[Warning. Long post. Have a nice cup of drink ready, a comfortable posture on your seat, and remember to rest your eyes once every half hour.]

yez, idz bed grammer, i noe.

In other news, Choon's brain exploded after 5 consecutive hours of lessons today two days ago, since he didn't finish this post on time.

And instead of doing up a nice blog post like he should have, he spent two hours playing com.

So here we are now.

With the falling sky and the rain.

We're awakening.

Bah.

So. interJC.

Woke up at 6 in the morning, showered, grabbed my stuff, and my mum sent me off to Kovan. I went to the market to get some large bananas for the team. Took MRT to Orchard. I was in a rather good mood, and really proud to be wearing the Raffles Ultimate jersey. Got on bus with half the team, and reached the place without incident. 

Some were already throwing, so cleated up, got onto the field, and joined them for warmup. It wasn't much really, just two rounds around the field and stretching. Everyone ate a banana. I think. Cat gave his pep talk, they threw awhile, then they started doing layouts.

Oh, I didn't mention the mud, did I?

The whole field was basically covered in something that could have been labelled mud but in fact bore more resemblance to dried bean paste - sticky, uneven, and soft. 

Well, almost everyone did layouts except for a few girls (ahem XD), and got themselves prepared for the mud to come. They all started throwing, 

Then the games started.

The first game was a real morale booster. Team A gave ACJC Team A a good thrashing, 9-3. Team B, drew their first game due to miscommunication, but that got sorted out after the first game.

[Choon went off to sleep here]

[post resumes, albeit in a different manner]

Well, Choon shall look at his hopelessly muddled and badly taken notes score sheets. 

Oh oh, and Guang Yu handed out some helpful pointers before everything started. It's just simple basic stuff, but I thought they were really well organized, so I shall post them here. Muahahahha I'm using other peoples' work to fill up my posts. ^^

[start Guang Yu's stuff]

1) Composure on defense

-Whenever we lose a disk, we get it back on defense!

-Don't be stunned.

-Don't be demoralised, be determined to get the disk back, it's not the end of the world till we give up.

-Stick!

-Remind each other to stick.

-Show tactics on defense.

2)Discipline on formation

-Handlers must always stick at the backline

-Mids must form up quick

a. Handlers

-Do not pick up the disk when mids are not ready

-Do not call for dumps at -2 to 5s

-Cut for dumps only at 6s to 9s

-When disk is on the floor, call MIDS READY for and early cut

-When stall count starts, shout DISK IN for your team mates

-Look at the battlefield thoroughly, be calm, always check front first, then side, then the back

-Remind mids and handlers if they clog or cut too early

-To avoid cutting too early, count when fellow handler with disk shouts disk in, ONLY cut when it is 6s to 9s.

-Trust that dumps will come at 6s to 9s, if not , huck as much as possible.

b. Mids

-Stick to your lanes, DO NOT CUT INTO OTHERS' LANES.

-There might be an urge to cut if your fellow mids who are supposed to cut are not cutting, but remember, CONTROL THE URGE OR IT'D COST THE TEAM

-Fig. shows that if you but into others' lanes, you prevent others from cutting. YOU prevent 3 OPPORTUNITIES for passing!!! (sorry for blur photo)

-What you can do, for cutters not in a good position to cut forward, is to CUT BACK FOR HUCKS!!! eg. Kok Tong

-When you make a cut, and don't get the disk, go back to your original position fast!!!

(insert another fig.)

-Fig. shows that you block off 2 OPPORTUNITIES TO CUT!!!

-Remember what you have to do, the formation is important.

3)Overall formation

-Move up as a whole when on offence.

(There was supposed to be another diagram, but my camera isn't working too well. Bah.)

[end Guang Yu's stuff]

Okay. Back to the game, or whatever it was I was posting about. Excuse me while I scroll back up to check.

Ah. 

Well, I shan't post individually about each game, Jarrell's coming up with a DVD containing video of the matches, I believe, but I shall talk about the highlights.

Team 2 first.

After the first game, Team B changed to German formation, I believe. Well, German formation consists of a single so-called 'German' mid (though it's probably 'Monkey' or 'Indian' in Team B's case XD), everyone else is a handler/dump or deep. This allows for the most space for cutting, though the single lone dude has to be a very strong cutter.

Anyway, they started owning. Their second game was 9-2 against MI, during which Dng and Weekian went on some crazy scoring spree and scored/assisted 5 goals respectively. Oh, and Cat apparently owes Weekian 5 bucks now, since he said that he'd pay anyone who laid out and scored 5 bucks.

