looking back

coming out from the shower, i prepared myself for the afternoon. as i was having my lunch, my 'bak chang', i did some flashbacks on the year that was. to be a lil more specific, i was trying to recall the memories i had during netball trainings for mssd..

those memories got me back into the past, i was having exactly the same feelings i had during the 4 years (2004-2007) of competition, and then watching my girls play under my coaching in 2008. of course, i was not alone, jane was there with me too. it was such a thrill, to be able to play netball again and be a part of it. i wished that will never end.

i missed those moments. a lot. come to think of it, i actually do not have the chance to play netball like i used to play anymore. i had just come to this realization when jane called and spoke about that. yes, perhaps i can join any team in town now and play but will it ever be the same?

NEVER.

those experiences i had with my team were priceless. and i am glad i was a part of that team. playing netball gives me confidence, discipline, inspiration, motivation and of course, self-satisfaction.

there was also a point in my life when i felt so helpless and hopeless. 'tiada hala tuju' .
there was no more netball for me. and that time was the first time ever in my life that i had this kinda feeling in me. that one week of depression had me thinking a lot, about injustice in everyone's life.

as i parked my car outside the school, which is the host for this year's netball competition, i was still thinking about it. well, i told myself, i'll just greet my teachers, and maybe one or two good referees left in the whole district of LM&S, and ignore those bias referees multiplying faster than any cancerous cell in the world who had the tournament arranged the way they would like the ending to be. a look at them makes me sick. a second look, i would throw up, blood. yes, that's right. they are incurable cancers, destroying young people's dreams to achieve success. all they care about is achieving their own goals, whether this school with the best 'chat hai chai' ref, or that school, who had the most influential ref in the netball sport. they do not give a damn about quality or the standard of the game. what the hell is this all about?

corruption, i dare say, may be one of the factors here too. well, nobody knows. in a country like ours, its happening all over the place. in my 4 years of involvement, never been once the concept of winning is 'may-the-best-man-win' kinda thing. we had to work super hard in comparison to other team even when my team won in 2005. we knew if we didn't want to be a victim of this filthy group of people, we could lose anytime. for no concrete reason. and no one would give a shit. we were the minorities here. so we had to do something. and the only thing we could do as a school player was to have an enormous amount of patience in us, play the best of our best, and pray hard for a good outcome. as the ref would do everything she could to kick us out of the game, we had to. even if we were misjudged, we shall keep quiet.

anyway i walked into the school compound, asked for direction, and a while later, there i was on the field. breathing the air of netball. only two courts were set up for the competition. i scanned the whole place for my school team, and finally, there they are in blue and red, representing my house and jane's. i walked across the muddy field holding, in my left hand, a paperbag filled with cny cookies and some oranges for my teacher, and my car keys in my right. i could see them jumping and catching the ball and having fun. well, that's a good start. they couldn't see me walking towards them until i was about 20feet apart that they noticed me. they ran to me like i was santa claus or smtg. i could see all their happy faces. and thats when i realised how much i missed these people. how much i missed playing netball and going through tough training sessions with them. they have somehow been a part of my life before.

i gave them a huge hug and well, surprise them with my memory, i am not that old though. they were expecting me to remember all of their names, thank god i did not miss anyone, or so i thought. haha. they gathered around me and asked how i was and stuff like that. it feels good to be around these people again. really.

served them while they're practising in the field. i could not get myself to join them in the warming up session. i wanted very much to do so but there was something missing. and i knew immediately, my netball partner and friend was not here to share this moment of joy and excitement with me, the way we did for 5 years. wished she was here too.

the u-18 have a match at 3.25pm, against a school of average strength, dr. it was their second match of the day, i missed the first one in the morning where they beat tmgs 12-6. i could not be there as i had school. wished i was there though. to defend my school players and not let others destroy their spirit. did not know tmgs players has turned this worse. i thought only db players are like that. the way they speak are of a such high standard. perfect. cursing. cursing. and again, cursing. take my hat off to them man. they are superb.

i was told our u-15 lost their 3rd round to tmgs. and because of these tmgs players' high standard of attitude, the true winner here is our u-15 girls. yes, they are.
as the u-18 prepared for their match, i wished them all the best and told them to have fun. and then i stood by the side of the court, where i used to be, facing my ga and gs, to yell simple-reminders-which-they-tend-to-forget at them. i was actually nervous for them too.

