There's no holding back now , we're close , so close to finality , the one showdown that pretty much define my JC life. (A levels or A'div? choose )
The window is shutting , as i said, there's isnt time to start thinking about what we shouldnt be , despite all that grudging in the past year. Its ok , move on and be happy, maybe there'll be a another time in the future and we can try again . aiyo eh


Its a painful fall no doubt , and it takes sometime to get over with it. The sting remains to remind of that , so you'll just have to work harder.


Give your all , so expected of you.


PA race, so we fought on home ground, we could say its an advantage. Afterall , some say ( i also say) Bedok's water is heavier, more dense, for some unexplained physics theories. BUt its no excuse for letting your guard down. Its hard fought , worthy, very worthy, but its not even the tip of the iceberg. Afterall , not all schools came , its not a big event, RedSports didnt even bothered to cover it .

I did all i could with whatever i can , so i wont really blame the small little screw ups , afterall everyone do screw ups, so do the opponents. We just overcome it. So did i . OK there were ups and downs, I beat some of those whom i targeted out to beat. I held out against others who were well making out their name in the scene.
Maybe i am too . ? :P

Maybe they trembled when they saw my name in the same race list ? Ha its a nice nice dream .

Ok fine , i fought , and by a fluke or slip or scramble of luck ... i did not .. get it ... . That morning , 1st race . It struck me hard. Really hard . Hard enough for me to crush the can of drink i held as i watched the update of the score screen. Hard enough for me to rethink where i stood in this scene.

It painful, i say again , to realise that after everything's said and done, you're just not adequate .

Maybe we could complain that its not really a fair fight, not on even standings, not having a better starting advantage over. After all we use 1 1/2 years to train against most who go on at least 5 years of training.
While not saying that its nothing, hey those years count for something. And it means we have our work cut out for us. And long ago we've realised the cold hard facts .



We're fast. They're just faster . Cos they work hard. And we just have to work harder.

OH yeah we have a camp tmrw. That and again , we come to a stage in which the cycles of last year repeats again, and this time we're sitting in a different perspective. For once , we are not strangers like we used to be , this time last year. Stronger people, higher expectations, and its not really that hard to see the progress we've come by.

On a very random note, wheeeeling joined the class in the past week, and appears to be doing surprisingly well for someone who's ripped from a class whom have spent an entire year with. Being put into , well not a very lively class, and not a very hardworking class. Aye commendation goes to her for being strong!


Which when everyone's growing up, physically , emotionally as well, going through the ups and downs of life.
Random things happens all around the week. SC came to talk to me about her problems with her BF and things like that, and while i've become more than the brash childish CAT HIGH guy since the last time we met, its still doesnt feels right enough. For that i cant say anything thats somewhat useful, some cheap consolation about guy's perspective and suggestions and random comments. Bringing it closer to the heart, makes me kinda realised how prepared i am to handle issues like this.
(Note: it doesnt mean I'm gay, its just i'm not as ready as i would think i am to be)

So yah, dun take me for granted, as in , dun think i'm here forever. heh



Video analysis today !
And its quite interesting , because finally after so much viewing of toehrs paddling, doing storkes and learning technique, finally we get to see ourselves in the water from a thrid point perspective. Comparing that to the video i have of myself from last year july race, a lot have been since .

Call me ego haha, but i like to see myself paddling.

I like to see myself breaking through, i like to see a dream come to pass, that when a certain race is won, and that winner is myself. And i like to think about it, dream about it, believe in it.

I'm not the fittest around, i definitely cant run as fast as some around me can, i dun have the stamina boost, i dun have the muscle strength and endurance.

I , have a dream, and that , holds for everything i can achieve, right now, and maybe in the future.

Cos now as we look back at the time that passed , its a luminous flash , that , well doesnt really felt that it has been well lived. But its time passed nonetheless , and face the fact, time, is running out.

For schoolwork, because with each passing day mean new syllabus being taught, more homework, done or undone (or not intended to be done) comes haunting every student. And the deadline for submission for the JC life ,ie. the A levels, stalks closely behind. Not that we seek to run away from it, nor are we really looking forward to it.

Its time thats the limiting reagent.

C'mon if we could live a thousand years i'll take ten years to complete my A levels.



For canoeing too, if you would look at it this way. Its not even being about the end of the year showdown. July doesnt qualify to be end-of-year. But its our showdown, the one-and-a-half year of effort, of time , of trainings and dedication and commitment and sacrifice. Condensed into a few minutes of water time . It counts.

We saw a glimpse of it in the past few weeks, the MR 500 and NJCC , which well , I would not exactly want it to reflect my achievements. Yeah not good , but its just how things have worked out to be.


As William Hung would have put it " I have done my best and I have no regrets."


Maybe, just so maybe, i dont want to admit that my best. Afterall it sucks to be slammed with the cold hard facts that , your best is simply not enough. Not enough , not comparable to others, not significant to others. And hence the only way is to press on, flailing wildly acting like clowns, or just retreat into seclusion and train for the Gold again.


Someone once told me we from Bedok are like monks deep in meditation retreat training, in seclusion where nobody sees, nobody hears, only when we emerge from hiding and wield our weapons in the battlefield did people start realising we're a threat afterall.

That's an optimistic view, considering if anyone even bothered to think we're a threat at all. Fine neveryoumind, go on thinking that way and perhaps, if not surely, when we next emerge from the monastery we'll have something else to show.

I dont have much to talk about it, NJCC came and went and was ... was... part disgrace part honour. Disgrace because i lost a race due to a rather stupid reason i'd kick myself for that. But owing to my emotional repair mechanism , i got over it quickly , ( about as quickly as it took for me to return from the 1000m startline having been dropped the bomb by race officials). Maybe i would have cried there and then had i not been through all that wear and tear of mental hardships.
But the end of it, i shrugged and laughed it off. Next time then..

Honour , not exactly very honour, personal bests are like self deposit in the bank of your self-esteem. And breaking it feels like striking the lottery. Winning a race is like being handed interest dividend payouts.
I struck my lottery though they didnt give me any interest payouts, and well, got to make a lot of random friends on and off the water. Fine to just say that there's alot more to have been there, and the gains are the lessons learnt.



There's more to it that just being in Macritchie. Afterall we spent nearly a full month training there, enduring the strict rules, the competitive environment, bad facillities, crowded lanes and hell lot of rain and storm and that anti-climax land training from coach at the carpark.
The weird stares we get from the resident teams, the hospitality received from schools with good ties with :D , the faulty A2 shed lock , fun playing with the drain water during a heavy downpour, the damaged C2 D: .

Its part of us now, and also the fact we see how competition from rivals really looks like, and the gaps we needed to catch up, not forgoing the fact that how much we've come ahead of some others, if that is but some cheap consolation.

And its just the days in Macr.