Not being nationalistic but I've been participating in Singapore related sports and music events for the past week. And I went to the National Stadium/ Indoor stadium for the third time this week today. First time for the Singapore-Australia friendly, second time for S-Pop Concert and today for the Singapore-Lebanon WCQ. All were great experiences.
The Singapore Australia friendly was already mentioned in the previous post so shall not mention more about it. The next day went for the S-Pop concert, thanks to Bin's sis. So many good songs sang by the various singers from Singapore and abroad. Listening to the good voices live is exceptionally satisfying and the more notable singers include JJ Lin, 李圣杰, 李宗盛 and the most popular among the crowd, 萧敬腾. For the benefit of those who had not heard of him, I posted this video of him vs 杨宗维 (another great singer) during 星光大道.
But after all this is a song writing competition, and both songs which made it to the final were great. So it doesn't matter that the 雨伞 which I favoured lost to 发烧. Think the songs would be sold to some renowned singer soon so keep a lookout for it.
Today's trip to watch Singapore-Lebanon match was rather sudden as I was about to be a good floorballer going for training when Derrick tempted me to go and watch the match. And oh well, we were slightly late and missed the first goal :( but at least we managed to catch the second goal. The atmosphere was much better than that during the friendly and Singapore did play some nice soccer during the first half and was 2-0 up during half time. The second half was very typically Singapore though with Singapore playing all out defend, which was totally BORING. There was some good play by Singapore playmaker Shi Jiayi though and I think his vision really rocks. If only my vision in floorball is as good as him...
That's it for my pro-Singapore post, now let's hope Singapore goes through the qualifier :)
It has been an hectic week for me because of the two presentations I had on Thursday. Very untypical of me, to be in school for almost the whole day from last Sunday till Thursday. I still insist that I'm not a mugger, since strictly speaking, I am only completing my assignment and not mugging. After all the hard work and after Thursday, I could really feel the unloading of all the burden and stuff. I am quite proud of myself for the work though. Despite the fact that I had the two presentations on the same day, I still manage to sleep for at least six hours per day during the week. The Biz Law presentation was quite okay in my opinion although I can feel myself smoking through the Q&A. So far all the comments I received from the prof and my peers are quite encouraging. However, for the BGS presentation, I am not that confident though. The feel in the Biz Law and BGS are completely different. In the Biz Law class, I enjoyed the class because I felt that the whole class is learning from each other and as a whole, and everyone is encouraging each other. For the BGS class, I can feel the competitiveness and seems like people are more interested in shooting each other down rather than helping each other. The root of the cause got to be Raj, one of the prof who I hated.
Enough of school work and since it's a short week because it's Good Friday, I realised that I have to enjoy myself after all the hard work in school. So on Good Friday, met up with Team 100 plus minus for Dim Sum buffet at Dragon Gate @ Habourfront Center. Ate till super super full (that was the only meal I ate for the day) although William and Roger claimed that I ate very little. I just have small appetite I suppose.
Proceeded to Caelan's house for a session of Sabourteur. All the mind games played and for one of the game I did something extreme and nobody believed I am a miner. sob. Ben Dan seems to be destined to be a sabourteur for about 5-6 consecutive games during the first round.
The next day went for archery training. Finally upped my poundage to 26lbs. No much difference in strength required but my accuracy improved (although I cannot see the sight and have to guess where the bull's eye is) Perhaps it's just tyconess ba. Bought new arrows too but can only start using them next week. Hopefully it's a worthwhile investment since they cost me $64.15. The sad things that the colours are totally not what I wanted. I wanted red notch, and purple and yellow fletches and ended up with white notch and blue and yellow fletches. If only I can sue Mr. Wee for breach of contract since he said last week that he has all the colours. haha. Anyway will look online (US$ is falling) for the colours I want. Dun think it will take long before I upgrade to a metal bow at this rate : )
Caught up with the green team again at National Stadium for the Australia v Singapore friendly soccer match. Bin and I were around 20mins late for the match as I left the range late and I thought the match will start at 7.30pm. How defensive can Singapore play as most of the time they were having 10men in their own half. Having said that, final score 0-0.
