eve of christmas eve

well, the past two days were a bit crazy. managed to catch a little nap in the afternoon before i got bored and called mok and the ac ppl to go lan. introduced mok to alex who is his fellow white horse company buddy.

following which i went off for muay thai and then after muay thai ended about two hours later i got a message from mok telling me to go zouk for some pageant thingy. apparently there was this JC pageant thing going on. not that i would play 20 bucks to go look at girls that dont really do anything but mok was adamant and so i went home and bathed an took a cab down to orchard to meet them.

the plan was to meet mok jianwei an jonny at the bus stop behind orchard mrt along orchard boulevard but traffic being retarded and also the taxi driver, who tookme behind borders instead which means that im about 200m down the road, which is a one way road mind you, so i got off the cab.

bad mistake cos it was mother impossile to get another cab on busy orhard road. we walked in the general direction of great world city, hoping and praying that our superb sense of direction, coupled with jianwei's insatiable need for alcohol and sex would point us in the correct direction.

eventually, we met a cabby who told us how to walk there (he couldnt drive us cos hes going somewhere else) and we started walking. its a fair way off. and mok was saying that "no matter what happens, we have to get to zouk"

its more than just an outing now, its become a singular obssession that occupied mok's mind (cos he has never been to zouk before)

as luck would have it, a cab pulled over and the driver told us that he had seen us walking "just now". in any case, we arrived at zouk at about 12. we got in at about close to 1 am.

surprise surprise, the pageant was over. we were about 5 hours off cos it apparently started at 800. congrats guys. if this was the army and they asked us to fire at changi, we were firing at tuas instead.

so anywae, went mambo night. met zhafri and howard who are regulars there. that night wa crazy. it was so packed that you couldnt even have elbow room. people kept pushing and shoving and i got damn damn turned off right from the beginning. mok agreed that zouk was a shit place and we both vowed to look for classier places next time. he also couldnt believe that zouk was voted one of the best clubs in the world. well, i guess its mainly cos fires dont happen inside the club here and people here fight less than in other places.

well, we werent gonna let a sea of arseholes ruin our night. went up to phuture where the music was a whole lot better than the 80s nonsense and we danced like spastic jackrabbits. practised footwork and weaving while dancing in line with darren's suggestion to dance at discos more in order to loosen up and gain fluidity. ended up getting horrible hip pain. well, its not exactly the hip joint. its about 2 inches below it and its the muscle that connects your hip to your leg. it hurt cos i got whacked there during muay thai and also, you use it intensively to kick during muay thai.

apprently, dancing at mambo night in zouk also aggravates it, especially if ure a spastic jackrabbit.

some songs were good, others were damn turn off. i found to my amusement that they played one song which we fought to. but i dunno the title. if u were part of that crazy night and you know the title, pls tell me so i can d/l the song. it goes like this da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaa. yea, like i bet you know exactly what song im talking about.

ate supper at 4, crashed at jianweis house till the next day which gave me about 3 hours of sleep. the funny part was that i woke up at about 945 in his house. jianwei was supposed to go hongkong with his family and so i overheard his mother saying "jianwei, go tell your friend nicely but firmly that he has to go now."

upon hearing that, i grabbed my socks and started to chiong out of the house. then his father walked into view and i gave a weak, stoned out smile and said "hi uncle". he gave me a what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-in-my-house look and walked away. so yea, humchee....run like the wind.

well, at least im not a girl. that would be worse right?

and so, with 3 hours sleep and a naggy hip on my side, mok calls me and tells me that theres field soccer and theyre short of people. i thought he was crazy. we slept like 3 hours, mok slept less cos he had to go to the temple to pray and he elft jianweis house at 615am.

but u cannot abandon your mates so i grabbed my gear and we cabbed down to sembawang to do battle.

we were playing some mat team which had the U17 national striker on their side. he was playing defence for them until the second half so we werent getting raped too badly in the first half, only 3-1 down.

interestingly enough, we were the ones to score first and it was a series of errors that allowed them to plump 3 past us. one handball penalty which was unavoidable. one was cos our defender was sleeping and he didnt know the game had restarted (yes im serious, hes that blur) and the last one was cos our goalkey kicked to the opposition, who layed off and this mat struck the sweetest half volley i ever saw in my entire life and it went top corner. sheer class and the best goal of the game no doubt.

in any case, the referee was a mat as well and hes damn funny. before the game he lined the two teams up and said "ok, i know you guys are chinese and we are malay, but please no racial things ok? this is a friendly match"

haha like wth la, say until like that. we laughed like shit.
the referee also scolds his own mat players and tells them not to complain as well. then he said marcus ow was a "bulldozer".

marcus is bloody funny. hes a nice fat bastard and that makes for lots of laughs. for a fat guy hes surpriingly fast and has good ball sense. he also complains the most out of anyone.

being our team's striker, he constantly insists that he is onside.

there was once where the ref blew for offside, marcus shouted "im on la!" then proceeded to round the keeper to no avail haha.

then he missed like 4 chances to score cos he used his left leg instead of his right haha but those missed chances were damn funny cos he was like 5 metres out and he balloons them over.

physically, we were lots better than the mats. we sprint faster and we run a lot more, which also says a lot about our skill in keeping the ball (none).

i guess that was the only thing keeping us in the game. the mats eventually played their pro striker and he is crazy man. once he gets the ball, he shoots and its on target. hes damn hard to mark cos he releases the ball so fast and accurately and if he doesnt, he shoots.
there was ocne where he received the ball like 30 metres out. trapped it and volleyed it in a very high lob/loop. it went in and we were all damn stunned. im seriously damn honoured to play against him cos he really opened my eyes as to how to play field soccer.

that could have been a premiership class goal, as could the half volley.

anyway, the eventual score was 6-4. we keep scoring one, then conceding one. kinda frustrating especially since we had a wealth of chances to score. lots of one on ones but our strikers just kept the ball for too long. we even hit the post once. sian man.

but still, a right good match and i was surprised that i could even last 90 minutes in the hot sun. if this continues, i will be as fit as when i was in canoeing again.

mok got hit by a ball in the ear and now he cant hear properly in that ear. hope hes all right and not like a burst ear drum a la augustine.

the field was damn shit.ok so we didnt pay for it but still, its a health hazard. its sandy in some areas. very grassy in others (as in grass up to your shins and prickly) clayey in some areas and there are mud patches in other areas. i bet if we look hard enough, wed find snow as well.

the ball bounces damn bloody high and has this annoying tendency to loop over our players. and when u run into the mud patch, all sense of balance is lost.

needless to say, after this intense piece of shit, i couldnt walk properly home either. its better today, hopefully with more rest it will heal fully. but yesterday was crazy man, i couldnt even raise my leg or squat down or walk properly. and cos of the sand in my boot, i now have a healthy piece of skin missing from the front of my toe.

meanwhile, im looking forwards to sunday's game with ben's church.

both junyuan and me agreed that astro soccer now hold little appeal for us cos its so unrealistic and....its very pussified. seriously, once you start playing field soccer you wont want to play other versions (with exception of beach soccer which is mroe hardcore)

in the meantime, merry christmas to everyone who is bothering to read this uninteresting entry. and have a happy new year before we all go into shitty tekong.