Little light in the dark.
written: 11:47 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010

Things/people that made me happy/happier today:

1. Roger Federer - watched the super HD version of the SF against Tsonga. Well, I made it through the first set before I gave in to fatigue but that took my mind off things.

2. Chuck - third season, more specifically. Watched two episodes in a row. Fucking hilarious.

3. Mag - lunch with Mag was my dose of sanity for the day. Seeing her is always good, for she is full of shit and she gets me more than most people. I love her.

4. Tris - his emails keep me going at work. I pretty much have limited communication with the outside world apart from email because the reception is atrocious, and seeing a new email from him makes my day less dreary. Replying is fun too, and helps to pass the time, so that's always good.

5. Ruishan - 15 minute breakfast. Sadly, not long enough. I miss her. At least there's SameTime. Yay.

*

On to the things that I'm not happy about.

First on the list? I'm fucking pissed that my parents sold the other condo. It probably makes financial sense, but I've grown attached to that place and I was looking forward to the convenience of living just outside town. It was the perfect location and what did they decide to do? They decided to sell it. And therefore, I am still stuck in fucking ulu piang Hillview. What the fuck.

The reception in the new building is also ridiculously bad. The clinic called me to arrange for an appointment with the specialist re. the stomach but the person couldn't hear me and I had to take the fucking slow lift all the way downstairs to call. I complained to my roommates and they were all, "At least your phone rings. Ours don't even ring." Seriously. Seriously? I hate the new building.

I'm just tired of everything in general. Everything. Every single fucking thing. I'm tired of myself; tired of not having a life; tired of being unable to see my boyfriend; tired of going to work; tired of fulfilling obligations to people other than myself; and tired of being tired. I feel disillusioned, nonchalant, detached, disinterested.

I honestly don't know why I'm in such a bad mood, but it seems like ever since the office move, work has got worse. The new building doesn't gel with me and I hate not having Olivia sit behind me. Such things matter to me - a lot. I need things like that to look forward to, to make work more bearable. And yet, she's upstairs. And Ruishan was never anywhere close to me.

I think, too, I'm tired of being dependent on a guy. Things that shouldn't matter, matter - small things, ultimately insignificant, but they exacerbate my bad mood and do nothing to make me feel better. Not calling back after missing my call, and giving me a one-sentence reply to a two-page SMS. I hate it when people don't reply to the whole of my message and just one part, 'cause it makes me think, Why the fuck did I spend all that effort typing out all that shit just to have it all ignored? In the first place SMSing per se is a chore; in the second place my phone is getting wonky and it's literally painful to SMS.

Not calling at all, basically, my bad mood, you have your thing to deal with, but I'm still your girlfriend. Maybe I'm being selfish again (colour me unsurprised) but I'm still your girlfriend. You call other people back but not me? You see my missed call but decide not to call back? What, as if I dial your number for fun, and as if I do that all the time, or even half the time. When you didn't pick up this afternoon I didn't expect you to call me back 'cause I knew you wouldn't; and when I told you it bothered me just now you avoided the issue. The issue wasn't the text messages; the issue was the missed call. Saying that you answered my message immediately said nothing about why you didn't call me back. I don't call you for no reason. And when I call you nowadays I don't even expect you to pick up, because you hardly ever do. Even if you're not at your phone all the time, at least call back. At least call me back.

Is it disappointing? Sure it is. I understand you're being unable to see me. It makes me sad, but I understand. But I don't understand your not calling me back. At the very least it's basic courtesy. Now I'm just feeling neglected, like I'm an after-thought.

I honestly don't know how this is sustainable because we barely have time for each other. Every single fucking day after work I'm so tired that I don't want to do anything, that all I want to do is go home and lie on the couch and do nothing. I'm tired from the lack of sleep the whole week, tired from working, tired of working, tired of going to work five days a week and not knowing where my time has gone to. And I don't even get a phone call. Sometimes texting really, REALLY doesn't cut it, because I called you for a reason. I called you because I wanted to hear your voice, because I don't even SEE you.

Honestly, I hate this. And it worries me that you didn't (don't? I don't know; we haven't exactly talked) think it's a problem. I don't know why.

And I wasn't moody about this. I don't know what I was moody about. The persisting and persistent stupid stomach problem, maybe - first thing in the morning I had stomach ache for no reason, none that was discernible to me. And the appointment with the specialist - not too interested in going. Not too keen on taking a day off, because I don't bloody want to make up for it (why the HELL should I have to when I spent two Sundays and one Saturday back at the office for more than 8 hours?). But tennis is more important, and therefore I rejected the Saturday morning appointment. Was I being stupid? Fuck, no. Tennis keeps me sane. I can't do without it. Sometimes when I'm bored it's all I think about. And this 16th Grand Slam thing is actually and legitimately keeping me from breaking apart.

I'm tired of the stomach problem. Simultaneously I don't think now is a good time for this. I don't know how many sessions I'd need, and I sure as hell do not want to prolong pupillage. But the medicine isn't helping at all, and I don't know what is going on, and it kills me that I can't drink coffee. A little empathy would be nice on that count, too.

And the two extra kilos. Oh, don't even get me started. I'm sad to say this but when I feel like my life is spiralling out of my control, the first thing I seek to control is my weight. So I guess I'm gonna be hugely successful in losing weight.

I don't care about anything, about anyone, and I can't believe my parents sold the fucking condo. I can't fucking believe it. When I said it was a waste of money to spend a million dollars on a condo, I didn't mean ours (we didn't spend a million; we spent 900K. At a fucking huge discount. And they just fucking sold it).

