The last story I read, The Crescent Moon was tough to read as it focussed one what could happen to widowed women in the China of that time. 

I interrupted that collection also to read books that I wouldn't be able to read in China. I have a forbidden biography of Mao Zedong (Mao: The Unknown Story) and another book that probably wouldn't be banned but could be problematic: Nothing to envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Even though it's an English language book, I received it from a colleague in its Chinese translation. It's a compelling read of the stories that the North Korean defectors have told and retold by author Barbara Demick. I'm quite happy with my pace of reading in that I've read over 100 pages in a week, which means I'll easily finish it and probably be able to at least start the other before I board a plane. 

It's nice to know that when I can't do one hobby I can even more out of my other hobbies. In the meantime, I hope that all this rest will do something to help my healing.

Going native

I had a half-baked blog a few weeks ago that for whatever reason wouldn't save nor publish. Then when I came back, the window was open, which I closed, and thus lost half of what I wrote. Such is life. Reading the saved portion now, part of what I had written was again relevant to something in the immediate world. So instead of hiffing it into the trash can or trying to resurrect my past content, or recreate it with my present mind, I thought I'd quote myself and relate it to something new. So without further delay, here is October:

"If there were a collection of terms which represent most of the heat, vigour and violence of the world, they could be national identity, immigration, race, statehood and identity politics. Not surprisingly they are all aspects of the same elephant, in varying states of distress, in the room of almost every developed country.

They're also the hardest to talk about because there are so many beliefs linked to them. You can ask simple questions like "What is New Zealand?" "What is a New Zealander?" and the kiwi feathers could fly in between people across generations and even within generations. Ask my father those questions and he'd probably, with conviction, view New Zealand as a country that belongs more to the white people than the Maori people, and that European values are superior to those of not just the Maori, but any immigrant. It's a bunch of sentiment that really doesn't bear much scrutiny but he is not alone. I feel there are several forces at play: rejection of the native; denial of one's own historical immigration; ignorance of the vicissitudes, circumstance and flux of history; and a status-quo-ism in the intolerance of the immigration of others.

Rejection of the native is an interesting phenomenon but bears some analysis of terms. Native in New Zealand is generally regarded as the pre-European state, but that in itself is not such a long history and pretty easy to follow. Discounting immediately hypothetical visits or chance arrivals of other civilisations, Polynesian voyagers came across New Zealand perhaps as much as 1000 years ago, the main migration of people and settlement probably happened in the 1300s. It was over three centuries later that Abel Tasman cruised fatefully into Murderers Bay and left without setting foot. And then over another 100 years for Cook to cruise into Poverty Bay. Then there was the Treaty. Though there were battles between Kingitanga tribes and Treaty-breach related land wars, there was no invasion or occupation by another state. There were two melding cultures under a broken and de facto voided contract. What was native was Treaty-guaranteed so there can't be much rejection, unless you're advocating that nothing means anything and might makes right. Maori were here first and even in this modern era, being first matters and they're still here."

In my draft I went into the other terms but native is the push-button word here. So the main sacred maunga of Auckland have one-by-one come under the control of a Maori authority. They have deemed that Mt Albert (the hill, Owairaka) should have its exotic trees removed and native trees planted. And that was enough to set the Pakeha of the central suburbs to the hills to protect trees their heritage, both globally and from their and their family's memories on these hills, perhaps taking the symbolism of the natives expelling the foreigners to heart. One of my staff members has been pulled into it as her community group has gotten involved in the protest against the felling. The trees in a way have become proxies for a cultural clash.

I'm very dispassionate about the issue in that I think the Maori authority should have the right to do it and they're regenerating vegetation and I have no issue with it. The Maori authority was also behind the banning of most vehicles from Mt Eden (Maungawhau) and One Tree Hill (Maungakiekie). All in all a good thing.

The Cheat

I remember when I saw Larry (not his real name) for the first time. He was in the third row of my first encounter with the New Zealand-bound students I was meeting for the first time on my business trip to China earlier this year. He said a few routine greetings well and for a short moment I thought he might be fluent. Probably one question later I realised he didn't understand much. Larry was memorable though and I remembered his name well enough to be able to call his name to elicit answers. 

This first meeting with the students was a surprise for my boss. She was shocked how low level the students were and Larry in particular was one sitting in the middle of the room not understanding questions asked of him. After another session, Larry approached me and asked whether he should go to New Zealand to take this course. I didn't lie: I told him it'd be very difficult and he would have to work very hard. Or perhaps I did lie. I didn't think he would be able to be strong enough to do it. He'd fail. 

The next thing I was greeting him and others as they emerged from the lift at our school in Auckland, a little jetlagged. They started their course the following week but Larry and another student found it tough-going and asked to re-start their course in a subsequent cohort, which we approved. He attracted the attention of his teacher: "He doesn't understand anything." "He's a child." His teacher might have been on the judgemental side. He did seem sincere though and was working hard to improve himself. He didn't shy away from trying to communicate. He generally presented as an earnest but naïve learner.

