Teheheh
Music: Keane- BedShaped
19th June, Saturday. Today is one of those remarkable days which I’ve just got to write down whilst everything is still fresh in my mind. Inter-sch Othello competition held at ny, and I was one of the thirty tournament officers.
It was held in the hall, pleasantly air-conditioned of course, and the format was swiss play with ten rounds, 40 minutes per game, ie 20 minutes per player. If you do the maths that’s actually over six hours of staring at two players staring at the Othello board. Thought it’d be a long boring day but oh, surprise surprise.
First game I was judge for was between a NJ female and a CJ male. Hahaha. It was at 9AM, I smiled at them, they smiled back. They shook hands, I made small talk with them just before the match. And oh, how everything started then.
I was caught off-guard at the playing speed. Being a chess player myself I am aware that 20 minutes is actually a very long time to think. Judges were supposed to write down their moves [and their particulars etc, and sign everything at the end], and the first two three moves got on so fast I think I told them to stop while I took down the moves. In fact I got so confused that at the end of the match they had to replay everything again because I recorded up till the 61st move when actually there was only 60. And all this while they were laughing and joking, and being very supportive of me. They shook hands at the end of it all, and that would just be the beginning of something.
The second round I judged for was a more formal one. It was a NJ male versus a NY female. Now Im no Othello player but well, I guess you could easily apply chess, or rather, mind-games theory to that. And that was why I could understand and appreciate how the NJ male surrounded the NY female before securing critical spots and moving in for the kill, amongst some of the forms of the other games of course. He outmaneuvered her at every turn, and I thought that was absolutely brilliant. But I wasn’t impressed by his attitude. Right from the point where he secured a few critical points he started shaking his leg. And shaking his head, if ever so slightly. And was that a smirk on his face? In fact his whole body started rocking the chair, if only in a negligible manner.
I got so…urgh by his damn attitude I had the mind to reach over, stop the clock, look at him in the eyes and tell him to stop shaking his bloody head. Failure to comply would result in immediate disqualification, is that perfectly understood? And actually I would have done that if we weren’t in the first row, where several players from the Othello association [adults] were looking on, presumably impressed by the fellow’s prowess too.
I overheard his post-mortem with his one of his team mate later. Talking about what, “I let her creep me over…power shield her…what perpendicular variation.” Hah, I’ll have my own battle at chess next week.
I observed a kind of friendliness I would have dearly yearned for in my own class, or in ny in general. Players chatted and smiled at each other during matches, players shook hands before and after battle, players wished their opponents luck, there was a lot of goodwill flowing here and there, a lot of genuine…warmth. I especially loved the way a TP female wished a NY male: “Good luck for your future matches…you played very well, though you could’ve [this-and-that]”. This was the classical form of goodwill going around, and it often proceeds on to [or is actually after] light, fun chit-chat, and I wish NYJC has more of both.
In the midst of such a friendly atmosphere and my usually playful style, I partook in all the light merry and joking about between the contestants, where applicable of course, for there were some who really wanted to concentrate. Haha in fact I think I even laughed and laughed, in usual manner, during the fifth match. It was between a SR male and a CJ female, and the SR male was actually one who played the longest match ever, passing the first time limit, the match which I was judge for. So when I met him again I let out a playful groan in mock frustration—another long match eh. For some reason that extended out into laughing. And so I laughed, and once I start theres no stopping, and so I continued laughing throughout their round while struggling to write down the moves. Anyway I think both of them got very indifferent towards me—and that’s always the perfect spice to my dish of laughter.
As a matter of fact I met both the SR male and CJ female in later matches—the CJ female actually started laughing [and covering her mouth with her hand] when she saw me as the judge for her table. You know when theres a transfer of such laughter from yourself to others you actually feel like you’ve got some bond with them.
I got her phone number. Hahaha, I actually made friends with that NJ female, and her names Bijie. Ok look how many minds would start shooting off in *that* direction. Heh. Well don’t, because SHE was the one who did everything. Well, much of everything.
She had come to me during the third match, after she had finished hers and I wasn’t done with mine yet. I was in the midst of judging the game, and she actually came up behind me, slapped my shoulder [yea, reminded me of those two girls again], then said “got write wrong again anot”. She continued !@# during the match, until I had to shoo her away lol.
It wasn’t just that. We started !@#$ ie joking in my way, and that’s really unusual for a female, during those free times we had in between rounds. Maybe in my way isn’t altogether accurate, but it was just comfortable, seemingly “low-level” humour—don’t you just love unpretentiousness. Somehow, right from the first round, the chemistry was there already, waiting to be exploited. Didn’t get any quotes btw so I’ll leave it to your own imagination.
