Mumble Jumble

My worst fear has been confirmed: I have lost my power of speech.

Well, not in the entirety. And it is all because of this stupid retainer that I have to wear. It's got this big plastic thing which is attached to my lelangit, hindering my tongue. As a result, my voice sounds muffled, and I speak with a lisp when it comes to pronouncing words with the letters 's' and 'f'. Heck, I can't even SPEAK my own name now. I sound like I'm talking gibberish, so I shall opt out of the embarassment of not being able to speak intelligibly, and shall henceforth perfect my proficiency of sign language. Seriously. And this is happening to the person who used to be complimented for having a very clear voice, and good enunciation! Thank God I stopped debating in Form 4. And besides that, I can't swallow my saliva, and when I remove the retainer to eat, the saliva kinda dribbles down my mouth too, disgusting. I'm dreading and wondering how I am ever going to eat in polite society again.

Thank God it's only for three months. Hopefully I can get my fixed retainer by then.

But for now, I shall have to suffer in silence. The pain is even worse that the first time I got my braces. My front teeth feel all tender and swollen.

Looks like it's back to the good ole days of porridge and soup again bleh.

Congrats to Germany for scraping into the last eight by beating Austria with an unstoppable shot by Michael Ballack while already-qualified Croatia beat Poland 1-0 thanks to kidney transplant hero Ivan Klasnic, who fired a beautiful strike past Artur Boruc; who despite his heroics, could not send Poland into the quarter finals.

Tonight: Holland vs Romania
Italy vs France

Prediction: Hard to say, it's going to be an absolute cracker between the two 2006 World Cup Finalists. However, I'm going to go for a narrow Italy win of 1-0 or 2-1.
About the Oranje...van Basten can choose to send in a reserve team and let Romania win to avoid meeting either the Azurri or Les Bleus in the semi finals, or use Romania as target practice. I think he'll send in a reserve team in order to rest his first team players such as Sneidjer and van Nistelrooy in preparation for the quarter finals and give the others some much needed game time, but expect Romania to be crushed by the rampant Dutch anyway. A possible 2-0 or 3-1 victory, with van Persie on the scoresheet.