my ajumma notes

Oh.My.Word. All this is quite sick and horrible. May Ms Lo Hwei Yen rest in peace. And condolences to her family and friends. I am glad, though, that Fr Anthony reminded us to pray for perpetrators of violence too. I had almost forgotten them. After all, they are probably the ones most in need of prayers and healing. Come to think of it, there are also the hundreds of other victims. And hundreds and hundreds others, if you think beyond Mumbai... such as in Kashmir, as mentioned by the gunmen... and the many, many broken lives and spirits out there... Aiyoh... This weekend's Gospel reading (Mark 13:33-37) is timely, I guess: Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Watch therefore -- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the...

Well, well, so Djokovic finally finds himself back on top of things after an amazing slump. And it's amazing that he still has enough points to threaten Federer's No.2 spot. In fact, he will probably become No. 2 sometime next year. But that's where the plot will thicken. Because I think Murray is likely to eclipse him and even Nadal. If Djokovic had done better this year, he might have a brief taste of being No. 1 but seeing how fast and well Murray is improving, I doubt he will get the chance. I'd have preferred to see Murray win the Masters Cup, of course, but never mind, lah. He has already done so well this year and people like Djokovic and Davydenko need the morale booster that they got from playing in the Masters final. I was glad, though, that Murray cut his hair recently (left) . I cannot imagine him gunning for the No. 1 spot with his old hairstyle (right) . Yes, yes, hair is a trivial matter when you are going for No. 1 but still... It was good also to see G...

It's time once again to write about trivial topics, ha ha. I mentioned this K drama, 1% of Anything , sometime back. The title is grammatically odd but it is what the show is about - that even if there is a 1% possibility of something working out, there is that possibility of things turning out well in the end. I kind of like that storyline. It is a 2003 production, making it a contemporary of Stairway to Heaven and All In. Rom-coms weren't quite in yet at that time so it must have been quite a change from the usual fare then. This show will appeal to die-hard romantics and anyone interested in watching the precursors for many later rom-com scenes. I recognised so many scenes here that were copied in shows like My Girl , Goong , etc. (For all I know, maybe this show copied those ideas from elsewhere.) The show also has practically all the elements you would expect in K drama - rich family versus poorer family, blind dates and match making, best friends, one girl and two suit...

So after the so-called monk, I went back to chick lit and finished Rowan Coleman's The Accidental Mother pretty fast. Nowadays, I'm not all that hopeful about chick lit but this book, about Sophie who ended up having to take care of her late best friend's young daughters, turned out to be quite a good departure from the usual formula. Except for the ending. But what to do, it's chick lit what. At least the plot was interesting and there were some strongly emotional and meaningful 'scenes' between Sophie and the girls. I was surprised to find such depth in chick lit. And so now, I am reading Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist . Not my usual type of book but I was attracted by its cover and blurb, ha ha. This is a really good book. I am enjoying every page of it, which is much more than I can say for the Lim Chong Yah and another purple textbook (or was it orange?) we had for econs in the days of yore. With all due respect to Mr Lim and the purple textbo...

Added on 7 Nov: I realise that it wasn't the Archbishop but the media that made the church's stand public. ---------------------------------------------------------------- So, our Archbishop has made public our stand on euthanasia . No doubt, this will open us up to some battering by other people's opinions. But never mind, lah, we are used to it. I wonder if we will see some day soon another historic day in parliament when the party whip is lifted and MPs can vote according to their conscience (as they did in 1969 ? for the Abortion Bill)... Don't say no one warned us about the slippery slope from abortion to euthanasia... It's a debate on the same continuum (or slope) , isn't it?

Have been on an unplanned extended break from this blog because (a) am rather busy and (b) the computer is dying, I think. On bad days, it takes, like, half an hour to start and everything responds very slowly, so I don't really have the patience to do anything more on it than what is absolutely necessary. On worse days, we can't even get on the Internet. So... Until we find out what is wrong / fix it / buy a new one (yay!), I guess I won't be doing much or any blogging.

While speaking about the weekend's Gospel reading (Matthew 22:1-14), Father Remi said something about marriage: Long before you were born, God intended this (the fullness of married life) for you. That was quite an awesome thought...

Finally, after, like, 3 months or thereabouts, I have finished Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. I guess the book would be classified as 'new age' and 'self help'. There's a lot of practical 'wisdom' but I didn't find it all that engaging. Much of the 'wisdom' is ancient wisdom, which my friend, a Sai Baba follower, told me about some 20 years or so ago. Ha, she could have written a book like that. No doubt, in this book, the 'wisdom' was learnt from 'sages' but I just found it so weird that the guy had never heard of all this. Plus, I'm really not into re-hashing 'old' wisdom into new form, a la 'seek first to understand, then to be understood' from 7 Habits fame, which, as far as I know, came from St Francis of Assisi . And what about the re-telling of Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant as part of the sage's wisdom? (Of course it is possible that Wilde got inspiration from some ancient...

