I tried my best to sleep early at 2am since I wanted to get up early to get my certification at SIM in the early morning before going back to ITE for visiting. As usual, it took me quite some time to doze off. My brother and his girlfriend left for Thailand in the midst of my sleep.
Having a second thought I decided to go to ITE first since I wanted to get my ex-colleagues the famous muffin from the shop downstairs my place and it would be too heavy to carry all the way to SIM. I got twenty-four pieces of them to make the journey was tougher with the loads. My mum had also surprised me with breakfast.
I went to find Mr Peh but he was not around. I met Diana just when I got up to the third level to brighten up my day. Then, I went into the almost empty staff room. I had a chat with Joy and Hirman came back after some time. I was commented as weird since I had not gotten myself a job and yet I spent money to buy muffins for them – I somehow had the same question in my mind. After passing the muffins to them, I quickly went down to meet up with Evangeline but she had already finished her lunch. I got her to return my grass jelly drinks and I was so proud and showed it off to all the passers-by. It was not about it being free. I rejected Joy, Weitat and Afni’s lunch invitation while Hirman was already at the “duck place” waiting for us.
After Evangeline and all her classmates went for class, I went to the lab with Jonathan for a while before we went to the staff room. After some chitchatting around, I went to Hirman’s desk to get Iylia’s photos so that I could pass to Lijun. Then, I took quite very long to burn the old photos for Hirman while chatting with Diana. In the end, somehow the disc was spoiled.
I borrowed Joei’s external harddisk and transferred the photos into it. I went to the administration office with Joy to settle her student’s bursary stuff and before going to find Weitat. Then, I returned Joei the money for Magdalene’s birthday before joining Hirman at the iDelite Mastery room.
I was totally impressed with Hirman for he did recording impressively for his lessons for the next week as he was going for reservist. He was the most inspiring lecturer I had ever met and the greatest gain of my stay in ITE was to get to know him. If only I had gotten into close contact with him two years ago, I could have changed more students’ mindsets to inspire them more. Now that I would only hope that I could be inspired by his drive more with all interaction whenever available in all the meet-up.
He was almost ruined after preparing a few lessons and we knocked off. I took all the stuffs to his car as he went up to return the keys. Later, Grace, Cynthia and Joei came down together with Hirman and he sent them to the carpark near MRT station before going to SIM to collect my certificate.
Instead of making a U-turn, we took Bukit Timah Road and it was a regret for we made a wrong turn near Steven Road later to go to Orchard Road and passed by two ERPs in the jam. It was a good chance to chat with him and the companion was the main thing, not the convenience. He dropped me opposite Raffles City. Instead of taking bus 167 at the bus-stop nearby or train at Cityhall MRT, I walked over to take bus 145.
I woke up exceptionally early for the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition on a Saturday – last Saturday.
The gang delayed for some time and finally, we met up at Seah Lm Food Centre and the chicken rice stall was still closed to our disappointments. Jingkun was the driver and we reported in early to see the most astonishing volleyball competition event ever.
There were many volleyball courts being set up but almost all of them were reachable at the tips of my fingers when I raised my arms. At the height of 1.64 metres, I estimated the top of the nets were around two metres tall, which was probably meant for primary school kids. With the poles and nets set at such height, skill was definitely not the main factor to victory, and instead, any tall and average player could easily defeat an experienced opponent team.
Rip Curl Beach Volleyball 2008 was yet another laughing stock.
Why would the organisers set up such a beach volleyball competition with such lousy quality poles and nets? They should have organised a beach sepak takraw competition instead.
Every team had to pay a huge amount of price - more than twenty bucks for each member - in order to participle. The goodies bag including the Rip Curl top which probably cost the organisers less than five bucks had a plain white mug with the current Rip Curl's theme printing was such a great disappointment.
Some participants were probably tank tops collectors but the organisers made it a rule that every player had to put on the new top in order to play; if not for this stupid rule, I would definitely have the top wrapped inside the plastic bag and not adding on a burden to my congested wardrobe. Moreover, the tank top would definitely leave ugly tan lines on everybody under the torching sun.
This event was deemed a total failure to me.
What eventually happened to my team was that the first game was an easy win. We had a close fight in the second game and before we could catch our breath, the emcee announced our team for the next game. We lost totally due to the net. It was almost impossible to block the spike when the opponents played it a distance away from the net and when the height was so dramatically low. The low net made it possible for all incoming balls to travel more horizontally aligned, which was tougher to receive; we were totally not used to such game.
There was no tension for the net at all that there was once when the opponent spike and somehow the ball pushed the net towards me to hit my spectacle off my face. I guessed that was the reason why Rip Curl had to make every participant sign the indemnity form to cover their asses in case any player got injured.
Mingfa's team was a pity as well. Wilson most probably was not used to playing such immature net. Since not everyone seemed to be giving in full effort, they failed to break the omen as well. In their last game, Mingfa played as spiker instead and he certainly did it much better than anyone else.
The most pitiful thing was that they decided to leave the beach at around noon so that they could go for volleyball during the evening. We went straight to Redhill to collect a car for Mingfa's friend before going to the ABC market near Queensway for lunch. Seven of us shared a chicken and the meal was quite satisfying.
Our next destination was Vivocity and by then, we were left with Mingfa, Mingli, Weitat and me. We kicked a fuss when Weitat tried to throw his salary away again. We ended the day with Mingfa giving me a ride home and then Weitat and Mingli hit the muffin shop just in time before business was closed for the Saturday afternoon.