Then there was the bizarre first incident. He was sending a girl in his class odd messages. He was probably besotted by her and when she ignored him he started saying increasingly intimidating language. She complained to her teacher who relayed it to me. Confronting him he squirmed a little and tried to downplay what happened, but also said he wouldn't speak to her any more. And thankfully he did.

Then there was the video of the cheating. Now, we had a spate of cheating from the same class and though student ethics was clearly an issue, I would still point the finger at the teacher who didn't implement test conditions in being the key factor in them happening to such a degree. The teacher left the room with the students still holding pens and exam scripts. Larry asked his much stronger friend Roy to show him his assessment answers which he photographed (because the teacher had not taken their phones off them). Other students videoed them cheating (because the teacher not taken their phones off them). And then the video came to me. 

The meeting following that was almost enjoyable. I've watched too many courtroom dramas to know that you leave the big "reveal" to the end. I started off with the simple questions of what happened in the end and whether he changed his answers. He switched into a vitriolic mode asking who was saying bad things about him. I showed him the particular answer for him and Roy that were the same and he deflected that it was what the speaker during the listening test said. (Not true, by the way.) So I confirmed with him that this was his answer and that he hadn't copied. That was when I showed him the video of him clearly working on that question with that photo on his phone. Yet he persisted, insisting he was just making his answer clearer and hadn't changed his meaning. I told him that it was definite cheating and his continued resistance showed he does not understand the rules and would be likely to cheat again. I told him his whole test would be void and that he and Roy would be subject to a strict study agreement that says that they would have their names recorded as cheats and any further instance would result in expulsion. He had the temerity to ask whether it was only the question he cheated on, or whether it was the whole test. To write the study agreement I had to record the student response and I told him that he must be honest in these things and told him that New Zealand is a trust-based society and that dishonesty was hard to repair. He was one of four students in a class of twenty who had done improper things during this particular test. I handled them all with meetings and study agreements. 

Then on the last day of the course after another test, one of his classmates brought me a torn up pile of paper, found in a bin, that was clearly notes that he must have had brought into the test. His handwriting was unmistakeable. Because it wasn't provable that he used them, nor did the writing on the notes match the content of his essay, I didn't approach him about it but kept them for another moment.

And then he had to do it again, didn't he. He was doing one of the final listening tests, where all students listen to an audio twice and answer set questions. After the first listening he told the invigilator that he had to go to the restroom as he was feeling unwell. She was suspicious, so much so that she spotted that he tried to take his phone (which was put on a table at the start of the test). She stopped him and he went out. They waited and waited and it took him 20 minutes to emerge from the rest-room. During this time, the test monitor was so concerned that she messaged me and also stood by the door watching the restrooms for any sign of movement. When the toilet door opened out came Larry with a phone in his hand. Spotted, he quickly detoured into another classroom and came out with no phone.

When I arrived on the scene, he was back in the test room, and I yanked him out. "I want to explain," "You can explain in my office," we parleyed down the hallway. In my office, he said the test monitor was mistaken about seeing a phone, that he'd had hotpot the previous night and had diarrhoea. I told him once more that dishonesty was the worst thing you can do in these situations, but he insisted he had been wronged. At that stage I told him that because of the previous instance and the suspicion in this case that this test would be voided and that we had to investigate. I brought him up to the Chinese counsellor and asked him to tell her what has happened honestly. I told them that I'd leave them to talk but that we'd have a meeting the following day. I quickly went to the classroom he dropped the phone in and asked the teacher who related how he got the phone and indicated the student he'd got the phone from. I spoke to the student who let me check the YouTube history to show his phone had been used by Larry to listen to the exact audio that was being used. 

Larry is a terrible cheat. Terrible in both senses of the word. Clearly with a bit more subtlety he would have gotten away with it. He also clearly hasn't learned that other people don't like cheats and generally tell on them; either that or he doubts my powers of investigation because in the meeting the following day he again decided to not tell the whole truth again. But when he "revealed" my first piece of evidence that he was lying, I reminded him again that honesty was his only way to improve this situation. He then admitted to it all of it. Fortunately, he also filled in another way that he has been preparing that, though not cheating, was a very grey area. 

Besides being a huge disappointment, these incidents have been a black hole of precious time. The student is from a key collaborative partner, which cases like this really strain. There is a penalty. It is not expulsion but enough to have huge implications for him. The way I rationalise it is that we did accept an obviously weak student into the programme, who was pressured to achieve. That's no excuse for cheating, but justification enough to soften the penalty from the extreme to what we are giving him.

A killer joke

In March this year I blogged about a song that I'd heard just in passing and was sucked into what was a pretty astonishing work of art. I don't know how many times I listened to it but I wanted to wallow around in it and eventually I tried to put whatever I got out of it into words.

In October, it pretty much happened again but this time in movies. To be honest, in terms of movies in a cinema, 2019 has been pretty bare. I've seen some very good movies on planes and on Netflix but I have missed my chances to watch any flicks "at the pictures" (recalling the quaint way we used to say it when we were young). But within a month, I'd seen two pretty decent movies. Ad Astra was effectively my birthday movie. Although it probably had no connection of inspiration, having read Three Body Problem made it even more meaningful to me.

