On the dreams that we dream while we are still children.

Winter Olympics is over.

But while I was watching the Figure Skating Exhibition on Sunday, I suddenly remembered why I love the event.

Because Evgeny Plushenko was skating.

When you were growing up, when you watched the Olympics, didn't you ever just want to be like those athletes? Maybe say to yourself, "Someday, I wanna do that."

It happened for me when I saw Archery for the first time on the Olympics, and it makes me one of the happiest people alive to know that I'm in it as a competitive sport now (although it's a bloody long shot from the Olympics, haha), and it is something that I can be good at.

I never saw Figure Skating in the Winter Olympics (in fact, I think this is the first time I'm watching the Winter Olympics, and even then, coz of the time difference between Torino and here, I can't watch most of the events); the only time I ever remember watching Figure Skating on TV when I was younger was maybe on Sunday afternoons, when they'd play random stuff to fill up the broadcast slots, and on public holidays, when they'd show skate shows. Although nowadays, they show beauty pageants more. -_-

I still remember the first few skaters that I loved-- Kristy Yamaguchi, Oksana Baiul, Victor Petrenko-- the latter two both Ukrainian, and I saw them for the first time in the same show. I still remember that I thought Baiul was amazingly pretty, and Petrenko's routines made me laugh; he had such charisma.

And I sat there, smiling with my mouth half-open, eyes fixed on the screen, and thought, "Someday I wanna do that."

Sometime later, I remember seeing Alexei Yagudin; according to what was flashed on the bottom of the screen, he was 20 at the time, although I'm not sure which competition it was. The names of all these competitions and their relevance completely escapes me as I'm not really in the loop about figure skating; I just know how beautiful these people look when they're on the ice. :)

But I remember it was Yagudin that started my obsession with Russian skaters.

Yagudin's routine then was breathtaking because he had such confidence and power, but it wasn't just something about the Russians' style and their poise and the way they carried themselves, both on and off the ice.


It helped that Yagudin was very easy on the eyes as well. :D 


Winter Olympics 2002: Salt Lake City
Alexei Yagudin-- Short Program: "Winter" by Bond 

He won Gold then, but I think that was his last Olympics though, since he retired from eligible skating shortly.


A little more gratuituous eye candy. :P
This one's from his performance of "Broken Arrow" at the 1999 Grand Slam, before the start of the routine. 

But there's also the matter of the man who won Silver in that very same Olympics: Evgeny Plushenko, also Russian-- whom I mentioned in the beginning.

The first time I remember seeing Plushenko, I thought he was amazing because his jumps always had so much height, and his stunts were always immaculate; apart from Yagudin then, I thought that it really didn't get any better than this.

So when I saw him skating in the Torino Games' Exhibition after finally winning Gold this year, it just brought back all the memories of my quiet admiration for figure skaters.


Winter Olympics 2006: Torino
Evgeny Plushenko-- Short Program: "Tosca" 


Winter Olympics 2006: Torino
Evgeny Plushenko-- Free Skate: "Godfather" 


Winter Olympics 2006: Torino
Plushenko with gold in the middle there. 

And watching him skate to "Godfather" by Edwin Marton (with the violinist out on the ice with him too), I knew then why else I loved Plushenko. Because he had charisma, like Petrenko did, and when he skated, there was such joy in it; it's true that when Plushenko skates, you can see the passion.

My back muscles are doing that little twingy thing again. That twingy, achy feeling I always seem to get when I haven't been training for a long time.

Nice how my body seems to be pretty self-regulatory; I already know that on my own, I'll never sleep past 9 am, unless I'm extremely tired, and now my back muscles know when they need training! Madness. :P

I miss all the archery people already.


Training Camp '05.
Sigh. Those were such happy times. 

Just had an enlightening phone conversation.

I like talking on the phone. Well, with people that I want to talk to, that is. -_-

I vaguely remember how Pam and I could talk for hours about absolutely nothing at all in secondary school, haha. And that was before MSN was the "in" thing. Geez, that makes me feel old now.

There's something about hearing a voice and somehow being able to imagine another person on the other end of the line, which makes a phone call a warmer kind of interaction than MSN. But I digress, once again.

So I realise a few things now.


I think my people reading skills aren't too bad.

