Today marks this year's annual X-country run at MacRitchie. A day where everybody gets all hot and sweaty and congratulates each other for completing the 4.2km course. Except, of course, for the unhealthy and infirm, e.g., yours truly, who spent most of the run confined to the cafe on top of the hill overlooking the reservior.

In the number of years I've attended this annual event, this is the first time the cafe was actually open and I could buy a vanilla coke to occupy me till the races were over. My fellow invalids sat with me and we spent a pleasant afternoon together in the great outdoors.

Really, if I could get medical clearance to run, I would. There's a trophy for the staff race every year, and how difficult would it be to finish in the top 6? If I was allowed to run, I'm certain this would be an attainable goal, and my desk is due for another display of glitter, if only...

Am proud of fellow pegasii, Lynnette and JY, who finished 5th and 6th in the staff women's race respectively and can now decorate their desks with their trophies. But X-country isn't a House event this year. The Championship is awarded to CCA groups instead. This year, the Championship was a clean sweep by our canoeists in both Guys and Girls team categories. Looks like they're seriously training for some serious awards this year. Seriously.

After X-country, I went to meet June at GV, PS to make use of my 2 comp tix to tonight's preview screening of Finding Neverland. I found this invitation in my pigeonhole yesterday addressed to the "Head of Drama Club," so position does have its privileges. Heh.

A very deftly balanced movie playing off the complexities of human relationships: youthful playfulness vs adult pragmatism; human imagination vs human mortality; "pretend" vs reality. It's also a comment on the marketing of public entertainment and how contact with children sometimes unlocks or reawakens the kid in all of us, to believe in and thereby enjoy the things that go far beyond mundane, inevitable reality.

Don't want to spoil the movie talking too much about it, but it is quite a beautiful piece, a bit like what Big Fish was, except not so OTT. Many in the audience developed a case of sniffles watching this movie, so be warned, a pack of tissues might come in handy, especially for the more sensitive of us. No, it may not be a howler but it is an insight into the very ordinary things that go on around us that -- with a little imagination -- transform everyday life into a daily adventure. Cool!