Yay, today's my first Dragonboating Training session this year, and it's been a long time since I tortured myself along with the others at Kallang! But I'll come to that later...
The day starts with going to school with the new 'dragonboat seat' I asked my parents to buy for me. It's not really meant to be a dragnboat seat (Hey, it was from Ikea...) but it's designs and material (something foam-related, I think) is suppose to help sustain a better grip between you and the real dragonboat seat. Besides, who'd want to constantly struggle to avoid slipping off the fiber-glass slabs at a time like a dragonboat competition?
Anyway, made my way to the gym to do the ussual 5 sets of chin-ups. Had an interesting conversation with Leon, Kenneth, Eugine and Mr. See, which involved topics from the problems the school faces in its timetables to the type of tans we each have. Mr. See was trying to tell us how our tans ussually transist to white from the rist onwards, and asked me if he was right. I removed my watch to reveil the distinct watch tan I had and so Mr. See imitated the famous Japanese animae-based 'triple sweat'.
He told me that he also had the same thing once during his teenhood, but with more bands so it looked like a result from Agarose Gel Electrophoresis, then went on telling us the different types of crazy tans he's seen throughout his canoeing life, like the one where a senior kept on smearing the words 'ACS' on his arm using sun tan lotion before every training session until after a few months the letters were permanantly imprinted on his arm. Oh, and also the one where another senior was so fat, he had flabs around his body when he sat in a canoe and thus by the time he got out of the boat he had stripes of white all over his abdomen.
The many stories you can get out of Mr. See!
But despite the talk-and-walk sessions, we all still did our 5 sets, me doing a 12-10-9-7-5. Then I remembered I promised Hao Qing I'd tell Mr. See he couldn't make it today for the dragonboat training because of CIP. He then told me to tell HQing to still turn up for training if he had his gear with him, and that he'll deal with the teacher-in-charge of the CIP. Ah, well.
Left the gym and went to class to meet up with the point10ers, until Assembly when I had to chase them out altogether. Question mark.
After assembly was PC, which I later found out was to be spent on the watching of any film of the class' choice. That explained the missed call I recieved from Tim last night, as he wanted to ask me to bring PotC: Curse of the Black Pearl. Good thing, though, was that Joel brought his disc sowe also ended up watching the show anyway. After a few class matters were settled, we sat around the projector screen and began to watch the show.
ZRong was just behind me, and threatened to jab me if I got over-excited on the ships in the show. Okay, maybe I should just clarify a few things here. I admit, I love ships for their designs and interpretations of freedom. I admit, that's one of the few reasons why I love canoeing/dragonboating. I admit, that's also why I find interest in PotC to a high level. I even dare admit, that's why I pray that when I retire into my 60s, I'd have owned a yatch, a sail boat at the minimum.
BUT, but but but, I'm not MADly in love with ships to the extent that I'd die for them. I'll stare at a model of a cruise liner for a few minutes or so, but if I have something to attend to I wouldn't hesitate to move off for whatever it is. And I'm NOT the No. 1 PotC fan. True, I'd pay for my ticket to watch the movie even if it'll cost the worst (And in Singapore, the worst is ussually $9). But I'm not the 'NO. ONE fan' - more like the No. Sixth-million-fifty-seventh-thousand-eighth-hundred-and-fourty-second fan. So don't blame me for madness over ships; I may have a fever or two, but NOT a madness. If you need to blame me for a madness, blame me for being mad over Christ.
Anyway, after the show, we had P Sci, where we wer being briefed on the P Sci 'Show-And-Tell' project, and the different subjects available for us to Show-and-Tell about. Just as I was abut to walk over to ZRong's table to meet up with the group I promised to join (Shil, ZRong and me), JKit popped by and told me to join him and Tim. By the sound of that, I got confused and wanted to explain myself when ZRong also popped in and debatd his point that he reserved me first. Tim then came in to argue that he reserved me yesterday, tricking ZRong into counter-attacking with the excuse of reserving me a couple of days ago, when we all knew that the project was only announced yesterday.