But then again, I guess it doesn't matter. If I were still in this country in five years' time, I'd have no choice but to deem my life an utter failure.

I'm very tired. I'm going to bed. I can't wait for the next tournament - Dubai towards the end of the month. Roger better not pull out of it or I'd be very upset with him. 44

*

ETA:

Just read this article. Made me happy for a bit. Yay!

It will keep ending in tears while Roger Federer is the daddy

It was a shot he hits a thousand times in training and nails a thousand times, too. He puts it away so adroitly and with such consistency, in fact, that he can afford to indulge in those games of football intended to break the monotony of striking short forehands, faultlessly, back across the net.

Yet when it mattered in Melbourne on Sunday morning, when it mattered in the Australian Open final on Rod Laver Court, the perfection those hours of practice are meant to bring eluded him.

A point short of taking the third set in a tie-break from Roger Federer - after which, who knows what might have unfolded? - Murray was suddenly overwhelmed. His execution was hurried, he was anxious, he was careless. He snatched at the shot and the moment was lost.

In hindsight, he admitted, he should have taken it to Federer's backhand side. And there will be plenty of time to replay that shot correctly in his mind now. Maybe until he wins a first Grand Slam, maybe longer.

Murray is only 22: it is to be hoped he is not still totting up these little cameos many years from now.

The pivotal points in a game of championship tennis happen so quickly that it is hard to imagine a professional folding under the pressure.

To the outsider it would seem Murray barely had time to select a shot, let alone compute its significance.

Yet, somehow, in an instant, that is what happens. Murray saw the ball pop up before him and knew if he placed it with his usual proficiency he would have scrapped his way back into the match and would merely trail two sets to one.

Instead, he was met with the dreadful sight and sound of ball slapping into net, and the anguished echo of opportunity lost.

It was not the only time he surrendered set point advantage in the epic 24-point tie-break that concluded the match, but it was the most consequential. From there, the optimism that this might yet, against the odds, still become Murray's first Grand Slam final victory evaporated.

Federer, who was, unknowingly at that moment, just 12 points from his 16th Grand Slam title - and fourth Australian Open crown - does not miss those. Federer is, in fact, the absolute master of these twinkles in time, arguably the best there has ever been.

So it proved.

When he got a chance, he took it. He made what was in essence a tight game look like a straight sets masterclass. There were 216 points in the match and Murray won 100 of them.

He has played better here, but he did not perform badly at all. This was a considerable improvement on his 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 defeat by Federer in the US Open in 2008.

Federer was required to save three break points at 2-2 in the first set, and Murray had five opportunities to win the third set. Only the second set, which Federer dominated despite the 6-4 scoreline, was a bust.

After the match, everyone agreed Murray had a Grand Slam title in him, although defeat has a way of making well intentioned words sound like platitudes.

The less palatable subtext seemed to be that Murray would get his chance once Federer declines. And rumours of that have been greatly overstated.

Federer is 28. If he appears, physically, as capable as far younger opponents it is because his talent ensures he spends less time running around the court.

It was Murray, six years his junior, who appeared drained at the end of their 2hr 41min encounter. Federer had worked hard, but Murray had been made to work harder.

Boris Becker described Federer as playing with magic and it was this that Murray did not possess. There are crucial passages in his matches when Federer elevates his game, indeed his sport, to a new level. One thinks he is operating at full throttle and then, from somewhere, he finds the energy to surge.

And it is not just an increase of athleticism or power or that most unquantifiable dynamic, desire; Federer seems able to locate a booster button for ability. He identifies the magic to which Becker referred and produces a shot of such exquisite execution that it leaves an opponent startled.

Incongruously teary-eyed at the end, Murray bemoaned that he could cry like Federer, but not play like him. Nobody can, though. That is why they are weeping.

So, tick-tock, tick-tock, as they like to say at Old Trafford when Manchester City are in town. Federer is from Switzerland, country of expensive timepieces, and if there was a counter in the corner detailing the decades that have passed in British tennis without a Grand Slam champion in the men's singles it would now be one quarter of the way past 74 years.

Before the final, Murray tried to play down the pressure of shouldering the standard for his sport in Great Britain, but it was the thought of those watching at home that upset him at the conclusion.

He may believe he could have done better but the evidence that we are watching the finest tennis player in history in Federer grows increasingly incontrovertible.

Murray has a good record against Federer. He crashed in the big one, the US Open final, but in other tournaments he has won more times than he has lost. Some even believed Murray had got beneath his opponent's skin in the build-up to this Grand Slam rematch.

What Sunday demonstrated, above all, then, is Federer's mastery of strategy. He identified Murray's strengths, his patience from the baseline, his defensive game, luring his opponent into making a mistake, and he dealt with it.

He contrived to be aggressive and patient in equal measure, to mirror Murray's hard, flat returns and mix it up with loopy baseline play. His footwork was outstanding.

'There's no secret behind it,' Federer said. 'Definitely, I'm a very talented player. I always knew I had something special but I didn't know it was, like, crazy.'

And it is. It is crazy, absolutely crazy, for a man to be this good at tennis. It is crazy to remain unaffected by the intensity of the big title matches. It is crazy to make those shots, to win those points, to seize control in the crucial passages of play as he does.

And nothing fazes him. Not the youth of his opponents; not the pressure of maintaining supremacy; not even the very human distractions of parenthood.

'This is my first Grand Slam as a father,' Federer smilingly told an indulgent crowd. How fitting. He is, after all, the daddy.

He's GodFed. That is all.

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