"Mixed" feelings

well...the much-afeared district tourney is finally over. normally i wudnt feel so pressured becuz of a district-level tourney cuz most of d participants were from my center anyway....but this time, i participated in 2 'special' events....mixed pattern n creative pattern. both events r for pairs of one girl one boy, n require at least one black belt, so i teamed up wif joyce. n for the last 2 weeks we've been working on the pattern, the music (the creative pattern is performed to music), n training....lucky its rite after sch hols so sch lessons havent picked up pace yet...

anyway, for those interested in knowing the results (n i noe a lot of u do ;p) we got gold for the creative pattern, n a big fat nothing for mixed pattern. i guess i messed up a lot this tourney, prob due to a lethal combination of lack of sleep n nervousness. the 1st event up was mixed pattern n we were happily doing Gae Baek when i suddenly made a horrendous mistake n threw our rhythm into disorder...then it was all downhill from there...dominoes, holding kicks, everything juz flew out the window. n to think dat gae baek is d pattern dat i've been doing the most since god knows when....

luckily, we sorta 'redeemed' ourselves wif d creative pattern. anxiety kicked in again n i messed up the opening move of all things, but due to a stroke of luck joyce made the same mistake (we were doing a sequence based on gae baek n we both bypassed the 'modification') so i guess d judges din notice the blunder. then fortunately, the rest of d pattern fell into place n we sailed thru d 'danger areas' without much trouble. so we got..lets see...7, 7, 7, 7, 8 or something liddat...it was the 1st 8 i've seen in a tournament btw :P :P

after dat, it was team pattern, where teacher somehow got me placed into a girls' team in the girls' category. now dun laugh, i'll knock ur heads off if u do. anyway prior to dat, i was told dat i had to be in dat team so dat we can join the GUYS' category....but somehow SOMEBODY MESSED UP N I BECAME A GIRL >( anyway, we hardly practiced for that, so we got...3rd place out of 3 teams....

following dat, the individual pattern event came n i got a gold, which is nothing remarkable since i was in the open category n there were only 3 participants including me, 2 of which were yellow belt adults....

the final event of the day (for us color belts) was free sparring, but i tarik diri at the last minute. i din wan 2 sia sui by getting kicked out in d 1st round after getting 2 golds for patterns. makes me wonder, wats the point of doing patterns well if ur (my) sparring is so teruk? haih....guess i started tkd too late n cant develop the 'sparring reflexes' anymore....

ah, 4got 2 mention dat ej n xinch stopped by 2 watch n 'cheer' (in xinch's case, it was a smirk, but i'll overlook it for ej's sake) ej FAILED TO TAKE A VIDEO OF THE CREATIVE PATTERN! (shoots daggers at ej) wats a digicam for if not to take videos of the most important events in a guy's life?

in a nutshell, i'm having "mixed" feelings about this tourney cuz:

positive:-
1. we got gold for creative pattern!
2. a reporter came n took our pic n names after the creative event
3. (minor) got another gold for individual pattern

negative:-
1. i messed up the mixed pattern
2. i had to join a GIRLS' TEAM for team pattern *grumbles*
3. i din join sparring. in a way, i 'ran from a problem instead of confronting it', which always makes me feel bad
4. tired. very. tired.
5. din do any hw or study the whole day


p.s. a letter came from the jap embassy a few days ago, informing me dat i've been shortlisted for the final selection for the monbukagakusho scholarship. the ppl making the final decisions r jap government officials so the results will take a while to come out. as in, next year. so guys, pray for me! :P



p.s.s. (added on 27/6)
1. 4got to add dat for the opening ceremony, joyce n i performed our rma competition mixed pattern as a 'demo'....also we were the MCs but i kinda messed up on that one too....din noe wat i was supposed 2 say until the last minute n i had 2 speak in malay which i'm terrible at (spoken, at least) so my 'spontaneous' announcements were awkward at best....ugh..
2. setting up the stage backdrop was a horror! we spent over an hr on it the day b4, then on the tournament day itself, the whole thing juz fell apart...as in the letters which we hv 2 put on the stage wall to say 'kejohanan taekwondo blablabla'....n we spent the whole morning trying to put it back n keep it up there...in the end had to use thumb-tacks to pin the whole setup on the wall. n doing stuff like this when u'r wearing a long sleeved shirt with tie, 2 or 3 sizes too small, is not a pleasant experience. as annas commented: "u mandi atau peluh?". my reply:"mandi peluh"