Bereavement, Breakthrough and Babies
18th August 2008, Monday
Over the weekend, my forth maternal uncle (and the 2nd last surviving ones) passed away at the ripe age of 70 due to colon cancer I assume from what I can depicted from Mom.
My recollection of him usually was during that few and far between expedition to the small durain plantation the household owned.
A swinging bachelor with a history of promiscuous lifestyles, he certainly had a life he envisioned to be and hopefully he felt it was fulfilling enough for him. May he rest in peace.
Once again it is hard to accept when there is a death in the household, despite not a close one... but life goes on...
The Olympics though took centerstage in the family and perhaps the rest of the island when the female table tennis team managed to clear the semi finals stage to earn the rights to go up against the home team and World No. 1 last evening to claim the gold medal.
However we were already in jubilation on Friday when they toiled to beat South Korean in 5 sets as we would the least get the silver medal, an honor 48 years in the making.
The live telecast even put the Prime Minister's National Day Rally at the backseat as we braced for a near impossible task to overcome a China team with the top 2 seeds in the world.
In the end, we lost sheepishly in 3 rounds with Dad adding his own commentary about how bad our "bought-over" team is and what rights they had to earn 750K prize kitty. He was just being sore and negative as usual and the missus who was watching the first few match-up with him in the living room got tired of his constant hounding of our local peddlers whom she supported and retreated to the comfort of the room for the final match up.
Elsewhere Phenomenal Phelps finally notched his 8th gold medal on Saturday and he barely lost his 7th (1X100m Butterfly) by 100th of a second.
Jong Oranje failed to beat hot favorites Argentina in their Quarterfinal tie while 10 men Belgium caught the scene by storm by beating Italy 3-2 to make it into the semi finals.
Rafael Nadal won gold medal for men's single tennis while Federer redeemed himself by clinching gold for Switzerland in the doubles.
Russia clean swept the women's singles while the Venus sisters retained their doubles gold.
Usan Bolt became the fastest man of earth with his 100m sprint but China's golden boy of the tracks, Liu Xiang ended his quest for his 2nd consecutive Gold in 110m Hurdles when he pulled out of his heats due to problematic Achilles tendon, surely to much awe and exasperation of the local fans supporting him.
While even the Prime Minister was exhilarated with our first Olympic medal for half a century, many insensitive mood-spoilers claimed that there is no glory with the medal since the team including the coach comprised of mainly China-born Chinese.
This brought the whole FTS (Foreign Talent Scheme) issue up on the surface and it was so well documented and discussed, I'm starting to yawn just typing this.
Seriously with no sporting culture whatsoever, the laidback mentality of Singaporean plus the way our government manufactured us to be, we would never win anything on international level without imported talent as highlighted by the PM himself.
In a virtual reality of 2017, a Singapore National football team won the 3rd placing of the Confederation Cup, beating the likes of Colombia and Uruguay and matching against Spain and Argentina with a squad comprising a Chilean rightback and a couple of Thai midfielders and on anyday might even include some China-born players as well as a Nigerian defender and a host of many other non-Singapore born players...
Mr Lee also emphasized on our appalling birthrate especially among the Chinese population, and fervently encouraged more couples into the parenting bandwagon.
This news came to me mere minutes before the missus bemoaned how envious of other friends who are basking in motherhood.
I do believe in having my own children but once again I just don't know when...
Once again another topic we had stumbled upon time and again...sigh
Think Foo & myself had finally gave up hope on Sengkang Punggol when we witnessed yet another pathetic display one which if I have a kid would never want to show them.
We made an effort to head down to Jalan Besar for the S League duel against fellow strugglers, Young Lions hoping for another victory under Gravobac's tutelage.
But almost half of his first eleven was robbed from service and the youngsters modeled themselves after the senior squad in the most wretched way.
For an entire match, we couldn't string a good attacking opportunity and there was perhaps a tame shot on goal even Massimo Taibi can save for sure.
The Young Lions our next hope for national team isn't any better in footballing wise but just lucky they meet a Sengkang squad on their usual lousy day as we succumbed to a 2-0 defeat.
Once again it's not about the scoreline but how woefully the team displayed in the loss that really made us jaded....doubt we may attend another match featuring our team for sometime till the end of the season.
