Most people only know half of what is bothering me. It's lonely not being able to share the truth.

Woke up this morning to find that I was given encouraging words on my tagboard. It amazed me how fast the post was read! Thanks again, for reminding me to be patient and work on developing the team, and to chide myself less.

Went to play badminton today, with a much better racket than before. Enjoyed myself, and am eager to improve further :) Really love badminton!

The funny thing is, me and YR were so tired after lunch that we fell asleep 1) on our chairs in the corridor, then 2) on our room floors. We were too tired to go bathe soon enough, so no choice but to sleep on the floor! haha..

I was so tired because I woke up to watch the Germany-Turkey match this morning. It was so nerve racking, but in the end worth it, because Germany won!

Another thing that makes me happier now, is the jog I went for just now. Felt really great and an effective stress-reliever.

Woo.. I am feeling a lot better today, overall. And can focus on what needs to be done again.

Training today was horrible horrible horrible.

I sit outside my room dejected, angry with myself.

Bloody boring drills in training, until people who come down to crash training can't be bothered to join in after a while. Doesn't that prove something?

Getting millions of instructions throughout training from a ton of different persons. I want to be a good learner, I want to be humble, I want to listen, but I am pissed at myself because I cannot stand the instructions anymore. I am so angry with myself, because the coaches have good intentions, but towards the end, I was so pissed, that even though I tried not to show a black face, a sort of half stone half nonchalant face was presented to them. I am very much angry at myself for being so rude.

I am arrogant. A lot of the times, I felt I did something good, I tried my best, but they do not mention the good. They only mention the bad. I feel like a primary school kid, who needs to have encouragement and acknowledgment of doing the right things. I feel super pissed at people who turn a blind eye to the good I did and just point out the bad. I will feel under-appreciated and LOUSY all over again. Feel like I just entered floorball a few weeks ago, and I am this player who sucks, who did not do anything good, who just needs to be told her mistakes.

My confidence is a very vulnerable object. Just a prod in the wrong direction, and it all comes crumbling down again. At some points, I feel like a naked player, holding a good stick, but not even being able to control the ball, losing possession the moment someone comes on her.

And SOMETHING is VERY wrong with my mood and my temper. I just lose my focus when the person I am playing against trips me or hits me with the stick. I get pissed and very visibly roll my eyes and slacken off. Very very bad behavior, bad example. This is my fault. I must have better control over my emotions next time, and FOCUS ON THE GAME. Even if a foul goes undetected, it doesn't matter anymore. The focus is on carrying on the game.

Shooting was pretty horrible today too. Stupid palm has blisters. And I cannot make my stupid drag shot fly from a few metres outside the 3 point line. Horrible weak shots floating down to the goal, and sometimes not even on target. Stupid shit.

I notice I like structure, even in my blog entries, but today, I am over the top pissed already, that complaints are flying out fast and furious without any pattern.

(Decided to remove the portions which are too insulting to the people in question if they ever find this)

And I hate one-on-one attacking/defending. I have absolutely NO idea how to get past the defender. Whichever side I turn to, I'm not fast enough. What is the trick? Is it just to practise faking left and right till one is fast enough?

I was talking with YR about black faces just now. And she said she only see my blackest face when I am talking about floorball. If it brings me so much trouble, why still play?

Saw a quote (something along these lines): 'if you need to drag your feet to something, then maybe you should stop doing it'.

I did not drag my feet to training, I was enthusiastic about it. But I had to drag my feet back, it was what happened during training that let me down.

And if my black face is usually reserved for complaining about floorball, why continue in it and give myself so much trouble?

But lessons that I learnt about myself that need to be rectified? Bad control of emotions, condescending, bad attitude.

I'm sorry to those I was rude to.

I just hope things will improve for the better.

Nice breakfast

Cycling

Sea breeze, cycling breeze

Sun, sea, sand

Very empty East Coast Park
Bowling

Nice tea and dinner

Ice-cream and waffle
Floorball friendly (about 3 shots on target:))

Alcohol

What a happy, happy day. I can go to sleep happy :)

Monday - My 3 awesome June days started from Monday, when YR, HQ and me went to the Bugis steamboat. I really had a fill of my favorite foods, but due to a over-enthusiastic HQ taking too much food cos 'shuang to take so much what' and cooking too much cos 'i like to cook''. There was a total excess of cooked food on the table, and I stupidly soldiered on trying to finish it. By the time I realised there was just TOO much, it was too late and I felt the contents in my stomach had already exceeded it.

