Shoutouts, that aren't very shoutout-like.

It's been awhile. I've been busy so I didn't have much time to blog. I'm lagging in tutorials and tennis season has been... well, despite the wearing out effect I get on most days (which sorta in a way, added on to my laziness, causes the "lag in tutorials" scenario), amazing. 

We concluded our season today, bagging the double gold. Yes, both girls and guys. It was a closeee shave. By the way, Han Ren's (our new guy's captain) match was simply just amazing. He was reallllllly good. His match was like the Federer and Hewitt match, really make you cannot breathe. He was up against one of the best players in the country (yes, i know Singapore is a really small country but that doesn't mean his opponent was anywhere near incompetency) and WON, despite the fact that his opponent had a few match points, mind you. 

Anywho, Ms. Lio showed us some videos before our match to ermmm... inspire us and uh... coach us. XD She was like, "Oh, here you watch the forehand, you hit it like that, and watch that backhand. See how they're so determined? Just look at the way they keep going!" LoL. Of course she was joking but anywho, aside from her "coaching", her motivation talk was quite good too. There was something about tennis being an awesome game where you won't run out the clock. As long as you're still playing, you're in it and you still have a chance. I think that was quoted from Sampras or Agassi. It's amazing how you can gain so much from sports, simply just by applying what you've learnt from games/matches/training sessions to real life situations. The thing is, you won't understand the intensity of it until you experience it yourself. 

Oh, by the way, the MOTIVATION TALK ironically concluded with a quote by Andre Agassi saying that being number two sucks. Mrs. Lio followed up by saying, "no pressure though..." xD

Anywhos, I just came by today to announce some rather good news. So I should prolly get along with it cause I have to read up for my GP Common Test tomorrow. =/ 

1. Yes, there's the double gold for Tennis Nationals. =)
2. I got into tennis EXCO. Secretary. Quite sad about not getting vice capt but people tell me I should be happy. Anyway, looking at who's above me (Jia Li - ex RGS Tennis Capt and Tessa -ex RGS Head Girl), I guess it's not so bad. (PS. RGS is Raffles Girls School.)
3. I just got awarded a scholarship from Raffles. It's not as great as ASEAN but it does cover my tuition fees, which does come up to quite a bit. About $3500 (RM8400) a year ? Not as much compared to ASEAN (which  I blew) though but it works too. It's subjected to re-contract next year though... Ahhh... I'll just do my best.

Anyway, I wanna end by saying that life here ain't easy... Wherever you are, I'm pretty sure it's much tougher than secondary school cause right now, you can only count on yourself. A bit on your tutor, but not as much as before. We were spoon fed. Of course, back then, we had to deal with other situations that might have been tough for us. Like... learning to let go of friends or something something lah. I don't have very good examples but i'm pretty sure times weren't THAT smooth. After all, we only knew so much and we were only able to do so much. Different abilities we're talking about here. I'm sure uni days will come with lotsa new lessons as well. 

Anywho, you know how is it like when people always say or act as if they got it easy? I dunno about you, but most times, I think it's just a front. It's just a front to fool the whole world into thinking how capable they themselves are and just so that the world will look up to them... admire them. Studies, for example. They tell people they don't study at all. Like hell they don't, friggin' closet muggers. And on top of that, these people think that if you find it tough, it's simply because of the very fact that you're inept. The sad thing is, they fail to realise that they themselves didn't have it easy too.

I'm not going to succumb to that anymore. From now, I'm not going to worry about people finding me incompetent and I'm going to at least TRY not to trivialize things because I realise how I sometimes find hope in knowing that I'm not in this alone. Besides, Pete Sampras had a really neat way of looking at it.

"I made it look so easy on court all those years. No one realized how hard I had to work. No one realized how much I had to put into it. They underestimated my intensity."

- Pete Sampras