My left thumb was sprained on last Saturday night. It was caused by receiving a ball using fingers on the volleyball court when I softened my fingers to place it a metre away for the setter. I did not trim my fingernails and had this phobia, which restricted my movements.
It had been more than a year since I last sprained any part of my body as I had not played volleyball for very long.
I hate it for causing pain whenever I trigger it. Even squeezing the toothpaste has been made difficult. It reminds me of the doctor warning my mum that losing the power on the thumb will cause disability to nearly 40% of the daily tasks.
I am actually quite used to the after-sprained feeling since my back has been hurting similarly for the past ten years. The hurt is definitely not as severe as heartache though.
Somehow, I have not forgotten about the hurt caused by my last ex-girlfriend more than two years ago. Every single lie, regardless of the seriousness, from any female friend just pours back the memories.
“Please don’t treat me too nice.”
I’m quite sensitive to the request from any female friend because it reminds me of my first relationship. It somehow makes girls guilty and the feeling is bad, which also makes them begin to admit their lies, whether big or small.
Sometimes I wish I have not been too sharp, which has also been scaring female friends away. I always remember what Baoyu has told me more than a year ago - most girls do not think logically. When I begin to be too frank with my observation, it often draws a line between us.
I’m not a smart person and thus I always do my best to make up for the shortcoming. However, I’m often powerless. Most of the time, I can only sit back and pray hard for them when they are in bad times.
Whenever a sweet friend whom I have been treating sincerely distances away suddenly, it hurts.
My new pages for my tuition agency website were up though the contents were not fully ready. Meanwhile, I had difficulty filling up my stomach with the dinner my mum cooked for I had roti prata with Kachua a couple of hours ago. I managed to get the website’s url up in Wikipedia before I went to bed at seven plus. It took me quite some time to doze off.
David gave me a call at 1pm to deliver to me the bad news that the viewing for the office had to be postponed to the next day.
I tried to work on the new website for the new project with my gym friends but my mind was all about the tuition site to stop me from making any progress. Anyway, the thought of the tedious design and programming work frustrated me because I knew with my lack of experience, it would take months to deliver the work.
I went to the gym at 7pm with my stressed mind. Andrew was training under Dan and he looked worse than me. However, I did not display my frustration and instead, I showed everyone the opposite side of my mood. I started playing the Xbox 360 Kinect and the volleyball game got me tired soon. Eventually, when I moved too near the gym bench, my toe was cut badly by the sharp edge. I lost quite a big amount of blood and Bobby was quite worried. He wanted to go upstairs to get me the “yellow medical oil” but I went up myself instead since he had two clients coming at the same time – one came late and another was earlier.
Before 8pm, Andrew was very worried. His stressful face did not recover even after sweating out. He told me to call Letian and Junze. Both of them were already on their way and were pretty on time. We were lucky that Bobby was around during our meeting again. He commented that we were not moving after so many sessions of meeting. We decided to take actions and I told them of my concern of the website. Andrew suggested to engage his partner’s service. I was happy that the problem could be solved as the professional definitely had much more experience, manpower and existing coding to establish the website probably more than ten times faster than an amateur doing one-man show. The meeting was eventually interrupted and before we realised, it was over and we started playing the volleyball game on Xbox.
I spent the morning surfing, planning and blogging. I left for reservist straight without catching a wink. I met up Kang at the control station and he tempted me to get breakfast at a shop nearer to the bus interchange. I was expecting them to charge me an extra dollar for extra ingredient but I had to fork out two dollars and thirty cents, which I felt was cheated. Kang was quite worried that Terry would cause us to miss the base ferry and I assured him that we could even afford to miss one SBS bus to get there.
Kang made a move fast after checking out from the guard room and he managed to get into the squadron bus. I persuaded the NSF to squeeze in as well and there was only an additional place at the front, which Terry and I decided to give a miss. We took the base ferry instead and I was glad to meet Yutong. We had to walk a much longer distance to get into our headquarter.
While unwrapping the wooden chopsticks, I was injured by the sharp surface. I was not sure if any wood strap did get into my index finger but it hurt and irritated me for the entire day.
