The End of the Road

It is indeed a tragedy when five of our young, promising sportsmen go overseas to try to win in a competition, and end up losing their lives instead.

I personally was quite shocked by this freak accident, and waited some time for emotions to simmer down before i began blogging about it.

I love dragonboating. I think it’s an amazing sport, and if done with the right people, you can become an amazing team with dedication and spirit.

Not to mention, it’s fun too.

Terence, my good friend and coach, was one of the surviving 17 dragonboaters. At the risk of sounding slightly selfish, I will say I’m very glad he is alive, because I could not imagine losing a person I knew to something as shocking as this.

Then there’s Reuben Kee, whom I knew by face, but nonetheless quite a jolt to realize that a future composer like him was lost to the waters of Cambodia.

A comment by one of his friends was touching: “At least they died doing something they loved.”

So I was provoked into thought by that comment, thinking, “How would I have liked to be remembered? How would I have liked to be remembered doing something I loved?”

I would like to die peacefully, nothing too rough, nothing too painful, nothing too bad. I would have liked to die under a blanket of stars, with a good friend on my left, my lover on my right, and I would have all my affairs
in order.

I would like to be remembered as someone who loved life, who loved being in the moment, a person who appreciated being alone and quiet, but also appreciated being with people who enjoyed his company. I would like to be remembered as good-humoured, fun… but then…

What would be the purpose of saying what you would ‘like to be remembered as’ than what ‘people remember you as?’

What do you think people would remember you as?

On a side note, it’s so weird that people implement safety measures only after tragedies occur. Take the example of Thaddeus back earlier this year, who collasped after a triathlon and never woke up. This taught sport organizers to have paramedics on scene to make sure no one would ever lose his life in future races.

Now after five people have perished, the point of ‘wearing life-vests’ would be brought up.

SDBA makes it compulsory for all dragonboaters to wear lifevests the MOMENT they touch down on water.

So at first I didn’t see where the problem was.

Until I realized that lifevests aren’t practiced in Cambodia.

Of course lifevests impede movement. Can you imagine bending downward to execute a downward push when some bulky flotation material is in your way?

A comment in Straits Times said it best: “Create a lifevest that doesn’t impede strokes, but yet still allows for survival!”

How is it that lifevests aren’t compulsory, especially when dealing with competitions IN THE OPEN SEA OR RIVER?!

And how is it that only AFTER the tragedy has occurred, that people actually think of ways to change things?

Call it lack of reason, but I call it laziness and incompetence.

I’m sure someone else brought up the point about lifevests to governmental organizations with regards to sporting communities, but some higher powers just didn’t find it important enough because no deaths had occurred to bring their attention to the matter.

Why must deaths even occur for attention to be brought anywhere?

That’s just not something reasonable and logical.

I suppose, at some point in the passing of time and evolution, we become unreasonable and illogical.

That’s only natural.

So we should really classify their deaths as ‘natural deaths’, because they were only natural for humans to learn and pick up hints.

If You Can’t Take The Heat (or lack thereof)…

If You Can’t Take The Heat (or lack thereof)…

Get out of Snow City!

Yesterday went to take part in PowerUp X Games, at Snow City, with Power 98. Met the whole crew there, plus made a couple of friends including Lenny (sp.) from ACS and his girl, and a trio of powerhouse career women types who were immensely funny.

Of course went with Marcus, but he left halfway, that chicken.

To Marcus, I learned the downslope S Curve, as well as trying up the ramp, as well as tubering down the slope. In YOUR FACE!

Anyway, I realized for those who can’t take falling down, you are not cut out for snowboarding or skiing.

You just have to learn how to fall down onto your butt.

If not, you will never learn how to keep your balance and get to the bottom of the hill bruiseless.

It’s all about takin the risk. Maybe for those who were older, they would say, “I can’t fall. My body isn’t a young, healthy athletic bod. If I fall I could die.”

I guess for me, I was able to let go and plop on my butt with reckless abandon, but for older individuals, I guess it was harder for them to just let go and fall.

The same probably goes with taking chances (sorry, Celine) in real life. For the older folks, who have been there and done that more than I have, they probably carry with them that jaded sense and that feeling of fear.

For Lenny, he was able to succeed at the ramp completely perfectly because he wasn’t afraid to go right off and fall… something which older individuals have probably realized they’re not cut out to do.

