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stormy weather

i feel caught between a rock and a hard place, it's been tough. circumstances can be incredibly unkind and unyielding, and i wonder sometimes, what a fresh start could look like. for a while now, i've echoed the words with some hope, some spark of 'please-let-this-be-it':

"today is a new day. yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is yet to come. but today begins the first day of the rest of my life."

i long for fresh starts every time life gets difficult, but the problems don't seem to go away. the very thing that tripped me up yesterday is still weighing down my heart like a ton of bricks. all the triggers, the stimuli are still physically there, and i wonder sometimes if a fresh start means putting distance between myself and those triggers. perhaps an ocean in between might suffice? i suppose the technical term for this is "running away from your problems".

i came across an interesting passage of scripture last night, and it stirred in me. it's from paul's letter to the philippians:

"... that He who began a good work in You will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." (1:6)

the author of genesis presents in the first account God's work of creating the heavens and the earth as a day by day process, and on the day it was complete, he rested, enjoying the fruits of his work, the home he had carved out.

perhaps each new day is another day to co-operate in his work, his good work. amidst this wild baggage-storm, his steady hands work tirelessly across, through, over, within the being i call me. yesterday's problems inevitably lead to apoptosis (programmed cellular suicide), which is good, because it paves the way for new healthy growth today. yes, i'm a work a progress, but there will come a tomorrow, when God can finally rest in me and i in Him, a completed dwelling place. until then, today is a new day, another opportunity to work together with the force that brought form, function, and light from the formless chaotic dark.

yes, i'm stuck between a rock and a hard place; bruised as i am, i've begun to understand the source of my stability and unshakeable resolve. that rock happens to be on my side. God is my rock. amen.

I have a tendency to understate things sometimes

to achieve some form of humor, but right now things are difficult, and there's nothing funny about it. Going through a rough patch sucks, and desperately trying to hold on to some sense of peace attained (or received) earlier to get through it is about as useful as throwing an I've cube at a volcano to stop it from erupting.

I'm really tired. I feel crippled.

But it'll all work out. It always does, one way or another.

Now, I gotta deal with plumbers and neighbours, telstra for a phone line, and buy a new computer.

Swimming in KK, its as dirty as malaysian politics

This is a rant.



Forgive me if I get a bit erratic here and there, I'll do my best to explain how swim events work, but this post might be heavy on swim jargon. Basically this weekend was the 43rd Sabah Age Group Swimming Championships, and KIS fielded a team. Most people who would read this blog probably know my brother has been training long and hard on his swimming every morning at 6AM. When I say this kid has potential, its not just because he's my brother; every coach who's seen him knows it. In the short amount of time he's been training, for the hours he's put in, he's on par- in fact better, than swimmers who have trained many more hours a day for many more years. But its hard to prove it when they use disgustingly underhanded tactics.

To cut a long story short, in the KK swimming circuit, there are a few main clubs, and the two heavyweights are the Blue Marlin Swimming Club and the KKSA. The KKSA is affiliated with SASA, an organisation rotten the core with corruption. Their former president, who shall remain nameless on this blog, is infamous for threatening people (including coaches) with gangsters, overstepping his authority at swimming competitions, and forcing a coach on a government payroll to exclude all the other swimmers from the program and focus only on his son.

Now I don't really have a problem with the KKSA, most of the swimmers are buddies of mine, the current coach is one of my closest friends, I even train with them. One of the swimmers is in my brother's age group however, and his closest rival. This is where all the shit begins.

I don't have a problem with this kid, he's actually really cute, a little hyper, quite arrogant, but friendly. I even train with him. But, my brother's coach has warned before that this kid's (I'll call him Daz for now) parents would target my brother as an enemy. Before, when my brother was slower than Daz, we were all good friends; now they greet us with cold glares. And best of all, they were in the best seats in the house for the SAG Championships: The IT room. As the KIS "coach" I was assured that all officials would be fair and honourable in conduct. Sure.