I started playing pool with Teng, and dart and Chinese chess with Terry. Finally, we moved to the table tennis table outside and I realised I had forgotten totally how to play the sport. After losing six sets straight to him, I got a hand of it and raced eight sets before losing another set. The final score was ten to seven. He gave up his bat to another guy and I won another two sets before calling for a break. I was drenched by my sweat but managed to doze off after some time.
I took a late lunch before playing table soccer with Terry and Yutong, and other NSmen. I dozed off a couple of times again to rest my back. Everyone was getting restless and we were extremely disappointed to be out-processed at 5pm sharp. We took Peter Chan’s car to Novena again. Terry was meeting his friend and thus I left without him.
It was already over 6pm when I reached home and thus I did not join my ex colleagues at Changi, considering that they were meeting at 5pm and it would take more than an hour for me to get there. I worked on my website instead and started dozing off.
After meeting up with Terry, we went to the hawker centre to get some food. I bought only a bowl of beancurd for eighty cents. Since I had slept much earlier than usual, I could keep myself more refreshed in the morning. I spent some time writing and planning for Smart Tuition Singapore. I tried the burger from the ninja van but it was awful. I missed the chicken burger from the Stagmont Camp’s ex Specialist Mess uncle.
After the interview, which I was told that I could be granted time off to leave earlier on Thursday for my birthday dinner, I could not hang on for the afternoon as I was deprived of sleep. In the late afternoon, Terry and I hitched a car out of the camp.
After having my dinner, I went to the gym to help out. Since it was getting late, the meeting with Andrew and my team was cancelled. It took an hour to hurt my skin on the finger as they were short of penknives and I had to use brute force to tear the wrapping plastic from the new equipments. I left earlier with Andrew for they had enough people there. I knew I had done my part for my friends despite I was already being frustrated by the lack of time due to the reservist.
I had lunch at the Tanjong Pagar food centre with my family. I had a bowl of fish soup.
The highlight of the day was the jog to Marina Barrage at 6pm. Due to the problems with my stomach and that I did not maintain a constant pace, I faced difficulties. For the start, I realised it was not a good idea to set off on the last Saturday before National’s Day. I knew there was rehearsal of the National Day parade and many people would crowd around at Marina Barrage to catch the fireworks.
This time round, I held on to my phone and started recording video from Shenton Way till Marina Barrage. However, the product was much shaken than I had expected. I was quite unlucky that traffic light was against me at the first junction to delay me badly. Soon, I was exhausted and my timing was disgusting in the end.
Marina Barrage was crowded. The management even projected shows at the ground level to a big screen and they blasted the sound. There was no quiet spot and I had to go till the far end where it was much warmer to take a rest. After being attacked by sand flies, I shifted to near the lift at where I used to camp at during my earliest few trips. Finally I lay down to close my eyes and rest. However, when I tried to check my watch for the time, it started to go haywire. The screen went blank and the alarm sounded to irritate me from my rest. It stopped after quite some time and when I tried to press the buttons, the same irritant came back.
It was not a good night to catch rehearsal’s fireworks for there was explosion for every ten to fifteen minutes that lasted probably around ten seconds each time. I was surrounded by Chinese from Shanghai.
It was one of the latest times I set off from Marina Barrage. I had to use the stopwatch from the phone’s function instead since the watch was down. I hated my timing. The jog seemed to have worsened my left foot’s condition.
My dinner was spaghetti cooked by my elder brother.
I spent the morning updating SmokeForWhat crazily. It took too much time and effort to type new article. I had a few more in mind and phobia was taking over me. I went to bed after sunrise, after replying Huiting’s SMS.
Since the initial dinner venue was at SP, I had no plan to take off early. After some hesitation, I made my way to the gym.
I had no time to waste like usual to take lots of breaks in between the workout. While others always used “resting is useless” to push themselves, my mind was full of “resting will make me late”. I almost killed myself by exhausting myself thoroughly. During the previous “day 2” training, I could do four sets of wide shoulder pull-up, but this time, my third and fourth sets could not even reach ten pulls to complete them. My injury on the left shoulder hurt more than ever.
I managed to finish the entire workout within an hour. While I was trying hard to stable my wobbling legs, I checked my phone and realised Eunice had changed the meeting venue to Bukit Timah. I rushed home to shower and get changed. When I missed the bus 75 right in front of me, I knew I was bound to be late. The next bus took ages to arrive while the road was full of other vehicles. There was no other way to get to my destination earlier other than this direct bus.