On a somber note, I scalded my uh, middle finger when I was escorting her to the water cooler. I didn’t believe the thing was hot when she said it was, so I turned the hot tap on and there you go. Believe me when I say no other individual, with the exception of family members, have expressed such persistent…concern over me, though of course you could point out that scalding your finger isn’t something that happens everyday. It stood out strongly in any environment I have been been, past and present. Past, in some rugged male environment. Present, in some careless, unfriendly environment. You could almost name it a foreign emotion, for I definitely couldn’t identify that very raw thing I felt. Its different from the way you feel when a friend unexpectedly gets you a fair gift. Very different. In fact the way she sounded made me actually feel some concern for my own finger lol.
Well whatever it was, whatever happened, I got her number in between..round 5 and 6 I think. She was mainly the one who came around looking for me [and she was also the one getting me to judge all her later matches; I didn’t for the last 2 because I took some time out to pace about the school, to think] , so I thought it only fair to both me and her that I went about getting her number. I don’t want to lose someone who can actually “click” with me, and that has everything to do with the fact that so few can click with me presently. Her response was spontaneous enough, ridding me of any awkward moments. I just asked her directly by the way, and never ever ever would you get such an act from me till the next [mutually] worthy one comes along, which would most likely be in a decade, no joke.
It didn’t end there. I and another fellow, Mr Hanxiang, had arranged for dinner. So the next task I had was to invite her along too, but since I didn’t feel too good over asking for her number I had to use more subtler ways of asking. And—lol—she reversed the situation on me, though whether it was because she wanted to be cheeky or because she really didn’t want to be the one who took the initiative I couldn’t tell. I think it went [as simply] as the following:
Me: What are you going to do after this.
She: Go home.
Me: Eh? [provocative tone, but not in that aggressive sense. Bah cant be bothered to explain] You don’t eat outside do you.
She: Nobody else eat with me lor…
At this point the delay-initiative credits had run out, and the baton was with me. What did I do? Haha, don’t think you’ll ever find out. Haha.
Anyway, after a string of complicated things, the dinner party was eventually down to she and her nj mate and me, with my partner backing out due to..well complex things. I was more than fine with that actually, because her nj mate was an easy going chap too.
But well, he couldn’t make it in the end because his parents had called last-minute and told him they were having a family dinner outside.
Grr. Pastamania! [cineleisure] was our destination. Restaurant fare has really displaced hawker centre food huh. Going down to town never took on a dimension of danger and insecurity, till this night. Insecurity, because I actually felt very…vulnerable in my brown uniform [and she in her grey one] in the midst of so many many tall, wild young people in home clothes. “Extra”, so to speak. Wondered idly if I’d still feel insecure if it was a male by my side. Danger, because yifei and company was around in that exact same area.
Actually I wanted to meet them and wave—but without them seeing my newfound acquaintance. Im sure I would’ve heard no end of it from them. Well I didn’t go see them in the end, but bumped into—hohoho—another Victorian group. Count my lucky stars I only know them casually, and so invisible things wouldn’t spread. A couple of them were nyjcians, and stared at me—us—curiously enough. And that’s the whole damn thing with male-female isn’t it. Always this *thing* around you, and it can get pretty frustrating at times. Anyway, the very fact that I dare to mention her here, despite not knowing who could be reading this right now, is more than enough to scream the word FRIENDS.
Main topic over dinner, and after, was relationships: how to handle those. She gave me rather good pointers on
1. the classical do’s and don’t’s
[Yes, you can and should do that opening door thing you did, but never ever be silent. Anyway I told her, with all sincerity, that I’d easily fail at that stage.]
2. how to detect whether a female is interested in you/what should you do if this and that
[classified information, though I am more than aware it isn’t logical to apply it across uniformly]
3. attire
[I told her I like tucking in my shirt. She told me, rather viciously, that that’s “too gentlemanly” already. She suggested smth I have never heard of: shirt hanging open with a plain tshirt inside. Actually Ive seen tons of those, just didn’t realize the outer layer were actually just open shirts. Heh]
Anyway, the way she said everything made me think like that the male is some clown in the circus ring performing for the female. Everything has got to be done by the male. The male has always got to sms her first. The male has always got to call her up first. The male has to make her laugh. The male has to do the talking. The male has to impress her. And they talk about gender equality. I say NO! I really wish I could hang up a sign saying I Don’t Do These Stuffs, get away from me if you aren’t fine with that. Im no circus for you. Well now you know why I wouldn’t get married eh. In fact if Bijie hadnt been so forthcoming in uhh..talking to me, sometimes out of the blue, there'd be no way I would give her the attention I eventually gave her.
