About Nukey

17. Writer. University student. Runs (with my mom). Taekwondo. Anime. Marvel. Books. I'm addicted to pastries, bananas, and water.

The Color Run Malaysia 2017

Are you a fan of colors? If you are, then I hope you managed to attend The Color Run last Sunday (13 August) at Padang Merbok, Kuala Lumpur.

If you’ve never heard of The Color Run, it’s a run where fist-full of colors would be thrown at you throughout the whole 5 kilometres. It first began in Phoenix, Arizona five years ago and slowly expanded across the globe.

The race kit was collected at eCurve, Mutiara Damansara the week before. Needless to say, they were pretty cool. The white t-shirt was a soft cotton fabric, unlike most of the other t-shirts I own. There were a few other things too, including a goodie bag and a headband with the words “THE COLOR RUN” printed in bright yellow.

Race kit – a white t-shirt for colors to be thrown at and a goodie bag containing facial products, sticker tattoos, and a headband.

On the event day, I got up at 5:40 a.m. and made my way (with my uncle) to the designated location. The sky was still dark, and the roads were exceptionally empty. Without the usual heavy traffic present during the day, it took a short 30 minutes to get there.

Upon arriving the field (Padang Merbok means Merbok Field, so the event was set up on a field), we were astonished to see the wave of people in identical white t-shirts. There were at least 500 people warming up, lead by the event hosts who were already onstage with two unicorns dancing about.

Took a bite of a giant doughnut before the run.

After a few stretches here and there, we were lead into a pathway towards the starting line like a massive herd of sheep plus we were all wearing white, so we were all human sheep. There were at least three drones flying high up above our heads, recording the whole thing.

Participants were released in waves, each one starting off with a sprinkle of color over their heads. We were the lucky enough to be at the second wave, which started a little after 7:15 a.m. Participants who started later had to run under the eight to nine o’clock sun.

It was a cool and lovely run, thanks to the ample shade the tall trees provided for us. It was like running in a forest. At first, we thought there would be color stations every kilometre, which should add up to five stations. To our surprise, the distance between the first station and the second was less than a kilometre, probably as short as 500 metres.

The first station threw yellow, green, and purple at us. I was lucky my aunt advised us to bring a scarf or a cloth to cover our faces while running through the stations beforehand. The colors were made of powder, in which the event crew threw fist-full of colored powder at us. Since they were made of powder, it caused irritation to the eyes and the mouth. There were a few times where we ran past families, their young children complaining of the powder in their eyes or their color powdered shoes.

After running blindly through stations of blue, orange, neon green, and red, we reached the finish line at 8:30 a.m., our clothes and hair stained with color. At the finishing line, we were given a packet of colored powder each, including a bottle of water and a can of energy drink.

Thoroughly stained with color.

Nashata Sweatpants splattered with paint.

My uncle’s red mane after the run.

Overall, it was a fantastic event. Though it wasn’t your typical run-and-go marathon, it was definitely a fun run. Not recommended for children 10 and below because they may not be able to handle the irritation. If you’re in Rhode Island or Portland (and many more places in the United States and around the world), you still have a chance to participate in the fun. Who knows, maybe you’ll join the run next year.

– Nukey

Throw Them Off With Taekwondo

Tired of feeling weak and helpless? Scared of walking home alone? Is there someone you want to tell off but don’t know how?

No need to fear, martial arts is here!

There’s karate, judo, aikido, taekwondo, boxing, wushu, and a whole lot more you can learn about just by a click of your mouse. But simply learning from a book or a website and playing it out a couple times won’t cut it. You have to get up and train for at least half an hour per week. After all, self-defense is a skill. And skills are not perfected in a blink of an eye, but by sheer sweat and determined practice.

Self-defense does not just ward off unwanted creepers, but could also potentially save your life. Places like Texas, where women are being targeted and attacked, strongly encourage Muslims to take up self-defense and learn how to protect themselves. With the current Islamophobia and hate against Muslims, it is essential that you, as a Muslim woman (especially if you wear hijab), know how to fend for yourself when encountered by any sort of threat – big or small.

In some middle eastern countries like Jordan, harassment is not uncommon. Despite women covering themselves modestly and wearing hijabs and headscarves, they are still targeted and attacked without hesitation. According to islam.ru, an islamic information portal based in Russia, some women in England are even attacked by muggers taking the pins off their hijab and stabbing their heads with it. So as we can see from here, how we dress is not the issue. It’s how we protect ourselves and how we deal with the ambiguous jaws of the world.

Among all self-defense techniques and martial arts, let’s zoom into one particular art: Taekwondo.

Kick as high as the sky. Reference: Edward Lim, (2016), Wallace Lai Yen Theng [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10210164033279633&set=pb.1302833662.-2207520000.1499930670.&type=3&theater [Accessed 13 July 2017].

Kick high to the sky.
Reference: Edward Lim, (2016), Wallace Lai Yen Theng [ONLINE]. [Accessed 13 July 2017].

Taekwondo, as the name distinctly provides, is a Korean martial art. The word can be broken down into three: “tae”, “kwon”, and “do”. The definition of “tae” is foot, “kwon” is hand, and “do” is art. It generally can be broken down into two categories: poomsae, and sparring. Poomsae is a series of moves – both defense and attack – put together in one. On the other hand, sparring is your typical two-minute fight on the training mat.

