The Sukma Selections 2008

There are just some things you don't want to talk about. This is one of them. There a few people I've to thank - the first being the original five Thomian judokas who brought me out for lunch after the comp. And also to a very special friend, who taught me optimism isn't overrated after all.

And yeah. Here are the snippets of the best throws in the comp. Joash has done an amazing job with the vid (hey if you're reading this man: great choice of song!). I'm in there from 0:28 to 0:42. And. Yes. I was yelling.

Step Outside Your Clique

It was an uncomfortable moment. I was seated between two people, one of which I'll call N, and the other I'll call D. Both were clamoring for my attention, on two very different topics. I had no idea how I got to this position (actually I do have a fair idea how, but the alternative was to get up and go down to the track again and take pictures). And so here I was, on Sports Day, seated between two people who had no group to belong to.

N was looking for people to sell posters to. I told him to wait for D, whom I was pretty sure would be interested in fierce-looking helicopters and F-21 Raptors. I chased him off, and I sat looking at the athletes warming up on the track. It was very peaceful, this morning, the sun still low in the sky and everyone bathed in solid orange.

D found me soon after. He was trying to evangelize to Jason, who told him promptly: "You're weird." and went off to Hock Lee. D sat down next to me. He didn't look particularly miffed at the remark, but he did explain what he was trying to do to his friend, and then he asked me if I wanted to hear his sermon.

I said yeah, no problem.

D proceeded to hit me over the head with theological terms I had not heard since I was 13 (and that in confirmation class). "What is the two greatest promises Jesus has given us?" he asked, and I frowned, trying to recall what I had learnt long ago.

"Err, love your neighbour as much as you love your-"

"No, no - that was the two commandments. His promises, not the commandments. And there is the great commission. Know what the great commission is?"

"Not reall-"

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them -"

The words faded away in my head. I stared at Mr Choo down at the field, who was making sure all the runners were in position, and it struck me that I was in a highly ironic situation.

Before this year I had always a group I could go to, high in the stands, with a novel or a gameboy or a new handphone to distract myself with. Or I would sit and talk with Garrick and Paul and we would laugh at things we remembered, or decide that the entire thing was too boring and we should go somewhere else for a drink, or that the sun was too hot and too blinding and we should entertain ourselves by dropping ice on the kids several floors below.

But now I didn't have this group I could sit and talk with, so I settled in front of the tabulation room, watching the crowd and the events for stories I could tell later on, in The Square. I was sitting alone. I did get up, occasionally, to buy burgers and drinks, greeting half the school on the way down in the process, but it was the light, touch-and-go kind of greeting. I don't open up to many people, and while I am friendly to them, they are not my friends, in the true sense of the word. I was alone. Alone in a crowd.

And then I realized that these people: N and D and no doubt countless others in schools all over the world - the odd people - felt like this every single day. They had no group they could call their own, no clique to sit with and to talk to and to go buy stuff together (which, by the way, I do not understand - what's so great about going shopping in groups or following your friends to the toilet? Must be a girl thing). They yearned for people to listen to them, and I was very unfortunately sitting dead centre in the middle of the stands, right above the principal's chair.

I listened to N and D for a good part of Sports Day, talked to them, made them feel welcome, and I realized that they weren't very different from you and I. They might not be able to socialize as well, nor navigate the treacherous social world that is High School, but they have interests and ideas and thoughts that are pretty damned cool, once you got to know them. And I wouldn't have known them if I had stuck to my clique, if I had spent my day laughing at athletes and beating top scores and throwing ice. I would have been happy, true, but I would also have been oblivious.

Often it takes a change to move you out of your comfort zone and view the world through the eyes of the unpopular. But as Sports Day came to a close I was reminded of why most people didn't stick around them long enough to truly listen.

I was coming back from a shoot on the track and N stopped me. "Ced," he said.

"Yeah?"

"I feel ... so ... relieved." And N was panting, mind, heaving gasps of joy.

"Wha - why?"

"I just watched a blue film!" This had a note of pride to it.

I didn't know what to say. So I stuck my hands in my pockets, turned around, and headed back out into the sun.