Houston ATP

some photos.

Llyton Hewitt and his daughter.

Mardy Fish

Mike Bryan.

Llyton Hewitt anticipating his forehand.

Bryan Brothers and the runners up - Ryan Sweeting and Jesse Levine.

Thomas Blake's funky hairdo.

Tommy Haas.

James Blake.

Taylor Dent.

summary of the tournament, Hewitt won, only his 2nd clay court title of his career. Bryan Brothers were the doubles champion.

James Blake and Mardy Fish both lost in the first round (!!!) to Gulliermo Canas and Bjorn Phau

respectively.

James Blake and Mardy Fish paired up for doubles but lost to the Bryan Brothers in the semis.

nights were cold cold nights.

afternoons were sunny afternoons.

last week

many thoughts are running through my head. well, come to think of it, my thoughts are in such abundance, my head does feel its weight, all day, everyday. it would be relaxing if i could just stop all my thoughts. oh, it would feel like drinking a fresh squeeze lemonade under a hot sunny afternoon.

these thoughts are preventing me from being the care-free jane always seems to be. being jolly energetic and care-free are not something that come natural to me anymore. it is more of something i have to force myself to become, to remind myself to who i am suppose to be and to bring some sunshine into my day, even for a little bit.

but that is something i had been dealing with for quite sometime, and i am positive that i can still be able to bare with it a little while longer. sometimes it may get to overwhelming and it gets me choked with negativity but then i guess getting worked up is not the answer as i still have to deal with it, despite all the shit. dependency is somewhat gone from my life i would say...

anyway, back to the down low, last week has been quite an awesome week. it might also be one the highlight my life. (haha,doink). but ya. i had the golden opportunity to attend the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) tournament here in Houston. it was nothing short of excitement for me. well, it is not as if i have other experience to compare with but then there were not many top ranked players that were there. i wished there were more but i was still as excited as can be.

tickets were not cheap. the tournament started on Saturday and ended the next Sunday. i attended seven out of the nine days but i only bought three tickets. haha, well, that means for the rest of the four days, i 'snuck' in. not to say that it was illegal but it was not full house, and no one asked for any ticket, so i assume they allowed it. afterall, i only tried my luck and i guess i was pretty lucky. besides, i may be doing the tournament atmosphere some favour, if it were not for me, there would be one less clapping and cheering. one less out of less than two hundred people crowd does make a difference.

the first weekends started with the qualifiers playing for the main draw. players from the qulifiers that some may know are like, Donald Young, the one that likes to wear his cap to one side (bla) and Amer Delic (!), the one that did really well and made headlines during the Australian Open, when he made the rounds of 16 and brought Novak Djokovic to a four setter. it was also that match between Delic and Djokovic that casued a steer in the Melbourne park, where Bostonians and Serbians supporters were bashing each other up. because Delic is a Bostonian born American.

the main draw events started on Monday. on the main draw, James Blake and Mardy Fish were the first and second seed respectively. besides that, there were also Tommy Haas, Llyeton Hewitt, Guillermo Canas, Taylor Dent, Jurgen Melzer, Marcel Granollers, Evegeny Korolev, Bjorn Phau, Agustin Calleri, Kevin Anderson, Wayne Odesnik and many others. most of whom i have not even heard of and many of those only made it to the second round of the Aussy Open. though a big fan, i call myself, i am still very shallow when it comes to lower ranked players. on the doubles team, the current world no.1, Bryan Brothers made the torunament all more prestigious (?).

i can go on forever on the tournament but i guess i will write it in another post with some photos to share as well.

i really need a break from all these hectic schedule. but i know, in less than two months, i will be getting my ultimate well-deserved break of my dreams. till then, slogging all i have.

XOXO

today...today...oh my MDF god,...today today...

right before Spring Break, the week before Spring Break, i had an english composition mid-term test. we had a week to prepare for the test, which was writing a critical analysis on any essays from the textbook. any kind of test, which involves essays, as far as i am concern, is suppose to be done in a book, called the Blue Book, its just a book, with only a few pages for ya, writing essays or short answers kinda stuff. so we were to bring those Blue Books in class and write our essays in it.

today is already the second week after school reopened. the first week, we did not get our grades because i don't know why, but according to the professor, many did not do very well, as we did not know the format of critical analysis and yada....yada...yada....