The information comes more as tidbits of amusement than practical meals. I myself always oppose uniformity; to stick strictly by such information wouldn’t be something I’d like to do. It does, however, get very interesting to know stuffs like a female is probably more receptive to you if she wears a skirt on your first time out together. Shrugs. Such stuffs are very disputable, theres definitely no formulae to it all, and to introduce those would be despoiling the many free forms of the male and female.
Actually, do you get the bigger point of me knowing her?
There is a bigger point to knowing her than all this, though I admit the focus isn’t really on it. Think. What does it mean if I got both a girl’s number and her out for dinner on the very same day we met? It doesn’t mean shes cheap, and neither does it mean Im some playboy. If you thought of those I pity not only the way you think, but also how little you know me.
It just means Im not impotent in socializing—and that could only mean theres something wrong with my environment [ie people] Im surrounded with in school.
Well at the end of the day, I guess it wasn’t the 12 CIP hours that counted, or the rather pleasant “Certificate of Appreciation for being a Tournament Officer in National Inter-College Competition…” that mattered, but a stranger-turned-…..Dont know what I can call her really.
Just to wrap things up, Im not going to contact her anymore, not in the foreseeable future. She’s one of a few people whom I got to know through sheer luck/fate, with an equal quantity of luck/fate that made her have the chemistry compatible with me. Shes a J2, shes got her A levels coming up, it’d be nice to keep in touch every now and then but no more. I guess its one of those kind of people who drop in unexpectedly, leave halfway, and leave you with no clear idea of when they’ll be dropping by again, or when they would feature in your life again.
19th June, Saturday. Today is one of those remarkable days which I’ve just got to write down whilst everything is still fresh in my mind. Inter-sch Othello competition held at ny, and I was one of the thirty tournament officers.
It was held in the hall, pleasantly air-conditioned of course, and the format was swiss play with ten rounds, 40 minutes per game, ie 20 minutes per player. If you do the maths that’s actually over six hours of staring at two players staring at the Othello board. Thought it’d be a long boring day but oh, surprise surprise.
First game I was judge for was between a NJ female and a CJ male. Hahaha. It was at 9AM, I smiled at them, they smiled back. They shook hands, I made small talk with them just before the match. And oh, how everything started then.
I was caught off-guard at the playing speed. Being a chess player myself I am aware that 20 minutes is actually a very long time to think. Judges were supposed to write down their moves [and their particulars etc, and sign everything at the end], and the first two three moves got on so fast I think I told them to stop while I took down the moves. In fact I got so confused that at the end of the match they had to replay everything again because I recorded up till the 61st move when actually there was only 60. And all this while they were laughing and joking, and being very supportive of me. They shook hands at the end of it all, and that would just be the beginning of something.
The second round I judged for was a more formal one. It was a NJ male versus a NY female. Now Im no Othello player but well, I guess you could easily apply chess, or rather, mind-games theory to that. And that was why I could understand and appreciate how the NJ male surrounded the NY female before securing critical spots and moving in for the kill, amongst some of the forms of the other games of course. He outmaneuvered her at every turn, and I thought that was absolutely brilliant. But I wasn’t impressed by his attitude. Right from the point where he secured a few critical points he started shaking his leg. And shaking his head, if ever so slightly. And was that a smirk on his face? In fact his whole body started rocking the chair, if only in a negligible manner.
I got so…urgh by his damn attitude I had the mind to reach over, stop the clock, look at him in the eyes and tell him to stop shaking his bloody head. Failure to comply would result in immediate disqualification, is that perfectly understood? And actually I would have done that if we weren’t in the first row, where several players from the Othello association [adults] were looking on, presumably impressed by the fellow’s prowess too.
I overheard his post-mortem with his one of his team mate later. Talking about what, “I let her creep me over…power shield her…what perpendicular variation.” Hah, I’ll have my own battle at chess next week.
I observed a kind of friendliness I would have dearly yearned for in my own class, or in ny in general. Players chatted and smiled at each other during matches, players shook hands before and after battle, players wished their opponents luck, there was a lot of goodwill flowing here and there, a lot of genuine…warmth. I especially loved the way a TP female wished a NY male: “Good luck for your future matches…you played very well, though you could’ve [this-and-that]”. This was the classical form of goodwill going around, and it often proceeds on to [or is actually after] light, fun chit-chat, and I wish NYJC has more of both.
