For today, we had Dragonboating training at Kallang. My Dad dropped me off at the entrance of the sports centre and oh, good ol' memories startes flooding back. I know this is my third session this year already, but it's been a long time since I've seen Kallang under the morning sun.
Everyone else who came earlier were seated along the sea wall with Mr. See, while everyone was waiting for Mr. Goh to come to unlock the gate. When he finally came, he unlocked the gates one by one, followed by us rushing into place our bags into the wooden cage to be (un)safely locked up. We were then told that the day would start off with running.
Joon Kiet was rather pale from the sound of that, so he asked me how far we were going to run, in hope that I'd tell him something slack and comfortable. To his disapointment, I pointed to the Benjamin Sheares bridge and told him that that would only be our turning point (In other words, we had to do double the distance). Then Joseph came in and told about how he remembered the Sec 2 seniors of last year had to run all the way to the Esplanade and back.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Doesn't that make us the Sec 2 seniors this year?"
JKiet quickly started saying "No!" in great hopes that he was right tosay so, but to his dismay Joseph was right. No, we weren't going to run all the way to the 'Durians' themselves. We'd run all the way to the second half of the Ben Shearse bridge, but that's nevertheless painful. And coming from me, that means it really hurts.
Good thing, though, was that JKiet survived the run. Yay! But Samuel didn't. So much for 50% attendance, Mr. See would say. Poor guy. Once back, we all took off our shoes and exchanged them for our water bottles and seats. We then divided ourselves into the 'A', 'B' and 'C' Divisions, so as to make it easier for Mr. Goh to assign us our boats for today.
There was a shortage of "B' Div, while there was (as always) extras from the 'C' Div, so Nick Ng and Leon went over to their boat. And that leaves Eugene and me to be the front rowers. And front rowers always break water. ('Breaking water' refers to having the first strokes on water surfaces. You see, in a theory, people at the front of the boat paddle still water towards the back of the boat to pull the boat forward, and while the people at the back are suppose to do the same thing, they end up pulling 'moving' water since the front rowers have already pulled on it.)
'Ah, that's gonna hurt.' The common thought Eugene and I had.
But somehow, I think we also survived this one. I might have sped off at a few moments, but at least we survived. And we even beated the 'B' Division boat by 1.5 boatlengths! But after the races, Mr. Goh floated pass our boat (he was onboard the 'B' div boat) and told us not to feel to lucky, because we were actually using the lightest and fastest boat in Kallang at that time. Wow, an honour!
It was rather interesting seeing all three coaches standing at the front of the dragonboats while we were racing - Mr. Ismail on the 'C' div, Mr. Goh on the 'B' div and Mr. See on the 'A' div (of which Mr. See commented was the first obease team he had to train in his whole canoeing life) - all of them like a General Washington of their own, posing like frozen chess pieces stuck on the bows and shouting back to us mistakes we might end up commiting. Rather interesting, if you ask me.
Once we were done with the training, we had a short debrief on what and what not to bring to Kallang the next time we train here. After that, Mr. See went to unlock the cage, and we got the bags out for us to shower. I forgot to bring my plastic bag to store my wet clothes, so I wrapped my towel around the things, a mistkae I was soon to realise.
I made my way to the MRT station for a train to Dover, where I took a bus towards Joel's house for the History group meeting. But then I checked my watch and saw that I still had over an hour left before the meeting time, minusing the time it'll take to walk from te main road to wherever depts Joel's condo may be. So I decided to go and have lunch at KAP before moving back to the place.
JKitt called up a few times during the whole trip. Some calls about purchasing of guns, some about where to meet and even one about whether he could meet me at KAP for lunch too. After my meal, I headed straight back for Joel's place, of which I met JKitt at the junction between Clementi and the road which Joel's condominium is at on the other end.
We journeyed our way to the edge of the road, as far as it could take us, until we found the semi-curved buildings which housed Joel in one of its appartments. We called for Joel, of which he responded by meeting us down there at the bottom of the building to guide us back up to his house. At his house, we met up with his granny and bro before making our way to his room.
Then the first part of the meeting started. Games. Wait, games? Command and Conquer, yeah games. JKit and Joel were enjoying one game before we could start, and so while waiting Shil (who arrived about 15 minutes later) and I went to the off-pitch piano to play a few scores before we were called in by Joel to start the meeting.
When we were gathered, all I could ask was fort he effects of the software Joel would be using to edit the videos. Rather nice tricks int here, I must say. At least I now know that some of my scenes can be made possible. But automatically after that, we had nothing much else left to talk about, so Joel and JKit continued playing again for th erest of the 'meeting'.
I felt so bored. I mean, most of the time when I say, "I'm bored.", I ussually mean "I'm bored, but I still have imagination and creativity in my head to entertain me!" (so even when I look bored, I'm most of the time actually rather entertained), but this time, even my imagination didn't know what to play around with. I literally went mad in the boredom, so I won't go to detail on the horrifying things I did for the remaining hours. And Matt (Joel's bro) made things slightly worse.
When it was all over, and Shil, JKit and I walked our way out and towards the other side of the road (again), I was starting to regain my sanity bit by bit again, so I was breathing somewhat calmly again.
When I got back home, I quickly went to the Bible and prayed to the Lord for something that will regain my full sanity again (hey, after four hours of madness...)
