Today has been one heck of an emotional rollercoaster.. This afternoon, there was an interhouse chess tournament and I represented Sapphire together with another four junior girls and Al, the only thorn among the roses :P P was supposed to join in as well but because he was late, his place had already been taken up by a junior girl, so he had to stay out of this round.. For this first round, we were up against Garnet.. I had to face my first-table opponent, BB.. I was so demoralized coming into the tournament.. I thought that with a majority of us being girls, there would be no way for us to rank any higher than last.. All the other 3 houses fielded 4 boys and 2 girls.. So there I was, bracing myself for the worse.. Then when I arrived, more problems came.. Most of our players were late so a lot of precious time was being wasted.. At that point, I definitely thought that this was not our day..
Then I just concentrated on the game at hand.. I still can't remember what happened, but all of a sudden, BB made a huge blunder and - checkmate! - I won the game.. Phew.. What a relief.. Later on, Al won his game as well and I was banking on any one of the junior girls to deliver and they duly did :) In the end, Sapphire and Garnet drew 3-3.. Not a big achievement by typical standards, but I still believe it was a tremendous feat for our understrengthed team to hold the Glorious Garnet to a draw.. Way to go, girls! Oh, and Al :)
Topaz lost to favourites Diamond 1-5.. Next week: Sapphire vs. Diamond.. Oh, the joy..
I still don't understand how some people can choose to become so selfish and despite being told off - repeatedly - they still remain the same.. Remember when Mika Hakkinen wanted to retire from Formula 1? Nobody really bothered because his team, McLaren already had a capable replacement in Kimi Raikkonen.. But what if Nicol David decided to quit squash for good just because she doesn't feel like it.. There's nobody else who's even close to matching her quality of play, so how can Malaysia afford to lose her?
It's really irritating to think that certain people think they have the privilege to say 'no' when everybody else needs them.. We put so much hope and respect towards these people and they turn us down flat.. Allegiance takes a back seat compared to personal matters.. Well, OK, so there may be a valid reason behind it.. But wouldn't it be even better to groom future replacements than to simply vanish from the scene altogether? Pulling a Houdini trick is not only irresponsible, it's downward cowardly..
I know I might offend certain people by my words and I deeply apologize.. I just hope that I don't turn out to be such a person myself..
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NHA at 2:43 PM ::
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