The past few months have been swell. The rising crest at the start of the year, when things seemed so promising, so full of potential; then the sudden drop as the ground got pulled from under my feet and the waves broke, just like that. Being so involved in the highs and lows as I've never been before in the admittedly short 16 years of my life, I seem to have utterly thrust some thoughts into the background, and they're now rushing at me full-force.
Something that's always bugged me is how I feel when I'm with groups of people. After some observation and a little thinking, I've arrived at the conclusion that there are 3 kinds of people in a group of people: The "leader", the "follower" and the "observer"
Edit: Truncated post after realizing that it didn't make much sense at all :)
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Nothing's written in stone, and even then, stone corrodes.
GP today was nothing much. Seriously. Played bball with Gary, William, Brian, Chris and some other J1s after that. Missed out on the opportunity to go training and/or go for class lunch at J8 because of that. I have no idea whether it was worth it or not XD
Joined the class at the top of the 8 after that. Had a little fun. Typing at Kang Yan's piano's teacher's house now. I'm a little too tired to type out my thoughts so this'll have to do for now
GP today was nothing much. Seriously. Played bball with Gary, William, Brian, Chris and some other J1s after that. Missed out on the opportunity to go training and/or go for class lunch at J8 because of that. I have no idea whether it was worth it or not XD
Joined the class at the top of the 8 after that. Had a little fun. Typing at Kang Yan's piano's teacher's house now. I'm a little too tired to type out my thoughts so this'll have to do for now
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Art Club exhibition on Wednesday, Chinese Drama's production after that, staying back on Thursday to discuss PW, Dine in the Dark yesterday, MR CIP today, and RI's Open House right after that. Oh my, seems like I've been involved in a fair bit of things lately XD and it's not only the involvement, it's the people that I've gotten to know over these past 4 days, which I feel really glad for. Though the after-effects of these encounters may not turn out to be much, it's pretty cool how the threads of our lives intersect through these interactions, and while they may be transient, I will treasure them. (Sorry for ripping this off XP)
Training on Wednesday was uneventful, with PT being led by a seemingly over-enthusiastic Yi Ling. Well, I still managed to play bball with Gary, Marcus and William for a while after that, so I guess it wasn't THAT bad. After freshening up after that, off I went to Art Club's exhibition on ceramics & drawing; being practically coerced by Clarissa into going. Can't say it wasn't interesting though, getting to see a potter's wheel at work by skilled hands was intriguing to say the least. I also got to catch-up with Jazlyn, Munirah and Hai. To quote Jazlyn: My circle of friends has come full circle. 2 of my ex-schoolmates, an ex-classmate and a current classmate who happened to be ex-classmates, current classmates and cca mates of each other really show that its a small small world. Sadly, I only had 1/2 an hour to spend there since the drama started at 7.30, so I had to rush off much too soon. I also missed the chance to grab a whole lot more chips, so that was a pity too D<
Chinese Drama's production was great, and you could really see the amount of effort they had put into it, it really showed, and it was very professional. Tian Yuan and Yelin, great job! I went for it with the other shooters, and I'm quite touched by them getting dinner for me even though I didn't go with them for dinner. However, I have to admit that I'm not very comfortable around them; and its not that things are awkward because of the elections. I've gotten over it, and they were pretty unaffected, so that's not it. If I have to put it into words, I guess I would say it's about being unable to really connect with them. Mengshi mentioned the same kind of feeling, and while I think my case might not be as severe as her's, I can't really empathize with their thoughts, actions and words. Hopefully it's not the "GEPer" syndrome XD They're all great and friendly people, its just that I find myself having to either unconsciously or consciously limiting myself and watching what I do around them, and I don't like that.
