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Memorable Events

A Journal of National Day Parade Preview (2007)

Both Cynthia and I felt a bit weird dressed in red while having Prawn Mee. Not just any red, but the kind of red that stops traffic. What to do? We were encouraged to dress this way. It is not as though our wardrobe has lots of red items to choose from. So I donned a Nike T-shirt while Cynthia wore a red shirt with the word … “Mauritius” (a beautiful country in the middle of nowhere). Perhaps no one really recognise the word. What if she wears a bright red T-shirt with the word “Malaysia” instead. Erm … ha ha ha.

We parked our car at Cynthia’s office and have decided to take a train to Raffle City in order to avoid the traffic jam near the parade area. At that time I was still not too sure on how to get there. But then …

We saw more and more people dressed in red. And the situation has gone exponential as we approached our destination. The entire stretch of road was filled with red colored shirts (see below).

As we approached the entry, we saw an array of screening machines. Cynthia walked through the metal detector with a bottle of water and she was asked to take a sip there and then. Pretty tight security we have.

It is because the Indoor Stadium has closed down, our National Parade is at Marina Bay this year. The stage is built on top of the water with four bridges extending from the seating area that has a capacity of 27,000 people. With the backdrop of the Central Business District (CBD), this year is certainly special compares to the previous ones. Below is a picture of a structure that has the seating area on the surface and the VIP car park as well as access area below. I wonder what they will do with this structure after the National Day.

The event started with some music entertainment and to me, it really started when the parades of the representatives from our Total Defence marched into the platform.

And then, our Singapore flag coming from the CBD area flew above us. People spirit was high and we sang the National Anthem.

What better way to please the crowd (especially the kids) was to have the new 3rd Generation solders appeared from nowhere and posted for us?

The parade continued with the participation from the Air Force (that pair of F16 was fast and fury and loud) and the Navy as well as the coastal guards, and the Army (mainly vehicles and 40 commandos jumped from a bridge on ropes). I did not know that those boats can go so fast and they are actually quite big!

Beside a showcase of some of our military assets, there were lots of entertainment on stage. The color and light was just amazing.

Even the river was lit up with some huge light bulbs!

There was musical fountains in front of the stage and by the sides as well.

Throughout the event, I was chatting with Cynthia if the performers have been “recycled” for some of the performances. Partly because it seemed to have many people involved in each performance. Towards the end of the event, the entire bunch of performers all entered the stage. And my oh mine … there were lots of people on the stage (see below)!

The event ended with the display of fireworks from around the stage as well as on top of three buildings at the CBD area.

All good journals begin with food and end with food. By the time we returned to Raffle Place, it was 9.30pm. We had Satay at Lau Pa Sat as our dinner. Local delights from start till end!

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Memorable Events

So I Found A Job (And Thanks For The Support Y’all!)

Thanks Lora!

Before I tell the story of how the reading from the milometer of my car helped me to decide which job offer to take, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friends, family, and the avid readers of my site for keeping me going throughout this seven months long “sabbatical leave”. I know it is not easy to hear those I-need-to-find-myself and I-have-no-idea-of-what-to-do over and over again, days after days, months after months. I can even imagine on the other side of the MSN chat, you must be busy Alt-Tabbing to the work you need to finish or busy conceptualizing some really cool approaches to solve real life problems. I now for once fully understand why housewives tend to call up their husbands in the middle of the day talking about trivial stuffs. Turns out that triviality is to the eyes of the beholders. And because in this half a year or so I have spent much of my time building contents in my site, thank you for all your visits and your kind words of encouragement – both on and offline. You guys have kept me going days after days …

So why have I finally decided to look for a job? There are many reasons, many triggers. Ironically, that one reason, that final trigger turns out to be an invalid reason as I found out later. But still, I am glad that I did. At times I think my friends and family have much faith in me than I. Out of the blue, I told one of my dear friend that I have this idea of looking for a job. My dear friend’s immediate response was that once I put my mind into something, I will get it done – fast. I didn’t quite believe him but now I do.

In these months of wandering, I have gotten a few who are close to me to think of taking a long career break – as young as someone who has worked for a couple of years. Even one of my recruiters who own the business wishes to take a long break. Then I realised, that this break of mine has to end soon. Least I will get more and more people doing the things I did. Who’s going to pay the income tax in that case and sustain the Singapore economy?!

