Let's all say goodbye to Beijing for 16 splendid days of amazing competition!
I'm glad they managed to hold the Olympics without any major problems, and I must say they blew away all my expectations concerning how they would host the games. I was very worried that there would be blemishes here and there, but the organisation of the games just looks perfect. The venues were all amazing, in particular the Water Cube. I have to say that that building is a work of art. It is a beautiful piece of architecture that just evokes alot of feeling and emotion in me... Something about it just spells unspeakable beauty, more so than the Bird's Nest National Stadium. But yes, the games were very well organised and it really had a great impact on the city because Beijing looks so much greener, cleaner and friendlier a place right now. We really are seeing a side of the Chinese that we have never seen before: that of a people that's gracious, friendly and always smiling. These games really have brought the world and China closer, and hopefully it'll usher in an era of greater co-operation and mutual understanding.
There were many moments in these games that I absolutely enjoyed. The amazing opening ceremony that stunned the world was definitely one of them. It was well choreographed and perfectly executed and showcased that wonders that China could bring to the world. Michael Phelps and his 8 Golds. It was just amazing, watching him win every single Gold medal and achieve history. This man is one of my greatest sporting idols and I'm so honored to have been alive to witness history being made. The Singapore table tennis girls and their long awaited Silver medal. Thank you so much for achieving something that the nation has been waiting for a long long time. Usain Bolt and his 3 sprinting Golds. He may be a show-off, but he deserves every right because he IS the fastest man alive. Chris Hoy and his 3 cycling Golds. The most successful British athlete from these games. I'm very happy with the amazing performance of the British team! 19 Golds! Definitely their best performance at an Olympic games in recent times! Yelena Isinbayeva from Russia, the Queen of the Pole Vault. I'll never forget how she made a whole stadium of spectators wait just so that she could attempt to break her world record... which she did. Matthew Mitcham from Australia, who did an amazing last dive to snatch the last diving Gold from China and prevent the Chinese from sweeping the diving medals. And many other moments that I just can't list out right now....
There were, of course, moments of controversy and heartache. Liu Xiang's shocking pull out from his race broke the hearts of 1.3 billion people, and to watch this former champion do so was just... horrifying. Cuba's Angel Valodia Matos, a former Olympic champion in Taekwondo who kicked the referee's face after being ruled to have lost the game and thus earning a life long ban from his sport, effectively putting an end to his career. All these showcase the fact that the Olympics really does bring out the best and the worst in people. You see the heroic sides of these amazing champions, but you also witness the horrible sides of some of the fallen heroes as well.
The next few days will be particularly depressing, considering that there won't be anymore Olympics action to look forward to anymore. How unfortunate because I'll be having my one week break now before I start my Surgery posting and I would have all the time in the world to watch some Olympics action. But oh well, my EOPT (WHICH WAS A TOTAL DISASTER!) marked the end of both my Medicine posting and the Olympics, so I won't have a chance to properly enjoy the Olympics. Talk about bad timing, but that is just life.
And so, we'll see the Olympics again when it reaches London in 2012. It'll be a different feeling altogether, a totally different kind of games. Beijing had splendor and extravagance, but I think London would focus instead on celebrating youth and vitality. Both are two of my favourite cities in the world, and I'm just happy to know that both are hosts for back to back Olympics.
And so its goodbye Beijing! I enjoyed every minute of what you had to offer! And now its hello London! See you in 2012! I can hardly wait! =)
And so, tomorrow's the start of my dreaded End-of-Medicine-Posting test. Tomorrow's going to be just part 1. Part 2 (probably the more stressful and terrifying component) is going to be on Saturday. After the past 9 weeks of struggling to learn something during postings, I've finally come down to the point where I'm going to find out whether I've succeeded in learning enough to past the first big test of the Clinical years. Unfortunately, my first test has to be one of the biggest tests of all.
If you thing about it, the EOPT is something like an Olympic event. We slog so hard, put in so much effort, doing the same Physical exams over and over again, reading the same topic over and over again, thinking about the same problems over and over again... all for the 2 days of assessment, 2 days where every little thing matters. The examiners (or judges) aren't going to look at what you had achieved over the past few months, they are going to look at what you are going to write and do in the next two days. So yeah, its like the Olympics. You train your ass off for the past 4 years just to qualify for an event and when the time comes for you to perform on the world's biggest sporting stage, you either rise magnificently to the occasion, or you fall, face flat without a shred of dignity.