Comes from those long years of being a semi-outsider throughout my secondary school life; I've had plenty of practice observing people. As a result of that, I often see some of my secondary and JC school mates around in NUS; sometimes they notice me, and from their facial expressions, I know they can't place me. But I know exactly who they are. ;)


There are always limits.

Sometimes authority means nothing. Sometimes you want to make a difference. And then the world turns the tables on you like it's wont to do when things are going well, and nothing turns out like it planned. Because sometimes no one will listen. Because even among those who have power, there are those who have more. Because everything has a history to consider before it can be understood.


Not all silences are about holding their peace.

Sometimes they're about biding your time, waiting for the right people who will listen. Sometimes they're about waiting for things to swing in your favour. Sometimes they're about waiting for the departure of those who would stifle dissent. Waiting, always waiting, and about patience, knowing that the other side cannnot always be there to pin you down.


Don't push too hard or too much. You might not like it when there's a push back.

Human beings aren't saints. Sometimes when you hurl abuse, that abuse gets stored somewhere. It's waiting for a return address.


I understand now, more than ever, the meaning of sacrificing the minority for the majority.

Sometimes, yes, "it's not always about who is right, but the one who is more sensible to give in and salvage the situation".


It's a strange feeling to be both an insider and outsider at the same time.

It seems to be my lot in life, always neither here nor there, always somewhere in between. I always end up seeing the whole picture. And never being able to really do something about it.


"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton, 1887)

I wonder if those it corrupts realise it.

Maybe it was bound to happen.

I had the feeling that something was gonna screw up during Outdoor itself, no matter how well (or how badly) I was shooting during training. And screw up it did, 60% of all my shots from 50m got blown off course, and they all landed off-centre, on the right. Even if I aimed off-centre, they'd still get blown off-course.

30m score was semi-wasted. 235. I've only started achieving 230+ recently after I decided that the bloody side stabilisers were, to quote Zhantao: "killing me more than helping me", and removed them. But it's still nowhere near the 272 that I've managed to achieve with my old jazz arrows.

Maybe I should've just stuck with using my main stabiliser all along. Maybe I shouldn't have listened when *he* suggested I put on the whole set.

That horrible gnawing feeling I've had all this time. My standard isn't good enough to win anything in C-class. I've known it for a long time, and all the training I've been doing hasn't helped. I hope I haven't reached the height of my ability yet. I need to be able to push this further.

NTU Open? Not bloody likely I'm gonna be able to win anything there. Maybe AAS this year was a fluke. Maybe I won something only because there were so many categories and that meant that with more categories open, there was less competition in the Open Category.

So I was ranked 4th. So what? There were all of *TEN* competitors in Open Cat. What good is fourth out of ten?

What good is it when there were only 5 competitors in IVP and I ended up fourth place again? I didn't win anything. There's nothing to show for fourth place, and no one cares. All that matters is that you have something to show for it.

I've always believed that the worst place to be is fourth; it's so close yet so far, the most wasted chance of all. And here I am. I told a few people jokingly that I'd cry if I didn't win something for Outdoor. I didn't believe I'd do it, but yesterday I did. Cry, that is. No one noticed, I think, and that's good.

Does it really count if you have the passion for it?

Does passion and love for it all count even if you can't win anything?

What does passion matter if you have nothing to show for it?

If you never have anything to show for the effort, how much longer can passion keep you going?

"You're a good archer."

Maybe I'll believe it when I see it.

Things I find on friends' blogs. And which I do because I have too much time on my hands. Which could probably be better spent on other things.

You scored as Journalism. You are an aspiring journalist, and you should major in journalism! Like me, you are passionate about writing and expressing yourself, and you want the world to understand your beliefs through writing. Journalism 100% Sociology 92% English 92% Linguistics 92% Theater 92% Anthropology 92% Philosophy 83% Psychology 75% Art 67% Dance 67% Engineering 58% Mathematics 58% Biology 42% Chemistry 17% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

I did want to do journalism. Still do, actually. But it's nice to see that at least the major that I've already chosen comes a close second. :)

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

This just confirms my suspicions, really. :P

So this Valentine's Day was very different from last year.

And if last year's was the best Valentine's I'd ever had, then maybe this year's was.. hm. Well, I wouldn't say the most, but it was surprising.

I think the antagonistic world view that I have makes it easy for people to surprise me. This conception that I have of the world as a win-lose situation-- that the only way you can win is if everyone else loses, and there's no two ways about it: we can't all be winners, so you just have to work and be better. It's probably why archery works for me; it's "a solitary sport-- everyone else other than the winner will have lost".

