My Team

Hi. Today I will be blogging about a dimension of my life that I treasure most; That is my volleyball team. I have been with the team for about two years, and we have gone through many struggles together. However, through it all, we have forged strong, unbreakable bonds, and all of us are the best of friends with each other.

During the CCA trials last year, I did not manage to find the volleyball trials, which happenend to be far at the other end of the school, in the College section. I was thus posted to English Drama, which I had went for the trials. However, I really desired to be in volleyball, having played volleyball for 5 years in my primary school days. At the same time, my brothers were from sport CCAs as well and this influenced me to take up a sport as well to have fun and keep strong.

My burning desire to get into volleyball drove me to seek a way for a CCA transfer. I went all the way to find out who the teacher in charge of volleyball was, which led me to find Mr Tok, which referred me to Mr Sung, and then back to Mr Yeo, then back to Mr Tok again. This was far from an easy task, as the teachers were constantly not at their tables during lunch and recess periods, when I would race to their seats in the PE staff room everyday, most of the time only to find that they were not in. Many times, because of this i had to forgo lunch and recess. Eventually, even after my application into Volleyball was successful, I still had immense difficulty in finding the court, which was in the College section, where I was unfamilliar with. Fortunately, i met one of my good friends from my old primary school where I spent my first 3 years in, who happened to be in volleyball as well. I believe this to be fate, as this meeting did not occur in school, but in a popular bookstore in Toa Payoh. I got his number and subsequently he brought me to the court for my first training.

I remember, on the first training, Max, the senior captain from secondary 3 was "testing out" my abilities, while the rest of my batch team was watching me. They all agreed that i had a unstable foundation in volleyball, as I managed to recieve most of the balls he shot, but was largely unable to control the balls to fly in the direction that i wanted. However, I believe the reason to be that I had not touched a volleyball in almost a year, before that.

From then on, I never looked back. Volleyball was what I wanted. I had tried so hard to get there, there was no turning back. From there, me and my team got to know each other better. We endured all those tough trainings under the sun and outdoor court, although volleyball was an indoor game. Friendly matches organised by our coach made us even more bonded; beating many other schools gave us a sense of pride that our training together had paid off, and facing various stronger schools gave us challenges to face as a team. Match after match together, we pulled through and fought through. It was during one particularly tough match that we decided that we would be "brothers" in a metaphorical sense.

Then came the competitions, where we fought many tough battles. I remember one critical match that the seniors had during the zonals against Clementi Town. During the match, we cheered really loudly for the seniors to win, and in the end they won by a comeback victory, against the odds, for they were supposedly not as strong as the opposing team. I also remember the zonal finals that we played against Bukit Panjang Government High. We fought really hard to save every ball and win every point we could, and after each point was scored, we would cheer loudly, to boost our morale. When the last point was scored, we all ran wild on the court, jumping and cheering. This really brought us closer together, knowing that we were the batch, the team that had broken the 10 year zonals championship drought. The pride of being in this team made us even more bonded than before.

But it isn't all about the happy times that brings people closer. i still vividly remember our last match in the National Championships, where we went up against Victoria School, the East Zone champions. We lost the match, and many of us cried. We knew we had did what we could, but it just wasn't enough. However, although we had lost, it still made us even more bonded. We win together, we lose together.

That marked the end of our first season together.

Recently, Volleyball won the "zi qiang bu xi" team award. i was really surprised to hear this, as our team did not actually achieve any outstanding results during the competition. However, i feel that it is really an honor to receive such an award, as it attests to all the blood, sweat and tears that we put into our training and matches. I believe that it has once again brought us closer, having our name etched onto the "zi qiang bu xi" trophy in our year. There is no doubt that we will continue to strive for better results and fight harder as a team. Personally, it doesn't matter if we win or lose. All that matters is that we play to the best of our abilities and face adversities together as a team.

HCVB Forever
MingX