As I sit on my bum, shaking my leg, and taking in all the words and knowledge that the Internet bestows upon me, I suddenly feel enlightened. What is it that makes an article such a piece of crap that you curse the author for wasting your time? And what makes an article so good that you'd not only want to share it via facebook, twitter, digg, stumble, reddit, you'd even print a copy out for your grandmother?
Should it be flowery and eloquent in a sophisticated way? Consider this. If you read it to the end, well done. The author's vocabulary and grammar may be way above mine, but I'm the reader, and so I judge. And I'm not impressed. Sure, there is descriptive language, 'sound of countless languages intertwining into an incomprehensible melody', but that's all. Do you feel interested in the story? Do you feel the author's sense of enlightenment? No I don't. There are descriptions, but no details. When it comes to the gist of the article, which is to say the author is inspired by her internship, she can only describe it as an 'understanding of a human element', and the 'human element' part of the phrase is taken from some commercial which I have never seen before, so that's another negative point. In addition, it's just got the 'sheltered person starts working and is inspired' kind of bullshit taste. Like some bullshit forced out of the bull's ass because a university application asked for an essay about a life-changing experience. Poor bull. Article fail.
Contrast that with this. Although such a long article, it is simply interesting, with an array of examples and personal experiences, and it makes sense too! I wish I could write like that.
The last example that I have is also the best. It's nowhere near as long as the previous two, and it simply proves that writing is also about putting the heart and soul into words. It comes from the best of Craigslist, which is an online bulletin board wildly popular overseas, but not so popular in Singapore. It also happens to be a time warp for me, because everytime I exit the site, I wonder where all my time has gone. Well at least there was this . Enjoy and don't cry.
It appears that there are really a lot of ways to write an excellent essay. You just need to ask an extra question of 'How do I make this interesting?' Unfortunately, years of writing badass General Paper essays has sucked the soul out of writers in Singapore. I mean, we even have to pay people to read. And mark them. Fortunately, most of the people will end up drafting badass government policies or writing legal documents that should not intriguing in the first place, so it's less of a loss. Still, if this post is boring to you, I blame my education.
My favorite author Roald Dahl says somewhere in one of his books."It's a gift, you either have it or you don't"
Showing posts with label How To blahblahblah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How To blahblahblah. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Tactics of the middle-class
I'm in the mood, in the mood!
Today we will cover survival tactics. In modern Singapore, you might think that it's redundant and trashy to learn about whatever survival crap. But you never know when it comes in handy! It is precisely in modern, cold and heartless Singapore where survival tactics are absolutely (and I say ABSOLUTELY YEA) important for one's well-being.
In the struggle for economic growth, it is inevitable that people get left behind. Yup I know I'm sounding like some Social Studies student giving bullshit (that's what I used to do anyway) - but hey if Singapore was that good you won't have aunties selling tissues at three packets for one dollar right.
They think it's romantic, the way the auntie sings her one-dollar song. But she's a nuisance and a victim of the social system. The rich only gets richer and the poor gets poorer, as other societies have proven. I don't know which one specifically, but that's quite a catchphrase so let's just apply it in Singaporean context. The rich DO get richer.
But me, I'm definitely NOT rich. Born in mediocrity, I've lived my entire life in mediocrity.. until my pocket money got cut for these holidays. Rationale given: I don't need to go to school so my upkeep is lower.
Yea right. Then Council calls us back for Orientation prep every day and I see my money diminishing like the way the fish in a fish farm disappears in a flash flood. (That's kind of a tongue twister anyway, real cool.)
In the middle-class it's make or break. You either get richer or poorer. But one tilt to the poor side, and I'm almost down the proverbial poverty cycle (you gotta thank PW for this). With less than $50 to spend a week, ALL EXPENSES INCLUDED, I started to devise some tactics for the middle-class tilting towards poverty. Very useful, or at least it kinda works for me.
1. Food
Most important. Unfortunately sometimes you can't control your hunger pangs and when you need to eat, you need to eat. For someone as great as I am, I have GREAT hunger pangs too. And the important lesson to learn here is that we, members of the middle-class, go for quantity not quality.