But the movie to make enough of an impression to satisfy a year without movies was Joker. I gladly walked in with very few expectations. I had read barely a jot about it. For all I cared it was just another comic book movie. I went with a friend who cared a lot more about comic book movies and he seemed pretty keen on watching it with me. Did he know that I would have more appreciation than others? I didn't ask.

I won't write too much about it other than it is a violently provoking movie and I recommend if you have darker taste for movies, you can't go past it. It's the 12 Monkeys. The Black Swan. The Mulholland Drive. The movie that is an inhabitable nightmare where you can make sense of things if you stand on your head. In this YouTubular world we live in there is far too much access to commentary, when in the past you'd have to search for cinematic soulmates or coerce others to watch to get some sort of prompted reaction. But the youtube world is always well populated. My yen is nearing satisfaction.

The only spoiler I would give is ironically the only joke said by the main character, who would become Joker, on stage in the movie: "When I was young, I told everyone I was going to be a comedian. And they all laughed at me. But no-one's laughing now!"

In other news, I ran a marathon yesterday. New PB of 3.22:54. First one after 40. Sore feet.

The drama

8 September - I finish my fifth marathon.
22 September - After two weeks of light running, I push myself for the first time smashing my personal record (PR) on my regular half marathon route, TwinPeaks, by 2 minutes.
23-29 September - I break 100km for the week, including a 32 km run, which I really had to push myself on. The week contains some good runs, including a smashing hill 15km run.
30 September - I choose not to run in the morning considering a rest day, but upon getting home from work, and realising my wife had already eaten dinner, I elect to go for an evening run rather than a rest. Wanting to get some hills in at the start of the week, I head straight to Mt Eden. Going up, I feel some discomfort in my front left shin. It's an occasional thing that I've had before so I continue and summit but as I go down it becomes pain and I stop after just 3km. I walk down and the sensation is not pleasant. I limp home.
1 October - My 40th birthday! I have a rest from running and have a pretty awesome day albeit a working day. Physically though, I can still feel it.
2 October - I don't feel anything too wrong with my shin and when asked, I say I'll run in the evening. I briefly jog across the road on my way to my car and realise I won't be running in the evening.
3 October - I wake early and do my warm up. There is some sensation in my shin but not enough to deter me. I run 10km. 9km the sensations are evident but never pain. In the last 1km, it feels a little less comfortable but I complete the run. But when walking, I know my shin doesn't like me. When walking up the stairs, I have a bolt of pain. It's really peeved. But I think it's on the up because I did do 10km after all.
4 October - I wake up early. I can't feel it in warm up so I run. Not even 1km in I feel it and once I stop I know it's done. I curse my lack of patience. I really start to believe I won't be well by 20 October for the Auckland Marathon.
5 October - It's a weekend two weeks from the event. In my heart, I want to have some miles on the weekend. It's when I have the freedom to pace myself, go long at will. I have a party that day but I really just want to run. I do a comprehensive warm-up. I feel stupid because I know there is huge risk. I could just wait till tomorrow but I can't. I run 1km up the side of Mt Eden and with some premonitions I stop. I walk home and feel the sore tension along the front. I'm a fool. I know if I it happens again or doesn't completely clear up I would have to pull out of the marathon.
6-7 October - I don't run. It's now less than two weeks till the event and almost 8 days with only one run over 3km.
8 October - I take the gamble. I've had just two days rest. I initially want to be greedy and try 10km but some sensations during warm-up chasten me. I don't want to have to walk back from far away. I run anyway but loop around home twice. No sensations arise on the run. I make 6.8km and feel fine.
9 October - Putting more chips onto red, I take the chance to run longer. I aim for a loop that won't take me far from home. I feel good after a mile so decide to try 3x2mile repeats. Despite what I felt like an interminable lay-off, I can pump up the speed fairly easily and completed 14.8km without any sensations.
10 October - Now with confidence I bet all the chips by running my Orakei Loop. This one is one I fear during niggly periods because any serious niggle at the 7km mark will almost certainly leave me late getting home and definitely late for work. It's also hilly which is what I believe may have caused this thing in the first place. No sensations arise again and I'm feeling confident.
11 October - And then I rest. Hopefully this means I get to claim my winnings. The injury is over.

Such is the drama of training.

This is number five and I'm feeling quite alive...

Between the two end of year marathons, the North Shore Marathon was probably the one that I wanted to make the biggest impact. Last year it was there that I was full of confidence and had been brought back down to Earth, then ran across a beach before running back up a hill and then being brought back down to Earth. And then got the stitch and struggled home to only better my first marathon by a measly two minutes. After that painful effort I'd vanquished my doubts at the Auckland Marathon and broke 3:30 so it was only the North Shore marathon that I hadn't done well in. 

This year again I was full of confidence. I knew I was fitter than at the same time last year. I'd especially been training on hills, of which the North Shore course has plenty. The beaches no longer annoyed me either. The route is two loops of the peninsula of the Shore, from Milford to Devonport and had six beach sections and two ascents of Northhead. Every trip to the beach was sapping to run on the sand and followed by some sort of a rise to the ridge of the peninsula. I had done the half marathon back in 2017 (one loop of the course) and enjoyed it but the full really was my Waterloo.