Your tutors can teach you that much. Your coaches can advise you that much. But ultimately, it comes down entirely to your own ability to handle the pressure, to think straight, to perform everything according to the way you have been practicing. There will be mistakes and there will be surprises, but if you have the mentality of a champion, you can face these minor hiccups, carry out damage control and convert them into lifesavers that would save the whole routine. You may not win Gold, but what matters is that you don't give up, you don't break down under pressure and you participate in one of the greatest shows in your life.
How fitting that the Olympics come to an end, just when my own medical posting comes to a close. So yeah, the end of EOPT coincides nicely with the Closing Ceremony of the Olympics. What a nice way to wrap things up.
And so it is. History has been rewritten, and Michael Phelps has beaten Mark Spitz 36-year record of winning the most Gold medals in a single Olympic Games. I know that everyone's been talking about how amazing this man has been, but I just have to say it again - this guy is phenomenal.
I've been a fan of Phelps ever since he first made waves at the Athens 2004 games where we all know he was also up for 8 medals then and he took home 6 Golds, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze then. And now look what he has achieved 4 years down the road. 8 freaking gold medals. Imagine what the reaction back home if Singapore had managed to achieve that.
This is one of the reasons that I love the Olympics. I love it when other people succeed it things that I will never be able to do and achieve. The rise of these sporting legends are just so touching and fascinating to watch. You see them rise, and sometimes, you see them fall. But the way they work towards getting their goals, the way they force themselves to step up and get onto the podium is just inspiring. It takes so much guts, mental strength, perseverance to achieve such things, which are elements that I probably will never have. I wish I could have just a tiny fraction of the attributes that these greats possess.
Now that he has broken Mark Spitz record, there will always be debates about Michael Phelps and whether he can truly be considered the greatest Olympian of all time. I think its silly to have such a title, because ALL Olympians are great. You can never equate their achievements because what they have achieve individually is already an awe-inspiring achievement. Michael Phelps is a great Olympian, one of many great and legendary Olympians whose amazing feats will be remember forever in the history books. But he certainly is the greatest Olympian in these Beijing Olympics, and I salute him for being that.
Watching this scene on the television made me tear. =)
And, after three and a half nail-biting hours, the nation ends its 48 year long Olympic medal drought. Incredibly, this is going to be our first medal since independence. What a long wait it's been.
The 3 women must have had tons of pressure on their shoulders, and throughout the match, it seemed as if the pressure was going to break them. There were so many instances when it looked as if they were going to, once again, flounder under the immense pressure, but in the end, it took the amazing composure and pluckiness of 21 year old Feng Tian Wei to finally seal the victory for Singapore.
I wonder if the spectators at the Olympic table tennis stadium knew how much this medal means to the nation. I'm sure that most of the spectators are from countries who have had plenty of other medals won before... And for the Koreans, it just means that they have one less Gold or Silver to add to their multi-medal collection. But to the country of Singapore, it means EVERYTHING. The kind of euphoria felt after winning at least a Silver seems to be so much more than the euphoria some feel after winning a Gold. I mean, a Singaporean athlete has to win just a single gold to get a million dollars, whereas Micheal Phelps has to win 8 gold medals to get his own million... The numbers are seriously off. Its kind of funny really, and sort of shows how desperate we are to have something to show the world that we are really serious in becoming a sporting nation. Nonetheless, they finally did it. We can stop emphasizing the fact that we had only won an Olympic medal once before.
Let's hope that this is the start of many more future Olympic medals to come. =)
I'm damn excited about it! I've just spent the whole of the last day or so camped with my books in front of the television, watching event after event. Starhub has an amazing coverage of the games, with a total of 6 different free channels just dedicated to showcasing different types of sporting disciplines that are being held at the same time, and with such an extensive coverage, its hard not to be distracted by all the amazing sporting action. Which is not good because I really should be studying for my up and coming end-of-posting-test... and doing the loads of reading up that I have to do for Internal Medicine. But the Olympics comes once every four years and it'll be awful to miss it.
