Morning Dew

The clay was perfect this morning.

So soft, balls rolling by left trails on the naked ground. ♥

To go Home, Or Not to go Home, That is the Question : S

Cute, isn't he? :)  His unfortunate face expresses exactly how I feel.

I've decided to spend Christmas in Europe and forgo a precious opportunity to come home.  The larger question to ask, though, is if I want to come home for Chinese New Year.

I've been having second thoughts about this--especially after my back injury "slowed" progress down.  Tennis is picking up again--and in the midst of this sure quickening cadence, I am asking myself if I want to tear myself away.  Again.

It's strange how when I left home, I thought I was tearing myself away to come here.

And now, it feels just the opposite.

The things being away does!  Last December, my body was just starting to embrace the cold when I had to pack and return.  Just then, my game was peaking.  My coach was happy with my progress.  And I felt strong, happy and fit as hell.

I don't know how things will turn in January.  Things, as I've learnt, always change.  Maybe I will want a break, perhaps not.  Let's see.

4 to 7

Learnt from a coach today that players need approximately 4 to 7 full competition matches before they are fit enough (mentally, phyiscally, stress-wise, etc.) to push their playing level up.  And of course, the player has to be in FIGHT mode in all seven to make it count.

Truly, the best practices is match play.  Everything has to revolve around it.

Tea at Sobiah's

God has blessed me with wonderful friends in Barcelona. 

This week, a bunch of us met at Sobiah's place right in the heart of town.  Sobiah is a Malaysian lady whose been living in Barcelona for the past twenty years with her Spanish husband, Enrique!  Hankering after her fantastic passion for cooking, she invited all of us to her place for a simple but scrumptilicious high-tea of home made teh-tarik, and kueh kueh! :))))

When we arrived at 4.30pm, Sobiah was in the final stages of folding....

 Curry puffs:)

The second kuh kuehs----sweet potato doughnuts---were already done.  Laced in sugar dippings, made with very little flour and a lot of sweet potato, it was just mmmmmm.

Of course, we couldn't keep our hands to ourselves...  Hehe.  Here is Adrian and Susan happily posing with their doughnuts.  I ate at least ten!

While we busied our jaws, the curry puffs soon came out of the fryer. Crispy, golden, very fragrant.

Of course we were very excited.  No time was wasted gathering around the table---here is my fellow Singaporean Bee Ling with her beautiful little girl:

Ines!  All of three years :)

It was really nice sitting down and just talking.  Catch the half-eaten curry puff in the corner.  I think I gobble about....6 of them : P

Had to scoot at 6.30pm in time for work at the Academy at 7.30pm.  Nevertheless, I really enjoyed myself.  To more meeting and eating with my Singaporean friends :)

Upwards and Onwards
Quick note.  Just finished practice and am off to the gym in a bit.  I just have to pen down this momentary ecstasy I'm feeling from having a damn good practice.

Back injury has plugged practices for the past six weeks.  Today marked my fourth practice after 1.5 weeks away from court.  In spite of this, it's always strangely wonderful experiencing how we sometimes come back only stronger after injury.

Today I was hitting the ball earlier.  I could feel my footwork stronger.  Movements sturdier.  The shots coming off my racquet bit in much, much harder.  Best of all, paired with all of this was a deep, knowing calm and an amazing sense of ease.  From that backhand drive volley down the line to that deep forehand cross court shot--I was more preoccupied with enjoying the cool air pinching my breath and the twinge of sun on my skin.

How come the sudden change?  I don't know.  I could hypothesize a thousand reasons, but I guess the main one was God remoulding my consciousness towards His supply during my down time.  True enough, even though I hadn't practiced, I was now hitting the ball cleaner, weightier.  I was strangely reading the ball quicker, finer.  Hitting easier, faster, stronger.

