~JcZw

Went to watch the Soccer Girls, of which two were classmates and one was a squadmate, at Jalan Besar stadium today.... it was a nail-biting match, and my SA node, dendrons, axons, mitochondria, and blahblah really got a workout =D also the bits of my voicebox I thought I had left behind in st. john... They won 2-0!! Fantastic, and the first goal was utterly beautiful. One moment we were watching the free kick, muttering "Lampard, Gerrad, not Beckham" under our breaths and next moment we saw a spectacular curling kick right at the unprotected area of the opponent's net!

Some pictures... although they're quite grainy, and not as good as Prata's but still...

Before the match.

Warmup.

After the match (my apologies for not being able to use my phone during the match... I was too busy clapping and yelling "Go VJ go VJ go")

Super happy for them! And its such an inspiration also... it sorta kicked me back into reality and make me want to salvage my situation...

So rushed back home, grabbed my fencing stuff and chiong-ed to FM..... presently I'm now at home with an exfoliating left foot and an aching right foot and hand (cos my tall teammate attempted THREE abortive flicks on my much abused right arm... tsktsk =D)... Today was quite hiong... haha... although it took me quite long to get warmed up.... (16-15 victory over Gerad wasn't as good as I would have liked =/)

This is triggered off by watching BBC's "SAS Survival Secrets"

Maurice is going to kill me for writing this. He already had that look outside FM. Heheh. By the way, Maurice, you better get yourself well soon, or you'll be in no condition for FSI. =)

A sniper plays a waiting game. He sits in his hide and waits for the time to strike for days or even weeks, for that one crucial shot. Every day he mentally prepares himself. But there is always a long gap between the shots he takes. And when he does fire, he scores one hit at a time. Maybe two. Maybe more. But it is never a lot. There is always time to prepare, but for this his skills are honed to knife-edge, seared into muscle memory, so that his job can be achieved. One shot into the vital area to win his battle. There is a lot of pressure for the shot to go through, but he rarely misses, he delievers the goods time after time. Especially since he's so well trained. But one has to respect the sheer endurance of the sniper... the hours put into the preparation for his crucial attempt, and the length of time he has to be under pressure

A soldier who wields a shotgun, on the other hand, does a fast and furious battle. With each shot, he has to recock the gun and be ready to fire again and short notice. His skills lie more in reacting quickly to changing circumstances. With each pull of the trigger, a large blast is released, and he can score multiple times. After each shot, he has to refresh himself much faster than the sniper. Of course, he will have to hit his opponent many more times with the pellets rather than a heavy cal. sniper round. But if he does this, he wins his battle nonetheless. Like the sniper, he is drilled time after time, but the skills he learn are oh-so different. During the battle, there is no room of error. Pressure is tremendously high. But his battles last but one day. At the end of the day he's either a winner, or dead. Or injured.

In a siege situation, both people perform different tasks. Both aim to achieve the same thing: The winning of the battle. Both are important in their own right. Both have their own skills. But they do it in different ways.

Fencing, and its tournaments, is like a shotgun. Other sports are like sniper rifles. Why? Go use your imagination. Ok maybe its a bad illustration, but if you can see what my mind shows, it will make sense... Haha...

If the school didn't notice the first win, then I guess all that's left for us to do is to win the next one. We've beaten the odds twice. Let's do it again.

Soccer guys' match tomorrow. Go Victoria!