When my sabbatical leave hit the 6-month mark, I checked my bank balance and did a mental calculation on how long I could sustain without financially relying onto anybody. My savings has shrunk quite a fair bit, much more than I have anticipated. “Incremental Retirement” at that time was a good idea. No one can tell how long one is going to live so how can you decide how much money is needed for your retirement based on the statistics from other people? That was where the idea of “Incremental Retirement” comes into picture. However, I must remain relevant to the current job market to make that work. No point not being able to return to the workforce and continue where I left off. That way, I may not even have a retirement!

Looking at the dwindling saving triggered another thought – opportunity cost. That number has more impact than the reduction in savings. Adding both numbers up – expenses and opportunity cost – made it a more compelling reason for me to do something quick. And since all the rest of my potential money making ideas are going nowhere, it was only natural and logical to go after what the market will pay me for – my past experiences. Turns out that because Cynthia has not been transferring money into my account since the beginning of the year (we have a very complex financial system whereby majority of our expenses, including Cynthia’s personal expenses, go under my bank account), my financial situation was way worst than I though. My real expenses throughout these seven months was not that alarming after all. In fact, we looked at the numbers last night and agreed that I am actually quite “cheap” to upkeep. Just a couple of hundreds of dollars a month on average is enough to keep me a happy man.

The rest are history. I zigzagged between the two job opportunities and one night when I returned home after the final interview of one of the opportunities, the mileage of my car read 20,951km. I remember vividly one fine day back in December last year. I parked my car at my condo and the engine was still running. The sky was bright and sunny. I looked at the milometer of my car and said to myself: by the time I service my car, I will find myself a job. And I was supposed to service my car when the mileage hit 20,951km – the exact mileage when I got home from from that final interview (click here to see the milometer reading and the service reminder). Call this coincidence? My life can be so full of it sometimes. Now you know why I can so relate to the character played by Audrey Tautou in the movie “A Very Long Engagement”. Future conditions as imagined in present time do mean something to me.

So what’s next? I guess if there are two things that I keep on doing over the years are songwriting and just writing in general. Hence, the site will continue (though longer turnaround time for comment replies and possibly less frequent blog posting). I look at the clock now and I am just 9 hours away from reporting to duty. By the time this blog is published, I shall be back from my first day of work (still need time to vet this blog). Expect a whole new series of story from a new cubicle dweller. Stay tuned.

PS. A big thank you to my sister Lora in getting me such a wonderful gift for my new job. I wanted to send you a MMS on the result of the final engraving but it was too much hassle trying to take a good picture using my wireless phone. I used a camera instead. I love the picture so much that I have decided to put it into my site.

Edit: Erm … thanks to Choong Yoong to point out the difference between speedometer and milometer (or odometer). Ha ha ha.

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Memorable Events

Celebrating 10.07.2007 (My Birthday D’oh!)

Caption from left to right, top to bottom: (1) My 9th oil painting, (2) My roti prata lunch, (3) If you see this landmark, turn right!, (4) If you see this sign, congratulations, (5) That seafood place, (6) Our dinner, (7) Cynthia was happy with her food, (8) Me too and a secret sign that only Cynthia knows

Thank you for all the birthday text messages, even for that “Happy Birthday Old Man” message. Honestly speaking, I am not that old! Above is some of the pictures I have taken for my unplanned celebration. Just click to enlarge and mouse over for caption. Caption from left to right, top to bottom: (1) My 9th oil painting, (2) My roti prata lunch, (3) If you see this landmark, turn right!, (4) If you see this sign, congratulations, (5) That seafood place, (6) Our dinner, (7) Cynthia was happy with her food, (8) Me too and a secret sign that only Cynthia knows.

I love celebrating birthdays. Be it as mine or others. I cannot think of any date that is more important than one’s birthday if we for once think about ourselves and not being overly patriotic or zealously religious or hopelessly romantic. I was used to have this tradition of buying my friends (then-colleagues) a buffet lunch on Roti Prata. It was really fun. Imagine having like 10 people on one table and forget about asking everybody what they want. On average each person eats about 2 to 3 Prata so I would just order randomly like … 5 mushroom cheese, 5 banana cheese, 3 egg and onions, and etc. Of course I always over ordered (what a good host I was eh?) and one time, I consumed 5 pieces of Prata. No kidding.