I must say that the Opening ceremony was spectacular! I was watching it with my parents and we all agreed that China has outdone itself. I never thought that they had the technology and capabilities to pull off such a fantastic show because it had all the elements of a high tech visual wonder that it didn't resemble any of the previous old-fashioned, highly unpolished presentations of old time China. In fact, after watching the Opening ceremony of the Games, I found it excruciatingly painful to sit through this year's National Day Parade. Our NDP looked like some school production compared to the amazing ceremony put up by the Chinese. Quite sad considering that we've been doing this for 43 years now and we should be experts in putting on such big and fanciful shows. But oh well. I suppose China has the numbers to put on a more stunning performance. I hope the opening ceremony of the Youth Olympics would be something of better caliber than NDP though...
I wish I didn't have school. Then I'll stay home for the next two weeks and watch the Olympics all day! But the games sure are looking good and so far, China looks like its doing a good job hosting it. Which is quite a surprise really, but I hope they keep it up to prove the massive hordes of detractors wrong.
Oh and on a totally random note, this is my 300th post on this blog address!
Its been a long time since the last entry and so much interesting things have gone by. School's back in and the work load's starting to build up. Yup, its only week 1 and we have a rough sketch of the amount of work we have to do for the term and its not very smile inducing. Haha.
I think I have lots of things to say here, but somehow or another, I'm not really processing them right now. My thoughts are a little bit of here and a little bit of there and its not really very coherently planned out or mapped out. I am not sad, angry, or depressed at anything, but then again, life isn't particularly great either. I guess the life that I'm living right now is one that's just ordinary: ordinarily hectic and ordinarily bland, so much so that I don't really have any particularly strong feelings about the way things are. Perhaps an absence of strong feelings is a sign that all's well and life is good. Or maybe its just a sign that I've grown tired of feeling unhappy and complaining of the way life progresses.
So enough of my thoughts and feelings. Let's talk about Sports. Euro '08 finals is gonna feature Germany and Spain. I am personally supporting Spain because I've seen a couple of their matches and all I can say is that the way they are playing right now is just phenomenal. Germany is a good team and I do know of a couple of friends who are supporting them, but this time round, I'm putting my support behind Spain. They've played well throughout the tournament and deserves the title. Let's hope they pull it off with a final victory on Sunday.
Next up, Wimbledon. Lots of the top seeds are being kicked out of the tournament man. In the men's draw, we have Djokovic, Davydenko, David Ferrer, Andy Roddick (just to name a few) who have been kicked out of the tournament. In the women's draw, we have Ivanovic and Sharapova who are now out of the tournament as well. Its a pity Nadal didn't get kicked out as well, but oh well, the tournament's sure getting exciting because lots of big names are falling out and it looks like the tournament's becoming anybody's game right now. Sure makes things interesting to watch.
I've suddenly ran out of things to say. I think I'll stop here right now. Going off to Jinrong's high tea 21st celebration soon anyway, so yeah. I'll just stop here.
So the annual French Open at Roland Garros has reached its final leg, with the Woman's singles finals being played last night. Of course, we all know that Ana Ivanovic won this year's French Open. Well, this year seems to be the year of the rising Serb super stars, with Novak Djokovic winning the Australian Open and Ivanovic now winning the French Open. What is up with the air in Serbia? Something must be in the air and water there for producing tennis stars.
I didn't watch the Women's finals last night because of the fact that Justine Henin isn't playing in it, so as a mark of respect to my favourite female tennis player, I decided to boycott the match! (Haha!) As we all know, Justine retired from the professional Tennis circuit just 3 weeks ago, prior to the actual commencement of the 2008 French Open. This was quite a shocking piece of news for me, because I am a fan of Justine Henin. In case you guys don't know, she shares the SAME BIRTHDAY as me. (Gosh, I'm really proud of that fact!) But anyway, I love Justine Henin's feisty attitude and fierceness on the court. Sure she doesn't have the grace of Ivanovic or the class of Sharapova, but I still think that her steady-as-a-rock approach to tennis is still the more solid way to go in tennis. She will be sorely missed and I think it'll take some time for me to find a new idol in female tennis.
Tonight, Roger Federer will take on Rafael Nadal. Sigh. As much as I adore Federer, Nadal is THE giant to beat on Clay. Roland Garros is his realm. Just like how Federer rules Wimbledon, Nadal rules Roland Garros. And Federer hasn't had a good start to the year, his fitness isn't as good as he once was, his age seem to be catching up with him, and he no longer seems to be the invincible machine that he once terrorized the tennis world. I think it'll be a tough match and Nadal will ultimately come up tops. If Federer manages to beat Nadal, then by god, it will be a wonderful miracle. Maybe I'll watch the match and hope for a miracle to occur. (It'll be more entertaining that Euro '08 anyway!)
