I met up with Rongjie today, who until recently had been working in Thailand and we went down to the old Westlake Secondary to join Hanrong or Botak and his friends for court soccer. It was uncompetitive, for a change, no teammates shouting at you, coaches screaming instructions, after two years of nothing but field soccer, most of it competitive, I had almost forgotten that carefree, careless feeling; it was stress-free and fun. 

Remembering how we used to play for hours at the Kong Hwa basket-ball court, below Terence's block, and across the canal from my place, it feels like so long ago, and it was, more than ten years, and I start to feel old, less flexible and with less enthusiasm, no longer running for every loose ball, alot less eager to take the ball past 2, 3, 4 players. 

But some things don't change I guess.  After the game, we went for drinks at Thomson plaza, which became dinner at KFC, me Rongjie and Botak and we started talking about bikes like we used to, bicycles then, motorcycles now, where we used to talk about cycling to East Coast, Changi, Sentosa, then, we talked about BMW bikes and riding all the way to Europe. And as always, trust Hanrong to come up with the most pertinent question "How will we bathe?" We talked about Candy and why I will not get another dog, about how my brother was when he was young, Rongjie's hamster Razor Ramon, who was later given to my brother, coming to a tragic end in the jaws of Candy after an escape attempt.

And then the conversation became two-way as the topic switched to women and one-night stands, and picking up girls at clubs and it suddenly felt like I have been living on another planet, I could only sit and listen as they described their various wonderful experiences , it's like they are in a whole different band, I would be in Mayday versus i dunno, Robbie Williams? Am I abnormal then, am I a loser? Or do we just have different values and expectations?