Over the weekend, my forth maternal uncle (and the 2nd last surviving ones) passed away at the ripe age of 70 due to colon cancer I assume from what I can depicted from Mom.
My recollection of him usually was during that few and far between expedition to the small durain plantation the household owned.
A swinging bachelor with a history of promiscuous lifestyles, he certainly had a life he envisioned to be and hopefully he felt it was fulfilling enough for him. May he rest in peace.
Once again it is hard to accept when there is a death in the household, despite not a close one... but life goes on...
The Olympics though took centerstage in the family and perhaps the rest of the island when the female table tennis team managed to clear the semi finals stage to earn the rights to go up against the home team and World No. 1 last evening to claim the gold medal.
However we were already in jubilation on Friday when they toiled to beat South Korean in 5 sets as we would the least get the silver medal, an honor 48 years in the making.
The live telecast even put the Prime Minister's National Day Rally at the backseat as we braced for a near impossible task to overcome a China team with the top 2 seeds in the world.
In the end, we lost sheepishly in 3 rounds with Dad adding his own commentary about how bad our "bought-over" team is and what rights they had to earn 750K prize kitty. He was just being sore and negative as usual and the missus who was watching the first few match-up with him in the living room got tired of his constant hounding of our local peddlers whom she supported and retreated to the comfort of the room for the final match up.
Elsewhere Phenomenal Phelps finally notched his 8th gold medal on Saturday and he barely lost his 7th (1X100m Butterfly) by 100th of a second.
Jong Oranje failed to beat hot favorites Argentina in their Quarterfinal tie while 10 men Belgium caught the scene by storm by beating Italy 3-2 to make it into the semi finals.
Rafael Nadal won gold medal for men's single tennis while Federer redeemed himself by clinching gold for Switzerland in the doubles.
Russia clean swept the women's singles while the Venus sisters retained their doubles gold.
Usan Bolt became the fastest man of earth with his 100m sprint but China's golden boy of the tracks, Liu Xiang ended his quest for his 2nd consecutive Gold in 110m Hurdles when he pulled out of his heats due to problematic Achilles tendon, surely to much awe and exasperation of the local fans supporting him.
While even the Prime Minister was exhilarated with our first Olympic medal for half a century, many insensitive mood-spoilers claimed that there is no glory with the medal since the team including the coach comprised of mainly China-born Chinese.
This brought the whole FTS (Foreign Talent Scheme) issue up on the surface and it was so well documented and discussed, I'm starting to yawn just typing this.
Seriously with no sporting culture whatsoever, the laidback mentality of Singaporean plus the way our government manufactured us to be, we would never win anything on international level without imported talent as highlighted by the PM himself.
In a virtual reality of 2017, a Singapore National football team won the 3rd placing of the Confederation Cup, beating the likes of Colombia and Uruguay and matching against Spain and Argentina with a squad comprising a Chilean rightback and a couple of Thai midfielders and on anyday might even include some China-born players as well as a Nigerian defender and a host of many other non-Singapore born players...
Mr Lee also emphasized on our appalling birthrate especially among the Chinese population, and fervently encouraged more couples into the parenting bandwagon.
This news came to me mere minutes before the missus bemoaned how envious of other friends who are basking in motherhood.
I do believe in having my own children but once again I just don't know when...
Once again another topic we had stumbled upon time and again...sigh
Think Foo & myself had finally gave up hope on Sengkang Punggol when we witnessed yet another pathetic display one which if I have a kid would never want to show them.
We made an effort to head down to Jalan Besar for the S League duel against fellow strugglers, Young Lions hoping for another victory under Gravobac's tutelage.
But almost half of his first eleven was robbed from service and the youngsters modeled themselves after the senior squad in the most wretched way.
For an entire match, we couldn't string a good attacking opportunity and there was perhaps a tame shot on goal even Massimo Taibi can save for sure.
The Young Lions our next hope for national team isn't any better in footballing wise but just lucky they meet a Sengkang squad on their usual lousy day as we succumbed to a 2-0 defeat.
Once again it's not about the scoreline but how woefully the team displayed in the loss that really made us jaded....doubt we may attend another match featuring our team for sometime till the end of the season.
Japanese word of the day: 育てること(Parenting) If a kid is like a professional footballer, I may fancy taking up parenting. But if it's like Sengkang Punggol, I rather not...
posted by Kei at
1:41 PM
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