Are you all right?
Someone asked me this question during lecture today.
"Huh?", I shot back a "What do you mean?" look.
"You look really shagged!"
"Oh..."
I am indeed very tired but I didn't realise that it showed. I have been really busy these days. Midterms are around the corner and I have so many commitments. I gave up studying for all my modules last week to train intensively with my Scrabble team. Curious passer-bys looked bewildered when they saw me with a scrabble set discussing strategies with some of my players in the science canteen a few hours before the competition.
My efforts paid off though. We beat Science 3-2 and Arts 5-0 in the Inter Faculty Games (Scrabble) last friday. I guess many people anticipated that we will lose to Arts. But as captain, I have sworn
that I will prove to everyone that Scrabble is not merely a word game; it is a game that requires alot of thinking and I was confident that even though Arts may have the advantage in terms of vocabulary, we could beat them strategically. We did. My team was so excited and I was elated.
Even though we won by 5-0, that was not to say that the games were easy. My Arts opponent was very good. He scored 39 points for his second move and I was put on high alert. We kept blocking each other's moves such that at the end of the game, we only utilized less than half the board because the other half was completely blocked and there was no way to form any words there. Towards the end of the game, he made a lot of words which I knew did not exist, but I didn't challenge those words as time was running short. This was a strategic move on his side because at that point of time, I was trailing and if I had called for challege, his word would have been revoked but challenges take some time to process and the game was to be stopped at a specific time. I told myself I would not resort to such strategies to win the game. I continued placing legitimate words on the limited space available.
In the end, I won the match 330-261 because he had a 50 point penalty for exceeding the time limit (Each player has 25min for the whole game). If he had not exceeded his time, the score would have been 330-313 which would have reflected how close our match was. I was really nervous when tabulating the scores. When my calculator read 330 and my opponent told me his score was 261, I was so relieved and so excited. I was almost smiling uncontrollably when I found out that my team mates had all beaten their opponents.
However I have already told my players not to be too complacent. We will be playing for two more weeks at least and the faculties we will be facing are very strong opponents. I am especially worried about playing off with USP (University Scholars Program). I think it is quite unfair for USP to be considered a faculty because the university scholars are the cream of the crop and they come from all the different faculties. Before we left, we found out that USP had beaten another faculty 5-0 too. They seemed to be the strongest team in the tournament.
I am also worried about going against Biz Ad as they are seeded number 2 in the tournament and also against law because those guys have mega memories. But I love challenges too and the high that you get from beating a strong opponent is something that cannot be adequately expressed in words.
I hope to lead the SoC team to at least the top 3 positions in the tournament. I am faced with some problems now though because one of the players in my main team has other commitments (projects) and he may not be able to play for me this friday. That literally translates to me having to retrain intensively with my reserves this week on top of the training with my main players. I hope we don't lose out because of this.
Besides scrabble, I have cleared both interviews and now I am part of the editorial team for both SCC (Soc Corporate Communications) and Comp Club. I foresee really busy weeks ahead. I hope that in light of all these new responsibilities, I will learn to manage my time better and emerge stronger and more ready to take on the world.
So watch out world, move aside superman, here I come!
"Huh?", I shot back a "What do you mean?" look.
"You look really shagged!"
"Oh..."
I am indeed very tired but I didn't realise that it showed. I have been really busy these days. Midterms are around the corner and I have so many commitments. I gave up studying for all my modules last week to train intensively with my Scrabble team. Curious passer-bys looked bewildered when they saw me with a scrabble set discussing strategies with some of my players in the science canteen a few hours before the competition.
My efforts paid off though. We beat Science 3-2 and Arts 5-0 in the Inter Faculty Games (Scrabble) last friday. I guess many people anticipated that we will lose to Arts. But as captain, I have sworn
that I will prove to everyone that Scrabble is not merely a word game; it is a game that requires alot of thinking and I was confident that even though Arts may have the advantage in terms of vocabulary, we could beat them strategically. We did. My team was so excited and I was elated.
Even though we won by 5-0, that was not to say that the games were easy. My Arts opponent was very good. He scored 39 points for his second move and I was put on high alert. We kept blocking each other's moves such that at the end of the game, we only utilized less than half the board because the other half was completely blocked and there was no way to form any words there. Towards the end of the game, he made a lot of words which I knew did not exist, but I didn't challenge those words as time was running short. This was a strategic move on his side because at that point of time, I was trailing and if I had called for challege, his word would have been revoked but challenges take some time to process and the game was to be stopped at a specific time. I told myself I would not resort to such strategies to win the game. I continued placing legitimate words on the limited space available.
In the end, I won the match 330-261 because he had a 50 point penalty for exceeding the time limit (Each player has 25min for the whole game). If he had not exceeded his time, the score would have been 330-313 which would have reflected how close our match was. I was really nervous when tabulating the scores. When my calculator read 330 and my opponent told me his score was 261, I was so relieved and so excited. I was almost smiling uncontrollably when I found out that my team mates had all beaten their opponents.
However I have already told my players not to be too complacent. We will be playing for two more weeks at least and the faculties we will be facing are very strong opponents. I am especially worried about playing off with USP (University Scholars Program). I think it is quite unfair for USP to be considered a faculty because the university scholars are the cream of the crop and they come from all the different faculties. Before we left, we found out that USP had beaten another faculty 5-0 too. They seemed to be the strongest team in the tournament.
I am also worried about going against Biz Ad as they are seeded number 2 in the tournament and also against law because those guys have mega memories. But I love challenges too and the high that you get from beating a strong opponent is something that cannot be adequately expressed in words.
I hope to lead the SoC team to at least the top 3 positions in the tournament. I am faced with some problems now though because one of the players in my main team has other commitments (projects) and he may not be able to play for me this friday. That literally translates to me having to retrain intensively with my reserves this week on top of the training with my main players. I hope we don't lose out because of this.
Besides scrabble, I have cleared both interviews and now I am part of the editorial team for both SCC (Soc Corporate Communications) and Comp Club. I foresee really busy weeks ahead. I hope that in light of all these new responsibilities, I will learn to manage my time better and emerge stronger and more ready to take on the world.
So watch out world, move aside superman, here I come!