haha yay we qualified for interhouse waterpolo finals on the 11th!

i seriously didnt think we would do very well in the interhouse waterpolo competition after the rule change and everything but we all fought our hardest, and despite not having the strongest team, only having one sec 4 swimmer whos not exactly the strongest (but definitely the most skilful of all the sec 4 swimmers), and filling the team with sec 2 swimmers. haha so our entry to the final was quite unexpected to say the least, and i think i was quite on form too. and we had a surprise package in mateusz benedict our foreign talent player from poland who doesnt train waterpolo but shoots like a pro hahaha well good job to bayley!


first match was hullett vs bayley. score: 0-4

it was good to play the supposedly weakest team (sorry guys from hullett) first because it gave our team a chance to gel and a chance to get into the groove, to get a feel of the ball. so we ended winning by a comfortable margin of 4-0 and got everyone into the game, starting to feel the ball and pass the ball around. haha highlight of the game as a keeper was when suddenly out of the blue jonny just rammed a shot damn top corner then i wasnt paying attention! luckily i was able to jump and tip it out or else id be embarrassed! hahaha


second match was morrison vs bayley. score: 2-3

this was the toughest match of all, because it pitted our sec 2 swimmers against their sec 4 swimmers, with the school players from both sides very evenly matched. on the bayley team was me and tom, keeper and centreback, whilst on the other team was brian he and shangcong, keeper and centreforward. haha so quite evenly matched but although at the start their sec 4 swimmers came in droves and overwhelmed us, our sec 2 swimmers edene, justin, kenneth and wenwei coped well and put in solid defensive performances. however, they did not count on mateusz who scored from almost half court area to equalise after we had gone down by 1 goal early on. then morrison got awarded a penalty and i was unable to stop jianying from scoring from that penalty. then tom equalised and right at the death, we nicked the win when i just crazily rammed the ball across the pitch without trying to lob or anything, just power it and it bounced quite luckily past brian. ful court goal ftw! and it ended up being the winning goal :) very proud of the guys who rallied from being 1 goal down at each time to eventually win the match!


next match was buckley vs bayley. score: 2-2

this match was the match we arguably played our worst. and we are gonna face buckley again in the final and i think they kinda figured out our gameplan already so we might be at a disadvantage in the finals but heck we are gonna pia! haha brandon scored and ornan scored before tom equalised with two goals of his own, the last coming in the last few seconds. haha and i saved brandon's lob and top corner bounce! hahaha :P our sec 2 swimmers again were superb defensively and completely shut out the people they were supposed to be marking during the second quarter. great job guys!


last match was moor vs bayley. score: 0-5

we had to at least draw this match to be sure of progressing to the final and boy, was this a classic. classic showdown between the two houses who were fighting for a place in the final. this match was a match we could not lose and mateusz made sure of it. he scored 2 goals in the first quarter and ziyao added another magnificent goal of his own to go 3-0 up by the end of the first quarter. by then, things started to get dirty. jiahao started to go on a rampage and started whacking people, and causing people to get hurt. apparently, moor team was quite incensed by the fact that i did not help them pick a ball that was about 2m away from me and pass it to them. haha how naive to think that way... when it is an opponent's foul the very first and foremost thing you should do is to raise both hands to show that you are not touching their ball, if you touch it (at nationals), you get ejected straight away. so i wasnt gonna commit that mistake nor was i about to give them an advantage by passing it to them... anyway we went 4-0 up and i started to slow down the tempo, passing the ball around my defence before it was passed back to me again and jiahao just chionged at me, i took foul, and he elbowed my face, our eyes connected he looked at me i looked at him, then he punched me in the stomach. like wtf man. anyway i forgive him i wont hold grudges because i know that when it comes to a game, people like him are very competitive but outside of it, we are friends. so im okay with it. anyway we eventually won 5-0 mateusz scored 4, ziyao scored 1. haha so we got into final this way.