Poor stomach, but still, enjoyed the outing, where we passed by the toy shop that provided us with most of our recreation and props for the next day.

Tuesday - We were blessed with great, perfect, sunny weather for our Sentosa trip, for the entire day. I shall let the pictures tell the story -

Start of cam whoring (the order of the day): have breakfast also must pose with food :p

This is the start of what entertained us at the beach: First up, fun with frisbee!

Doing corny jump shots at the beach: Took us 4 shots to get a nice one. YR is holding down her singlet to prevent it from flying up, haha.

The traditional kite we bought at the toy shop. They are both more adept than me at trying to fly it, well and much more patient too :p

Here's me trying my hand at it. Not bad, YR got a shot of it actually being in the air, which was rather rare, haha.

One of our favorite pictures of the day! It is really very shuang to have a pillow when you are lying on the sand, which was mostly what we did for the bulk of the day :p

An act cute picture, a must have for any respectable cam whore!

Me demonstrating to YR how easy it is to take a self portrait displaying our self-confessed corny tattoos. Trust me, she took about 10 shots that either cut off her face, cut off the tattoo, or were too bright or just 'wrong'. LOL. So I took the camera and instantly took a successful picture, that had so much free space that it captured the surroundings. Note the dead fish look-alike at the left of the picture. HAHA.

Me sampling the cat food we brought for our lunch.

Ok, it's really tuna meant for humans. The picnic was one reason why the day was so enjoyable, because we did not need to leave our spot to look for lunch. Perfect for lazy asses and pockets full of not money, but just sand :p

Those things around our necks are bubble-shaped bubble potions, which kept us entertained for a VERY long time. Really very fun, and the bubbles very pretty. I would have posted pictures of us blowing them, except we all looked very kok blowing, lol.

A consolidation of our toys for the day :) Frisbee, bubbles, and capteh which was hard to play in the blowing winds.

Feet and waves. Guess which pair are mine?

Taking silly pictures, another hallmark of cam whores.

Another corny beach must-have: Getting all excited over the coconut trees and getting our hands all over its trunk.

Our fake tattoos!
At the 'Siloso' sculpture. Still don't understand why the stranger who took it for us cut off the O on the right and left free space on the left :p

Me and YR back in hall. Showing the 'totally shag' face from spending the whole day getting baked and running around on the sand. I couldn't help showing a smile as I was really really happy :D

Not shag anymore when we have Candy Empire chocolates to pose with? Haha..

I really love beaches! Thanks to HQ and YR for both slacking and enthu-ing with me there :D

Wednesday: I rewarded myself with an ultra-long sleep and only arose in the afternoon :p Well, and I just did nothing until evening, where I indulged in my favorite floorball fun and games! Weeee it's really very fun! I was so high that my adrenaline pushed me to run and run and run. Did make some mis-passes and mis-dribbles, but it doesn't matter. I just had fun and took things naturally, made some natural mistakes, that I will learn from :) And I'm especially happy to see each of my storm juniors who came today score at least a goal each. Every floorball player deserves to play floorball just for fun sometimes, and not just train and practise in it, and they haven't been getting a lot of fun from training :/ At the risk of sounding too sappy, I am absolutely beaming inside from seeing them play for fun. Their enthusiasm in coming also makes me happy.. No wonder I am high from floorball :))

Thursday: 4 days of fun in a row! Went to play a long-awaited game of badminton with the pro today :p Haven't played for a very long time.. such a nice feeling to be able to play what I enjoy again. Blistered feet and palm, but so fulfilling :)

Tired YR and me again, but still posing with our badminton props :p

And later I made her take pictures of my facelifted floorball stick :D It's blade and grip used to be white, or rather, the grip had already dirtied to black for a few months. So I decided to pamper it, and fulfil my wishes to tamper with it, haha. Here it is now, red grip and black blade.

