why, hello there...

it's been a while hasn't it?

to say that much has happened and changed since my last update would be a colossal understatement.

i've graduated. i've found a job that i have a great passion for, luckily enough on the first try. i've had my heart broken and bruised a few times. i've felt my soul get crushed when we lost dad, but i've also seen just how great a guy he was. i've taken a plunge onto that important safety net called friendship and subsequently done my own bit in that area (if small). i've taken on responsibilities that i have never really imagined myself taking. most importantly, i've fallen in love.

and it is thanks to that love that i'm writing here once again. after all, she brings out the utmost best in me - so much so that the people around me can sense the joy and mirth that i now have in my life.

it's a feeling beyond measure, so unfathomable that human description does it no justice.

yet, here it is - so tangible that i feel it constantly on a day-to-day basis when it previously seemed so distant, so right that mere months feel like years compressed into minutes in terms of richness, yet it feels so brief and fleeting even when we're together all the time...

for coming into my life, i will always feel ever so fortunate.

and ever so very grateful.

in loving memory...

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well

Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Henry Scott Holland

just... cannot... sleep...

argh.

i've been tossing and turning in bed for at least 40 minutes and i just can't sleep.

damn my nocturnal habits...

and to make things even worse, i have to be up in 4.5 hours to play ball (assuming it doesn't rain...)... d'oh.

already one bird seems to have woken up to start its day and is announcing that fact to the world... here i am trying to get some sleep as the other early birds in the time zone are more than half way through their slumber, just on the precipice of re-entering the waking world that i am so desperately trying to extricate myself from.

that's one more thing to tack onto my to-do list before getting a job: resetting my bloody bio clock...

guess it's back to another round of tossing and turning and trying to find the escape hatch that leads to dreamland...

happy halloween!

once again, it's been a long, long pause between ramblings. didn't have quite that much to write about and talking about my third round of hand, foot and mouth disease (courtesy of the niece and nephew) wouldn't have made for fun reading.

needless to say, my somewhat lifeless (for the moment anyway) existence continues to bounce along. i really should be getting off my lazy ass and getting around to drafting my resume and start job hunting. i really, really should. but the thought of drafting a resume and then the subsequent interviews and waiting and... aye carumba.

i guess i really should stop dragging my feet though. but enough about my state of joblessness, i am here to discuss halloween costume ideas!

well more like ideas that i would like to pull off. if i ever go for a halloween party that is... like that'll ever happen to lifeless me. but nevertheless, it's fun to imagine...

1) shiba kaien
after all this time of watching bleach, i only realise that the one supporting character i find really cool is a dead guy. guess that's somewhat appropriate since it's a series about spirits and death... but hell, kaien is pretty cool for a dead guy. physically he looks just like ichigo with black hair. and i could definitely pull the spikey hair off. finding a katana and a kimono to match might be a bit of a problem tho...

2) house
get a cane, walk with a limp, dress up like a slacker and spout sarcasm and caustic wit with every line of speech. especially good idea with my house t-shirt that has a silhouette of house that says "THE DOCTOR IS IN". will probably have to let my facial hair grow for a few years and put powder in my hair to grey it a little though.

3) any premier league manager
hoho. dressing up as fergie complete with purple nose and spouting angry rubbish in a thick scottish accent would be fun. or growing a norse beard like rafa benitez proclaiming a list of facts and other rubbish like lucas is an actual footballer. or being like arsene wenger and kicking a bottle and claiming not to see things that are going on. heck, for kicks, dressing up like jose and claiming to be the special one and being all smug and charismatically charming at the same time... though speaking in accents all evening sure won't be fun... especially if people are asking for the hairdryer treatment AND THEY KENNA UHNDERSTAND YER!

4) the grim reaper
now this would be a helluva lot of fun. sure, it would probably be a heckuva cliche to get a cloak with a hood, a scythe and glowing red eyes. but the possiblities... how about a black hoodie with black jeans and black shoes with bitchin' half gloves and a scythe? death's modernising, yo. though sadly the church wouldn't really approve as they're saying people are getting all drawn into an unhealthy fascination of the occult and death and crap because of halloween... sometimes mother church could really do with some lightening up...