There goes the risk… and the element of danger (some say fun, ahem Chris Fang).

No pain, no gain they say.

You gotta take the risk. To reap the good stuff.

But how risky can you get? There comes a border, a line, where the risk clearly becomes that of stupidity. Go past the line, and you’re not taking a calculated risk anymore. You’re taking a stupid one-way chance past logic and reason.

Of course, in snowboarding, it’s much simpler.

Gravity, of course, makes it simple.

Sometmes, we all just need a bit of gravity to remind us.

That sometimes, we need to feel some pain, before we choose each risk we take.

Fat People Stink

Okay, so I’m currently blogging on my grandmother’s computer. I’m staying over for a short week, and in this week, i was expecting to do less Net-surfing, more soul-searching.

Something like a journalist who wants to ‘find himself’.

But whatever.

So I was heading off to my month-long temp job from my grandma’s house, and I was taking bus 169 this morning. I got on the bus and… whooooa boy!

Good lord, I can safely say I have never smelled anything like that.

Here’s how it went.

Imagine a bus completely filled with people. Everyone cramped like sardines, all squeezed up, backs up against various other walls.

Already it was hard enough trying to squeeze my own skinny ass onto the bus. Already it was hard enough to NOT imagine what would happen if someone were to fart.

Oh yes, that would suck big time, FYI.

Being all squashed up in one big tin can, trying to find footing of some sort, trying not to press your face into someone else’s back, when you suddenly hear something like a ‘hsssssh’ sound, like gas escaping from a compressed door.

And then you smell it. Something like rotten fruit, only it’s less rotten, more… rotting.

And this gas, like all others, follows the law of gases in an enclosed space. They… diffuse.

Oh boy.

The smell hits you hardest, and that’s only because you are standing right behind this man, and his body gases hit you first, just like how an earthquakes strikes the hardest in towns at the quake’s epicentre.

Magnitude 7.9!

Daaaaaamn…

But no. As you board the bus, you take note that there really is no fart at all. No. Rather, instead, there is a sort of natural-existing stench, a smell that is emanating from the large, overblown (not overgrown, mind you) man in front of you.

And we’re not talking just plump or chubby here. We’re talking troll.

Burly, hairy, and doesn’t look too good, even though he is currently in long-sleeves and long pants.

The smell hits you like a ten-ton truck, and not only that, but it runs you over too.

I don’t understand what is it with troll-y people and bad stenches.

It’s not BO or anything, because I have had a fair share of friends with BO, and tell me, WHO DOESN’T STINK after running rounds or working out?

But this is not EO (Exercise Odour). This is like a natural bad-smelling scent, that exists because it has to.

Exists just because this perfect example of a troll would not be complete without the experience of the nose too.

Now, be clear here that I have nothing against fat people. Chubby or pleasantly plump people are fine in my book. But troll-y people who do not smell good do not give me good impressions, especially at 8 am in the morning.

Perhaps it’s some auto-biological reaction or something. With the excess layers of fatty acids, reactions occur more frequently and more smells are given out.

My oldest uncle is troll-y, and he stinks like shit.

That guy in front of me on bus 169, today @ 8 am, was stinking too.

And I probably can’t name any right now, but I have met my fair share of troll-y beings who did not smell any better.

It’s just so amazing, how this ‘phenomenon’ works.

Is it like a complementary attachment we’re talking about? With the size, comes the smell? Would there be any way to turn your back on your natural physical reactions?

Nature? Nurture?

Wouldn’t it be hard to defy the forces of nature?

Well, if not, PROVE ME WRONG BY SPRAYING DEO PLEASE!

Or cologne, or perfume, or whatever.

Bathe in it. Lather yourself with it. As long as I don’t smell anything bad.

After all, Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton and Sarah Jessica Parker didn’t go through all that trouble for nothing.

So just do yourself and me and the rest of future buses 169 a little favor, and put in some effort, and we can all be a little more relieved that all we have to worry about in future is just some lousy little fart.

Rise… Really

Take a listen to this song:

Stephanie Sun – (ASEAN) Rise

Compare it with this year’s National Day theme song.

Do you find something odd?

The theme song for the ASEAN summit actually sounds BETTER than our National Day Theme Song.

Of course what, you say.

ASEAN eh. Singapore’s chairing the Association, and it consists of so many different countries. Must have good theme song leh.