In the midst of such a friendly atmosphere and my usually playful style, I partook in all the light merry and joking about between the contestants, where applicable of course, for there were some who really wanted to concentrate. Haha in fact I think I even laughed and laughed, in usual manner, during the fifth match. It was between a SR male and a CJ female, and the SR male was actually one who played the longest match ever, passing the first time limit, the match which I was judge for. So when I met him again I let out a playful groan in mock frustration—another long match eh. For some reason that extended out into laughing. And so I laughed, and once I start theres no stopping, and so I continued laughing throughout their round while struggling to write down the moves. Anyway I think both of them got very indifferent towards me—and that’s always the perfect spice to my dish of laughter.
As a matter of fact I met both the SR male and CJ female in later matches—the CJ female actually started laughing [and covering her mouth with her hand] when she saw me as the judge for her table. You know when theres a transfer of such laughter from yourself to others you actually feel like you’ve got some bond with them.
I got her phone number. Hahaha, I actually made friends with that NJ female, and her names Bijie. Ok look how many minds would start shooting off in *that* direction. Heh. Well don’t, because SHE was the one who did everything. Well, much of everything.
She had come to me during the third match, after she had finished hers and I wasn’t done with mine yet. I was in the midst of judging the game, and she actually came up behind me, slapped my shoulder [yea, reminded me of those two girls again], then said “got write wrong again anot”. She continued !@# during the match, until I had to shoo her away lol.
It wasn’t just that. We started !@#$ ie joking in my way, and that’s really unusual for a female, during those free times we had in between rounds. Maybe in my way isn’t altogether accurate, but it was just comfortable, seemingly “low-level” humour—don’t you just love unpretentiousness. Somehow, right from the first round, the chemistry was there already, waiting to be exploited. Didn’t get any quotes btw so I’ll leave it to your own imagination.
On a somber note, I scalded my uh, middle finger when I was escorting her to the water cooler. I didn’t believe the thing was hot when she said it was, so I turned the hot tap on and there you go. Believe me when I say no other individual, with the exception of family members, have expressed such persistent…concern over me, though of course you could point out that scalding your finger isn’t something that happens everyday. It stood out strongly in any environment I have been been, past and present. Past, in some rugged male environment. Present, in some careless, unfriendly environment. You could almost name it a foreign emotion, for I definitely couldn’t identify that very raw thing I felt. Its different from the way you feel when a friend unexpectedly gets you a fair gift. Very different. In fact the way she sounded made me actually feel some concern for my own finger lol.
Well whatever it was, whatever happened, I got her number in between..round 5 and 6 I think. She was mainly the one who came around looking for me [and she was also the one getting me to judge all her later matches; I didn’t for the last 2 because I took some time out to pace about the school, to think] , so I thought it only fair to both me and her that I went about getting her number. I don’t want to lose someone who can actually “click” with me, and that has everything to do with the fact that so few can click with me presently. Her response was spontaneous enough, ridding me of any awkward moments. I just asked her directly by the way, and never ever ever would you get such an act from me till the next [mutually] worthy one comes along, which would most likely be in a decade, no joke.
It didn’t end there. I and another fellow, Mr Hanxiang, had arranged for dinner. So the next task I had was to invite her along too, but since I didn’t feel too good over asking for her number I had to use more subtler ways of asking. And—lol—she reversed the situation on me, though whether it was because she wanted to be cheeky or because she really didn’t want to be the one who took the initiative I couldn’t tell. I think it went [as simply] as the following:
Me: What are you going to do after this.
She: Go home.
Me: Eh? [provocative tone, but not in that aggressive sense. Bah cant be bothered to explain] You don’t eat outside do you.
She: Nobody else eat with me lor…
At this point the delay-initiative credits had run out, and the baton was with me. What did I do? Haha, don’t think you’ll ever find out. Haha.
Anyway, after a string of complicated things, the dinner party was eventually down to she and her nj mate and me, with my partner backing out due to..well complex things. I was more than fine with that actually, because her nj mate was an easy going chap too.
But well, he couldn’t make it in the end because his parents had called last-minute and told him they were having a family dinner outside.
Grr. Pastamania! [cineleisure] was our destination. Restaurant fare has really displaced hawker centre food huh. Going down to town never took on a dimension of danger and insecurity, till this night. Insecurity, because I actually felt very…vulnerable in my brown uniform [and she in her grey one] in the midst of so many many tall, wild young people in home clothes. “Extra”, so to speak. Wondered idly if I’d still feel insecure if it was a male by my side. Danger, because yifei and company was around in that exact same area.
Actually I wanted to meet them and wave—but without them seeing my newfound acquaintance. Im sure I would’ve heard no end of it from them. Well I didn’t go see them in the end, but bumped into—hohoho—another Victorian group. Count my lucky stars I only know them casually, and so invisible things wouldn’t spread. A couple of them were nyjcians, and stared at me—us—curiously enough. And that’s the whole damn thing with male-female isn’t it. Always this *thing* around you, and it can get pretty frustrating at times. Anyway, the very fact that I dare to mention her here, despite not knowing who could be reading this right now, is more than enough to scream the word FRIENDS.
