my ajumma notes

My, my, is this going to be the year of surprising men? Tsonga, Mardy Fish, Mas Selamat, Ma Ying-jeou... Okay, maybe Mr Ma (not the only man these days running on the ticket of 'change' and 'hope') wasn't all that unexpected, though perhaps his margin of victory was. To some. I wonder if we'll ever see the day when such election dolls (centre of picture) appear in our elections. That would be a surprise. ( picture source ) Was amused to hear a Hokkien song being played at the end of Mr Frank Hsieh's thank-you speech. And noted that he graciously congratulated Mr Ma early in the speech. Plus, he said something like although this is a loss for me, it's not a loss for Taiwan. Nice. So anyway, nice also to see Mardy Fish doing a Tsonga. Very interesting, indeed, to see these guys, seemingly coming from nowhere, packing off a string of higher-ranked players. Andy Murray, Gasquet and Nadal for Tsonga , and Hewitt, Davydenko, Nalbandian and Federer for Fish. W

A reprise of last Holy Thursday's reflection - these words from As I Have Done for You (by Dan Schutte), which they sang again this year... I, your Lord and Master, now become your servant I, who made the moon and stars, will kneel to wash your feet This is my commandment: to love as I have loved you Kneel to wash each other's feet as I have done for you. With this additional point from Fr Romeo's sermon this evening - Jesus washed even Judas' feet. picture from here

There is a strange story in today's ST, 'I think I saw Mas Selamat', a fairly graphic account of this person's (possible) close encounter with the man. A few strange things in this story. First, she said she saw a 'Malay man on the other side of Thomson Road.' How could she tell he was Malay from across the road? She noticed while he was walking near SJI (International) that 'he had a limp in his left leg'. Didn't the police say the limp is only noticeable if he's running or something like that? She said he looked 'scruffy', but why should he? I'm sure that in prison and detention centres, people have their baths and stuff. It's not as if they are left to rot there, right? She also said he looked 'dishevelled' and 'disoriented' and as though he didn't know where to head or what to do. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that an apparently astute and well-trained man like him would appear so 'lost'. Then,

Warning: spoilers ahead! Never thought I'd ever blog about a Taiwanese drama serial, ha ha. It Started With a Kiss , starring Ariel Lin, Joe Cheng, Jiro Wang (from the boyband Farenheit) and many others. In summary, Ariel from the 'F' class has a crush on Joe, a genius (IQ 200) from the 'A' class. Her dad and Joe's parents are old friends so Joe's family takes them in when Ariel's home collapses in an earthquake. Jiro is also from the F class and has liked Ariel for a long time. I think this show will do very well with a Singaporean audience so perhaps Channel 8 or U should bring it in. The school scenes brought back so many memories - the Principal hauling up the F class teacher for their poor grades, Ariel struggling with Maths, Ariel struggling with her holiday homework, the F class boys falling asleep during the Principal's speech, wanting to do well in the exams, hanging out with your best friends, etc. When I watched the part when they went on

I'm pretty sure St Peter will not be waiting at the Pearly Gates to collect copies of our children's result slips and CCA records and stuff, so why is it so hard to break free from this fixation on grades and scores? I must confess that it is so easy to drift from CA to SA to CA to SA with the mind focused more on marks than the unquantifiable things that will really count in the end, such as character, behaviour, attitude towards life, relationships with others, etc. Some years ago, my work supervisor told me that her child missed the cut-off for a particular secondary school by 1 point and she told her child to learn a more important lesson from the experience: you don't want to stand before God and miss going to heaven by 1 point because there will be no appeals and no other heavens to apply to go to. (By the way, please do not name any names or places if you recognise this story!) It is something that I have to constantly make myself remember - that in the end, there i

Okay, so Mr 'I've created a monster' Federer lost another match. The whole (tennis) world seems to be making a big deal about it. And can we blame anyone? After all it is highly, highly unusual for the man to lose twice in a row, and, what more, this time in the first round of a tournament. He himself said after losing in the AO semi-final, 'Of course, I've created a monster, so I know I need to always win every tournament.' Well, he seems to have some difficulty coming to terms with losing to Andy Murray (again). His mean comments about Andy's play were apparently slammed by the British press, and Nadal and Djokovic spoke in support of Andy, and who can blame them? Pic from here . Lessons to be learnt from here and applied to ... umm... other things: 1. If you are world number 1, you have to bear with the consequences of being number 1. People will expect only the best from you and if you can't deliver, you have to bear the consequences of not delive

As a Singaporean, I believe I have the right to be unhappy about the lapse that allowed this man to escape using one of the oldest tricks in the book. It is my right to have questions and to wonder, and when I get no answers, to, well, speculate. I feel insulted that the ordinary Singaporeans' efforts to hand out posters, disseminate photos and info, etc, needs to be lauded by the authorities. Do they expect so little from us? Didn't they think we would stand together on this? In the same vein, if I were the authorities, I would also feel insulted by how some people are falling over each other in praising them for apologising, admitting the lapse, mounting a massive search, etc. Don't we expect them to at least do all these in the given situation? Anyway, are we using the right tactics and strategies in (a) searching for him and (b) running the counselling and detention programme at the detention centre, in the first place? Are we getting enough advice and help from more ex