With $2 in hand and a dinner to go - which do you choose? A baguette, 80% of ban mian (you could try your luck with the auntie), nasi lemak from S11, or biscuits from NTUC?
The answer is very simple, but only a true middle-class citizen would get it.
You don't buy anything, but you go home and drink tap water. Or if you're afraid of drinking up red rust along with dangerous sodium- or magnesium-based chemicals, you could boil the water. No difference since it's free anyway. Water can contain your hunger for a while, and if you spam so much that you're bloated, hunger will float away from you.
If this fails, an allowance of fifty cents can be given so you can spam tau huay zui (soya bean). Make sure its hot and you take it down in one gulp. Either that or you go and sleep. Run 10km, spam water, then collapse on your bed. Absolutely economical.
2. Transport
Quite obviously I'm an advocate for healthy living, because as YL has mentioned before and as I'd like to reiterate, I'm an enemy of the public transport system. Just that running about too much has taken its toll on me and I've now damaged both knees (jacked). That's why I took the MRT yesterday.
But as much as possible, you must consider all possible transport options. Taxis are a definite no-no. Somehow supply of taxis doesn't go very well with demand and in the midst of all that supply-demand shit the price just keeps increasing. Gay. As if it wasn't bad enough that GST is going up and so are bus fares.
Solution - boycott taxis. I've lived without them for five years and I'm still surviving. If you are in a hurry and the bus/train won't get you there on time, it's where your improvisation comes in. For example, if you are stuck at RJC you could kope Elango's bike and just scoot off.
Those bloody security guards, they leave their bikes around too much anyway. If ever you have to do it one day, make sure it's Elango's bike you take. That old fagut barks far too much for my liking, and I'm not afraid to blog about it because he IS quite a fagut.
When I say "consider all options", I really mean consider all options. Say I'm at Toa Payoh Lorong 1 trying to get to Junction 8, do I take the bus, the train, or walk? With time constraint, walking isn't really possible so you'd have to accept the alternatives. However, I'd say the train would be better for such a case as they charge 40 cents as opposed to the bus's 45 cents.
(If you do this for eight days consecutively, you'd save 40 cents. Which means you can spend more on FOOD - the cheapest mineral water in NTUC (500ml) costs merely 40 cents, a bargain. The wonders of saving money, you never know. Many a mickle makes something big, I forgot the proverb but yea basically you can accumulate LOTS OF MONEY by saving small everyday.)
The economists were right. You DO consider opportunity cost everyday.
And don't listen to all that crap where time is money. Time ISN'T money. Not now anyway, so it's okay to be late if it doesn't cost you any job options. You might call it a bad attitude, but hey, for the sake of MONEY, why not!
A bad attitude does not cause you any money. Remember that. However, a bad approach to public transport does. Just remember LTB - Legs, Trains, Buses (for short distance). Taxis aren't an option. You could use interesting acronyms to help - Love The Bus, Let Them Be, yea whatever you get my point.
3. Love
Where should you bring your girlfriend for a HOT lunch date?
A restaurant? A nearby hawker centre? Mcdonald's?
If you've been paying any attention at all and absorbing what I'm saying, you'll find that the best type of girlfriend a middle-class guy could have is no girlfriend. If you want to do something you might as well do it to the best of your ability. Thus, what's the point of having a girlfriend when you can't spend anything on her? Better get out of that poverty cycle first, dammit.
Anyway, a restaurant is too expensive, a hawker centre is too cheapskate, and there's the possibility of meeting the Bishan Gay in Mcdonald's so I'm giving you a real option here. If you REALLY have to have love, meet your date at RJ canteen. The yong tau foo there is quite reasonably priced, unlike the S11 faguts.
Oh and there's a Seven-Eleven coming up at RJ yay! That way you could get a SUPER BIG GULP to share with your loved one. They are cheaper when bought in HUGE QUANTITY. Even though you are supposed to save when you can, it doesn't hurt to buy more if it's value for money. No point buying a GULP and that's it, it's all over in one gulp.
And another thing: one plate of food is enough. Same goes with the drinks - you only need to order one. Then you can share it with your boyfriend/girlfriend and have a romantic lunch date. Though of course we all know it's all down to the bloody same old motive of saving money LOL. But shh, if he/she doesn't know, it only means he/she doesn't NEED to know. So there! Romantic, shared meals for the win!
