My sporting life

Ah well, my exam is over. Time is very much on my side now, so I thought I will fill in the yawning gap that is beginning to appear on my pal's blog...

The first ever sport I picked up was badminton, in Primary 2 or 3. I was strictly of the hit-over-the-net-can-liao type, if there is a net to talk about in the first place. That was also when I found more evidence of my ambidexterity. I picked up the racket with my left hand without consideration. My interest in badminton died off in a hurry, like in half a year or so.

Because I found football and Man Utd. I started playing football like no tomorrow in Primary 3. If you have seen primary school boys play football, you will know how it is like. Someone kicks, everyone rushes after the ball. There is no formation to talk about, no tactics, no positioning.

In Primary 4, I discovered Man Utd and have been their fan since. That further fuelled my interest in football. I will turn up on the school field once I get off the school bus, during recess and during my so-called ECAs (take attendence then zao lang).

My interest in football lasted all the way till Primary 6. I can still remember vividly my last "would-be" session of football. I couldn't take part because I had to attend my maternal grandmother's funeral.

That proved to be the last time I played, or should I say "played" football. The secondary school I attended wasn't much of a football school. Strangely enough though, my interest in Man Utd did not die out. It took a definite backseat for a while, but I never once entertained the thought of stopping my support for them.

I found table-tennis in Secondary 1 to take over the vaccuum left behind by football. I very pretty much sucked at it, so it died a quick but ugly death too, like badminton did. Nonetheless, whilst the interest was still alive, I admit to having done silly things like practising on the dining table against my sis, and sometimes, against the wall.

In Secondary 2, someone introduced me to basketball. I have been glued to it since. At that time, there wasn't a basketball team in my school. We were obliged (actually, it was mandatory) to join a sport and a club for our ECAs. I had signed up for table-tennis in Secondary 1 and stuck with it going into Secondary 2. But by then, I was doing that take attendence then zao lang routine again. More often than not, I could be found on the basketball court.

By Secondary 3, there was a regular group of us playing almost daily. School ends at 12:50p.m. for us. We'd then wolf down our lunch in the canteen in 15 minutes and start playing soon after. All the way till 3-4p.m., sometimes till half an hour before the end of the afternoon session (it was still the two-session system then), i.e. around 5:30p.m. Then we'll be drenched, soaked, dog-tired and dragging our limp bodies to the bus stops.

Of all the sports I've mentioned so far, I have to say basketball was my best sport. I'm not sterling good at it, but I can pretty much hold my own on the court.

I played basketball all the way through JC and beyond. It stopped only about a year or so before I came over to Sydney. Primarily because my regular basketballing pals were moving out from the west side of Singapore and getting married. It is hard to find basketball khakis you can click with. I still miss playing basketball now.

Slightly overlapping with my participation in basketball, and arguably also a sport, was pool. Le Tis, Ah Gee, 秋 and myself were introduced to it by a mutual friend who had been playing it for years. It was just after the uni final exams and before the results and graduation.

The guys, myself included, got really into it in a hurry. In fact, Le Tis got really really good at it, all from observing how professional players played the game on TV. Ah Gee and myself can more or less play a decent game now but we're not spectacular players. He is still my regular pool sparring partner.

I'm really looking forward to returning to the pool tables once I get home (the pool tables in Sydney pretty much sucked, so I don't play here).

Out of order

Dear readers (if there are any), Chaos has more or less recovered from her little illness. But now, it is the turn of her PC. And it sounded pretty serious.

Trust that to happen, hey? :P

Anyway, the interruption to normal services looks set to continue. Unless you guys (if there are any) want me to stand in again.

(So are there any?)

I'm living in a Gangsta Neighbourhood

I used to have this neighbour consisting of their mom, the elder brother and him, the baby of the family. I liked their mom for she was friendly and she loved my dog. I disliked the elder brother because he had this bad habit of staring right into your home whenever he walked along the common corridor, past our door. He also had a friggin booming voice and screech and every conversation he has with the family, you can be sure that neighbours within a 1km radius would hear too, word for word.