PWPWPW. HAIX. There's so much to do, and so little energy. Won't talk more about it here. Suffice to say I stayed back in school with Clarissa after the discussion to do a little work, which wasn't bad at all :)
Dine in the Dark was a really cool experience. The extended period of time in almost total darkness was a new experience, and eating without seeing the food was novel. A thought nagging at the back of my head is that they could have put whatever they wanted into the food and we wouldn't even know... The food was good, so that wasn't much of a problem. The highlight was sitting opposite Jeremy and 2 of his friends, Weifeng and Kexin. They're super friendly people. I happened to be walking behind Weifeng, Kexin and Shimin as they were going to Marymount, and they just started talking to me like we already knew each other even though Jeremy wasn't there O.O They're very nice and I was really touched, and kinda happy for Jeremy that he has such great friends!
MR Gives Back was nice. Since I didn't really know anyone there, I joined a group of other people who were nice enough to accept me. Hong Teng, De sheng, Kenneth, You Sheng, Vivegan, and one more guy (sorry :P) Yup, that's all that happened. Went to RI's Open House after that with Constance and her friend Yi Meng. The shooting booth seemed a little dis-organized to me, but as she said, maybe I'm just being hard on my juniors, I've got to admit that after a whole day of speaking to parents, they're entitled to mess around a little.
C'est tout. Thoughts of the day/week will have to come later
Training on Wednesday was uneventful, with PT being led by a seemingly over-enthusiastic Yi Ling. Well, I still managed to play bball with Gary, Marcus and William for a while after that, so I guess it wasn't THAT bad. After freshening up after that, off I went to Art Club's exhibition on ceramics & drawing; being practically coerced by Clarissa into going. Can't say it wasn't interesting though, getting to see a potter's wheel at work by skilled hands was intriguing to say the least. I also got to catch-up with Jazlyn, Munirah and Hai. To quote Jazlyn: My circle of friends has come full circle. 2 of my ex-schoolmates, an ex-classmate and a current classmate who happened to be ex-classmates, current classmates and cca mates of each other really show that its a small small world. Sadly, I only had 1/2 an hour to spend there since the drama started at 7.30, so I had to rush off much too soon. I also missed the chance to grab a whole lot more chips, so that was a pity too D<
Chinese Drama's production was great, and you could really see the amount of effort they had put into it, it really showed, and it was very professional. Tian Yuan and Yelin, great job! I went for it with the other shooters, and I'm quite touched by them getting dinner for me even though I didn't go with them for dinner. However, I have to admit that I'm not very comfortable around them; and its not that things are awkward because of the elections. I've gotten over it, and they were pretty unaffected, so that's not it. If I have to put it into words, I guess I would say it's about being unable to really connect with them. Mengshi mentioned the same kind of feeling, and while I think my case might not be as severe as her's, I can't really empathize with their thoughts, actions and words. Hopefully it's not the "GEPer" syndrome XD They're all great and friendly people, its just that I find myself having to either unconsciously or consciously limiting myself and watching what I do around them, and I don't like that.
PWPWPW. HAIX. There's so much to do, and so little energy. Won't talk more about it here. Suffice to say I stayed back in school with Clarissa after the discussion to do a little work, which wasn't bad at all :)
Dine in the Dark was a really cool experience. The extended period of time in almost total darkness was a new experience, and eating without seeing the food was novel. A thought nagging at the back of my head is that they could have put whatever they wanted into the food and we wouldn't even know... The food was good, so that wasn't much of a problem. The highlight was sitting opposite Jeremy and 2 of his friends, Weifeng and Kexin. They're super friendly people. I happened to be walking behind Weifeng, Kexin and Shimin as they were going to Marymount, and they just started talking to me like we already knew each other even though Jeremy wasn't there O.O They're very nice and I was really touched, and kinda happy for Jeremy that he has such great friends!
MR Gives Back was nice. Since I didn't really know anyone there, I joined a group of other people who were nice enough to accept me. Hong Teng, De sheng, Kenneth, You Sheng, Vivegan, and one more guy (sorry :P) Yup, that's all that happened. Went to RI's Open House after that with Constance and her friend Yi Meng. The shooting booth seemed a little dis-organized to me, but as she said, maybe I'm just being hard on my juniors, I've got to admit that after a whole day of speaking to parents, they're entitled to mess around a little.
