A friend of mine said this to me the other day, “You are the most busy non-working guy I know.”

I chuckled at the truth in his statement. I typically start my day around 9:30, 10, and normally call it a night at 2am.

I think I worked 50% less when I was working.

One Month Consultancy
For a month I was a consultant at a home grown interactive agency called Integricity. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as much a shock to the system as I had anticipated. In fact I was reminded of how much I loved doing what I was doing before. That when I left that life behind, it wasn’t because I was completely unhappy. I was merely answering that silent knowing that there was something greater I first had to accomplish, something outside the realm of advertising.

New Facebook Page
I’ve been asked a few times why I abandoned my old Facebook fan page for a new one. Believe me, it was a hard decision to make, and costs me the fans that were already following that page.

The problem with the old page was that it was set up some time ago as a community page, which naturally defaulted visitors to ‘The Wall’ (long distance runners cringe at the word). What I wanted was for people to land on a specially prepared page with information on the book.

Facebook users who set up their pages today can change their categorisations, but not those who had set up their page a long time back. To not be dinosaured into Facebook’s old system, I took that leap. And from that we’ve now got www.facebook.com/fueldabook

If you haven’t, please visit the page and be a fan of it. And as you read its contents, pretend that it is Obi Wan Kenobi speaking to you, and do all that it tells you.

(FYI to you developers out there. If you delete your page and try to get the same name back, you’ll never ever ever get it back, ever. To prevent name sitting, FB doesn’t allow it, and that name will be kept in a vault to which only Elvis has the combination.)

Job Hunting
Yup, been looking for a job for a few months now. Have not been getting too many calls though. With jobs being so specialised these days, I think most companies don’t know where to place my bi-polar potpourri  of skills.

StART Society
I’ve cut down on my classes at StART to limit the number of kids who will be affected should I return to full time employment. I miss them O So Dearly.

Recently, StART organised a very interesting event called the XTraMile Run. A runner, Alex Au Yong, volunteered to run 100K to raise RM100K for us. My role was to provide LIVE updates of the event. Never before had I tweeted and Facebooked as much.

55 FB Updates, 98 Tweets, 66 pics and 3 YouTube videos from a moving vehicle.

Over the 17 hours the run lasted, I think it works out to be one piece of communication every 4 minutes. Not too bad coming from a motion sick guy who gets nauseous from a half hour train ride, from one who threw up watching the shaky camera action in Bourne Supremacy.

The event was a great success and we exceeded the amount we aimed to raise.

New Book Website
The official site for when I first launched Fuel was justjezza.com, my blog site. The problem with that was no one could tell from the URL that it was a website for a book called Fuel. With www.fueldabook.com now set up, I’m now able to slap the book’s logo on anything and just include the URL, and people would know what it relates to and be able to find out more.

Fuel Running
The process of writing, publishing and promoting the book landed me neck deep in the world of running. Throughout the journey, almost every day of it actually, new word plays on the subject would appear in my head. Often I’d say to myself, “Hey, this would be great on a shirt.”

I finally got on my ass (I did it all sitting down), and jumpstarted my ideas to life.

I launched the Fuel Running line with 6 Collections. I’ve got dozens of other ideas locked away in this brain of mine, and each is calling out, “Pick me, pick me.”  My goal is to add a new collection each week… till the voices stop.

Go check out the site: www.fuelrunning.com, or be a Facebook fan, www.facebook.com/fuelrunning

What’s on the Horizon?
I really need a job. The hole in my wallet makes the one in the Ozone look like the eye of a needle. Here’s my resume: www.justjezza.com/misc/resumeJeremyChin.pdf

Feel free to pass it to anyone you think might be interested.

On the book front, I’ve yet to get my books out to the newspapers in the UK and Australia, oh, and to Running Magazines. The Star, the nation’s leading paper, promised me a review last Sunday. I nervously flipped through the papers three days back but… nothing. Copies have also shrapnelled across the United States to the 40 largest newspapers. Fingers, toes and eyes crossed on that front. If you happen to have ties with the media anywhere in the world, I hope you’ll help me get my book in.

