I was realli very impressed by how the team of young 'uns pulled together yesterday even though they were subjected to what I must say was a horrendous end training work out. But well I was realli impressed with how proactive they were in pushing each other on, and how without the steady influence of the year 2s, the leaders emerged within the team.
So good for us.
And also, yesterday was the loudest school anthem I have heard, much louder than when the whole team is singing it. I guess when you are small in number you just have that much more to prove. Just like good old arts fac.
Anyways,
Lately I have been thinking hard about coaching and everytyhing that comes wif it. After all the reading I have done with the likes of JM, AF, AW and even the older ones like paisley, Shankly and clough, one thing runs constant, that they always set a distance btw themselves and their men. For one, they have to because of the decisions they have to make, moving their men like checkers on a field, and unfortunately if they allow common sense to be overtaken by kinship, they will falter. Just look at what happened to Sven and Beckham.
So yeah, for me this year I told myself that I cannot be so close to anyone in particular anymore, though at times I want to, I simply cant do it, cos at the end of the day nobody but me, not even the other coaches, has to make the decision of choosing the players, cutting some and keeping some. I remember last year, cos of the mistakes I made, I had to realli suffer emotionally during the posting results, and when I had to cut the team and all. It realli sucked to the max for myself cos I could not realli unload it to anybody.
So this year, it has been hard the other way around, cos Im very much a social person, wanting to talk to evrybody and knowing everybody. So its kinda hard to try and focus on the job of being a coach and not socialise as much as I want to. I think this year I have done a better job at talking to everybody, but its definitely less in depth than last year when I was much closer to some people than I was to others. Nerverthless I have grown to accept this and will continue to work on it. I realise the issue here is the acceptance of boundaries and territories. What XL said yesterday was right, about boundaries and all, and it left me with a greater sense of conviction with my approach.
The other issue on my mind is the increasing sense of isolation I am experiencing in these past few months. Suffice to say, nobody i know has a similar lifestyle and schedule, and most of the stuff I am doing is done alone. Hence there is a lack of someone there to completely empathise and relate to me. Which kinda sux. But I guess that when I deceided to take this step, this was bound to come into play.
So yeah dats about it for now, mixed and confused at times, by beyond all the smoke, fog and haze I think I can see my destination, i think.
Oh yes, and as promised this is a song I love the words for, first heard it at the grammys.
Dead tired, owing to the two hours sleep I had the night before, but I still headed down to VJ, though I knew I would inevitably stay a bit longer than expected and miss out on my other commitments.
BUUTTT, it was bloody worth every second of it.
I was realli nervous, I dunno why, but it was cos of my raised expectations from the time trial a few days before. Nevertheless, I was feeling upbeat and there was a quiet confidence inside of me about what was about to turn out in a few hours. As we were warming up, I heard Mr Tan shouting for the girls to get ready, but although I was feeling damn nervous I held the girls back cos I was pretty sure Tan would not start any earlier than 8am. But I was super nervous of two things...
1) We dont get the front part of the pack. 2) There will be a mess due to all the tripping and stuff.
Thankfully enough the girls manged to cut q and all of them were in front, unfortunately though there were casualties like Cel and Lorena who fell down.
BUT BUT, I was not there cos i was sprinting my ass off to get to the turn around, hate running without warming up, makes one feel like crap. I got there on time, and managed to see the likes of Jaslyn, KR, Nat, PQ, Jasmin, Grace and Jing Jing. Then after shouting my ass off, I had to run all the way back to school, and managed to reach there just in time as they came around. Again I started shouting and shouting, and I was ecstatic seeing eileen, jaslyn and Kuan ren coming in in the top 20. Grace, Jas, Nat and Jing came soon after.
As I was standing there wif Deb cheering them on, I was just realli proud of them, regardless of the position, ppl like Jo who had overcome so much to finally be running in the x-country, first timers like Sneha, Azlin, Xiang and Lorena who all garnered very respectable positions.