Oh, a word about MI. They arguably showed the best sportsmanship of the entire competition. Even though they were getting thrashed really badly in every game (I don't think they won a single one), they still took it as it was and shook everyone's hand with smiles on their faces. Not so for some schools, one in particular. More on that later.

Well, their third match was 7-0 against Hwach, nothing much to say because I was watching Team A from upstairs with Nick and Jarrell at that point and only managed to record what was going on later. Anyway, they owned AC 8-5 in their last group stage match.

Oh yeah I almost forgot.

Jarrell was videoing from upstairs throughout interJC with his fantastically pro camera, and Nick and I were there too, slacking and listening to his dance music faithfully recording down whatever happened during the games on paper. Oh, by the way, Nick has really cool music on his iPod! And and the Energy Beans are the coolest thing in the world. And Camel nuts, pun unintended.

Aaaaaaanyway. Team A.

They were rather demoralised during their second game, where they lost narrowly to ACJC team C by a scoreline of 4-5. They were losing at first, but managed to equalise near the end of the game. It was rather a close fight, I thought, Nickoo was really emo afterwards because when the scoreline was 4-4, someone hucked (Cat, I think) and he ran all the way into the endzone but the disc spun out of his hands. Oh well. At least he got most Ds (for defenses) for that game. AC scored after that and sealed the game.

Oh, a word about ACJC. Everyone was supposed to put their strongest team as Team A, because the stronger teams would be put together during the group stages. AC, however, put their strongest team as Team C, which was quite a dirty trick I thought, because it gave them much better chances of getting into semifinals. There was also talk of them match-fixing, but I'm not entirely sure.

Well, Team A bounced back after that, completely thrashing Hwach by a scoreline of 15-1. Cat, Longzhao and Yixuan assisted 3 apiece, with Engwei scoring 3. Nickoo was second with 2 assists. Joseph the mindblowingly tall guy whose head extends into outer space and proves a navigation hazard for satellites, Puhwai and Zhang Kai scored 2 each. Cat got your tongue? (it's an expression) most Ds with 4.

Oh, a funny thing here. They were all owning throughout the game, not letting Hwach get a single point, then at half time, the J2s went out and let the J1s play, then right before the game ended, Cat was evil and insisted said that he wanted to sub in, then right after he came on, Hwach scored. Hmm. XD

Well, be that as it may, during Team B's last group stage game, there was discussion of what to do about the current standings. Thing was, at the current standings, Team A would face Team B during semifinals if Team B won their last group stage match. That would result in only one team having a chance at the finals. Therefore, there was an idea that Team B should deliberately lose that match, since they'd get into the semifinals anyway, and that way both teams would not face each other and would therefore have a chance at a 1st 2nd placing. However, sportsmanship got the better of us and the decision was made not to matchfix. So there. 

Semifinals. RJ Ultimate Team A versus RJ Ultimate Team B.

As is usual when Team A plays against team B, Team B lost, and this match was no exception, with Team A winning 8-3. Well, Weekian got most Ds again, Cat most assists, and Joseph and Joshua (the J1 one) tying for most goals with 2 each. It was fun, though, and the amusing thing was that after the group stages, Team B actually was top of the table in terms of goal difference, even though Team A was supposed to be better. Oh well, Team A had a hard time in their group.

After that was the 3rd-4th placing match, between Team B and CJC, the same team they had played in their first game. It was a nail-biter throughout with CJC having the lead until the last few minutes, when Team B equalised and finally scored in the concluding moments of the match for a 7-6 victory. Man, the screaming was unbelievable. Kudos to Team B. Dng got most assists with 3, Weekian tied with Joshua (J1) for top goals with 2 apiece, and Weekian, Dng, Hannah and Siyi made 1 D each.

Now I think someone who really needs recognition is Guang Yu. Even though it's everyone else making the big spectacular moves, or scoring the most, or whatever, it was really him who held it together for Team B. Many first-rate passes and cuts just at the exact time when they were needed, and he really pulled off some brilliant scores last-minute for the 3rd-4th placing match to pull the team back into the game.

Now the 3rd placing was settled, it was time to get the gold, or so we thought.

Finals. RJ Team A against AC Team C, again. Probably the dirtiest match I've ever seen, and the dirt came from mostly one side. In fact, I think it only came from one side.

