Today's Table Tennis performance was unsatisfactory. I was dismissed at 1.20, so I could reach PLMGS in time to witness the C Division playing, which was embarrassing to watch. We are such a failure now. Our opponent proved to be formidable, or was it just the fact that the other schools had trained harder than us? SJI had only 1 China Player, which our very own counterpart lost to. Then Yi Kar and Zi Ping lost the 1st Doubles, our Xiao-Master failed at what he did best, possibly because his opponent had stronger attack capabilities. That sealed the win for them, followed by the untimely arrival of our own intimidating players made-to-win. If only the 2nd and 3rd Singles of either side's lineup had swapped, we would have won. But what's happened has happened, and there is no such thing as "If only", it will never happen.

Our B Division faced Sports School once again and it was another intense 2 hour match as Benedict lost the 1st Singles 3 - 0, our first China Pair balanced it in the 1st Doubles, then Sean got trashed by National Player Pang Xue Jie, while the second China Pair made it equal again, then we cleaned up with our final China Player. It was nothing to be proud of even though it was a win for us, because none of the Locals did the work. And the Locals in Sports School could match our tougher players. The 2nd Singles match would have been more interesting to watch if it had been one of our China players, but that would mean that the defeat of Sports School didn't exist, it would have been the other way round.

Our China players were always defeated by any fellow opponent of the same race, we used them extensively and that was how we claimed our Title of 1st in National Table Tennis. Now our reputation has gone down because we cheated and failed, and we did not improve as much as the other schools, to the point that Local players could now beat the seemingly invincible players of the team. This is why I feel that the School is being dishonorable and we do not deserve these awards that have been gained through unfair advantage. We failed this year, and the worst part was that our B Division team was the same as last year, only with an increased amount of China "Talent". However, this was rivaled by the massive improvement of the other schools, who seem to have enhanced their own players to the point that our most powerful players are no match for them, and they also brought the previously C-Division players over, who seem to have been refined as well.

Random

Dealing with anger on the spot is a tough and one of the most frequent challenges in life, most people are guaranteed to go angry once every 2 weeks. When I do get angry, most of the time I cannot control what I say, but recently I've found a way to sustain my cool and shut up so I don't make a fool of myself. And the anger I'm talking about is when two parties are involved in an argument or disagreement.

Firstly, try not to say anything crude and directly offensive. If you do that and the person retorts, you're probably going to get angrier and that will make matters worse. It's just going to backfire on you.

Secondly, DO NOT go for physical contact. It CAN happen if some feel that verbal insults are not enough to hurt the opposition, and no I'm not saying I fight and please don't even have that idea, but it has happened, I have witnessed it and it happens because of intense verbal conflict.

And lastly, the most effective way, is to know that it's meant to happen. Just think that the thing that made you angry has happened, it was meant to be so, you can't do anything about it, focus on the future and know that there are happy times to come. You will always have an enjoyable moment somewhere after a distressful experience, and this may not come until a month later, but there will always be something that will make you happy in the future.

Today, I was very sleepy in the morning, again. It didn't make any sense, I slept quite early last night. I made it through the first half because my kind teachers did not object to me putting my head on the table and closing my eyes for 30 seconds. Then I was deciding to sleep during Recess, but after buying my bun and eating it, I didn't feel sleepy anymore. I was actually talking. Now that's weird. I survived the next 4 periods, then lunch. I was going to go straight to the Biology Lab, but then I saw some people eating Roti Prata, so I decided I would take lunch too. Just couldn't resist it. The queue was quite short, but Prata was also out of stock, so it took quite a while. And they spelled it "Paratha" on the menu. My scholar classmate kept looking at his watch because he was afraid that there wouldn't be enough time to consume his 3 pieces. I had 10 minutes to finish mine, but that's ok, 5 minutes was enough. Made it to the Lab in time at 2:25.

Our teacher started it off with a nice round of admonishment. He was upset with the work that we handed in the previous lesson. I looked at my work and found that I had followed his instructions quite well, so I wasn't one of those that he was unhappy with. Just a ridiculous round of careless mistakes in writing down the contents of each test tube, but he didn't say anything about that part. I had 5cm³ of Starch, 5 drops of water and 1cm³ of Amylase in the first test tube. I went to fill in the exact same thing for the 2nd and 3rd test tubes, when the 5 drops of water were supposed to be 5 drops of Hydrochloric Acid and 5 drops of Sodium Hydroxide respectively. Small mistake on the worksheet, at least I didn't follow what I wrote when I was doing the experiment.