Main topic over dinner, and after, was relationships: how to handle those. She gave me rather good pointers on
1. the classical do’s and don’t’s
[Yes, you can and should do that opening door thing you did, but never ever be silent. Anyway I told her, with all sincerity, that I’d easily fail at that stage.]
2. how to detect whether a female is interested in you/what should you do if this and that
[classified information, though I am more than aware it isn’t logical to apply it across uniformly]
3. attire
[I told her I like tucking in my shirt. She told me, rather viciously, that that’s “too gentlemanly” already. She suggested smth I have never heard of: shirt hanging open with a plain tshirt inside. Actually Ive seen tons of those, just didn’t realize the outer layer were actually just open shirts. Heh]
Anyway, the way she said everything made me think like that the male is some clown in the circus ring performing for the female. Everything has got to be done by the male. The male has always got to sms her first. The male has always got to call her up first. The male has to make her laugh. The male has to do the talking. The male has to impress her. And they talk about gender equality. I say NO! I really wish I could hang up a sign saying I Don’t Do These Stuffs, get away from me if you aren’t fine with that. Im no circus for you. Well now you know why I wouldn’t get married eh. In fact if Bijie hadnt been so forthcoming in uhh..talking to me, sometimes out of the blue, there'd be no way I would give her the attention I eventually gave her.
The information comes more as tidbits of amusement than practical meals. I myself always oppose uniformity; to stick strictly by such information wouldn’t be something I’d like to do. It does, however, get very interesting to know stuffs like a female is probably more receptive to you if she wears a skirt on your first time out together. Shrugs. Such stuffs are very disputable, theres definitely no formulae to it all, and to introduce those would be despoiling the many free forms of the male and female.
Actually, do you get the bigger point of me knowing her?
There is a bigger point to knowing her than all this, though I admit the focus isn’t really on it. Think. What does it mean if I got both a girl’s number and her out for dinner on the very same day we met? It doesn’t mean shes cheap, and neither does it mean Im some playboy. If you thought of those I pity not only the way you think, but also how little you know me.
It just means Im not impotent in socializing—and that could only mean theres something wrong with my environment [ie people] Im surrounded with in school.
Well at the end of the day, I guess it wasn’t the 12 CIP hours that counted, or the rather pleasant “Certificate of Appreciation for being a Tournament Officer in National Inter-College Competition…” that mattered, but a stranger-turned-…..Dont know what I can call her really.
Just to wrap things up, Im not going to contact her anymore, not in the foreseeable future. She’s one of a few people whom I got to know through sheer luck/fate, with an equal quantity of luck/fate that made her have the chemistry compatible with me. Shes a J2, shes got her A levels coming up, it’d be nice to keep in touch every now and then but no more. I guess its one of those kind of people who drop in unexpectedly, leave halfway, and leave you with no clear idea of when they’ll be dropping by again, or when they would feature in your life again.
6 Comments:
call me when you get married.
JR
Let me wait and see...
if she matters just hope that she has no sentiment quite like urs or i dont think she'll be featured in ur life again. i screwed mine up thrice and i still want to strike myself in the head for doing nothing.the forth didnt turn out quite as planned but at least some sense that something has been effected had eased the blow. u shld do something. what say u?
jj
call me when you get married. even better, invite me. :)
anyway i know how it is with the whole irritating male-female thing. trust me this is just due to immaturity. most people our age don't know what the heck's a platonic relationship. haha. enjoyed the last two posts.
oh no. not quite, Mr. Nick. looks like Plato was terribly misunderstood. His dialogues would have revealed something quite unlike the prosaic idea of platonic relationships that u appear to share with other 'mature' people of ur age. (its really interesting. u shld read them. the dialogues that is. ok, maybe thats besides the point) perhaps its better to see such relationships as a derivative of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth. The physical contact or more aptly, unspiritual nearness (which is quite often confused with sexual contact) i reckon, is very much required for its function as a provisional basis of any relationship, including platonic ones of course. (note that i said provisonal) so 'screwed up' shld refer to the failure to establish such a foundation. the establishment or better known to u as the 'irritating male-female thing' might be an irksome task but is nevertheless necessary. an ommision of this crucial stage hampers any logical association between two or more people and so tell me, what incredible relationship can be created from such nothingness? i'm sure its anything but platonic.
pls excuse all falsely assumed assumptions.
jj
neat, now i would like to meet her. cheers!
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