Lionel Lewis the Hero

Malaysia balik kampung...

Experiencing the Kallang Roar

Half-time: Wildly entertained by the Mat commentator behind.

Start of 2nd half: Malaysian team cuddle has no effect at all.

Final Whistle: Can you spot the enemy amongst us?
(Clue: He has no poster...)

I fear getting shot by a six-pointer....

This afternoon I had another LTB meeting. There will be a presentation about the progress of our community service project on Monday and we urgently needed a reply from Gregory, the person from the children's home who we are liaising with. However he happened to be on leave till Friday and there was nothing we could do.

My group decided to finalize the plan to present to the children's home and also began to discuss about how to raise the funds needed for our project. The girls were discussing about getting sponsors before they decided that baking cookies for sale seems a good idea.

Each of us need to just push about 50 dollars worth of cookies and we would have 350 bucks to work with. Then I asked them... should we make the cookies halal? Before any of them replied, I started to complain about how the Malays can take only halal food and we have to accommodate them whenever we eat together.

Out of the blue, Yan Ting, one of my group mates, announced that her boyfriend is Malay and protested against my statement. My expression must be priceless then. Shit... should have kept my fucking big mouth shut.... Then she walked out of the room, leaving me totally stunned.

I was quite worried about offending her because I managed to irritate them in a meeting earlier. You never know how sensitive some girls can get. I was really afraid that I might make her cry. Cecilia wasn't helpful at all; when I asked her does she think Yan Ting will cry, she gave me the it's-your-fault-serve-you-right -and-you-better-say-sorry type of response.

When Yan Ting returned to the room, I immediately apologized to her. Although there was no indication that she cried, it's better to be safe than sorry. She assured me that she didn't take it to heart and I need not hold back what I want to say.

Well, I am still afraid. Her boyfriend is still in NS and who knows after she complains he may smuggle a rifle out to shoot me. Then Yan Ting said that her boyfriend is a six-pointer in the army.

I gave her the super blur look; huh... what's a six-pointer? How come I never hear before? O-Levels got six points ah? She tried to explain but couldn't find the right term to describe the vocation.

I tried to be helpful and suggested. Sniper? Sharpshooter? Bingo... I got the right answer.

I've been warned. I better watch my back from now on.

Crazy Week

This is week 3 of the school term and it is officially the craziest week I've experienced in my short time in SMU.

Well I should start with the trip to National Stadium on Saturday to catch Singapore play Vietnam. Singapore is disappointing throughout the match and the Vietnamese supporters are MUCH more vocal than the the local fans. While we were pretty pissed at the play, we still had our fun kaopeh-ing no 2 and Shicai aka Paul.

Sunday had my first Korean class at the CC. It was rather funny and I had to practice my first Korean conversation with a makcik. Since I was sitting at the back I could only see the back view of the other classmates. According to Shahid there was a cute girl amongst the students. I shall keep my eyes open during the next lesson.

I had a marathon LTB meeting from 12 -6 on Monday. I was pretty knackered out by then. However being Singapore's lucky charm, it was not strong enough to stop me to from turning up at the National Stadium again to support the Lions. And what a match it proved to be.

The NUS guys were late as usual. While waiting for them, one abang approached me and gave me two free tickets. In the end all of us managed to get inside the stadium for free. Lions were already 2-0 up when we entered the stadium and no one in the stadium could anticipate what would be unfolding right in front of our eyes.

By the end of the 1st half, Laos was 0-3 down and had changed their keeper. By the end of match, the scoreboard read Singapore 11 Laos 0 to the delight of the 5000 odd crowd. Noh Alam Shah grabbed 7 of them; Itimi, Shahril Ishak, Khairil Amri and last but not least Muhd Ridhuan scored the rest.

Ridhuan, affectionately called No. 2 by us, was really a surprise scorer for us as he basically did nothing right in any matches we had seen. He was so bad that he didn't even appear for the 2nd half. Beside him I think the entire Singapore team (especially those standing-in for the regular 1st teamers) played very well; .