C'est tout. Thoughts of the day/week will have to come later
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Training today wasn't bad. Got a little of the feeling down, at least now I know what a good shot entails. Too bad I can't get it done with any sort of consistency atm, maybe I'm too focused on the result and am losing my focus on my actions/stability/whatever as a result? I'm just too new to this thing to know what's right and wrong...
Aside, I'm so screwed right about now!! Gahh, what possessed me to take up Chinese?!!
Aside, I'm so screwed right about now!! Gahh, what possessed me to take up Chinese?!!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
16/05/10
The timestamp at the bottom can't help but beg the question: Why use the date as the title? 2 answers: Firstly, because I can't think of a better one, and secondly, because I can :P I'd have thought that the URL of this blog would have clued you about the previous, but its ok :)
With that resolved, on to the post!
Training without a suit is getting frustrating, but I like the freedom it leaves me with. If I had a suit, I wouldn't be able to train both in school and at Safra simultaneously, but without it, all I can train are my basic stability and triggering action. Now, I don't mean to willfully ignore what coach's been saying, but I WANT to improve, and I won't be able to work on anything much till I get it. And that's going to take a couple of months at least. Haix.
Thought of the day: Ambivalence, the state of having confused or conflicting feelings, emotions or thoughts towards a person, thing and/or situation. I recently admitting to having a self-critical side, one that looks at whatever I'm doing, and thinking, and criticizes it; and this has led me to become an insecure person. So, am I to live out my existence on this earth like this? Forever criticizing, never being fully at rest and being able to wholeheartedly affirm my decisions and thoughts. Seems like a pretty sad life. But I'm also unwilling to go to the other extreme and stop thinking altogether.
My explanation for this phenomenon? The body (or is it mind?) has a natural negative-feedback mechanism for the emotions we experience, so once the intensity crosses a certain threshold, it works to reverse the emotions by exerting a negative influence on them, bringing them back to equilibrium. See possible holes in this theory? That's what the comments are for XP MOVING ON, I think that the reason for my ambivalence is that this mechanism is flawed in my case. Yeah, it does its job of reversing the emotion, but it doesn't stop at equilibrium, it just goes on and on, until the other threshold is crossed and the process happens again. Go figure
With that resolved, on to the post!
Training without a suit is getting frustrating, but I like the freedom it leaves me with. If I had a suit, I wouldn't be able to train both in school and at Safra simultaneously, but without it, all I can train are my basic stability and triggering action. Now, I don't mean to willfully ignore what coach's been saying, but I WANT to improve, and I won't be able to work on anything much till I get it. And that's going to take a couple of months at least. Haix.
Thought of the day: Ambivalence, the state of having confused or conflicting feelings, emotions or thoughts towards a person, thing and/or situation. I recently admitting to having a self-critical side, one that looks at whatever I'm doing, and thinking, and criticizes it; and this has led me to become an insecure person. So, am I to live out my existence on this earth like this? Forever criticizing, never being fully at rest and being able to wholeheartedly affirm my decisions and thoughts. Seems like a pretty sad life. But I'm also unwilling to go to the other extreme and stop thinking altogether.
My explanation for this phenomenon? The body (or is it mind?) has a natural negative-feedback mechanism for the emotions we experience, so once the intensity crosses a certain threshold, it works to reverse the emotions by exerting a negative influence on them, bringing them back to equilibrium. See possible holes in this theory? That's what the comments are for XP MOVING ON, I think that the reason for my ambivalence is that this mechanism is flawed in my case. Yeah, it does its job of reversing the emotion, but it doesn't stop at equilibrium, it just goes on and on, until the other threshold is crossed and the process happens again. Go figure
Friday, May 14, 2010
14/05/10
Aaannnd its back to the basics
Focus on body stability, don't care too much about the little detail about shoulder positioning and elbow position. That's it for today.