As was the case last year though, weather looked like it would be a factor. Last year a downpour was predicted but came early and runners started beneath starry skies. This year was a repeat in a way. Heavy rain was forecast for the 5:30am start. Waking up at 3:30am at our motel room, I heard the thunder and pulsating heavy rain. I got up nonetheless and had breakfast. By then it had gotten lighter and after suiting up, I even went out for a jog. It felt like the air was wet but it wasn't raining. I drove to the start line without any rain and got to the starting area with a good park.

But that's where things left the script. I looked for the gear drop table without luck. People seemed like they were still assembling the event site. When I asked, a man grunted something and went the other way. I went over to where competitors were. A few dozen people were all there as the clock ticked closer to the start time. Then there was an announcement: The marathon had been cancelled. All marathon entries were changed to half marathon entries starting at 7:45am, i.e., 2 hours 15 away. Apparently there had been an e-mail and a facebook announcement. I hadn't noticed it. Many people hadn't. But the weather was now pretty decent so people just went down to the start line anyway. We collectively did our own countdown and started our own unofficial marathon.

We were clumped together for the first kilometres as we relied on each other for navigation. There weren't any super-fast people in the group so I was always near the front. There were opportunities to chat a bit. North Shore Marathon also starts in the dark and encourages the use of head lamps for safety. Only half the participants have them usually; I've always had a light source as I've come a cropper once due to poor illumination. So it was even more reason to stick together. For a long time I thought I was coming third but after the first descent of Northhead I realised other people had started earlier than us. (And also found out some people started later than us.) We started passing people from there. A faster fellow came up from behind me unexpectedly and we chatted a while. "Are you doing the half?" he asked. I was confused because I thought it was obvious that I was running the full, having started so early just as he would have. Then I realised his intention. He wanted to run the first loop for fun then rest and run a second loop as a race at 7:45am. I briefly considered it but the second half would be a poor effort because I would have gotten cold. Also Christy would be expecting me to finish around 9am which was impossible with a 7:45am half. And we had a motel still to check out of and a massage to get.

There was one particular aspect that I feared when starting this unofficial run. Water. Although the organisers had gotten markers out, because of the cancellation, there weren't the usual water tables on the course. I was glad to see one at 12km but had to wait until 26km to get my second. At both stops I guzzled a "gel" too so I was more "eating" than drinking.  

Anyway, I closed out the first loop, pretty much on the same pace as the previous year. I felt good... as I had last year. At about the 25km mark I became the sole leader (!), when the guy in front darted into a bush to relieve himself. I went up Northhead with ease but when I came down I noticed, as I did last year, that I didn't have the same pace. Fortunately I didn't have last year's stitch and eventually the guy who darted into the bush slowly moved past me. He queried our pace and then went by. I tried to use him to sustain pace but I just slipped further and further behind. By the last few kilometres I was really wanting the race to end as I was very tired. I never stopped though and crawled through the finish line at 3:32:50. The time itself wasn't terrible although quite a lot higher than I had thought I would. 

Now I have five weeks till Auckland Marathon. I feel that despite the result the easier course of Auckland will be a worthwhile chance to push myself. I'm going to spend a week more to recover from North Shore and then have a burst of training to get myself ready for Auckland.

1 week to go

With the completion of this morning run, I completed the second week of taper. The mileage has dropped like this:

• Peak week: 106km
• First week of taper (last week): 81km
• Second week of taper (this week): 61km 

I've made little modifications to my runs leading in the lead-up and have deliberately run a little less than planned this week and also changed the nature of a couple of the runs. Tapering is quite a personal thing. There are standard principles that go with it but you'll see many different strategies within it. Some basically have easy runs without any workouts. While some just have shorter but faster runs. I've always taken the difference in philosophies as from a lot of different people's experiences. Many online sources are generally going to be read by people doing their first marathon, so it goes more for safety and running solidly to completion than running for best performance. 

My own experience of tapering, like everyone I guess, has been a learning curve. Here are each of my marathon tapers (note: when I talk about the result, I'm not saying that taper is everything, but it does colour how I look at how the taper went. I also don't include the kilometres in the week of the marathon which are usually minor and easy):

1. Oct 2017, Auckland Marathon: Not a great taper, influenced by ITB issues the week before peak week (PW): PW: 82km; 1W: 52km: 2W: 48km. Result: Hit the wall badly and walked parts to end with 3:47.
2. Sep 2018, North Shore Marathon: A complicated taper because peak week was two weeks before taper because the usual peak week was a half marathon that I wanted to taper for; then a trip in Fiji in the first taper week which finished with a bout of food poisoning. So PWs: 103km then 83km; 1W: 64km (Fiji), 76km. Result: Hit the wall badly, terrible stitch, ended with 3:44.
3. Oct 2018, Auckland Marathon: An interesting taper because this marathon happened just 8 weeks after the preceding marathon, so tapering happened barely after recovery from the previous: PWs: 89km then 81km, 1W: 80km, 2W:69km; Result: Finally ran the whole distance with a time of 3:29 
4. May 2019, Rotorua Marathon: Perhaps the most disturbed taper with a business trip to China. Also it was disturbed by a half marathon in the normal peak week so I tapered for that first. So PWs: 98km, 64km (HM), 1W: 97km 2W: 51km (China). Result: A surprise PB with 3:27.

