Brilliant stroke of genius!
written: 8:59 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008

(I do have non-Roger things to say which I will get to after I'm done gushing.)

I really want to be that trophy. I really, really do.

It's completely none of my business and I'm not even a super fanatical tennis/Roger Federer fan, but a part of me is still high from the happiness that I derived from his US Open victory. It also helps that he's so immensely likable and cute, and with all the articles that ran in the press about his "struggle" this year and how he's on the "decline" and should "retire" because he's "old" (at 27? Go fuck yourself), it feels really, really, REALLY good, even if it's vicariously so, to watch him thrash Murray in straight sets in such a thorough and perfect fashion and claim his fifth consecutive US Open title. I hate it when the media writes retarded things about him, or anyone I like for that matter. I'm glad I've yet to see any stories about Roger winning because 1) he didn't face Rafael Nadal (whatever, he would've won if he'd faced Nadal ANYWAY), 2) he had an easy draw (what nonsense! I thought people were saying NADAL had the easy draw during the early stages of the tournament?), 3) the rain delay gave him an extra day of rest, etc in any reputable newspapers. The Straits Times did run a column about Roger vindicating himself that pissed me off royally because, look, the dude has nothing to prove to ANYONE because his 12 grand slams prior to bagging his 13 spoke for themselves, and Roger has repeatedly said that he didn't feel like he had to prove anything, but it's the Straits Times so what was I expecting, right? I shouldn't even have bothered.

Oh well, whatever. On a brighter note, I'd just like to point out the fact that Roger always looks so put together and polished, even when he'd just played a two-hour match. When I was watching the final and he just came out of the locker room carrying his equipment, he wore this gorgeous black Nike track sweater (is there such a thing? It's a track suit with only the jacket) with his US Open brown shorts and his red polo t-shirt underneath it. He looked so put together, like he'd just stepped out of some Create the Perfect Human Being machine. Seriously. Either he has a wonderful sense of style (which I doubt, looking at his earlier pictures. He used to have really long hair in the early stages of his reign and it looked damn fugs) or his sponsors and stylists - a lot of sponsors, many more stylists I bet - are really, really good to him. Other players like Murray and Djokovic and lower-ranked players like Muller look like they're being worn by their T-shirts. (And Djokovic - lime green shorts? Seriously?) Murray's t-shirt was so oversized that he had to keep pulling up his sleeves when he was playing. Even worse, after about fifteen minutes, he looked completely drenched - back of shirt wet, armpit stains damn obvious, like he'd just got out of the shower or something. Rafa always wears sleeveless muscle tops so the perspiration isn't that obvious, but oh my god, when I did get the chance to watch him play, his hair was always, ALWAYS dripping with sweat.

And Roger? I don't know how he does it, but even after a freaking five-setter (about 3 to 4 hours), he looks like he'd just come out of the shower with his hair blown perfectly dry. He doesn't seem to sweat, ever. And his Nike shirt must be made of some sweat-absorbent material because he has no pit stains and his shirt never looks wet. I don't even know why he needs a towel on court since he doesn't appear to sweat at all. And don't even get me started on those glorious, thick curly locks of his. Why does he even bother with the bandanna? Okay, apart from the obvious function of keeping his glorious locks from falling into his eyes, he doesn't really need it because it's not like his hair even gets messy with all the running and the jumping anyway. The way he looks after a match is exactly the same as the way he looks before a match.

So what does all this mean? Roger Federer is not human. It's simply not possible for a person to look as polished and put together as he does, even after playing tennis for a long period of time, and still be human. I bet he's not capable of smelling bad, either. And he seems like such a nice person! He was the United Nations' spokesman for some sports thing in 2005 and he met Kofi Annan! Oh, how I'd love to be Roger Federer.

Lastly, the picture below very succinctly and beautifully encapsulates what I love about watching Roger play tennis:

He's so elegant and graceful.

And this, adorable Roger and his lip-bite of concentration when he serves:

***

Actual reality:

So today I went for State Building class, like I do every Wednesday. When I was busy settling in and surfing RogerFederer.com, I glanced up at the whiteboard to see Prof SC write the following words on the board: "Essay: Don't Panic!"

Thinking that some kiasu people had emailed him to ask about their essay topics and freaked out or whatever, I turned back to the pictures of Roger I was happily swooning over and waited for class to start. So class started and the first thing Prof talked about was the essay. We're supposed to choose our own topics which I hate because I'm rubbish at coming up with an interesting angle to an issue that I have a lot to write about. Doing the paper on Thailand and self-determination last semester was really quite horrifying and I much prefer having my topic chosen for me.