Anyways back at school I was busy calculating and by all calculations it showed that we had won. But this was cos I forgot that the CCA thingey was combined, not a girl/boy thing. So i waited anxiously for the results, and then I was told by Dao that CCA was a combined thing. WTH? My spirits kinda sank....
Moments later it was announced we were second, ahead of the Bball, hockey and even soccer boys teams, but fell behind to the Kayak COMBINED (boys and girls) team. Aiyah nevermind I think they trained real hard and they deserve it, I would wish for them to do just as well at the nationals cos they deserve that much.
So at the end of the day we were 2nd overall, but 1st in terms of the girls teams, which was all I ever wanted anyways. More than that, seeing the girls screaming their asses off in joy was the best sight of it all, they truly deserve this, and winning was for the team not for any of them individually, everyone from those whom I had to tape up like Jo and Jing, to those who improved from 205 to 18 like Eileen, to Kuan Ren who spent like two weeks on a bike before running, Captain Marvel jaslyn, to the new year 1s, and even to ulrica, who cried because she felt that the she had let her team down, to Deb, who cheered her ass off for the team, everybody everybody played a part in yesterday's victory.
Yes it was a victory, not because we got 2nd or any such thing. But because you girls conquered YOURSELVES. You ran selflessly for the team, putting everything on the line, and like I always say dats all I ask for. In my heart dats what makes a champion.
After the my mad rush (managed to make it on time though) and back, we squeezed in a good training session, and I think we are going the right way. Are we prepared for the comp? Nope, still a long way. But we will work hard to prepare for it nonetheless.
We will plough and prepare our field, and it is up to God to grant us rain.
Out. P.S. To Ulrica and Jing, you guys are my heroes, dont worry you still have another year, but you tried and gave it your all with whatever you have and the team, coaches and myself all know that is better than any cross country position you can get.
This is a picture journal of what happened on Monday. Let me take you through it.
This is Nat, aka Ah-mon, who was suppose to fake to be injured, but cmon, who on earth lies like this when they're injured, she looked like she was sheltering herself from a bomb! haha luckily her trickery did not fool me, so I ran away before she managed to on the tap.
Well, you cant get away thru it all. Golden rule in football, a team is almost most vulnerable after scoring a goal. Having scored a goal after escaping the hose, I let my guard down and din watch my back. As I was thanking everybody I din notice everybody backing off and well, this is wat happened. Totally drenched.
Tried to salvage my hair, but to no avail.
Congratulating the girls for getting the better of me. Look at Fe clapping away!!! Aaarrgghh....
Wat more can I say, I've been had. Man..... Never trust anybody. Haha
The lovely cake, I still have the wordings, they were so nice I din wanna eat them up.
Me, Jing, Ah Beng and Grace, wearing the shirt the girls bought me, haha, perfect fit some more! Thanx.
My hero of the moment, Cel, for so many reasons, i have run out of superlatives for you! Keeping my fingers crossed for you girl, our hair almost the same length. haha.
align="center">VJSG 2007
As usual we cannot take a proper pic. The bugger cut my hair off, look at Eileen's face, which can only be outdone by Nat's face. Priceless. Potter is damn funny! and Ulrica too! basket all of them are becoming mad. Jie Min and Kuan Ren need to go for a crash course to learn how to pose the VJSG way. Jing Jing pls organise hor.
Training was fine, until beng sprinted up and told me someone had injured herself and i started cursing my luck...went down only to see Nat in the process of adjusting herself to spray me wif water! I sprinted up immediately, heng ah.
So I went down and saw this ginormous cake with the words "Happy Birthday Coach, We Love You!" on it. And I realli felt the words wat with all the girls around me, and i started thanking all those who wished me, and suddenly.......
SPLASH.
I was completely drenched. I could not believe it, the king of sabo-ing people and punking poor individuals was now a victim. I was drenched from head to toe and I was truly truly shocked, and eventually smiled knowing finally I had gotten what was long coming. I Coudnt believe after escaping the hose I still got wet in the canteen!
