while i was away…

… fernando alonso won his first grand prix of 2008.  the singapore night race took place at the same time i was enjoying a despedida (farewell party) bash in brussels.

…  rafael nadal led his national side to semifinal victory against the USA.  the whole weekend this took place i was in prague, visiting an old classmate from my MaNaMa days.

… my ateneo blue eagles and eaglets took the UAAP champions titles in men’s basketball.  fly high, blue eagle the king!  i also missed the bonfire held on the muddy bellarmine field — it was the day we landed in manila and frankly, the body was awfully tired though the mind was moderately interested.

… realised that this will be my last month of blogging.  svelte sport is going off the air by the end of this month.  unless something comes up, of course.

shiver me timbers!

i have NOT watched the super bowl in over 5 years. ok, since i’ve been married. ok, since the days of dan marino’s last bid attempts to make something of the miami dolphins’ fortunes. i don’t know why or how american team sports died for me (i have never been a fan of baseball; my closest allegiance to the sport was to root for the toronto blue jays in 1992). i can’t always blame michael jordan or shaquille o’neal for my waning hours with the nba. one of my suitors from the previous decade fell in love with me precisely because he had never met a girl who followed the NFL until he met me.

ok, so it was my birthday. i got home from rehearsal an hour before midnight and quipped to S, “i don’t feel special yet.” an hour after midnight, we flip channels and the super bowl is streamed into our living room. first quarter.

maybe i should have read more on the younger manning brother, eli. why is kuya peyton in the VIP booth, cheering with such grave intensity? or maybe i should have taken time magazine’s article on the avram-grant look-alike coach of the new england patriots to heart. is tom brady really dating a model? who is this #81 moss who reminds me of another #81 from decades past, jerry rice?

the commentators annoyed me, as they usually do, regardless of the sport i’m watching. they were so pro-giants i felt compelled to root for the “underdog”. what a joke. how can a team that has an 18-0 record in the regular season, playoffs and conference finals be the underdog? how could i have missed the harshly criticised baby brother manning of the past several years struggling to free himself from the desperate clutch of the hapless new england defense to throw the most beautiful pass to tyree, whose hands adhere to the ball like hard-fast glue? that simply had to be the most beautiful play of the game. the giants were 3 and 5 (3rd down with 5 yards to go), with under 2 minutes left in the game, fourth quarter, down 4 points (14-10) to the patriots juggernaut, and then that pass. the touchdown in the next 1st down was the natural conclusion to such a momentous moment.

that manning kid… he escaped two attempts to be sacked. on the other side of the divide, his counterpart tom brady was sacked FIVE times by a determined new york defense. take note of this: before the super bowl, brady had been sacked 21 times over a course of 18 games. the guy was visibly shaken when he was sacked for the last time with under 30 seconds on the game clock. his two desperate outlet passes were swiped away from moss’ stretched arms by two dogged defenders.

so the patriots dream to set a new NFL record of a 19-0 win-loss record has been blown away. the 1972 miami dolphins retain their proud 17-0 record. the new york giants defy history’s prediction that no team that has been down in the first half has ever won the super bowl. at half time, they were down 4 points, 7-3.

congratulations, new york. now those spoiled boston fans will be shaken out of their complacency.

if you root for the pats and roger federer, i hope the two have similar fates for 2008. end the perfect record of a superior sports entity and let the dreams of mavericks and hungry champions shine forth!

what an exciting night! my birthday is now officially special.

*photo courtesy of Harry How/Getty Images

super bowl 42!

it’s super bowl sunday and already the world’s biggest economy is gearing up for crates of watery beer, salty chips, fatty dips, never-ending commercials, and the clash of the brash new york giants with the sweeping new england patriots!

here in 2°C belgium, it’s a minute shy of 0100 hours and i am unable to sleep. here are the reasons why:

1. i can’t find anyone who will buy my semi-final tickets* for the rotterdam abn-amro world tennis tournament! the minute those tickets are offloaded, i will feel both relieved and sad. the former because i would have gotten back the 150€ i so thoughtlessly threw away when i bought those tickets on an impulse (i would do anything for rafa, novak, andy murray, david nalbandian — even if the blue-eyed argentine is not there) and the latter because i would have wanted to Be There myself, only i can’t because it’s the day of my birthday party. speaking of which…
2. it’s my birthday today! come and read my rare thoughts on my special day. unabashed, serious, and poignant. ok, enough self-promotion now, just click once and you’re There with me.