While I was still stuck in the jam of Holland Road, I thought Huiting was near Ngee Ann Polytechnic already and thus I would be the last to reach. I dropped off a bus-stop earlier and paced towards the Old Town White Coffee, reaching the junction earlier than the bus at the nearer stop. I was glad that I was not the last one to arrive.
It was a good dinner but since Eunice had declared to pay for the meal, I was quite stingy with the selection of my food. I was the only guy but it was not the main reason to be rejoiced, for the companion of nice people was more attractive. We moved to the food centre for dessert after that before Eunice called for a curfew at 10pm.
I had lots of fun crapping with Jade while waiting for her bus. After that, I went to KAP’s MacDonald’s to test their toilet before going home. The place reminded me of the past, after my A division volleyball games, the entire team went down together for dinner.
My plan to spend the peaceful night trip on bus 75 doing my work failed as I was troubled over Firman’s project, which had no budget.
I caught the World Cup match of Spain against Honduras together with my elder brother. Other than the Brazilians, the Spanish players did well enough to impress me with their skill and teamwork.
I went to the gym in the afternoon and did my workout as to not waste Tze Khit’s effort. I knew he meant well for me to build up myself and also to strength my muscle against my injuries. I knew I would not keep up with it. Ah Hui did well to entertain me with his craps during the gym session.
Nevertheless, the main motive of going down was to show Tze Khit the poster I had done. Therefore, after the workout, I continued with a little amendment before reloading all the files into his laptop so that Bobby could get to see it as well.
After reaching home, I continued to help him to update his websites with his latest photos.
I had gaming till 5pm and it was difficult to wake up even at 10am. I made it to Tiong Bahru before 12pm but shifu was late for quite long. She introduced me to her friend, Jeremy, and Jeremy’s student. They went separately for lunch while shifu explained to me about Jeremy’s websites.
After lunch, I went straight to Tze Khit’s gym. He told me of additional amendments for his websites and I started working on it. It was difficult to edit another person’s work and I had problems searching for the exact files.
While working, I was distracted by the noisy gym. Then, Jeremy started asking me questions and soon, Kachua called and visited the gym. Since I had my sports gear with me, I skipped doing gym and joined Kachua for volleyball instead.
We went to Clementi ITE and I was quite surprised to see many ex colleagues’ cars around. We went to IMM since the hall was empty and I grabbed a Mc chicken burger.
Upon returning to the hall, we heard about story of Mingfa’ student fell and was injured by the hook of the volleyball pole near the private part. Everyone was disgusted. Mingfa was not around and I accompanied coach to chat. I joined in only at the third game and could see myself rust like as if I was a newbie. I was strengthless, or rather, having phobia with my hurting left should and foot. I even missed two serving, which was crappy.
Luckily, Weitat asked me over to the side to warm-up and I got more used to controlling the ball – usually, we had too many people playing with a ball by the side and I would not want to join in. However, the hurt on my left shoulder was too unbearable each time when I exerted it.
I played as setter in my third and last game, and turned the table around after being thrashed in the previous games without Mingfa.
After the game, we went for supper near NUS, next to the prata shop.
It was a different start of the day for I did not feel like sleep early despite I knew I could not really doze off easily. I kept working till a couple of hours before sunrise.
In the evening, my mum and I walked to Chinatown to meet my elder brother and his girlfriend for dinner. We were aiming for the chicken rice near the escalator and having missed it a couple of times previously, we managed to get half a chicken after a long queue. While waiting, we saw a dish collector chatting away with customer despite the tables were in a mess. When my mum went over to approach her to help to clear up our table, she claimed that she was not in charge of our area. A foreign looking guy with a few piercing around his face showed a total attitude but he did not seem to look at me when I was trying to show him appreciation by smiling.
We did not have a long night out. After dinner, we went to the NTUC for a short while before reaching home at 8.30pm.
It was another boring day despite it was a weekend; I felt like a forgotten soul. The aching of my upper body caused irritation to me.
I finally went to the Chinese physician again in the afternoon. My stomach’s condition had improved a lot.
