things that make you go hmmm….

It’s a week since I last took the bus and I almost forgot what it feels like. Having to constantly shuffle from place to place on my 2-wheeler, it’s been quite a while since I have had any zone-out time. It’s at least 3, sometimes 4 trips a day, across the island: from home to the shed in the west, to the office which is in the east, sometimes back to the shed in the west, then home which is quiet central. And I don’t particularly love taking the trains. Takes me longer to get anywhere now, and it feels like a quarter of the population are on the trains at every single hour in the day.

So a much appreciated and quiet bus ride, gave me some time to reflect on things going on around me. It somehow feels I no longer have a place in sport in Singapore. People applaud for the sacrifice and discipline but are they really mocking me behind my back. The politically correct attitude can sometimes do more harm than good. And in this situation, it’s driving me down the gutter. From the way I see it, if there’s no wish to support, just kill the program. If I get rewarded for making the leap to greener pastures, who then should I credit it to. I’d be lying in my pants if I said it is because of the local sports system, the same system that refuse to provide any help at all?

I enjoy every bit of rowing, heaps. But I don’t enjoy doing it here. I have had more bad experience than I have good ones. 630 am OTW on my own for most of my time here. Caught in a sudden massive thunderstorm while out rowing and had sit it out at the pontoon, holding onto the boat for dear life. A coach who camped out at the 1000m mark to fish during training. A coach who demanded prize money from me 2 months before a major regatta. People who have tried to back stab me. People who simply just don’t want me to succeed. I’ll just stop it there.

At the end of the day, like one of the great Muhammad Ali quotes: “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”