Those were the good days. A day before my birthday this year, I had an idea. I wanted to meet a friend of mine for breakfast, another friend of mine for late breakfast, then another one for lunch, another one for coffee, another one for high tea, and finally one more with Cynthia and I for dinner and possibly a movie. Turned out that calling up people at the last minute could be a logistic nightmare and since I woke up feeling lazy, I discarded my idea and just went with the flow.

When the clock struck 12am, I managed to finish the transcript of all my 10 songs and have them as something that are “band friendly” (the end result is something like this for half a song). I really should have done this years ago. It only took me 4 hours to complete this task and like the task of “looking for a job”, somehow I just never got around to do it. Just when I have started putting effort into it, the task is over before I know it.

Inspired by how (not very) long it took to finish the transcripts, this morning when I woke up, I wanted to paint. Many friends have asked me what happens to my hobby of oil painting and my standard answer was: my pool of inspiration has momentarily run dry. Knowing that my life will turn normal after I start working, I wanted to paint something. Just anything. Cynthia has been asking me to paint some of her soft toys so still life it was.

I have become rusty in oil painting, I have to admit. The first object took me forever to paint (see image 1 – left to right, up then down). And when I got down to the second object, my palette was filled with different shades of brown and all of a sudden, I began to see light and darkness. The end result was not that great – though Cynthia loves it. Hopefully my next oil painting will be better.

Halfway through my painting, I looked at the clock and realised that it was too late to call any friend of mine for lunch. Just before I finished the painting, Cynthia messaged me that she would be leaving office at 2pm in order to celebrate my birthday. Hooray! I quickly finished what I set out to do this morning and I pondered upon doing something special for my birthday.

An idea came into my mind and I warned Cynthia promptly of a crazy idea I have without telling her what this idea was exactly.

Before I could execute this idea of mine, I needed food. For the love of Roti Prata, I followed my tradition and have three this time (see image 2). While Cynthia was taking a taxi home, I drove to Thompson Plaza and changed for some foreign currency. By 4pm, we were …

… heading to Malacca.

I always love Malacca. That is where Cynthia and I first started dating. And we both love road trips – an unending road listening to our favourite music (we had Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne, Scissor Sisters, Linkin Park, Rihanna, and Tiesto). It is amazing that most of the time, we just enjoy each other’s presence without being compelled to converse. I did not speed. Malacca is not that far anyway. I wanted to dine at one of our favourite seafood center where they serve baked seafood and our challenge was to find the place.

Malacca has changed quite a fair bit in this 10 years. The roads are a lot nicer and because of the change in landscape, we had a tough time finding the seafood center. We have a post-it documentation of how to get there. Basically, leave the highway at Malacca exit. Keep going straight and at the junction between a petrol station and a hospital, turn left. At the junction when another petrol station is seen (see image 3), turn right. Head all the way straight and at the T-junction, turn left. After a good distance, all we needed to do was to turn right …

… but somehow, that junction has disappeared. We retraced our route and found that right turn that was earlier than we anticipated. We drove through a village (with a sign “Bukit Durian”) and at the T-junction, we saw the “Ikan Bakar” sign (see image 4) and we knew we have found the place (see image 5). See footnote for a better direction.

I remember that seafood center was used to be a lot more crowded. Perhaps it was a weekday or perhaps the new road system has confused the living crap out of everybody, the center was almost empty. There were many stalls and we just picked one in random. We chose our dinner (see image 6) and before long, we had our baked seafood right in front of our eyes (see image 7 & 8).

By 11pm, we were back in Singapore. It was certainly a special day for me. Driving out of Singapore – even for that brief moment – allowed me to see things in a wider perspective. One of my friends asked what tonight’s plan was and he offered to light the candle for me. It may be one of those “mid-life crisis” as he pointed out but it was certainly one of those “spur of the moment”.

I in particularly love this spur of the moment.

Footnote: To get to that seafood center, exit Jasin Melaca (just 1 or 2 exits before Malacca). Head straight for 6km and then turn right. After another 8.8km, make a right turn. Travel for 9.9km and then make a left turn. Drive for another 3.6 km and then turn right, immediately turn left. Head straight and the seafood center is just in front.

