Have a Happy Ramadan!

I ended up doing summer flights for Ramadan.. doing Milan now, and Frankfurt/New York next week..

Not that I'm complaining though.. the money is good.. and considering the fact that I wont be flying for a week during Hari Raya, so the flights come in at a good time..

5 hours to go till buka, and back home, they had buka-ed 2 hrs ago..

Thankfully, there's 2 other Muslim crew on this flight so the three of us lepak together for buka and post-buka conversations..

Came across a Turkish/Kebab restaurant yesterday while looking for a Halal eatery.. and we were invited for free meals, for buka and sahur.. but Sahur is way too early, and I still got some food packed by my dad..

Zahirah and Nadya are down with flu.. just when I was leaving for 2 consecutive long flights.. bad timing.. but at least when Hari Raya comes, they should be strong and healthy again..

And this is gonna be Nadya's FIRST Hari Raya. And as I had mentioned, I would be home for a week for it.. So all u aunts and uncles, get ready the duit raya coz Nadya will come charging soon..

On a sadder note..

I lost my Mont Blanc pen.

Again.

For the second time since I received it as my birthday present 2 years ago from my then-fiancee who was still in secondary school and had to stinge to save up 400 bucks to get that pen for me..

Not that I ever expected her to do that, but its a beautiful Mont Blanc pen and had always been one of the most precious thing to me that I dont leave home without it.. it's always with me when I go to work, and always in my jeans when I'm not working that I dont write with anything else except for that pen.

The first time I lost it was the night before Meraj's wedding when I drove over to his house to spend time with him and the rest of the guys.. I had placed the pen in the pocket of my police uniform, since I was doing some of my reservist duties that day, and when I got home, the pen wasnt there.

It was not till I had to clear my car several months later to sell it away that I found it in the trunk.

And I had taken more care since..

Till a week and a half ago, when I was doing the final packing just before I left home for Melbourne, I thought I packed the pen which was in my jeans, in my suitcase.. but when I arrived in Melbourne, I couldnt find the pen.. and for a week and a half I had been so depressed..

I lost my prized possession.. a gift from my wife when she was still a secondary school student..

I looked everywhere in the house for it but couldnt find it.. seriously, it affected me so badly that I was really depressed for the loss of it..

Till about 20 mins ago.. my wife told me that Nadya found it while playing at my in-laws' in Jurong!

No wonder I couldnt find it in Tampines.. coz it wasnt there..

No words can really express how relieved I am now.. I am so happy.. and this time I'm gonna take MORE care of it.. my track record is bad.. but I'll try..

So, the Mont Blanc incident ended now on a happier note..

Anyway, just a few days after the National Day, I went to watch a football game at the National Stadium with my brother who had a stopover in Singapore en route back from Hiroshima to Melbourne, as part of his study trip for his Masters degree at La Trobe..

Zahirah drudgingly followed after I convinced her that it was a good family bonding session.. watching a soccer match with me and my brother and our 9 months old daughter..

hehe.. not many guys can pull that off eh? but still.. when we're home and she's holding the remote to the cable tv, she'll skip through Channel 27 so quickly that I dont even see the channel name appearing on screen..

but when she knows that there are important games.. or any Manchester United games, she would normally relent and let me watch them..

anyway, back to the game, it was a friendly between Singapore and China.. Singapore scored early in the game, before it was dominated by the Chinese..

even the Chinese fans dominated the stadium, which was like a quarter filled..

The next day, The New Paper reports..

Why No Kallang Roar?

and put it like a blame to the Singaporeans who didnt turn up for the game, and for those who did, that we didnt cheer like the Chinese fans did..

Since they added a small part in the page for us to speak up, I emailed them with my opinion..

here's the letter I sent to TNP sports..

Why no Kallang Roar?

Let me explain to you why. I'm writing here in the defense of the ones who attended the National Day Challenge 2009 between Singapore and China.