I walked off court today thinking how truly undeserved all of this was.  Truly, Lord.  Through the ups and downs---thank You for loving me xx

Take Your Job and Love It
by Max Lucado

My heart took delight in all my work.
Ecclesiastes 2:10 NIV

Contrast two workers.
The first one slices the air with his hand, making points, instructing the crowd. He is a teacher and, from the look of things, a compelling one. He stands on a beach, rendering the slanted seashore an amphitheater. As he talks, his audience increases; as the audience grows, his platform shrinks. The instructor steps back and back until the next step will take him into the water. That's when he spots another worker.

A fisherman. Not animated, but frustrated. He spent all night fishing, but caught nothing. All night! Double-digit hours worth of casting, splashing, and pulling the net. But he caught nothing. Unlike the teacher, the fisherman has nothing to show for his work. He draws no crowds; he doesn't even draw fish. Just nets.

Two workers. One pumped up. One worn-out. The first, fruitful. The second, futile. To which do you relate?

If you empathize with the fisherman, you walk a crowded path. Before you change professions, try this: change your attitude toward your profession.

Jesus' word for frustrated workers can be found in the fifth chapter of Luke's gospel, where we encounter the teacher and the frustrated fisherman. You've likely guessed their names—Jesus and Peter. Peter, Andrew, James, and John made their living catching and selling fish. Like other fishermen, they worked the night shift, when cool water brought the game to the surface. And, like other fishermen, they knew the drudgery of a fishless night.

While Jesus preaches, they clean nets. And as the crowd grows, Christ has an idea.

He noticed two boats tied up. The fishermen had just left them and were out scrubbing their nets. He climbed into the boat that was and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Sitting there, using the boat for a pulpit, he taught the crowd. (vv. 2-3 MSG)

Jesus claims Peter's boat. He doesn't request the use of it. Christ doesn't fill out an application or ask permission; he simply boards the boat and begins to preach.

He can do that, you know. All boats belong to Christ. Your boat is where you spend your day, make your living, and to a large degree live your life.

Your boat is God's pulpit.

I have a friend who understands this. By job description she teaches at a public elementary school. By God's description she pastors a class of precious children. Read the e-mail she sent her friends:

I'm asking for your prayers for my students. I know everyone is busy, but...
On and on the list goes, including nearly deaf Sara. Disorganized-but-thoughtful Terrell. Model-student Alicia. Bossy-but-creative Kaelyn.

Does this teacher work for a school system or for God? Does she spend her day in work or worship? Does she make money or a difference? Every morning she climbs in the boat Jesus loaned her. The two of them row out into the water and cast nets. My friend imitates Peter.

Suppose you were to do what Peter did. Take Christ to work with you. Invite him to superintend your nine-to-five. He showed Peter where to cast nets. Won't he show you where to transfer funds, file the documents, or take the students on a field trip?

Holy Spirit, help me stitch this seam.
Lord of creation, show me why this manifold won't work.
King of kings, please bring clarity to this budget.
Dear Jesus, guide my hands as I trim this hair.

Pray the prayer of Moses: "Let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work that we do. Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!" (Ps. 90:17 MSG).

Hold it there. I saw you roll those eyes. You see no way God could use your work. Your boss has the disposition of a hungry pit bull; hamsters have larger work areas; your kids have better per diems. You feel sentenced to the outpost of Siberia, where hope left on the last train. If so, meet one final witness. He labored eighteen years in a Chinese prison camp.

The Communist regime rewarded his faith in Christ with the sewage assignment. The camp kept its human waste in pools until it fermented into fertilizer. The pits seethed with stink and disease. Guards and prisoners alike avoided the cesspools and all who worked there, including this disciple.

After he'd spent weeks in the pit, the stench pigmented his body. He couldn't scrub it out. Imagine his plight, far from home. And even in the prison, far from people. But somehow this godly man found a garden in his prison. "I was thankful for being sent to the cesspool. This was the only place where I was not under severe surveillance. I could pray and sing openly to our Lord. When I was there, the cesspool became my private garden."

He then quoted the words to the old hymn:
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice so clear whispers in my ear
The Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.