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Memorable Events

Cynthia’s Birthday

When it comes to other people’s birthday celebration (actually including mine), I am usually the non-creative-go-with-the-flow type. Since there is a limit as in how much I can blog about other people’s lives, let’s skip what happened this morning and afternoon and go straight to dinner.

Each year I let Cynthia choose where to dine. Some years we ended up at high end restaurants. Some years we ended up having candle light dinner at home. One year I forgot what we had for dinner but I do remember on that day, we drove back to Singapore from our Malacca trip and in the evening we had a birthday cake with candles. Got that recorded in our camcorder. This year, Cynthia wanted to dine at Hard Rock Cafe and I think it has been years since we have visited that place. The last time we were there was with our guitarist Jason during the Metallica’s launch of the St. Anger album. The Thai-Chinese MTV VJ Utt was there at the bar and Cynthia had one drink served by Utt himself! Always brings back good memories – especially for the two hard rockers in us. Talking about hard rockers, while I was inside Hard Rock Cafe, an idea came to my mind. How about a Hip-Hop Cafe that has a hip-hop theme to it instead. Could be interesting.

Took the non-highway route into the city, I filter in and out of the lanes frequently in order to blend in with the rush hours driving sentiment that is so commonly manifested on the road at those hours. Then at the Novena junction, I stopped abruptly when the turn right green arrow disappeared. The taxi next to me went through though. Tsk tsk tsk … some kind of drivers we have in Singapore. While waiting at the junction watching the vehicles shot pass my face I saw this big flash light beamed into my eyes. Oh yes, a van just went through the red light camera and the camera flashed. Poor van driver and tsk tsk tsk … some kind of drivers we have in Singapore.

Right after the right turn I saw a red light. So I slowed down and stopped. Some pedestrians must have pressed the button and crossed when there was no car. The moment I stopped at the line after a rather long slowing down distance, a taxi zoomed pass me totally oblivious that there was a red light in front. Shocking really. Tsk tsk tsk …

Law abiding citizens like myself of course took ages to reach Hard Rock Cafe. The Linkin Park album that Cynthia has chosen for the road nearly reached the end as I parked at the Forum. Whenever I dine at Hard Rock Cafe, regardless of locations be it as Chicago, Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bali (hey, is there a Hard Rock Cafe in Hong Kong?!), or anywhere I cannot remember at this very moment, I always order the beef and chicken fajitas. Now, the menu comes with seafood fajitas and I recommended that to Cynthia. She appeared to love it. It has … let me recall … fish, squid, scallops, mussels, and prawns inside.

Cynthia will continue the celebration with her friends and colleagues in the following days (lucky girl!). That, I am sure, is beyond my blog.

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Memorable Events

Mount Kinabalu – WE DID IT !!

Hooooraaaay!

On March 28, 2007, Tong Kiat (far left), Cynthia, and I have made it to the top of Mount Kinabalu – the tallest mountain in Malaysia that is 4095.2m above sea level – admiring the magical moment of sunrise. Just before sunrise, the temperature was 2 degrees Celsius and the wind speed was about 40 km/h. The climb and subsequent descend was challenging to the three of us who have no experience nor enough training for mountains of that scale. Quite a number of steps were at our knee level, some stretch was muddy and slippery, night climbing was tough as our visions were limited, rope climbing along the danger zone in the dark was hard, the air got thinner as we gained altitude, any mistake near the top could be nasty, and the descend itself hurt our knees big time.

Amidst all the challenges we faced, we achieved our mission through teamwork and undying support to one another throughout the various tough moments each individual encountered. Not only that, we had a wonderful and experienced mountain guide and thanks to all our friends and families’ support, tips, and prayers, we reached our finishing line safe and sound. We lost count in how many muscles of ours were (and still are) sore after the climb, Tong Kiat suffered from knee injury at the beginning of the ascend and I on both knees during the descend. It was pain but it was definitely worth it.

We will post our individual journals in a few days’ time. All three of us feel that if you do wish to climb Mount Kinabalu one day, set a date today because being young is definitely an advantage.

Related Article: Our Mount Kinabalu Experience

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Memorable Events

That One Song I Remember During Road Trip In Melbourne

I usually associate trips that I have been with songs that were aired in the radio at the same period. For instance, Tony Rich Project’s “Nobody Knows” is associated to my first visit to Chicago, USA. Couple of years later, during my road trip to Los Angeles, Jewel’s “You Were Meant For Me” was played all the time. Coincidentally, both road trips (company training) happened right after a major heartbreak. What those heart wrenching songs are! As if God was speaking right to my face.