4. Everything and anything else
Well I've covered the most important things in life - so the others don't really matter. When it comes down to luxury or necessity, anything that's not a necessity is obviously redundant. What you need to survive - food, transport, love (for some) has already been covered. So anything else is a luxury and you must learn how to do without it in the middle-class.
In short, everything and anything else, you can live without it. So do it.
That's most of the stuff for the middle-class. They do not necessarily represent my views or what I do in real life, but when I say "do not necessarily" I mean "it's possible". This is open to interpretation and I'm not saying that the rich are spoilt or anything. It's the fault of society and it's the fault of the way things work.
Therefore, I'd just like to say cheers and have fun leading an enriched middle-class life. Somehow you will derive joy for every cent you scrimp and save. Seriously haha.
Today we will cover survival tactics. In modern Singapore, you might think that it's redundant and trashy to learn about whatever survival crap. But you never know when it comes in handy! It is precisely in modern, cold and heartless Singapore where survival tactics are absolutely (and I say ABSOLUTELY YEA) important for one's well-being.
In the struggle for economic growth, it is inevitable that people get left behind. Yup I know I'm sounding like some Social Studies student giving bullshit (that's what I used to do anyway) - but hey if Singapore was that good you won't have aunties selling tissues at three packets for one dollar right.
They think it's romantic, the way the auntie sings her one-dollar song. But she's a nuisance and a victim of the social system. The rich only gets richer and the poor gets poorer, as other societies have proven. I don't know which one specifically, but that's quite a catchphrase so let's just apply it in Singaporean context. The rich DO get richer.
But me, I'm definitely NOT rich. Born in mediocrity, I've lived my entire life in mediocrity.. until my pocket money got cut for these holidays. Rationale given: I don't need to go to school so my upkeep is lower.
Yea right. Then Council calls us back for Orientation prep every day and I see my money diminishing like the way the fish in a fish farm disappears in a flash flood. (That's kind of a tongue twister anyway, real cool.)
In the middle-class it's make or break. You either get richer or poorer. But one tilt to the poor side, and I'm almost down the proverbial poverty cycle (you gotta thank PW for this). With less than $50 to spend a week, ALL EXPENSES INCLUDED, I started to devise some tactics for the middle-class tilting towards poverty. Very useful, or at least it kinda works for me.
1. Food
Most important. Unfortunately sometimes you can't control your hunger pangs and when you need to eat, you need to eat. For someone as great as I am, I have GREAT hunger pangs too. And the important lesson to learn here is that we, members of the middle-class, go for quantity not quality.
With $2 in hand and a dinner to go - which do you choose? A baguette, 80% of ban mian (you could try your luck with the auntie), nasi lemak from S11, or biscuits from NTUC?
The answer is very simple, but only a true middle-class citizen would get it.
You don't buy anything, but you go home and drink tap water. Or if you're afraid of drinking up red rust along with dangerous sodium- or magnesium-based chemicals, you could boil the water. No difference since it's free anyway. Water can contain your hunger for a while, and if you spam so much that you're bloated, hunger will float away from you.
If this fails, an allowance of fifty cents can be given so you can spam tau huay zui (soya bean). Make sure its hot and you take it down in one gulp. Either that or you go and sleep. Run 10km, spam water, then collapse on your bed. Absolutely economical.
2. Transport
Quite obviously I'm an advocate for healthy living, because as YL has mentioned before and as I'd like to reiterate, I'm an enemy of the public transport system. Just that running about too much has taken its toll on me and I've now damaged both knees (jacked). That's why I took the MRT yesterday.
But as much as possible, you must consider all possible transport options. Taxis are a definite no-no. Somehow supply of taxis doesn't go very well with demand and in the midst of all that supply-demand shit the price just keeps increasing. Gay. As if it wasn't bad enough that GST is going up and so are bus fares.
Solution - boycott taxis. I've lived without them for five years and I'm still surviving. If you are in a hurry and the bus/train won't get you there on time, it's where your improvisation comes in. For example, if you are stuck at RJC you could kope Elango's bike and just scoot off.
