The morning path

The flutter of wings
catches the eye
as the wind caress the thin canopy,
rustling the sleepy leaves,
giving chance for the sun to peek through,
throwing shadows playing chase
on the dark pavement.

The wind continues
as it heads to its destination,
so do I,
a passerby in this scene,
a story of a morning
glorious and content
in its own quiet splendour.


I can never quite manage to take a decent photo of this path that I take sometimes on the way to work. You get to see some birds in flights sometimes, squirrels jumping tree to tree, and the cicadas loud and clear, bringing me to times and places of yore. That short stretch lasting a few minutes walk is probably the best part of the mornings, where after that it just goes all the way downhill.....bleh.

ok no negative thoughts!

Hockey at The Olympics!

Truth to be told, I was quite apathetic about the whole Olympics 2012. Passed a comment to a friend who was going to London if he should help me get some memorabilia from the Games, that thought the logo looks weird, the mascot looks ugly. Didn't catch the opening, and literally didn't follow any games at all. Yes, even when Feng Tianwei won the bronze medal in table tennis (on the whole foreign sports talent import thing...I have my take on that; let's not go there) and the whole Singapore was abuzz and stuck to the TV watching the live coverage.

What eventually drew me were the hockey matches on Youtube. Whole 70 minutes of action available at the touch of the finger! Simply gratifying (and cause for some nights with less than enough sleep).

First, there is the pitch - psychedelic blue (someone referred the shade as "smurf blue") with equally psychedelic pink sides (yes, inspired by the London 2012 logo colours. Really). Jarring on the eyes at first sight but kind of grows on you after a while. Especially when the ball, now yellow, is more easily spotted on the pitch on the small laptop screen.

And there was the exciting hockey actions from the different continents, from which Netherlands eventually emerged the winner.

But still, I much prefer watching the Argentinians, who exhibited such flair with the stick and ball, and string passes to make the game look so graceful and easy.

I heard one commentator noted that you can't miss Aymar on the pitch due to her "giselle like movements". 'Nuff said. Too bad her team couldn't hold up against the fastidious Dutch to hold a gold medal on her birthday.

My fan moment for Sanchez Muccio was when she tip the ball over the defender's stick, skip over the same stick, bring her stick down to connect with the ball in mid-air and bringing the ball home into the goalpost.  And that was on top of seeing see her bring the ball down the left on the fly whenever she got the break...every defender's nightmare but real exciting to watch.

And then there were the horrific accidents - GB's captain Kate Walsh's fracture jaw and NZ player Katie Glynn's accidental hit on the head. Horror stories for defenders going in with the reverse stick or the wrong side and real painful just watching them on the internet. But what were truly amazing -

Walsh came back 2 games later, after her jaw surgery and played the rest of the Olympic matches (and that means all the way through the pool matches, semi-finals, and the 3-4th place playoff. Full 70 mins match, no less) with the stirrup look-a-like mask holding her chin up...

while Glynn bounced back to the same game almost straight after she bandaged her head up within the 20 minutes she was off the pitch. 

Some may call it crazy, but one can only imagine the regret if both of them decide to sit out for the rest of the Olympics. What a beautiful game. 

I guess some may  wonder, what is the whole fuss to be made every four years about, when nations come together and pitch against each other to be better, faster, stronger. But when you see these athletes, you think about what they would have gone through in the last four years to come to this point,  putting themselves further under physical, mental and emotional stress under these two weeks, you can't help but marvel at the human spirit manifested at such meets, and bring different meaning and inspiration for different people.

Me thinks, the London Olympics' slogan - "Inspire A Generation", is most apt. Maybe I should get the Wenlock after all...

我看（2）

Annie The Musical

Talk about optimism - the sun'll come out tomorrow, and its only a day away!

