Thank God for long weekends - I'm totally exhausted!

Magazine production week is often an exhausting and mentally draining affair.

Apart from writing articles and reviews to put into the upcoming issue, you have to plan where each articles are going, as well as where the ads go, and all those little things that crop up when you are getting the final layout out. Then there's organising and supervising the photoshoot for the cover and main feature. All this takes most of the month, but it's the final week where the pace picks up.

Then there's the fact that I'm now editing 1 magazine, overseeing another, and I have 2 other projects to managed.. with a possible 3rd next month! Thisw means that most of my moth is burnt on magement and organisational issues, and I found it bloody hard to find time to actually sit down and write.

So I actually spent 60 hours straight to get my next issue out... from noon Sunday to Midnight Tuesday. But it was wrapped and done, and very surprisingly, once we received the proofs back from the printers, there was only one page with a graphics mistake... and I decided to include 3 more minor corrections, which is great. Even the cover, which usually gives us a lot of grief, due to skin tones, etc, came out nicely.

Oh, I forgot about the screaming fit I had on Tuesday evening, courtesy of a demanding new advertiser.... if I ever met that ad agency person in person...

Then I switched over to help the publication of my other magazine, thinking that it was going smoothly, as my associate editor looked to be handling things ok.

Bad mistake.. nobody even updated me that even the number of pages had changed! Arrgh! My new writer also only submitted her work on the last day, even though she had 3 weeks to write 2 relatively simple articles as well.. someone is going to get a talking to come Tuesday.

And my other editor had to be sent to Taiwan for a critical interview, which he could only submit at 8pm on Friday night, and it went straight into the magazine. This meant that I had to overnight in the office again, in support of one of my designers, who's a bit inexperienced, and needed support and help!

So, in total this week, I had a 100 hour work week!

Thank goodness Monday is a public holiday. I'd love to take Tuesday off as well, but I can't - I need to hold a post production editorial session. Perhaps Friday instead?

I may be next :(

I received an MSN message from my Aussie-based brother last Monday if I'd heard that an ex-CNA reporter, Derek Cher, had passed on during the weekend.

I'd actually missed the news, as I didn't have a chance to read Monday's paper. The reason being that since Sunday lunch, I was in the office all the way till Monday 7am, then after a trip home to shower and take a nap, was back at work from 10am till about 1am Tuesday morning. That's when I dragged a matress out of the office storeroom, and crashed out for 7 hours.

I was up at 8am, and after a wash-up and a change of clothes in the men's room (always, always have spare shirts and undies in the office, you never know when an accident may happen), I was back at it until... 10 minutes ago, when we finally wrapped up production.

And the sad part is that this is not my record 'chiong'. It's unfortunately part and parcel with being under-manned and in major magazine production mode. I spend most of the month managing and coordinating articles and review units, then do a 'burst' and throw out 2 dozen articles in a 3 day period.

And I've also noticed that I can't write during normal office hours, because of all the issues and fires that crop up that I have to deal with each day. From Sunday to Monday, I wrote 10 major reviews. Then from 10am Monday till 7pm, I managed 1 article.

What's this have to do with the unfortunate death of Derek Cher? Well, I don't recall ever meeting Derek, we were on different 'beats'. I'm a consumer technology journalist, and he was a finance and business presenter on CNA. But we both graduated from Curtin University, Perth, West Australia, abit a few years apart, and he was a year-mate of my sister-in-law, hence the MSN message from my brother.

Apparently, Derek had a heart attack while he was at his desk on Saturday morning - he'd just left CNA to work for a securities firm. He was 29, and in good health and physical shape.

It's a bit scary for me. I'm 6 years older, and definitely no where near as healthy, and I regularly pull 48 hour production sessions each month. Am I worried that something similar may happen to me? With my blood pressure? Yes. But sometimes it's also down to managable stress. For some strange reason, the stress of a production deadline is something I'm actually comfortable dealing with (with the help of strong coffee literally IV'ed into my bloodstream). When I was in PR for a brief stint, the stress nearly drove me mad.

My prayers are with Derek and his family. I'm heading home for a solid 10 hours of sleep (taking the morning off).

Night!

Getting on TV and being MediaSlutted... again

So David Cheng, who's producing the last few episodes of this 'seasons' That's IT calls me up and ask if he can come over to interview me for That's IT, all about convergence devices...