Those bloody security guards, they leave their bikes around too much anyway. If ever you have to do it one day, make sure it's Elango's bike you take. That old fagut barks far too much for my liking, and I'm not afraid to blog about it because he IS quite a fagut.
When I say "consider all options", I really mean consider all options. Say I'm at Toa Payoh Lorong 1 trying to get to Junction 8, do I take the bus, the train, or walk? With time constraint, walking isn't really possible so you'd have to accept the alternatives. However, I'd say the train would be better for such a case as they charge 40 cents as opposed to the bus's 45 cents.
(If you do this for eight days consecutively, you'd save 40 cents. Which means you can spend more on FOOD - the cheapest mineral water in NTUC (500ml) costs merely 40 cents, a bargain. The wonders of saving money, you never know. Many a mickle makes something big, I forgot the proverb but yea basically you can accumulate LOTS OF MONEY by saving small everyday.)
The economists were right. You DO consider opportunity cost everyday.
And don't listen to all that crap where time is money. Time ISN'T money. Not now anyway, so it's okay to be late if it doesn't cost you any job options. You might call it a bad attitude, but hey, for the sake of MONEY, why not!
A bad attitude does not cause you any money. Remember that. However, a bad approach to public transport does. Just remember LTB - Legs, Trains, Buses (for short distance). Taxis aren't an option. You could use interesting acronyms to help - Love The Bus, Let Them Be, yea whatever you get my point.
3. Love
Where should you bring your girlfriend for a HOT lunch date?
A restaurant? A nearby hawker centre? Mcdonald's?
If you've been paying any attention at all and absorbing what I'm saying, you'll find that the best type of girlfriend a middle-class guy could have is no girlfriend. If you want to do something you might as well do it to the best of your ability. Thus, what's the point of having a girlfriend when you can't spend anything on her? Better get out of that poverty cycle first, dammit.
Anyway, a restaurant is too expensive, a hawker centre is too cheapskate, and there's the possibility of meeting the Bishan Gay in Mcdonald's so I'm giving you a real option here. If you REALLY have to have love, meet your date at RJ canteen. The yong tau foo there is quite reasonably priced, unlike the S11 faguts.
Oh and there's a Seven-Eleven coming up at RJ yay! That way you could get a SUPER BIG GULP to share with your loved one. They are cheaper when bought in HUGE QUANTITY. Even though you are supposed to save when you can, it doesn't hurt to buy more if it's value for money. No point buying a GULP and that's it, it's all over in one gulp.
And another thing: one plate of food is enough. Same goes with the drinks - you only need to order one. Then you can share it with your boyfriend/girlfriend and have a romantic lunch date. Though of course we all know it's all down to the bloody same old motive of saving money LOL. But shh, if he/she doesn't know, it only means he/she doesn't NEED to know. So there! Romantic, shared meals for the win!
4. Everything and anything else
Well I've covered the most important things in life - so the others don't really matter. When it comes down to luxury or necessity, anything that's not a necessity is obviously redundant. What you need to survive - food, transport, love (for some) has already been covered. So anything else is a luxury and you must learn how to do without it in the middle-class.
In short, everything and anything else, you can live without it. So do it.
That's most of the stuff for the middle-class. They do not necessarily represent my views or what I do in real life, but when I say "do not necessarily" I mean "it's possible". This is open to interpretation and I'm not saying that the rich are spoilt or anything. It's the fault of society and it's the fault of the way things work.
Therefore, I'd just like to say cheers and have fun leading an enriched middle-class life. Somehow you will derive joy for every cent you scrimp and save. Seriously haha.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
How to garner amusement
Before we start on more serious topics like the Bishan Gay, I thought I'd talk a bit of nonsense about what I did for the past few days - ie planning forfeits.
It can be quite an enjoyable process, especially if you have another kokster planning with you. Amusement is guaranteed if you know how to implement it well enough. Next time any of you need to plan forfeits for games, THIS IS DA SITE FOR YOU MAN.
Acknowledgements to my fellow forfeiter Xiong, who doesn't sound as fierce as his name. Never mind that.
POSSIBLE FORFEITS
1. Spell out your name using your arse. If your name is under 10 characters, spell (insert a name of a certain loser here, preferably a longggggg one) instead.