Every single time he walked past our house, he had to peek in and I always felt like a deer caught in the headlights each time he did so whilst I was in the living room. He didn't just look. He stared. Anyways, the elder brother got married after what seemed like eternity and moved out. What do you know, a couple of years later, they had a son. I shouldav known that if the brother didn't succeed in driving me to my grave, his little brat would. The brat would come to grandma's house every day and the dad would pick him up each evening.

I have a strong suspicion the little brat aspires to be a tenor or something because he has this annoying habit of shrieking at the top of his lungs ever so often. He has also never learnt to walk. He would run along the common corridors, with the pounding noisy sound of 10 elephants and one rhinoceros, back and forth, back and forth. (My theory holds true: Procreation should come with an EQ tag. Too insensitive? Sorry, no procreation for you buster!)

My mom mentioned that the neighbour's mom had approached my mom if she could loan her $6000. She said her youngest son owed some people money presumably for football gambling.
My mom of course said she had none to loan as politely as possible.

Following this, we started seeing signs of a loanshark starting a little mental warfare on this family. There was the initial crayon vandalism at the lift level, stating in loanshark-style calligraphy, the unit number of their apartment, the younger brother's mobile number with the words "Owe $ Pay $" (loosely translated to mean 'pay what you owe'). Then came the spray paint bursts of colours of those same words.

The loansharks then got creative and would come by their apartment at night, and smash or upturn flower pots quietly (don't ask me how this is done but none of the other neighbours heard it). Next came throwing a pack of coffee on their front door. The last thing I saw was the splashing of paint on their front door. This was done on various occassions, one colour per occassion, namely red, black, purple. Guess they couldn't decide what colour looked good on my neighbour's door. Finally the neighbour's mom revealed that her youngest son had lost his Identity Card and this card was used to loan money from said sharks (uh huh... sure auntie). I would sometimes hear people creeping about at 4 or 5am in the morning, rustling sounds and then quiet.

When I returned from Europe, my mom said the neighbours have moved and we now have new neighbours. I thought nothing of it, till I came home today and saw that red paint had been splashed on the new neighbour's door. Gosh! The loansharks had a glitch in their data system. What happens now that a new tenant has taken over?

Soon after, my new neighbour came back. This was my first glance of how he actually looked like. He resembles a construction or renovation contractor foreman (I heard him booming in dialect on previous occassions at some indian or bangladeshi worker).

Anyways, soon after this, my contractor foreman neighbour started making phonecalls on his mobile, whilst standing in the common corridor. He first called some people, asking them to check who pored paint on his front door (like wow! High Tech man Mr Foreman! Just the click of a button and you can actually find that out?? I am impressed!).

Then he called his housing agent and asked for the old neighbour's contact and new address. Soon after, he answered a call, presumably from the loansharks. He explained to them that he has taken over the flat now. After a few moments of silence, he started shouting vulgarities and asked the loanshark to give him a time and place (presumably this is to facilitate a meeting where they both bash each other's brains out). He stopped shouting abruptly and then started calling for the head of a gang I presume he belonged in. He told them the situation and what the opposition said. He says he is ready to go down to meet them anytime.

He started calling others to tell them about what had transpired between opposition and him. He told them that he is prepared to meet opposition anytime anyplace. Said the opp were amateurs for they didn't even dare to state a venue to meet. He also called the agent and told him that he wants the old tenant's address because he will go down to meet the mom and bash her younger son up for not resolving this even after selling this apartment. He had also placed a call to the police to make a formal report. He also called another dude to loan a security camera system. He says he will install this by tomorrow regardless if it is useful or otherwise.

Amidst all this, my dad was also telling me that my neighbour 4 doors down, had received an anonymous letter saying that if they do not restrain their dog from making so much noise, he/she will kill the dog (Yes, this was something I was considering a long time ago when their dog who is fat and a weird mutt breed with a bark like an alsation, started waking me from sleep at wrong times of day and night).

I am unsure which I should fear more. Living next to an active and hotheaded gangsta or whether we will receive a letter in the mail, threatening to murder my dog.