many people see it as if we do not deserve to be in the finals. but i tell you why we do deserve. perhaps other people are sore that we do not have the strongest team of players but we still got into the finals. we had half a team of sec 2 swimmers, a player who did not swim nor play waterpolo, a sec 4 swimmer and two school waterpolo players. we did not seem strong individually but we played well as a team and we fought hard as individuals, and no one can claim that we do not deserve a place in the final (without lying or being dumb). we played a direct gameplan (my gameplan! very pro right...), played like chelsea (though i dont like them), and won our matches. contrary to what others think, we did not bend nor break the rules we just played by them and sometimes, we were lucky to have gotten favourable decisions by the ref. but hey, not our fault you cant fault us on that maybe its because we play totally non-violent waterpolo thats why decisions go our way most of the time.. after all its interhouse and we are not supposed to whack one another underwater or something like that right! anyway, we are in the final! see you on 11th may :)

and btw, omg i can do 31sec for 50 free! hahaha considering i dont train swimming, nor do i swim during polo trainings (i just tread water all day long), it is a good timing!

hahaha goodbye.

you know, ive always wondered... two years down the road, three years down, 10 years down. will what i have done in waterpolo here in raffles affect what will be done throughout those years? will i leave a lasting legacy? how has my involvement in waterpolo for raffles changed or shaped the cca for what it is today and what it will become tomorrow?

one of the practices of The Leadership Challenge is to leave a legacy, and i wonder what legacy i have left or what legacy i can leave for my juniors to continue or to surpass. it strikes me that having given up 4-5 days a week of my life for 2 years just to train waterpolo, i havent had anything to show for it, i havent left anything behind to allow others to follow. what legacy have i left or what legacy can i leave?

i wonder, what i have trained so hard for 2 years for. to get suaned by a stupid musical group who get top 20 in singapore while we got 4th in singapore? why, even outram are better than them they got 6th in singapore! why did i train so hard for 2 years?

everytime i think about it i get so damned pissed like who gave them the bloody right to criticise our achievements. by criticising our achievements they are in turn criticising our efforts, our process. who are they to bloody criticise us when we train at least 5 times a week and they? they stepped up their training to a very intensive 3 times a week during holidays WOW im so impressed laaaa

its just insensitive people like these who get me down. just when i thought i was accepting it for what it is when such comments came in that really hurt me it brought back all the pain that i had experienced thats why i so damn hate you you understand or not you retard. gold so what i dont give a shit you are only top 20 in singapore but we are top 4 in singapore no basis for comparison at all.

im pissed.

i love being raffles! 3 golds in 2 days who says our sports suck?

SEE THAT CO? we sports are more than capable of achieving gold, and this gold is achieved by being the top school in the nation, not just one of the 20+ schools who got gold (according to a friend) hahah go ri sports groups and syf groups!

yesterday, our table tennis c boys won us our first REAL gold of the year, after battling to a 3-1 win over cat high in the final! yaye for those guys who were involved they really did us proud, especially c boys bringing back our first gold. then today it was us b boys' turn to turn on the style, winning the cross country b div gold and trampoline b div gold! hahah come on ri sportsmen, these successes are for all of you! and in sports, if you are in the top 4 in the country, you get 4th. but for CO... even though their chairman pointed out they got gold, their gold is gotten from being the top 20 in country. wow impressive! (to cake: sorry man this last time k!)

anyway nice one guys i love raffles! this is the feeling of being raffles man. anyway looks like holiday is forthcoming from the ever generous mr mag (who is very handsome if he ever chances upon this blog so that he would give us more half days)

and today i went to swim tons and tons at my condo pool! okay it was tons and tons for me since i hate swimming laps but for swimmers its chicken feet but hey im still training myself to have even stronger stamina so i can last at my peak for all four quarters during a game rather than getting fatigued hahaha

yeah rimb didnt get honours! like walaoooo how can that be.

i think our batch of raffles is screwing up quite badly now i dont know why sports quite bad now even musical groups quite bad. haha co have been celebrating like mad that they got gold (when theres always this prize called gold with honours) but theirs isnt really an achievement considering that gold is shared by like 20+ schools and i heard from a very "credible" source that this year gold standard is like last syf's silver standard. yup. proud for what? suan us sports groups for what? go to hell la you all have no standard no basis of comparison with us. we sports group are top 4 in country top 6 in country. CO? top 20+ in country. OMG IMPRESSIVE LAAAA

today i went to look for the mr leo guy the psychologist after putting it off for so long because like even when i look like im already okay but i cant get over waterpolo. no more dream, nothing else to fight for. and the thing that i fought for we eventually screwed it up so i went to look for that psychologist guy to talk to then he talk talk talk about it well it was rather good la haha i think hes a cool guy! then he gave me some help in trying to get over the loss of the season and stuff like that so it was good!

