Singapore, 3 am matches and absurd hope

Silence can be blamed on a weekend trip across the Causeway to our neater, smaller, slightly more kiasu neighbours down under. I've said it too many times but I cannot stress how much fun I had this time around, travelling somewhat by myself, meeting my friends who took such good care of me and just being able to hang out with some cool people.
Highlights:

• discovering Singapore has a red light district. You sure that backpackers came recommended in Lonely Planet, Tiki?
• eating eating and eating. Taka food court is a fascination!
• Rockstar cat in CATS the Musical. It was like he was the Johnny Depp of the show! Meeeeeeeeowwww... Definitely my fave cat. The characterisations were excellent though. Subtle little movements like the twitch of the head or slinky arching of the body that really did bring the cats to life.
• Them big melons that Allen Melon and I spotted. Juicy and giant.
• Salmon teriyaki at Yingyi's house! Plus fruit tarts. Such a gracious hostess.
• 'Cha Choking' around at Brewerkz in Clarke Quay. I never knew I was such a gossip. But i am.
• The excellent food at GRAZE. Lordy, haven't had such a scrumptious English breakfast for forever! I <3>

Again, thanks for a great trip. Definitely going back soon!

Anyway, for the last time this season, I woke up at 3 am my time to watch the Champions League quarter-final match between Chelsea and Liverpool.

[WARNING: The following is potentially mind-numbing football talk]

You may have known that Liverpool lost. Boo. But what a match!
It struck me while watching the game that Hope truly does Spring Eternal. And even under the most absurd conditions.
Any football fan, particularly Liverpool supporters (because we are always angsty til the last few minutes), will know what it feels like to shout profanities at your team, at the other team, to tear your hair out for wasted opportunities and scream at the referee for falling for such a blatant act.

Well, as I was in just that predicament, watching my beloved Liverpool having to score 3 goals away at Stamford Bridge, at half time, the score was 2-0 to us. How brilliant, i thought. We just need 1 more and we're in. Then lo and behold some defensive blunders meant we were drawn at 2-2. Oh bloody hell. We need another 2 goals to win on aggregate, and for the many goalless minutes it did truly feel like it would never come. And then Lampard whips in another to make it 3-2 to the other team. Despair was starting to flood in.

Suddenly, we score 2 goals in quick succession and this was the point where i realised

Hope has no logic. I was very much convinced that in those last 15 minutes of the match, we could whip in the necessary goal to make it through to the semi-finals. If we could score 4 goals away, which i thought impossible, then why not, right?

And even when Lampard drove another nail of a goal into our coffin, i believed, in those dying minutes, that Liverpool could turn around and score 2 more goals.

I find it absurd that while in other games, a goal seems to be the hardest thing to get. That i don't have this expectation of Liverpool to score even in 90 minutes. Yet, when there have already been 4 goals, AWAY (what are the odds of that?), the impossiblity of everything just drives my hope even higher.

Does that mean that hopes are never to be satisfied? That pushed to the limit, you will just keep pushing?
Maybe it was just the visible drive of the team. The never give up. Never say die attitude. We didn't win but I sure am proud of them.

Then again, those are typical words of a fan on the losing side, right?