Progress is ok, but it seems like I really need to get a jacket in order to start training properly for the nationals next year. Guess I'll have to talk to papa about it :X
Reminder: Take pics of cards and post them next time. Shot-by-shot analysis? (Thanks Elizabeth for the inspiration!)
Had dinner with Elizabeth after training today. I happened to meet her in the canteen while washing up. Seems like she came to school even though she wasn't feeling too well, and lasted through the whole day just for KI and an I. chess discussion. She's really an amazing person. I really respect her for how mature she is in terms of her perception of the world, her opinions and the ability she has to voice them. She has her views, and she's not afraid to air them. She's obviously someone who has gone through quite a bit and matured because of that.
What am I beside all of that?
New beginnings =)
I'm going to try something I copied from a friend so yeah :)
About the title:
Its been more than a year since my last post, so that's ONE kind of beginning I guess
Another new beginning would be the start of my time with a new, but at the same time somewhat familiar weapon, the rifle. YES, I know I've professed my love for the pistol countless times, and I'll never forget my partners 736218 and 901330, who've kept me company for these past 3 years, and I'll always love you no matter what. I also remember my determination last year to overcome this "mental problem" of mine, which was to focus too much on the details and lose my focus because of that. Well, I'm not giving up that determination, that's for sure. I'll continue to treat shooting with the same level of passion, determination and seriousness that I've always treated it with, even though I may have decided to switch to a different weapon. If I remember to, I'll talk 'bout the reason for that switch in a later post.
The final new beginning, at least for now, would be the beginning of my post as quartermaster of Raffles Shooting Club. Such a nostalgic position, which threatens to raise a range of emotions which run the gamut from happiness to sadness; empoweredness to helplessness. To be fair to the post, I did derive a fair bit of satisfaction from it in RI, in being around to watch my juniors train, being around to watch them grow up into wonderful people, and being around to see them being together, having fun together. It was a healing experience for me, seeing the togetherness of their batches, but it can't help but make me wonder: what went wrong with our batch? why do we seem to be the only batch that was fragmented to such a severe extent? And this leads me to the even larger and perhaps more worrying question, why does this always seem to happen around me? Maybe its because I've experienced too little to experience any wonderful experiences but of late, I've gotten the feeling of being unable to connect with people, and maybe even having a disruptive influence on the bonds people have. That's a really lousy feeling.
Mentioning my post as quartermaster, I can't fail to leave out my disappointment in myself for being unable to attain the post of captain. I had so many people rooting for me, especially Siyi, Mengshi and Daniel, and I really feel that I've let them down with my dismal showing at the EXCO elections on Wednesday. Well, I've decided to put that behind me, and to do my best to make it up to them, and to live up to the perhaps overwhelmingly huge amount of faith they've placed in me and to do my best, to go beyond the boundaries of my job scope as QM, to give my all to the club.
And that's that for new beginnings. There are many other thoughts in my head right now, but that's always been a given, so I shall keep them for later. And now; since this IS my shooting blog after all, I shall end off with clearly stating my rifle routine :P
1: Secure the butt just a little off from my shoulder
2: Raise the gun, and rest in on my fist; approximately around the 2nd and 3rd knuckles (I'll work more on this later)
3: Rest my elbow on my hip bone, such that my arm is straight and it doesnt slide around
4: Close my eyes, and feel the stability of my whole body. All the parts come together as one, and nothing is shaking or out of place
5: Check my left arm and placement of the butt against my right shoulder
6: Slowly cheek down
7: Close my eyes again, and feel the stability of my whole body
8: Open my eyes, and look through the scope
9: Let the rifle enter the aiming area. Trigger finger moves to the trigger
10: Let it waver naturally and uniformly. DON'T control it!!!
11: Continue on focusing on body stability
12: First pressure...
13: Pull the second pressure when it feels just right
14: Follow through (IMPT DON'T FORGET!!!)
15: Lower the gun
16: Rinse and repeat
And that's it! So simple right? Well I'll be working on the more technical aspects of this in future trainings and depending on how busy I am, I'll update this as I see fit.