But all in all it was a wonderful experience, thank you girls, for everything, I realli cant beleive you all went through so much troule just for me, its realli unbelieveable and I sadly am unable to return such a brilliant gesture. I read all your letters through twice and I wanna thank you all for evrything you have done for me, and you guys have always been my heroes in more ways than one. You work your asses off with nothing in return except for the fact that you can do it with your mates. You slog it out, getting shouted at time and again but u never stop going. I promise you I will do my best to bring you guys once again to the promised land. God bless all of you.
And my wonderful day continued with a great dinner at fig and olive where Uni presented me with a beautiful card and my own little moo-man. I will get pic up soon. We had a great night dear, as always, cant wait for my other presents!
Dats all for now, I am exhausted but this has been the most awesome bday Ive had in the last few years because of everybody around me. Thank you thank you thank you.
Out. P.S. Somebody send me the pics so i can put it up!
The past year has been a wonderful one in many different ways, too many for me to write down nor verbalise, and im looking forward to an even more fruitful 2007. I wanna thank all those who msged me the birthday wishes and in no particular order,
Uni (this has to be first), Kuan ren, Nat, Xiang Ling, Lorena, Jing Jing, Grace, Jolyn, Phil-the-man, Ah Beng the cheongster cubist and my mom. This year has been great and I hope I will do ok for 2007. This is my top-of-the-head birthday wishlist for 2007 (in no paricular order).
1) For VJSG to do the double, and more importantly for all of us to be a nice big family 2) For Ikhwan, Amira, Jack, Rafie and Clarissa, all my primary 6 kids to to wonderful for the PSLE and get into their schools of choice 3) For me and Uni to keep going strong as always 4) Some form of independent transport to the many different places I have to go to and to do well in school 5) For Azizul to do well for his As and in NS and for amirul to hopefully make it to VJC 6) For Man U to win the EPL 7) For everybody I know and everybody they know to stay healthy, safe and happy 8) For the people around me to learn soemthing from me and for me to learn something from all of them 9) For God to keep His faith in me despite all my imperfections and flaws and for Him to know that I have never forgotten and will never forget Him.
Wow I can think of a million different things but i will just stop here, this is wats at the top of my head now.
Also this song is awesome, and I cant believe I did not hear of this before this morning's Grammys.
Hmmm yesterdae's match was realli interesting, although Singapore realli played amazingly badly, or maybe they just played like they normally did just dat lat wednesday was a totally different day for them. I dunno.
Mr Tan still cannot believe Singapore won. Yeah I kinda agree wif him too, although sometimes I wish he would just take a jump and do something about it himself! But I understand where he's coming from and its hard to leave everything he has in VJ or something as unstable a a coaching job in the national team. But well he is still young and maybe someday Mr Tan will be there. Maybe.
Also, yesterdae's match was realli Man U in cruise control, won 4-0 against spurs, which I always think is never easy away. I think they can realli last the distance this time round, cos they are winning matches like these, which was what was lacking in the previous year, when we kept drawing/losing to smaller teams. As i was mentining that day to Beng, in the bigger scheme of things losing/drawing with the bigger teams is ok as long as you win against the smaller teams.
Highlight yesterdae must have been O' Shea playing as GK and he made a brilliant 1 v 1 save against Robbie Keane nevertheless!!! Van Der Sar broke his nose though so I hope he will be ok in the urn in to the championship. Chelsea is still keeping pace, so its realli about who blinks first. Man u may be 6 pts ahead but one week can change all dat.
Also this week will be the release of the O level results....have to go thru it again....hmmmm....oh well, i have the benefit of last year to get me thru so god willing everythig will be ok.
If this is the one and only time you are at my blog, pls pls you don't have to look at any other post, this post is enough. I finally got hold of it everybody, this was the American Idol Audition I was talking about. Cheers.
