I'm back here once again. Where should I begin? A series of unfortunate and slightly more fortunate events. That would be how I describe my past week. Let's start with significant events in chronological order. Wednesday, 9th July 2008, marked the end of my junior college shooting career. Those who have read my previous post should be aware of the emotional trauma I have been undergoing for the past few weeks. By right, all the emotional trauma should have ceased on that fateful day. Unfortunately so, it has not... I started Wednesday with an early morning as, although my detail was supposed to be at 1pm, I wanted to support the Air Pistol guys whose details start at 8.30am. It was pouring heavily outside and the first thought that came to my mind was 'showers of blessings'. I was supposed to be filled with faith in myself and of course, faith in God, so even heavy rain did not have any negative connotation to it haha. Parents drove me on that wet morning to Yishun Safra and they wished me all the best when i alighted from the car. Mum helped me with the suits then left. When I only saw Felix sitting outside the range, I already had this sinking feeling that I was late. It was the exact same feeling that I had experienced on the Friday of the week before, whereby I had missed giving love my well-wishes. Anyway, I sat outside the range, unable to give Dickson and Timo my well-wishes and started doing Econs tutorial. Basically, my morning was spent doing Econs tutorial in a flurry of emotions. I also had a long phone call from love at around 9am and a short one at around 12.30pm before I left for my shoot. Love was unable to grant me physical support due to school and I admit that the feeling wasn't fantastic at all. Fortunately or unfortunately so, Love thought of an ingenious idea to replace her physical presence and that was by giving me her adorable childhood photo! Of course I would have so loved to have her presence with me during my shoot but I had to accomodate as I didn't want her to skip school because of me although she had the intention to do so! Anyway, I began to feel slightly jittery an hour before my shoot so I proceeded out of the range to inhale some fresh air and listened to the music that was being played outside the range. It was 'Take a Bow' by Rihanna, one of my current favourites. Shuqi and I did some stretching outside the range and we had a few minutes of silence while I enjoyed my song before re-entering the range. After preparation, Shuqi and I entered our battle ground. Sighters were not fantastic but my first series started out wonderful. The feeling of shooting consecutive 10s, more significantly, 10.8s and 10.9s, was awesome. However, I fumbled a little towards the end as I couldn't contain my exhilaration. Nevertheless, my first series was a satisfactory 98, although I was hoping I could have attained my first 100 series, or at least a 99 series. 2nd series onwards was sheer horror. I began to feel the heat of the competition and couldn't help but feel stressed out. I kept telling myself that I must have faith in myself, as that was what Mr Ng advised me before my shoot. Unfortunately, I seemed to be unable to clear my mind and relax and even though I had love's photo with me and starred at it, hoping it would cheer me up, it didn't. Towards the end of the 2nd series, my greatest enemy sneaked up on me and caught me unaware...my arch enemy '8'. I had actually shot an 8 and that totally rendered me helpless. Trying to move on, I psychoed myself with optimistic words like "I have faith, I am undaunted by the shots..." I really felt like I was deceiving myself explicitly. As expected, my 3rd series didn't go well either, so did my last series. What caused me to tremour the most was the fact that during my 3rd series my grouping had shifted so I needed to adjust the sighting of my rifle. That is not the main point. The main issue was that I had actually forgotten how to sight! I truly panicked and a wave of unease swept me off my feet. To think that having sighted my rifle for about a year and during the most crucial period where I needed the knowledge of sighting most and I had no recollection of how to sight at all. Being the rational me, I calmed myself down and tried to recall how to sight. After 10 seconds of recollection, still no inkling of how to sight. Superb. I began to pray and ask God for help this time. Thank God I slowly began to recall how to sight my shots for 'up and down' but I still couldn't recall how to sight my shots for 'left and right'! I decided to take a gamble and clicked the sighters based on my gut feeling. After clicking and shooting, still no improvement of grouping. Fantastic. I began to fret again and all the cold feet let to a horrible 90 series for my 3rd series due to my shooting of 2 consecutive 8s. 4th series displayed minor improvement, with my shots not really centred, but at least there were no more 8s. I was already kind of despondent at this juncture and faked a smile as I shot my way to a sigh of relief. I had a couple of 9s during my 4th series and I was trying not to be pessimistic so I prayed deep down inside that I could at least end my last shot with a 10. Praise be to the Lord, my final shot was indeed a 10. I gave