Hmm... I was pretty annoyed reading yesterday's papers, seeing how many people, including journalists, found it necessary to qualify their tributes to Mr JBJ. Please lah... At least today's article was positive, though I am surprised to see nothing in the Forum page, considering the fact that about 1000 went for his wake yesterday... JBJ deserves all the accolades he is getting. I think his contribution is unparalleled, with Mr Chiam, Mr Low and the rest carrying on his trailblazing political participation. Who can forget the excitement of the Anson by-election, how it changed our political landscape and how it got a lot more people at least mildly interested in local politics? He surely embodied the spirit of 'the game is never over till it's over'. May he rest in peace.

See ah, start at #15 also can win, okay? Thought today's headlines should have been 'Alonso wows world' instead... Oh well... Although he said after his disastrous qualification outing that his chances were more or less in the longkang, he did go in with a proper game plan - and not just to show his face - and used his brains and the situation to his advantage. And so there he was at the end with the odd-looking trophy, listening to his national anthem. Picture from AsiaOne In TODAY, Massa was reported as saying 'I went to the guy (who made the mistake) and gave him even more motivation, because we need him and we need everybody together for the last three races of the season.' Also, it quoted the CEO of Ferrari Asia Pacific saying, 'We are achievers and we never give up... The Ferrari spirit is about competition, and we always want to win.' The mentality of champions and the spirit of teamwork... Hope some people learn these... Well, on Saturday, F1 report...

There was an article in yesterday's ST about the lack of local buzz about this Sunday's historic race. I fully agree with the journalist that this is partly due to the lack of publicity directed at us locals (there was a clip of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber visiting a hawker centre, looking at the circuit from up high, etc on Eurosports but has there been anything more than what's in the daily news broadcast here?) and the way the F1 race has been presented as little more than a big economic opportunity. Hope no one crashes into here and our pre-F1 heritage can be preserved for posterity We all know there are many, many speedsters on and off the expressways but this doesn't necessarily translate into a very large number of F1 fans. And if one isn't an F1 fan, one just isn't a fan. How to be interested in something one is not interested in? Even if you had the World Cup (soccer) or Olympics here, some people wouldn't care two hoots. The fact is we rema...

Speaking about yesterday's Gospel (Matthew 20:1-16), Fr Richards addressed the seeming 'unfairness' of the vineyard owner who paid everyone one denarius, regardless of how many hours they worked that day. I must confess that I always had a problem with the 'unfairness' thing in this story as well as in the prodigal son tale. I mean, the prodigal son's brother was rather poor thing what - did the right thing all the time and his father never celebrated that. Fr Richards said that these stories, while appearing 'unfair' to our human minds, show God's generosity and love. He loves us with the same love He has for Mary, the apostles, saints, martyrs, Mother Teresa, etc. Hence, the same wage of one denarius for all. After all, the prodigal son's dad did tell his brother 'everything I have is yours'...

There were some letters today about the poor attention given to our Paralympians. A Mr Leong Tuck Meng wrote: 'Yip Pin Xiu has done Singapore proud by winning Singapore's first Olympic gold medal. It may be the Paralympic Games, but a gold medal is a gold medal. I am appalled at the amount of media coverage and publicity this has been given... My children were very excited about Singapore's Paralympic achievements and wanted to watch the swimming on TV. Alas, there was no footage, only a short note on the news teletext... How sad that a momentous occasion in Singapore's sporting history is relegated to a footnote. We should have given the same amount of airtime to the winners of the Paralympics as we did to our silver-winning table tennis Olympians.' Mr Jack Tsen-Ta Lee wrote: 'I am glad that MediaCorp screened the opening ceremony of the Paralympics last week and started broadcasting an hour-long daily summary on Channel 5. I do wonder, though, why plans were n...

Ha, Andy Murray is definitely in the mix now! Not a bad Grand Slam finale, I must say, and not too bad a season ending for the top guys. I didn't really think Nadal had anything to prove at the US Open and anyway, he did make it to the semi-final. He has already had such a good year. Andy, who has also had a good year, didn't have anything to prove either, and here he is in the final! I guess, of all the top guys, Federer has the most to prove now but at least he has made it to the final and has stopped sounding too emphatic about how nothing is going wrong. Ferrer, who remains in the top 6, didn't appear too distraught when he got knocked out and gave all the credit to the Japanese kid who beat him. Guess he's happy in general with the way things turned out for him these 2 years. Certainly Davydenko and Djokovic are the biggest casualties and maybe somewhat distraught. The happiest of men must be Gilles Muller, ranked hundred-and-whatever, but who whacked his way into ...