today's math test i think i screwed it up because i didnt really practice much. i practiced abit during tuition but that was all! haha i spent yesterday studying time staring at equations trying to memorise them and today i spent my time to study staring at those same equations because i realised that i forgot most of the equations after a good night's rest HAHA well so i guess i didnt do very well la. if i pass, id say id be fortunate. i didnt calculate how many marks i lost already cos that would be quite demoralising hahaha

today i went back to train again i realised i lost quite abit of my sharpness already and interhouse is this friday! AHHHH hahaha anyway if i cant regain the sharpness then i let kaiyu play la nevermind i dont play after all kaiyu never played interhouse polo before let him play lor :) im so nice! haha

okay anyway cheer up all rimb guys la you all worked hard for this already the standard of gold is like the standard of honours in last year's syf so dont worry okay you all worked hard put in your best so have no regrets! : D STUPID CO. i think CO sucks (with the exception of cake)

yups! im still #1! we're still number 1!

bastard.

congrats rj! fantastic win over hwachong la in the final like totally steamrolled them... 5-1 the final score hahaha and it was mainly due to the gulf in keepers... clement in hwachong goal vs yihong in rj goal... you think who better? now that i wont say of course :)

anyway fantastic achievement la and congrats to all rj players, especially zhizhi hanson nicky weejin sean! the fantastic j1 batch that led us last year into battle. seeing you all win is like winning it myself i feel your joy, i feel your happiness. its just so infectious and i want to have it too!

4th is not enough la 4th is like shit like that dont train 2 years also can get 4th! but hahaha you give me 3rd i also dont want 3rd or 4th to me also same, worthless. i wanted to play in final today la... i wanted to play very very much but then again, we were deprived of this chance because of certain cheats... -----> hint: winners of the tournament arent usually the team with the most integrity.

it just took everything out of me, everything.

every single year, i have to be strong. strong for what? it was a dream i had, i dream i cherished for 2 whole freaking years, a dream our team fought for for two whole years. two damn years. two damn years i had this dream, to play in front of hundreds of my schoolmates at ccab, to win that gold for my school. two damn freaking long years.

typical. it never happened. luck, lousy refereeing, all played a part. it is tough to always come up short, when you know you have the ability to make a serious impact. its tough to have to be strong. last year i fought for my senior's batch when faith was shown in me and i was called to action against barker. i fought my best but lost and i cried my heart out.

but this year, it was my last chance. i really gave it my all, i never spared anything, nothing could take anything away from me. but it still wasnt enough. maybe its just me, maybe im not good enough.

this team is great. our teamwork is great, our trust for one another is unbelievable, and we just have the faith that every member of the team has the ability to bail another out in times of difficulty. but it just didnt happen, why? shit you ref, whitehaired idiot.

past two days, ive been crying like nobody's business. its tough to accept the reality, that my dream has been shattered. nothing is left of it, nothing to show of it. it has taken everything out of me. i feel like a wandering sheep, lost from its herd and without a shepherd to show it the way, i feel aimless, like nothing to drive myself towards. its tough, real tough.

today, i cried in school too. i went to hand up my chinese essay on "meng yuan", which is about your dreams and ideals and some crap, and in there i just wrote everything i felt into that piece of paper, which really lightened my burden. after that i went to hand up to teacher at her staff room, then she read it and started talking to me about my season. then i started crying because i just couldnt accept the truth that this dream of mine, this dream which i have sacrificed everything for, these 2 years of my life that i have spent just for this chance, has just been shattered. lucky got only two of us in the corridor if not i damn paiseh leh.

i hate being a keeper. as a keeper, you will be the one who feels the most guilt, who takes it upon yourself to earn the team results. you expect that much from yourself, yet sometimes, it is just too much. im tired, im really tired. i dont know whether i still want that number 1 over my head, or is going without it a more viable option. i dont know.

my future remains unclear. and my confidence is broken.

its gonna be a rough time for me this year.

i just cant sleep. im disturbed. all the what ifs running through my head.

you know what?

i had a dream... and it shattered. right in front of my face today.

haha okay sorry guys HAPPY APRIL FOOLS!

gonna fight tomorrow. make them shit blood (oh no this has a sick connotation)

sorry guys i think i hurt my foot leh. wtf and tomorrow is acsi how!

should i just try to play through the pain barrier tomorrow? i really want to play... damn it sorry guys i failed all of you!