================================

老九

在机缘巧合之下， 和三闺密一同看了郭宝崑的“老九”。 原著是一出话剧，但实践剧场为了郭宝崑节而改编成一出音乐剧。每一首的歌的曲和词都娓娓动听，一看写曲和写词是被和多歌手要歌的黄韵仁和小寒，也难怪。

我倒觉得，最呛戏的，是陈建彬和林继修(Lim Kay Siu!) 在第二段的对唱， 和将近尾声的木偶和皮影戏。舞台历练多，一举一动，一唱一和，感觉轻轻地，不经意地就带出来了， 让人听出耳流。多变和精彩的木偶和皮影戏，视觉效果让人眼前一亮。那我和闺密都一致认同，声线最动听的是饰演 ”大马“ 的演员（忘了什么名字）－ 宏亮不失磁性。

美中不足的，觉得结尾太仓促，如果还能让老九再卖弄一下皮偶，会不会显得有活在自己选择的路上，更快乐，更有希望？

在这拜金社会，我不能不承认，自己就好像战马基金驯服的野马，主人要我跑，我就往终点线冲，就为那一口好草。会有那勇气像老九放弃这一切，去跟随自己的梦想吗？那也得像老九，虽然知道自己不要什么，但也要知道自己要的是什么，才能去追。

总的来说，”老九“是好看的。接下来，和闺密约好看 “暴雨将至 － 傻姑娘与怪老树” 和 “灵戏”， 支持支持本土的剧场！

================================

Batman The Dark Knight Rises

Best Batman movie IMO!! I never was a Batman fan, I didn't even watch the Dark Knight (which gave the world a lot of copycats Jokers during many Halloweens thereafter) until like maybe this year. But while most of the Batman movies will make you feel that it's more Gotham-like and surreal, this piece had a realist take, and and plot was masterful (even though it's kinda predictable but the twist came so unexpected that I didn't see it coming). 


Sometimes you also feel that the actors are wrongly chosen for the characters (like I can't imagine how they can choose michelle pfieffer to be the Catwoman), but I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anne Hathaway nailed both characters to a T. 


Totally deserve the 5 stars I saw in some reviews.

================================

All 3 in the same week! This must be my lucky week....

The Duel

Step up, salute

Advance and engage

Thrust and parry

A duel, leaving only
the last one to stand

Beyond the mask

of stoic indifference

A fleeting glimpse of

Blue skies shadowed by 

flurry of maneuvers 

But we already lost 

Each other

in this dance of conquest and defence

  

Falling sick

Certainly feels like that. ..hah..hah...ahh...hmm..

Ok the stress is getting to me from the past few weeks, and my head is swarming now. Not good.

The Unconventional Celebration

This has been a harrowing week. With work deadlines jam packed one after another, I swear the cosmic button is at work again. While work is still meaningful (cross fingers), there is definitely more in life than work

Like the event I attended today.

Was invited to a special celebration by 2 friends today. Being typical Asians, I guess they didn't really want to flaunt the reason for the celebration, but the event photo of the Facebook invite was quite clear that this has something to do with them being together for the longest time I can remember (when I was still schooling?). And a picture at today's event venue, of them holding hands showing their rings on their wedding fingers said it all.

And by the way, that picture clearly showed the LGBT rainbow flag in the background.

So it was the unconventional and "un-wedding" like celebration ever, though the requisite  food, wine and conversations were aplenty. The "wedding" couple dressed simply, mingled amongst friends, with no lavish display of processions like how you would see in most (if not all) weddings celebrations nowadays. You would have passed this off as a normal mass friends' gathering instead.

Was especially touched, but unsure why. I guess with all news about people's breakups, divorces, having something so simple as having two persons committing to each other by virtue of a promise, it is really the essence of the whole concept of marriage, commitment and love, notwithstanding whether if there are any witnesses in testimony to that, or have any fancy celebrations to prove a point.

I wish them the best together, but I think that has pretty much been cemented already :)

在其位 谋其政

今天早晨，友人无聊，平白无故地传简讯送了一句话 － “不在其位 不谋其政”。

孔子论语里的一句话。不难，一看词句，也能猜到含义。相反地 －在其位，就得 谋其政。

就那么巧/衰，今天就让我碰着了 各 一个 “不在其位 不谋其政 ，在其位 而 谋其政”的状况。

一根柱子就一根柱子，别去当别的有的没的。在七零八乱的环境里，自己只得心知肚明，洞若观火。郁闷简直是浪费时间，和自己过不去。

切记了！

(为什么友人就不传 好一点的，好像前程似锦，花好月圆之类的......悲催！！）