Friday, June 01, 2007
After 12 days of not touching my racket, the effect is pretty obvious and it's pretty disgraceful to even talk about it. It's as if I'm not only wasting my own time but also tong's time as well. Yck courts aren't exactly the best of places to start off after such a long rest. I'm certainly not a fan of the courts there but it's good test for the human mind and body. Even after drinking 3 and a half bottles of water, I was still thirsty and it doesn't help that I'm still sweating alot. It's never a good thing to drink too much water even when you're damn thirsty cause you won't be able to play well with a stomach full of water.
Drinking enough will do. When you're thirsty after a long game and when the tongue is very dry, I don't just gulp down the whole bottle of water. I will sip a bit of the water and let my tongue get used to the wet condition first. Spit it out and then carry on drinking slowly. Don't punish your body by forcing water down your throat. This is certainly not nonsense because it has been proven that it works. People who watch soccer will know what I mean. Whenever a player is down, their teammates will take the opportunity to get a quick sip of water. The first sip is always being spitted out.
Within 30 mins of being inside the court, I was sweating like there is no tomorrow. I suddenly question myself as to whether I'm unfit and the court condition cruelly exposes my lack of match fitness and it's as I've got no ball sense. If you don't volley or miss the first chance you have to hit the ball, the ball just skids out of your path and there's no turning back. You just lost a point. This amount of time spent on squash is just nice, not too much because I really want to enjoy this sport and not having to dread playing it one day. On the other hand, it was good seeing jeff come down and join us a for a short game. Considering what he has been going through currently, coming down to yck to take a breather is good. It's like I haven't seen him for a few weeks and he certainly looks better with that neat and tidy haircut. "Where's Park Ji Sung?" The old jeff really looked like him.
I've recently discovered that I've got another friend who's affected by the unsw pullout. He's still considering his options and if he doesn't leave Singapore, he will be heading to SIM. Actually all 3 of them were from acs(I) last time and there is another(which makes it a 4th) but I don't know him personally. He was from 4.5 last time(just 2 classes down from me). Maybe you've seen him in the straits times. He's called Jonathan Chan. Whatever happens, these people deserve better and hopefully they will be able to find the universities that will suit them.
I'm a big fan of the straits times forum and it's amazing how I used to bypass that section when I was younger, dismissing it as a boring section of the paper. Now I read it to get first hand experience of the most up to date official "gossip" of Singapore. It's the section that teachers all wanted you to read to learn how to write a letter or learn the usage of certain words since you were young. The trend moves on weekly with topics covering from the rise in dengue cases, closure of unsw and how tough it is for people nowadays to secure a place in one of Singapore's local universities etc. In the "Bouquet" section, you get to see that Singaporeans do have a sense of compassion and they're certainly very helpful. They're not as bad as most people make them out to be.
I finally plucked up my courage and managed a weak smile, a simple handshake a "hi" to the nyp girl who trains at yck every wednesday. At the end of the day, I'm still human and even though I'm 21 years of age already, I am still shy and I will be. It's not easy to say hi to a complete stranger, not to mention that the stranger is a girl. Sometimes I just don't know why I have the courage to do these kind of stuff but I guess at the end of the day, be it a girl or guy, I will still want to widen my social circle. Whatever happens, I'm happy to have a new friend. I don't know her well enough but from the few conversations that we had, you can tell she has a nice character. Life is pretty amazing, from a weekly squash affair with my friends at yck, I can end up getting to know a girl from out of nowhere.
Sometimes, I think I don't even deserve to know such nice people.