My own learning? There is nothing really that can be generalised from this. Doing events in the lead-up has been an advantage in the last two marathons. But was not auspicious in my second marathon.  Even high mileage in the 1W isn't an issue. I'll learn something more from this taper because it's the most "typical" taper possible, and follows theory the most. Let's see if theory works.

Millwater

One week into taper, one event down. I ran the Millwater Half Marathon for the third time this morning. I'd been looking forward to it as a "sighter" to gauge my fitness for the coming marathongs as well as achieve a personal best in the half marathon.

The latter plan was very much a wish. Last year's Millwater Half was my personal best ever (1:31:13) but had been surpassed earlier this year at the Waterfront Half (1:29:58). But they're very much different races. Waterfront is a flat-track, flat-out race with only multiple hair-pin turns to deal with. Millwater has more undulation and twists and turns. My pace was finally returning just before my taper. Yesterday I had a "shake-out" run and comfortably sustained speeds faster than what I would need to match these times. Naturally hitting these speeds and keeping such speeds going for an hour and a half over terrain are two different things.

The weather had been pretty dicey through the month of August and this morning was no different. Even a good forecast didn't stop it drizzling pre-run and post-run and even a sprinkle during the race. The wind was blustery the previous day but at least wasn't evident in Millwater in the morning. I came early and got myself set. When the race started, it was all on. A running team, the Night Ninjas, all dressed in their orange outfit, were running their own personal championship at Millwater. Last year I prided myself in beating a Night Ninja, as they are really serious, fast runners. Their use of the event as their championship made the crowd even more orange and challenging. In the initial bunching I was stuck behind a group of about five that I chose to squeeze past after about a kilometre. Ridiculously it seemed some were acting as pacers for others so ran quickly but then hung out at the drink stands waiting for the next runners to pace. This is distracting for normal runners because you run with groups and even target people ahead to pace yourself against or pass. When they inexplicably drop out of normal racing it knocks you.

Fortunately after passing the bunch and the pacers, I didn't have much to do with other Ninjas. There was one in the distance which I was forever pursuing but I couldn't reel him in. I was glad though to be quickly accompanied by some familiar runners. One runner, Andrew, is a runner you can't help but respect. He is over 50 but still competes well. He beat me in as many races as I beat him this year. I thought I had it over him last year because I would use him to pace me earlier in the race before racing off into the distance. Not so this year. Even when I tried this it only worked half the time. He outlasted me a few times.

This time in the initial jostling around I got ahead of him but at the 3km point he sidled up to me. We ran the next 7km more or less together. Occasionally he would pass me but I'd often overtake him on the downhills. We were also joined by another runner, Finn. I knew Finn without ever exchanging words. We ran as an arrowhead for a good portion of the first of two loops, with me at the front and Andrew on my left shoulder, and Finn on my right shoulder. Running in a pack has its advantages. An even pace is easier to maintain psychologically; it apparently also reduces the impact of wind too. The Millwater loop starts with undulation but features a stiff incline in the tenth kilometre. It was at this point that Andrew and Finn both overtook me. It was on the slope afterwards that I raced back past them and never saw them on the track again. I was more or less running solo as I cruised through the arch for the first lap in 44:28 which had me on sub-1:30 pace.

What I didn't think know was that shortly after I passed the arch, at the 45:00 mark, the 10km racers were to start. Not far into my second lap I heard rapid moving pursuer coming after me. For a moment I thought it was Andrew and Finn and thought I might have slowed down due to the lack of company. But it was actually the first wave of 10km runners. The leader of the pack was the husband of our company's HR Director so fortunately I figured who they were early in the piece. It was quite lucky for me as suddenly I had runners with me again. Some 10km runners passed me but clearly had gone too quickly as I caught up with them and used them for pacing. By the last third though I realised I had gone too quickly in the first lap and my splits were creeping up. I kept trying to figure out whether I still was in line to get under 1:30. The hill at the 20km mark was still in my mind. As I approached it I was again without a pacing partner but at least the finish line was near. The finish line is often the one thing that can sustain your pace till the end and I managed to hold a solid pace to the end and went through the finish line at 1:30:04. That may not be my official "mat time", which I'm still waiting to find out. Even if it is a touch over 1:30, I'm not that bothered. It's almost the same time as Waterfront Half but on a more challenging course.

It sets my expectations well for the North Shore Marathon. I will try for a time between 3:25-3:30. Even though at time around 3:29, a time over my personal best, I'll take it as a victory because it is such a challenging course. Now there are two weeks of lighter, shorter workouts.

Taper time!