"I never knew the meaning of this hymn until I had been in the labor camp," he said. God can make a garden out of the cesspool you call work, if you take him with you.

For Peter and his nets, my friend and her class, the prisoner and his garden, and for you and your work, the promise is the same: everything changes when you give Jesus your boat.

From Cure for the Common Life: Living in Your Sweet Spot
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 2005) Max Lucado

Hip Back Hurray!

Have been plagued with a back strain for the past month, and I always suspected part of it had to do with my bed frame.  Back home, the floor was always my back hugger---not a suspect 1.8x1.2 wobbly metal stand trying to pass off as a sturdy spine supporter. 

Finally took the time to take out the bed frame with Kiko's help. Tough work considering that the room was so small, and even more so the door frame. We had to move the frame out of my room, into the spare room next to ours.  Here it is, finally abandoned and perched atop the spare bed:

Notice how the room is so small, it's impossible to even fit the bed frame face down.  Better yet,  upon closer inspection, I finally understood why I never really liked this lousy bed frame.

Every freaking leg was masking-taped to the divan, because it obviously had fallen off before -_____-"  No prizes for guessing the amount of support this "gave" my back...

As for now, I have settled to sleeping on the floor with my mattress.  If things don't work on the back front, I'll have to think about sleeping on the floor instead.  Floor rest (futons included) can be very comfortable,... even therapeutic.  My dad who used to have back problems swears by it, and... maybe it's about time I listened to him too....

♥ Singapore Food Day ♥

 

This Saturday, Bee Ling, one of the Singaporeans I've been extremely fortunate to meet in Barcelona, invited me to her home for a Singaporean food day.  Together with Adrian and Susan, and Joanne, fellow Singaporeans also in Barcelona, I was soooooo eggggcited to have a shot at local food!  

It was a pot luck and I cooked a pot of brown rice scallop porridge with organic Japanese seaweed.  I think it was a bit too healthy for most of them there, because it hardly got touched compared to the other dishes like Laksa, Mee Siam and Char Kueh Tiao.  But I was happy to just have a shot at eating it all, anyway!

 Here we are all together.  From the left, Bee Ling, Joanne, Susan and myself.  Being Singaporean food deprived people, you can tell from our smiles that we were obviously really happy :)

 Posing with Bee Ling, the chef and her smackalicious char kueh tiao!!!!  (I don't know why my face is so cao4 tah1 in this photo....)

 And here with Susan's little girl Kayla, with Joanne's marvellous mee siam.  She made the sauce from scratch.  It was damnnn shiok lah!

Library = Bibiloteca

Took a much needed break from Academy life today and snuck out to Barcelona in search of an elusive library I've been looking for, for the longest time---the University of Barcelona's Literature and Language library.

It was pretty cool, but before I start yapping away, I'm going to remind myself that concision is precision.  So here it is, in pictures :)

 Was greeted by a host of shrubs upon entering the University courtyard.  There was something in the air.  It wasn't the silent trees or the old concrete that stood yawning ages old.  It was the fresh feeling of campus life all over again.  God, how I miss school.

(Little) Surprise of surprises.  They had a math exhibition going on in one of the foyers.  It included a host of exhibits and one that caught my eye were these bubble prisms.  Here's a diamond shaped mold,

And a strange cube one.  Utterly fascinating.

 

 The path up to the library overlooked another beautiful courtyard.  This one reminds me of a Colosseum, somehow.  Must be the arches.

 

 Library entrance.

The University of Barcelona's Library of Language and Literature.  A humble three storied, two sectioned abode filled with warm light and the occasional beam of sunlight.

 I couldn't figure out how to get to the third floor.

 Interestingly, beneath the beautiful exterior, the library also had dingy shelf sections BEHIND the warm walls.  You got to your real books (and not the bai3 swee4 ones on the walls which no one touches) through a small door along the walls.  Hardly noticeable, once you go through, hard florescent light hits you.  The floor also turns from nice rubber laminated grounds to crappy, noisy metal grates that clank at your every step.  Case in point above!

