I had lunch with Dorothy and Mei Hoe at “Bao Gong” at West Coast. I spoke less than ten lines in total during their non-stop conversation.
Into the late afternoon, I went down to the MPH with Mei Hoe. I set up the court and we started playing together with Pierre and Paul. Daniel joined us later to kick off more fun. I left earlier since I had promised Jasmine to meet up for dinner.
The rush home to shower exhausted me more than the earlier game. Nevertheless, it was a wrong decision yet again. I clearly understood “you treat someone with respect doesn’t mean that person would do the same to you”.
I was being betrayed and setup to bang into a shameless ghost, or rather, someone scarier than a ghost.
I started off my morning with the mosquito bites, waking up earlier than usual.
My dread started again. Early in the morning, I set up everything at Bukit Batok while Weitat was back in Clementi to monitor his students’ examination. It was a good morning somehow since the teachers from Hillgrove who brought their students over were doing their jobs extremely well. I had an enjoyable morning crapping around with the well mannered students.
We went to IMM to meet up with Mei Hoe, Dorothy and Magdalene for lunch at Red Ginger.
In the afternoon, I went to set up two courts for badminton but initially only Joy came down, followed by Mr Baey who had forgotten to bring his short. I had a long warming up with Joy before Mei Hoe arrived to play doubles. Joy left before Deon came in to continue the game. In the end, Mei Hoe stayed behind to accompany me since I had to wait for the volleyball game. We met Daniel on our way to the office to keep my racket and he joined us at the MPH.
Mingfa bought my dinner over. The small packet of chicken rice fitted perfectly into my stomach and the chocolate milkshake from Sweet Talk was another sweet thing Mingfa bought over for me. I forgot to return him the money. Finally, I got to chat with him while waiting for pretty girls to pass by at the canteen but we were both disappointed.
The volleyball game was nice in my struggle with my injured left shoulder. The joint gave me pain whenever I received or set the ball. Nevertheless, it was a good night. Weitat came down to the campus to join us after the game and he sent me home.
If you want something, don’t simply sit down and grumble; take actions or else you can never get it, unless you are lucky.
On Tuesday, I packed extra clothes to bring along to the office. Mei Hoe almost ruined my day by telling me she needed to go home earlier because of her daughter again. Then, she started saying we had odd number of players for badminton and thus she wanted to call it off. She was the one who often mentioned about playing and yet she wanted to give it up, including my efforts, just for her grown up daughter. My threat and insistence worked in the end.
We had lunch together in the canteen for the second day. When Jingkun mentioned about his contract, I was quite stunned over how some fools could do meaningless and yet inhuman things by “wearing extra undergarment inside their pants”. I could do nothing and thus I did not join in the conversation; moreover, they seemed to be discussing it among themselves.
I had brought my camera along but Teo Jun Ci denied taking photos with me, finding excuses to go back on her words. She owed me hundred photos together, inclusive of one which she had to pose ugly.
I started off the badminton game with Bernard, and Andy who was invited at the same day itself. Mei Hoe arrived and followed by Dorothy and Willi, Vincent and their classmate. Zaki kept his promise to join us. All of us had very great fun. The last survivors were Mei Hoe, Dorothy, Zaki and me. We had a tournament of women against boys. During the second set, I made a dive to save a point but there was not enough friction to stop the kinetic energy, whereby my lower right shoulder hit the badminton pole. I tried to stand up fast, keeping my cool, so that they would not be alarmed over my pain. Zaki and I lost that set. However, I amazed myself to exert my strength and gave very good fight in the end to win the fourth and fifth sets with Zaki.
Throughout the entire game, I was very distracted. At first, it was for the waiting of the arrival of all the players; followed by numerous babes coming to the campus for registration of part-time courses.
I stayed behind for volleyball. Setting up the poles and net was the most hateful thing everyone detested. I had to do it since I was there early. I would not have minded if most of them were not trying hard to excuse themselves from doing it most of the times. The net was a bit lower than usual since there were women going for the game. My entire body was aching, especially the injured part and my hands, but my hyperactiveness impressed myself once again. The MPH was crowded and we had to rest for quite long before playing each set of game.
Mingfa sent me to Clementi MRT station and I felt too lucky to have a few babes taking the same train as me. I was a fortunate guy for the day.