I have this idea of myself as just moving in and out of people's lives.

It's something that I noticed about myself in JC2; I could fit in with any of the cliques in my class, but if I left, I was never missed. At least, not as far as I know. Not that I'm bemoaning it or anything; I just never figured that I left an imprint anywhere.

So the idea that people can remember me enough to want to buy me flowers, make me flowers, buy me little gifts, make me little gifts... sometimes astonishes me.

An orange rose is the first flower of the day; it's unexpected-- I didn't even want to be here today. I wanted to be as far away as possible from all this noise; all the flowers, all the cards, all the hugs, all the smiles.

An orange gerbera like a peace offering. Funny you still remember. I was tempted to say no. I wanted to say no. I didn't, and I still wonder why you bought it. Was it because everyone else was giving out flowers like they were their good deeds for the day? Was it for old times' sake? Was it because I just happened to be there? It was my mistake from the beginning, I know.

A champagne-coloured rose; the most surprising of all. I didn't think myself important enough to you. But maybe you treat everyone the same. We don't talk anymore, and you're always busy. I think I miss what you used to be like. Strange that all the guys who gave me flowers last year are still all the same people doing it this year.

A rose made from light purple ribbon and a smiling, self-proclaimed delivery boy. I think yours was the only one I can safely say was meant to celebrate the love between friends. Fitting that it'll last far longer than the other three.


...
I wonder why you're calling. I wonder why you still remember me. I wonder what I'm to say. And the silences feel really strange.

Well, how's life, then?

"Same old thing everyday. I bet all your guy friends tell you, what."

Half-stifled, uneasy laughter comes across the line, hanging in the static and space between us and I wonder how many other awkward conversations there are going on right now, all hanging up in the air and wondering why they aren't all tangled up. Maybe in the confusion, one of us might end up with the right person, after all.

I'm surprised you still have my number.

"I was actually afraid you might have changed it."

I haven't.

"I know. You answered."

It's quite a normal question to ask; where're you gonna go after this? But I don't ask because I think I don't want to know, so it's quiet all over again.

"Y'know.. did I ever tell you that with you, that was the first time I actually did something about what I was feeling?"

No. You didn't. But your friend did. But I can't tell you that.

"Well.. yeah. It was."

I know. And I'm sorry I dashed all your dreams. But that's another thing I can't say.


...
Funny how today I just noticed all the mixed messages I was getting from you.

I don't understand why you notice me. I don't understand why you sometimes ask questions and then make them end in a manner of no consequence. I don't understand why sometimes you smile at me like that, as if you expect me to say something. And I never know what to say or what it is you want to hear.

And just when I'm quite sure it all means nothing, you whisper half-jokingly and give me that conspiratorial grin; in the next minute, it's like it all never happened.

I shouldn't be doing this. I don't have anything to give, and I've had enough. Tell me, show me; anything you want. As long as it becomes clear and maybe then I'll know. Perhaps then I can tell you no.

"I need to go now."

"Okay."

Because there's nothing else I can say.

This situation looks familiar.

I'm sitting here, rushing out a response paper due at 10 am tomorrow during 3101 tutorial. Good thing it's only one page, font size 12, double-spaced. Should only be about 500 words or so.

But the thing is, I need to find a newspaper article with some sociological issue in it. And then I need to critique using either Karl Marx's or Harriet Martineau's theories.

Thought of writing about that whole cartoon thing with the Danish newspaper and all. Coz I have lots of stuff to say about that whole incident, but unfortunately, I don't think any of Marx's theories on capitalism will figure anywhere into the argument.

And as for Martineau? I'm not even really clear on exactly what she wrote about!!

Rejection of religion in the pursuit of scientific, empirical knowledge? Well, that's what she did, but I'm not sure that was her subject matter.

Instituitionalised discrimination? I can work with that.

Principles of value-neutrality and observing other cultures without prejudice?


..Hm.

Now there's something I can start with.

Blogging and random rambling does help. :)


Thinking of adding some stuff to this blog. Maybe that comments thingy that so many people have. Maybe a small little unobtrusive counter which almost no one will notice, but which I can refer to just to satisfy my curiosity as to just how many people stumble upon my little hole-in-the-wall of the Internet. :)