During my recent road trip in around Melbourne, I remember hearing “Don’t Give Up” all the time in the radio. “Don’t Give Up” is probably one of my top 20 favourite songs of all time originally performed by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush back in 1986. Whenever I felt down during my university days, I played “Don’t Give Up” loud. The version I heard over the radio in around Melbourne is covered by some other artists. “Don’t Give Up” has been covered by Alicia Keys and Bono as well as Australian artists Shannon Noll and Natalie Bassingthwaighte and it was the later version I have heard on the radio. Just a bit of background here. Shannon is an Australian Idol runner-up and Natalie is the frontwoman of the electro rock band Rogue Traders. I do enjoy Rogue Traders’s music (reminds me of an old band Republica) and it is certainly strange to hear Natalie singing a ballad.

Anyway, hail to YouTube, we have a video to watch.

PS. I will try to organize my Melbourne pictures fast so that I can share them progressively with you all a.s.a.p. Stay tuned for koalas next.

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Concert Memorable Events

Muse’s 2007 Tour at Fort Canning Singapore

Both Cynthia and I are in love with their latest album “Black Holes and Revelations” so when we first heard that Muse is coming to Singapore, we bought the early bird tickets (priced at … gasp … S$85 compared to a full price ticket selling at S$110). Today Cynthia got home early and by 6pm, we arrived at Fort Canning. I have driven pass Fort Canning many times but today was the first time I stepped into this little nice garden near the CBD area.

6-ish, we found a rare parking lot right next to the entrance … 6.30pm, I was siting at one of the tables outside Dome waiting for the sandwiches (our dinner) while Cynthia was standing at the queue as a light drizzle was falling (I felt like, oddly as it sounds, a female penguin going out to hunt for food – Dome is sort of far, you know – while the male ones are left behind with the bad weather) … 6.45pm, I climbed the 135 steps from Dome to where Cynthia was. Luckily I found her as the queue was slowly disappearing into the entrance (she did not carry a phone). 7.30pm, we were standing right in front of the stage area. 8pm, the official start time and no sign of Muse. 8.05pm, a van reversed into behind the stage area and here came the crews. 8.30pm, a limo reversed into behind the stage area and the crowd went wild.

At 8.45pm, Muse was on stage. As anticipated, the entire crowd pushed to the front and everybody was jumping with hands high in air. Temperature was literally rising and the air was thickening with rising humidity. Bodies rubbing against each other and the music was deafening. I could hardly hear the vocals. The music was so loud and so was the cheering. The atmosphere I must say was very good.

Halfway through the show, Cynthia needed some fresh air and I needed some water. We made our way out of the middle crowd and gosh … how fresh was the air just at the rim of this crazy crowd. In fact, it was yet another experience standing from a distance and that distance was no further than where we were at one of Kuala Lumpur’s stadiums watching Linkin Park couple of years back. No body rubbing, mixing of sweat, no blockage of view, plenty of fresh air, and the music sounded a lot better from the back. The atmosphere was not as intense of course and that was the trade off.

We enjoyed the show as we got to see Muse’s front-man Matthew Bellamy displaying his talents in both guitar and piano. At some point, he was playing the piano with his guitar swung to his back and right after the piano piece, he stood up, swung the guitar to the front and started playing it. The bassist and backing vocalist Chris Wolstenholme looked really cool (wearing a tie) playing his signature fast melodious bass riff with heavy distortion. Second song of the set, when he stepped onto the center stage, everyone knew that the song “Hysteria” was coming up and true enough, his distorted bass solo began the song beautifully. Cynthia was most impressed with the drummer Dominic Howard. The patterns were rock steady and full of variations. The drumming was so full of energy. Occasionally they have another musician helping out with the keyboard but most of the time, they did it with 3 members.

One hour into the show, the band returned to the back stage and the crowd cheered for encore. They returned and played for another 15 minutes. The last song of the set was madness. Matthew was jumping in air, gliding across the stage, kneeling on the floor while playing his guitar. At the ending scene, he threw his guitar onto one of the amplifiers, said farewell to the crowd, and left the stage. Dramatic ending it was.