On Monday, I received a call early in the morning to start off my day with disappointment. I could never withstand the soft side of myself to be taken granted by others. Why me again? I would not mind helping but I did not want others to take advantage of my kindness. I cheered myself up by telling myself I would be gone soon.
Lunch was at the canteen with my usual clings. I spent lots of time typing in the office.
In the late afternoon, I started gathering people for badminton game for the next day since both Mei Hoe and Dorothy grumbled over the termination of our usual sport.
Most of the players seemed to have given up the game with the excuse of having to take care of their kids at home and thus they could not stay. Some were, however, scheduled with meeting and other work stuffs.
I gave Mei Hoe countless calls but she seemed to have fainted. I waited in the office for Dorothy to finish her meeting before telling her we had enough people. I could have left office at 5pm but I ended up leaving an hour later.
I had another great day. It had been a couple of months since I last played badminton. It was the first time I used the new racket. The six of us, inclusive of Hirman, Weitat, Jingkun, Mr Neo, Dorothy and I rotated to played doubles. I was totally off form and kept missing easy hits. However, the company was great.
Dorothy kindly brought us (Jingkun, Weitat and I) to the nearby coffee shop for dinner in our smelly jerseys and bodies. That was the second meal of the day, which we had together. After that, she sent us back to the campus before going home.
We were too tired for volleyball. I could have done so much better if I was not distracted in the office earlier when I was trying to trim my fingernails. The long nail instigated fears in me and I did not dare to hit the ball, which caused a lousy performance in front of all the girls, women and aunties-to-be.
After washing up, Weitat sent Kok Chiang home. Then, he drove Gin, Tony and I to my place. The prata shop was surprisingly closed for business, and we shifted to the Golden Café coffee shop.
On Tuesday, my nightmare arrived again. I hated to be alone at certain places.
How would you feel if you were left alone to handle many immature people and have to take care of the equipments at the same time that you could not even go to the washroom for three hours?
It was not only tediousness, but also the enduring power to hold bladder. It was both physically and mentally draining.
I took care of the exhausting morning to begin on a better day, in my discomfort throat and cough, I pulled through the afternoon. The badminton session was a release of tension from my mind. I did not play well but I felt very comfortable with my diving skill, even though I created more bruises on my knees.
After that, I went to Redhill hawker centre to have dinner with Mei Hoe. Unfortunately, I was too thirsty that I could not take much food and Mei Hoe preferred to order many small dishes to share. In the end, she had a small plate of oyster while I had an awful plate of chicken chop.
I had my last two sessions of volleyball because going into exile for another two to three months.
Tuesday began with the badminton game. It was quite fine. Then, we went to West Coast Plaza to have dessert, however, ended up in an awkward situation, dining in a Chinese restaurant. In fact, almost no one felt like eating.
Jingkun, Weitat and I returned to have the volleyball game. On the way, I had a cup of bubble tea, which caused extreme discomfort in my chest, such that I could not breathe properly. In my sprained right ankle, I had one of the worst volleyball days ever. It was a bloody day. Mingfa sent me home after that.
On Thursday, I was doing work alone in the office until evening when everyone started to arrive slowly. The stress of the work and the lack of sleep, together with the sprained ankle did not seem to tie me down. Over a few games, I started to get back some touch of the ball.
The worst thing that I had done was to give up playing together with my teammates so that others could play. Then, I joined another team in the next game and I could almost stroll around. Then, I had to wait outside the court for the next couple of games. The last game was boring.
We went to the Popeye at Singapore Flyer but changed destination to Bedok 85. I had a plate of chicken chop before going home to finish a bowl of fried rice.
The badminton session on Tuesday was great. It was the second time I played for this year and I was glad that I was still able to run. Mei Hoe, Weitat, Jingkun, Alvin and Mr Baey were my companions for the afternoon.
We did not resume until late evening since we decided to go out for dinner before the volleyball game. It was after 6pm and we set off for “Hong Kong Street” near Alexandra road. We shared a few dishes of Chinese food.
We managed to send Mei Hoe home before going back. My legs were stiff after the earlier run and partly, due to the cold weather. At least, my physical condition was much better than the previous week.
I still could not get a hand of spiking, but receiving balls was of a satisfactory standard. We did not stop until after eleven when everyone was exhausted.
I was lucky that Weitat had taken his dad’s car and thus he could send me home after eleven.
I continued my Tuesday with the giddiness. Artificial tears did not seem to help much.