In the late afternoon, I dragged on before taking off to the usual spot at Shenton Way to start off my jog after missing it for weeks. The pain in my shoulders was irritating, which was one excuse that I hesitated. The sky and cloud were far too beautiful to give a miss though.
I actually set off earlier than usual. The paths were blocked by blockheads and I witnessed Chinese construction workers spitting on the road. The bad pollution was a major turn-off.
I started off with the sides of my knees hurting, especially at the right one. My timing had dropped but I was quite satisfied with it.
Marina Barrage was more crowded than ever and I hardly could find any empty space to rest. It was warmer than usual while the sun was setting. I strolled to the lift where there was shade and stared at the bridge where the usable water was separated from the sea. The wind was strong and I felt happier when each gasp of them seemed to penetrate through my entire body.
While I was taking my leave at the side facing the Singapore Flyer, someone tapped me and it took me a few seconds to realise Shuhui and Kenneth were there. Besides them was another couple and the girl was extremely cute. I stayed there for quite some time to look at the kite.
The return trip was faster as usual. I lost to the bus by a large margin but managed to overtake the alighted passengers before they passed by the tunnel towards Marina Bay MRT station.
It was an extremely boring night. It seemed like nobody was able to spend time to entertain me.
I finally got to dine together with my Shi Fu, Josephine. We went to IMM’s Fish and Co and she gave me very good guidance on my resume while waiting for the food. The meal was on me since she last treated me at New York New York the previous time at Jurong Point. I supposed we hit off well because both of us were very direct-to-point people.
The gathering of the MTRCs was never a smooth job; it was the last task I would be helping my boss with. I spent the afternoon updating my resume.
It was perhaps, one of the greatest mistakes I made, to join in the volleyball game at night. I knew there would not be many chances that I would play so often in future and thus, I gave up the dinner date with Irwin and Eugene.
The pain on my left shoulder was deadly. Even receiving a light ball would cause me cold sweat and I gave up soon knowing that the condition had worsened and that I would not be able to do well in the game.
Perhaps, the bad feeling was already back and the game was never as joyful as the previous week.
I started the morning with phobia from the previous day. I reached Bukit Batok at my normal timing but Andrew was even earlier to set up everything, however, the headphones were misconnected again. He walked away before the lesson and needless to say, I had to do everything by myself. He returned and left earlier than he mentioned. I felt stupid for someone being sent over to conduct the workshop was just in name, and I had to handle everything by myself, just like the times I was alone. I did not want to blow anything up since it was already my last struggle. Letting down expectation was a comfortable solution and I managed to enjoy myself especially with some of the cute people.
After returning to office with the bulky projector, I quickly went to find Kelvin to sign it in. Next, I had lunch with Cheng Hong in the canteen. We talked about the student counsellors and I was glad that the three ideal students I had in mind after observing throughout the previous orientation camp were all seated into the team.
I had a mixed feeling somehow towards the ending of my contract. My boss and colleagues knew well how bored I was towards staying after more than two years of toleration. My eyes were as tired as the past few days and I could not do much things in the office. I tried to drink more water before my health condition worsened.
I met up with Mingfa at the MPH in the evening. The rest of them arrived slowly for the volleyball game. I did not feel confident at all because of both my shoulders. The thought of the possible dislocation reminded me not to wildly challenge my limit again. The irritation of the pain for these two weeks did worsen my temper.
Volleyball was great without any “black face” around. I did both well and bad at times in my pain but did enjoy myself a lot. Kachua sent me home after that.
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.
On Monday, I was refreshed since I had enough sleep during the weekends, even though I struggled till late hour the night before with my website. However, I started feeling the sharp pain on the joint at my right arm as well, making me a total handicap.
I started off my day by consolidating another set of SYOG “letters” for Joy, and transferring all the gathered ones into PowerPoint slides. I was quite amazed with my pace of work.
During lunch, I joined Mei Hoe and Dorothy at “dead end” where I had a plate of wantan noodle. Both of them had endless reflections as usual. Halfway through our lunch, Weitat called and I regretted not trying to contact him earlier despite we thought he was going to settle his lunch on his own.
