So it has ended. Season 2012. The third time in my 6 years in DHSbball being in the battle together with lovely juniors. (i have been calling them that more than often these days hahaha, but it's true, I've the cutest juniors on earth. It's amazing how bipolar they can get - on court and off court)

When the whistle blew after the 40 minutes and the final score was an unsatisfactory 24-44, I was numb. Watching NYJC against SRJC made me feel true respect for NY for their fighting spirit, despite not being able to gain anything from the win, just pure satisfaction and love for the game. Perhaps it was this that we have been missing all along.
And as usual, excuses came up pretty quickly for the loss. My legs were really not reactive, and dang, the floor was slippery (no kidding).

But who was I kidding? The opponents played on the same damn court, and I don't see them having any issues passing the ball around during offense playing monkey.

We were really lucky this year with all the good draws, and well, guess our luck didn't last enough for NY to win SR for us to scrape in to top 4 with a single win in the quarter-finals. Coach's round-up team talk just send a pang of guilt when he said that our lack of effort was all that we could give to him after all those high hopes for us (?)

But I've braced myself, and a lot have been going through my mind these few days. It is heartening when what everyone is feeling pretty empty about is the process, not just simply the product. That is the greatest takeaway anyway. The combined duration of all the matches this season cannot even exceed the training hours a week, not to mention the myriad of emotions felt. (And coach's temper is definitely better during training! Okay, maybe not, when we make really bad passes during the annoyingly-tiring full-court drills. But still, his face-palm is funny. Sigh, all the inside jokes we have about him. I wonder if he knows. I think he does.)

It wasn't such a great emotional turmoil till I began reading the text from yvonne, coach's texts and the facebook posts. Then all the memories start flashing back (and yes, my sight is kind blurry right now damnit), and dang, I lost it. Began wailing like a big baby, at the loss of what used to be my routine, my life. It used to be training, break day, training again. And before training? 8 rounds of track please. which gradually changed to 3 sets of 180 and wing.
It's amusing when you see how everyone's face will fall when coach mentioned them, then we turn around slowly, slouching, accepting it and doing it anyway.

Ahh, 6 years have passed just like that. Shall dig for pix.
Ohgawd, I just died and reincarnated. I was so gross and idk, act-cute? yicks. Why can't people get the chance to be more proud of their childhood? aggh. First my blog posts, now this. -shudders-

2007:

Frankly speaking, I have little memories of this year. All I could remember were the pretty lame drills we had (rope-skipping anyone?) and how Clovis gave up on us. Well, most of us didn't have any basketball background, but hey, coach managed to see the potential behind the speed (yes at that time in your words, "only speed, no bball skills") Qi had. Let's just forgive him for the lack of foresight alright?

But i still remember the Mount Sinai days to be those where bball was still pretty fun with awesome seniors in Qianye, Comint, Lichang, Grace, Shermaine, Yanling, where we always played ball after school on Fridays. Those days.

We weren't really close to the direct seniors I guess, though the occasional gling with them still make me smile. There were misgivings and misunderstandings (I had one with Qi too, and it's still amusing when we talk about how a certain someone would be the wonderful middle-woman bitching about both of us to opposite sides) but as the years went by, things were much better :) Love the fact that Jiahui and Felicia still stayed back with us last year. The love for bball can't evaporate that easily huh ;)


2008:


The last year that Nicole would play with us. The first year that coach took us in. The first year where we were introduced to the 240 balls full-court drills which I seriously dreaded. I.hate.running. PERIOD. The year where I screwed up point-guarding bigtime and caused the team to lose. Still remember coach's words after the Manjusri's match that I accounted for at least 40% of the failure to enter top 4. Bet he forgot about it now, but hey, those were the very words that spurred me on to be shooting guard. A blessing in disguise I would say.

I changed 2 positions in a short span of a year (seriously -.-) Forward----> centre. Failed centre who constantly parks under the basket or moves like a snail to get high pole ---->  pointguard. Failed pointguard ---->  forward. Still kinda fail as a forward now if you ask me, maybe I should just sit on the benches and refill water bottles la huh.

Okay shall not mope around. ANYWAY, the first year where we had juniors! I say we made horrible seniors (at least in the eyes of the seniors anyway). We scraped the traditional pumping intro for team talks (since we hated the top down feeling) and we TRIED (note the past tense) to have the seniory feeling. Failed ttm, I say we joined in the fun with them HAHA.

Anyway, I remember this year to be an extremely emotional one for me, cos my knees were seriously failing me. (I sound like a freaking aunty in her 60s.) My right knee injury was inherited from primary school and well, they say good things come in pairs so I guess the same applies for bad ones too. So my left knee would periodically give way, and the most maddening thing was how I looked forward to training after a month of sitting around doing ball handling, only to sprain it (either one of the knees) the subsequent training -.-

Well, I never really shared it with anyone, but back then I was fighting with myself and my parents. They were seriously annoyed and worried about my knee; I was worried about that too and the finances part (a knee therapy every week, seriously? Money-pooping machine ah). And of course, I couldn't see myself going far in basketball and was contemplating whether I should just quit.

