Kobe

A few people are remembering Kobe.

I am never an enthusiastic basketball fan, only a period of supporting the Beijing Jinyu / Shougang in their golden era. But Kobe seemed to represent something higher than the sport itself.

Four years ago, after an interesting run in SWERC, Michele, Francesco, and I were sightseeing Paris. Some most famous places were dropped by, phone calls and texts were made with friends in Roma, and then we were on late train back to the suburban hotel we stayed.

It was tiring. Of course, we just finished a day of coding and then lecture-attending. At that time covid was merely a quasi-joke to all of us, along with rumors of severe lockdown and laughs on bats.

It was on the train when Francesco and I both caught the breaking news of Kobe Bryant. The news seemed fake to us, so in the following 5 minutes, we were trying to figure out if there was a trustworthy news agency reporting it. We all know it was true.

Michele, probably with zero interest in sports, asked who Kobe was.

At that moment, we were too tired and busy to respond anything more than “a famous American basketball player.” Then I started thinking about the Leicester Chairman who died in the same way. Leicester was part of the spirit of my high school years. So, yeah, I can relate.

Then I started to remember the day of Kobe’s last game. We were at Mr. Yang’s Geology class. He is a super fan himself, so during the class, watching live stream was allowed, and stats were updated from time to time. For the ‘now’ version of myself, if I were to think about that day long enough, I’d definitely cry.

2020 seemed to start with some tragedies, and more severe ones followed. Now as we look back, it seemed that maybe all was written on the wall long ago. But, to be honest, it really depends on your point of view, as there were / are so many events happened that you can choose as symbolic ones, which could eventually lead to completely different ways of interpretations.

Maybe what I am saying is that, the shock is long gone, and the time series is going to explore their randomness as planned.