I knew well study and work all days would simply make me dull and weak. I went for the second badminton session of the entire year and had great fun. They all simply loved my entertainment for them by flying all over the court even though I certainly had no skill in the game. With bruises and blue-black, I felt quite satisfied.
Mingfa’s kids came over. Sean questioned me,”Have you lost interest in volleyball?” I was to speechless to explain my situation. To think it was funny, I played badminton one more time than I played volleyball this year.
Meihoe’s urging to make me join them for dinner set me on a wrong path. We were taking rather long time to get to the place, which was actually near Bukit Gombak MRT. It was late by the time I got home and the worst thing was that I did not even know who foot the bill, to set me in guilt.
Last Thursday, I finally touched the badminton racket after probably more than a month. I had not been exercising due to my studies. Weitat and Mr Neo left earlier, leaving Daniel, Dorothy, Meihoe and her family behind to thrash it out with me.
In the end, I paired up with Dorothy against Meihoe and her husband, and managed to put up a good fight in the second set. I was quite impressed with myself over some quick reactions. Lastly, I did not bang my knees onto the ground as hard as previous sessions during my diving.
Dorothy dropped us besides the MRT station. Meihoe invited me to join her family for dinner but I rejected her. It was just two bus-stops away, my mum had gotten home after giving me a missed call. When I got home, I realised my dinner would then be the fried rice she cooked two days ago.
On Thursday, Daniel and Jennifer went outstation; Kevin met up with his friends while Weitat had pizza with his students. Jingkun and I went to Tradehub21 for lunch together with Mahani.
We had the Muslim’s mixed vegetable rice and it cost me four bucks with the syrup drink. The food tasted okay. We went to Bukit Batok for Jingkun to vacuum his car before going back to office.
Badminton commenced as early as three-thirty PM. Dorothy brought her son, Joseph, along. We had Weitat, Jingkun, Meihoe and Mr Neo. Mr Ng arrived later. We had some problems for two rackets were spoilt when the strings decided to let go. Like usual, I had my last game with Mr Ng and the exhaustion extorted sweat from me. I went to bathe before waiting for a long time for bus 52.
After reaching SIM, I proceeded straight to the administration office to pay for my school fee. I was late for the orientation at level four. My name was not in the list since I did not pay up the fee earlier.
The lecture hall was small to my liking. There were only a few girls around. I noticed there were quite a number of groups around and somehow, I regretted not finding any friend to join in the fun. My greatest worry was when it came to group projects, I might not be able to get good team members. Alas, the FYP group was going to be selected by the school.
The briefing was dry and there were parts which I could not catch properly. There were people who reached later than me and one of them seemed to be a babe.
The talk ended at around nine PM and I had to cross the road over to wait for bus 75. It seemed like the same babe was taking bus at the same bus-stop. I was not luckier than that.
The journey home set lots of thoughts in my mind. The time spent on blogging each day and the number of blogs I had to update were far too time-consuming. There was somehow no time for my new projects, which had been delayed for more than a year. When school started, I might have to give up most or even all of them.
Nevertheless, another worry was my sleeping habit. I was used to sleep at late hours, which I had failed to kick the bad habit over years. Usually, I got sleepy during the evening after work and could take some naps, however, it was impossible when school started. It was impossible for me to take a nap at home since I had no bike or car and hopefully I would be able to find somewhere to catch a nap in the afternoon when there was no work.
At night, I reinstalled my MSN to test for the webcam and to my amazement, the latest version of MSN, MSN Live version 2009 was out. I would not have noticed it if the layout was not changed into a cuter style, but everything was larger than the previous one I was using. Anyway, I used to crack the MSN and thus, I was not very certain of the changes and improvements. Another obvious change was the status, which only allowed “Online”, “Away”, “Busy” and “Appear Offline”. Where was the “Out for Lunch” status? They could have taken out the last status, “Appear Offline”, so that the contact list would not become a deserted place like the olden days’ ICQ.
Wednesday morning was a bad start of the day with a sudden changes requirement in the poster amendment. Though it was long anticipated with the previous experience, I was quite frustrated over the never-ending amendments.
I was in my new shirt which I bought during the previous shopping trip with Gilbert. Since it was more stylishly designed,
I attended the KO’s graduation party. It was an unexpectedly early celebration for there was still around three more months towards the end of their struggle. We had endless photo-taking sessions and two rounds of cake-eating sessions because Chun Leng was having his birthday.