Just a quick update from me on the book. I’ve pushed the second edition of Fuel out on Amazon. E-book versions are also available on The Kindle and The Nook. This new edition contains a number of changes that improves the story’s flow. And because I was rushing the book out for Christmas, I made a number of slipups in the First Edition. Those have been rectified.

I’ve also released a trade paperback edition on Lulu.com. This was an important move for me because I wanted affordable worldwide reach. Although Amazon considers themselves to be international, shipping is pricey. If you live outside the United States, it costs an arm and a healthy testicle. Lulu, on the other hand, from what I understand,  prints the book in the country you are ordering it from, so shipping is a lot less. With all my channels in place, I can now market the book mercilessly.

World domination aside, Fuel is also available at The Bee, my new favourite spot to write (sadly, I don’t write as much as I used to these days). I love the food there, and the music, and the overall atmosphere. An old classmate of mine runs the place, and has granted me use of the stage to promote the book. I just have to think up something good to talk about, that preferably would not scare their customers away. Actually, I’m planning on doing a book reading for the deaf one of these days. Jonah Ong, a huge proponent of the book, is a signer, and he has agreed to do this with me. Maybe, The Bee, Baybee.

Other news. Fuel got its first official review last week. It appeared in the New Straits Times. All the nail chewing have worn my teeth out.

A few weeks before the NST article, I got an unofficial review (more a vote of confidence) from an article that was written by MPH Editor, Alan Wong. This was following a book reading that I had done on my birthday at Readings in Seksan. Another welcomed surpised I had received came when an English professor, Dr Anthony Sibert, was impressed by the book and started a push to have my book incorporated into the curriculum at higher learning institues in Malaysia. Personally, I don’t think my work qualifies. But maybe the level of education really has gone down as much as people have been saying.

Oh, I got a reply from Dato Rais Yatim about my request to place Fuel in all libraries nationwide. His office has referred me on to the Director of the National Library, who will make a decision on how many copies they would like from me. I have my fingers crossed that they would want my remaining stock. The University of Missouri have also promised to stock my book, along with the National University of Singapore.

I’ll be targeting local magazines in the coming week. US magazines and newspapers the week after. The UK after that. Still haven’t figured out how to take on the running community full force.

Will be making an appearance on Feb 26 at MPH bookstore in Midvalley, where I’ll be talking about my journey as a first time author. Fuel will also be featured at the Readings from Readings book launch on Feb 25. On the writing front, I’ve not started on my second book, but have been contributing articles here and there. The latest to be published was in Bettr Magazine. Lastly, I’ve entered Fuel into the Fourth Annual Amazon Breakthrough Award Competition. Winner gets published by Penguin. One can only dream.

Many people ask if I run, especially since I’d written a book about running and all. I tell them, “Hell no. I only get the runs.”

I don’t know. Running has never appealed to me. For one, I’ve never been too good at it. Something always ends up breaking when I run. Besides breaking a sweat, I’d get shin splints, tear some ligament somewhere or get side stitches. Personally, I think I just wasn’t built for running.

Also, besides improving my fitness, I never really saw a point to the sport. But I guess the same could be said of tennis, basketball, football, badminton and golf, all of which I thoroughly enjoy.

Alternatives
If the grass in my back garden grew any longer, the VC could hide in it. So last week, I got myself a grass cutter. It took me an hour to trim the garden, and another hour to sweep and bag the severed grass. I was covered in sweat and mosquito bites by the end of it.

Today, I spent three hours lacquering the driveway with slate seal. By the time I was done, my thighs and forearms were sore. I spent a whole minute admiring the glossy driveway in the evening.

Of all forms of exercise, I’ve always found that the most fulfilling has been activity where I’d have something to show at the end of it. And that’s why I think I enjoy working with my hands so much, things like carpentry–disassembling old stuff, re-assembling them into new things, watching the sweat on my brow drip onto my craft. The best thing is that, unlike sports, you have an end product, something that isn’t merely in the form of a score.

I was thinking to myself earlier, “Wouldn’t it be great for there to be a fitness club that builds houses for people who are in need of one?” Someday… I’ll start one. Maybe.