World Cup memories

I'm not crazy football fanatic. I don't paint my face or travel the world following my team. But I love to watch football, the skill of the players and the emotions that follow whenever there is a major cup competition. And they don't come any bigger than the World Cup, and since happens only once every 4 years, I think its pretty understandable that I don't wanna do anything else during this time.

I thought it would be good to gather my memories of World Cups past, and the significant events of the current World Cup.

Mexico, 1986. My first World Cup. I was only 6 at the time, and I don't think I watched that many games. At 6, I couldn't stay up so late to watch anyway. I don't remember any of the games, so I don't recall Maradona's wonder goal or Hand of God. What I did remember was this funny thing they did at the stadiums. They would get different sections of the stands to stand up and wave their hands in sequence, creating a human wave around the stadium. It was damn cool, and it was there that the 'Mexican wave' was born.

Italia, 1990. I was 10, in Primary 5. I watched more games this time, but still only the significant ones from quarter-finals onwards. It was then I started to hate Germany as a team. Anyhow play also can win. Through penalties, or 1-0 scorelines. The finals was Argentina vs West Germany, pitting Diego Maradona and Lotthar Mathaus, argueably 2 of the best players in their position at the time. And West Germany won through a disputed penalty. What the hell.

USA, 1994. I was 15, in Sec 3. This is really when the World Cup addiction started. Late nights watching the games, discussing the games with classmates, reading magazines and papers during class, and replaying the matches over and over in my head. My schoolwork really suffered then, but I didn't really care. I remembered USA 94 for the great strikers. Roberto Baggio of Italy, Romario and Bebeto from Brazil, Klinnsman of Germany and Bergkamp of the Netherlands. The best goal of the tournament was the wonder goal by Bergkamp in the quarterfinals against Argentina. (edit: this goal was in 98. my bad.)

Bergkamp scoring that wonder goal
The other significant event was the Final. Italy vs Brazil. I remember anxiously wanting the game to end, because I was already late for school, and they had gone into extra and penalty kicks. If I'm not wrong, it was the first Finals to be decided by penalty kicks, and it was quite a disappointing end to a good tournament. I wanted to see a great goal, or a moment of magic. But in the end, Brazil won when Baggio skied his penalty over the bar.

Roberto Baggio in his prime
France, 1998. I couldn't watch many of the games because I was stuck in army. But I was desperate because I wanted to see my favorite player, Alan Shearer. So I decided to buy a handheld TV so that I could watch the England games. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night to watch England vs Argentina, desperately adjusting the antenna to get the clearest picture. It was still fuzzy, but I could see all the action. Saw Michael Owen's wonder goal, saw Argentina's ingenious free kick, then saw David Beckham stupidly get sent off.

Owen celebrating after That goal
6 am was revelie time, but the game was just going into penalty kicks. I remembered a group of 10 of us gathered around the tiny screen, trying to see what happened next. As usual, England disappointed and I lost interest in the rest of the matches. Saw the Final between Brazil vs France though. Very disappointing as France won easily. It was as if Brazil kelong.

Korea and Japan 2002. This time I caught almost all the matches again. And since it was in Asia, the matches were held at reasonable times. But I felt that this World Cup was disappointing. All the good teams went out early. France and Argentina got knocked out early. Then South Korea amazingly beat Spain and Italy, which I felt was super kelong. Spain had a lot of calls against them, and Italy had 2 goals disallowed, which was quite amazing. In the end, Germany and Brazil met in the finals. Again, it wasn't spectacular but the best team won.

Germany 2006. It isn't over yet. Watched almost all the games. Will review the entire tournament once its over.

World Cup most important

Haven't blogged much because of World Cup.
Haven't slept much because of World Cup.
Haven't been able to work properly because of World Cup.

In fact, all my plans for going out, watching movie, meeting people all revolve around the matches. Crazy yes, but worth it. Watching Argentina beating Serbia&Montenegro 6-0 - that was the highlight of the championship so far. Not just the goals but the quality of play. Simply fantastic. I hope they win, instead of overated Brazil and England. I don't have any preferences for any international team, supporting the team that plays best and have great players. Kaka and Ronaldino were supposed to shine at this World Cup for Brazil, but so far only Kaka has been doing all the work. So maybe I'll cheer for Messi and Riquelme of Argentina instead. And they have better teamwork than Brazil, who are still trying to gel together. Go Argies go!

What is Havok?

Its funny that this question was asked only now, so many years after the bunch of us came up with the name. Its funny that the question was even asked at all. Most people, and most of us would think, isn't Havok just the name we gave ourselves, the guys from the RJC orientation group of '96?

But Dennis, in one of his kaopei-ing states, wanted us to think about it. He wanted to "make Havok an institution". What did Havok mean to us, and what does it mean to us now? There was a bit of a debate about the point(or pointlessness) of this exercise, but I think I am similar to Dennis, in that we like to see "the big picture". And since Dennis's initial idea was to institutionalize Havok and possibly turn it into a business, I decided to reflect on his question through blogging.