This means that I had to clean up my really messy work area... Hey! I'm in major production week, and my desk is in it's 'paper, paper everywhere' phase, pending my regular end-of-month cleaning.

And of course, the mediaslut gets wind of the shooting, and turns up to take a couple of snaps . I've got a few pics of the mediaslut myself.. but lets not spoil the surprise.. watch the program and see the actually public unveiling of who the mediaslut really is!

Anyway.. I've been slutted a few times ever since the mediaslut turned up on the Singapore Blogsphere, and this is my second TV 'appearence' in a year, although I got like 30 seconds of air time last year... I think David, who took a lot of video of me at my desk (with a very film noir effect), intends to give me a little more air-time this time around...

Of Italian cooking and media scrums

Easter weekend is over, and it's back to the grindstone, with two magazines to edit by the 25th...

But at least I caught up on my sleep on Good Friday. The previous day was pretty hectic, as I had my cover and editorial shoot early Thursday morning. Just got the low-res images emailed in by my photographer, and I'm very happy with the way the images turned out. In fact, considering the logistics involved in the out-door shoot - plus the fact that it was quite far away, the chances of things screwing up were high, but in the end, we got a break in the weather, and everything went surprisingly smooth and fast.

Oh, and I finally met my neighbour Sara-Ann, who I've been corresponding on my MoBlog site, although we've only briefly met once. managed to catch up with her over supper at the Hong Kong Cafe at Telok Kurau, a short walk down the street, but talk about a late supper - went to bed at 3am...

Saturday was an unscheduled full day though. Because I 'inherited' the company van from a now ex-colleague, and I was driving it for all of Thursday for the photo shoot and errands, my boss asked me to help him move a couple thousand Xbox games for a 'leilong' sale at Suntec City....

...Hey!? Why is Channel 5 showing a commercial on the upcoming Hi-Five kids concert at 12.20am??

... getting back on track...

Also found out that a friend, whom I haven't seen in months, was in her office on Saturday afternoon, so did a little grocery shopping and made up a nice little 'picnic' lunch for her - Subway sandwich, chips and iced tea, plus an easter egg (she's a chocoholic, so I got her one with truffles inside) and topped off with Ben & Jerry's Strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Had another good 'catch-up' session.

I then spent Saturday evening 'keeping an eye' on a photoshoot conducted by one of my new writers, which dragged on for five hours. Gave her a critique about it at the end, but reckon she did a pretty good job, although she should have kept me informed over a number of things, which I could have then helped her out with.

Sunday was another sleep in day, although I did try another shoot at getting my lasagna receipe right, this time ensuring that the beef sauce had plenty of liquid to soak the instant pasta with.

Here's a pic of my lasagna, before heading into the oven:


And here's one after I took a slice out:


Lovely - got both the meat sauce and the cheese sauce right, and the grilled aubergine gives it a nice contrast. I love cooking great Italian food.. which is why I rarely eat in Italian restaraunts in Singapore.. I think I'm a better cook than the chefs here... ;)

So it's Monday, and my first ever media scrum! Went to the LG 'Family' event, with loads of foreign journalists and lifestyle jurnos swarming, on account of the Korean actress Lee Young Ae making an appearance as the 'spokesmodel' for LG...

Not a situation that tech jurnos are used too... the actual product showcase was basically a non-event.. LG must have spent a bomb on setting up the displays and bringing in Korean girls to act as hostesses, but they totally neglected to even show journalists the displays and talk about some of the products, including a 101 inch Plasma TV.. strange.

Instead, the event turned into a media circus when Ms. Lee appeared, with a horde of jurnos charging to the front, camera flashes blazing. Seriously, it was a real scrum, elbows flying and people pushing and jostling for space, and it's a pity I didn't take a snap of the melee...

Recharging batteries

Well, I did almost practically nothing this weekend.

Except recharging - both physically and mentally. The forthcoming week is going to start my busy period, which will last all the way till at least the 25th (that's when I finish up on editing 2 magazines!).

So... sleep is good. I took my mind of work, and hopefully will be better prepared for the week. Physically, it felt good to let strained muscles rest. I thought of going for a jog today, but since I can still feel a slight strain on my admoninal and calf muscles, thought better of it.

This doesn't mean that I'm gonna slack off on the physical exercise, however. I'm going to try and hit the gym on Tuesday and Thursday night.