How, nice nice? :D

It's 5 in the morning but I just have to make this post. The Euro 2008 game I just watched gave me goosebumps.

Final score: Turkey 3-2 Czech Republic

Turkey trailed 2-0 with just fifteen minutes to go, but their passion, their positive attitude, and their hunger to win emanated through the TV screen. I just had the feeling that Turkey would win it in normal time. It's a simple lesson - never give up, and keep the positive attitude and focus going.

On the other hand, I do feel very sorry for the Czechs, especially their goalkeeper Cech who fumbled with a cross, leading to the equaliser. Rain was pouring and the ball was definitely very wet and slippery. And when a team is considered favorites, its players undoubtedly would feel more shocked and stressed if they concede goals. Perhaps this would explain their loss of focus especially after the equaliser was scored. Meanwhile, the Turks enjoyed the less stressful circumstances and had a little bit of luck (a Czech effort had hit the post).

The stars may have been shining on the Turks that rainy night in the Stade de Geneve, but it was their hearts that won them the game.

Random thought 1: I am obsessed with brown eyes. There is something magical about them that leads me to enjoy staring at them and reveling at their beauty. In recent memory, I only remember seeing 1 guy and 2 girls with those lovely assets, mainly because the shade of Chinese brown eyes can only be seen in natural sunshine. Something about staring into girl friends' brown eyes makes me feel a little not-straight, haha. And something about staring into a guys' brown eyes makes my heart stir. Woah, I can't forget the look of the last pair I saw.. and they were on a girl.. help!

Random thought 2: I made a trip down to the library on Friday night, came across the health and fitness section, and picked out a book called 'Getting firm'. That's the direction I want to go with regards to my fitness. From what I guess about my genetics, it is almost impossible to further 'lose weight', so any fitness book without the words 'lose, weight, diet, miracle, fast' caught my eye. So here I am armed with some guidelines on how to 'get firm' instead of 'lose weight'. Wish me luck!

Random thought 3: I am still amazed by how I like to 'sabo' myself unwittingly. I had a dream about the subject of what makes me sad, and woke up feeling quite uneasy today. But as time passes from the last episode of heartbreak, I am getting better day by day.

Random thought 4: I am saddened by how unhappy events in childhood can affect a person's life, events which are out of his control. Looking at my own family - my dad who had no parental love and probably abused in childhood, my brother who got harsh treatment from my dad. It is a vicious generational cycle. How far can one escape from the shadows of an unhappy childhood? Is it even possible?

This has led me to think about my own life. My childhood is relatively happy, but the scars of being ridiculed as a fat, ugly teenager still torment me. Can I have more confidence in my current self? Still trying, still trying..

As for my obsession with brown eyes, I can always stare into the mirror if I have the urge to admire a pair :p

The NTU storm team went down to YJC for our second pre-season friendly.

The morning did not start off well, because the team arrived late, and rushed through our warm up. I personally, absolutely detest rushed warm ups, it makes me anxious, angry and bewildered about why some people cannot be on time. These certain individuals should be punished very soon for the good of the team :p

Needless to say, after the botched warm up, our first 2 periods were horrendous to our coach, and earned us a dressing down. Or in cruder and more accurate words, 'tio gan'. In short, we were not doing what was expected of us. Forwards passing blindly to the centre instead of trying to take a shot themselves, defenders not communicating and not taking long shots, and everyone not controlling the play more effectively.

Things improved slightly in the second 2 periods, but the same problems were and are still there. Though our coach says the final score is not important, to me its reflect what went on during the game. There were many many goals, and everyone lost track of the score, which I estimate to be about YJ 11-7 Storm. Their finishing was better, passes more accurate and attitude more aggressive. Aggression is something that a lot of our players need to cultivate. We look like tai-tais bringing their dogs out for a walk on a lazy sunday afternoon when defending. I hope in time, the seniors can motivate the juniors to ditch their little pomeranians and terriers and start having a more aggressive attitude when defending. Another superb aspect of attitude we can learn from YJ is how much they put in their 100% when fighting for loose balls, how much they nudge when trying to pressure us.

