A Familiar Name

I probably have to dust off the cob webs in this web space of mine, and to those of you who still drop by here (anyone even?), my apologies for the long absence .... again.

To be honest, tonight was just like any other night, and I didn't exactly have the mood or energy to blog, until I read the news. I noticed a very familiar name, and it was an article about the charge on three NS men who were involved in some bribing and smuggling case. Unless someone else has that very same full name, I have this feeling that news article was refering to an ex-recruit of mine.

Well it may afterall not be him, but one part of me says there's a high chance. He was always a problematic soldier, and I would say he was the one recruit who received my loudest ever scolding during my ns days. The problems he posed could be compiled into one long chapter, but I'm not going there. The point is that towards graduation, things got better, and I saw a change in him. On the last day, he expressed his gratitude for all that was done, and mentioned how he was sorry and has learned from all that has happened.

The one thing which brings me much joy and satisfaction during my ns days was to see my recruits graduating. It felt really good to see them maturing since the first day when they all looked so blur, and the gratitudes and salutes that follow is the icing on the cake. I received the same gratitude and salute from the above mentioned recruit, and I was confident that I helped in making him a better person. Or so I thought.

No School, No Blog

I can easily attribute the origin and continued presence of this blog to school. I started blogging at a time when school was really busy and thoughts were overflowing in my head, at a time when I learnt that blogging was a good practice for writing in school, and at a time when more and more of my friends started blogging. This relation between school and my blog has been made even clearer in the recent weeks, as my blogging frequency has since dipped, simply because there's no school.

Internship has been really good, and I would say that I have already settled into that working kind of lifestyle. It has however taken a toll on several aspects of my life, including the energy and time left to blog. No doubt blogging ideas and sudden inspirations do consistently surface, but that flow of energy to my mind does to seem to flow all the way down to my hands. So I'm just going to sum up two random thoughts I had for the past few weeks, one about Chinese New Year, another about soccer.

Chinese New Year. It followed a similar trend as the previous years. Lesser hype around it, lesser visitings and in some way lesser meaning to the whole festival. Then again, this is not the case for everyone. However this year, I started to realise that maybe it's not that Chinese New Year or traditions have changed, but it's simply because I have grown older.

During my visits, I looked at some of the kids, and they too are still having a time of their lives, playing with cousins whom they've never met for a year, snacking on the new year goodies, and receiving their red packets before running off to play elsewhere before they get bombarded with questions from the adults. When I looked at them, I was thinking that hey, that used to be me. Hmm, another one of those "I'm growing old" sentiments streaming into me.

Soccer. Disappointing from my point of view, as a rovers fan. Sam Allardyce probably saved us from being this season's table rooting Sunderland or Derby, as despite being unbeaten for many games already, we're still in the trouble zone. Starting to see the irony behind Ince's remark of 'I could have gotten another 5 more games to work something out'. We would have drifted away by then Ince. A loss to Villa yesterday was expected, but what worries me is that the gaps in the bottom half are starting to reappear. That game in hand we have against Fulham is the key now. I definitely have more faith in the new manager, however if you ask me, I'm only about 60-70% confident that we won't go down, simply because we have one of the better squads down there. Then again, as many captains have reminded their squads this season, you're never too good to go down. We'll see, as the table looks really interesting this season. My predictions, with some rovers biasness involved, West Brom, Stoke and Boro to go down.

As for the top, I think I should be able to give a better assessment than any big four fans. Sorry friends, but more often that not have I seen big four fans being either too biased to their clubs, or having sentiments which are just too anti of other big four clubs. Many of you attribute it to passion, but sometimes I just feel it's going waywards beyond passion, and sometimes even ugly for the common good of the game. Ok to the point, Man Utd should clinch it this season, as they are what I would say the most consistent team in the league for many years. Liverpool, well I think too many people are writing them off too easily, again more because of anti-rival sentiments rather than footballing reasoning. Torres is back, and that will do them much good. Chelsea would probably be vying for third spot with Arsenal and Villa, although I got this feeling that Villa will nick it. You only have to look at the two people to understand Chelsea's plight, Drogba and Scolari. They tend to give me this 'loss and dejected' feel everytime I watch them. Arsenal, well I don't think anyone can argue that this season, they just lack the most depth and experience for a big four club. I didn't fancy Adebayor, and then he made me eat my words last season, but now I'm passing them all out again.

Come what may, it's going to be a great season, and soccer during weekend nights definitely give me something to look forward to after those long weekdays.