In exactly 21 days from now I'll be rather tired after successfully completing another marathon, a little faster than the last. Or will I? It's taper-time and all the imponderables of the race are now coming to mind.

Tapering, if you missed it, is when your lower your training load in anticipation of a race. Tapering for a marathon usually lasts two to three weeks. In theory, at this time the main work of the training is done. You won't be getting much faster or stronger. The important thing is to just reduce the burden on the body a little so that it over-compensates in expectation of continued training and becomes stronger. It relieves the burden on overworked parts of your system so they heal. It's not that training stops - in fact, training is often the "good stuff" just shorter and with more rest, especially in the week before the event. On the net, I've heard lots of people get nervous when they go into taper because training is comfortable and not training is abnormal. And also because you've already built your fitness as much as possible pre-taper, there is that regret of not doing more and sometimes wanting to pack a little more in, but knowing you shouldn't. However, I've never had that nervousness.

As well noted here, I have been rather anxious about my progress since my good result at Rotorua Marathon. The training has been nothing near my expectation, punctuated by the interruptions of niggles, travel and flu. With the recent weeks though, there is enough to now feel satisfied that I can do well at North Shore Marathon. Excluding my week of flu, my weekly mileage has been: 65, 71, 76, 80, 90, 87, 101 and 106. It is a nice feeling when the body can take 100km without really noticably wearing out. It's not all about mileage though; it's about what you do with it. It should have many easy runs and some key workout runs. When I was frustrated earlier my key workouts were fizzers but I've had now a fair few runs that I'm pretty proud of, proud enough to nurture the hope that, even on the challenging North Shore marathon course that killed me last year, I might be able to do the same time or even better what I did in Rotorua. 

But the best measuring stick of what I should be able to do will be the Millwater Half Marathon next Sunday. My last race, Waiatarua 10km, was a little bit of a fizzer with me going fast too earlier. Fingers crossed that was an exception. 

A little high, a little low

There are many reasons people run. Some might just do a semi-regular run as part of a formal or informal fitness regime; some might run for weight loss. I'm sure some run to de-stress. Surely some run out of an old habit, an addiction that the body drives. Although I'm happy with some of the effects above, I think I run mainly as a project of self, to see what I can achieve in a performance with myself.

In this kind of running, training is the input and performances in races are the output. Some training is almost always better than no training. Some guided training is almost always better than random training. Some quality training should always be better than excessive unstructured poor quality training. And you only know the difference with trial and error; with a little learning and shared experience here and there.

But like any project, often the output doesn't always correspond to the input. Just like in business, bountiful capital doesn't mean a business will become a leader; or endless roses and chocolates do not necessary add up to a successful relationship. As recently related, I cruised into 2000km of mileage for the year. But mileage, while usually beneficial, isn't magic in itself. You have to do something with it. Since my recovery from flu, my runs and the feelings I got from them were extremely varied:

16 July - 10km "Tempo" run - I aimed for 20 minutes at "tempo" pace (the pace you could maintain for an hour at most). I felt good because just days after the flu I could get to that pace and hold it for the most part.
17 July - Shoe Science 10km group run - This was intentionally slower because of the faster run yesterday and also I had one person with me who wasn't that fast. Felt OK.
18 July - 10km of Moonlight Mount Eden summits, 5 summits to be exact. These didn't feel easy at all. In my current state of fitness I should have been able to press on any one of the summits but just felt knackered.
20 July - 30km Long Run - I did 15km steady and then 10km at marathon pace and then cruised for 5km. I felt really proud of myself after this one. I'd matched a previous good run. Suddenly I felt on track.
21 July - 18.8km Easy Run - This was a bit of a struggle. It was meant to be easy but I slipped back in pace more than I wanted.
23 July - 15km Intervals - I wanted to run 3x2miles at "Threshold" pace but really fizzled. My initial laps weren't that fast and barely lower than tempo. I was frustrated again.
24 July - 16.7km Easy run - Now this was actually at the pace an easy run should be done. And it felt easy.
25 July - 9.2km Hill repeats - This felt pretty good. I did 8 repeats up a 200m slope and felt I could go harder and faster as time went by.
27 July - 32km Long Run - A shambles. Probably was overoptimistic with pace on the first half and really struggled in the second half. The kind of run that should be stopped because you're probably doing yourself damage. Fortunately the body wasn't too bothered once home.
28 July - 14km Recovery - I ran up three mountains at my own pace. Felt good just to loosen up.
29 July - 16.6km 400m on/off intervals - These went well. For the first time in the two week period I could actually hit speeds close to 4:00mins/km.
30 July - 14km of Easy. And it felt pretty good.
31 July - 18.5km Tempo and some gentle hills - again a good feeling. The pace was close to tempo and I got lots of metres of ascent.
2 August - 15.5km 800m intervals - and now probably my best speed workout since April.

It really is a rollercoaster with fizzled out runs, smash hits, "Was it any good?" moments, "How is this helping me?" ordeals. This sequence is going to be measured directly whether I can run the Run Auckland 10km race at Waiatarua fast and furious. I haven't really felt that I have caught the speed of the past. With this morning's workout under my belt, I feel a lot better. I'll run easy tomorrow and then see what happens on Sunday.

