You've Lost That Loving Feeling

Don't make songs like this anymore....

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

I was never much of a spectator sport person. But after graduating from school, there are certain advantages to watching a basketball game at 30, compared to watching the Inter-School Basketball competition, A Division.

I call them the 4 Bs. They are...

Beer

Courtesy of Qiaoyun

Babes

A Picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth a thousand pictures.

Video courtesy of Jean

Bloggers
Putting a face to the name is all good. Putting a person to the face is even better.

Thank you all for the memories.

Andy, Hillary, Nic, Jean, Alice, Jason, Qiaoyun, Sabrina, Lenny and all those others I did not have an opportunity to talk to.

Qiaoyun again. She and her camera are never far apart.

OH FINALLY, Basketball.

I may suck at it. But that does not mean I do not appreciate a good lay-up, or an alley hoop. OR the chance to shout "Referee Kayu!!!"

Jason has a damn good camera, hair-trigger finger, and unlimited film.

I am a child of the days where Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson ruled the courts after all.

Going to the Game on Sunday after work. WHOOT!

In Memory of Foxer

Looking back, I still think of my granny's dog. It's called Foxer and I like to think of it as a him.


Foxer's pretty responsible. Anyone that comes to the gate at my grandma's place, he'll rush out to bark his head off. When that someone puts a hand on the gate latch, he feels it has done his duty, and heads back to his usual place under this really big table in the front yard.



Foxer is generous. Unless we chase away the neighbourhood cats from his dinner, he'll lie under his table and wait for them to eat their fill before sauntering out to eat whatever's left. After a few years of chasing off those persistent cats, we just put 4 portions of food in the bowl.



Foxer is tolerant, he'd bear with all of us kids mucking about with him despite warnings from our parents about how dirty he is. I believe that half the dirt on him was contributed by us.



Foxer helped with our education. We used to pull the ticks and fleas off his skin, spray them individually with repellent to see if they die. They don't. We always wondered if they get shunned by the rest of their gang because of the BO.

Foxer was really old when my grandma moved and the new place didn't have a garden and didn't allowed big dogs. I heard he was put down, but I guess I was a little too young to fully understand what was going on.

When I drove past my grandma's old place today, the rambutan, mango and starfruit trees are not there anymore. The big plot of land is now seperated into 2 huge semi-Ds. Well, time may have past, but the memories remain.

I don't miss Foxer. I don't miss my childhood days. But they still are precious jewels in my memory that I take out sometimes to polish and smile over.

Take it easy, Foxer.

To Those Who Have Gone Before

The best way to remember and honour the people we love who has passed on before us, is to live our own lives to the fullness that they can no longer do.

"No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets"

Cheers, Alvin and Brandon and Yi Shi. Catch ya'll later.

Blessings

I've been worried for my friends in Myanmar over the last few days. Every time the news flash, my eyes search the crowd, half-dreading, half-hoping to see a familiar face.

My university internship was done in Yangon, at the then-Hotel Equitorial. I asked for a posting absolutely ANYWHERE in the world but Singapore, and I got it. Nobody knows about Myanmar then. It was a closed country. Nobody I know has been there, or even knows someone who's been to the place.

The 6 weeks I spent there humbled me. It made me grateful for the things I have here, in Singapore. At the same time, I learnt so much about sharing and about graciousness and about happiness.

The folks over there don't have a lot. Even now, if you have a $200 salary, you can raise a family, and stay in an apartment in town. They will cook little dishes, pack them into metal tiffins for lunch, AND THEY'LL ALWAYS COOK MORE. Not just one or two portions, but 4 or 5 portions, just so they can share it with friends.

I remember one lunch I had with the marketing department. 16 dishes going around, and everyone was so eager for me to try their cooking. The sheer generosity of that one gesture, as well as the overeating, floored me.

My colleauges had the perception that Singaporeans are really stuck up, and their noses were always up in the air, with a frown on the face. They asked why that's the case, since we have so much, and live in a country, where, compared to THEIR government, ours are frigging left wing liberals of the first degree.

I could not answer them. But I did come back to Singapore with the intention to grin at every person I meet stoically till they started smiling back.

The people in Myanmar are an innocent people. A lot of times they wear their hearts on their sleeves and are easy going to a fault. Maybe that's why the military junta can be in power for so long. Maybe that's why they get trampled on and they just bore with it.

Now, well... right now, I just pray that my friends over there are alright, and that they survive through whatever comes in their uncertain future.

Of the Past

Thanks Kamil for this quote, and for letting me get a new appreciation of this country that I live in.

Our past has a tendency to haunt us. Our choices can trap us or enable us to move on in life. Time plays tricks with our memories, sometimes making them better than they actually were. Ultimately, the only path is forward. Change is the only constant.

- Jeffrey Tan. Ballet Under the Stars

Sometimes it takes another from outside to tell you how blessed you are, and how much there is to give thanks for.