5) zaraki kenpachi
probably one of the scariest looking shinigamis from bleach, kenpachi is just insanely bloodthirsty and always looking for a fight. and he's a mishmash of elements from a tonne of halloween types! a samurai in a black kimono like a japanese grim reaper and an eyepatch for a dash of pirate. those spikes are gonna be hard as hell to style tho, as are those little bells he puts on the tips to give his opponents a chance in combat because he's that insanely good...

another fantastic sunday

i know i started my post meant for last sunday, but in the end, i just never got down to finishing it.

in short, it was a great sunday, especially since i finally had my long awaited opportunity to play basketball at tanglin cc, the group's old stamping ground till we decided to shift to the moe cca branch (or old nie as we still call it).

well, kind of like how i had two crappy sundays in a row, i have had two fantastic sundays back to back, and i daresay this sunday was better than last.

yep, i probably had a better game of ball last sunday and much better weather, but today had its own awesome fun moments even though i'm all lobster red again. there is a certain enjoyment in my game again that has been missing that just makes the charring to a crustaceany finish all worth it along with the nice feeling of having put in a good shift.

after lunch and lan, i went for mass at the cathedral (not so great considering it's been ages since my last visit to a church without aircon), and i bumped into ms ong at the bus stop after that. we caught up a bit before her bus came. it was a pleasant surprise and really nice to see her as she's one of the best teachers i've ever had.

next up was that bloody incredible manchester derby we watched at dod's place. great goals, stupid mistakes, drama and controversy; this game had it all. and of course, united came out on top. not the scoreline that reflects the spanking of those upstart mercenaries as i had hoped for, but snatching victory right at the death in stoppage time pretty much makes up for it. watching those city bastards all forlorn and all as well as that ass mark hughes throwing hissy fits because of the time added on just made all the heartstopping drama worth it.

as an aside, sorry if you expected a good reception from the fans, carlos tevez you bloody judas. you may have been a good servant for us, but leaving for city rivals automatically bumps your rep down a notch. sure, the fans may have loved you, and you may have tried sucking up to us by saying good things about us. but we're bloody not stupid when you diss the team that made you a champion of both england and europe. i thoroughly enjoyed deriding and booing your sorry, mercenary ass everytime you touched the ball and absolutely enjoyed seeing you prancing around the pitch like a clueless, forlorn little deer. have fun chasing shadows or qualification for europe with that bunch of money-grubbing losers.

(end of judas rant)

after all that drama, we went our seperate ways after the guys got some dao hui from geylang (i got me some 7up since i'm not a soya person...) and, as fate would have it, i met another person i hadn't seen in a long while in the form of goose at eunos mrt station.

hopefully next sunday's just as bloody good as this one or even better... but that's really gonna take something special.

rediscovery...

motivation.

without it, we are like leaves in a rushing river of life, at the mercy of every flow and every ebb.

once we find it, however, it is like latching on to a rope attached to the strongest tree in the jungle alongside the river. we can then haul ourselves out and proceed along any path we want.

for the longest time, i've forgotten what that meant in terms of my personal fitness.

but now that i've found the motivation to improve both my stamina and my basketball skills, i really, really feel committed to sticking to my plan.

and while it gets boring and, well, naturally tiring at times, i'm actually enjoying it. sweating it out once a day on the basketball court feels good.

and of course, nothing tops the feeling of hitting basket after basket when you find your rhythm.

basketball, basketball... i need a fix.

yep. i feel like akagi over there. (clipped from SPECTRUM NEXUS)

argh.

i hate the weather these days. why can't it rain on days OTHER THAN SUNDAY MORNING?!

i'm reading myself into a fanatical basketball fervour thanks to slam dunk, but thanks to the rain on sunday morning, i have gone a month without a proper game.

GEEZ.

i know i shot some hoops downstairs on sunday afternoon after coming back from the failed trip to bukit timah, but it's still nothing like a real game. no one to pressure you, no one to dribble pass, no one to defend against... urgh.

this sunday cannot come any moment sooner... *fidget fidget*