And then either moan or exult.

2000, mark.

In 2017, my first really big year of running, we were spending our last week of the year in Whitianga in the Coromandel, and on my one run there to close out the year I registered my two thousandth kilometre of mileage. 2000km had been my objective since the start of the year and I had timed it well despite some of the niggle dramas. It was a pleasant run, too.

In 2018, on 22 September, I registered the same mark and celebrated it by tripping for the third time that year. I was crossing a road while trying to open a "gel" and looking over my shoulder for traffic. Somehow my feet caught the ground and I landed in the middle of the road. The fall wasn't disastrous fortunately and by the close of the year I had 2775km.

In 2019, today, i.e. 28 July, I again broke the 2000km mark for the year. I did it on an easy run to recover from a debacle of a long run I went on yesterday.  where I had an easy run to recover my body from that debacle. I ran up three mountains, Eden, Hobson and St. Johns, to mark the occasion. My goal this year is 3000, which at the rate I'm running should be easy if I keep it up.

The key really is not how much you do but where it takes you. Right now I still feel "out of form". I haven't been able to hit the pace I had pre-Rotorua or feel robust to sustain efforts. This doesn't really make sense if I'm running more and doing a similar range of workouts. But what has been a problem is consistency.

Race schism

I have struggled to read this year. I blame it on my internet friend, Chenzi. Until mid-last year I was chewing through books fairly rapidly. If I weren't working or running or attending to the demands of living, I was probably reading. It was great to meet Chenzi for the first time last year, but we recommended each other a book and we bought our own copies of the other's book. I don't know whether he liked the book I suggested to him, but his book was hard work. In my view it wasn't well written and was really dense with Buddhist terminology in parts. It was a drag. I went through a period before my business trip where I pushed myself to grind through a few dry patches but when I saw him in April I still wasn't more than 60% of the way through. Reading it meant I wasn't reading other things, and without the drive to read it, I got quite hooked on podcasts and youtube.

What do I watch most? Mainly, American talk shows and cable news usually about the ongoing circus of US politics. It is quite possibly the outrage factor that comes with listening to someone as venal, ignorant, deceitful, base and egotistical as President Trump. He is incredible in his singular collection of negative traits that together have somehow, somehow, led him to be "leader of the free world". Recently he tweeted about four female congresswomen of different ethnic backgrounds and suggested that their home countries were chaotic and they should "go back to their countries" to fix it, rather than criticise America (by which he means himself). The response was swift: "President Trump is a racist." It was especially obvious because three of the four were American-born citizens just like him. One had come as a refugee but she too was a US citizen. All four were legitimately elected members of the House of Representatives.

Anyone who has followed him know that he is almost certainly a racist, but there was a lot of tip-toeing around the term. Firstly, it is taken as ad hominem put-down. People don't like to be called "racist" because it's a negative term. There was push-back because in civilised political debate you shouldn't use put-downs. But like many words seen as put-downs, they do actually refer to something. A racist, in the strongest sense of the word, is someone who believes that some races are superior to others; and in a weaker sense, attributes particular qualities to people because of their race, often despite their actual being. I say he is certainly a racist because he exhibits more criticism towards people of other ethnic groups, shows he believes black people owe white people respect and denigrates nationalities and ethnicities.

Secondly, there was a nuance between someone being a racist and someone saying racist things. Tepid criticism of it avoided saying anything about him; they just spoke about his language or his actions, a la "hate the sin not the sinner". This has some merit to it. I may some things that could be racist, sexist or bigoted without feeling racially superior, a male chauvinist or a bigot. Some of that can be from being inarticulate with a generalisation, speaking too simply when I know there is more nuance. There might also be a legacy effect where I might have latent beliefs or tendencies that distinguish. I might also speak from an observational point of view, rather than an aspirational tone. For example, I might say that the Chinese students in our school sometimes struggle with direction, rather than always trying to take them as individuals with their own different proclivities that could be uplifted by a consistent positive language for how they could be. I also might speak in jest but with the wrong timing, wrong audience or with a context I'm not aware of. His language is clearly racist, and in fact taps into a common offensive line: "Go back to your country!"

Also, thirdly, there was the classic racist defence: "I have black friends." If you have a black friend, you can't be racist can you? The best refutation of this is: "Can a sexist have a wife, daughters and a mother?" In a recent podcast it mentioned psychologically there is a degree of moral licensing at play. Often in history there has been a "pioneer" such as Sammy Davis Junior who might be permitted but often it comes at the detriment of others because they allowed him into their circle so they can continue to be racist freely to all others. Some people have suggested voters who elected Obama may have been licensed to vote Trump. Clearly, having a black friend doesn't mean you respect the dignity of other black people, let alone other races.

And fourthly there is a more elegant defence against being called a racist, that what is being to is not race but some proxy of race, such as religion. Is islamophobia racist if it is directed at fear of a religion or the fear of terrorism caused in the name of Islam? The discussion in America went more into these foreign faces attacking "American values" and wanting to install foreign ideas (evil things such as universal healthcare). Naturally it is preferable to have a superficial war of ideas than the superficial denigration of the person bearing the ideas.