I have never played against a team who try so much to chop my feet away from my legs. Do my legs look like pig trotters that much that they require butchering? I received more than 5 hacks on my ankles and a nasty stick imprint on my shin that resulted in a few centimetre thick bruise. Though I have to admit that they are a tad rough, their attitude is really commendable. And the roughness brings up the biggest weakness of mine that my coach pointed out to me in a weird philosophical sms.

In general, it is called weak match mentality. Specifically, in matches -

- I get nervous
- I lose focus when opponents are rough and injure me
- I get defensive when teammates say I did something wrong

So, my personal battle is to

- Focus on the task at hand during games and not let roughness mess with my head
- Cut down on the nervousness and improve composure
- Be more humble when listening to teammate's suggestions (but know that they are not always right)

and the desired outcome is that I will be able to control the play better and contribute to the offence more.

As a whole, we need to be

- more aware of our teammates - communicate more in defence and watch out for supporting teammates in offence.
-more aggressive in defending and fighting for loose balls
-more in control of the ball instead of dumping it

I am frankly optimistic that we will be able to improve everything with more exposure and game time, which is sadly lacking in training so far.

There is only one thing which I am a little pissed about. Teammates blaming me for things which are sometimes not true and are a result of their wrong judgment. In these sort of situations, I will have to control my temper in person, and not get demoralised by them. Because they simply cannot be right all the time.

My dad was talking to me during dinner.

Dad: " Your room looks like a pig style you know."
Me: " It's pronounced 'pig sty'."
Dad: " Ok, yes, I know my pronunciation not very good. Ok, pig stunt."
Me: "Orh." (trying hard not to laugh)

And according to him, mediacorp has 2 new stars I have not heard of before

Tay Ping Kee and Joe Tay.

Lol.. these 2 he probably does on purpose, not bothering to change even though he knows it is wrong.

that some of us make about our days when we have nothing better to do.

Started the day by going down to the PC show, which I have no intention of visiting again unless I know exactly what model of what brand of what product I want to buy, which is on a fabulous discount, along with a cheapskate free gift. I don't want to imagine what the weekend will look like, sound like, and smell like, if it is so hot and crowded today, a Thursday. In short, I gave up looking for the SD card after only about half an hour. If I didn't have a friend with me, I may have continued, but I didn't want to make him follow me aimlessly as he wasn't looking for anything. Headed for coffee instead, or in my case, free hot chocolate, as I jokingly asked for a treat in return for his 45 (!)minutes lateness, and shamelessly accepted it when he agreed.

As I was whiling away the 45 minutes waiting, I thought to myself, I do not feel irritated or displeasured that I have to wait so long. In fact, I dragged the time very successfully, taking 20 minutes to look for something to eat, and another 15 journeying to the highest floor to visit the washroom. I thought, perhaps I did not get irritated with him so easily because he is a relatively new friend. Then, I replaced him with let's say one of my hall friends who is notoriously late (cough, achxiu, cough), and I think I would not get pissed at older friends who come that late too. Maybe laugh it off and attempt to tell them not to do it to me again.

Everyone shows their worst side to the people they love - their families and partners. A simple explanation is that we know (or sometimes wrongly think, in the case of partners) that they would never stop loving us. That's why we feel more comfortable letting our emotions run loose with them, sometimes termed as 'showing one's true colors'.

But 2 things that happened to me today tell me that for me, there is something more to the phenomenon of treating the people we love more nastily -

I have higher expectations of them. I expect them to love me, care for me more. I get a million times more let down if they do something that hurts me. I lose control of my emotions more when I feel more let down.

First thing that happened to me today is the '45-minute late scenario'. I am more likely to get irritated at a parent or partner for being that late, because I expect them to care about me enough to not make me wait that long. I am naturally more patient than not, but my high expectations of loved ones can make me displeased sometimes if made to wait that long.

Second, is that I was quite rude to my mum when she turned down the living room light to obviously too-dim when I was reading the papers and asked me if it was bright enough. I said 'of cos its not bright enough', cos I was vaguely hurt that she expected me to read in a dim light, when it is the norm that the family reads with maximum brightness in the living room.

Is my high expectations of loved ones a serious drawback? What can I do to decrease it?

