Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Looking back on my 4 years in VS, I've had so many sweet memories that I'll treasure with me forever. Sweet. Sour. All of them. Being a Victorian means so much to me, and having an all-boys school as a secondary school helps a lot =D Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we? I'll start with memories of my lower secondary school life =D I'll do the upper secondary school another day, haha
Sec 1 When I was in Sec 1, I could still remember how lost I was back then. A totally new different school. I did not recognize anybody, except for some of them whom I have connections to.
I can remember my seniors trying to make everyone learn the Victorian Spirit, something I did not understand back then
It was the first school I have been in in which they really want us to bond and feel the school's history
There was no such thing as the "TNPS Spirit" back when I was in primary school. Maybe it's because we are more mature as a teenager and we can see life from a different perspective
I remember how much I hated school then. And how I always fell asleep during HML class, something which I don't now.
At the start of the year, we were still getting to know one another. The sec 1 camp was great. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that rock climbing was cancelled because of the rain :)I was already wearing the gear and all and was up next to climb when drops of rain fell from the sky. What perfect timing xD Haha. I'm kinda scared of heights xD.
And it was the first time I kayaked. I did not know how to swim then (Yes, I did not know how to swim then. I quit swimming class when I was in P2 when my little bro was born coz my mum could no longer send me to swimming lasses at night)
Which brings me to this point, VS offered swimming classes then.
I took it up and 10 weeks later, I had my bronze certificate with me :) and the feeling that it's great to swim :) I could remember how enthusiastic I was for the test, but I realised that I forgot to bring my pyjamas -.- Thank God that Jun Wei lent me his, haha
The first time I saw the Victorian Sprit in action was when we were in the cross country championship. We won both the C div and B div titles. I could sill remember how ecstatic Victorians were and we kept cheering and cheering. Singing the Victorian Anthem was a major honour. That was a major showing of the Victorian Spirit and it made me start to realise what "Victorian Spirit" really means
I grew more attached to the school as the months go by. I missed the school cross country run because of a hockey match. I was not in the floorball team then but I was in the hockey team and unfortunately, we did not make the semi-finals. I still have the away jersey, and it's so tight on me now xD I wonder where I placed my home one though, haha
Which brings me to this point. I did not have a CCA when I was in primary school. Floorball and hockey were my first CCAs. Therefore, I was not fit back then. 13min 25s for my 2.4km run. I was disappointed but satisfied as I knew that I could never reach great heights if I did not have a CCA to back me up. I did not even take part in our sport's day.
But towards the end of the year, I realised that we have some really talented newcomers to floorball in my year - The sec 1 students who just joined floorball and were not from DSA. I still remember how Clement, Phay, Haziq, Hafidhzhin, Hamzah and me were the people I thought were "bright sparks" and were those who were in the original "Fab 6" xD
As I grew more attached to the school, I also grew more attached to the class. I still miss my sec 1 and 2 class, especially with Wei Jian at the helm and Mirza by his side, nothing went wrong.
My results at the end of sec 1 were quite bad. Like Mr Low said, Performance = Potential - Interference. I had high "interference". However, I did not really care back then as sec 1 is the "honeymoon year" for students, just to get used to secondary school life. Before I knew it, my honeymoon year was over.
Sec 2 This was one of my best years in my life as a proud Victorian, though I think sec 3 was slightly better and not a match for sec 4 xD
At the start of the year, I was curious to see how far the Victorian Spirit can go
I saw high levels of It in people like Ziyad but low levels of It in others
That year, we did not win any titles in the cross country championship :(
But I still saw the amazing Victorian Spirit.
We cheered so much that I was hurt, literally, not emotionally
For those who were there, you know what i mean
I need not have to elaborate on that
Floorball trainings then were very intensive then
It was the peak of the "Seventh Heaven" Exercise
We had to run up the stairs near the library up to the 7th floor, run straight towards the field stairs, run down 7 floors to the 1st floor, then run back straight to the library. 7 TIMES.
It was freaking tiring, along with the other fitness and conditioning exercises
Like running up the stairs to the parade square and down again (I don't know how many freaking times we did that)
It was tiring, but I knew that it would really help my fitness.
I ran 2.4km in 10 min 17 s. It's way short of the best runners but a satisfactory improvement from from the previous year. There was no school cross country run that year, so I missed yet another chance to run.