Since the celebration stretched till after lunch time, and I had to grab a “bao” and “siew mai”.
The most frustrating thing was to receive an email regarding more amendments to the poster, which I felt all instructions should be given at one shot.
In the afternoon, we had a short badminton session. Since Weitat wanted to take a shower, Jingkun left in a rush first. Suddenly Weitat decided to go home directly but it was too late for me to catch Jingkun’s car since I was too tired to run anymore, and I did not want to dirt his car with my sweat.
On Thursday, lunch was “lor mee” again since I was still feeling sick and could not take other stuffs.
In the afternoon, I tried to drag time so that I could get to rest more. I would not have done any sport for the day if Meihoe did not tell me that Mr Ng was going down to play with me.
I went to the canteen to grab some sandwiches and the auntie sold me a box of them for two bucks, and even asked her assistant to make a cup of tea for me when I told her I was sick.
The entire hall was very crowded. When Mr Ng arrived, I teamed up with him to play against the rest. Next, Daniel allied with me against Afni and Vivian. After teaming up with Dorothy against Meihoe and Mr Ng, I played one on one with Mr Ng and it certainly took me lots of courage and energy but at least, we did not play as long as the previous time.
After badminton, we proceeded to play volleyball. We had friendly match with some Malaysians and some of the SIM players came down as well. It had been ages since I last had serious volleyball game and I felt so weird. Jumping with my injured right knee was difficult and the runny nose was irritating. I was not able to do my best.
Overall, we won three games and lost one game. I left after that since I was not feeling well and that I had to wake up early for the next day.
My stomach gave me lots of problems, posing more problems than the flu and cough.
Lunch for Thursday was at the canteen. I almost lost my voice since George was gone for the fourth day.
Nothing was special except for the badminton session in the afternoon. At first, I got into game play with some kids at the third court and soon, as more colleagues arrived, we had to invite them out of the court.
I got into a tight situation when Deon tried to get her students into the court. I explained to her that we had too many players and that since we had to even get the previous group of kids out of the courts, it made no sense to give special privilege to her students.
Luckily, we had Hirman and Zaki joining the court, and I played against them together with Daniel. Hirman displayed superb skill. Daniel and I had to aim at Zaki in order to increase the percentage of scoring points. In the end, we managed to emerge the winners.
I got into another game with Vivian against Dorothy and Meihoe’s husband, Mr Ng. My side was thrashed badly but Mr Ng seemed to be very impressed with my determination to dash and dive all over the court, and he invited me to play single with him. My initial plan was to rest as much as possible before the volleyball game after missing it for weeks, but it seemed that I was not good at goal setting.
It was a hell training for me as Mr Ng hit the shuttle cock towards the two corners of my court, and I seemed more like a clown. I could see that he was quite happy with his intention to train me and thus the effort was worthwhile. I made the final spectacular dive far at the right side and managed to save the drop ball, and after which, Weitat and Meihoe took over the court. As I lay down on the side of the hall, my sweat continued to drip.
I had a few sets of volleyball game to realise that my right knee was strengthless after hitting the floor for many times while diving earlier on. The pain slowed me down. I dozed off after that and my knee was tighter than before. I only wanted to play for the last set of game but nobody was there to take over me and the game dragged on another three sets. Luckily that throughout the volleyball games, I did not get many chance to spike.
Darius sent Mingli and Mingfa home and he dropped me at Jurong East MRT station before that. I had to stagger up to the train and back home. Another fortunate thing was that I did manage to grab a seat on the train. By the time I reached home, it was already after eleven PM and my dinner was vegetarian food.
I was a little stressed up on Wednesday morning while doing the design work for George. I had some good ideas but it was not easy to get everything done on PhotoShop; perhaps, my skill was far too shallow.
During lunchtime, Jingkun, Weitat and I were going to the canteen and suddenly Meihoe dragged us away and insisted us to go out. She refused to tell us what was happening but we could sense she was trying to avoid some people in the canteen.
I had chicken rice and sugarcane juice; the food was quite nice but I did not like the drinks. It was a special day, which marked the first time Meihoe dined together with us.
I did not like the afternoon until the badminton session began. We had Alex, Alfni, Dorothy, Weiming, Bernard, Vivian, Mr Neo, Mr Baey and Zaki with us. Alfni’s skill was impressive. We had a long afternoon and the last survivors were Dorothy, Mr Neo, Zaki and I. I was quite lost when Weiming and Bernard decided to leave suddenly since I thought Weiming could at least accompany me for half of my journey home.