they scored the first goal of the match. and proceeded on to scoring more and more nice shots. all in all, today's match was a fair one. we were the stronger group, and so we won with the score of 21-6. a considerably good achievement, but i'm sure they could do much better than that.

well, all the best to the u-18 playing tomorrow, i may and may not be with you girls but i'll be praying hard for all of you. may you play your best and have the time of your life.

selah moment

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as i was approaching this lady, i think in her mid 40s or so, the experiences i had in exposure program during convention suddenly flashes across my mind. am i going to break any wall or build any bridge this time?

we were having MUET period when a f5 boy came into my class and asked for a girl prefect. apparently, the headmistress wanted a strong one for help. all of us were wondering like if she wanted a strong one, why not just get a guy prefect? anyway, i went.

the boy was trying to tell me why she needed a girl prefect for, but i could not really understand cause he was speaking partial mandarin and english. it's like a mixture of both but i manage to grasp a few words here and there and figured out that i may have to perform a spotcheck on one of the girls.

on my way to the office, i was told that the lady sitting on the couch in front of the office could not see. i looked up and saw her. she was holding a walking stick on her right hand. and a luggage bag where she puts her stuff in it, placed beside her, on the left.

i went into the office, and the headmistress told me to bring that lady around the school to collect donation. well, alright then. i was actually unsure whether i could do it or not, but i agreed anyway. i've never worked with a blind person before, so i was afraid i may say or do anything that might hurt her feelings whatsoever.

so i went to her. she asked for my name, which school i was originally from, which religion i'm in, and which class i'm from. . . . anyway, i lead her to the form3 classes first, as it was located at the highest floor (did not want her to climb up again later). she held on to my arm the entire time. i was unaware at first, that i have to alert her if there's a small step up or down or if there's a staircase. thankfully her right hand was tapping all the time with her walking stick.

we went into each and every classroom thats inhabited, and through her short intro to every classes she went into, i found out that she had actually came all the way from rumah orang buta, brickfields, kl, selling chocolate bars for rm1 and collecting donations to support the home. how did she manage to come all the way here by herself? i thought.

she asked me to inform her if there's any dollar note other than the rm1s in the plastic bag she used to put the donations. i were to separate them and give it to her. she could recognise them by touching the little symbol on the top left corner of the note, which is specially made for blind people.


throughout the whole experience, i shall say there were a few things that has manage to grab my attention for a moment.
firstly, the attitude of students and even teachers to the underprivileged.
some students were impolite, they were laughing and teasing the lady, while some are very kind to have donated a huge sum of money, even the bad boys of the school, whom i thought do not even care about these underprivileged people as they can not even care for themselves.
there was this boy whom, on giving the donation said in hokkien, "wa lang si phai kia, na em ko wa lang bun si oo sim eh", which means, although we are naughty boys, we do have heart too.

some teachers were not convinced that the lady was blind.
when she called the teachers' name, he held onto his nametag on his tie, look at her suspiciously in a quite surprised face and said, "wow, you could read my name ah." and so i explained to him that i told the lady before she enters the class as she told me to inform her if i know the teachers.
on the other hand, there were also teachers whom are very kind. mostly, female teachers of course. but there's also a male teacher whom has never donated a large sum of money to the lady, ever since she came to the school a few years back until today, when he bought a dozen chocolate bars from the lady.
there's this female teacher who gave rm50 to the lady too. the teacher spoke to her and asked for her name, and that was when i found out her name was rachel. rachel was so happy when i told her it was an rm50 note and thanked the teacher.

on this lady, i shall say that i myself was uncertain as well as to whether she was really a blind person trying to get donation to keep the home running or was she those kinda people where they create all sorts of lies to get money from you. anyway, whether she has the right intention of doing so, i do not know. but it wouldn't hurt if i help a person, would it?

well, actually she's a kind person. but she does not like it if you offer your help to carry her bag or to tolerate her. in anyway. she gets angry if you do that. when she said her hand was aching, it thought i should carry it for her instead. so i bend down to carry the bag, and that's when she reached out for it too, and accidentally pushed my head in the process of doing so. she raised her voice a little saying, "you don't have to carry it for me, i can carry it myself. you all are not used to it so just let me carry it." well, fine then. i thought.

rachel told me to bring her to the canteen for something to eat. i lead her down the flight of stairs and towards the canteen. recess was already over by then, so there was nothing much left. she said she wanted some rice and a drink, so i bought them for her. it's a shame that i did not bring my wallet to school, i had to ask her for money to pay for her food.