I stood there watching. And if I were an animae character, I would have had a couple of sweat droplets running down my left cheek already. But soon, Tim gave in and ZRong dragged me along to his table to show me his research (which started last year, to be technical).
We then had free-period (LA'B'). Erm...
PE was just schocking. The ussual routine of choosing between soccer and basketball, I chose basketball since I thought I had my fair share of soccer this week from the class camp. We then divided ourselves over and over again until we ended up satisfied with the groups, and started to play ball. What I find tough about basketball is that the ball has an extra coupleof directions to move - Up or Down. In other words, the difference between Soccer and Basketball is that the ball moves in a 2-D and 3-D formation respectively.
And I find it hard to keep track of the ball in this case, especially when there's half the class also influencing the movement and direction of the ball. Thus what I decided to do was just to chase after the ball and see if I could do anything, but quickly move away from the ball when you see that someone in your team who is more professional in the sport, e.g. Michael, so as not to block his better plan.
Well, at least I touched the ball once, and that's all I need to know to be satisfied. But the mere fact that I once saw almost the entire class play basketball together - even the geeky, the unfit and the undetermined (basically, those you never expected) - I'm just frightened that I'm lagging back in this area. The thought that I'm just an additional player placed there just to keepthe game fair lerks in once in a rather long while, and the certainty that I'm not alone in this view starts to decrease within the period of thinking. But it ussually flings back up when I remind myself of God, and that He'll never abandon me through the things I go through, no matter what. That's why I never feel 100% alone anytime.
Later in the day, we also had to attend to the Lee something something Speaker of the Year Awards (Chinese), of which, through my constant observations over the many people around me, I knew not many could understand a word the speakers were saying. But for one of the items performed to kill time during the wait for the judges' decisions, __________ was involved in a _________, and for once he looked very impressive! He was very fluent on the stage, and I made the greatest of efforts to catch the punchlines he opened. Very funny, I must say, esspecially the part where they were making fun of translators (人山人海 = People Mountain, People Ocean; Haha!). Man, I'm gonna congradulate that guy next fall-in...
Dismissed at 3, I quickly rushed to the classroom to get my bags (and seat) and headed down to the bus bay, leaving my bags (and seat) there along with the other team members and dasking through the SAC to hurrily buy a Lotus Bao. But watching through the window that my team suddenly leave for the bus, I had to shove the whole bao down my mouth and rush for my ags just in the nick of time.
Speaking of nick, I had to sit at the back of the bus with Nick Lam because al the other seats were taken up with due lateness of arrival. Yay! For those who don't know, the back seats are ussually reserved for the Year 4 and above and the Club Committee, including Captain, Vice-Captain, ex-Comm and etc.! So I had the chance to sit beside the high-level guys in the team and watch them in their cheekiest of colours! Praise the Lord!
During the drive to the Sports Center, Mr. See was checking each and everyone of us if we brought our water bottles. And for a place like Kallang, a simple 500ml Ice Mountain bottle is concidered as mere pathetic. Sir specifically specified for 2L bottles during the last training, so no one had much of an excuse to not buy a bottle. But apparently, I forgot to buy myself one, so I had to fearfully wait for Mr. See to pass by and look at me.
Watching him slap the people before me who've not brought their bottles, I squinted my eyes and prepared myself for the slap too. When Sir saw me, he lightly slapped my cheek and moved along after a sarcastic joke in place of a warning. Phew, that was close. And a good thing that it was drissling then, as that would mean that the seawater would have been diluted already by the time we arrived there for training, thus I wouldn't dehidrate as badly as under the scortching mid-summer sun or surrounded by high salt-content. Double phew.