*ps: if anyone wants to buy my tickets, do get in touch! for more details, click Here or e-mail me at svelterogue@gmail.com

topic alert: break in theme is temporary

hello readers. in between my australian open, formula one, and football updates i will be posting smorty-related posts from time to time. i will be creating a separate category just for this (and pay-per-post) so that you will not be too distracted by the break in theme, as it were. once i can get my Reviews site approved, i plan to put all paid postings in that space. for now, forgive me the break in thought; i don’t like it much but the clarion call of ka-ching! is pretty hard to pass up, especially as the opportunities don’t simply grow on trees. or maybe they do, and in a deciduous forest at that. *wry grin*

choosing your battles

when i was a little girl, my dad kept telling me that i was like a decathlete, wanting to be involved in so many different things, and wanting to win in all of them. he was referring to my pursuit of activities and interests, and his way of making me channel my energies, to focus on singular goals, was to draw that analogy. (there are people who can do that, i believe, chase after many dreams and attain much success from multiple pursuits. my mom believes in that, and has always supported me in my wild-goose chases)

in later years, my dad switched to the metaphor of the warrior. the gladiator, armed with only a net and a spear, facing the centurions with their shield and short sword. “choose your battles, hija,” he would tell me. know when to charge, when to retreat, when to keep still.

roger federer, in my book, or rather, my dad’s book, is the athlete who will never join the decathlon. as a warrior, he would be dapper in his armani suits, but victorious in battle.

to my memory, he has not lost a match because he withdrew or failed to show up for the scheduled match. his loss record in the previous year have all been due to completed matches. many roger federer fans will tell you that their man tanked his lost matches, that he had the best strategy at hand, only to unravel and give the match to his opponent. in four out of five losses last year, he supposedly had the winning formula to beating rafa, but he didn’t execute his game plan. in his loss to andy murray, the other youngster to beat him, he was probably tired from his tough toronto run and didn’t last long on court.

but that begs the question. my admiration for the dapper swiss is that in the run-up to the australian open, he chose to fly in to melbourne early, skipping tournaments in qatar, chennai, and adelaide, to practise with his coach, tony roche. this week he is participating in exhibition matches at kooyong; no competition rank points to be gained.

in light of the withdrawals of the men in sydney (see previous entry) and the equally disturbing retirements of two russian women whose games i admire, kutznetsova (respiratory illness) and petrova (abdominal strain), roger’s choice to not push himself prior to next week’s grand slam appears to be stroked with the hand of wisdom and grudging practicality. any match practice he will be getting is happening now, at kooyong (where, as of this writing, it took him over 2 hours to put away radek stepanek in 3 sets 7-6, 6-7, 7-6). acclimatisation to australia’s notorious summer heat was addressed by flying in early last week.

if anything, the man has not thumbed his commitments to any tournaments, has showed up when he was supposed to show up. the only disappointed people, if at all, are his fans, who want to see him playing 100% (like he was against blake in the YEC final in shanghai) 100% of the time against 100% of his opponents. barring that seemingly impossible dream, he has hardly let expectations down. the two times he withdrew last year from a tournament were: 1. after the epic five-setter with rafa in rome, he pulled out of hamburg; 2. after winning the madrid masters, he pulled out of paris.

given the grinding schedule that the ATP has for its players, i’d say that roger has been able to choose his battles judiciously, avoiding crippling injury (read: mark philippoussis, venus williams, and mary pierce) while standing head and shoulders and chest and stomach above the rest of the field. that is the one thing that might help other players catch up with his 8000+ points, possible injury. but he has kept himself fit for the important battles and emerged victorious 99% of the time.

