The Circle of Life

I can hear Elton John sing the theme song from The Lion King, one of the best animated films to come out of Hollywood. The film has so much heart. And wonderful animation too. (I love the scene towards the end of the movie where the monkey priest holds up Simba and Nala's newborn cub on this cliff, overlooking the whole savannah, to the entire animal kingdom down below -- and how the animals bowed to the new king of the jungle. My favourite scene in a whole movie full of memorable scenes.)

The lyrics are pretty solid too. The lines in blue resonate most with me:

CIRCLE OF LIFE
Music by Elton John, Lyrics by Tim Rice, Performed by Elton John

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give

(Chorus)
In the Circle of Life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle, the Circle of Life

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps the great and small on the endless round

(Chorus repeats)

On the path unwinding
In the Circle, the Circle of Life.

(Ends)

Life is indeed a circle. Found out recently that a very young colleague's 3o/31 year old husband died of cancer - in two weeks of discovering he had the disease. Today, a good friend SMSed me and said that she signed a Do Not Resuscitate form for her grandma who's in critical condition in the hospital.

Another good friend of mine suffered her second miscarriage -- but she's moved on and looking into the possibility of adopting, she doesn't mind rainbow children :) Angelina Jolie II? ;) Plus my dear friend from Vietnam also SMSed me last week to tell me she miscarried. These two ladies work too hard for their own good -- and I wonder if their punishing schedules and workloads have anything to do with it. Chichino looked frail and weak despite having rested for 3 weeks. Her docs had given her 5 weeks medical leave in total. I pray that both of them will bounce back and be well.

On a happier note, got another SMS (what would I do without SMS? :) from a long-lost friend who told me she was getting married in November. We're catching up next week so that I get all the details on how she met the man. Seriously, I thought she would remain single, so this is a lovely surprise.

And of course Dog is getting married sometime in December/January. I finally met her man from Helsinki over the weekend. Polite, reserved, very nice, a total gentlemen. Told me stories of the cold, cold European winters: minus 17 degrees in Vienna last winter, and minus 30 degrees in Helsinki! EEEKS. Plus they were still using the heaters up till June in Vienna.

(No wonder that terrible woman got a mink coat! But EEEEEEEEEKS! I remember we were having dinner at Al Forno when Dog told me about the mink coat and she started with, "I'm sorry Julie ..." Gave a shelling but hey, she already got the coat right? I have another friend who insists on eating foie gras despite knowing that the geese are for force fed to produce the fatty livers. SIGH. On a positive note, what a bunch of interesting friends ;)

Dog left for Austria yesterday. I packed Dog a goodbye gift of my favourite things: Sepet VCD, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi and two bags of premium Vietnamese coffee. I will miss her and miss the conversations around politics. (We both think that our ex PM Goh Chok Tong would be the best man for the post of the UN Sec Gen and we will work for him for FREE -- but we know no Singaporean used to the comfortable life will want to be a UN Sec Gen, cant get too much gratitude for that job -- just a whole lot of trouble. Oh well, we can dream - we believe in the UN :)

Life and death - all part of the cycle that has been going on for thousands of years. We basically live, spawn the next generation and then we die. We are the salmon swimming upstream.

1 more day to the weekend. The sun is shining.