After going through a good chunk of school till 12 pm, I yanked off my tie and ripped off my shirt to reveil the Boardshirt I had to wear for the cheering session. Personally speaking, I thougt the design was rather too plain and only designed areas a bit too elaborated in colour. But like I said, it's personally speaking. I then made my way to the SAC where I found the rest of the prefects and had lunch with them. At 12.30, Davin gave a short briefing on what's going to happen, who's assigned what, when things are goingto start/end and so on and so forth. When the bus finally came, we went to the bus bay and boarded our ride to Kallang Tennis/Squash Centre. How surprising that we met up with Mr. Tay and 'Teck Seng' before leaving.
After passing through the many sights of the Singapore Skyline (Esplanade, NPD Floating Pontoon, Ferris Wheel, ect.), we alighted at the parking lots of the centre and assembled at the different places we hadto go to. I was assigned to Tennis, so I met up with the Tennis guys, including Michael, Koon Min, Nicholas Lee and a few others. Mike 'tatooed' himself with many 'ACS' writings on his body using a thick marker, something you won't be surprised finding Mike up to. The other Juniors in the team were playing around with the hailer we brought along with us, and they were imitating school announcements, Dr. Ong, Eminem, Justin Timberlake and a few other random but funny quotes.
The school flag was also nice to play with, and we were having fun putting up the banner on the tennis wall! I enjoyed the banner part a lot! Hee hee hee...
Within minutes, the classes were coming in, whether from our school or from the others. And minutes from that, the games soon began. This was the finals, and we were up against Chatolic High. The tentions were great - I could smell it as a sportsman myself - and cheering was on stand-by.
*Pause*
If you ask me why I'd be bothered enough to cheer my lungs out just for players in the field/court/stadium/pool/tracks/reservour, well it's basically because I know how scary things can be in a competition, and in my first Canoeing competition, encouragement was the most prized possesion you could ever earn. Want me to tell you my story?
Well, it was a cold and windy Thursday morning in April, and MacRitchie was as dark a shade of green as it could ever be. There I was onboard the AC 205, with Nick Ng behind me as the Backman, and we were making some final rounds at Concrete Bay while we still had our time. It was the day of the Finals, and my parents promised that they were going to watch me race. Greatly excited, yet greatly scared, I paddled along with Nick Ng's timing, trying my best to warm up the strokes as close to perfection as I could for the race.
Earlier on while I was still on land, I asked God if he could send rain to come the momment I passed through the Finishing Line. Since God could't pat my back like a normal person could without killing my body in the intense glory, I'd have taken the rain as a 'pat' instead. Within that minute, rain started to fall, and I started to cry with joy. It was God patting me on the back, telling me even before my race that I'd do well.
"All T2 'C' Division rowers, please report to the 1000-meter mark now," came the muzzled voice of the speakers from the Competitior's Tent a few meters away. On that command, Nick and I paddled off for the last battle. We made it to the Finals by just a slim margin, and with only three possible medals available as always, getting at least Bronze would be more than just threading over water.
Once at the 1000-meter Line, which if you knew your Maths was a kilometer away from the spectators (meaning that there was no one except the competitors and two Starters within the area), the boats around scattered about to the different lanes they were assigned to. Once settled, the Starter recieted his well-known commands.
"T2s, plese raise one paddle."
I slowly raised my paddle above my head, making sure I didn't loose the balance of the boat, then slowly placing it down again.
"T2s, ready."
By now, the area was silent and all heads were turned towards the tracks. I mumbled my prayers and got myself ready.
"Starts within 10 seconds."
All paddles rose in unison after the stressed word 'seconds'. I positioned my Left Blade over the water surface, ready to strike my pull into it. The man waited for a while before squeezing the horn, and thus started the final race for the medals. In the most realistic of races, nithing in your mind makes much sense. Numbers, letters, lines and figures, all bouncing around in your head like a library falling apart to its foundations.The only thing you have control in your mind to do is just the rotation speed of your paddle and the amountof pressure to apply in each stroke.