Fine with you, but how about let’s try to not overshadow our National Day by having an ASEAN song be better than the Nat Day song.

Like in 2005, there was a song to cheer our SEA Games athletes on.

I remember Kit Chan sang it or something, and I also had the impression it was better than our National Day song.

I’m all for supporting our athletes, and I originally had plans to go catch Canoe/Kayak events @ Thailand (also support Justin’s sailing) but the new job I have (along with Alaric) made me change my plans.

But let’s try not to leave only the mediocre-sounding tunes for only the MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN MODERN SINGAPORE HISTORY!

I just wonder, is our National Day getting lower-and-lower-key every year?

The songwriters and composers for Nat Day theme song are getting more and more unknown, and the songs may have multiplied to two this year, but even so Stephanie Sun’s Rise still owns the rest.

It would be great and all if next year Nat Day theme song were to be composed by a multitude of our local aspiring songwriters, but at least make sure the song’s some good and impressive stuff first before using it can.

In fact, this year’s Nat Day theme song didn’t even have a single reference to Singapore in it!

As Alaric, Louis, Chia, Mrs Seow and possibly the rest of the nation were discussing, the theme song made reference to the Thames, Cairo, Bombay, Broadway, and not one about Singapore.

In all, don’t make our National Days suck.

If not, by 2020, we’d have no national day altogether.

Dick Lee would have decided it would be too musically painful for him.

The Greatest Show on Earth

The Greatest Show on Earth is Titanic.

So, there.

Sorry, Morrison Drama Feste people, but Titanic is truly Greatest.

My creativity and brain juices are taking a short hiatus this week.

Sorry for the lack of better posts.

But once again.

Titanic rocks my socks.

I could watch it over and over again.

I honestly could.

P.S Starting work on Friday with Alaric! Yodelayheehooo!!!

P.P.S Near… far… whereeeeever you are…

ROAR!!! GRRRR

I have no idea why everyone is so against Lions for Lambs.

Maybe it’s because the Americans refuse to accept what’s happening in Iraq now.

I mean, it’s the American citizen’s fault for endorsing the war back in 2001, or at least not opposing it, and now in 2007, we have Sally Field protesting during the Emmys and Mia Michaels’ wardrobe criticized on So You Think You Can Dance.

Think about it. In 2001, America was attacked, yes. September 11 was a big shock to Americans and everyone worldwide. No doubt terrorism reached new heights.

But are you telling me that you were so blind to not have seen what was coming?

I think of Sept 11 as the eruption of a particularly dormant volcano.

The terrorists had been planning all before that date, and surely they couldn’t have taken control of United 93, to attack the Pentagon, and to attack the twin towers, all on impulse?

In other words, they were always planning, the problems had always been there (and massively growing too) and no one paid a single shit to them.

There was always strife going on in Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein had already expressed interest in breaking so many UN codes for his own personal gain (or the gain ‘for his country’, as he had put it).

The screaming child yearning for attention was always there, but no one around him paid any attention until this child pulled out a gun and shot off two teeny nails from an adult who was five hundred metres away.

So who can we blame?

Can we blame the terrorists? Can we blame bin Laden? Can we blame the Taliban and Al-Qaeda?

I mean, sure, we can, and sure, of course, they caused all the trouble, but I think it would have been possible to prevent all this in the first place if people had just paid more attention.

9-11 wasn’t the start of terrorism.

It was just the wake-up call.

And apparently, Americans didn’t get it, because back in 2001, their response to that wake-up call was another big mistake.

It’s like an alarm clock going off to wake someone up, but instead of turning that alarm off, this someone took out ANOTHER alarm clock (Bigger one ah, FYI) and set it off too. More noise, more strife, more problems.

Can anyone remember the days of 2001? I can’t, because I was only P4.

But I am very certain that Americans and people worldwide, even, endorsed the war tactics and approaches as laid by Bush’s administration.

You can call me superficial or not seeing deeper enough, but war itself from the start was not the way to go.

They bomb you. They kill us. They take down the towers. And you go to war and make them madder? What is your problem?

Did the Cold War, did Vietnam, did World Wars 1 and 2 not teach us anything? What happened to learning from your mistakes? Or is history a lot bunch of hoolabaloo?

Americans endorsed it. The world endorsed it.