But it was the only year in which I won 1st place at something. Wait. Correction. The only year WE won 1st place at something. Coz the VS floorball team won the National Floorball Championships as a TEAM, something our juniors would achieve 2 years later too. Well, it was the first year I actually made the floorball team considering I was obviously not good enough in Sec 1, haha. And as I expected, the "Fab 6" made the team =) I was kinda the benchwarmer back then. The times when me and some friends would always be the ones to fill up the bottles xD And the times when we would go to Mac's after matches even though Mr Amir told us to lay off the fast food xD But I could still remember the countdown in the final 10s of the final. "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0!!!" That was one of the best and hair-raising moments of my life. It was the only time I felt like I was in a team of national champions. Yup. NATIONAL CHAMPIONS. I still can't believe I was in a team that held that title 2 years ago. And when I look at the photos of that day with us holding up our medals, we were still small cute boys xD
And one of the most memorable parts was when we were given our medals at school. Everyone was already cheering even before we got up the stage. And after we got our medals, we did the long VS cheer on stage in front of the whole school and correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the ONLY time a VS team from any sport did a cheer on stage during prize giving as far as I can remember in these 4 years xD
We almost did the double that year. We made it to the hockey finals, which I could remember was on hamzah's birthday. We were techically on par with our opponents, Jurong West. But alas, we lost 0-4 =( But it was totally not a reflection of what happened. I could still remember how they had only 5 shots on target and yet scored 4 goals while VS had a dozen shots or so? If there were a "Keeper of the tournament" trophy, their keeper would win that award hands down. It was a disappointment for the supporters who came to support, even though there weren't as many as we had expected. Nevertheless, it was sad for us as the scoreline made us look bad. I could remember Kwek crying at that time.
It was a year in which I was in 2 teams that won and lost a final. I felt the joy of becoming national champions and the agony of just missing out on being national champions, both in the same year. But, it was different from what I would experience in sec 4, partly because I was a bit-part player then. What could you expect from a guy in his 2nd year in the sport? I didn't really feel the agony of defeat back then, coz I didn't feel like I played much of a part that year, meaning that I think the results would still be the same without me.
And it was the year the "Fab 6" made the team for the Men's Division 3 Floorball League. The DSAs from our year played in the Div 2 and some seniors helped us in Div 3 too =) The whole thing was more for experience. To expose us to top quality floorball. We were playing against opponents much bigger and stronger than us and they were people who left Sec school long ago, lol. I could still remember how we got whacked in every game (except the last one of course, which I shall talk about later xD) And how Mr Amir would praise us everytime we scored a goal, even though in most floorball games, scoring at least once is the bare minimum, being a high scoring sport xD So we were getting whacked big time every game and we were happy about it xD I scored 2 goals that year =) The first one was a reaaaally tyco "shot" (notice the inverted commas xD) Well, it was a free hit (equivalent to a free kick in soccer). So I just whacked the ball upfront. It wasn't really a shot. But surprise, surprise, it found it's way into goal xD I didn't know I scored at first. Coz the goalposts's view were blocked by an opponent, which further vindicates how tyco it was xD Then I saw my teammates running towards me and I was like "Huh? What? I scored?? xD And we were celebrating as if we won the game even though I only pulled back a goal to make it 1-12 or something =.= But I guess it's kinda shameful if I were them, seeing a bunch of secondary school kids celebrating after scoring a goal against us.
The second goal was in our final match, against some Keming club, made up of students younger or around our age =) Well, I kinda screwed up coz I should have scored a lot more after some brilliant setting up by my teammates, especially Hamzah. I was playing as a forward then, and the only reason why I played there was because Haziq didn't come. But he missed out on the fun! xD Johnathan Phay scored 5 goals in that match, with me assisting most of his goals xD But the most memorable moment when Clement scored what I dubbed the "goal of the century". I swear it was by far the best floorball goal I've ever seen, eclipsing those scored by players superior to Clement. Clement's a long distance specialist. He already scored a long range goal before THAT goal. But then he picked up the ball on the halfway line and we were screaming "shoot!" even though it was near impossible to score from that kind of situation. But then he let fly this shot which I thought was going over but it dipped tremendously, but the most impressive part was that it CHIPPED THE KEEPER EVEN THOUGH HE WAS ON HIS LINE! the ball went in and I was like "OMG! OMG! OMG!", Clement was stunned and even Mr Amir had to clap his hands in awe xD. Well, that was the goal of the century, haha. And certainly a great way to end floorball in sec 2 =)
The only thing I was sad seeing was how Johnathan Phay slacked at the end of the year, which saw him miss out on the sec 3 and 4 team, never realizing the high potential I believe he has =(
My results then were equally terrible coz of the high "interference"
I was around 94th I think? In the whole level
I realised then that I needed to buck up
I needed to start doing what I haven't been doing - get serious for studies
I barely scraped through into triple science and got subject combination that I desired
I realised at this point of time that it was time to turn over a new leaf
For a new Afi to emerge
A new Afi that would take studies seriously and not fool around
A new Afi that would challenge the boundaries of the word "improvement"
7:27 AM