Hey everyone

I don't know how many of you actually come back to this blog anymore. But I guess that's ok, we all move on with our lives at one time or another. It's perfectly understandable. I don't even know how many will take the time to read this at the end of the day. But I guess that's ok too.

For us J2s, anyone can see that morale is at an all-time low now. For most of us, if not all, we find ourselves trying to work towards a goal that doesn't seem to be shedding any of its light. To be frank, most of us were utterly crushed when NJCC occurred some time ago and resulted in disappointment. In the recent Women's Open competition, we were greeted with 2 star-performances by our very own Javine and Cheryl, and Yang2, who got k2 500m Gold and T1 500m Gold respectively. Let us all extend our warmest congratulations to them. However, today's post is not about such as these. Today, we look at those of us who were left behind in the fast-surging stream of canoeing competitiveness.

A trip to the doctor today revealed a partially-torn tendom on my fourth finger, right hand, which coincidently resides very near where i had previously broken my bone. The doctor insisted on a 3 to 4 week rest period to allow the tendom to heal back. Yes, 3 to 4 weeks. This close to our nationals, barely 20 trainings left, barely a month and a half, and i'm being forced to rest for a silly little muscle group that allowed itself to be over-exterted. Great. Add that to the fact that, truthfully speaking, my rowing skills haven't actually been up to par yet. Add that to the fact that my strength in proportion to my heavy mass isn't even close to that which you see on other t2-rowers. I'm not being delusional, neither am i being overly-critical. To be blunt on myself, my rowing now really sucks.

I guess that now, cutting away all that one-track minded stupidity in just wanting to get at least a something achieved in my life, a lot of you might be feeling the same way as i do: mentally-tired, unmotivated, uninspired, perhaps even bored. Nationals are close enough to scare us, but far enough to keep us feeling repulsed, feeling "what in the world am i doing? should i be wasting my time training when i can go off to do other things which i can do better at, or at least be focusing on my studies? Student athlete, student comes first, right?". It's true that there are a lot of monsters out there. We see those monsters speeding past us and feeding us their wash, almost as if just to turn around and stick a tongue out at us. And no matter how hard we try, it just seems too difficult to catch up to them. This might be even harder for J1s, who may find it even harder to even be able to compete this year.

Here comes the hard part: so what do we do now? Where do we go from here? Even 3rd placing seems to ever be moving away from our reach. Are we the batch that finally lets RJC Canoeing drop out of placings, out of sight, out of mind?

Do we give up?

That question was rhetorical. Please check yourself if you haven't already answered a resounding "NO" in your mind, at least. I'm not an inspirational writer, nor am i someone particularly masochistic, or even anymore diligent than anyone. I'm not talented, in fact i'm UNtalented at many things. I'm your sub-average guy, who don't have the nuance to consider when to start giving up on the things that i really want imprinted in my life. It's not that i'm not being realistic. I know that a lot of you have thoughts in your mind that say "I know i can't do well anymore, so what's the point?" or "i'm trying so hard but i'm not getting the results i want!". Let me tell you, as unworthy a being such as i, that these are very dangerous thoughts. They make us lose focus. They give us a false sense of reality, a false sense of feeling dis-illusioned. They make us give up. It may be true that at the end, we may not even have the slightest chance of winning. No one can guarantee anything. But what does it matter? For now, we become exhausted after each day. But what happens after we're through? After we're done, do we say "oh, i was a canoeist" and in our hearts tell ourselves "but i didn't do my best for the win because i was going to lose anyway", or do we say "I was a canoeist, i didn't win anything, but I gave it my best shot and forced a tough competition down the throats of my competitors". It doesn't seem all too appealing now, but it is my belief, you can choose to take it or not, that when you look back at times like these, it wasn't the medal, or the lack of it, that mattered, but how much you actually put into it that was translated into how much you were actually able to get out of it in the end that did. You wouldn't say "i was just a canoeist", but "I am a canoiest. I am a crazy fellow who put 2 years of hard work into something which i may not actually get something tangible out of at the end." And, strangely, i doubt it only applies to me, that because of that, you would feel a strange sense of pride for what you did, and not what you received.

It's not easy to picture all of this now. A lot of you would be reading this in disbelief now, some of you maybe already left this huge bag of words for other activity. But for those of you who choose to stay to read on, let me say this: if you believe in yourself, believe in your teammates who were there, who is there, who may or may not be there for you in future, then have no regrets in your actions. Work towards what you believe in. Be an inspiration to those around you. Even if you don't receive any official statement, anything tangible, at the end of it all, you can safely say you had already gotten all the good you could get out of life in 2 years of Canoeing.

All the best, everyone.