Update @ 2325hr: Alas! It was not to be! When will Roger Federer ever win the French Open? Sigh.
Federer didn't play well at all. I think the Infectious Mononucleosis that he suffered early in the year really got him good. I hope he regains his form man, I mean, he still has his skills and all, but he has to get his fitness up or else it would be quite likely that he wouldn't win any Grand Slams this year and could even lose his world number one spot to Nadal. (And honestly, that would be DISASTROUS!)
On the other hand, Nadal is horrible to beat on Clay. I think Clay suits his playing style, which is to dig deep and hit back hard. He really is like a solid wall that won't budge. I have no idea how to actually defeat him. He is not an easy opponent to beat on clay and Federer had better improve if he wants to ever beat him at Roland Garros. And if he doesn't improve, Nadal could even win him in Wimbledon, which again, would be extremely disastrous! I just hope Djokovic kills off Nadal someday, and maybe Federer will have an easier time winning in the Grand Slams (that is of course, assuming Federer is still fit enough to beat Djokovic!)
Nonetheless, Federer's still number one, and he is still my favourite tennis star. A defeat today does not mean a defeat tomorrow. Let's hope he picks up from here and gets the Federer express back on track to winning those Grand Slams and destroying those records!
No no no, its not the HORRIBLE song by Taiwanese boyband 5566, but a nicer song that features multiple artistes. I think its one of the songs in the running to be the official theme for the Beijing Olympics and its called "北京欢迎你". I actually think its quite a nice song. It has a tune that's super easy to remember, (although it gets boring towards the end because the tune basically repeats itself for over 7 minutes), the fact that many of my favourite singers performed it makes me like the song even more. I mean there's Yanzi, there's Leehom, there's Eason Chen, there's Karen Mok, there's Gigi Leong, there's Fanfan, there's JJ Lin... So many of my favourite artistes! I especially like Yanzi's part right at the beginning. Her voice has this quality that's quite enchanting and it makes me happy. Seriously. Seriously seriously happy.
ANYWAY. I know lots of my friends in Medicine hate China. But the fact is, I don't. I've always felt that I owe my life to 3 countries: Singapore, because obviously, I was born and raised here; The UK, because I've always been educated and inculcated with the good old traditional British values and morals that originated there, and lastly China, because that's where my ancestry lies and where all that rich ethnic culture remains. I know China doesn't have a good track record and that well, she hasn't been the most perfect country to have ever existed, but then again, no country is perfect. I know that China can appear a tab bit uncouth and irritating sometimes, but then again, you have gotta give them some credit and respect for being able to advance and develop at such a rate that's really incredible for their size. Sure Singapore managed to do it, but I assure you, its easier to develop a small island nation than a huge landmass like China. Its not as if the Chinese don't have the capabilities to refine their act, its just that they have been so busy playing catch up with the rest of the world that they have had no time to inject the necessary refinement at all. So the end product is this huge prospering nation, who has just began to embrace the wealth and power that capitalism and industrialization brings, but has absolutely no idea how to package and turn themselves into something more classy like the Europeans or trend setting like the Americans. And thus, we get the rather unrefined Chinese running around, irking everyone with their rather non polite ways.
I think its best that we give China time to develop into something that's more refined, more civilized. Give it time to open up, to liberate itself, to refine itself, to turn itself into a 1st class act. That's the only way China will grow and eventually 'get there.'
I am not here to support China and its supposed lack of human rights. I am not here to comment on whether Tibet should be free or not. I just think that such business is something that is entirely China's own business and should not be linked to the Olympics. The Olympics should never have been dragged into this muddy quagmire of internation politics. Sure, we've seen previous incidents where the sanctity of the Olympic flame has been abused by political activists and players to further their respective goals. We've seen Hitler using his Berlin Olympics as an attempt to showcase Aryan supremacy. We've seen Soviet and US led boycotts in Games held during the Cold War. We've seen Islamic terrorists killing Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. So yeah, shouldn't it be time that we STOP using the Olympics as a tool for politics?