HaHa HaHa HaHa!!!! MWahahahahahahahahahahahah!

My my! What troubled times we live in.

Goldie's Passing on 1st March 2006

I checked my email and saw that He had written to me on 1st March. It was a short sentence. No salutation or ending. Just a FYI.

He wrote:
"Thought you'll like to know, Goldie was diagnose with a cancerous oraltumor around christmas, she's in pain now, parents are going to puther down today. Its time for her to rest"

I only saw this email late 5th March.

Goldie was the sweetest mixed mutt I have known. She was already old when I got to know her but her panting breath always makes her mouth look like she was giving a great big grin. She already had a whole host of problems prior to the tumor. She was also in pain from the arthritis and had trouble climbing upstairs to bed each night.

I wish I had a chance to send her off and say goodbye. But no matter, she's gone to rest now.

Goodbye Goldie! Rest well in doggie heaven now with all your new friends and doggie treats.
I will miss you! You have been a lovely dog to have known. Think of me from time to time ok?

Coming Home

One of my favourite songs is by that title "Home" by Michael Buble. Not so much the lyrics but the melody and the poignancy of his coming home to whatever it was he left behind.

My flight home was a rather miserable one as expected. I wasn't glad to be coming home and thus the shorter flight home seemed to be long, arduous and extremely exhausting. Add to that, I was fighting a flu which got progressively worse with each mile inching home.

During my flight from Prague to Paris, I had the sinking sensation that I would miss my connecting flight from Paris to Singapore. This was because I only had a half hour window to run from one terminal in search of the next one. My fears were unfounded. The minute I stepped off the plane door at Charles de Gaulle, Paris, I saw a friendly chap with the sign of my next flight standing there with a genuine smile on him (something really rare for the french). I was then taken through the back door onto a car and driven with much speed to the next terminal. He then brought me through the escalator and almost to the gateway of the next connecting flight. Phew! At least no one had to die whilst I searched for my connecting flight.

I had a huge and heavy carry on bag containing my precious gifts of junk (to some) and fragile pieces. I found myself also taking extreme care of the snuff bottle I got for mom, as well as the ash tray from Prague for dad. Amongst all the gifts I have for friends, these were perhaps the only two that I took extra care of. I was anxious most of all, that mom liked the exquisite bottle I got her. Initially, I wanted to get her a garnet or moldavite ring (that is a local czech precious stone) but as the metal portion of the ring was usually made of plated gold or pure silver, it seemed too cheap a present.

I also realised on the return flight from Paris to Singapore that after all the chivalry I have experienced in Europe, Singaporean men suck big time. I was in the plane, standing in the aisle waiting for a male steward to walk by so I could ask him to haul my heavy bag into the carrier compartment, when I realised that I have been standing beside a comfortably seated male Singaporean and he didn't even bother to offer his help. In the end, the french woman made her husband get out of the centre seat and help me haul my bag overhead into the carrier. *sigh* Will Singaporean men really learn even after having been abroad? Chivalry doesn't only extend to a wailing waif of a female in need of masculine aid. It generally extends to all females regardless of shape, size or strength. Wake up Singaporean men! Seriously dudes, WAKE THE FUCK UP and smell the napalm!

I touched down in Singapore and immediately developed a serious 'back home' complex. My depression was back in semi full force. It was not the start of a good time from here on. I started sweating within the confines of the airconditioned airport even in a t-shirt and jeans. Sigh.

I went out for a smoke and the humidity and heat that blasted through me made me gasp. I miss winter already. When I got in the cab, my back was drenched in sweat. The flu hit me full blast then and the fever I had killed days ago, started raging through me all over again.

When I got home, my wonderful ball of fluff jumped at me and then started jumping around in circles. Crissy wasn't sure if she should run around in circles or jump at me... she ended up sorta doing both.

I started to unpack and separate the clothes that need to be laundered, dry cleaned and put away. It was then that I realised I didn't exactly spend a lot of money as expected. Hmmm... how strange. It might also have been because I didn't have a lot of space in my backpack to buy stuff and lug it around city to city. hehe.