Also made lasagna tonight... but it didn't come out as good as I expected. In general, I was in a rush to make it on time for dinner, and I didn't have a cheap bottle of red plonk handy to 'liquid' up the beef sauce before I started creating the lasagna.

End result was that the instant pasta sheets came out a bit too hard and under cooked... next time, a cup of beef or chicken stock into the beef sauce, so that the pasta absorbs the liquid.

Apart from that, it's the first time I tried a layer of grilled eggplant, which came out great.

Now exercising for Life.

Just got out of a hot shower after returning home from the gym. It's my second hot shower in an hour (had one before leaving the gym), but I do feel a lot better, especially as my body's aching all over.

My arms are strained from my initial session on Saturday - I woke up on Sunday morning all stiff, which both arms and chest in pain from over straining my flabby muscles. I couldn't even raise my hands to comb my hair!

Today's session saw me beg off much of the upper body work, as I want a few more days to recover from the initial session, but I did hit the running machine (again). Where on Saturday, I ran 20 minutes, covering what the machine claimed to be about 2.5 km, this time I ran 2.8 km in 25 minutes. Then went to find my trainer to learn about lower body and abdominal work.

Half way through, the sadist put me on an exercise bike for 5 minutes at my maximum pace to bring up my heart rate. That it did, but on top of my jog, it lead to massive cramps on both my thighs while I was doing crunches. After stretching out, I worked through the cramps, and did a total of 100 crunches... bleh.

Why am I subjecting myself to all this pain?

Well, I reckon my personal trainer may be asking a bit too much of me too early, but there is reason behind my apparent masochistic madness.

You see, it's World Cup year. This brings back rather bitter memories of the last World Cup in Japan in 2002.

While most people around the world were watching the final match between Brazil and Germany, my family and I were rushing my father to the Tan Tock Seng A&E.

He died the next day while in intensive care.

What killed my father was not the sudden pneumonia brought about by general organ failure, as written on his death certificate.

What killed my father was not a mild stroke brought about by a reduction of his blood thinner medication, so that he could heal properly from a routine urinary tract operation (something for me to look forwards to in 20 years)

What killed my father was a very weak physical constitution. Compounded by a litany of health problems, heavy stress due to financial issues and overwork (we couldn't stop him working 7 days a week).

He refused to exercise. He didn't have time to take a 30 minute walk every other day. he was too tired from work. He hadn't exercised even mildly in 30 years.

I will always miss my father.

And I will always believe that if he'd been a bit more careful about his health, and took care to get regular cardiovascular exercise, he'd be alive and well today.

You see, my dad's body simply gave up. He did not have the physical reserves to recover from what's considered minor medical problems.

His URT put him in hospital for a couple of weeks.

His stroke was considered minor - some loss of facial nerves and slurring, plus a bit of stiffness in the limbs - nothing a few months of physio-threaphy couldn't improve upon.

But he couldn't cope with what happened to him, and in the following 3 months, lost 15 kg.

That's when his body... just gave up.

I had a recent health scare when I went for my army FFI, thinking that I had a diabetic problem (which my dad had). I haven't had another blood test yet, but from a simple retest done by my GP, most likely the readings were due to an expired urine test kit.

But, what my GP informed me is that my blood pressure has been high on the normal side for the past 4 years. My cholesterol level's probably high, and I have hyper-tension, as well as being moderately obese.

Like father like son.

When my dad died, I swore to myself that I'd take care of my physical health. For years, I thought I'm in generally reasonable health, but not fit.

What I am is borderline healthy. All I need is a small health problem, like initial diabetes, to put me into the red zone.

Hence the reason why I joined the gym (and to pass IPPT as well!)

As I mentioned, it's also the 'pay money must use' factor. There's a perfectly good park near my house, for example, with a circular path that runs approximately 600 metres (paced it out). But I want to force myself to work out regularly, not only to run. I'm not interested in building a buff body like a photographer friend of mine I bumped into while at the gym tonight.

What I want is to lose at least 10 kilos in 9 months - a modest and achievable objective.

What I want is to be fit again, like I was when I was 20 (ok, that was 15 years and 20 kilos ago, so quite impractical).

Can I order up a reasonably toned body please, and hold the bulging pectoral muscles?

But getting fit is part of the objective.

I hope that getting fit will also give me more energy and less lethargic each day, as well as making me feel good about myself (get the adrenalin pumping more often).

That's my primary goal.

To feel good about being me.

Good night.