Baihakki is our Rio with his calmness and distribution. However he wasn't our man-of-the-match. No 13 Hafiz Osman, the 2nd choice right-back standing-in for Subramani was our new cult hero. He urged on the crowd ala Drogba and put in an industrious performance up and down the right channel. We strongly encourage Raddy to consider Hafiz as the future captain of the national team.

I realized that Singapore fans are really one of the most demanding in the world. When the team was 9 goals up they were still unhappy and calling for the 10th. After scoring the 10th they were urging the team for the 11th. Really a hard to please bunch.

Tuesday was a long day in school and ended with another LTB meeting. I was chosen to be the model for the poster and I think that the posters will be fantastic with such a photogenic model. I also managed to ruffle a few feathers during the meeting because I seemed distracted and uninterested. Alright I admit that I didn't really have much interest in what was being discussed. I was chatting with Chris on msn instead, complaining how sucky LTB is.

I could feel the tension building up towards the end of the meeting. I felt quite bad for causing that and a group mate suggested that I should apologize to the whole group during the next meeting. I think I should do that but it gonna be awkward for me. Hmmm.... I think that I should volunteer to do the minutes for the next session as well.

After I reached home I began to do the proposal. Quite pissed off with the slow progress as well as cursing myself for volunteering in the first place. Finally I managed to finish at 6am; six hours after I started. I went to get some sleep before meeting 3 other group members for the visit of the children's home at Aljunied.

I was running late and had to take a cab down. Cost me 7 bucks and along the way chatted with the taxi driver about Singapore's current affairs. The guy in charge of the children's home spoke to us for an hour plus and brought us for a tour around the place.

Things weren't really smooth as we could only volunteer our services for 2 days during the March holidays and both days clashed with our lessons. The likelihood of scraping the project was rather high in my opinion but it could still be done if we persisted.

Tonight was Singapore's last group match in the AFF Cup. We were playing Indonesia and the score was tied at 1-1 when we entered the stadium at half-time. The group of noisy Malays sitting behind us provided us with plenty of entertainment and our seats were really close to the action on the pitch.

The atmosphere was one of the most best we've seen in years and the crowd managed to sustain a few rounds of Kallang roar and wave. Seems that many supporters only turned up to support after 11-0 drubbing of Laos. Performance on the pitch-wise was so-so I think; the Lions sat back and allowed the Indons too much space to attack. No.2 was poor as usual and I suspected that there was something fishy going on between him and Raddy.

I witnessed the one of the most absurd moments in football when a substituted player returned to the pitch TWICE but the referee didn't seem to give a damn at all. Absolutely rubbish refereeing. It would be a major controversy if Indonesia managed to score when they had 12 players on the pitch. In the end the match ended 2-2 which meant that Singapore finished as group winners.

The Lions will play Malaysia in Bukit Jalil on Tuesday and it could be a first away match experience for us if not for lessons on the day. We are really looking forward to the return match at Kallang on 27th and will probably get our tickets before the day of the match.

Now it's only early Thursday morning but it has already been a crazy week so far. More things are expected to unfold in the next few days and I'm pretty sure that the week will only get crazier. Hopefully week 4 will see things return to normalcy.

My Passport

Republic of Singapore Passport

I just flipped through my passport and found out that I went out of Singapore for a grand total of 8 times last year. Six trips were to Malaysia; 3 of them were to Johor Bahru with the football gang, once to my aunt's place during Chinese New Year, another time to KL with Ken and all and last but not least a cycling trip in Pengerang with SMUX.

I visited two countries for the first time last year; Vietnam in April and Thailand in December. Both Hanoi and Bangkok were great places to visit and I was really amazed how cities a few hours away are so different from Singapore. I would definitely like to visit both countries again.

Vietnam April '06

Thailand December '06

So what's my holidays plan this year? I've already kicked start the year with a trip to Tebrau City in JB on 3rd Jan. Hopefully I can visit some places which I haven't been to yet in 2007. Top of the list is probably Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Chiang Mai in northern Thailand is a close second.

I haven't planned anything yet but if any of you are interested just leave a tag ok...