I think its very sad and disappointing, despicable even that activists all around the world have decided to raise the Tibetan issue now, just when China is about to do something that she is immensely proud of, something that she feels will make her part of the world. Like what our PM said, the Beijing Olympics IS China's big coming out party. And we are spoiling it by making all these noises and squeaks and suggesting that nations boycott the Beijing Olympics. Why now? Why now when you know the Chinese government cannot do anything drastic to tarnish her image just as she prepares to host the biggest sporting event in the world, an event which preaches peace and tolerance and friendship among all nations? And all that talk about boycotting, now that is a very foolish thing to do. If nations of the West DO boycott the Beijing Olympics, it'll achieve nothing but probably another generation of unhappiness and hatred between China and the World and when the Chinese finally overtake the USA as the world's superpower within the next 5 decades or so, we would all reap the punishment and hard life that we so obstinately sowed.
I've been waiting for the Beijing Olympics since 2002 when it was first announced that Beijing won the bid. I just pray, and hope, that it'll be a peaceful, trouble free, and spectacular one.
*Update* OMG, there's an EVEN NICER SONG! Apparently, this is the official song for the Olympic torch relay! Its nice and has Yanzi and Leehom in it! Woot!
This weekend's the first normal weekend that I've ever had in ages. A normal weekend without any stress, just me spending time with family, not mugging, but having fun, doing other much more constructive (and non constructive!) stuff. Be it doing house packing for the big move, to watching the finals of the Australian Open; to playing Warcraft III and shopping for tiles for the new house; to eating McDonald's and sorting old photographs. This weekend has been wonderfully, mind-bogglingly normal. And I hope it could last forever.
But it won't.
Here's to the hope that whatever normalcy that still exists in me, doesn't become extinct.
And so South Africa wins the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Poor England, I know they weren't the favourites to win, but they are England, and anything English occupies a special place in my heart. I've always been an Anglophile and I guess that's not going to change really. I watched the finals - it was quite exciting, but also quite boring as well. The only attempt at a try was unfortunately, disqualified by the referee, which was a real pity because England scored it, and if it were allowed to stand, the victors would most likely have been England instead. And the whole nation would be celebrating their second consecutive World Cup win right now.
I think England played remarkably well - at least in comparison to their rather lack lustre World Cup campaign; they were attacking much more regularly and skillfully than before. Its just that the South African defence was too strong, and the Springboks managed to convert all the penalties, which mattered, because in a game without a single try (a first in a World Cup final at that!), every penalty converted counts. So kudos to them. Even though I'm a fervent supporter of England, I have nothing against South Africa winning, because they deserved it. They were the better of the two teams that played last night, and in every game, someone has to lose. And at least England lost to South Africa, a former dominion and a member of the Commonwealth. I think its always better to lose to someone in the extended family, rather than losing to some other country like say France! Gosh, how terrible that would have been! So yeah, congratulations South Africa! And to England, better luck next time! You did the best you could and no one can fault you for that.
Its interesting to note that while I love watching Sports programmes, I absolutely hate to work out. I think this needs to stop. I'm too lazy for my own good, and if I don't make an attempt to get my anorexic body into a survivable stage, I might actually die before I'm 25. Which is not really a good thing because I wouldn't have managed to do lots of the things I wanna achieve by then. So yeah, I need to start working out. But procrastination is my middle name, and I guess we'll just have to see when it chooses to take a back seat and surprise surprise, allow me to start jogging or cycling or swimming or something.
It was a nail biting, nerve wrecking race to the finish. But in the end, history was made. Roger Federer wins his 5th consecutive Wimbledon title, becoming the first man to do so since Bjorn Borg in 1980.
I have never watched such an exciting tennis final in my life. It was a real roller coaster ride, with each player making spectacular attacks and saves. Control of the match, just kept swinging from player to player - from Feddy to Nadal, back to Feddy and then to Nadal again, before Federer managed to make use of Nadal's mistakes in the final set to clinch an awe inspiring victory. But I've got to admit, Federer didn't play his best game in the finals; Nadal looked to be in better spirits and shape, and I sincerely thought that Feddy might not win the match. But thank God that, in the end, Feddy managed to pull through.
I've never been that riled up over a sports match for quite some time now, (since perhaps the World Cup). During the last set, I was screaming 'YES YES YES!' and 'GO FEDDY!' so loudly that my mom had to come down to tell me to shut up and that it was 0100 in the morning and that people were actually sleeping. But once Feddy broke Nadal's serve to pull through with an advantage of 4-2, I knew that Feddy was safe and really gunning for the victory here, and so I couldn't stop yelling in excitement. And when he scored a series of perfect aces to pull the lead forward 5-2, I was even more fanatical. From then on, it was merely a matter of who had the ability to calm his nerves: Nadal lost his and kept making lots of mistakes, eventually giving Federer two Championship points, before Feddy manage to convert the 2nd with a winning crosscourt smack that was just, amazing.
