Football

I’ve been watching a lot of football. Seriously. I’ve watched more football in the last 2 weeks than I have ever done so in my entire lifetime.

Not that I am a fan of football. No, no. I’ve always considered watching big grown men chasing after a ball a fairly mindless activity. I am not against it, just not into it.

But interestingly enough, with the World Cup on at 3pm, 5pm and 9pm every day, you just have to watch. So I started watching. And I found myself learning about life just by watching football. I won’t name teams, coz honestly, I remember the color of their shirts more than their names or the country they are from.

I learnt perseverance watching teams deny defeat before time is up. And these are like teams after half time with a zero on their score and 2 on their opponents’ score. And I saw teams who gave up. Their game became meaningless.

I learnt that you gotta be ready. There were men who were constantly chasing the ball so hard you feel tired just watching them play. And I really wanted them to score. And yet there were other sluggish teams with members who were clearly caught unaware when the ball came flying their way. And you wonder why they were even playing in the field.

I learnt that even if you are the best, you cannot be conceited coz pride will cause you to make the most silly mistakes.

And finally, I learnt this from watching the Argentineans play - I learnt that like football, life is only a game. Not that it is not important. In fact, when you are out there on the field, play and give it your best and only your best. But not to score. To play.

In the match, the Argentineans played very well, by my amateur football watching standards of course. But it was a 0-0 score. Still, they won my respect by the end of the game. Coz they played hard, never slacked, were good at what they did (in fact, the way they handled the ball was like how our kids used to play cha-tek in void decks) and clearly enjoyed the game. More importantly, they did not resort to falling down and screaming foul at the slightest injury. Each time they fell, they picked themselves up and went on like, yes, this is a game, let’s continue. They played as a team. They were not proud, not rude to their opponents. They played football like it was football, not like they needed to prove to the world anything.

We spent the last 2 weeks in Paris adjusting back to a lifestyle of” being”, not “doing”. And I guess one of the key things about “being” is understanding that it’s not about the goals we set (pun un-intended) or the things we do. It’s us. It is not what we score in life that marks us. It is how we play.

Jo

some more stuff

Abby came to visit the last week and left this morning. Honestly, when she left, it felt a little like we were leaving home all over again. And so now, it’s back to the 2 of us.

The weather’s been a hot 30 deg Celsius in the shade with little or no wind most of the time. Most folks are out in their berms and tank tops, knees and shoulders showing. We bought a fan the 2nd day after we arrived coz it’s impossible to sleep in the stillness of the air.

Today is the first official day of summer. All over Paris, folks are staying indoors, not to get away from the heat, but to be part of the World Cup fever in Europe. So like in Singapore, we also get moments of loud cheering and roars of “goal!” out of the blue every couple of hours, within a span of 90 min. It’s nice, I guess, feels kinda just like home. Only thing was that the night France and Korea tied, our neighbour looked out of the window and gave Kar Wai an unfriendly glare. Hmm…I guess we got ourselves another nationality to pass off as.

More pictures

Jo insta-baked a chocolate cake for my birthday today, so I had a go at it.


Saw this at Champs Elysees yesterday, Portugal suppporters were soooo happy with the win. :-)

Wes

Steven Seagal & Thunderbox

Saw this advert in the metro and just had to post the image. I didn’t know that he could sing, really.

Wes

Romeo and Juliet

Yesterday, we met Romeo and Juliet. Really. Only that this Juliet was so pissed with Romeo, she told him off at the window.

We were having dinner in our apartment when we noticed that there was a man talking fairly loudly outside our door. We figured… hmm... maybe he was on the hand phone coz my neighbor had already returned about 10 minutes before and there was no other voice except his.

Then we started to make out bits and pieces of the conversation…bits of ‘I love you’, ‘please’, ‘I beg you’, ‘I really love you’…

Ooo… couple fight. Neighbor not opening the door. Poor guy. He actually started crying outside her door.

Then we heard him go downstairs and shout from the courtyard for her to open the door and speak to him. Of course, my curious husband poked his head out of the window and instead of telling him off, this nice guy actually said, “bonjour, Monsieur” (good day, Sir). Can you imagine! If he was a Singaporean guy, he would have said something like “What you looking at?!”

Anyway, we left to poor guy to beg and plead for another 5 minutes before we heard him knocking on something. And the funny thing was, his voice sounded nearer. So Kar Wai went to peep again and lo and behold! This guy was hanging on the windowsill of his girlfriend’s 2nd storey apartment, knocking on her window, asking her to open the door! And he did that for like 10 min before she opened the window, told him off and closed it again.

And we thought this only happens in the movies…gosh, if not for anything else, I would have opened the door just for being nice and polite even in his desperate situation.

Jo

Leaving town

Hello all,

We are leaving town tonight at about 11pm plus. Am glad it's a straight flight back to Paris. Sorry that we couldn't meet up some of you. *paiseh*

will catch up with mel and alex ok? :-)

Wes