Howl at the stars, whisper when you�re sleeping. I�ll be there to hold you; I�ll be there to stop the chills and all the weeping.Every signal that you send, until the very end, I�m there.
- From �Whistle Down the Wind� composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, sung by Tina Arena
Hallo hallo. I have not abandoned this blog; more of I have not taken time to write an entry to post here. I have posted on fb Notes and on Blogspot, and written in my diary and prayer diary as well. I still do a lot of thinking and reflections in the shower, which is why I don�t sing that often in the shower. (I sing when I drive alone and today I didn�t warm up my vocal chords as usual so I feel a slight lump in the throat. Genius haha. I�m preparing for the next KTV outing!) I do a lot of reflections and thinking at other occasions too which I shall not list out or it will be too long.
At this minute, today is Deepavali. It�s great because I don�t have school today, so it�s one more day to rest, sleep in, and DO HOMEWORK. Due dates for assignments and lab reports etc. are approaching, man. There�s also LAG2201 Semestertest 2, the final test for that module. Next week is the last week of school! Then one week to summarise everything into my head and then walk into those exam halls. What a whirlwind this semester has been so far (esp. the later half)! Happy Deepavali to my Hindu and Sikh friends and all other Indians who celebrate this festival.
Today was a good day, thank you God. Like yesterday as well, because I felt my soul is coming back to me. I was feeling hollow, like a machine, like my mind was not there though my body was, doing things unconsciously even though I was surprisingly alert. Cici calls it �a homework machine�. Ae is also feeling the fire too, getting burned out. In fact, my entire cohort in CE Year 3 is feeling it, and not only that, my friends in other engins and faculties in year 3 and above. I never knew it would get so intensive. That�s why I put in my fb status �if you are year 3 and above, you are SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPALIDOCIOUS.� (I had listened to that song on my phone walkman that morning on my way to school.)
I like to ask my OG freshies, �how are you? Are you alive?� Then they would answer, �I�m dying.� Or �I�m Dead.� Then I would tell them, �I died, resurrected, and respawned multiple times.� I would also answer that if someone asked me �how are you?� WL asked me that question on Tuesday and his reaction to that was, �I do that a few times every day.�
Yeah it�s tiring. Gambatte fellas!
Back to my story. Haizz, so many sub-ideas I have. Because I was feeling burned out and had a few issues in my mind, I turned off the lights, sat up cross-legged on my bed, and prayed out loud. My motive was so that I would not fall asleep while praying, and I would address the issues in mind because articulating them verbally would force me to have clear ideas in mind instead of impressions. I was calmed and reassured after praying, not because of the effects of verbally articulating ideas, but because I knew God�s hand was there, there to make things good. I prayed on many things, including for strength to go through all this stress from school, and for feeling �mind not here�.
On Wednesday I saw many friends and smiled/waved at them as I walked by. I also was livelier and interacted more friendly. It helped I bumped into WC, Celeste and Alan at Central Library 3rd Floor. I felt my soul was returning.
Today was a good day too. I met Martina, Jason and Kengster in the morning after finishing my tutorial for coffee (though what I had was mein Liebslinggetr�nk (my favourite drink): Milo). I didn�t want to leave them but I had to start walking to arts for my Vokabtest. They wished me good luck. �Vielen Erfolge!� Martina said. It won�t be possible to do the same thing next week because I ponned CE3116 lecture for the make-up LAG2201 lecture, only because there was webcast � which I didn�t get to watch because all the PC clusters were full this afternoon -_-� .
Der Test war gut. Jason fr�gt, �Sehr gut?� �Ja.� �Warum?� I had memorised all the words that came out, after �opening up part of the brain that I have never used before and stuffing words into it�. I really worked very hard to sponge up all that stuff into my memory because I have never been good with memorizing things � and somehow in my robotic state I was really sponging it all in! Martina helped correct my reply in German �Ich hoffe ich habe wenige Fehler als den (or der?) letzter Test.� I hope to better the surprising 91.4% I got for the previous vocab test, and I hope to do well in the upcoming final test, so that I can round off the module with excellent grades. I also chatted with DW before lecture so I got to know him better.