And I had 2 Chronicles 20:17;
Everyone else who came earlier were seated along the sea wall with Mr. See, while everyone was waiting for Mr. Goh to come to unlock the gate. When he finally came, he unlocked the gates one by one, followed by us rushing into place our bags into the wooden cage to be (un)safely locked up. We were then told that the day would start off with running.
Joon Kiet was rather pale from the sound of that, so he asked me how far we were going to run, in hope that I'd tell him something slack and comfortable. To his disapointment, I pointed to the Benjamin Sheares bridge and told him that that would only be our turning point (In other words, we had to do double the distance). Then Joseph came in and told about how he remembered the Sec 2 seniors of last year had to run all the way to the Esplanade and back.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Doesn't that make us the Sec 2 seniors this year?"
JKiet quickly started saying "No!" in great hopes that he was right tosay so, but to his dismay Joseph was right. No, we weren't going to run all the way to the 'Durians' themselves. We'd run all the way to the second half of the Ben Shearse bridge, but that's nevertheless painful. And coming from me, that means it really hurts.
Good thing, though, was that JKiet survived the run. Yay! But Samuel didn't. So much for 50% attendance, Mr. See would say. Poor guy. Once back, we all took off our shoes and exchanged them for our water bottles and seats. We then divided ourselves into the 'A', 'B' and 'C' Divisions, so as to make it easier for Mr. Goh to assign us our boats for today.
There was a shortage of "B' Div, while there was (as always) extras from the 'C' Div, so Nick Ng and Leon went over to their boat. And that leaves Eugene and me to be the front rowers. And front rowers always break water. ('Breaking water' refers to having the first strokes on water surfaces. You see, in a theory, people at the front of the boat paddle still water towards the back of the boat to pull the boat forward, and while the people at the back are suppose to do the same thing, they end up pulling 'moving' water since the front rowers have already pulled on it.)
'Ah, that's gonna hurt.' The common thought Eugene and I had.
But somehow, I think we also survived this one. I might have sped off at a few moments, but at least we survived. And we even beated the 'B' Division boat by 1.5 boatlengths! But after the races, Mr. Goh floated pass our boat (he was onboard the 'B' div boat) and told us not to feel to lucky, because we were actually using the lightest and fastest boat in Kallang at that time. Wow, an honour!
It was rather interesting seeing all three coaches standing at the front of the dragonboats while we were racing - Mr. Ismail on the 'C' div, Mr. Goh on the 'B' div and Mr. See on the 'A' div (of which Mr. See commented was the first obease team he had to train in his whole canoeing life) - all of them like a General Washington of their own, posing like frozen chess pieces stuck on the bows and shouting back to us mistakes we might end up commiting. Rather interesting, if you ask me.
Once we were done with the training, we had a short debrief on what and what not to bring to Kallang the next time we train here. After that, Mr. See went to unlock the cage, and we got the bags out for us to shower. I forgot to bring my plastic bag to store my wet clothes, so I wrapped my towel around the things, a mistkae I was soon to realise.
I made my way to the MRT station for a train to Dover, where I took a bus towards Joel's house for the History group meeting. But then I checked my watch and saw that I still had over an hour left before the meeting time, minusing the time it'll take to walk from te main road to wherever depts Joel's condo may be. So I decided to go and have lunch at KAP before moving back to the place.
JKitt called up a few times during the whole trip. Some calls about purchasing of guns, some about where to meet and even one about whether he could meet me at KAP for lunch too. After my meal, I headed straight back for Joel's place, of which I met JKitt at the junction between Clementi and the road which Joel's condominium is at on the other end.
We journeyed our way to the edge of the road, as far as it could take us, until we found the semi-curved buildings which housed Joel in one of its appartments. We called for Joel, of which he responded by meeting us down there at the bottom of the building to guide us back up to his house. At his house, we met up with his granny and bro before making our way to his room.
Then the first part of the meeting started. Games. Wait, games? Command and Conquer, yeah games. JKit and Joel were enjoying one game before we could start, and so while waiting Shil (who arrived about 15 minutes later) and I went to the off-pitch piano to play a few scores before we were called in by Joel to start the meeting.
When we were gathered, all I could ask was fort he effects of the software Joel would be using to edit the videos. Rather nice tricks int here, I must say. At least I now know that some of my scenes can be made possible. But automatically after that, we had nothing much else left to talk about, so Joel and JKit continued playing again for th erest of the 'meeting'.
I felt so bored. I mean, most of the time when I say, "I'm bored.", I ussually mean "I'm bored, but I still have imagination and creativity in my head to entertain me!" (so even when I look bored, I'm most of the time actually rather entertained), but this time, even my imagination didn't know what to play around with. I literally went mad in the boredom, so I won't go to detail on the horrifying things I did for the remaining hours. And Matt (Joel's bro) made things slightly worse.
When it was all over, and Shil, JKit and I walked our way out and towards the other side of the road (again), I was starting to regain my sanity bit by bit again, so I was breathing somewhat calmly again.
When I got back home, I quickly went to the Bible and prayed to the Lord for something that will regain my full sanity again (hey, after four hours of madness...)
And I had 2 Chronicles 20:17;
17You will not have to fight this battle. Just take up your positions and wait; you will see the LORD give you victory. People of Judah and Jerusalem, do not hesitate or be afraid. Go out to battle, and the LORD will be with you! "
That made me feel a lot better, and so I ran normally again for the rest of the day. Well, I guess that's about it now. God bless y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment