Sunday, June 07, 2009

Captain of Glory '09

Yesterday's Sports Outreach was named differently, perhaps foreshadowing the change in name that our entire Youth Ministry will undergo. TM412 will cease to exist, and will become FrontLine Youth (that's FLY for you), and Sports Xtreme became Captain of Glory. Scrapping the entire soccer idea, the competition was only on Captain's Ball. Apparently, everyone already had teams, so me and Matt went to join Seth's upper category boys team.

But before that, there were some announcements and Benedict the preacher went up to share the gospel for 5 minutes or so, followed by Ps Dave who spoke for about another 5 minutes. Then, it was a briefing on the rules and match-ups. There were 4 teams each for Upper Category boys and girls, and 10 teams in total for the lower category. And since there were 3 prizes for each category, it would mean that almost all the upper category teams would get a prize simply for participating, whereas for the lower category the odds were much stacked.

Since Matt Chan and I were underage and playing in upper category, it is to no surprise that we lost all our matches and didn't win any prize. But that was not the highlight of the event. Anyway, Bryan and James Liew's teams were too big and good so we didn't stand a chance. The prizes were similar to the previous year's sports events, $75 Cafe Cartel for 1st, $65 Sakae Sushi for 2nd and $50 Swensens for 3rd. (correct me if I'm wrong). But the last time it was a $100 Waraku voucher for 1st place.

Enough is said about the prizes, and now to move into the teams for lower category.

AllStars: Marcus, Benedict, Davidson, Lizzie, Zhi Ting and Pei Ru
All of them wore red shirts and someone brought two pieces of red cloth with white stars on them. Zhi Ting was their captain for all the games. Davidson was the defender for all the games.

SC Netball: Pong, Nicole, Audrey, Claire, Sandy, Tata
All of them are in SCGS Netball team and wore the same blue singlets. They have played before in our previous Sports Outreach programs. They pretty much had no defender.

Kai Yuan is Fat: Andrew, Joel, Joel's Friend, Jia Jun, Nicole, Rachel
Three of them are from HCI, and so is Kai Yuan, who wasn't there, but is fat nevertheless. Joel was the defender for all their games.

Dexter: Dexter, Benedict, Sunshine, Ruth, Cherie, Wei He
All of them are in Dexter's school class, 3B, except for Sunshine. They wore the same class shirt with TKSS spelled out and all their names at the back.

Dexter's Friends: Chermaine, Jia Neng, Luan Yin and two more of Dexter's Friends
Dexter had some more friends who wanted to play so they had to form another team.

RGS Rain: Anne, Vanessa, Rain, Xaviera, Yi Rong and Grace
All of them are in RGS except for Grace, who is part of RJC Alumni. I don't know if the second part of their team name has anything to do with the team member.

Keith: Keith, and some other people
This is a Sec 2 team.

Rubidium: Some people
I think this is a Sec 1 team.

And two other teams who appear to have escaped my notice.

Don't blame me I'm not in Outreach Team so I don't know much of the line-ups. I was playing in upper category anyway, so not that much time to analyze all of the teams.

Since it was a spar between 10 teams, it would be too long so they split the teams up into two divisons and played amongst one another. The top two of each division would then battle it out in the semi-finals. SC Netball and AllStars were the top two in the first division, and Kai Yuan is Fat and Dexter's Friends were the top two in the second division. This meant pretty much that the Sec 3 level had koped all the prizes for themselves, lol.

There was an intense semi-final match, with everyone giving consensus to playing two games each instead of one. AllStars was up against Kai Yuan is Fat whilst SC Netball went against Dexter's Friends. Kai Yuan is Fat and SC Netball defeating both their opponents to make it two the finals, whilst the other two teams fought for the Swensens vouchers. It was AllStars who finally overcame their opponents to get the Swensens vouchers. The final match between Kai Yuan is Fat and SC Netball was pretty close.

It started with one point scored by Kai Yuan is Fat, and then SC Netball equalized. Fat scored another point, and that was equalized as well. SC then scored a point, which was equalized a few minutes later by Fat. Fat scored a point, and that was also equalized. They were now at a 4-4 close game. Then, Fat used the weakness of SC to gain an advantage and a lead of 6-4, and Joel wouldn't let any ball get past him. The final score is unknown to me, and it was the Kai Yuan is Fat team who emerged champions of the lower category.

That won them $75 worth of cafe cartel food vouchers. Then, there was a fun match between FrontLine Youth AllStars (aka older than 16 ppl) vs James Liew's champion team. The result was James' 5-4 win over the FLY AllStars. Then there was a prize-giving ceremony followed by a really great dinner.

What happened was that because there were only $75 up for grabs, not all of us could eat at Cafe Cartel, so in the end, only 9 of us, out of an initial 15 went for it: Rachel, Joel, Joel's Friend, Jun Hao, Kenneth, Samuel, Me, Jia Jun and Andrew. And all of us at delicious St Louis Pork Ribs in large portion except for Kenneth, who settled for a Root Beer Float and something else. I never realized that the Pork Ribs would be so much, but managed to miraculously gobble it down nonetheless, even after eating a free flow of bread at the start.

Somehow, everyone else came crowding around to watch us eating St Louis Pork Ribs, since we were sitting outside and could be seen by just about anyone at TM412 (I mean FLY, but it hasn't been launched yet). The other 6 of us went to eat at S11, after walking all the way up to the Food Court, realizing that it was to crowded, coming back down, walking past the Cafe Cartel people and going to S11.

The most interesting part of our meal was not so the meal itself. I mean, it was scrumptious, but when we had to settle the bill, it was the most hilarious part. So Joel reiterated twice (yesterday and this morning) that his first calculation was that everyone except Kenneth would pay $8 each. Then there were some disputes with calculation between him and his friend, and later on Jun Hao as well. Then it became $7, and then upon recalculation, everything became so messy that they had to recalculate 3 or more times. I wanted change for my $50 note, so I needed $42 change. There was $42 change on the table, but luckily I didn't take it because if I did, nobody would know whose money went to my pocket and who didn't pay yet.

They had to take back their money and account for $8 per person before I could change the $50. A smart move. And it was finally settled. Joel went to pay and returned with 5 cents asking, "How do we split the change?" Anyway, all of us had full stomachs so we didn't go for dessert at Swensens afterwards, and I went straight home. It was rather late anyway, and there would be a PRO Meeting today.

And I will have to spend some time following up with all the new friends! :O :O
kaizersabre performed alchemy @ 1:45 PM