The last time I stepped into the National Stadium was in 1994, in support of the Lions back when we were still playing in the Malaysian Cup. Ever since our departure from the M-Cup, along with thousands of other fans, I had lost interest in the local soccer scene. I don't know names of the S-League teams, except for a couple of them who had been around forever. I don't keep track of the players, cause in my stereotypical mind, they are overpaid and overrated. I don't watch the S-league games, cause, again my in stereotypical mind, they are mainly attended by bookies, the players' immediate families and the local WAGs.

I skip the reports on our local games in the papers, choosing only to read the English league and other international game reports. For 15 years, the Singapore soccer scene had been parked right at the back end of my mind, and the interest had never been revived since.

Till yesterday, when my brother, who was visiting from Australia where he had lived for the past 6 years, almost pleaded to me to watch the game with him. He had always had the soft spot for the Singapore team, maybe due to the fact that he missed the country badly. He said that he felt pain everytime Liverpool scored against Singapore and had to walk around to pacify himself.

That's the Singapore die-hard fan for you.

I was an attendee at the game yesterday. I wasn't a fan. Had stopped being one for 15 years. I did not even know about the game till my brother told me about it. And so I thought that it might be a good time to give the National team a chance and to re-ignite my love for them. When the names were mentioned, I couldn't not connect to them as they were literally foreign names to me. When they played from the first kick, they lost me.

It was a good thing that Singapore had scored at the beginning before the Chinese team settled in as the Singapore players were lost in the field for most of the game.

What I saw during the game was a team of mainly lazy players who gave up too many possessions and refused to regain the ball after losing them. They seemed to be contented when they were unable to retrieve the ball, or when they lost the challenge for it.

My brother was too kind to consider them having the skills but not the flair. Too kind. But then again, he is THAT patriotic to the National team as he lives far away from Singapore, and supporting them is one of those things that he can use as reminiscence of the memories of the good old times when he was still living here.

I'm sorry. But the last football match that I had watched live was at Old Trafford. While I certainly do not expect the National team to perform like their English counterparts, they could not even perform close to their predecessors who had don the red jerseys and did us proud for so many years. The Real Lions.

I would have cheered for the team if they could have played better. They might think that they could have played better if we cheered.

I'd rather lose my voice to a team that deserve the cheer. They should not have been given the luxury to choose to underperform due to lack of fan support as it is their responsibility to play, and to play well. We, the attendees, were not obligated to cheer for a team without flair. They could have gotten a fan in me if they could play with more dedication. Besides the National custodian who had a streak of fantastic saves, the rest of the team were just not playing.

I wouldn't blame the National coach when he thought that the team played well. He had just gotten too used to the way these boys play their level of football.

FAS marketed the game badly. Most of my friends who are obvious Lions' fans back in the 90s did not even know that there were such an event yesterday. Not that they bothered too as none were interested in it when I told them about it. They lost the fans when they opted to leave the M-Cup. So what if they had been victimised by the M-Cup organisers? Singaporean fans is a patriotic bunch. By leaving the competition without a proper replacement dismantled our National pride in the team. The S-league could not even come close to it. FAS chose to ignore the fans.

Then again, that's just an opinion.

I'd stick to my standard EPL games and leave the S-league and National games for the WAGs to watch. If they want the Kallang Roar to come back, work hard for it. You don't deserve it just because you were chosen to don the colours due to the fact that everyone else play much worse than you do.

They are not the Lions. We lost them one and a half decade ago.

I was not a fan who attended the game yesterday. I was just another Singaporean who happened to watch the game.

And it hurt me just as bad when I watched in dismay, the dismal performance that they showed us while wearing our National colours.

A few days later, a reporter from TNP called me and told me that they liked my letter and invited me for a dialogue session with 2 other fans who had written in, with the boss of S-League and FAS, Winston Lee..

wah.. so serious like that ah?

But the session was at 6pm that day, and I had to leave for a flight to Delhi at 4pm.. so I had to give it a miss.. I did write in some questions though to the reporter coz he told me to do so for him to relay to FAS.. but for the print, only a single paragraph appeared.. good enough.. but the reply that FAS seemed to give was that they had given what they should and we should accept it the way it is and support the national team and league coz we are expected to..

No thanks, FAS. I'll stick to Channel 27.

3 hrs to go till buka in Milan.