I spent so much time in the library, I was too hungry to "tahan" all the way back to the Academy.  So I decided to reward myself and go eat at a Chinese restaurant.  For EUR9,95, I got a set dinner that included Hot and Spicy Soup (麻辣汤),

 A plate of commendably fried beef noodles,

Prawns fried in spicy sauce and vegetables, plus dessert, and mineral water!  Throw in the fact that I convinced the guy to give me a bowl of rice FOC (they wanted to charge me EUR1,25!! for it!!!) it was quite worth it, and a definite great end to a good day :)

Luigi Fraboni

Despite the furnace, many good things have come out of burning through my weekend, working for the Academy's latest tournament.  One of them in particular, was making friends with the official tournament photographer--a man called Luigi Fraboni.

Luigi's been a professional photographer for the past twenty years, and has specialized in tennis photography for the past nine.  He's been to the Grand Slams, pictured the likes of McEnroe, Sampras, Safin, Hingis, Sharapova and many more.

Over discussions about photography, aperture, shutter and lense specifications, he very kindly offered to take a couple of shots of me hitting.  Needless to say I was ecstatic.  I played.  He shot.  And now, here's sharing one (of the many) that I really liked :)

http://www.luigifraboni.com/

Trying Day #5

As I speak, the smoke detector alarm has gone off for the eighth time.  Each alarm cycle--I have timed--goes on a painful wailing siren for five minutes.  Be generous and sprinkle two to four minutes of "grace" between each punk cycle, and what you get is a long, painfully drawn out affair of listening to a deafening siren in the dead of the night.  All, yes, at the expense of some punk kid trying to prove his virility through wailing through the thin midnight air.

Yes.  Happy Halloween, everyone.

What a way to spend the night after a tiring ten, no, twelve (!) hour day shuttling between tournament office and the courts, taking, processing pictures, and servicing player/parents.  Couple that with late meals, low glucose levels, and having to deal with an overly pompous, big, B.O. infested fat man, who thinks he is the world.  What do you get?

Stress on the back and overload. 

Well, quite so. 

This fat a** was the main co-sponsor for the tournament, besides the Academy.  He is ugly, smelly, and very touchy feel-ly.  In particular, while my boss, Alexandra leaned over to speak to me over the table in front of me, he took the opportunity to wrap his hand around the curve of her back, and let it stay there.  I was shocked, my eyes trailed from her gaze to his non-nonchalant face, and it told me he was just taking advantage of the situation.  And that he wanted it.

Later, as I showed him some work, he tried to get funny by draping his arm around the back of my chair (too close for comfort), and then reaching over and placing his hand on my shoulder---half-squeezing, half man-handling it (way too close for comfort).  I shifted my body away as suddenly has he leaned over to touch me, and jerked my chair in so that his fat-ass lazy arm had to move away.  I think I made myself painfully clear that I don't stand for this shit.

I asked Alex after that if I could tell him straight up not to touch me, at all.  And she said "Yes, yes!  Of course."  But then as quickly as she said it, she also went on to diffuse it with the excuse that he was Italian and that "Italian men are like that.  (Pause).  Well, not all, but yes."  She then went on to share her experiences with Italian transport (yes, very relevant) and how the problems she encountered (tardiness, unprofessionalism, etc.) were just the way Italians worked.  "Oh really?"  I asked, surprised.  "That happens to me in Spain too!"

Seriously speaking, though.  I saw where she was coming from, but still found it quite disappointing that she was trying to diffuse my discomfort so quickly, especially as I sought her out, as subordinate-boss, and also as woman-woman.

So I went back to sit on my green plastic chair (again), brooding (double again).  When the brilliant thought hit me. 

"God,"  I prayed. "If he touches me again, please strike him down with lightening or do something terrible to him."  The bible always talks about how God protects the righteous, and if ever a time was to exercise this, it was now.  I hope he has a heart attack tomorrow (FIRST), and then gets saved by Christ (later).  Haha : P