The History of Havok
So let's start from the beginning. Year: 1996. Location: Raffles Junior College in Ghim Moh. It was the start of JC and orientation had begun. The theme for the orientation was Eygptian, and our Orientation Group was called 'Armant'. The interesting thing about this group was that there was a bunch of RGS friends who knew how the groups were split, so they chose to split themselves into 2 orientation groups, and one of them was Armant. The other was Esna. The two OGs got sort off affiliated because of them. The girls were are source of joy and agony for us at that time, and its funny how, looking back, they preoccupied so much of our conversations and actions. But they aren't that important really. It was the guys in the group that made Havok. The Armant guys were (if your name is not here means you're not important (-: ):

• Ziyan, Jason, Zi-en, John, Yong Zann and Renjie from CHS
• Dean and Dennis from Cat High
• Me, Guangyang, Guanghui, Lionel, Kahshin and Ban Horng from RI

The more active part of the OG
It all started with Dean and Dennis rebelling against OG activities. Dean was always monkeying around, and Dennis just didn't want to listen. It also started by Renjie and Guangyang being damn buaya. Girls are stupid like that. Always impressed by the seemingly gentlemenly guys, the guys that always do nice things for them. Well, I think the rest of us guys can have a nice chuckle, on what kind of people Renjie and Guangyang turned out to be, and how duped the girls were. Anyways, I think it was because of the "buaya-ness"of Renjie and Guangyang, and the craziness of Dean and Dennis, then led to the rest of us (ie guys minus buayas) sticking together.
According to the Havok annals, the defining moment was when some frivolous remarks made by certain guys got the girls worked up, who were upset that some of us had "motives" to switch OGs (Esna had Lambo, MY, FY..). [Edit: Actually, Esna not only had chio bus, but also Goi. Goi was of course my RI classmate and a carnasaur, and he naturally fit right into Havok. But Esna also had Alphie, so I'm not sure whether joining switching to Esna had been such a good thing :) ] We went out for a session of "clearing up", which actually inspired some of us to think of things like permanent and loyal friendship. It served to cement our relations, and it was probably the single most important reason for the OG's continued survival till July. Even after then the guys continued to stay together as "Havok".

Havok Identity
After orientation we continued to hang out, which was almost everyday after school, and going out at least twice a week to Orchard or Holland V or Jelita. The someone decided to get a group journal, where we would write down our thoughts, feelings and silly drawings. I believe that there were a total of 3 Havok books, and we recently went took out and flipped through one of them, and it was like travelling back in time.

And then we came up with a Havok logo, which looks something like this:

I still remember us saying, "this logo is damn cool. can print t-shirts or something. Can start a business, like Stussy or 77th Street", and we would discuss all the different Havok mechandise. Its still not a bad idea, come to think of it.

Later on we even had a website, which can still be found at: www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/6357 . Unfortunately it was never maintained and has become a relic of Havok past. [Check out the Havok dictionary. It still makes me laugh!]

We even had a full page ad in our yearbook. All of us contributed a few dollars, and the guys actually got quite a lot of people to chip in money. [I will scan it someday and put it online when I have the time].

Havok was a bunch of guys who just liked doing crazy things and hanging out. We all liked girls, and we had our crushes, but girls were never part of Havok in a sense. We accepted anyone into the group, made fun of them if they were terh or dumb, but we still accepted them. Unfortunately, all this led to us being labelled 'losers' by some people, and this was to cause difficulties for us as a group later on.

Trials and Tribulations
Maybe it was overconfidence, or lack of awareness, but I was never really affected by this 'loser' tag thing. But apparently some others were. John, Yong Zann and Guanghui, for example, felt that to get the girls, they had to bulk up and become more muscular. They stopped hanging out with us and started going gym more often. Which wasn't a bad thing. John and Yong Zann kept at it for many years, and they look dramatically different from last time. Guanghui... well, gave up and remains as skinny and pasty as ever. Ziyan also left, to hang out more with the soccer guys, and to chase girls.

Then of course came the dramatic fall-out with Jason. From what I understand, Dennis, Dean and Jason were hanging out one day, and Dennis and Dean kept making fun of Jason, until he flared up (btw, he's the original outbursty one), and threw his bag at them, and was like, "Fuck you all lah. Havok is a bunch of losers! Everybody is saying that... no wonder we can't get the girls..." or something to that effect. And subsequently stopped hanging out with us. I wasn't there to witness this, but the irony is that we nicknamed Jason "Ah terh" for a reason, and if anything, his leaving made the group less "terh".

Many years have come and gone, and many people have joined the group, rejoined the group or left. Havok has even had some sort of merger with the Carnasaurs (my RI bunch of friends), with myself, Goi, Kenneth and Guanghui being the common factor for the 2 groups.

Havok present day
Havok is still the bunch of guys who hang out together, and meet up for supper quite often. I have to add though, that there were a few girls in the group as well. The first ever female Havoker was Serene Ang. Then there was Dennis' sis, Winnie. And there's Denise, Kerwei and Serene. I don't think any girl can stand being with us for an extended period of time, so when the girls get attached they leave. Except for Kerwei, because she got attached to Dean!!!!

But I guess for most of us, Havok became a sub-conscious thing, and it hardly got a mention until Dennis brought it up again. Here are some of the definitions of Havok that were thrown up:
"Havok is for havoking!" - TM
"Havok is a place for single people or people who just broke up to hang out" - TM
"Its the brotherhood" - Prem
I particularly like this one:
"Society sucks. That's why have Havok what. An oasis in the desert of this society" - Barry

To me, Havok is a bunch of guys whom despite their different backgrounds and values who enjoy hanging together, and will be there for each other no matter what.

But Dennis has bigger dreams than that. His plans for Havok:
"To perpetuate an institution that represents dreams, loyalty and excellence.
This institution burns with love. My purpose is Havok.

Values
To do so with
* intelligence
* kindness and compassion
* integrity and honour"

Seems ridiculous at first, but to me its a worthy cause. To make Havok something beyond just the bunch of people inside it. To make Havok mean something to people. Something like "Fight Club". But I think to do that we have to find a common value that binds us, and the value must of course mean something to other people as well. So let me suggest one:

" Havok transcends religion, race or status. You can be anyone, be doing anything, be from anyplace. But when you are with Havok, you shed the masks you wear outside. You are yourself".