Oh, before I say anything, I really really think Cat earned his MVP award, because he was sprinting throughout, really giving his all, making 5 Ds. 

Anyway.

AC scored early on, making the game 0-1. We equalised with 1-1, then quickly followed up with two more goals to make the score 3-1. Here, the game started getting dirty. 

See, AC had been using the cup defense throughout the whole competition. Basically, it's adding 2 other defenders besides the one already stalling the handler, to block off his throws. However, because only one defender is allowed to be within 3 meters of the handler, the other two have to stand a little further off. This allows the handler to still throw, albeit cutting off much of his effective line of sight for passes. But that's not the problem.

They had already not been adhering to the 3 meter rule strictly throughout the day, but they were cupping really close, such that the spectators (well, just us) were screaming "Double Team!!!" throughout the entire match, and even then, sometimes they wouldn't move away. But fine, let's assume that was just a mistake on their part.

They scored a goal for 3-2, and Cat made some amazing Ds after that. Then, he got hit.

Not just hit, hit doesn't describe it. After he made a jump to catch the disc in his hand (note: the disc was already firmly grasped in his hand), some AC guy crashed into him like the proverbial steam train, knocking him onto someone else's foot, which jabbed into his solar plexus. Which winded him really really really badly. And the thing was, the dude wasn't even trying to stop, from where I was on the sidelines, he just sprinted straight on into Cat, he didn't even go for the disc. But fine, let's just assume again that that was just another accident.

Cat insisted on continuing, and it was obvious that the crash had hurt him quite badly, with him wheezing and clutching his chest when play paused. We scored another goal for 4-2. Then another 'accident'.

Engwei was running to catch the disc, and when he was going to catch it, some AC guy running in front of him 'fell down' and tripped him. Okay, it was anything but falling down, it was pretty much a slide tackle. In any other game, he would've been sent off already. Engwei did a face plant, but nothing was said, because it was an 'accident', and play continued. Oh, and we didn't get the disc in the end.

Anyway, after that, Engwei laid out for the disc, and promptly after catching it (it wasn't in the endzone, he just laid out to catch a wayward pass), he cramped badly and went off the field. There went one of our fastest sprinters.

Oh, and the worst 'accident' of all.

Cat was leaping for the disc, and so did someone else. That someone fell, and in some sudden onset of smartness, decided to break his fall.

With his elbow.

On Cat's head.

SERIOUSLY, who breaks his fall with his bloody elbow? That's just plain stupid. But hey, it was an accident. Yep. Semi-concussed, Cat went off the field, and it all went downhill from there for a 4-5 loss.

Anyway, let's just say ALL THOSE were genuine accidents.

At one point, Huiwen caught the disc on the sideline. She was very obviously inside, and when I say obvious, I mean that if one lined up both sideline cones, she was clearly at least half a meter in. Still, they said that she was OUT. Oh, and they exploited rules like that many times throughout the match.

One thing about Ultimate. Since Ultimate is self-officiated, basically if someone makes an out call, and the other team contests the decision, the play is redone, i.e. play restarts from the previous pass made. Of course, this obviously opens the game up to exploitation. However, players are assumed to have basic sportsmanship and not be complete asses. Perhaps that was not the case. 

Then again, if AC can commit 'accidents' of this magnitude and frequency, they can do anything.

Oh oh. They probably weren't accidents, because if they weren't deliberate, AC would have apologised, wouldn't they?

Anyway.

Cat started cramping like crazy and his condition got quite a lot worse, so they called an ambulance to get him to hospital. The front gate had some overhanging thing that was too low for the ambulance to pass, so I ran to the back to guide the ambulance in. They loaded Cat in, and brought him to the hospital, where we learnt later that he was fine. 

Bah. AC. Come on, you already have a bad reputation, do you want to make it worse?

One funny thing was when an AC guy sprinted after the disc (it had already gone out, past the end of the field) and laid out on the concrete surrounding the field. Oh, and another funny thing? The people who rushed to his help weren't from AC, they were Raffles people. Strange, huh.

Well, at least we had a little (but oh so little) comic relief during the match. That came in the form of Alex, the J3 captain, who was standing on the sidelines and saying sex randomly throughout the match. And when we were contesting over whether Huiwen was out and everyone was really really pissed, one of the officials ran in and screamed SHUT UP!!! then in the ensuing moments of silence, Alex said sex again.

It would've been randomly funny, 'cept for the fact that everyone was so extremely frustrated.

But, why so serious? 