Dissecting any comment of Trump's is a foolish endeavour. He splatters together some words, often without syntax, endlessly. Why waste time on it? Distraction, I guess. Now where is that book...

7 weeks

Three dates in seven weeks: 4 August - Waiatarua 10km; 25 August Millwater Half; 8 September North Shore Marathon; the final one being an acid test, perhaps to lead to a fast Auckland Marathon on 20 October.

Waiatarua, I've never run before. I've enter two years and on both occasions it's been flooded by unexpectedly heavy rains. Being an inner city wetland is rather unique but clearly comes with a huge negative for organising events. When Run Auckland reconsidered its event this year I was amazed it still made the cut. It'll be my last 10km for the year and had always been one that I'd intend to be my fastest but with the niggles and flu I haven't really had a good lead-in. I'll still give it a good lash though and try to have some workouts in the next two weeks to get myself moving fast.

Millwater 2019 was a fond memory for me, a half marathon that cut 4 minutes off my best time, and an usually strong kick that I finished it with. Now running it for the third time, I know the course's idiosyncrasies quite well. It would be still a challenge to make a new PB considering my time at the Waterfront Half was on a course that was flat as a pancake, and Millwater has 170m of ascent but in a way that's the perfect goal for me. This will be the stepping stone for the North Shore Marathon which is as lumpier than any other.

North Shore Marathon 2019 by contrast was a bitter pill. I'd felt that I'd trained perfectly but it turned to custard whether it be because of pacing, which was overoptimistic; my race day nutrition, which was still based on whole foods; or just dumb bad luck, that of all days that my body had to have the stitch it chose that day. I went through the halfway point at 1:41, and did the second half in 2:03. (Compared with the Auckland Marathon I did 8 weeks later, 1:42 and 1:47 on a flatter course.) I really want to exorcise this memory with a good effort and time. Against me is this recent period of training and the fact that it is a significantly more difficult marathon. I might just choose to make this a stepping stone to the Auckland Marathon, which is just 6 weeks later.

My training might have been inconsistent in the last 2 months and sometimes feel I've "lost" some of the edge that I must have had to get me to good times at the Waterfront Half and the Rotorua Marathon, but a run yesterday cheered me up. I repeated one of the better workouts from that period and matched those times and set segments records in the process. It was also the first run since Rotorua that was over 30km, a distance that really does strengthen. All things going to plan next weekend I'll have another 30km+ run and between Waiatarua and Millwater will hopefully break 100km/week twice, a sweet spot of training. Millwater will be a good measure of what I should expect of myself in the North Shore and Auckland Marathons. On paper, it seems easy enough... At least 7 weeks isn't long to wait.

As if it natters

I've had a rather good run of wellness since the start of last year. There was one occasion where a cut on my hand didn't heal well and it gave me some symptoms but that wasn't a biggie; a 24-hour bug from Fiji and then earlier this year a weird "night fevers" thing. But otherwise, among the infectious carnage that my colleagues have been suffering from at various times, I have been an island of wellness. Naturally all good things come to an end when I caught the flu last weekend and even though I thought my body would be able to recover quickly instead I quickly fell into a fever. Wednesday was a rather sub-standard day of work that incidentally became the end of my working week. 

Fevers are interesting things. Before my 30s, I admit that I barely had them; in fact I might have only knowingly had three in my recollection (probably had plenty as an infant). I'd always seemed almost impervious to the flu, which is the commonest cause of fever. Food poisoning in Fiji when I was 15 definitely gave me a delirious fever. In Taiwan I remember having one exotic fever, almost to the point of delirium. And then between 20 and 29 in NZ, there was just one time I recall having a weird virus in my 20s, where the walk to the shops felt like a marathon distance and where just walking steadily was a challenge. My fever record took a pounding though once I arrived in China and there would be no point counting because the sheer number memories of different feverish experiences are hard to parse. So relatively speaking my rate of having fevers have risen quite sharply since my 30s. To think I had one fever in my 20s and two in the last year is quite an astonishing contrast.

Sickness is a great time to take advantage of Netflix (or their ilk) and, apart from long haul flights, it's the only time that I watch movies these days. In sickness, movies are superior to books as a distraction as they handle themselves and don't mind if you pass out mid-way. This time I managed to watch:

- It

- Stranger Things (Season 3)

- The Founder 

- The Host 

- I Am Mother 

- Ted 

The best of the batch? I Am Mother was a pretty good sci-fi movie, simple and elegantly done like the Moon. And it ponders a slightly different relationship between AI and the apocalypse. Definitely recommended. 

The Founder, the biopic of Ray Kroc who made McDonalds what it is today, was a great watch too, if only that it shows the power of ambition. Its mantra is a Calvin Coolidge quotation: "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful individuals with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." 

Ted is a guilty pleasure of a film, rolling around in its own offensiveness. It was as expected and Stranger Things wasn't really much stranger than the previous seasons. 

The worst in my opinion was The Host, which I only realised later was written by Stephanie Meyer.