Well, with the hackings and all, I can’t believe there goes the month of June. Lost my one and only entry in June but I guess I cannot really do anything about it

I met Joycelyn at Dover and headed to Tampines to visit a chinese medical hall to “poke needles” (acupuncture) for my still-swollen left pinky.

The train ride felt pretty short because I kept her laughing over my funny stories and she updated me on the trainings at the ever-dirty Kallang River. Seems like most of us are still not into the whole training-mode.

Anyway, thank goodness she was with me to act like a translator with the acupuncturist. I seriously felt like I was lost in translation halfway while explaining to ther about my finger. After poking three needles, I felt like an incense holder when she started burning this lump of herbs on the needle that was stuck on the joint of my finger :?

Incense Holder

After that, we slacked a tad at Starbucks while waiting for Jolene to join us. After a quick dinner at the food court, we went for our first referee practical session at TP.

I really envy TP’s swimming pools. Yes, pools. And we had only one lousy pool that we cannot even fully utilize because we have to leave a few lanes for swimmers Their pool is like, 10 lanes wide. So it felt really huge.

As I have not trained for more than six weeks, I felt like I have somewhat lost touch with canoe polo. Thus, I did not feel very confident about the practical session But after shadowing Raymond (the instructor) for two matches and observing two more, I felt more familiar with the game and the rules.

So when it was my turn to ref the match with Jolene, I felt more confident. And I made a good call for a five-second foul

Overall, I would say it was quite an eye-opener. To ref a match, that is

The finals for SRRR were held at the Singapore River itself on Saturday. It was a very tiring experience for me because I had no rest the night before and had a full day ahead.

Everything was delayed. So Geok Cheng, Teresa and I met Jolene at Clark Quay MRT station only to head to MacDonald’s for breakfast. I think I kind of snoozed while everything was being set up. At 10 a.m. (when the first match of TP 1 and Monsters Inc. was supposed to start), the guys were still fixing the goal post and the lines. So Jolene, Joan and I went to MacDonald’s again where I had my second breakfast.

(Note to self: Depression can either starve you or stuff you.)
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We were supposed to play our final two matches on Saturday. But the night before the matches, I received two news that affected me. One was that a team (Torrent) pulled out so we were to play with TP 2. The second news was that we were short of one man–Joycelyn met with a motorbike accident and was unable to play.

I would have thought that my team would be pretty demoralized on the day itself. Perhaps it was because of Joycelyn’s injury. Perhaps it was because she still came down and gave us her full support. Or perhaps it was the final match.

We played… well, rather well

On my personal side, I was actually a bit depressed and down due to several factors. Not to mention I was let down once again. I really should not have hoped too much but I guess one can never really stop hoping, eh?

I guess a surprise visit from an old friend cheered me up. After all, semi-professional photographs of my team would be a bonus

SRRR
Chasing for the second ball…

SRRR
… and I got it! Acrobat wins the Vamp!

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Well, the annual Singapore River Raft Race (SRRR) Canoe Polo Competition started on Saturday. Looks like my team has a long way to go before the Pesta Sukan National Championships.

SRRR

SRRR

I realised I look pretty retarded. And for your info, I’m #8.
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Jiayou Artello!

Remember that Nadine’s agenda for you girls:

  1. Kick Naddy’s ass and whack Naddy’s head as hard as you can when she has the sian diao face. (Stoning face counts as well.)
  2. Constant whackings on Naddy’s head will do her good. (Be careful of concussion.)
  3. Remind Naddy not to look for anyone in the viewers’ stand.
  4. Tell Naddy how much you love her.

But please beware:

  • Push Naddy into the pool and get ready for a flare up.
  • Pull her braids and she’ll throw her temper at you.
  • Say “F you lah!” in Naddy’s face (whether you mean it or not) will result in serious consequences.

Naddy loves all of you. I’m serious.

Note to readers: This is quite a long as well as image-heavy post.

Friday was dear Jolene‘s 18th birthday as well as the start of SPCT camp.

We had a lunch celebration with the team. And Jo’s classmates surprised her with a hawaiian pizza with candles

Happy Birthday Jo!

Happy Birthday Jo!
Joycelyn, Geok Cheng, Jolene and Me

I was a GL with Lex and this year, I had the largest group of 11 campers. Ichi (as in one in Japanese, and which we called ourselves) consists mostly of enthusiastic and pretty sporting freshmen which I’m glad to have. But I guess I started the camp with a lot of energy that gradually winded down by the end of the first day.
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