Sorry, I just had to say that. Too much Batman.

[edit]

I realised I forgot to post about Cheng. 

Well, rich #@!$%!@ that they are, a group of AC people decided to drive around the field in their shiny Mercedes after interJC shouting "AC Ultimate!!!" But not before Cheng replied, "Suck my ****!"

Well, I'm not an advocate of making people taste of their own medicine, but seriously, what were they thinking? Asking for it.

[/edit]

Well, after that, we all went to shower and clean off the mud (well, not so much me, I didn't spend much time running on the field). Well, the toilet only had one cubicle, and that cubicle spewed out water slower than a Nike squirt bottle, so we were waiting for a long time. I thought I should shower after the team members since they had a hard day, so I had fun going to the water cooler just outside and filling my bottle with warm water for them to shower (yes, that's how slow the shower was). Someone found out there was a tap underneath the sink which spewed out an amazing amount of water, so they took turns kneeling under the sinks and trying to wash themselves, all while half-naked and looking extremely comical. After they finished, I showered, then went to pack up my stuff.

Apparently, while we were all showering, the sgdiscs guy (sgdiscs is a website that sells standard frisbees) came along in his van and was selling discs. Yixuan and Puhwai bought mini discs! And I missed him!!!!! asdjkdsafjkal;dfjasl;kfsajdklfaj

Bah.

We went off for dinner at Dhoby Ghaut, at JusAcia, some Japanese restaurant in the station. The food wasn't bad, and we had free flow icecream and drinks, which some of the people combined to make floats. Here's some pics to break up the crazily monotonous chunk of linguistic ownage text.

Hmm. I should take more pictures next time. There's too much darned text in my posts.

Well, after eating (we stayed there for a really long time), some of us went to Yixuan's house. His house is cool! I wish my house were like that, mine's so boring and empty. Anyway, some of us went off to sleep quite quickly. Watched Yixuan and Zhang Kai play DotA, then I had to go off because I had church in less than 5 hours. Cabbed home (Yixuan actually stays quite close to me) and conked off.

Woke up at 6 and went off to church. Ushered for second service, was trying really really hard to not fall asleep shaking someone's hand. Thank God I managed to stay lucid during the sermon though.

Went for lunch with Aaron, Josh Lim, Karrington and Auntie Lynette. Ate two plates of black pepper beef rice, then went to Aaron's house with Karrington to stone. Played abit of TF2, tried with Aaron, unsuccessfully, to correct Karrington's view that faster guitar playing = better guitar playing. Oh well. When he starts taking interest in girls, he'll make the effort to slim down and concentrate more on studies and guitar. Oh, for those who don't know, Karrington is this dude in my church who's, let's see, 2 years younger than me. But I'll leave him for another time, because the length of this post is going to fry your brain.

Left Aaron's house around 5.30, MRT-ed to City Hall, then realised my parent's weren't eating out, so went to ThaiExpress to have curried soft shell crab rice. Which is fantastic, by the way. Oh, and ThaiExpress tom yum soup is an experience to remember.

Well, why did I go to City Hall? My parents bought tickets to this performance, feng1 zhong1 shao4 lin2 (I can't bother to type it out in chinese and Blogger doesn't let me crtl-v it into the window). It was some story about two lovers and some evil dude, told out through interpretive dance. Wasn't too bad, though I thought the moves weren't as cool as the other performance I've watched this year, B-Boyz and Ballerina. Then again, breakdancing is a lot more spectacular. Meh. Went home after that, and tried really hard to do International History term essay but simply couldn't nodded off right away.

Went to school late later than usual on Monday, around 8 (for those who don't know, RJC school starts at 9.30 on Mondays). Compiled interJC statistics with Zhang Kai during GP. The rest were doing some quite fail (but hey, at least the teacher's making an effort) debate on women doing NS. Wasn't interesting, plus the rest of the class seemed to be having fun by themselves, so Zhang Kai and I sat in the front looking at the notes I took during interJC. 

Stoned during PW (I mean, come on, who takes PW seriously?), then went off with the Zhang Kai, Cheng Xiang, Yixuan, Guang Yu and Lee Qi to watch The Dark Knight. Second time for me, though it was a whole new experience the second time, the movie's that good. Am going to watch a third time, I think, tomorrow. I'm not sure though. Went home, tried to do term essay again, tried to blog, slept.

Wow. I'm finally on Tuesday.