Naturally I haven't given any serious or significant thought to the question of what the hell am I going to write about for the 6000-word excluding footnotes research paper. Apart from how I don't know when mid-sem break is (I assume it's in the middle of the semester but I don't know when that is), I'm the type of person who puts things off until the last possible minute and desperately pulls something out of her arse just to get by. So I thought I still had a lot of time to think about my essay topic...until Prof talked about some email he sent to the class, which I hadn't read 'cause I hadn't checked my NUS email in about a couple of days. Out of curiosity I checked my email - just to find an email from him, informing everyone that he was going to ask everyone for a brief idea of their papers in class.

I kind of freaked. The only process I made regarding my essay topic was thinking fleetingly to myself, "Hmm, maybe I'll write about the responsibility to protect." And even so, it wasn't as much about how I was interested in the topic as it was about how I did the topic for my presentation last week and I'm just way too lazy to read up on other topics and decide from there. Don't get me wrong, though; I am interested in the issue. It's just that my laziness outweighs the interest, even if it's a little bit. But it's definitely enough.

So when he was going down the list of names he had on his presentation sign up sheet, I hurriedly tried thinking of something. It really helped that I actually remembered thinking, "WTF? Burma?" when I was reading the UN High Level Panel report, in particular the part about how the Security Council was prepared to authorise military action in the name of the responsibility to protect (I'm paraphrasing really badly and I'm leaving out some key phrases but that's the gist of it). At first I thought of talking about the responsibility to protect in relation to Burma. Then, as I thought somemore, in the span of maybe three minutes, I suddenly remembered the existence of ASEAN and its non-intervention policy. In that moment of desperation, my thought process actually seemed legitimate and interesting, i.e., oh my god, I can totally write about this! How about I examine ASEAN's non-intervention policy in the context of the larger international norm of the responsibility to protect!

When he got to me, that was pretty much what I said. I completely left out Burma because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the case. I also thought of Cambodia but wasn't sure what for, either, so I kept it general and mentioned ASEAN, responsibility to protect, and non-intervention. Then Prof mentioned Burma for me! (Except he called it Myanmar.) In my head I was all, "Yes! Exactly!" But I just smiled and nodded, and after he gave my topic that I effectively took three minutes to think up the green light, I was very, very relieved.

A few minutes later, I realised that I threw away some of the stuff I got from International Law and Asia last semester...and a lot of them were about ASEAN. OH, SHIT. And I'm pretty sure I threw away the handwritten notes I took down in class, too.

I DON'T WANT TO DO RESEARCH I'M SO LAZY OMG HELP.

Oh well, I'm quite pleased with the topic actually. A part of me wanted to do self-determination in the Taiwan context but I didn't feel like possibly giving up a directed research topic, assuming I choose to do a directed research. I do want to write a substantive paper on Taiwan sometime before I graduate but I'm not sure on what and how, and Taiwan doesn't seem relevant to the State Building course, so I decided not to. Okay, I didn't really decide; it was more a matter of I didn't think of my other essay idea when he was going down the list, but I'm quite happy to write about ASEAN, R2P and Burma. Yay!

On another note, despite the overtly upbeat tone of this entry, I'm actually not that happy. I'm bummed that the US Open is over and that I possibly will have no tennis to watch until November or something, or worse still, January when the Australian Open starts, because I highly doubt StarHub will show the Stockholm Open and these lesser-events that Roger will be playing in, not to mention the Davis Cup qualifiers (Roger is representing Switzerland! I wanna watch him play doubles with Wawrinka again. Sigh) And it's not really about tennis per se that I'm bummed over, but the function that it's served to me over the past few days. It's like how David Cook and American Idol was a huge and welcoming source of distraction for me when I had Bell's. I don't have Bell's now, thankfully and obviously, but...

I don't even know. It probably doesn't even matter or mean a thing. I don't even know.

Anyway, I think I need a boyfriend, stat. Any takers?

Also, this is definitely worth mentioning. The other day Mag asked me which girl from law school I'd date if I were a guy. And guess what my most immediate answer was?

"I'd date myself."

Naturally, right? I can't think of who else I'd rather date but myself. Here's another item to store away in the "Yelen is serially self-obsessed" box.

I still love myself better than you. Unlike Kurt, I don't think it's wrong, so what should I do?

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010