I concentrated too much on my own work and forgot the time to knock off. Joy returned and I waited for her for quite a long time before she gave me a lift to the MRT station. Since it was already late and that my arms were still giving me problems, I dropped the idea of my jog to Marina Barrage.
After working till late, I woke up near noon to miss an hour of my favourite show on channel 8 – Plan A. Peh postponed the time of our meeting and thus I was able to slow down my pace.
I did not feel good since the joint on my left arm was giving me sharp pain whenever I tried to move it. I knew it was due to the improper sleeping position the night before the barbecue, which I swam and also carried excess heavy stuffs. I was quite frightened because I realised I could have dislocated my arms if I were to push myself more on that day.
As expected, he was late and I went to Tiong Bahru Plaza’s Long John Silver to sit down and continue with my uploading of photos in Facebook. We had very long chat before he started to do the financial planning for me. Since my elder brother was a financial planner as well, meeting up with Peh was simply to help him improve on his skill. I felt awkward since we would normally crap together instead of talking about such serious things. I hated telling anyone about my very private stuffs.
It was supposed to be a lunch together but he had already taken his lunch and thus, I did not find a better place to give him a treat, having to owe him his birthday present or meal for the past two years already.
After Peh left, I continued to work with my laptop until after 6pm. I dozed off quite soon after reaching home and woke up at around 9pm for my dinner. Then, I continued with my website.
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.
My reservist was finally over on Thursday after they out-processed everyone, giving us a day off on Friday due to Chinese New Year.
The culture of the air base was way different from normal army’s camps, and everyone, regardless of ranks, basically showed respect to any small fry. I met many great and weird people. Conversations were most of the time pointless and nonsensical.
It was supposed to be two weeks of rest for me and also for me to ponder over the future; but somehow I did not make good use of the time.
There were some days that I was able to play table tennis, pool and table soccer. I was glad to be able to exercise so that I would not grow fatter like the rest of them.
I ate more than ever, taking my morning breakfast prepared by my mum, followed by my own breakfast in the camp. I was able to finish my lunch after that. It happened almost every day.
I spent the time at home editing my websites into late hours, and thus, I tried to spend my time sleeping in the day and afternoon, which I failed because of the noises. Sitting on the chair, trying to doze off, caused me bad aches after the long struggle. I had numbness caused by the prolonged position and my knees were badly affected.
The toughest thing to do was the travelling. I hated having to transit from train to bus and followed by the internal bus, which I could not afford to miss. Lunch was quite terrible except on the last second day, which was like of like western food.
It was time to say goodbye to the days of playing pool, table tennis and table soccer for free. After moving to another building, seven of us were stuck in a small room with poor reception.
I needed much more privacy in order to do my planning for my future and also, new websites.
I was lucky except for the travelling part. The gentleman offered to send us out but he was a workaholic who stayed behind for an extra half an hour. I would not have minded if it was a normal day, but I intended to go back to my office to feel the air before the start of the volleyball game – I could not make it on time.
The games were awesome in the absence of someone. After sleeping in different positions over the past few days, my right arm was numbed and thus, injured, such that I could not really perform. We played till late and I had my dinner just before midnight with Kachua at the prata shop near my house.
It was a rare morning sleeping throughout the silence till after sunrise. Thursday morning, I woke up feeling tired still after the long rest since I did not catch enough sleep the days before. I went to visit the Chinese physician and got myself eight days of medicine before going to work.
Jingkun and I wanted to give Mei Hoe a belated birthday treat and thus we proceeded to IMM’s Swenson. Daniel joined in. We had great chats as usual.
I stayed inside the office until 7.30pm before proceeding down to the MPH for volleyball. Everyone seemed to play well. Somehow, my team had the upper hand. My legs were wrecked at my third game playing the centre position with other people. I was very amazed by my wrist power. Later part of the night was dull, but I made sure I did my duty defending given no other role.
We left at around 10pm. Kachua gave me a ride home. I realised I had sprained my index finger on the right hand and also over-exerted the wrist.
I’m finally home with itchiness on my legs. The blocked nose has never recovered and so is the bad cough. I can feel some hurt whenever I swallow saliva into my throat. My feet are sore and my knees are aching. I seem to have some sunburn on my arms.
I have only slept less than three hours for the past two days.
