Rain

Bah. Horrendous weather this morning. Initially booked a tennis court from 7-10 am near my house, but when i woke up at 6.45 it was raining. The rain didn't cease (and increased in volume at around 8.30) until 2 something. And so my plans to play tennis were ruined. I felt really cheated, though nobody was to blame other than the weather itself. Went to the court at 3 something and the man in charge, who himself witnessed the rain-sodden morning, was most sympathetic and allowed me to play then. =)

Tennis is stressful, and so difficult to play. It requires so much running. Bleargh. Am just not a sportsman. At least i can't hurt my fingers playing tennis, and that's wonderful.

Hmph. Didn't get as much ang pows as i hoped i would get (I did, however, receive more Chinese New Year wishes than previous years). So far i only have a hundred-buck one from this Mr Steven Tan dude. Has a lot of prefixes in front of his name, but am not sure. Dad made this pact with his bros not to give each other's children ang pows. So me and sis are not v. fortunate. My maternal relatives are all in Taiwan, and all divorced. So no angpows there either.

Silver lining of my no-ang-pow raincloud is that i don't have make sickening visits to other relatives. My friends who have 20+ (excluding offspring) uncles+aunts+ sueh chek, ah sims, whatever u call 'em in respective dialects, have to go back to their hometowns to congregate and socialize with their not-so-related relatives.

I absolutely dislike such horror events. Since am the youngest ever grandson/nephew/cousin, i have to smile at those strange old people of whom i have no memory whatsoever. On the other hand, each time they see me they claim to have seen me crawling as a toddler/playing on the swings as a child etc. And they never fail to say how big i've grown. Am not anti-social or anything, but those ppl and i do not share the same medium of language! They only speak teochew. And i cannot understand teochew, let alone speak it. I only know a few words (e.g. yes. no. eat. rice. porridge). Each time i am around them, my parents will nudge me and say, "this is your so-and-so y'know. Call him your sueh chek. Don't u remember? Last time when u were dunno-how-old, he carried u b4!" Urgh. X(

Miss the asam laksa in my dad's hometown though. And the beef kuay teow (gu bah kueh, some teochew i know ;P) of Parit Buntar. And of course the fresh fish curry of Fishing Village Kuala Kurau. Hmm..