One

Her oil pipelines were blasted recently; skirmishes are never far from her border, and the opposite party should be coming out soon; she had just gone through a series of minor earthquakes; her president is about to be impeached; her government had just survived a confidence crisis; she has problems forming a new government; she is facing constant threat from insurgencies, which she claims is aided by her neighbour, which has just walked past; her first lady is probably the only first lady who had posed nude for a magazine; her neighbours are trying to organize a negotiation for her opposing leaders; she’s having a face-off with her neighbour, who had just walked past, regarding the land surrounding a temple; she’s having troubles trying to bring peace to her southern parts; her prime minister should have no problem asking for direction at the place; and she, of course, is the host for this event.

Finally, after two hours of parades of thousands of human beings in different groups, we’re about to witness the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games to be declared opened.

Whatever problems all these humans are facing back home, whatever dispute or disagreement they have with other participating humans, whatever their belief in religion and politics, whoever are their leaders, wherever they live, whatever languages they speak, they will be here representing humanity as one entity.

Their purposes? To provide a period of respite to human beings around the globe from their worries, and to remind all of them that we are, as shown during the parade, the same. They come together not only to compete against each other, but more importantly to drive each other towards testing and stretching the limits of human body and spirit. They are there, as humanities, to challenge humanities and to celebrate humanities.

So, let the games begin!

Okay, that’s enough respite … Back to my own teenzy-weenzy problems. Now, where am I going to get extra money for my petrol? And food? What expenses should I cut? Should I get another job? Hmm … money, money, money … headache, headache, headache …

What's there to choose?

“Finally!” I thought.

This morning, I heard on the radio that Usain Bolt has decided to run in both the 100m and 200m race in the coming Olympic.

I haven’t heard of this Usain Bolt guy until I read about him in the news when he broke the 100m world record. I’m not even sure how to pronounce his name. This is a guy who is expert in 200m, picked up the 100m event to better prepare for his favourite 200m event. And he casually went and broke the world record. Talk about hidden potential.

Of course, after that, he and his coach were facing a dilemma – should he now register in the 100m event as well? Would his chances of winning a gold in 200m be diminished by the additional effort in the 100m races? Does he have what it takes physically and, more importantly, mentally to race in two events? What if he went home empty handed because of an event which wasn’t in his plan when he started? Would he regret the decision? If he went home empty handed in this edition of Olympic, would he get another chance for the next edition? What if he is injured and has to sit at home to watch the Olympics on TV instead? Would he then be more regretful? How would he feel looking back at his decision 50 years from now? Would he be around 50 years later? What would he be doing after 50 years? Would he grow a beard? After so many questions, where the hell am I going with this???

“Single-minded-ness”.

In a sport where 0.0000001 seconds means the world between gold and silver, glory and disappointment, mental power will be the defining factor between sprint athletes. I’m not sure how Mr Bolt and his coach came to this decision. But I hope his mental preparation for these events would not be weakened by this lengthy weighing process.

And, in a world where living your life to its fullest is the aim; in a world where you’re not allowed to have “what if” questions hanging around your thoughts; in a world where regrets are the last thing you want to bring into your grave; and knowing that you have the potential to go for it, was there even a choice to be considered?

This reminds me of the movie “Tin Cup”, in which towards the end, at a major golf championship, at the final hole, standing some distances from the green, which was protected by a pond at the front, Kevin Costner’s character had a chance to play it safe and force a playoff for the championship. But he ignored advices from his friends and supporters and tried to do the heroics of reaching the far-away green in one shot. After countless times having his ball drop into a pond, to the moans and groans of the gallery, he eventually won the crowd over with his determination and guts, moans and groans turned into supporting cheers. Silence swept through the gallery with his last allowed shot. He landed his ball on the greens. Amidst the loud cheers from the gallery for achieving some sorts of a record, he realized the chance he let slip to force a play-off and go for the championship, and hung his head. Joy? Despair?

But then again, when my sport nowadays is clicking at the speed of a sprinting leopard trying to hop through 100+ blogs in less than one hour, and feeling the world spinning when I stand up at the end, I’m hardly in any position to judge.

Of Courage and Inspiration

“I write because it is in the words that I replenish myself … and a mirror of my soul.”

“There are no coincidences in life.”

“Success is the ability of a man or woman to fail, but then have the courage to get back up, dust off the mud and then try life all over again”

“Living means waking up excited and going to sleep exhausted by the excitement.”

And, of course,

“Fear imprisons us forever while courage allows us to achieve our dreams.”

These are but a few words that impressed me while reading through The Fearless Blog – the one blog that I’ve been following ever since I started blogging.

Be it an article on her students, a woman she doesn’t know, her loves of all things nature, her younger days, her dog Woody, her family trips, etc, it always amazes me how I can visualise her fingers dancing effortlessly and swiftly on her keyboard typing out her thoughts when I'm reading the article. I can always sense the ease with which she can come up with words to construct free flowing sentences that are moving, encouraging and inspiring. But being a professor on developmental writing for over 18 years, you’d expect that, won’t you?

And she does not use “big words” often. Another reason I like reading her blogs, save me the trouble to raise my hand, reach for the drawer, open it, take out the dictionary and flip to the correct page to understand an unfamiliar word every two or three sentences. The uninterrupted flow makes the reading all the more enjoyable. And it’s encouraging for me too. For “big words” I know little, and I would like to be able to write well too.

Trying to hone my writing skill, I would read most of her articles more than once, trying to unlock her secret on writing. Or I’ll just hop directly onto her posts on writing technique and grammar, which are refreshing and helpful. Hope you don’t mind me getting some free lessons here, Professor.

It’s also here that I picked up a few inspirational, motivational, and writers’ blogs, as she’d do reviews on her favourite blogs regularly.

And if you’d like to beef up your vocabulary, right before you leave the site, scroll down to the end of the blog and catch a “Word of the Day”. She’s a professor in writing, what would you expect?

I do have to add: with the limited time I spend surfing the Net, I have yet to exhaust all her posts. Still, I’d highly recommend a stopover at her blog – not just to appreciate how well she wrote, but, more importantly, to “to seek courage and inspiration” from what she wrote.

The reason I’m writing my comments (dare not call it a Review :-)) on The Fearless Blog is because she’s kind enough to pass me an AWARD (my first ever!) a few days ago.

However, as the rules require me to pass it on to my “followers”, I think I’ll break the chain here and be selfish by keeping it for myself. Last I checked when I turned around, I didn’t notice a soul in sight. Sigh … I also don’t feel easy passing it to someone else, unless I’m confident I know him/her to a certain extent.

Yipee! An AWARD!