i had wanted to post this last night but i think there was something wrong with my connection. it was sluggish... just loading the blogger page was taking such a long time that i didn't feel like writing by the time it was loaded. (just something very random - i'm actually typing softly and fast! i have mastered the skill)

with the recent demise of 5 very talented and promising young men - due to the freakish accident in Cambodia, as well as the death of the NTU grad in Suzhou (a fren of my hao jie mei); one will realise how fragile and short life can get. (this is not a philosiphical post on life)

as a canoeist myself (in a time long long ago), i've never really wondered or even entertain the thought of drowning in kallang. well during a down period i had in fact told my partner (congrats on getting married partner!!) that we should just row to the middle of kallang, capsize and drown - seeing as we can't seem to get balancing in the k2 right. it didn't occur to me that we might be been in the same situation as the national rowers - should there have been strong undercurrent at that time. ask anyone who has rowed in kallang and they'll tell u that the bottom of kallang is not really a bottom at all because you cannot touch the bottom. it is all mush! of cos the waters in Cambodia are much more lethal, even a fisherman who has worked the river for the past 20 years doesn't have the confidence to guarantee that he'll come out alive, should he have been in the same situation as them.

i don't usually post about such events but for some reason, their death affected me. i guess it's because i could relate to them. their age, their choice of sport. what really made me cry when i was reading the article about them was the part where the families visit the site at which the accident happened. believe that the majority of them are buhhdist/taoist - the mother and brother of the deceased were 'calling' him... (a ritual where you must call out the the spirit of your loved one) it really made me cry because i can rem doing that for my uncle and more recently my grandmother. it's really at that point when i realised that no matter how much i 'called' them, they won't be coming back. to me, there's the finality in that ritual. and it made me cry because they were too young to go. they really were...

so goodbye my fellow countrymen... i believe that you are in a better place now... the footprints that you have left in the lives of your families and friends will live on...