damn pretty impressive. and i’m not even a federer fan. but i sure wouldn’t mind getting my hands on one of those cute feder-bears. everybody loves a winner.

back for reviews

knock knock.
who’s there?
svelte rogue.
who?
svelte rogue.
mmmmm, sounds…
familiar?
weeelll, uhrm, try… weird.
come on, gimme a break, close your eyes and it will all come back.
what will come back? who? you?
there, you looked at me for the first time today. like you really know me. or knew me.
yeah, guess so.
i’ve been sent back.
sent back… *rolls eyes*
yes, sent back. to write more.
wow, like your god’s gift to word-dom.¨
*smiles weakly* no, really. i’ve been sent back. to write. for money.
ha, that’s a laugh. since when have you done something you Love for money?
probably never. *guffaws briefly. pauses. chuckles*
hmmm, for money. times must be a-tough, eh?
quite. mostly in my mind. so i think i’ll cash in on my mind.
so what will you be writing about?
oh, stuff. i don’t know what about until i’m told.
what’s this, big brother writing?
i suppose. but with a nice tidy sum going into some obscure account in the cayman islands.
*snorts* maniniwala na sana ako e.

——————-

reviews. more opinions. dear friends, i need you to come and read the reviews that will eventually be put up here, and then i need you to tell your friends to come and read the reviews you’ve read. for now, i just need your friendly, wayward mouse click to bring you over to this space again, and by simply doing that, you help a person in quest of semi-pro-blogging.

if this clicks, i will definitely get my own private blog, and i hope you will be with me if and when that change happens.

for now, i need you to be with me in these first few days of baby-reviewing.

thank you so much in advance for obliging!

time to close down

at present i have three blogs running, but none are active. the times the bug to write strikes, i don’t opt to write in this space any longer.

i’m thinking of closing down this blog as all the entries here have already been imported to my multiply site, which i feel houses the bits and pieces of my life in a more organised fashion than if i had spread out my information across different photo sites, blogs, and the like.

therefore may i entreat you to visit me at my home site with multiply. feel free to email me for your personal comments at svelterogue@gmail.com or set up a multiply account if you want to comment on the site itself.

for now, let’s see how long i can keep this up and running, in a manner of speaking. if and when i remember to return to this page, then i may just as well shut it down already. for now, it’s here to stay to give me time to say goodbye and for the occasional reader to actually know of my whereabouts elsewhere.

the US open is upon us and as of this writing, my rafa has just beaten the australian power server and roger walked through his match with the taiwanese kid.

omigaz

this site has been so neglected… by you!

but with one stop shops like multiply around, sites like these are merely redundant. and i am too lazy to consolidate photobucket with this. it’s too much work.

i haven’t the energy to find ways to woo you back to me. like the perfect partner, you will just come. i’ll see you…

some things you just can’t forget

Once upon a summertime

happy happy thoughts

happy happy happy happy thoughts… talk about things you like to do… you got to have a dream, or you won’t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true? — from south pacific

yesterday morning i was walking home after bringing mikka to school. when we leave for school, the streets are still in semi-darkness, the moon sharing the sky with the coming sun (sounds like a fusion of miss saigon and beatles). on my way back, the sky has lightened to a pale blue and barring those ubiquitous clouds, sunlight touches little leuven with soft glowy hues.

autumn is here, despite the unusually high temperatures of the last two weeks. perhaps my pregnancy helps keep my body warmer than the usual, but i am content to just pull on a cotton shirt and a fleece pullover with my mom’s delish cargo pants while walking through the chill early morning rush. the leaves strewn all over the path form a soft, chaotic cushion beneath my feet. reminds me of a poem i have drawn into the folds of memory by ezra pound, a poem i write in the middle of the board when i begin the module on ‘imagism’, a brief but favorite period of 20th century poetry:

the images of these faces in a crowd:
petals on a wet, black bough.