Hmm...

There's good news and bad news.

Bad being, I'm still sad over those things that I am constantly sad about (no need to elaborate, lol, I'll get better eventually).

Bad being, I want to watch Euro 2008 but have to rely on VERY laggy online streaming or VERY bad reception from a malaysian channel which doesn't show every match. My frustration comes not so much from the bad circumstances, but the selfish person in the next room, who refuses to let me try online streaming on the main computer, which I think would be better than wireless or school connection. Let's say if he spent as much effort in the real world as he did in playing online games, he could become a millionaire in a few years.

And I wouldn't consider the next bad, because I'm not upset over it. When I went to hand in my architectural assignment earlier today, I saw the namelist and gasped. Almost half of the 50 students taking the course are from ADM! (Art Design & Media for the uninitiated). And the coursework and exam of the course being design and drawing, I hereby resign to my fate of not getting a good grade. Well, it's the most slack course I ever took :p And I did enjoy drawing my dream house, ah.. one day it will come true. This serves as a warning to anyone wishing to take this course - have tons of confidence in your design and drawing skills, or remember to S/U!

We're on to the good news.

Though I'm 'stuck' at home for the next 5 days, I have much to look forward to. Crossing my fingers that the friendly matches are confirmed, cos I'm enthusiastic about playing floorball again now :D

Visit HQ and WX at PC show on Thursday or Friday (I want to get an SD card, but visiting them is the priority, like real)

Friend-friend with YJC on Saturday.

Steamboat at Bugis with YR and HQ on monday (reaaally looking forward, and borrowing HQ's phrase - I want myyy golden mushrooms!)

Friend-friend with RJC on Tuesday.

Then it's back home to hall (the irony), where the fitness regimen will go into full swing.

Looks like life's picking up again :)

Porcelain heart, what must I do to make you stronger? Your walls crumble at the slightest touch, you mend quite well I must say, but shatter again once you are touched once more.

You are so empty and cold inside, passionate, but what's left is cold and stale.

You are having a trying time sustaining my body.

My body feels cold and weak, my eyes on the verge of leaking tears, there's a tugging ache ever so often in my chest. Having a bite of chocolate spreads warmth to every corner of my body. This reminds me of the dementor effect, where one is reminded of his worst experiences, and left feeling demolished after an attack. Where having a bite of chocolate can bring happiness and warm up one's very soul.

That is fantasy, but it feels cool that chocolate has the same effect on me. I shall continue to bask in fantasy.

Just as I continue to wallow in sadness.

I recall, that I was pretty happy the past few weeks. But all of a sudden, I've hit a low of a low.

I'm disinterested in floorball, I'm aching over my past relationship again, I'm not doing an assignment that's due in 3 days.

In floorball, little things added up to how I feel today. Sian, unenthusiastic, feel like quitting (though I won't la), lousy, no drive. These feelings probably started from being told that the ball wasn't passed to me because I am not trusted. After putting in so much effort, I am still not trusted. And trainings recently have been a drag, with long physical trainings every time. I know physical training is good for me, but I've become fat and unhealthy and tire out easily, making me dread it very much. Training isn't fun anymore. I don't even like doing the drills, cos I will stress out and fail to perform basic actions. And in the last training, when I heard some seniors talk about how I didn't run to support in a 2 against 1. I just flared up inside my heart, I didn't throw my temper there, but my attitude became horrible. Everyone has different ways of supporting, so don't freaking gossip about me not supporting. Running to support is a freaking basic skill, aren't you calling me a freaking piece of dogshit if you claim that I don't know how to run and support?

Why am I still seen as a piece of dogshit? Is it because I was the weakest in my year's intake? Does the initial impression of people really linger on and corrupt the current impression?

Then MY reminded me that league is starting in 2 weeks. And I realised this is the worst possible time to hit a slump. But I'm giving myself the leeway, that everyone hits low points in their lives, in whatever they do. I hope to rekindle my interest in floorball when I get to play the friendly game next week. Enjoy the game, use my skills happily, and not keep stressing over my performance. Everyone makes mistakes at times and I should not berate myself so much over them.

Just remember, when you're feeling low, the high will always come around again.