a smirk at my last shot and placed the whole stack of cards on the chair. I knew that my battle had ended but it was not a battle of victory. Gathering my stuff, I spotted Mr Ng and proceeded towards him. He asked me how my shoot was and I told him that it wasn't really good. I had the strong urge to apologise for my poor performance but when he said that "although you shot badly, you picked yourself up and improved towards the end right? That is very good", I remained silent and just nodded in agreement. When I stepped out of the battle field, I was devastated. It was as though my spirit had left my body. I needed love badly but love wasn't around. I couldn't call love either because love was having lessons. I contained all the negative feelings inside me and tried my best to let them out by stoning. Thankfully, I felt much better after all the stoning and I also felt I didn't need love that much already. Results were out and it was a horrible score of 373. Uncannily, my score was exactly the same as my NUSIS score -.-. 9 points below my personal best. How fabulous can that be? I sunk into depression further and found it extremely challenging to even force a smile or reply to people who uttered words of consolation to me. At this juncture, I really needed love. I waited for the timing where her lessons would end and smsed her to ask if I could call. I chatted with love over the phone for very long and poured all my sorrows and lashed my rantings at her =x. Anyway, the results for our Nationals are as follows :ARM - Lin Qiang, Henry and Lennon - Team Bronze - Lin Qiang - Individual GoldARW - Wan Yin, Sheryl-Lynn and Shuqi - Team Silver - Wan Yin - 4thAPW - Hui Qing, Amelia and Mingyu - Team Silver - Hui Qing - 5thAPM - Timothy, Felix and Dickson - Timothy - Individual Silvercourtesy of LQ :) We proceeded on to the Arcade and later played some Pool and subsequently had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Safra. Although for many of us, we were wearing fake smiles throughout the rest of the day, we treasured and enjoyed our last day of shooting as a team :)To Shuqi and Sheryl-Lynn, it doesn't matter if you may not have performed your best as I didn't perform my best too. Do not feel if you have let the team down because at the end of the day, what matters most is that we've enjoyed our shoot and results are merely figures. Nevertheless, I'm proud of you both for both your performances and our Silver was well deserved. Hopefully we'll be able to meet one another in the shooting arena once more. To all my beloved shooters, especially those who feel demoralised, it has been a pleasant shooting journey with all of you and although we have ended the journey, I hope all of you have pleasant memories to take away and not let the Nationals results affect you. To our dear Captain LQ, I'm truly proud of you and I'm sure the rest of us feel the same way too. Can't wait to hear your 'Individual Gold' being announced! Shooters Huat arh!Thursday, 10th July was my second month with love. I ditched my classmates during lunch and had lunch with love instead. After school, I was supposed to meet love where we would go out but love came over to me looking really depressed and that worried me. Subsequently, love said she was going home and bid me goodbye, leaving me in a state of shock. However, later on when I called love, she asked me to meet her outside the school gate in 10 mins and so I did. Upon her arrival, I was extremely surprised to see what she was holding in her hand. A pink rose. She passed the rose to me then we went back to school where I was supposed to finish up my SGC. Love accompanied me for quite a while until she was too bored and asked me to go to Mc Cafe with her. We proceeded there but unfortunately, the whole journey was filled with threats and quarrels and me ignoring her. To cut the long story short, our day ended on a bad note. Friday, 11th July, both love and I thought of making up for the previous day and so we went out for lunch after my Econs retest. As usual, love made me decide our destination and eating place so I spent the time on the NEL train deciding on 'town' or 'bugis'. Eventually, I chose Bugis so we headed there. Initially, love wanted to bring me to 'Teens Cafe' but when we arrived there, it was already taken over by some Chinese Hong Kong Cafe, not the famous Xin Wang HK Cafe. We decided to give it a shot so we entered and took a seat. Upon staring at the menu for a couple of minutes, both love and I decided unanimously that we did not like the menu and so I prompted love to leave the place and we did! It was our first time leaving a place without ordering haha. Eventually, we went to BK for lunch and after lunch was present-shopping. Love wanted to buy me a harversack as she didn't want me to carry sling bags or tote bags. We spent a long time pacing the shops and finally, I decided I'll just enter a shop and pick a bag. And so I did. I entered a random shop and chose a bag and love bought it haha. After the bag purchase, we proceeded back to school for Chem Night Study. Our day ended with the Night Study and we went home after that. Thanks love for the bag. I love it! Remember what you promised me ok? Don't take too long to think haha. Lots of loves!