Tuesday was boring. Five hours of lessons + Ms Lim Puay Miao + Gymming during PE = melted brain. Went home and tried to do term essay again played com, then slept. Oh, by the way, DotA with a trackpad is not fun. AT ALL.

Wednesday. Phew. As you can probably tell, I'm running out of steam.

IHC frisbee! It was plain messing around! My team got 3rd, and I assisted every single goal, I am proud to say. MUAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHA. It was quite funny, because everyone was separated into two groups, just like interJC, and the semifinals were Bayley-Waddle Team 1 verses Bayley-Waddle Team 2, just like interJC. Well, the only difference was that Cat's team did manage to get their gold this time, by thrashing the other team soundly. I wish I'd gotten the IHC shirt though. Oh well.

After interJC, we played kampong frisbee on the field, the first we've had in ages, and boy, was it a real break from all the seriousness and stress we've had in the weeks leading to interJC. It was a great stress-reliever, and I got really high and started singing really loudly afterwards. Went to Junction 8 to eat with everyone else. I ate two bowls of beef noodles, one dry, one soup. T'was nice.

Started feeling dizzy, together with a really bad headache coming on, so I cabbed home and went to sleep. No, I didn't attempt term essay this time. 

Woke up this morning feeling really really lousy with a fever, so I slept in late till 11. Went to see the doc in the afternoon, and he said I should stop overstraining myself. Bah. Went home and played a bit of com, which turned out to be a bad idea because it made me mildly dizzy again. Blogged for three hours, and voilá, here be post.

Yes, I will do term essay tonight. Right after I post this. For real.

Now for poems. Whee. I wrote the first one last week, but didn't post it because I was too stupid and lazy tired to blog properly.

a line

break

can bring

two words

apart,

or it

can push

them closer.

metaphor

could as fire

to wood

set hearts ablaze,

or it could

chill

the

soul.

rhythm keeps

the reader reading,

or it 

stops

the flow

for emphasis.

punctuate;

with a 

single mark

(or lack of),

force inference:

use truncation

to speak

in silence.

lastly,            feel

language; as

consciousness flows, so

does a poem:

a question unbounded,

seeking no answers-

just the stretch

of a simile's smile.

I wrote this next one on Monday. While thinking of interJC, I was wondering, just what defines frisbee? Is it winning? Well, this came out.

nobody thought that

a glorified dinner plate

could carry hopes and dreams

eyes unfocused, watching

peripheral movement,

a glimpse of flying plastic

and you sprint off

arms open, feet flitting;

you gasp numbers,

then a flick

and slap as the game changes direction

the familiar 'ftt'

as the weight of the disc

leaves 

your muddied hand

stamp and kick;

g forces and 

tunnel vision,

as you break free of your shadow

legs burning, your foot

springs off; you push

the ground             away

for a moment               of flight

a flash of white

through the afternoon glare,

then a rim slowing

between your fingers

roaring; a rush

of emotion

as you feel the firm shape

of the frisbee

in your grasp,

in the endzone.

Okay. Choon is feeling rather emo now. He shall post a song. 

You've got the best of both worlds;

You're the kind of girl

Who can take down a man,

And lift him back up again

You are strong, but you're needy

Humble, but you're greedy

Based on your body language

And shouted cursive I've been reading

Your style is quite selective,

Though your mind is rather reckless,

Well, I guess it just suggests that 

This is just what happiness is

Hey, what a beautiful mess this is

Well it's like picking up trash in dresses

Well, it kind of hurts when the kind of words 

You write kind of turn themselves into knives

And don't mind my nerve you could call it fiction

'Cause I like being submerged in your contradictions, dear

'Cause here we are, 

Here we are.

Although you are biased

I love your advice

Your comebacks, they're quick

And probably have to do with your insecurities

There's no shame in being crazy,

Dependent on how you take these

Words are paraphrasing 

This relationship we're staging

And, what a beautiful mess this is

Well it's like picking up trash in dresses

Well, it kind of hurts when the kind of words you say

Kind of turn themselves into blades

And the kind and courteous is the life I've heard

But it's nice to say that we've played in the dirt 'cause here,

Here we are

Here we are

Here we are

Here we are

We're still here

And what a beautiful mess this is

It's like taking a guess

When the only answer is yes

And through timeless words and priceless words

We'll fly like birds not of this earth

And tides they turn and hearts disfigure

But that's no concern when we're wounded together

And we've torn our dresses 

And stained our shirts

But it's nice today,

Oh, the wait was so worth it.