And you can deny that now, but the fact is that even if you did not openly express your enthusiasm for it, you still harbored that very excitement of open battle.

Us guys, and guns.

And even if you didn’t feel that excitement, you didn’t oppose it either.

America was and still is a democratic nation. The people have the ability to veto and turn on the decisions of the government if they find these decisions unsatisfactory and wrong. That is what the Senate and Congress is for.

If the people do not speak out, what is the point of having ‘the intention’? I could have the intention to save lives, but if I don’t exactly do the act of saving lives, whose life am I really saving?

http://fineattitude.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-far-we.html

And to Sally Field, I really applaud your courage back at the Emmy Awards, but as I think about it in retrospect, couldn’t you have expressed your disapproval for the war at the Emmys in 2001?

Well, anyway…

Lions for Lambs is an acute, only slightly inaccurate, but very precise account of the current political situation in the US, with regards to the war in Afghanistan.

If anything, it portrays well the apathy American citizens’ have with regards to the war.

With the exception of Sally Field, everyone else in 2007 is more concerned with living the ‘American Dream’, as quoted in L4L and The Great Gatsby too, come to think of it.

Everyone else in 2007 is concerned with the A-grade, and the Green Card, and yada yada yada.

Feel free to correct me here, Americans.

And we also have the apathetic journalists (albeit Janine Roth, played by Meryl Streep) and tabloidists who don’t know what to report on or when to stop.

Terribly enough, this is quite an ironic case as if you google ‘Lions for Lambs’, we have the many hits of journalists and critics and reviewers all saying how bad the show was, yada yada yada.

I’m sorry, do you GET THE POINT OF THE MOVIE?!

If you do, then what’s so bad about it?

I know, you’ve been to movie review school, or moviemaking school, or whatever.

But the very basic fact of a movie is to entertain.

If the movie can make you think, make you feel, make you contemplate life and your future, your past and your actions, it’s even better.

If it can invoke emotion and make you RE-THINK, or touch your hearts, or reflect on society’s misdoings, then ALL THE BETTER!

Look at Contact (1997). Yes, good technique. Yes, very smooth filming. Yes, excellent portrayals from Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. But in the end, the movie did entertain, and it did make us think, and it did reflect on society ten years ago.

Not so far a while back.

I always thought that was the reason for the amazing reviews Contact received back in the day – because it fulfilled the basic requirement (singular, please) of a movie and then some.

What’s the difference now?

If anything, Lions for Lambs invokes more emotion and reflection than The Game Plan (sorry, Rock!) or news stories about Britney (again, the apathetic and unthinking reporters).

Lions for Lambs made us think back and look over all that we had done.

Not just for Americans, mind you.

As a general whole, for the world, the movie is one that will make you contemplate how helpless the people really are in compared to the power the government, the Lambs, wield, and ironically, they are the ones who hide in air-conditioned rooms while they send out the brave Lions (no reference to Singapore whatsoever) to the battlefield.

It’s a movie of contemplation and reflection, and very much a poke at our lives in plush and comfort while lives are being risked thousands of kilometres away.

It’s not that hard to understand.

I’m very sure the critics, with all their filmmaking and film appreciation diplomas, got the point.

If so, then why the bad reviews?

Why the reviews, at all?

Heroes

Four years
That’s what they call a long time
I’ve waited so long
To seek and to find
A place where I belong
And a home I can call mine

We search all our lives
In the hours of light
For the meaning that exists
For our destiny to take flight

Heroes
That’s what they call those
With a noble cause
Who understand what they’re meant to do
Who knows
What to do

Can you be a hero?
Can you be there when it all ends
Can you assure me with your soul
That you will be a hero?

Four years
We’ve hidden in the shade
We’ve been sheltered by umbrellas
But now, those shadows will fade

For the time to call our own
We will be heroes
We will take the frontline
We will know

Heroes
That’s what they call those
Who gives without thoughts
Who does what is needed
Without doubts

Can you be a hero?
Can you be there when the time comes?
Can you assure me with your soul
That you will be a hero?

Four years
We’ve changed
None have become heroes
But now, we know what we have to do

Because we were given
By the greatest Heroes of all
Who assured us when the time came
Who found us when we called

Can you be a hero?
Can you be like them?
Like the ones who assured us with their souls
That we would be heroes.

P.S. Someday, at least.

P.P.S I was listening to the Heroes theme track when I was writing this.