2. Stick a piece of masking tape onto a certain part of the body. Doesn't have to be in the arse, it could be on the belly or something. Then ask the person to SHAKE IT OFF. If you are an evil fag, you could tell him/her that using other items are NOT ALLOWED. Good luck have fun.
3. Lambada your way through and sing a song. If you don't know what a lambada is, go Wikipedia or Google it. Or just take it from me that it's a real stupid move where you shake yourself like a.. shaking chicken and move back and forth retardedly. With a partner, but as this is a forfeit the loser will have to do it alone.
Better yet, you could ask him/her to find a partner to do it with him/her. And if he/she doesn't manage to convince anyone, make him/her SING while doing the lambada. I can guarantee it's super embarrassing. Oh, and better still if it's a stupid song he/she is singing. Try Aqua, they're really dumb.
4. Make it a dare. Tell the security guard, "your cool uniform so turnsss me onnnnnnn" (unisex dare pls) or tell an obese punk in the pool that he makes you melt. Of course all these are going to make me puke but I trust that when it comes to dare many can come up with even better ideas than me.
Oh and a quote from an anonymous person - telling the security guard, "oh your tight pants makes my pants even tighter." Assuming that the guy taking the forfeit is a.. guy. And no I swear that didn't come from me.
5. Do charades, and give REALLY STUPID CHARACTERS. Examples include: George W Bush, Michael Jackson or more recently posted here - THE BISHAN GAY. Watch and squeal with delight as they try to imitate these.. fags.
6. Do a pole dance, with someone else as the pole. This is quite a favourite among most.
Yup hope this will come in useful someday - in perhaps bizarre circumstances, but every bit of information is still information. So if you need forfeits, here's the place. If you need more sadistic ones, can come look for me. Or concoct your own stuff (ie FOOD) haha, though that's pretty standard.
It can be quite an enjoyable process, especially if you have another kokster planning with you. Amusement is guaranteed if you know how to implement it well enough. Next time any of you need to plan forfeits for games, THIS IS DA SITE FOR YOU MAN.
Acknowledgements to my fellow forfeiter Xiong, who doesn't sound as fierce as his name. Never mind that.
POSSIBLE FORFEITS
1. Spell out your name using your arse. If your name is under 10 characters, spell (insert a name of a certain loser here, preferably a longggggg one) instead.
2. Stick a piece of masking tape onto a certain part of the body. Doesn't have to be in the arse, it could be on the belly or something. Then ask the person to SHAKE IT OFF. If you are an evil fag, you could tell him/her that using other items are NOT ALLOWED. Good luck have fun.
3. Lambada your way through and sing a song. If you don't know what a lambada is, go Wikipedia or Google it. Or just take it from me that it's a real stupid move where you shake yourself like a.. shaking chicken and move back and forth retardedly. With a partner, but as this is a forfeit the loser will have to do it alone.
Better yet, you could ask him/her to find a partner to do it with him/her. And if he/she doesn't manage to convince anyone, make him/her SING while doing the lambada. I can guarantee it's super embarrassing. Oh, and better still if it's a stupid song he/she is singing. Try Aqua, they're really dumb.
4. Make it a dare. Tell the security guard, "your cool uniform so turnsss me onnnnnnn" (unisex dare pls) or tell an obese punk in the pool that he makes you melt. Of course all these are going to make me puke but I trust that when it comes to dare many can come up with even better ideas than me.
Oh and a quote from an anonymous person - telling the security guard, "oh your tight pants makes my pants even tighter." Assuming that the guy taking the forfeit is a.. guy. And no I swear that didn't come from me.
5. Do charades, and give REALLY STUPID CHARACTERS. Examples include: George W Bush, Michael Jackson or more recently posted here - THE BISHAN GAY. Watch and squeal with delight as they try to imitate these.. fags.
6. Do a pole dance, with someone else as the pole. This is quite a favourite among most.
Yup hope this will come in useful someday - in perhaps bizarre circumstances, but every bit of information is still information. So if you need forfeits, here's the place. If you need more sadistic ones, can come look for me. Or concoct your own stuff (ie FOOD) haha, though that's pretty standard.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Self-confidence
Among all those silly failures that I've listed, I'm afraid I left out one very important one.