I am now in my second day of rest at home from the flu and the flu meds are knocking me out with each ingestion. I had trouble sleeping again last nite and finally at 5am, I had to knock myself out with half a sleeping pill. I woke at 8ish and every hour after that but finally got outtav bed at noon.

Sigh... home. I can frankly say I am not glad to be back although I do miss my dog and my folks. Sorry guys, this isn't meant to sound the way it does but I really hate it back here.

Small encore

In case you guys are wondering, she is indeed back safely in Singapore, but unfortunately not in serviceable condition. She got two days MC.

Trust that to happen. After a three week long holiday.

Heh.

Visiting Sydney

In my humble opinion, now, as in late February and early March, is probably the best time of the year to visit Sydney. Or to put it more broadly, the tail-end of summer and beginning of autumn.

Temperatures are comfortable at the mid or low-20s, conditions are balmy, air is not overly dry yet. It hasn't gotten rainy yet as it often does in winter. And it is also not overly sunny (and hot!) as it can be in summer.

The houseflies have mostly gone into hibernation again so you don't have to learn the Australian wave. The moths do not appear until October, mid-spring. The cockroaches have also miraculously disappeared until next spring.

It's also the schooling days again, both in Sydney and in Singapore. So air tickets should be cheaper and readily available, hotel rooms are easier to book, etc. There won't be those huge crowds at the tourists spots as well.

Yes, if you really wish to visit Sydney, probably now is the best time. If you really really really really wish to visit Sydney, that is.

P.S. And this brings to an end my stint of guest blogging. Normal service should resume tomorrow.

Budget

Everytime the Budget announcement comes round, I will zero in on a specific number or statistic whilst poring over the newspaper reports. No, it is not the size of any 紅包 the government might have announced. No, it is not any utility rebates my household may get. No, it is not how much is given for the medical services or for education (I check those second).

It is the proportion of the entire budget that is going to go into defence for the coming year.

This year, this statistic is around one-third, 32.8% to be exact. That's about S$10 billion.

S$10 billion.

That's about 50% more than that to be spent on education. 5 times more than that to be spent on health services. 5.5 times that to be spent on public transport. A staggering 9.6 times more than that to be spent on improving our environment and water resources. And 4 times more than than the much talked about Progress Package, i.e. the 紅包.

(For the record, budget for defence expenditures were 31.2%, S$9.26 billion in 2005 and 28.3%, S$8.62 billion in 2004.)

Then you step back and wonder about the amount of money spent by all the countries in the world on defence. The proportion of their budgets probably won't be as high as Singapore, given our special circumstances, but they surely run into billions as well.

Then you think about the people starving in Africa, the prevalence of diseases (think SARS and bird flu), increasing crime (I had to slip this in, given what I perceive to be the worsening crime situation I am experiencing in Sydney), pollution and our ailing Earth... etc.

OK, so I am being an idealist here. But just imagine. For a single human trait that is distrust of one another, we have spent and continue to expend so much of our finite resources on defence. This, at the expense of our own health, education and the very place we live on.

Like I said, I am being an idealist here. End of ranting. Till the next Budget then...

Now to decide what to do with my 紅包...

...hmm...

...they'll probably end up in the stock market. :P

(Edit: the following has been added at 5:08p.m.)

I just saw this article on CNA about China's defence budget for the coming year. It is about S$57 billion and represents about 7.4% of their entire budget.

JC life

JC life pretty much sucked, after the highs of upper secondary. I can't remember much of it, except maybe an infamous line from whom I felt was a very elitist principal,

"You're a cut above the rest..."

Said with a rather high-pitched and hoarse voice, not unlike that of Eric Tseng, and with one of her feet propped on the slightly raised edge of the stage.

Upon which all of us will roll our eyes again.

He won't tell

There was a group of us in Sec. 3 and 4 who were rather close to one another at one point in time. For two main reasons. Mahjong and bowling.

