Mind the Gap

In other news, Centrepoint shopping centre's rennovations are almost completed. When I arrived in Singapore all those months ago, the view from my window was a hole in the ground. After many evening and weekend hours of jackhammering lit by very strong floodlights, it looks like only the shopfitting and final touches are needed.

The opening of the new stores will see the arrival of Gap in Singapore. This girl is now what I see everyday from the windows in my apartment. She's pretty excited about Gap opening soon. I am shocked that I have been here long enough for someone to build a shopping centre!

Very Spirited

I have just returned from a very fun weekend of Ultimate frisbee in Manilla.

My Singapore club, Chuckies, decided in our post SUO euphoria to send a team to the Manilla Spirits. I was excited to play another tournament with them and to visit The Phillipines for the first time.

We picked up a couple of non-chuckies to help us with the numbers - including B, who flew up just for the three days. They fell straight into the Chuckies spirit and we had a great weekend.

The highlight of the weekend for me was chuckies winning the spirit prize, largely caused by our insistent cheering of our opposition with creatively written songs to the tune of christmas carols.

I'm writing a summary below - to all non-ultimate players, feel free to skip the rest of this post!

Day 1
Chuckies were seeded 2nd in our pool and if we kept that seeding we would make it through to quarter finals. We started the morning against a local team, K3, who were quite good but we managed to take out with our patient play. We cheered K3 with a version of Abbie's 'Doh-a-disc' - the only cheer not to a carol tune.

We then played Xavier and it was a closer match than it should have been, with chuckies being run a little ragged by a the high school legs. We cheered Xavier with a version of Jingle Bells: "Oh what fun it is to chase Xavier round today! Hey!".

We then faced the top seed in our pool - Chinese Taipei. They wallopped us convincingly, though funnily enough this gave them cause for great celebration in an almost soccer style over-acting. Not a very fun game, but they did give us cute little coaster size frisbees as a gift. We cheered Tapei with a rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: "Taiwan, the renegade state...".

Next came my favourite game of the tournament against 32 Special. We were fairly evenly matched against these guys, but needed to win to get through to quarters. We benefited by the evening breeze cooling things down and took the game in the last point (aka ultimate point). This was our cheer to them, to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas:

On the x day of Spirits, Special played Chuckies:
.32 special,
11 knots of wind
10-tative passing
9 hucks a hucking
8 cones a marking
7 points at time cap
6 flicking forehands
5 maaaah-ssive cuts
4-cing away
3 chicks on d'line
2 sidelines cheering
and a game to ultimate point!

We finished the day with a great meal in Makati and made appearences at the party. I thought the party was a bit rubbish - but maybe I was just tired.



Day 2
After all our day 1 success, we were matched up against PULA in the quarter finals. We really didn't have a chance against these guys, but we did make their win a little difficult. It was fun to play such a good team and we showed some great defence against a really strong team. Pula was cheered with our version of "'Tis the season", with Fa La La La's replaced with Pula la la's.

The playoff games were against Jeepney and Hong Kong Junk. We lost to Jeepney only in the final point and we probably could have taken Hong Kong if we weren't all dying of heat stroke. We cheered Jeepney with our verison of Santa Claus is Coming to town: "Jeepney is a running us down...". We drank beer with Hong Kong.



We watched a great final between Pula and Shanghai, with Shanghai taking a convincing lead early in the match. Pula came back strong but not quickly enough. The score was 13-8.

B and I then provided some full time entertainment, exporting the Aussie Sheppard boys' blindfolded disc catching game and trying to get everyone to play stubby guts.

The rest of the evening was spent drinking and dancing on the fields. I spent Monday recovering and flying back to Singas. B flew to sydney on Monday night, straight back to work on Tuesday.

Thanks Chuckies - looking forward to Bali next year.

Quarter Life crisis

I am in Sydney and tomorrow I will turn 25!

I've had a fun week and been doing a pretty good job of 'working from home'. The time difference to Singapore is now 3 hours, thanks to daylight savings. This means its midday before my team gets to work in Singapore, allowing me to enjoy a few sleep ins and morning shopping trips (it's sooo good not to need XXXXL sizes! Singapore clothes shopping is not for the curvy!).

This birthday is the first that I am feeling aprehensive about. For those that know me well, you'll know that I am somewhat idealistic about what I want to do with my life. 25 is feeling like an age where I should be working this out - and working long hours to improve two companies profits (consulting company plus client company) is not what I really want to do.

I spoke to a person in my company today about his work in the health industry - I am contemplating taking a sideways move and doing what I do but for some amount of community benefit. No decisions until next year, though.

But this week I am just going to enjoy being back in Sydney with everyone.