Also on board the bus, it was discovered that Joshua Wu brought alond 3 pairs of sunglasses and a pair of ski goggles along with him for this training. When Mr. See saw this, he immediately went towards his seat, shouting, "EVIL! EVIL! Those things are EVIL! Put them back in your bag! You are not bringing those EVIL things onboard the dragonboats! They're just EVIL! EVIL, I tell you! EVIL!" Very ammusing watching Mr. See bonce around the bus like a cartoon character!
When we arrived at the same place we've always gone to for Dragonboating each year, memories flooded my eyes. (Wah, so chim one ah.) The sky was still drissling, so the soil was damp like MacRitchie's. The smell of rotten eggs still lingered in the air like yesteryear, a good reminder of the struggles we had to go through in the past, what struggles we should sustain in the present and what struggles we should strive for in the future. The boats were almost as good as untouched since the last time I came, and a couple of bails were required for the boats we reserved for ourseleves.
After storing our belongings in Mr. See shed and getting our paddles and life jackets, we were then assigned to the different seats available on the boat. I'm at present sitting at the second row, along side Eugine. How ammusing. We then went down the moss-slippery steps to the pontoon below and boarded the boats the traditional way, which was to hold all the boats together until you made a 'raft' of un-used boats between your group and the boat your group is taking (the one at the furthest edge). Once the Year 1s had a hang of this method of boarding, we were ready to disembark, after Leon (front row, along with Nick Ng) finishes tieing away the knot that strings us to the pontoon.
We had a slack training today, paddling around the river from the Indoor Stadium to the Benjamin Shearse Bridge, and with Mr. See floating around us in his special canoe giving us pointers here and there. A good way to start off our Dragonboating Season. For those who want to know what it feels like to train in or shoes, here's what ussually happens. We'd ussually paddle in sets of 500m, and throughout the sessions, the 5 main commands you need to be alert for are "Ready, Go!", "Easy!", "Hold Water!", "Draw Water!" and "Back Water!" - commands either than that are ussually related to these five, so they'd be explained after a related main command is said.
And to maintain a good rhythm in the boat (for no one likes, as Mr. See would call it, 'A floating spastic caterpillar on drugs') we have to count every stroke we paddle as a team. The two ways of counting are Numbers and Long Hard, Pull Hard. For Numbers, you'd simply count, "1... 2... 3..." all the way to "9... 10, Go 1... 2... 3..." and it repeats itself until the coxen says "Easy!". For Long Hard, Pull Hard, well it's basically like counting "Left, Right" in marching, just that more intense. So It'll be like;
Starboard Deck: Long hard!
Port Deck: Pull hard!Starboard Deck: Long hard!
Port Deck: Pull hard!Starboard Deck: Long hard!
Port Deck: Pull hard!And so on until, like Numbers, the coxen says "Easy!". But the thing about Long Hard, Pull Hard is that after paddling intensely for over an hour, your mouth starts to feel numb and you end up saying something within the lines of;
Starboard Deck: Bongard!
Port Deck: Poo hard!Starboard Deck: Bongard!
Port Deck: Poo hard!Starboard Deck: Bongard!
Port Deck: Poo hard!So the cheap-thrills onboard the boat are still sustained. Hee hee...
When we returned to shore to return the paddles and life jacks, we did the ussual warm-down at the carpark area, then a debrief from the coaches before being dismissed. When we got our bags back, what shocked all of us was that there were new and improved showers installed at the back of the toilets! It's just something unlike the old Kallang I knew! And I loved it! Now, I could rinse myself without the discomfort of being exposed to others and the threat of accidentally bringing home someone else's clothes!
Once rinsed, I made my way to Kallang MRT Station with the rest of the canoeinrs heading the same way, and boarded a train to Orchard to meet up with my Dad. We then went to the Popular in Orchard MRT Station and searched for a new shelf for my room so I could sort out my worksheets in my room better.
After the purchase, we went to the car to fetch Mom at her office, and gave a ride for one of her colleagues.
Wow, what a tiring day. Ah, well. 1 Chronicles 4:10! God bless y'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............
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