Over lunch with Michelle we had a lively conversation though I think it was because I was in the mindless chatterbox mood. :)
While studying I met YH whom I have not seen in so long. We were both happy just to even SEE each other. :) We chatted for a short while before she took leave to go to a project meeting.
During training I had only 3 bouts but they were all good bouts. Before that warm up and drills today were efficient. Little time was wasted on waiting for queues to clear and we had the space to do mass footwork and blade work instead of conveyor belt. But yes the first warm ups after stretching was the psychomotor conveyor belt, as I like to call it. I partnered a freshie girl, Sasha for blade work.
Later KY pared up seniors and juniors to give one on one teaching for bladework and footwork. YZ and Jiao Lian are in Paris now for World Fencing Championships. I think that idea was good because it gives the freshies the individual attention they need to correct themselves and to set the foundations properly. Moreover it is very rare nowadays for coach to give anyone one-on-one attention. One-on-one attention is good for training. I took Sasha and gave her a bit more of parry 6s to strengthen those hardly-used muscles there. I also adjusted her en garde posture. I notice her lunge is good (her knee is almost 90 degrees! Very good!) and her elbows though they run they only run for a little. She has good body form and it would be good to keep her to train her up because it is likely she will improve very fast.
For free fencing, I presided a few times. For the last bout which was Jason P vs KY, it was very hard for me to see if a parry was made and who made the first attack movement, so I had a hard time presiding. I first fenced Celeste. I was lunging properly today and made firm parry-ripostes, but my chionging got the better of me near the end and I was making the same moves. I scored a couple of points via remiss-es or sheer length stock hits, and I abused her large disengages with a withdraw-remiss, though that only worked twice. When I fenced with her I was using my brain and I kept distance for a while(!) but my disengages were too big as I would find out later. I lost 8-10 GG no.1
GG no. 2 was against Chewy. He shared with me what he did during that bout, which is good because I can learn from there. For the first few points he was tired so he didn�t lunge. Later when he did lunge he lunged so far that my retreat was not fast nor far enough. He also noticed I was doing the same movements (ah ha, animalz, you are having inertia to change strategies!) and that my disengage was large, so he had an easy time parry-riposting me. I also got too close for the second half of the bout. I lost about 5-10 I think but I learned a lot and I performed well. I kept disengaging or double disengaging that I DID notice he would wait for my point to return back up when he would parry then riposte and I would counter parry in 4, and he told me he tested my blade and found out I would parry, and he changed strategy when he knew I knew his then current strategy. I fell for those simple tricks that I have been told so many times to do onto others!! I need to be more watchful over my disengage radii, and my predictability. I need to start doing the something cunning which I have been thinking about for a week or more.
GG no.3 was against Aerene. I kept my distance in the beginning but I got too close that she even told me verbally that during the bout. I was too close that I was in range for her to easily parry-riposte and I would end up with her blade tip compressed on me. My points also did not go in so I didn�t light up. About 7-10 I lost. Another lesson on distance. May it be a painful one so that I won�t make the same mistake again. I also kenna'ed her upper arm again, but only once.
I was in a slightly chatty mood during supper. :) I dropped off Yj, Kengster and SH (a rookie who was gg out for ice cream at Bukit Panjang Plaza Udders so she would be going same bus stop as Kengster). I have noticed that when I drop off people on the way home, I end off on a happier note and that would make me feel like it was a good day.
After dropping them off, I followed my usual route toward home but detoured to pick Mum up from the office. She had a lot of work as usual and forgot that she didn�t have the car today. She had bought CDs from Hillsong and I was happily singing on the way back. My driving has improved so much from last time � it�s a lot smoother though at times I don�t slow down enough at corners so there�s a slight discomfort due to centrifugal force.
I�m happy that Kengster used the whistle today. It�s his first time using the gift Jason L and I got for him and he�s happy because he found it useful.
3.57am. gonna K.O.
