Brothers

I was really touched by Julian's last post about being Kel's brother, and as an older sibling, I know my little brother has been going through some, if not all of what Juls mentioned. Please check out his blog under my links.

Be warned, there will be a fair amount of bragging in this post, but I'm not going to lie about how proud I am of my brother.

Ok? My brother can't really be bothered to read yet, so I'm not worried about inflating his ego right now. So let's go.

Nicholas Law is a special kid. Perpetually happy, hyper, potentially insane, and good looking. I honestly feel he's got all the good genes. He got the tall genes, the handsome genes. Me? Jealous? NAH. I'M NOT JEALOUS. *sulk*

But all the same, and I'm not sure how he feels about it, but simply because I popped out 8 years before him, there's a pretty big shadow cast over him. It's as if he's got 8 years of my achievements to outshine. When he goes to school, everyone first recognises him as "Chris' brother". All the teachers ask him "how's Chris doing?", or "when's Chris coming back?", or at least that's what my mom tells me. And when people find out that he swims, they ask "oh, just like your brother?". Our family friends, even my parents tell him, or us, "oh, your brother was much quieter and well behaved than you at your age..." and I always get a bit irritated, just leave the little dude alone right? They'll tell us, "oh, Chris was very smart in school, but you keep getting x% for maths?"

So my brother's a bit dyslexic. This one time, he wrote a short story in school about Dragonforce and being epic. It was EPIC! Dragonforce as in that epic power metal band (Yes, I share my music with him)! It's like something I could only dream about. Ok, so everyone struggled through the spelling and grammar... it was funny, but I think no one really saw the genius of it.

One person I really admire though, is my good friend Albert, who's teaching my little bro the drums. He gives my bro the right mix of discipline and praise. The kid is 10, ok, how many 10 year olds can get a grip on Latin beats? In the short span of time my bro has learnt drums, I reckon he's advanced much more in technique than I have in guitar playing. Only his rhythm wavers now and then, but those skinny chicken arms are pretty powerful. I'm not trying to brag, really, but my bro is probably the best 10 year old drummer I've seen. Outside of youtube. If you're interested though, search Igor Falecki.

And swimming. Oh man, the kid used to be such a wuss. But when he came over during easter I was pretty shocked. Just to test him, I went, "ok, 20 laps warm up, go." and he was like ok, and left and finished 20 laps no problem. We later went on to train in sprints and other stuff, doing at least 1km a day. And you know what, coaching my brother that week inspired me so much. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be swimming as regularly as I do now.

I was training him that week for a competition in Bangkok last weekend. And when I called mum on mother's day, she told me about the competition. Listen to this:

His teacher accidentally sends him up for 50m butterfly against an older age group because he heard the PA wrong. Against these big boys, in that crazy ass event, he came second. And just as he came out of the pool, his name was called for his next event, the 100m freestyle. At this point everyone was just going crap! Shouldn't have sent him for the butterfly! But the little champ went for it anyway, and at the start of the race he was just kind of lagging behind last, and everyone thought aww what a waste. But towards the end of the first lap, he catches up with the person in front of him, and now he's second last. By the end of the second lap, he catches up again with the next guy, and now he's third from the back. And then as he kicks off the wall for the final lap, he begins to overtake heaps of people, until he's finally neck and neck with the race leader, and in the last few metres he overtakes the guy and wins the race!

Is that freaking amazing or what?

His overall spoils from the comp are 2 golds, 5 silvers, and a bronze in swimming, 2 silvers in athletics, and gold in soccer.

I think my bro is well his way to making his own mark.


Of course, he forgot about mother's day, and I am therefore still mummy's favourite.

Just kidding.


I'm Chris, and I'm Nicholas Law's brother.