Either than that, the only signals you recieve from your arms are their cries as they ache in the great misery of the speed, balance and direction you need to sustain in order to beat your apponents, and they beg you to just surrender and stop in your tracks. And yet again, you just can't seem to stop yourself from paddling through to the very end, like a forced rotation your blades have been guided through many times earlier when you've practiced in training.
I embraced the water with all my might, praying in the inside for all the pains I've gone through in the past three months to be fruitful at this momment. Through my partnership with Nick Ng, I've been scolded many a times by him due to my immatureness in canoeing in comparrison to him, thus I didn't really have a person to rely on during th ewhole thing. So without anyone to support me, or at the least feel some love from, I depended greatly on God for the motivation to paddle on. He did His part of encouraging me.
And once at the 250-Meter mark, which was rather close to the spectators, I took the risk of turning my neck by a few degrees to check if my parents were anywhere in the crowd. But due to the great movements my body was experiencing, telling a person out from another was difficult, so I stopped searching and paddled out my final strokes, or as a caneist would call a 'Burst', and I crossed the Finishing Line with a great cry of "Praise the Lord!", then quickly holding water just in time before the AC 205 crashed into the rocky shores the viewers were seated on.
Once I paddled back to the Concrete along with a satisfied Nick and taking the boat up to shore, and after being comforted by an optimistic Mr. See (a rare but precious sight, believe me), I dashed through the spectators in search of my parents, only to find no trace of them. I even went through the Carpark and the Dam just to see if there was the slightest piece of evidence that they were present, but I found nothing. I ran back to the Lower Shed and grabbed my bag to find my handphone and SMS them to ask if they watched me, only to find that I recieved a message from them saying:
'We saw you from the dam. You did great! Leaving for work now, sorry we can't stay for prize presentation. God bless!'
I slowly knelt down among the many bags in the cold and damp shed, crying with tears of joy and touched that my parents came to the event and saw me. Touched that two of the many people who loved me came to watch my victory. Touched that God answered my prayers that my actions would be appreciated one way or another. Touched that I was loved through it all.
So I know how scary a competition can get, let alone a Finals, and let further alone a Finals without anyone to support you through. So I'd march that extra step, wave that final flag, shout that final breath, just to comfort whoever is in the field, panicked as he is, and comfort him through it all. Just like how I'm always behind my friends and family in their times of trouble, I'd be behind the lonely sporter in their time of great animosity.
*Resume*
So to continue,... wow, did I just use 16 paragraphs to explain myself?... where were we? Oh, right, the cheers were on stand-by. Cheering was strictly prohibited during a game - that meant from the time a serve was made to the moment a player scored - due to the likelyhood of the cheer distracting them from the game, which ivolves a load's worth of concentration. This left us with the breaks to cheer, and breaks ussually had enough time for a cheer or two. Nevertheless, we took the opportunities to cheer whenever the opportunities came, using echo cheers so as to unite the school together in attempt to drown out Catholic High.
Unfortunately, we were out-numbered by Cat High and so we requested back-up from the Squash courts, who apparently were more success in their game and required less people to make loud noises in such a confined place like a squash court. It was getting more and more obvious that the court I was assigned to wasn't doing well with the game, although the other courts were doing very well. Ah, well. We still cheered the guys on.
Around this momment, Shil called me to say that the class was dropped off by their bus about a mile away from the tennis/squash centre and they were now at KFC. He asked how they could arrive here from there, and I told him that the centre was just across the road, but that there was a construction site between both locations so we couldn't see each other when we should be able to.
A few minutes later, the class was within view at the carpark, so I went over to the entrance to greet them. They came with cups of soft drinks each, telling me that I missed out on KFC's free re-fills and saying how much they pityed us (Prefects and other classes who came earlier).
Drinks? I don't need drinks! Not at a time like this! There are students battling off their arms in great strains to trash out their opponents for the Gold, and I'm NOT sacrificing their slim supply of motivation all for a cup of chemicals and dihydrogen oxide. A determined but frightened Year 1 is more important to attend to than a free flow of a soft drink.