FAILURE TO GET TOP 20 IN CHEM FOR PROMOS. (zomg!)
How could I forget that. Maybe I'm just living in my own world of denial.
Anyway, today's post is about feeling good. Assuming that life is tough and everyone wants to feel good, it is important to know how to feel good. Of course, you can't feel good when the circumstances are against you, but feelings are pretty much controlled by yourself, and therefore you have the power to feel good.
Or should I say, YOUR feelings are pretty much controlled by yourself. Everything is relative and everything should be put into perspective.
Let's take a very basic example - playing basketball. You have no idea how many times I've been shooting and missing by a few miles, usually because I think I'm shooting birds and blast the ball right over the board. Well, Michael Jordan missed his 9000 shots, and I haven't missed that many so far.
Though I haven't been playing a lot.. but never mind that.
The trick is to letting yourself believe that you are skilled in other areas.
If you play basketball and keep airballing (ie it doesn't touch the board because you're a weakling), you don't have to think you suck at basketball. Even if your coach says so, think that you are made for HANDBALL. Yup, in handball it is essential not to shoot over the goalmouth. Therefore that is the sport for you if you can't shoot high enough.
After all, it's quite true that sometimes the basket is too high. It's difficult to slam dunk and that takes away the fun of basketball.
If your aiming is just way off and even though you can reach the required height for basketball, it means that probably VOLLEYBALL is your game. Every cloud has a silver lining, and thus every failure must mean you have talent in someplace else. Shooting left and right will ensure that the opponent gets pwned. That's how volleyball works, and voila, you've made yourself useful again.
If you keep shooting too hard against the board (they call it 篮板球) and it just reflects right back to you, there is this game called WATERPOLO where hard shots are for the win. The only thing is that you have to know how to swim. If you don't, try doing ARCHERY. You could shoot birds up in trees.
If you keep shooting a little over the top of the basketball board, then perhaps you should consider playing NETBALL. You just need to be a little tyco, and the ball will automatically go in. Try a few high angle shots, and if they fail you in Netball, perhaps you are just made for Beach Volleyball, where I believe the net is slightly higher and you'd be ultimate ownage at that.
And if you think you're totally shit at basketball such that you blast the ball way over the top, or you can't seem to get the ball off the ground..
..you're not at your wits' end yet.
There's always BOWLING, a traditional favourite among those who likes aircon and who hates altitude. You don't swing bowling balls all over the place do you? And for those who keeps shooting WAY OVER THE TOP..
..uh, we refer you back to this module in RI Physical Education. Something we all did in our Sec 4 year. Territorial/invasion and the other games. I only remember one sort of game because I just don't really remember the rest (like duh).
Anyway, the thing is, if you fail at all the sports available, the module that I was talking about is.. INVENTING GAMES!! Many years have gone by and new things keep popping up all over the place. The idea is: if you can't find a sport you're good at, you MAKE a sport you're good at.
Many losers are bloody good at this. Notice when a country hosts the SEA Games or the Olympics, they get to choose what games they want to play? They simply take away the events they simply have no hope at, and then introduce some obscure crap that they trained for damn long and suddenly get free golds.
Of course, others might say it's cheap. But a gold is a gold.
Let's take for example HOOP TAKRAW, going to be played in the next SEA Games. It's quite obviously a cheap copy of sepak takraw, and adjusted a little to make it advantageous for those who keep pumping the ball way up high but without any power. While they get whooped in sepak takraw, they can seek solace that they are masters in getting balls in hoops.
Balls to them actually, that's no big deal. Still, they'd be wHOOPing at the end of the day when they get their medals because the world is about being good, no matter how you get there.
Don't let them get you down, Inventing Games are good. That's why it's graded for your final PE grade.
In other words, there's no reason not to have self-confidence. The world is made for you to succeed in, and already in sports you are guaranteed sure success.
Perhaps, if you are too lazy to move your arse on the basketball court or on any sort of playing field, you could invent this sport called STONING.
The possibilities are endless.
But I think I might win the stoning contest.
Still, in the meantime, do have self-confidence. It's good for your ego and it's good for feeling good. You get positive externalities when you feel good so uh, yup just feel good.