The school holidays would more often than not find us congregating at the home of one of the group, Kent, for overnight mahjong. At 15, I've already had the experience of playing mahjong 24 hours straight. We would gather at his place at 9a.m. and play all the way through till 9a.m. the next day, bar toilet and meal breaks. This was one of only two times in my life that I managed to fall asleep on public transport (the other being BMT) and had to be "rescued" from being locked in a bus by another bus driver at the interchange.

Kent and I gradually lost contact with each other after the 'O' levels. One of those friends I passively lost down the years. I often wondered why.

Until 淑 told me the following around 2000.

She told me that Kent had been grappling with his sexuality since Sec. 3. He only came to terms with it (he is gay) during his JC years. I had actually had small suspicions here and there but this admission by 淑 was the confirmation.

For all those years, he had confided his worries with 淑. Amongst the things he told her was that he didn't dare (yes, he used that word!) to tell me about it. He felt I would never be able to accept that fact and accept his friendship if he had.

I bristled when I heard her say it. Alright, so I am pretty conservative in outlook, but that is with respect to my own life only. I accept people for who they are! I would have accepted you the way you are too, Kent. *Sigh* But it is all too late now...

Funfair

My secondary school had this policy of holding a funfair every four years. That was then; I wonder if they still have it now. The funfair was touted as a fundraising event, though I suspect it was more a reason to let us teenagers let down our hair and to encourage class cohesiveness. The gap of four years was also probably to ensure each batch of students had at least one chance of experiencing it.

In the funfair I was involved in, each class was assigned two stalls to run, a food stall and a game stall. Our class's food stall was a popiah stall. We had a classmate whose dad ran a popiah stall, so that fitted us to a T. As for the game stall, I was put in charge, together with the class monitor.

After much brainstorming, we settled on the crushing of mothballs running down a pipe idea. But we gave it a twist. We decided that a hammer and real mothballs would be potentially too damaging on the tables, foul-smelling and messy, so we replaced those with a overturned cup and marbles (those huge white ones). In addition, we had five pipes, instead of the single one, to add uncertainty to the mix.

What was left was just a theme and design to fit the pieces together. I got my inspiration from a Nintendo handheld game of the 80s, Mickey Mouse (see pic below). There was a whole series of these games by the name of Game and Watch.
Pic taken from intheattic.co.uk. I had the Mickey Mouse model whilst my sis received the Popeye one. From our parents, of course.

We modelled the pipes after the ramps along which the "eggs", in the form of marbles, will roll down. Like true scientists, we tested for the best angle to tilt one end of the pipes so that the speed of the "eggs" is neither excessive nor too slow. Once that is set, we put up a sturdy mounting board with five holes cut in it to hold up the ends of the five "ramps". Finally, we drew and painted five hens on top of each "ramps", to lay the "eggs". We also needed something to collect the errant "eggs". That was accomplished by making a drain to attach to the outside edge of the table.

So we were set. Until we saw the actual tables and location upon which to set up our stall. The ground was slanted from right to left. More brainstorming. We settled on those huge pebbles used in large ponds/aquariums to reverse the tilt.

Then we drew up a timetable on who to play "gamemaster" and who to help out with the running of the stall on the day of the funfair itself. Needless to say, both of us picked ourselves to take up two of the three "gamemaster" slots.

At the very last minute, someone hit upon the idea of advertising for our game stall via two humans masquarading as hens and roving around the school on the day. We volunteered two classmates (guys) and after much persuasion, they agreed. Albeit reluctantly. Their makeup and costumes were made by other classmates. We were all howling with laughter when we eventually saw them dressed up as hens.

It was great fun laying "eggs" for three hours. When my turn as "gamemaster" was up, I got to walk around and look at other stalls. There were one or two that also used the mothball-hammer idea. But with only one pipe, real mothballs and hammer. Their pipe was tilted way too high and there was no way anyone could have smashed any mothballs. And there wasn't any theme. We all agreed our stall was the best in terms of design and was also fully scientifically tested.

Towards the end of the day, I even gave my own game a try. I managed to catch 9 "eggs" out of 15 (Again, I remember the strangest and most minute details!) and won a pair of brass fish keychains for my efforts. I still have those two keychains.