So while I was still on stand-by for the next cheering, I caught up with the class and refused to accept any offer for drinks in knowledge that it wasn't my time to rest yet. Everyone present was not placed there just to skip school and slack off, but to motivate the fellow classmates within the match.
Soon, it was my turn to wave the school flag, and so I held it tight and waved it around the '8' fashion. I ran about with the flag, waved it high and clear, cheering along also and making sure the flag never touched the ground. When I reached the section of the court where my class was gathered, my classmates started chasing me for the flag. Instructed not to give the flag to a non-prefect, since they'd most likely play around with the flag instead of waving it in the first place, I quickly went off to the other side of the area. But in my rush with the flag, I must had somehow sprained my right arm, so I quickly passed the flag on to another prefect and bit my arm in the strain. ZWei was still offering his drink to me, and JKit was telling me that I work too hard. "It's their day," I told him. "They deserve it." Soon, I accepted ZWei's drink to calm him down.
Now just to fast-forward through the rest of the events or it may take you another few minutes just to read through the remaining details, we didn't make it. We won two matches, lost another two and the last game ended off with an injury. I don't know what others thought, but I salute this guy.
Despite his injured hamstring, which was already an obvious give-away that the game's no longer ours, he didn't stop the game but continued playing against his apponent to the very end, all for the love of his friends and family who were present. I prayed for the guy before joining in a final cheer for ACS to show we acknowledge the efforts put in by our players, even if they gave us the Silver.
Before the prize-giving ceremony, Mr Tay dismissed the class. But I still had to stay back for another half-an-hour to help take down the banners and stuff. So as I was willing to go back home alone, I silently watched as my class left me one by one. But then a couple of people stayed behind for me. Raam and Shil, they bothered to saty behind, for me. Sweaty, voiceless, stinky and exausted as I was, I found that act so kind. I then accepted their invitation to go to KFC for a short dinner after settling some prefect stuff.
So after taking photos with the tennis guys (Joshua Wu gave me a piggy-back ride!), Debrief (By now, it'd be too late to bring the school flag back to the Boardroom, so I was given the flag for safe-keeping for one night! Yay!) and taking down of banners (Aww...), I met up with Shil and Raam for a stroll to KFC for the short dinner I promised. It was nice having a dinner date with the school flag - not many students could actually admit they've done so! But after a popcorn chicken and a couple of rounds of ice lemon tea for me, the three of us guys (and a flag) began our Great Journey to Our Dearest Homes! (*Theme music plays*)
It first starts with the long walk of half-an-hour or so from KFC to Kallang MRT. I felt that since the class had to navigate for a mile to the centre, I might as well complete my share by finishing off a 1.72 mile walk. (For those who don't know, 1.72 miles is equal to 2.77 km.) Well, to tell you the truth, I've found out that we could have taken a shorter route that could have only involved 0.95 miles, but then I wouldn't be paying back, now would I? Anyway, here's the route:
The route we could have taken, and the route we actually took. Painful, huh? Ah, well. By the time I got to the station, I looked like a hiker with a flag bandaging his right arm.
Yah, something like that. Then I took another hour or so so the train journey from Kallang to Jurong East, then change line to go to Chua Chu Kang. From Chua Chu Kang, Daddy came to fetch me, since it was already 7.3something and it was drizzling cold and dark. Came back, had a short dinner, had a hot bath and then now I'm writing an archive of what happen complete with introduction and illustrations.
And that's about it for today! Wow, took so long, didn't it? Well now, if you excuse me, I've got a school flag to sleep with. And boy, does she look slim in that cloth! Haha, and it's not common to hear your classmate say he slept with the school flag! Hee hee! How special!
Assistant Prefect Raemiguel Lee Fusheng, 4th Guardian of the Red Level and Language Arts Representitive of Class 2.10 Dan, signing OUT!.JPG)
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