What the Ring Will Make of Me

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoA proper Sunday, which is to say I stayed longer in bed than strictly defensible and felt no remorse about it. There was football to wake up to — England in action across the ocean while we slept — but the morning's real story belonged to Iran, knocked out in the cruellest arithmetic the tournament has to offer. They earned points in every group game and still went home, undone by goal difference and a result elsewhere they couldn't control. There's a particular heartbreak reserved for the side that does almost everything right and is eliminated by a calculator. I read it over coffee with the sympathetic wince of a neutral who knows the feeling secondhand.

The day itself started sunny, generous with its light, and I went in for a ward round that behaved exactly as a Sunday round should — unhurried, uncomplicated, done without fuss. From there, the proper business of the day: Lot 10, and ramen. There's a reliability to a good bowl of ramen that I find quietly reassuring, the broth doing its slow, restorative work, the whole thing asking only that you slow down and pay attention to it.

Anita, meanwhile, was deep in the logistics of her school reunion — that peculiar volunteer labour of wrangling old classmates into agreement on a date, a venue, a menu. She has the patience for it, which is just as well, because I do not. While she negotiated with the past, I went off to collect a small piece of the future: the Oura ring, finally picked up, Stealth finish, size eleven. It sits there now on my finger, discreet and faintly smug, promising to know more about my sleep than I do. Let's see what it makes of me. I suspect it will confirm, in elegant graphs, things I already half-suspect and would rather not have quantified.

The afternoon turned quiet, and then the rain arrived to make it quieter still — that soft, enclosing downpour that gives you full permission to do nothing at all. So I finally did the thing I'd been threatening to do for a fortnight and started Star City. After all those evenings of falling asleep before the title card, I actually watched it — the alternate-history space business I'd been saving, cosmonauts and counterfactuals and all. It was worth the wait, and worth being awake for, which is more than I'd managed lately.

Dinner was in, and light — a salad, sensible and unfussy, the Oura ring no doubt nodding its quiet approval somewhere on my hand. After a morning of ramen, the body appreciated the restraint.

And the day isn't quite done, because the Grand Prix waits for later tonight — Austria, the Red Bull Ring, Russell somehow on pole after Verstappen put it in the wall. Anita will be glued to it; I'll keep her company and pretend my interest is purely casual. A good Sunday, gently spent. The race still to come, and a new ring already taking notes.

A Sunday Without Its Steak

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A sunny start to the Sunday — KL doing that thing again where it remembers it's tropical and turns the brightness up to full. There's a particular quality to Sunday sunshine that weekday sunshine simply doesn't have. Same sun, different posture. Less demanding.

Rounds went smoothly, mercifully brief. Sunday rounds have their own rhythm — quieter corridors, fewer interruptions, everyone moving at a slightly more humane pace. By the time I was done, the day still had most of itself to give.

Which I duly spent at Low Yat, on a mission for a charger and a USB dock. There's a particular pleasure in wandering Low Yat with a specific list — it gives the place a shape it doesn't otherwise have. Without a mission, it's a labyrinth of cables and screens and salesmen pretending not to watch you. With one, it's a treasure hunt. Both items located, prices reasonable, the small satisfaction of crossing things off a list. A good morning's work.

Lunch was ramen at Kagura Tokyo in Lot 10. The kind of meal that suits a sunny solo Sunday — sit at the counter, watch the steam curl up, eat with proper attention. Ramen rewards focus. Eat it distracted and you've missed the point. I gave it the attention it deserved.

A wander through Pavilion afterwards. Relatively quiet for a Sunday, which was a small mercy — none of the usual weekend density, just enough people to make it feel alive without making it feel like a contest. I drifted rather than shopped. Sometimes that's the better way.

Anita was out with her friends, which meant the afternoon belonged to me and a few quiet domestic tasks. Some cleaning, nothing heroic — the sort of tidying that creates the illusion of productivity while requiring almost no thought. The house seemed pleased about it, in its way. There's something restful about an afternoon spent indoors with no particular destination, the windows open, the day moving past at its own speed.

A small departure from the usual: no steak cooking tonight. Sundays have built themselves a tradition around steak in this house, and breaking it once in a while feels almost transgressive. But traditions need the occasional pause to keep their meaning. The cast iron pan gets a night off.

The sunset, though — the sunset earned its keep. One of those proper KL sunsets that takes the sky through every shade of orange and pink before settling into a soft, lingering blue. The balcony was the only sensible place to be. I obliged.

And now, with the evening settling in, attention turns to Old Trafford. United's last home game of the season tonight. More poignantly, Casemiro's last appearance there. There's a particular weight to these farewell matches — the sense of a chapter closing, the crowd preparing for something they'll only fully feel in retrospect. He's given the place a great deal. The least one can do is watch.

A good Sunday, all told. Even without the steak.

Exposure+6 Exhibition

I heard that one of my friend was organising an exhibition at the new Nikon Centre opposite Low Yat Plaza starting last weekend. I got curious and decided to have a look. I was in clinic during the opening event, so I made do with a quiet visit.

It was Monday but it was a public holiday for Thaipusam. The town was rather quiet despite the gorgeous sunny weather. The Nikon Centre itself was quiet when I entered, allowing me to have a look in peace.

The exhibit featured four photographers who mainly do the bulk of their work locally. Despite the venue, I doubt that all of them used Nikon.

The place itself was small but cosy. None of the staffs there bothered me when I walked by, especially since I had with me a camera - which was not a Nikon. The theme appeared open. But a couple of the exhibits worth commenting on. The first was a series by Wang Seok Mui. He was a third generation Chinese Malaysian and he along with cousins went to China in search of his ancestral village and the series of photos documented the journey. I felt that the narrative was still unfinished and it was something worth pursuing. The photos were simple but atmospheric, richly printed. Personally, it would have been better if the story was told in a more elaborate series of photos. Maybe in the years to come, there would be a closure to the storyline.

The second one was on the work by Fitri Jalil. He tried to explore the meaning and ultimately the distinction between being a Malay and Moslem in contemporary Malaysia.He had some good points but with only less than 10 prints on display, many "reading between the lines" were needed. He stopped short of going into the current elements of Arabinisation which seemed to be the rage nowadays.

On the whole, it was too short although sweet. Nothing earth shattering although the appeared to be more organised that the recent Guerrilla Exhibition at Avenue K. Would definitely be keen to see what Exposure+7 had to offer.