tomorrow

I never thought I would come to a time I'm watching a TV drama to find insights into what I ought to do and how I ought to decide. But for reasons beyond me, I seem to identify with these characters. There will be a time I can sit down and sort out these current happenings. I sense tomorrow I will have the time. I may say the same thing tomorrow. I want us to be happy.

tiny little bar

And so it came down to a shoot-out, after Japan had played so well. I've always wanted to be the keeper in these situations, and I would make the stops to lead my team to victory. On this evening, none of the keepers made any stops. Komano's shot hit the bar, and Japan lost.

Once the football is done, my life will be back to normal, somewhat.

meal after work

Lately it has been hard to focus. Treating myself to a small meal is the little bit that I can do to give myself a break, a moment to regroup my thoughts and reflect upon the wonderful day I had, and the amazing people I met today. It's amazing how many people with so many interesting stories I come across each day. I love my job. More on this later.

of england, monkeys, and our people

O England. There was a time I wanted you to do well. There were those days of Gascoigne and McMannaman and Shearer and Tony Adams... I still remember when Beckham and Owen were young lads, when Gerrard came up to Liverpool full of energy...

This was the circus at Park Central in Tseung Kwan O before the start of the Germany v. England match tonight. I've been having to watch my football matches here because some TV station has bought the right to broadcast these matches. I thought football was for everybody. I'll stop that rant.

These girls and guys sitting on the chairs having their pictures taken are supposed to be celebrities. They were playing 'Simon says' on the stage to entertain the people before the game went on. Ours is a people that get entertained by watching supposed celebrities play 'Simon says' on stage.



Then we had to watch this monkey sing while the players (as shown in the screen) have already made their way onto the pitch. Ours is a people that get entertained by watching pussy-voiced boys in tight pants sing to pop beats played out of speakers.




At this point, I was wondering why this monkey is still on the stage singing a dull love pop tune while the countries' national anthems are happening. He was lucky I didn't have a tomato in my hand



After the match started and the attention was turned to the football match, some people went to the back of the stage to get autographs.

pebbles

After the pebbles have settled there will be a time I tell something a little more concrete. Amidst these incomplete thoughts the only sentiment that remains strongly here is that I am very lucky and that sleep is the most sensible thing to do.

piece

Much of the writing process is about falling off the horse and then getting back on. I have not written since the football tournament started, but I did get my new computer working and I was typing up a long piece in a coffee shop. There is my new computer, my drink, and a random couple having their moment together. Me, writing.

chandeliers

Visited the Pokka Cafe while waiting for my new computer. Marked down a list of football matches that I plan to watch.

a clean well-lighted place

Basically, this is what I said to a student: To do better in your English studies, you ought to check your approach to learning, your approach to life. You ought to find your passion, and from there you derive a sense of direction, then you open up to people a little more, and then whatever you learn will sink into your head a little more because there will have been some purpose behind your learning so that the information you absorb will fall naturally into place.



Tonight, as I was pondering what to write here, I also was thinking about what I would be doing after I finish writing here. My room is waiting for me. The light is on. It's a clean room. A clean, well-lighted place (is the best way to call it). I have my agenda opened, ready to write down my list of tasks for tomorrow and the upcoming days. I have my favourite CDs stacked on the right side of my desk. In fact, I have already pulled out the one that I think I would feel like listening to tonight.

limp blimp

If each night by the time I get here I'm tired and all I can think of to write about is how tired I am, the blog would not be much interesting. But tired is the state I am in and there's no other way to describe it. I did enjoy limping home though, after a rough night of football.

daisy

It makes me wonder how a character comes to being, how one stands up for one's principles without giving in an inch, how one maintains a deep belief and expresses it with his eyes. I wonder if at any time I may take offence in another person's actions or utterances, and what utterance it would have to be that would make my eyes exert the same fire.




This is the thought, as I close out the night having just caught some old TVB drama replays on the tube.

you are the feet beneath my body

Festival Walk and North Point Ferry Pier




The wheels on the bus, the paddle on the boat, the feet beneath our bodies. We are happening. Indeed, we are moving from place to place, getting from here to there safely in the infrastructure that we have been given. And it doesn't matter if the skies are gray or if the roads are dusty or if the music in the record store is stupefying the mind that prides in being unique. At least we are happening! Even if it doesn't seem like we're moving forward or toward anywhere, at least we're swimming and bobbling in this wide wide ocean together. Knowing this makes me happy. Sometimes I pull back to watch the city happening around me and I feel like something about me is about to happen too. The particles are having a huddle inside me and it's time I close out the day, retire to my room, and give them a listen as to what they have to say.

rendez-vous

And so I think I may be ready for sleep. It's an early get-up tomorrow to head out to North Point to take the bus to Repulse Bay. In my memory there is a Repulse Bay Hotel (and I had since long ago been drawn to it, having read about it in a poem) and in my memory I was having afternoon tea with you at a patio table by the lawn. The table across from us were these glitzy fashiony people fondling their wine glasses speaking in funny Japanese. How we made fun of them in that little world of just the two of us watching the world outside go by... go by...

I had always wanted to bring you there. And I was there with you.

revisiting june the fourth

We talk about self-governance and sovereignty and how we ought to fight for these things and stand up for a free election, universal suffrage, so that we can decide. I was moved by their energy and efforts as I enjoyed my moment of being here, in Victoria Park, on June the fourth, thinking that perhaps I really hadn't been here in Hong Kong on a June the fourth since 1989, the year I moved away from this place and made home in another country. But I'm here now, taking in all their energetic talk about rallying for new ideas on how to ignite the spirit of democracy and how we ought to keep fighting for a right to decide. I stand on the ledge of the fountain, late night, here in the brisk air of almost midnight, and I thought (and had decided quite some time ago) that the right to decide is found within ourselves, that rather than fighting for a right to choose a leader to lead us it may be more worthwhile to attain an ability to lead ourselves to an understanding that there are no rights for which to be fought, for we are so much more sovereign than we ever seem to realize. Too often, in the past 20 years, have I had moments of realization that tell me a turn of the mind is a new territory and a planet full of fresh air.

moons and junes and turbojets

This, a late night because I had stayed late after work to listen to her story about how she finished high school not knowing English and how she worked her way through several companies and going the distance for her crew and finally establishing herself here, in our company, earning much respect from all of us, only to be moved elsewhere, as of tomorrow. Tonight, we sipped champagne and played poker.

Tomorrow I'm off to Macao. So it makes sense to catch some sleep.