after that, she asked me to bring her to the bus stand. i told her i did not know where it is, so she asked me to get a car for her. i thought, what? get a car for her? will there be anyone who is kind enough and be willing to give her a ride in the first place?

so we walked out of the school compund, waited under the hot sun at the back gate of the school, and stood there hoping that that special someone's gonna stop and give her a ride to the bus stand. i've never boarded a stranger's car before. i reached out my hand, as one after another car came and drove past us and it felt like forever! until...

until this lady in a red proton saga aeroback came and stop by. thank god, i thought. so i asked her if she was willing to give rachel a ride and she agreed without thinking twice. i told her that that's very kind of her to help rachel, thanked her and send them off.
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R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

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months have past since i left school for another school. my heart has never left though. there's always this curiosity in me to find out what's happening in school, and to be up-to-date on every event happening in school, from the campaigning season for head girl to netball competitions.

well, things were totally different compared to this school i'm currently studying in. i couldn't not compare as everything in this school has appeared to be such a big shock to me the first time i set my foot onto this place.

i'll touch on a few here :-


firstly, the assembly. students are all over the place. singing negaraku was just a song to them. they disrespect the national song & make fun of it. they do not listen to announcements. they talk and talk and talk even when the headmistress is speaking in front. they've no respect for teachers at all. of course, when i'm saying this, i'm referring to 2/3 of the students here. there's still another 1/3 normal-human-behaving students here, thank god.


secondly, they act like primary school students. they do not listen to u. they would break every school rule they could. they make a fool of themselves. even the form 5 students are like that. why do they act like this? who made them like this? their parents? teachers? peers? friends? or perhaps, they themselves?


thus, this conclusion.

i believe all of them have a choice. a choice of choosing the path they want to lead. the life is theirs. the choice is theirs. it's their right to determine what kind of life they want to have in the future. but the question here is, why did they choose this path? i'm not trying to exaggerate here, but this's the fact. maybe it's immaturity. but still, this doesn't explain everything. how about those form 5's whom are already leaving school after spm? how are they going to survive in the outside world, with the attitude they're carrying? what kind of life will they have then?
i don't and i can't understand why.
everyone wants to have a beautiful life, a life worth living. but without good moral values and attitude, how are they to develop good relationships with other people? before you even want to think about being respected, first, learn how to have respect for others. you must have respect. a strong and powerful 7-letter word that means so much. it is the very basic thing in everyone's life. if you don't have this, then don't even have the slightest hope to have others respecting you in return.


thirdly, respect again, and this time, for women. we are not born to have guys taking advantage on us, whenever they feel like it. there's this case some time ago, when a schoolmate was harassed by two form 3 boys. she was helpless. she did not know what to do. i tried to calm her down and find out what had actually happened to her. she couldn't even speak properly. she could only cry and cry, and finally, told me in between sobs, "he touched me.. he grab me.. then both of them laughed at me when i shouted at them." when asked where did the incident occur, she said, "i was doing my prefect duty at the staircase (which is very visible to other people should the harassment occur)." it was my first encounter of a real life situation with a schoolmate, or rather, a friend. i was very upset and angry, to hear this. i can't believe form 3 boys in my school can actually do this. where are their respect for us, women? it's pretty obvious that they're enjoying the time of their life, being able to laugh at her and all. sadly, there were no witness. i advised her to report the case immediately to the pk hem, or at least a female teacher. i can not have these people wandering around harassing another female student again. but she was frightened, afraid and embarassed. and i have to respect her decision.

gratitude

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what we have today
we may not have it tomorrow
what we have tomorrow
we may not have it today
what we have today
we appreciate it
what we have tomorrow
we will have to face it
but some things are always there
somethings that'll never fade away no matter where
so appreciate what we have today
and thank god for what we have tomorrow.

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i am what i am

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be who you want to be, and have no regrets for who you are.

sometimes i think i myself was overrated... but not today!

its amazing how much you can get if you quietly, clearly and authoritatively demand it!

i just realised you can see completely through my dress, so now i'm standing with them together!

i've just been nominated 789 times and i was getting so settled over there for a long winter's nap! oh god, i didn't have anything prepared because it's been like since the pleistocene era that i won anything!

there is no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn't matter who gets the credit.

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