This martial art consists of many moves and techniques. The few basic ones are kicks, blocks, and strikes.

Here are a few examples:

The basic kick in Taekwondo: front kick.

 

Basic blocks and strikes: punch, higher-section block, lower-section block, inner block, outer block, ridge hand strike, and knife hand strike.

Sparring technique: Chopping kick.

 

There are some centres available in Malaysia:

Other places to learn self-defense around the world:

Don’t be afraid because you are small and frail or physically unfit. With determination, comes great results. Remember: we are not inferior to men, but a sole equal. And sometimes, we may be even better.

– Nukey

Taking Care of Your Health as a Student

There are two kinds of people who graduate high school: the ones who tear up, and the ones who whoop for joy. Typically, majority of students would be excited to break free from their parents’ clutches, and live their life in college. With no parent supervision and lenient school rules, college freshmen are free do what they like. This newfound freedom includes freedom of activity, spending, and of course, eating. From partying with friends to binge-eating potato chips while watching TV shows till late hours, college life can generally be labeled as unhealthy.

Now, we all have been in that situation where we wanted a scoop from that colorful-looking ice cream truck but our parents didn’t allow it. Well guess what? Now you can eat all the ice cream you want. Throwing a pizza party at 3 a.m., having a sushi fest at the nearest Japanese restaurant, challenging your friends on who can stuff the most dumplings into their mouths like Po the Panda, it’s all possible.

It’s common for college students to go ahead with their shenanigans at night since classes are usually held during the day (or if they decided to be nocturnal animals and sleep the whole day). Therefore, more food is consumed at night when they should be eaten during the day, resulting to hormone imbalances in the body. For those who stay up late at night completing assignments and only manage to catch three to four hours of sleep, grumpiness would be your new common trait. In addition to that, due to sleep deprivation, you would eat more. Of course, when we’re in a bad mood and terribly grumpy, healthy and nutritional food is out of the question. Instead, you would turn to junk food, or any unhealthy food for that matter.

But what about after that?

As we all know, overconsumption of food would leave us feeling bloated, tired, and sleepy. Since most of your time is spent on going to classes, studying, hanging out with friends, and eating, when do you have time to burn off all those calories you stuffed into your body? Eventually, you would notice that your favourite shirt feels a little tighter, you can’t seem to fit in your jeans anymore, and- Is that a double chin?

Soon enough, people who enter college as skinny sticks come home for semester break as plump pumpkins. You would dread going to family gatherings because you know that one of your aunts would most definitely pinch your cheeks and say: “My, look how fat you’ve become!” Going out with old friends might be a problem because you’re self-conscious of your body image and afraid that they might comment on it. Younger siblings and cousins would start hugging you because you’ve become a walking marshmallow. Really, how could you let this happen?

To prevent this and stay the healthy beauty that you are, here’s what you can do to avoid Fairy Godmother (A.K.A. food) from turning you into a pumpkin:

  1. Drink lots of water

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Constantly hydrate yourself. Don’t worry if you keep going to the toilet, flushing out all the waste in your body is more important. When you feel like grabbing a snack, drink a glass of water. This way, you would feel full and think twice about that snack you were planning to eat.

  1. Reduce sweet / high in calorie drinks

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Stay away from sodas or any of those chocolate ice cream milkshakes you usually have at your favourite cafe. When buying drinks other than good ol’ water, check the packaging of the drink to see how many calories it contains. If it is a drink served at a restaurant, try googling the amount of calories it contains. If there is no information on how many calories that drink on the menu is, try deducing what the drink is made of and roughly estimate the number of calories the drink contains from there.

  1. Try cooking

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Classes, assignments, tests, club meetings, events, yes, you’re booked for the week. The same goes to next week. And the week after that. You just don’t have the time to buy meat, vegetables, spices, seasoning, or rice to cook up a decent meal like the countless ones you had when you were living under your parents’ roof. Though turning to restaurants, cheap stores near campus, or takeaways (“tapau”) seem like the fastest and easiest way to fill up your hungry belly, it is certainly not good for your health in the long run. According to the University of Sheffield, eating fast food, takeaways, and convenience food are few of the key factors why college students gain weight. What you can try is get some friends and allow each of them (including yourself) to cook something. Then, you and your friends can share the homemade food together without emptying your wallet to buy all the items needed to cook a whole meal all by yourself.

  1. Exercise

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With academics and social life taking over, exercise is the last thing on our minds. Judging on how much a college student eats per day, exercise is crucial to at least maintain their weight. If getting out of that comfortable chair of yours is the hardest thing you would have to ever do in your life, invite some friends to exercise with you. Like studying, your exercise buddy should be someone who would push you and advise you throughout your workout. So, that certain couch potato you might have thought of inviting is probably not be the best idea. Exercising for at least half an hour, three times a day, should be enough to prevent you from gaining a big belly. For those whose college or university provide facilities such as basketball courts, swimming pools, squash courts, gyms, or ample space for a good run, please do take advantage of them.

Well, so far, this is what you can do to prevent weight gain during your college / university life. Hopefully, this helped you to be inspired and healthy.

– Nukey