Today's experiment was to find out the rate of enzyme reaction with enzyme concentration as the limiting factor. We had 2 slices of potato about 6cm long, and 2 slices of boiled potate about 4cm long. The potato supposedly contained the enzyme required. With 5 test tubes labelled A to E, I had to put Hydrogen Peroxide into each of the test tubes to a depth of 3cm. The instructions said to use a dropper, but our teacher mistakenly provided us with a syringe. So of course everyone would misread the instructions and fill up the syringe with 3cm³ of Hydrogen Peroxide. So the depth wasn't 3cm. Sadly, I was one of those who messed up this part, but fortunately for me, I was slow in my experiment, so when the teacher reminded us that we were using a syringe, I could correct this mistake as I had not started the procedure yet. Cutting up the potato was ok, human error caused each slice to be about 2mm long and not precisely 2mm. Then the experiment was carried out. I will not go into details, it is not your business to know what I did unless I want to share it with you, which obviously this sentences tells you, I don't. But I have to say that the plastic container labelled "Throw biological waste in here" after the experiment was a sickening blue black coloured liquid with pieces of potato in them, with every group's container in the lab looking the same.

Then next, I had to choose what to do. 3.30pm. Training would start at 7.30pm. 4 hours of doing nothing? No. I happened to meet Junn Wei at the MRT Station, and it just so happened that he was going to Bishan, and it was so coincidental that we both wanted to eat even though we were not hungry. That meant that we were still in a state to walk, so we did not go straight to eat. He wanted to go to Popular first, to buy a Maths Assessment book, then about 5 pads of Foolscap paper. All ready to go hardcore studying, he just needs another 7 Assessment books for each other subject. So next, was Lunch? Dinner? Whatever you call the meal that you eat at 4.30pm. I think it's called "Tea" in the US. We went to the Food Junction, but as we were not hungry, we weren't very sure where we wanted to eat. Food Junction does not appeal to me when I'm just there for a light meal. So I told him to shut his eyes and do a 360˚ spin and see where he was facing, then we would look for something to eat at that area. He complied and we found him facing Golden Village. I rejected that and dragged him into the Food Junction. Golden Village was NOT a place to eat, unless you were going to watch a movie.

From the previous experience about a couple of weeks ago, I was sure I wouldn't touch the Chicken Rice again. When I bought it that day, the chicken was 50% bone and 20% Skin, leaving a mere 30% of chicken. And the Rice quantity did not adhere to my satisfaction either. All that for $4? No way. Well, today I had another shock, so that's 2 chances off this place. 1 more strike and I'll never come back here again, but we'll see what happens next time. Anyway, the supposedly "light meal" became my dinner. What was that? Cheese Prata. Just couldn't get enough of it after lunch. 1 piece: $2.20. I knew that 1 piece would not be enough, so I ordered 3, I needed to last until 9pm. $2.20? The one that I had for lunch was 2 pieces and it was only $1.50. OK, that was plain prata, so each piece would be 75¢, but one slice of cheese can't cost an additional $1.45. That was completely ridiculous, but what could I say? Feeble words of complain won't make them lower the price, that's not the way you haggle, and it's food, who haggles the prices of food? OK, I dealt with that short moment of resent. At least it was good quality, that's what matters.

Ate the food, did some work, then Junn Wei had to go for tuition, left me to return to school at 6pm and rot for another 1-and-a-half hours. No, I finished up the non-computer related homework (which is what I'm supposed to be doing now, but nevermind) then slept until 7pm. Saw the Taekwondo training in the TK Low Hall, then wondered how we would be having Table Tennis training because their training was until 9, according to Daryl(Not my junior Daryl). The last time they had it and we had training, Coach told me to go home. I also thought I got my training times mixed up, so I called Coach. He confirmed that training was on tonight, hence I felt safe that I had not wasted my time here.

I played just one doubles match. Yi Kar and Ziping against Sean and I. We took the first set, lost the 2nd, lost the 3rd, getting trashed 8 - 1 in the 4th set, then Sean said "Nevermind we still can catch up". The impossible thing happened. We did the difficult thing and brought the score to a nice 10 - 10, then kept our cool as we deuced to 18 - 18. I got a Service Ace, then Ziping served into the net. 2 - 2. We led the last set and won it 11 - 5. When we were losing 2 - 1 and Coach knew that, he looked at us disapprovingly, then when Ziping lost he was quite upset with him. It looked like he couldn't decide who he wanted or expected to win.

So that was today, tomorrow I have another long day, but I don't care, I like eventful days, and this has been an eventful week :D.