7.5 Love Lessons For My Son

This may be a bit premature but I was just thinking through the realms of my thoughts,should that day of reckoning finally arrives,when my son will be in his teens,grappling with the emotional facets of his unstable heart.He will be faced with unrecognizable fluttering and unfamiliar churning in his system.He might be looking for some sort of guide.Answers to his questions.Questions that I myself had to answer,on my own without the help of a fatherly figure.Obviously I had to rough it out in the wilderness of that thing called experience.All for that elusive search for that one thing called “true love”.Well,by now it’s pretty obvious that the whole notion is blasphemous.In my perspective at least.

But here I am,trying to assemble a piece of simple guide for my son.What to look out for,and what to avoid.What to remember and what to forget.(Hah!)

The Garment of Change

I just finished watching myself on television.It’s hard to believe but all praise to Allah that my wish of being able to be on live tv,with my bro Kai came by eventually.14 years ago,as scrawny teenagers that we were,appearing on television would have been a notion out of a Star Wars theory.But,by the great grace of magical opportunities,a chance came by.I believe that we,made good account of our brief moments of limelight.I was just cracking with laughter noting how Kai’s appearance was littered with scratching of his head,a mixture of Singlish and Malay and his self calling manner of making statements,like for example,”Khairil believe investments are good now…blah…Khairil feel…blah”.And how his certificates and family pictures got involved in the context of investments,beats the hell out of me.Hahahaha.(Even a fellow Facebooker commented on his certificate)But my thoughts were just on that idea that someway or somehow,a set of parents will be saying out loud to their daughter,

I Killed Ultraman

I had an eventful day.I could have chosen to type my thoughts out about how a Malay taxi driver and myself commented about how mosques nowadays look like churches from the back,and community centers from the side,views.It was a conversation driven out of my conversational context as my taxi made its way into the parking lot of Asyafaah mosque.

Or perhaps,I can type my ramblings,about the current economic situation facing the Malay Muslim community,as discussed between myself and a community serving official.About how Malay Muslims are in general…

1.Love being spoon fed

2.Loathes changes

3.Lacking initiative to be proactive

….

10010.Loser’s Limb Mentality

Or I can type about how a realization on how Mendaki funds may be suggested to perhaps deduct say $3 bucks monthly from a working group of people.There are 600,000 Malay Muslims in Singapore.Let’s pessimistically put it that only 200,000 are active workers.Let’s pessimistically put it that only 100,000 out of this 200,000 contribute monthly to the fund.That’ll be $300,000 a month from collections.Multiply it by 12 months.That’ll be $3.6 million a year.Multiply it by a modest 10 years worth of collection,that’ll be $36 million.Then again it’s just my bias unproven theory that such amount of money even exists.Going by the amount of money we need every year,am sure I’m way off my calculations.Maybe Yayasan Mendaki has lesser funds.

Or I can perhaps write about why I feel uplifted,angry,purposeful,inspired,revengeful and just plain emotional when I am listening in to One Republic’s,”Apologize”,like how I’m doing now.There is something haunting about the song.Something about the song that just throws me back into that wormhole of being an asshole.Something that cries out,”I could and have should done better.”

Hari Raya Leftovers

Well not exactly leftovers.Pictures that I took during this festive season which never seems to end.Just thought it will be a good addition in this year’s entry.Heh.

Playing The Devil’s Advocate

Extended brothers

Who’s that good looking guy in black?

Spot the Guy

Who’s the cutest?

Families

Fear Of A Samurai

“The realization of certain death should be renewed every morning.Each morning,you must prepare yourself for every kind of death with composure of mind.Imagine yourself broken by bows,guns,spears,swords,carried off by floods,leaping into huge fire,struck by lightning,torn apart by earthquake,plunging from a cliff,as a disease ridden corpse.”

- Tsunetomo Yamamoto ,”Hagakure”

Morbid?Certainly not.I was reading up on my usual stuffs on salesmanship and came across this very interesting chapter that brought out a renewed vigor.”Samurai Selling” was the chapter.The chapter started interestingly with that short anecdote of that irrationality called fear,gripping the minds of salesman like me.Fear that immobilizes us into that frame of uselessness and hopelessness.

Rock My Way

Seriously,who bothers if you had a fairly good week.I do.Especially if it’s my week.The surest conclusion I’ve derived from the whole of last week is this.If football is back in my life,everything else will fall into place.They say,normality creeps in.My whole of last week had the word “footie” plastered all over.

Consider this:

1.I bought a pair of NIKE Tiempos,(eventhough I have a pair of Adidas Telstar sitting at home.)My rationale for getting a new pair is simple.I needed it.(aka,I wanted it).The sickening thing is that I realize now that I could have gotten it at at even better bargain over at Peninsula Plaza.Well,I’m not crying over it.I’m getting NIKE Super Ligeira next month.At $110 per pair,it’s the bargain of the century.

2.Received a call from a team asking for my availability to play with the team in the ESPZEN league.Fact is I don’t even care about the call.I was just pleasantly surprised that I received the call.Because my theory was proven right.I had placed my “credentials” on the site,in that faint hope that someone might take notice.Well,someone did,apparently.Goes to show that humanistic nature of people believing in that thing called,reputation.Heck,they do not know I’ve got a creaked right knee.

3.Resumed my weekly kickabout with Stamford over at Marina.What a joy to be just caressing the ball with old mates,and then capping off the night with a cup of hot tea.Shiok to the max.Best things in life come in small packages.The kickabout helped in preparing me for the then,upcoming Sunday game.

4.Climaxing the week,with a well deserving win,with my Redbacks team.The joy was intensified with the small fact that yours truly,opened his scoring account.The small pleasant surprise was on being given the role of an attacking midfielder in a 5 midfield outfit lineup.It feels good to have come out of the game unscathed.In a team abundant with a flourish of attacking minded players,it did not really mattered actually,how the midfielders lined up.In my perspective,each and every of the players on that Sunday,had the fluidity in movement.New inclusions in the team were a welcoming add ons.They gave a different dimension to the array of options.I was just pleased and happy that people like Nordin has made a committed comeback.It’s things like these that makes sessions appealing.I believe a comment made by Ayyub when his brother opened his scoring account,summed up the evening.”Another 29 to go!”in reference to his brother’s goals of 30 goals this season.It highlighted  a sense of optimism and goodwill.

Syawal…wal…wal…walauweh!

Selamat Hari Raya

In slightly less than two months,Americans will be heading down their way to polling booths to place their votes for their next American president.Will it be the charismatic Obama with his aide Biden?Or will it be McCain and his bumbling aide,Palin?No matter what the outcome of the polls will be,one thing is for sure,you and I will be part of it.

This economic crisis that is seemingly besieging the world.It seems to cloud an issue.A misty haze seems to settle on our awareness,on something rather important.As throngs of my community go about their never ending visitations in this month of Syawal,I just wonder…”Are they aware?”

As the MRT train pulls into stations,my eyes never fail to catch the fleeting smiles of families decked in the vibrant colors of their kurungs.It’s joyous.It’s pretty.It’s surreal.And when I blink my eyes again to capture that picturesque moment,I see children running around,tears and blood streaming down their cheeks,escaping the bomb shells scattering in the vicinity,scrambling for the safety of sheltering rubbles.I blink my eyes again,and my consciousness was brought back to sunny Singapore,from the war torn lands of Palestine.