I hardly watch non-tennis entertainment on tennis courts (only remember the singing ballboy at Wimbledon one year during the rain break and bits of the emotional post-9/11 US Open opening) so I was pleasantly surprised by this year's US Open opening night (watch here ). What a treat to have Earth, Wind and Fire singing! And the little boys in the drum item were cute. Two things that struck me most during the parade of champions: (a) how great all the ladies still look (see below for example) and (b) some notable absentees. I would have liked to see Justine, Kim, Agassi and Steffi Graf, Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras. Monica Seles - picture from here So, who will hold the trophies this year is the US$1.5-million question. It's so strange hearing 'Roger Federer, the number 2 seed'... Anyway, he is so poor thing this year I almost want to say just let him win it, lah. Djokovic has plummetted way down the 'cuteness' and 'nice kid' ratings so I'm not sur...

I agree with the views in this article 'When Being Content Is Not Good'. I don't know of any other country whose athletes take the semi-final as the final and the final as dunno what. I'm glad Nadal is mentioned in the article because taking the semi-final as the final (and the final as dunno what) is quite, quite different from playing each point like it is match point. As we arm-chair critics-cum-sports-fans know, you need a gold medal mentality to get a gold medal. Let me quote the man who was once my hero, Seb Coe, now Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of London's organising committee, speaking about the Beijing opening : "Actually our guys weren't cowed at all... They looked at that and thought that's really good, but we can do something as good, set in a different context. They were more pumped up because it was so good. I think they were quite excited by the challenge." Never admit defeat before you even play your first stroke, run your first s...

In the midst of all this, I have been occasionally back on the Korean radar watching 1% of Anything . It's not the most brilliant of shows but I kind of like the whole premise of the story - that no person, situation or relationship is beyond redemption; even if there is just a 1% possibility, you can make things happen. I.e. not relying on miracles but through sheer hard work and doing what you think/know you have to do. Hence the title. But more on the show another day. The reason why I'm writing about it now is I think this kind of thinking (which is similar to Nadal's point-by-point, play-every-point-like-it's-game-point mentality) is applicable to today's momentous table tennis situation. And I believe there is more than a 1% possiblity, no? bear picture from here By the way, I think the rally should still be telecast live. The match is already going to be on Channel U in dual sound, what. Some people have no interest in sports and/or table tennis and there are...

When I first watched Nastia Liukin - and she was really quite beautiful to watch - I thought she was an East European gymnast, based on her physical appearance and style. Turns out that she is East European. Russian-born. But she's won the gold medal for the USA. picture from her website (Wonder if there's something in their Communist roots that give the Russians, Romanians and Chinese gymnasts a kind of grace, elegance and fluidity that I don't see so much in the others. I don't know what else these kids might have in common.) When I first saw the USA team coordinator, I also thought she looked like she was an Eastern bloc person. Don't know what it is about her - maybe her mannerisms and her hairstyle. Turns out she was from the Eastern bloc and her husband was Nadia Comaneci's coach. (And pots shouldn't be calling kettles black, okay? Their comments on the Chinese gymnasts here .) And I'm sure we all noticed the many Asian (and they look Chinese) co...

Great opening. Looks like they didn't need Mr Spielberg after all. Ha. Ferrer and Nadal enjoyed it And great swim, Tao Li. Well done! I read a number of catty remarks online about her "only" coming in fifth and about her being foreign-born. I must confess I'm not in love with foreign talent or anything but give credit where credit is due, okay? Think it's so easy to come in fifth ah? Getting into the final is already an excellent result. And if you think of it, she is still quite a rookie compared to top swimmers in her event and yet, she is the 5th best and she now holds the Asian record. I think people also forget that she is not the same "type" of foreign talent as some others. She was not handpicked or scouted and brought here to represent Singapore. She came because her mum got a job here. And she ended up representing Singapore. Same for Ronald Susilo who came in his teenage years as a student. And who also ended up representing Singapore. Anyway,...

There was a National Day feature about various places that people hold close to their hearts. I thought about it and I realised that most of the places that have meant anything to me are in or near that inner ERP ring, ha ha. These include: 1. Schools - CHIJ and SJI (no longer schools now) 2. National Library (gone) 3. Cinemas - Odeon (gone), Capitol (no longer a cinema), Cathay 4. Book and stationery shops - various second hand book stores along Bras Basah Road (gone), a couple along Victoria Street (Shanghai Book Co. and World - gone), MPH at Armenian Street (gone) 5. Churches - Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, St Joseph's, Sts Peter and Paul, Sacred Heart Church (if I'm not mistaken, they have been gazetted as National Monuments) Interestingly, the place where we stayed when I was in primary and secondary school, which is off the Orchard Road CBD area, is more or less still there as it was then, no major sign of en bloc activity, I believe.