I was realli truly moved by this guy called Sherman today on American Idol. His wife of 20 years had passed away two days before the audition, and before she died he promised he would get on American Idol. And he said they spent their last few months writing a petition and he went out and got it signed. And everytime he went home, he would show it to her. He had 330 signatures on his petition as he was already 64 and the AI limit was 28 years old. This is the song that he sang for her, its a beautiful song first sung in the 60s by Patsy Kline originally, and u can instantly tell from the tune. I could not find the original version on youtube so here is a slightly contemporary one done by Kate Rusby on acoustic guitar. I included the words cos its simply beautiful.
And when he went out of the audition room he said "I'm a winner, I won."
This is music. And what he did for her was truly love.
See the pyramids along the Nile Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle
Just remember darlin' all the while You belong to me
See the market place in Old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to me
I'll be so alone without you Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue
Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
Just remember 'til you're home again
You belong to me
I'm gonna be so alone without you
And I'm hopin' maybe you'll be lonesome, too, and blue
See the pyramids along the Nile
Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle Just remember darlin' all the while
It took us 30 years but we did it. Glad I was there. The score says it all. Cmon!!!!
Jing Jing, Viv and Stef at the Thai match. Thanx for helping Stef, realli miss having u on the pitch!
Xiang Ling, Elizabeth, Jing again, Lorena and Fe/Phy/Fi (how on earth is her short name spelt??), Mitch (partially hidden, and Eileen instigating the juniors at the back.
Me and Beng. Cmon man bro. Lets do this. Wif u at my side, we can do this.
Me and my dad. In his corny pose as usual. Cannot just smile. This was all worth it man, to spend 2 hours wif my dad at what I noe he truly loves, SOCCER. Thanx ba!
Seriously I have no idea what the Newpaper is doing. I think there was so much focus on the Thais and their walking out that nobody failed to give credit to the fact that Singapore actually played well enough to match up to the Thais. Maybe the thais had an off day, but so what, when was the last time we saw Singapore actually pas the time around. This was already the 3rd match I was catching so there was defintely a marked improvement from the gmae against Indonesia, which was rubbish, and then the game with Malaysia, which we only got control off in the later part of the game. Unfortunately I guess when you're looking from a fans point of view, or rather a money-making newspapers point of view, all you can do and should do is too sensationalise things so dat people will buy, cos people are always looking for drame, we are always looking for villains, and heroes in our everyday life, and well i guess the Newpaper only served to highlight it.
Its just a pity they did not pik on the right stuff cos I am sure the team would like to read and know that people can see them improving as a team, there was a so much more passing yesterday, of cos it wasnt the best, but i mean cmon this is a team ranked 126 in the world, if one were to watch England after they take the lead it would be the same thing also.
Well, for now I guess Singapore is in a good position, it will be a crazy trip to Thailand, but if they can remain composed then it will be ok. As i alwyas tell the girls, dont show face, even if the opposition is stronger, bigger, faster, better, and you feel like peeing in your shorts, dont show face. Cos soccer or sport is so much a mental game as it is a physical one.
I am lokoing forward to the Sunady final, hope somebody organises a night out like in the padang or something with a big screen so we can watch together. Nothing beats watching with a crowd, I remember yesterday as the train was pulling up at the station, it sounded its horn to warn the people to not get too close. Of cos the horn sounded just like the airhorn at the stadium and immediately there were shouts of you noe wat across the station. And then people just spontaneously sang ole-ole damn bloody loudly as the train was pulling in, and everybody inside was shocked. But once we went into the train, it was back to old boring rigid serious Singapore.
Which proves ,my theory true, why do i go the stadium. For the soccer? Hell no. Not yet at least. Its realli for that electric atmosphere in the crowd. Cos the stadium is a like a bubble from the rest of the country. Evreybody is so spontaneous and they let it all hang out. But once we are outta it, its back to boring boring Singaopre. So dats why im glad i to take the chance to go to the stadium these past weeks.