so come this week, today,..everyone anticipated for not-so-well grades. to be honest, i thought i did pretty well. not by college standards, but by my odinary shitty-essay-writing standard, i thought it was better than how i usually write. therefore, i was hoping, bad, but at least not that bad of a bad grade. as i did prepare and read on the right way to write an analysis.

so the professor called, one by one,...came Jane, i stood up, took a few steps towards him and he said, 'Jane, see me after class, i need to talk to you about your essay'. so i sat back down. i was thinking, 'fuck Jane, you thought you did well, well, guess what, you must have flunk so badly, he needs to talk to you...'.

after class, i went up to him and WHAT??!!!! WHAT??!!!

do you freaken know why he did not grade my essay???????

when he explained to me, i was like =0 you fucking kidding me? and i paused. and i asked him again, what is the issue here? i don't understand. and i asked him, the third time.

at first, he asked, 'Jane, was this essay done outside class?'

i was confused. so i simply said, 'that is the rough draft (which we were suppose to do, not that i am so hardworking that i did it) and thats the essay.'

then he might have said something or a lot of things, in that spilt of a second, which i was not there with him at all because i was confused as hell.

then only i got what he was saying, he thought i typed my essay! he seriously thought i typed my essay and had done it outside class.

can you believe? i can't.

so i said to him, no, i wrote it, that is just my handwriting.
...
.............
.
.
.
........

i don't think i did convince him, totally.

then he said, i know you are a very detailed person but let me show you some of the characters...
...
........
see, your 's' and the other 's' is the same.. (same something but i was having a nervous breakdown by then, i don't know what he was saying)

i was so dumbfounded. all that went through my head was, how can i tell him i fucking wrote that with my bare right hand? i mean, other classmates would have saw me writing and how could i have printed it in the book?

anyway, he then asked me, did you had Blanko (i think that was what he said, which meant correction tape, in Malaysian term) with you? i said yes.
...........
..............
..
come on, i am Ejane, i have correction tapes. i take my pencil box everywhere i go. and i am probably the only one in the whole college who brings a pencil box, case, whatever.

i don't know if he believed that it is my handwriting. i know my handwriting is neat, but it cannot be at such degree of perfection that it is mistaken for typed. i am sure it has many distortions.

he even suggested, 'how about i take you grades in the final test and make it your mid-term grade too?'
................................................'anda gila ka apa ka ke buta ka ke nyanyok ka?' i wished i said.
'i accept your essay but .................................'
.......
................i had no clue what he said after.

in the end, he said he was gonna grade it.

its not even funny.

this must be the praise of the highest order i have had ever and will ever receive on my handwriting.

i might consider writing like shit now.

it has been a long day..but to overshadow this shitty event, is something real awesome, i purchased my plane ticket home today, finally! its better than the Willy Wonka's golden ticket i tell you.

alright.

what do you think?

BEACH MOCS!

heard of beach mocs? they are eccentric looking shoes. i want them!

-should i get them? yes no?

Lisa Hennigan

on St. Patrick's Day, i went to a mini concert, at downtown House of Blues, of Lisa Hennigan. nop, i have never heard of her, ever, prior to the concert, i was there to accompany my sister. she is from Ireland and her music is pretty awesome and attractive but different.

in this video, forgive me for the poor quality of sound and image. its recorded from my very antique phone. (so antique i don't even know what model it is anymore) also, this video is rather ??? because i stopped just as the good part was coming.

that is her guitarist, doing his thing, real-ly. it was just a classical guitar but he jammed it like it was so wicked electrical guitar. superb energy..

downtown was about 40minutes drive from where i live, first, my sister decided on this (1) last minute concert and then, we were late to start our 'journey'. my sister mapquested the directions but then (2) took a wrong turn on the highway and could not make a U-turn, and it caused even more of our time. the U-turn was a looong looong way and downtown is the weirdest and trickiest place to drive. took the first U-turn, and it was a (3) wrong one. but surely, the second one was the right one. anyway, finally, we found our way to the House of Blues and found parking. parked at box #20 and went to pay,...but (4) the #2 button on the machine was not working, tried and tried and tried. so we had to move the car to another space. ran all the way to the ticket counter and they said, (5) she has been performing for 40minutes already but still have about 50minutes to go...

that was freaken FIVE real can-it-get-any-worse situations but in the end...

they gave us FREE TICKETS. for nothing. it was well worth for all the shits we had to go through.