P.S. Thanks WZ for making me see the benefit of keeping a shooting journal! I'll do my best to keep it up consistently.
Raffles Shooting ABR jiayou all the way!
And to anyone who happens to read this, its a matter of fate that you're reading this out of the gazillions of blogs on the internet, so do leave me some comments XD
About the title:
Its been more than a year since my last post, so that's ONE kind of beginning I guess
Another new beginning would be the start of my time with a new, but at the same time somewhat familiar weapon, the rifle. YES, I know I've professed my love for the pistol countless times, and I'll never forget my partners 736218 and 901330, who've kept me company for these past 3 years, and I'll always love you no matter what. I also remember my determination last year to overcome this "mental problem" of mine, which was to focus too much on the details and lose my focus because of that. Well, I'm not giving up that determination, that's for sure. I'll continue to treat shooting with the same level of passion, determination and seriousness that I've always treated it with, even though I may have decided to switch to a different weapon. If I remember to, I'll talk 'bout the reason for that switch in a later post.
The final new beginning, at least for now, would be the beginning of my post as quartermaster of Raffles Shooting Club. Such a nostalgic position, which threatens to raise a range of emotions which run the gamut from happiness to sadness; empoweredness to helplessness. To be fair to the post, I did derive a fair bit of satisfaction from it in RI, in being around to watch my juniors train, being around to watch them grow up into wonderful people, and being around to see them being together, having fun together. It was a healing experience for me, seeing the togetherness of their batches, but it can't help but make me wonder: what went wrong with our batch? why do we seem to be the only batch that was fragmented to such a severe extent? And this leads me to the even larger and perhaps more worrying question, why does this always seem to happen around me? Maybe its because I've experienced too little to experience any wonderful experiences but of late, I've gotten the feeling of being unable to connect with people, and maybe even having a disruptive influence on the bonds people have. That's a really lousy feeling.
Mentioning my post as quartermaster, I can't fail to leave out my disappointment in myself for being unable to attain the post of captain. I had so many people rooting for me, especially Siyi, Mengshi and Daniel, and I really feel that I've let them down with my dismal showing at the EXCO elections on Wednesday. Well, I've decided to put that behind me, and to do my best to make it up to them, and to live up to the perhaps overwhelmingly huge amount of faith they've placed in me and to do my best, to go beyond the boundaries of my job scope as QM, to give my all to the club.
And that's that for new beginnings. There are many other thoughts in my head right now, but that's always been a given, so I shall keep them for later. And now; since this IS my shooting blog after all, I shall end off with clearly stating my rifle routine :P
1: Secure the butt just a little off from my shoulder
2: Raise the gun, and rest in on my fist; approximately around the 2nd and 3rd knuckles (I'll work more on this later)
3: Rest my elbow on my hip bone, such that my arm is straight and it doesnt slide around
4: Close my eyes, and feel the stability of my whole body. All the parts come together as one, and nothing is shaking or out of place
5: Check my left arm and placement of the butt against my right shoulder
6: Slowly cheek down
7: Close my eyes again, and feel the stability of my whole body
8: Open my eyes, and look through the scope
9: Let the rifle enter the aiming area. Trigger finger moves to the trigger
10: Let it waver naturally and uniformly. DON'T control it!!!
11: Continue on focusing on body stability
12: First pressure...
13: Pull the second pressure when it feels just right
14: Follow through (IMPT DON'T FORGET!!!)
15: Lower the gun
16: Rinse and repeat
And that's it! So simple right? Well I'll be working on the more technical aspects of this in future trainings and depending on how busy I am, I'll update this as I see fit.
P.S. Thanks WZ for making me see the benefit of keeping a shooting journal! I'll do my best to keep it up consistently.
Raffles Shooting ABR jiayou all the way!
And to anyone who happens to read this, its a matter of fate that you're reading this out of the gazillions of blogs on the internet, so do leave me some comments XD
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