In the end, Zaki was nice enough to give me a ride and I was extremely lucky that he was passing by Keppel Road. It was a comfortable trip without having to walk to the MRT station or standing and squeezing with the crowd with my heavy bags. He gave me advices while driving, and I was glad to befriend such a friendly guy.
Anyway, my calf muscles were giving me problems since before the game and it worsened after that despite the fact that I had done minimal running. It could be due to standing for too long in the class or because I was quite pissed off in the afternoon.
This Thursday, George was on course and thus I worked alone. The class had a celebration for Liangquan’s twenty-first birthday and it was pretty cute for the rest of them to organise it for him.
After work, we started playing badminton again. Mingfa came down to join us. Since the previous days’ workout had totally drained my energy off, my body could not carry out my brain’s instructions. I started playing with the HPO colleagues since the other two courts were occupied and those tiring games further exhausted me.
There was volleyball session in the evening but I had to give it a miss since it was a last-minute one and the cramps on my legs earlier had advised me to give up. I waited for Daniel to take his bath before strolling to the MRT station together.
On Wednesday morning, the aching from Monday evening’s jog seemed to have worsened. I felt like my legs were giving ways at times and it was irritating.
I resumed my marking work and almost completed it before lunch, except with some doubts. Lunch was at canteen.
The highlight of the day was the badminton session for the sweating out and laughers. I applied the muscle rub so much and the massaging did help a lot in relieving the pains on my entire legs.
I started off playing with Mr Baey’s students and when Vivian paired up with me, the guys made me run so much to cover the entire court. Playing with Mr Neo was quite weird since his skill was good and I kept helping him to lose points.
After the game, Dorothy sent both Weiming and I to Clementi MRT station, and thus saving us time and strength.
On Thursday, I woke up restlessly even though I slept right after midnight. Meihoe pointed out that my face looked sick recently and I was not sure what was wrong as well.
I thought I could spend the entire day to do my tasked design work but it turned out that my plan failed again. The worst thing was my self-initiative to help George to split the workload since we were working together.
In the afternoon, I played badminton again together with Jingkun, Weitat, Dorothy and Mr Baey. It turned out to be good game. The diving and laughers cleared away all the troubles.
Since the bus-stop next to Clementi MRT was quite crowded, I told Jingkun to put me at somewhere where there was bus 196. He drove to the carpark behind the newly opened West Coast Shopping Centre and I crossed the long bridge to the bus-stop outside NUS high school. It was an irritating journey. There were five Malays at the back of the double decker bus playing loud Malay music and from the reflection on the glass, I saw that the teenage boy was chewing on titbits. All I could think was the group of them would definitely be pests of ITE in future, or perhaps, they might probably stop their education after N levels.
Wednesday morning set me up with mixed feeling. I did not do my best this time round. I felt remorseful somehow due to my previous contribution to other groups of people that I failed to keep up with the pace; I was simply too tired.
It was good to work with Mr Baey because he was the first person to teach me things since first day of work. After that, Since Jingkun and Weitat had taken their lunch, I joined Mr Baey, Bernard, Weiming for lunch and Andrew tagged along just to do some shopping. We went to IMM’s food court and I was glad that they were all family men who could not afford to spend much. After lunch, we went to Daiso and Mr Baey treated us to the Japanese drinks, which I felt the price was not very cheap since the can sizes were small.
It became another terror once I got back to office. Before I could sit down on my place to brush up on my work, I got visitors. I was not sure how on earth would people think I was very free that they came to me over and over again for helps which took up lots of time. I would be very pleased to help out once in a while but it had been weekly issues that I felt like switching off my phone at work.
I was sick of repeating my tasks on hands and my personal work, and I hated my privacy being infringed. I boiled up whenever people assumed I was free while seeking helps from me.
I managed to control my temper for the day and Mr Neo somehow saved me without knowing.
It was fun to play badminton with Weiming, Dorothy, Mr Baey, Bernard, Alex and Vivian. Weitat was exhausted from his friend’s wedding and thus could not join us. I was waiting for Jingkun throughout but his laziness and tiredness sent him home directly after work. Sweating out released all the stress and anger.
It was painful to go home in the rain in my slippery after the game with my old injuries on the feet; each step took me great courage. I took usually long to get home.