Here's a video of the winning shot:
What can I say? Fantastic. It was an amazing final moment - he leap up, took a split second to take careful aim and lobbed the ball down into the court. And when the ball finally hit the ground, his feet touched down and he just collapsed into a heap of emotions - all the pressure, all the expectation, all the joy and happiness, all the emotional and physical turmoil over the past 3 and a half hours just seeping through. So incredibly touching and such amazing poetry really. And then he just lay there, hands over his eyes, and just sobbed. Sobbed and sobbed. Although I don't play an awful lot of sports, I do love watching major sporting event and I do have my fair share of sporting idols. Its one thing to see one of your sporting idols win a championship or a title, its another to see them express such intense emotions upon clinching it. Its a scene that never fails to touch my heart, that these Giants in their respective fields still feel the same way as we do when we do well in something that we have put in so much effort to achieve. All the blood, sweat, tears. I guess it just serves to establish a greater connection with these amazing heroes - that its something we all can relate to. And probably something that reminds us that whatever athletic prowess they possess, these sporting legends are still, ultimately people like us, with real emotions and all.
5th time's a charm. Well done Feddy! I dunno if he can make it 6 in row next year (Nadal was really good this year) but whether or not he does achieve it, he has already booked a place for himself in tennis history. Let's just concentrate on getting a French Open and achieving a Grand slam, or equaling Pete Sampras' record of 14 Grand slam victories. But for now, I think its enough to just bask in the glory of his 5th Wimbledon victory. =)
Okay, today's Earth Day! I hope you guys wore green (like I did!) to show your support for the call to prevent global warming! Anyway Live Earth is currently on, but don't think I'm gonna watch it. Too long a concert, and it'll probably bore me to sleep.
I'm gonna update about the week I had. Apart from Transformers (which was a big highlight of my week!) I did other things as well.
Monday and Tuesday was spent mainly at my Anatomy group's sleep-over at Huipei's Dad's place at Emerald Green. Its a nice little shop-house apartment thingy that her Dad's renting out, so we took the opportunity to camp there before its being occupied. We played quite alot of games, like Mahjong, Poker, Bridge and some character analysis game that Huipei brought. We also went drinking at Balcony - I must say that the anti-smoking legislation is probably one of the best things to ever happen to Singapore - pubs and bars and clubs are so smoke free now, making it all so bearable. The rest of the lot slept quite early on Monday, but Huipei, Gerard and me managed to stay up til like 5, watching 'Mind Your Language' on Gerard's laptop. It was hilarious, good old British comedy that's very very cheeky. Unfortunately, I basically died when I tried to sleep after that - it was so darn cold, I ended up going out of the room to sleep. I was pretty knocked out for the rest of the morning. I only woke up at around 11 when the rest of the guys bought McDonalds back.
After that, it was a whole afternoon of Poker, while we waited for Yusrina to arrive. I had really rotten luck that day, lost all my money! Peishan kept winning and winning, eventually, the guys named her as Martha Steward, and starting concentrating our efforts to destroy her wealth. It only worked when Gerard kicked her Coffee over the floor, and when Zhiyong came back from lunch to erm, void. After that, she started losing money due to the apparent change in Feng Shui, and Zhenwei and Matthew managed to acquire some wealth to significantly challenge her position. In the end, we managed to take away quite alot of her wealth, but Yusrina's arrival brought back some of the luck for Peishan, and she managed to stay in the game. So in the end, we decided to have a show hand round, a winner take all challenge. It was really quite exciting - all of us thought that Zhenwei managed to trounce Peishan because he had a bigger Ace or something, but then, Yus suddenly announced that she had two pairs and all of us fell into a shocked silence - Yusrina, the newcomer to the game, had just won all our money! The horror!
After that, we went to Taka for some late lunch/early dinner. Then we decided to call it a day cause all of us were really quite shagged.