FAILURE TO GET TOP 20 IN CHEM FOR PROMOS. (zomg!)
How could I forget that. Maybe I'm just living in my own world of denial.
Anyway, today's post is about feeling good. Assuming that life is tough and everyone wants to feel good, it is important to know how to feel good. Of course, you can't feel good when the circumstances are against you, but feelings are pretty much controlled by yourself, and therefore you have the power to feel good.
Or should I say, YOUR feelings are pretty much controlled by yourself. Everything is relative and everything should be put into perspective.
Let's take a very basic example - playing basketball. You have no idea how many times I've been shooting and missing by a few miles, usually because I think I'm shooting birds and blast the ball right over the board. Well, Michael Jordan missed his 9000 shots, and I haven't missed that many so far.
Though I haven't been playing a lot.. but never mind that.
The trick is to letting yourself believe that you are skilled in other areas.
If you play basketball and keep airballing (ie it doesn't touch the board because you're a weakling), you don't have to think you suck at basketball. Even if your coach says so, think that you are made for HANDBALL. Yup, in handball it is essential not to shoot over the goalmouth. Therefore that is the sport for you if you can't shoot high enough.
After all, it's quite true that sometimes the basket is too high. It's difficult to slam dunk and that takes away the fun of basketball.
If your aiming is just way off and even though you can reach the required height for basketball, it means that probably VOLLEYBALL is your game. Every cloud has a silver lining, and thus every failure must mean you have talent in someplace else. Shooting left and right will ensure that the opponent gets pwned. That's how volleyball works, and voila, you've made yourself useful again.
If you keep shooting too hard against the board (they call it 篮板球) and it just reflects right back to you, there is this game called WATERPOLO where hard shots are for the win. The only thing is that you have to know how to swim. If you don't, try doing ARCHERY. You could shoot birds up in trees.
If you keep shooting a little over the top of the basketball board, then perhaps you should consider playing NETBALL. You just need to be a little tyco, and the ball will automatically go in. Try a few high angle shots, and if they fail you in Netball, perhaps you are just made for Beach Volleyball, where I believe the net is slightly higher and you'd be ultimate ownage at that.
And if you think you're totally shit at basketball such that you blast the ball way over the top, or you can't seem to get the ball off the ground..
..you're not at your wits' end yet.
There's always BOWLING, a traditional favourite among those who likes aircon and who hates altitude. You don't swing bowling balls all over the place do you? And for those who keeps shooting WAY OVER THE TOP..
..uh, we refer you back to this module in RI Physical Education. Something we all did in our Sec 4 year. Territorial/invasion and the other games. I only remember one sort of game because I just don't really remember the rest (like duh).
Anyway, the thing is, if you fail at all the sports available, the module that I was talking about is.. INVENTING GAMES!! Many years have gone by and new things keep popping up all over the place. The idea is: if you can't find a sport you're good at, you MAKE a sport you're good at.
Many losers are bloody good at this. Notice when a country hosts the SEA Games or the Olympics, they get to choose what games they want to play? They simply take away the events they simply have no hope at, and then introduce some obscure crap that they trained for damn long and suddenly get free golds.
Of course, others might say it's cheap. But a gold is a gold.
Let's take for example HOOP TAKRAW, going to be played in the next SEA Games. It's quite obviously a cheap copy of sepak takraw, and adjusted a little to make it advantageous for those who keep pumping the ball way up high but without any power. While they get whooped in sepak takraw, they can seek solace that they are masters in getting balls in hoops.
Balls to them actually, that's no big deal. Still, they'd be wHOOPing at the end of the day when they get their medals because the world is about being good, no matter how you get there.
Don't let them get you down, Inventing Games are good. That's why it's graded for your final PE grade.
In other words, there's no reason not to have self-confidence. The world is made for you to succeed in, and already in sports you are guaranteed sure success.
Perhaps, if you are too lazy to move your arse on the basketball court or on any sort of playing field, you could invent this sport called STONING.
The possibilities are endless.
But I think I might win the stoning contest.
Still, in the meantime, do have self-confidence. It's good for your ego and it's good for feeling good. You get positive externalities when you feel good so uh, yup just feel good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
