World Cup...
Dear TomHa,
Woohoo! World Cup starts and I guess we would be seeing a lot of dark rings around many people's eyes from tonight onwards. Guess it would be a major worry for many bosses, supervisors and perhaps teachers when school starts. My money is for Netherlands, although they had never won a major trophy despite the talent. Oh and Germany just scored a goal against Costa Rica. Quite a cracker. The German crowd must be so pleased but they have like 85 more minutes. Haha, nothing's for certain. Let's just hope that the German's will to suceed will pull them through.
Speaking of World Cup, ie to say talking about soccer, people who are familiar about the Sports Column of the Straits Times shouldn't be unfamiliar with the name Rob Hughes. I had always liked his reviews and commentaries. Very insightful and takes you thinking. He wrote more about soccer but basically, he writes about every damn sport. However, his column on the Ethics on Mountaineering last saturday really sets me thinking. In case you have no idea what I am talking about, Costa Rica just levelled the score, last week, there was this Australian Everester who was on this expedition with a Russian-led team, when on his way down, I can't remember for whatever reason, on the way down after the summit, was left for dead by his team mates and sherpas, only to be saved and brought down to base camp comforts and treatment in Kathmandu by another team who spotted him while attempting the summit (Correct me if I had been incorrect about the chain of events). But that is not the point, Rob Hughes pointed out the ethics of mountaineering that should be adhered by mountaineers especially for an expedition of Everest-scale! Being a mountaineer-wanna-be, I was rather affected by his insights. The Germans scored again! A Klose tap-in Having tasted altitude not too long ago, I have some idea of how altitude can affect the physiology of a person's body. Particularly if you had lived all your life at sea level, at most, 168m. You pant like a dog, your heartbeat is at a faster tempo than Flight of the Bumblebee, you cannot feel your extremities (Toes, fingers, ears, nose), you have winds wanting to blow you out, snow that want to drown you, slopes that want to kill you. You are constantly fighting the conditions that aren't entirely friendly. So, in an event that one of your team mate is down. Would you give up your goal of summiting and accompany him down, forsaking all the hard work that you had done, and I am not talking about the work getting to that altitude alone, and worse still, when taking care of yourself is hard enough, would you even attmept to risk an extra burden?
Ok, back to watch more World Cup. I think I go subscribe SCV tmmorrow liao.
Woohoo!