On Friday night, my brother and cousin organised a supper gathering at Pasir Panjang food centre to eat at my family's favourite seafood place. There are two things that I would only do when either my brother or cousin is back - supper and sports. Last Saturday, it was to eat Bak Chor Mee at Bedok. On Friday, it was to eat assorted seafood like cockles, mussels, dogshells, barbecue stingray, barbecue squid etc. So my family, along with my other cousins and uncles and aunts, went down to Pasir Panjang and ate lots of seafood. I love the dogshells and the barbecue squid! But I think I had too much fresh bloody cockles that day - I was living in mortal fear that I would get Hepatitis or something. But it was nice chatting with my cousins over a nice meal. It was also the first time in ages that my family actually had a happy mealtime together - I guess, with the whole business of the house FINALLY settled, we can finally stop quarreling and bickering for awhile.
Today, I went bowling at Raffles Town Club, again, something initiated by my brother. I went with him to bowl with my Aunt and three of our younger cousins. One of them is in her school's bowling team, so she sorta challenged my brother to a tournament. I guess I was just there to play a supporting row - after all, my skills in sports are quite non-existent so I guess I'm there more for the leisure of it really. But bowling's fun! Its one of the few sports that I actually have an interest in and there's something therapeutic about flinging the ball at pins with the intent of knocking them all off.
One of my cousins is really very very amusing. She bowls by actually throwing the bowl onto the lane, and needless to say that the ball always enters the drain. She's so adorable really. She's the one who is quite earnest in pronouncing words, but has a weird ability in turning the words into really really strange sounding forms. For example, she pronounces 'Spongebob Squarepants' as 'SpongeBOOB Squarepants', and when my cousin (Astee) and I first heard it, we couldn't stop laughing. But she didn't know what was wrong with it, and just kept calling him 'SpongeBOOB'. I tried to tell her the difference between Spongebob and Spongeboob, but decided to not tell her what Spongeboob really entails, lest her 8 year old mind gets tainted. Its quite hard to find 8 year old as innocent as her these days, so really, lets not ruin her.
Been watching the Wimbledon championships on TV these days. The Ladies finals was just over and Venus Williams won this year's Grand Slam. It was quite an unexpected victory because I thought World No.1 Justine Henin had a chance in winning it, but she unexpectedly got kicked out of the Semis by some French upstart called Marion Bartoli, who is honestly, quite fat. And the two most beautiful tennis players - Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic (I've got to admit, she is stunning! Gerard has got high class taste!) got kicked out as well, Maria in the earlier rounds and Ana by Venus in the Semis. So it was a Venus versus Bartoli final. Not quite surprised that Venus won - she's been playing marvelously this season.
The Men's semis are now underway. I'm a Roger Federer fan, so I hope he gets into the finals and eventually wins the trophy. He is such a master class player and is such an all rounded one. He has a kind of flair, a kind of gentlemanly air to him when he plays tennis, which I think, is what tennis is all about. Tennis is such a gentlemanly, civilized game, and its really like watching a nicely produced drama. But anyway, I hope Federer (world no.1) wins his semis against Richard Gasquet, while Novak Djokovic (world no.4) defeats Rafael Nadal (world no.2). I don't like Nadal, he reminds me of a troll. No offence, but I think he is a player that tends to rely on brute strength. And I think I've become a new fan of Djokovic, who's quite an all rounded player, just that he's still quite new and inexperienced. Plus he has shown lots of grit and determination to fight his way into the semis, which was very very impressive. So really. I don't think Djokovic can defeat Nadal, but if he does, then its better for Federer, cause I think ultimately, it'll be much easier for Federer to face Djokovic then Nadal in the finals. Oh well. But tennis is a very fractional and unpredictable game. Lets just see how everything goes. I should quickly finish this entry now and rush down to follow the game!
UPDATE: The semis just ended and its going to be a Federer/Nadal Final. Djokovic had to retire and concede the semi due to injury. I think its going to be a titanic battle and I can hardly wait! I hope I'll be able to catch it though, I've got to be at my Granddad's for dinner tomorrow and I'm quite certain that they don't have SCV...
Name: voldemort33
XY, 01/06/1987, s'porean typical geminian free-thinker moody & eccentric thinks far too much for his own good med student (be afraid. be very afraid!) demon45_6f@hotmail.com
crazy craves
music (jazz, rock and lounge) day-dreaming drawing & photography animals (sheep!) chocolate and tea! seafood, noodles and soup!
pet peeves
noisy crowds over-possessive, insecure, whiny people two-faced hypocrites housework and homework being called 'rich' rushing to do stuff crying, pesky kids
deepest darkest desires! (aka wishlist!)
to be a doctor (with a heart of gold!) a dog my own condo apartment a driving license and my own four wheel drive my own comic line someone to hug