Just seconds after the band left the stage, the limo sped out of the free-standing area as that was the only chance to leave the scene before the crowd hit the same entrance.

One hour and fifteen minutes was a bit short. At home, I visited their official site and realised that Singapore is the first stop of their World Tour (practising on a smaller crowd first?). Perhaps that explains why I feel they could have given more. Will we be watching Muse again next year as they mentioned that they will be back then? Give us another “Black Holes and Revelations” and we shall consider!

Note: 6,500 people attended the concert.

Related Entry: HAARP – Muse Live Tour – Full Of Light And Sound

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Memorable Events

Had Fun With Board Games

In the era of media domination when XBox360 and PC gaming are kings, movies are favourite past time, and people indulge themselves into YouTube and cable TVs, hardly do we remember that board games can be just as fun if not more. It is a great opportunity for friends to interact and for us to laugh at each other rather than to a television or a screen.

I have decided to, instead of our usual movie escapade, invite my buddy Tong Kiat over to my home to have dinner with Cynthia and myself and to play some board games. Dinner was delicious (roast chicken and chips), Ayu’s concert (DVD) was entertaining, but nothing beats our fun trying to outwit, outplay one another … in the name of Risk and Scrabble.

We did not take long to get ourselves familiarised with the rules of Risk. Round #1, Tong Kiat’s European yellow army took onto my African black army at Egypt and as a revenge, I took onto his Southern Europe. Meanwhile Cynthia’s Asian red territory of Middle East was at constant war with the yellow and the black armies. While our war focus was on Middle East, Egypt, and Southern Europe, Cynthia’s empire expanded into North America and without warning, she took over 24 territories and fulfilled her mission. Cynthia won the first round.

Round #2, my black army was determined to take over South America and Australia. Tong Kiat’s yellow army has decided to gave me hell and he has deployed all his troops at both South America and Australia. His mission was to eliminate my army. Without knowing Tong Kiat’s intend, I went frontal with his troops and right from the start, both the black and yellow armies were severely weakened. Cynthia’s red army took the environmental advantage, painted Asia and Africa red, and won the game.

Next, we moved onto Scrabble. Tong Kiat and I am both terrible in spelling and against all odds, Tong Kiat has won the game with a score of 176 (Cynthia – 152, Me – 140). Our final collective effort can be viewed by clicking here.

A very fun evening and we all agreed that we shall do it again.

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Memorable Events

Against The Day

My big boss up there works in a mysterious way. One day I shall make some sense out of today. Meanwhile, my wild ideas and dreams of …

  • Going for a Silk Road trip with my buddy Ken (he takes pictures and I write the journal) and have the book published, the photos sent for exhibitions, and to explore the business opportunities along the way (I tried talking him into me playing at the pubs at night but he was not too sure on that)
  • Playing gigs at one of the Southeast Asia locations to promote my songs (initial thoughts on Manila but Jason told me recently that Bandung, Indonesia is quite happening these days)
  • Getting a PhD a.k.a. permanent head damage (kidding) on something that I have a passion on
  • Writing a book with a synopsis that Cynthia found it original and brilliant

… are one step closer to reality. That is if my foot actually lands somewhere.

Days ago, I spent S$60 on the book “Against The Day” by Thomas Pynchon after reading some interesting reviews on that book that is 1,120 pages thick. I was intrigued by the concept but I doubted if I can finish it even before I bought it. (Why did I buy that then? Well, the sleeve design of the hardcover edition is very beautiful and I could not resist the challenge.) Now that I have this nice long break, while in search of what to do next with my life, definitely a wonderful opportunity to start reading it.

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Memorable Events

A Birthday Treat – World Cup Final

One of my best friend once complimented my passion I find in life. That’s true. Once I find a new passion, I hook onto it, savor it, and persist all the way through. I am not a big fan of football. My father supports Brazil and I simply follow the World Cup – especially my father’s favorite team – ever since I was young.

I have not quite watched the World Cup like I did this year. I have nearly watched each and every matches. It was almost like an obsession. I wanted to know every team, all the players, how they played, how they progressed, and what their strategies were like. And matches after matches, I was thoroughly entertained. It was like the whole season of American Idol cramped into a month. The problem, of course, is that I am now living in the European time zone instead (time now is three in the morning).