And so , holidays over .

That phase of training is over , and before we step into the reality of BT2 , stop while, take inventory.

Couple hours to BT2 , Couple days to Nationals , not so scary does that sound actually. For all we could prepare, whether or not were the regrets left behind , regrets of whether we could have done more or achieved more, its over. No more time for another routine, no more chance for a rematch.

And it has always been , since the start of last year we've been told to anticipate the coming of tougher times, and when finally we learn to embrace it , it not so tough after all. Slap me up if necessary, i dont feel anxious for the time being. A timely sense of peace from heaven if thats what it is , to keep me calm.

Let it come , let the block test come. Let the racers come.

And I just didnt realised i could get so tired , of the many things that seemed so significant yet meant little.

NOt saying such , but yeah , this a rare time to be training with our secret "mentor" , a rare opportunity , that was so randomly handed to us . BUt yet somehow i cant really find words to fill the gap of memory , right maybe i'm tired enough that way.

Training, racing, fuelled by maybe not passion , but an external expectation of the need to do better. Driven by ego perhaps, of not wanting to lose. NOt to teammates , not to rivals.

Do forgive me for the incoherent phrasing , things are really not up my senses , and my butt isnt really forgiving to me . Putting in a post so at least i'll remember something out of this period of time that was supposed to , well mean alot to any canoeist, but i cant find the words nor linguistic flaunts to describe.

I'm beginning to find out how little you actually meant, because i cant give out forever, more than my equal share of the offering . So well , its my long awaited time to let go , not fully , but gradually , painlessly , yet carrying a load full of lessons learnt . Wow.

Last week of term 2 .

And it seemed rather far way then , this crucial period we looked forward to in anticipation and fear. Anticipation i say, because we saw how it things would go from past year experience, only this time, we're the ones taking the shot.

Start of the june hols training, telling that its time to get over with unsettled business and go full force. Leave no room for regrets , that at the end you'll have fought the good fight of faith.

I'm looking forward to it, time trials this sat. Things happen in the past weeks that quite jittered my senses , that, i'm not quite the person i thought i am. Or rather , i'm not as good as i would want myself to be , that i had saw myself gleeming to become.

And as a team , because , they 'll probably take up the bulk of the memories of being in college. Being able to live up to expectations isnt a easy feat. I know, i live it everyday.

Tasted failures , and grew so fonder of that heart wrenching pain. When emotional trauma can transcend into physical hurt, that you quite literally feel the heart squeezed out of life. Hence that phrase was thus coined probably.

Too bad block test has have to cut our momentum, but then, its in the face of insurmountable mountain tasks , that we'll get to learn the beauty of the landscape, and the strength of your will and conviction.

So take the time once again, for i shall have to constantly remind myself for what do i keep fighting for.

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.

Marathon's over. MSA's over. We start over again.

Could it be ? Lest i fail my own hopes again, that this tests shall make up for the past. Yep and i may not have done everything possible to do well, yet i did as much was in grasp to achieve, some in some out. Nonetheless its over and let it be over. Look forward to the next challenge ahead


Marathon hmm, guess its just how things turn out least expected. Notwithstanding the medals i forgone, which was in grasp, but held little purpose in doing so. Yeah it could have been my glory to claim , but that glory didnt belong to me anyway. Nevertheless the thanks goes out to all who have and did helped in one way or another to make the week so pleasant to train, race in . One way or another, its over yes, and we have probably enough time to reflect on it before moving on again.

Talk about glory,
We always say: Praise God , Glory to God etc etc... What does glory, to God, meant?

Nothing actually.


I wont be offended if someone told me the same thing i figured. Glory didnt mean anything. God doesnt need the glory; he has all that is to claim in this world and not. But it does mean to us , and it must have mattered alot to Him.

Who wouldn't mind being noticed and in the limelight for that instance when you've just done something you're proud of , achieved something worth attention, worth the applause. Maybe a article or interview in the headlines would've been nice . I would like it; it my nature and probably everyone else's too.

It's just that time and again history has proven itself reliable to predict. How many great people of their time falter in the near future cos they just couldn't get over the initial hussle. We as human probably lost too much to that little devil in the corner of our hearts called "pride"

So its not really that bad when God took the effort to instruct people to give the honour back, not to keep , but to keepsafe.



Imagine this , a budding five-year-old just won in a certain contest a large satchet of sweets and candies. And like any other five-year-old, he's probably thinking of keeping all it to himself, and down them like rice that night, afterall who could blame him? He 's won it, fair enough.
And before long , he's getting into trouble with the tummy aches that accompanies candy dinners.

So this is where the Father steps in. He reaches over to the child's bag " I'll keep that, " and promises only to give him a sweet at a time, once every two or three days. And yes the child will grow resentful , throw tantrums and fuss over everything else, uncooperative mealtimes, struggling against the hands that meant to help. But afterall its for his good.

So is the case with the glory we get from mortal kinds. We get upset whenever due glory isnt given to us. We wrinkle our eyes when we hear someone publicly honouring God for what seems like his own achievements .
BUt afterall, what our heavenly Father meant, was to keep the sweets from us , protect us from the tummyaches of life's too much honour. Just like a grown up wont need to steal sweets from kids; he could buy a barrel load if he pleased, our God doesnt need our glory. He just meant good .




So the next time we are urge to give God the glory, dont wrinkle up like its your life's possesions. It goes a long way back if we are to trace how much this could mean to us , but yes its for our good, probably, until you can convince me otherwise, that you could handle the issue of mortal pride.

Race Day. Tmrw



Something that we looked forward to, something that we spent our precious afternoons training for, something that, well, just is a common goal that all would like to see come to pass.

Afterall, didnt we pledge to uphold this name, to carve out a history that belonged uniquely to us, to claim a portion of the somewhat saturated piece of treasure that was available to whomever was willing to sacrifice time and effort of it.

Yes the week was spent, half in half out of schoolwork, pressing productivity of my internal generators; morning with the full sch routine, afternoon speeding around kallang, night back at sch with whomever is left hardworking. Cept that i was doing triple duty. heck
Back to the point, which really tests one's commitment, no wonder there are really those who break down and steps away for it. I dun really blame them.


Back with that issue, carrying a load of expectations along with me. I'm not God, I aspire towards God-like , I live as if I was an angel, but afterall ,i'm but a saint. Ok literally, but yah thats the whole point.
I'm not perfect, I dont always self motivate, there are time when i want to , felt like , almost gave up .

Holding on , because i know there are others who did their part of the work, fully expecting me to do mine so that things would work out.

Yes i know i should, but its like the saying, life is a long long marathon race, you cant always give everything you've got, or you're just a badly adapted sprinter.

So i apologise, if in anyway, my weakness , in flesh, in spirit, as ever failed to do its part.



Friday's training made me think more. So what if i was leading the rear pack ? So what if i could defend my place against another k1 challenging my position? So what if i could charge another K2 ? The gap difference is still, disastrous. Wonder how many other real competitors could fill in that gap, otherwise, my ranking is ka-boom. Crap Crap Crap.

Somewhere , somehow, i lost the fight to keep up with progress. Well like i did last year, just because i wanted to more.

That's all it meant, it doesnt have to make sense, it doesnt matter


Afterall Race Day's tmrw .