...goes the weasel

Monday, November 10, 2008

The Tenth One (aka the bumper edition)

Well, its be awhile since i last updated. Been having the writer's block. Of course, that is also a euphemism for being lazy, but honestly, I've been getting that feeling. That feeling of not being bothered to blog anymore. Thinking of how each blog post appears to the person reading it. The same reason why my prev one kinda died off.

On a (only very) slightly happier note, I intend to collect all the thoughts in my head, and release them into the wilderness that is the internet. (Which was the entire reason why I set up this damn thing in the first place.) Only time will tell if I actually bother to finish this long one. Let me start of in a slightly cronological order.

ULTIMATE (FRISBEE) Parte Uno

I went with eli and lwl to ParkView Square over Deepavali (Diwali?) for some ultimate. Two interesting things in that sentence; ParkView Square and ultimate. For starters, ParkView Square is a pretty awesome building. It is opposite Raffles Hospital, and diagionally across Bugis Junction.

Affectionately known as 'Gotham City', its a pretty gothic looking building, with a front porch adorned with statues of many famous people, including Plato, Winston Churchill and Sun Yat Sun. There is also a giant sculpture of a golden crane right in centre of the porch. On the first floor, there's a pretty impressive looking bar, with an equally grand toilet. Small, but pretty darn neat. Both me and lwl had some time to recce the place a little, as we waited a usually late eli.

Ultimate, on the other hand, is a game played with a frisbee. It looks kinda gay at first, because honestly, what's so difficult about throwing a frisbee around? Upon closer inspection, however, much technique is needed to actually make the damn disc go where you want it to. The ultimate (ultimate, geddit?) goal is to eventually throw the frisbee to the guy who's standing at the end zone, a la american football.

Why would I be playing this game, you ask? Well firstly, it was Deepavali. I wasn't about to spend a whole day rotting in front of the laptop. Secondly, after hearing eli wax lyrical about it for a rather long time, I decided to go down and see what the fuss was all about. Thirdly, I thought some exercise would do me some good.

However, it wasn't such a good idea. Mainly because it rained. No wait, that would be an understatement. It POURED. It poured so badly that I could almost hear the cats and dogs whining in pain after bumping off the sheltered walkway. lwl and I were left shuddering in the cold, finding places where we would be entirely safe from the flood-inducing rain. Crazy eli, ever the lucky bastard, arrived just moments before the rain died down, holding his palms out and wondering what the big deal was.

In any case, eli decided that since he was there anyways, he would disregard the increasingly subsiding rain, puddles in the field that looked like actual ponds, and general common sense to go down and decide to play some ultimate anyways. lwl decided that the puddles posed too much of a drowning threat and opted out. I, on the other hand, was stuck in between. To be absolutely crazy and wade across the shin level water to play a game that I never have, or to stick with my buddy whom I met in primary school, and been friends ever since, to be a sane person for once? It was a no brainer. I went snorkling in the pitch.

It was wet, cold, and muddy. There was lots of running around and not getting the frisbee in my hands at all. The one time I actually got my hands on the damn disc was when I somehow intercepted the guy I was marking, somehow quickly passed it to some other guy for the counter, and we somehow got the point. There were a couple other occasions where I briefly touched the frisbee, only for it to rebound off my palm for the turnover.

I spent what seemed to be an eternity running around aimlessly across puddles, only to run back towards where I came from. But when all was said and done, what I remembered was not the feeling of squishing the water from my wet socks against my equally wet sole of my boots, not my cramped calves, not even my mom shrieking in horror at my muddy cleats. When I looked back, I saw the other fellas on the pitch who were not even on my team taking time out in the match to deliver a few pointers to this noob who was obviously slowing them down. I saw the other guys play sportingly, so much unlike the other 'gentlemen' playing football (there's no referee!). More importantly, I saw what most other people can't see at first glance: that team spirit and genuine friendly-ness, even to a noob.

FRIENDS FOREVER (?)

I went back to np for a while yesterday, and managed to catch up on the latest gossip happening around the class now. Its amazing how quickly life changes. Well, I know that change is constant, but when major changes happen around you, you just can't help but be astounded at the magnitude of it. For one, its interesting how a good friend for years can just, in one fleeting moment, become a person you detest.

I've always stared at wonder at how lightly friendships are taken. It seems that people can just randomly create, and subsequently dissolve long standing friendships. Of course, we have all seen how quickly and unamicably Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie turned from BFF to lifelong enemies and then back again, but I have always thought of it as something that bored celebs do for some much craved attention. But it seems that such everyday dramas also happen in real life.

Of course, there are various reasons for such splits. Disagreements, somebody stole somebody's boyfriend/girlfriend, and of course, the perennial favourite, irreconcilable differences. It could start of with something small and highly insignificant, like that little, incessant twitch of the shoulder. Like how a single snowflake evolves into an avalanche, these little things add up. And by the time they're realised, its too late. The damage done is irreversible.

I've always thought of myself as a decent enough friend, willing to understand flaws of others enough to know that they will never go away, and at the same time looking at myself, deciding on things that I should work on. But lately, its been more and more difficult to do that. Perhaps its the curse of being too observant, but it is getting harder to just ignore those little things anymore. Those things that, if left unsaid, will lay undetected for years to come. Once pointed out, however, they become as clear as day and you ask yourself why you never noticed them in the first place.

He never was my closest friend in class. And now, we have what I would consider a friendship of convenience. It is so much more convenient to be friends with him than to not. And then, nightmare of nightmares, he starts calling me 'bro'.

Dude.

WTF.

I have better people to call 'bro', and I don't even call them that. You talk to me for the past couple of years and you think you have somehow ascended to the position of bro-hood? Come on. Try harder. Also, just cause I am there to listen to you whine like a girl about how lonely you are because ironically, you have lost a girl, doesn't mean I enjoy it. You ask for my advice? Fine, I give it. Not that you even listen to it. Its really not my problem if you choose to wallow in your own little pool of self pity, sighing to yourself all day. I would very much rather just watch safely from a distance, chuckling to myself at the sadness of man. It becomes my problem, however, when you somehow decide to rope me in and ask for my advice, telling me your problems which is seem oh so insurmountable, EVERY SINGLE DAY. Its bad enough I have to wake up at 6am every weekday morning and drag myself to work but YOU, you telling me your bloody problems just almost drives me to suicide. Got a problem? Suck it up, be man, and deal with it.

God, that felt good.

*TOO BEE UPDATED*

by wc at 7:43 PM |