Tears in Heaven by @Alice and Serious XC

Super Love. 
It brought a lot of memories, laughter and .... quite some amounts of practice, and lots of finger pain. 😅
I've known Alice since our Masters' mugging, and she was the appointed class monitor.

And, there's so much memories with this group of ladies (Alice, Jean and CH), including the biahing and cheonging together then. And also the joys of learning, the graduating together, the many makan sessions, and now, the latest, jamming together. Ha ha. Ha ha. We didn't technically jam together. We played separately and Alice put it into the video.

It just brought so much joy to me, and lotsa laughter too, because it cracked me up at some parts, before this final put-together. And the interim attempts.

And she said my face was too serious. HAHHAHAHA. I said I am not going to re-play the whole song. So she said, ok, give me a smiley thumbs up for the end of the video. So I said - Ok, that one can. Hahhahahah. So so funny and so enjoyable.

I thank God for the beautiful friendships forged. It's been many many many years, but it's amazing how lives become intertwined.
And also how distance doesn't separate.

So @Alice - thank you once again. Your self-taught saxo journey now makes me want to continue to learn the guitar better too. And my guitar still... CMI. So we do better next time ok!! 🥰


Next time we go jam together and Jean and CH can sing! 😍

Warm Fizzy Surprise

Warm and fizzy surprise - really took me by surprise.

Sim - Which tower and unit number?
XC - Tower A, XXX
Sim - Ok, we are reaching.
XC - ETA?
Sim - Now.

And we hung up,
And suddenly, I realised she said "we".
I texted her - We?
The doorbell rang.

Haha - so it turned out that Graham was coming along too.
There was some misunderstanding. And I wasn't expecting him.
I was so shocked because I didn't prepare enough food. And, hahaha. Nvm the misunderstanding.
It became a beautiful fishy, and "all-sorts-of-meatboalls" hotpot for all.

And there was also fizzy champagne. They knew it is the drink-of-the-season for me now, and brought along a bottle. The bubbles just make me happy.
And we had a beautiful short worship session.
Very very nice evening for a change, and very thankful for a great fellowship.
Very encouraged too; little surprises warm the heart so much.


The food is yummz. You can't see everything, but it is yummz. :-D


Kenji at his feet, but staring at my every move. Ha ha ha. I love K.


And beautiful Sim - taken 2 plus weeks back. First meet up in person since dunno which month last year. :)

And Liverpool finally... well-deserved, well-deserved. So happy. Watched many clips and feel that emotional rush. Like Last Dance. Just this time it's football.

And, the weekend is here.
I also wondered why weekdays passed by so quickly.
Talked about いじめられる with an incident that recently happened, and especially in a foreign culture. And there are so many such forms perhaps.

So whilst the work week has passed again, I had a really beautiful run on Wed evening.
The weather is now really getting much hotter, and also more humid, and so runs are getting harder too. But, it was such a good one on Wed evening.


My first evening run at the mosque. So many folks were out for walks and jogs too - you can spot, I think, 2 fellow runners. But many more are going round the mosque. :)
The night hues envelope, the mosque was lit up, the running pavement cushioned the impact.


And my favourite, constant cooling down spot. I could capture that little crescent! :-)

With the Egyptian

There's just a sense of satisfaction guzzling down beer. That fizzy bubbles, the huge gulps.
And that's how I ended my Friday and the work week. Again, dunno where time went.
And today is SG's CB-breaker day, where 5 folks are allowed to gather, to go for a meal, where shops reopen, where some new normal restarts.

Here, it's the same. Shops are slowly re-opening. Public spaces too, and.... tennis as well.
So I am just so thankful, and simply, just happy.

The tales with the Egyptian man was a constant this week and last. I re-started some tennis, and it was very hard-going some days, even in the evening time due to the heat, but but but, I am just so glad to be able to hit some balls, correct my strokes, unlearn and relearn. So I had 2 tennis lessons this week, and then today, we ended with a great great dinner at Madang.


Tennis, once again. :) And with social distancing in place. :)


The food @ Madang is just too yummy. Grilled beef, Fried Chicken, Jjamppong, Bulgogi, Kimchi pancake.... and the beer.


I would never never ever imagine I would get to know an Egyptian. But I did. I don't think he would have met Singaporeans the way he did too. Beyond the court, it's been a bubbling friendship, and Omar has one of the heartiest laughs, he is affable and kind, and is one of the most well-liked coaches here at ZSC. We were randomly assigned to him when we first decided to engage a coach here. So that's a blessing in itself.

Just thankful and feeling fuzzy and happy.
It's a beautiful dinner to end my work week. 感謝な気持ちいっぱいです。

The furore on black

感触多多。

Some of the best moments I've had in Abu Dhabi - are thru' knowing this man and his family, and the kindness and the good conversations.
I even went to Ghana with them, and got to know Sabina and Nana.


Black - this discrimination and prejudice - why?

I recalled that particular flight to Ghana - I had traveled alone, because Robert and family had gone a day earlier.
That moment when I was in the flight, un, un, un, unexpectedly, I couldn't help but feel I was that minority. I looked around, wondering if I would see any Asian, any Chinese, anyone whom I could identify with a little, and there was almost none (just 3 I saw and they were seated at the front). The whole plane was filled with Africans mostly. And for that moment, I couldn't help but wonder - why was I looking for someone I could identify with? Was it because I felt it was uncomfortable, was I not used to this environment, or was I just different, standing out as a minority? Certainly, everyone was also looking at me, probably wondering why I was on the flight? I have pondered about this before, a lot. And in Abu Dhabi, one of the sermons I've resonated with a lot is the one on racial discrimination, a very real issue, especially in different parts of the world. And the root cause is pride. Somehow over the many many years, specific races would have felt they are superior.

But, on that Ghana flight, I never felt that I was any lesser, any better. I know we could be looking so different outwardly, but, we are all the same, the same. I was just much more aware, probably first time in my life, aware and surprised that such feelings and emotions bubbled up in me, in recognizing that I was kinda different. And when I told Robert, he laughed a little. Maybe he felt I could identify a little more with issues I was so far remote from, with such an experience.

And I grew up in adoration of MJ and SP, of runners, of sportsman who are of different races and colours. And I thought they were so amazing, and so beautiful, so much finesse, so much gift. I thought MJ was powerful, and what a sight-to-behold (again, fan girl speaking).
And of course, having watched Last Dance in the last month, I was even much more in awe.
But, even then, I saw that as a human being, we all have the same struggles, same pains. MJ had a dream, he worked hard, he lost his dad, he cried, he celebrated. He needed a break, he came back stronger. He had his regrets... aren't we all the same despite the outward differences?
While MJ is probably the best-ever in basketball, he too, is like me and the rest of human kind.
Eventually, we all go back to dust anyway. So why such angst and prejudice? I must ask PT this question one day.

So perhaps in my own little way, this reflection is most real today, especially when Nana sent me a text last night. Today, I remember my friends. I do not have a lot of black friends. But today, I think about this for a bit.