Went for Geylang for entertainment (quoted from Gary) in terms of supper. Had Dim Sum at Lor 17 (despite the fact that some of us had Tim Sum buffet the day before) but at least the variety and style were different. After that proceeded to Lor 27A for 豆浆油条. Guess I had now recharged enough and ready to chiong till the final papers!
Haven't been blogging for some time cause suddenly quite busy with school work. Quite hard to imagine that I will be busy with school work right? Apart from school work, CCA is taking up quite some time as well.
Went for my debut archery competition in the SP Open. Not a very pleasant experience for the whole of the team though not just because we did not manage to win anything, but due to many other reasons as well. For myself, first thing my sight is too protruding so I have to shift it just before the competition start and for the sighters rounds I actually sighted wrongly, so that my arrows always head towards the bottom of the board. By the time I realised my stupid mistake it's far too late. So for the first round I shot my personal low of 227, which is more than 50 points lower than my training average. Second round I shot near my average at 275, but after adjusting down my sight, it doesn't hold anymore, so after I shoot a couple of arrows my sight will drop down and I have to re-fix it again, super sian. So with my final score of 502, I got a ranking of 48/70 which is actually super bad. Quite surprise I did not get last 10 though with my first round score.
Went back on the 2nd day to support my team. Mervyn entered the quarter-finals and met the first seed. Tied after 2 rounds and entered sudden death, super exciting and dramatic cause it was raining heavily that time and Mervyn won after the 2nd arrow to enter the semis. Unfortunately, the coach of the 1st seed was quite sore and appealed that Mervyn's string is not allowed. No one could prove that the string is not allowed though it looks different from the normal string and after some arguments the initial decision was to disqualify Mervyn. After an appeal they allowed a rematch after changing the string but no sighters are allowed. After changing the string the sighting will change and all that and they actually expect Mervyn to shoot without sighting. Needless to say, he lost in the rematch. Quite disappointing for SMU as we seriously have the chance to win. Throughout the conflict, many people from other organisations showed their support for us with our sportsmanship and probably the outcome of the competition don't matter anymore. Now I understand why the seniors said in the past that archery is a dirty sport.
For myself, I will be upping my bow poundage this week and I got to improve fast before I totally lose pace of Maurice and Teng Chiat completely. Probably no one will expect me to win anymore after this competition but deep down I know I'll do it one day. Targeting to get a metal bow by June too and I shall have my revenge at my next competition - NUS Open.
Now my work is seriously piling up, unexpectedly. Drew lots for Biz Law today and my group got to present next week. Definitely the worst time possible as I am having my BGS presentation on the same day. AS and Stats homework will be due next week as well. That will put my efficiency to the test and I have to tell myself 'No Issue'. Right now, all I need is sleep. Have been rather easily agitated the past few days due to lack of sleep and that don't feel good. Right now I'm going for the 12hrs sleep that I promise myself. So nitez all!!
Went for Waikiki 2008 yesterday, an outdoor sports event held by SMU at sentosa. Formed a team of handball and a team of soccer with the floorball people to take part in Waikiki. Our handball team was down on luck, being group with the NUS handball team and the SMU handball team. Needless to say, we were totally trashed. NUS beat us 13-0 while the game against the SMU handball team was slightly better, losing 1-9. Played keeper against the SMU handball team but only managed to stop a couple of shots. The worst is when you went out to help in attack and the opponent keeper tried to score from goal to goal and I got to sprint back all the way, most of the time to no avail. Soccer was better though, we manage to qualify through the group stage to the quarter finals (and I kept 3 clean sheets), sadly losing through penalty shootouts.
Despite not winning anything, it was a fun and memorable event and happy that the other floorball team participating in soccer went against the odds and got first runner-ups. Looking forward to Waikiki 2009!
Next on my agenda will be SP Open, my very first archery competition. To think that I'm participating in the standard class for my first competition, I'm not expected to win anything. Did rather well for training today, scoring a personal best of 297, though no where near to medalist standard, it was a good improvement from last week. And a veteran archer gave me some pointers to improve my form and even gave me a free finger sling!! After which I saw my best grouping ever at 10m. That gave me lot of confidence and I'm thankful to him. Now I got to try to do some changes to my form so that I won't hit my arm. As of now I'm more or less addicted to archery. Planning to go training for the next two days despite all the school work I need to do and now I'm enjoying the Youtube videos of the Korean archers.