Then I thought about where I should go next, and literally LOL-ed when the image of me in a guides uniform marching around, shouting YES MADAM! appeared in my mind. HA.HA.HA. oh gawd kill me, I'm chuckling to myself right now. I aint the kind to submit to authority without any rhyme or reason. Really admire the discipline the guides people show (Y) What next? Science club? Ya right, I hated science since primary school.

So I was in a dilemma. knees or bball? But I didn't need to worry about being stuck with that predicament for long, cos I was beginning to look forward to training more, because I FELT myself improving. And I was trying all the unorthodox methods which seemed to work in getting the frequency of knee injuries reduced somehow. All kinds of knee guards, those pills you see on the tv commercials for old women with knee joints, hell, I even tried yoga. (still gonna join my mum at it when I have time, cos well.... I like it?)


2009:


Can't find a pic with the seniors. I think they were moping the floors when we were taking the pix hahaha. Ah, too lazy to dig through the bball blog.
Back to Tanjong Rhu. Didn't like the colours of the court initially, they were too bright imo. But I can't imagine any other colour for it now hehe. Green? Yuck. As if the canteen isn't green enough.
Love the colours of the courts in the ISH though :)


2010:

Finally, a breakthrough. 3rd in East Zone (:
The Manjusri match was particularly  memorable cos it was my hottest  match ever. 10 points, 2 3-pointers. Just realised it's Manjusri again. That's why they say you pick yourself up where you fell.

After a year's training of shots, Stal and I became shooters for the team. Thinking back, I couldn't FEEL myself become accurate. It just became like that. Those fridays after school where we were just keep dishing each others ball to shoot were probably the cause of the accuracy.

It was initially difficult, EXTREMELY difficult, cos I was determined to change my shooting form. I felt that shooting chest-out was ugly, too ugly, and I was always fascinated with how the guys could make it look so effortless to chop balls. Like swoosh! it's in! Then I saw comint shoot with her wrist, and felt that since mid-range shooting could be done with the wrist. If I trained enough, I could do it couldn't I?
It was torture at first, I was air-balling B-box shots (embarrassing much?), and my arms were aching so badly after every shooting session. Mentally and physically, I was exhausted. Not to mention that my grades were slowly slipping (cos of science lah aiya), and well, perhaps my puberty was at its peak, cos I seemed to quarrel with my parents more often (PMS anyone?)

Then things began to pick up and hey, it was beginning to seem easier. I just needed to aim a little, point to the basket, and whoa, the ball actually listened to me. I know this sounds stupid but ah, i couldn't find a better way to put it (and the late night is getting to me already)

Tada, so if you wanna do it, you can. You just need to have a goal and work towards it. Of course be realistic; At that time I just wanted 2-pointers, I wasn't obsessed with the 3s somehow. Anyway, 2+2 > 3. Just felt that consistency was more important than those one-shot miracles.

2011:


Welcome to the world of bball, Chan Cheryl Syl and Mel :)
Glad that Jingmei decided to stay with us too!
We weren't really expecting much, we knew how bad our stamina was, but we just wanted to make the best of our senior high years (which doesn't really have much memories if you ask me. Damn mugging attitude agh)

As usual, i screwed up pointguarding (haha why am I not surprised?) and shots were bad. Flat. gone.
But we still had fun during training, and thinking back, I'm thankful that coach still rushed down to all the matches, even though he knew the odds were pathetic.

This was the year which made my heart swell with pride when people who were previously not basketballers like bball. Who can resist this sport?

2012: 
I just realised I don't have a picture. YET. We gonna have some dinner on our own and spend some decent time camwhoring man!

This year, we overcame: NJ, VJ, ACJC, NYJC; succumbed to AJC and SRJC. (does the friendly against TJ count? hahaha, I guess not)
Everyone improved significantly, and our stamina is at its all-time high. I didn't get back my shots like those in year 4, but it was considerably better. Rae is doing all her center moves, and ww is still the reliable pointguard.

The memories aren't ending there YET.
We gonna have our lunch/dinner, and we gonna watch the guys end their season with a big bang!

whoa, that was really lengthy. There are more personal thoughts here, cos I decided to break down the wall completely for once. 2 hours on this post but it was worth it. Proper closure and I'm feeling much better now. Maybe I can finally go to school tomorrow with less bloated eyes.
And on a sidenote, I think we all became better looking! HAHAHA. -mood immediately goes up a notch-

Nights world.