So explain why, when provided with a seed time of 2:44:00 for my brother in the 200m freestyle, it still showed up as NT (no time) on the database, causing him to be shifted in the the first heat as opposed to the second heat with the rest of the fast swimmers. Based on the seed time, my brother would have been in lane 5 right next to Daz in lane 4. Did our data entry official make a small honest mistake?

I should probably explain how heats work. Basically, seed times are used to determine who the faster swimmers are. The swimmer with the fastest seed time is placed in the final heat in lane 4, then the next fastest in lane 5, then the next fastest in lane 3, then 6, then 2, then 7, then 1, and then 8, and then lane 4 in the next heat, and then lane 5 and so on, cause a pool has 8 lanes. Swimmers that do not provide seed times will be placed in the very first heats. The main reason its like this is because its a well known fact that athletes perform much better when competing directly with one another.

With my brother in the first heat, there was no competition, my brother led the whole race through, whereas Daz was in heat 2. My brother got silver in this race because he clocked in the second fastest time in the event, faster than everyone in the first heat except Daz. My argument is that if he had swum next to Daz, he could have beaten him, and that he only lost to Daz because he didn't have anyone to compete with.

I know it sounds like quite a wild accusation to make, but the whole thing was suspicious because the original startsheet had my bro and Daz together in the same heat, but the updated one given the night before had him in the first heat and Daz in the second heat. And there was no time to dispute the case because my brother's race was the very first one of the morning and the marshall (the official who makes sure the swimmers are in their events) was shooing everyone who wasn't a swimmer away from the start line, cutting off any chance of rectifying the situation.

It's a long post, but bear with me, there's more. This one is the worst.

Right before heat 5 of the 50m Freestyle, the billboard that displays the stopwatch froze. Apparently the computer that receives all the swimmer's clocked times from the touch pads were working, but the computer that transmits the information to the billboard broke down. What are the odds? Well, they call all the team managers into the IT room for a meeting to sort this issue out. AND THEY GOT THE EVENT TO START AS SOON AS ALL THE TEAM MANAGERS WERE IN THE IT ROOM.

So the marshall, who is also the former SASA president (you see where this is going?) chairs the meeting and says "look, the computer can still record the times that the swimmers clock, but not display it. You'll just have to trust that we'll post the accurate results later ok?" I was in no position to speak up because to do so would be to openly accuse the marshall of being corrupt, and he isn't exactly known for pacifism or being civil. So instead I ask if its possible to get updates of the results after each event, and he replies ok, but we'll ave to keep coming back to the IT room to check if they're ready.

Now, while I was in the meeting, my brother and Daz both finished the 50m Freestyle, and apparently they were neck and neck at the end. But most people said they saw my brother touch first, including the coach of the state team, my brother's coach who stood parallel to the wall solely to watch the finish, and various other people in the spectator stands.

When the KIS team manager (someone else's parent) went in to request for the results, they said my brother got 33.71 and Daz got 33.64 seconds. Of course the person who gave us this result, was none other than Daz's mom, who was sitting at the computer.

It's all very foul, I went over it really broadly because frankly I haven't got the energy to argue it any further, all I can say is I'm very very proud of my brother, and I know he should have won the best swimmer award for his age group, because he won 5 gold medals and 3 silver medals, while Daz won 5 golds and 1 silver. But, surprise surprise, Daz won the best swimmer award.

Anyway I've had a long day, I'm really tired, I haven't swam competitively in a long time, and today was a rude shock for my aging body. But I still managed to scrape a silver for 100m breaststroke, and bronze for the 50m breaststroke. Oh and a bronze in the 4x100m medley relay. I was forced to do the butterfly OMG I NEARLY DIED. But yeah. It was epic, but honestly I did it for the lulz. I managed to form a team with the blue marlin coach, the KKSA coach, and one of my swimmer's parents. I might get pics up later.

be a human being first,

and everything else second, because humanity depends on it.



just saying.