It's been a crazy few months. We've been everywhere and nowhere and we've met new people and familiar faces. I've been sailing alone which is proving to be good and bad.
Because I have to sail the ILCA, I had to get help from the younger sailors for help with the rigging coz I have never set up any of the Lasers on my own. The mast is also heavy coz it comes on and off to get the sails in. These young sailors had been sailing their entire youth. I am nowhere near their ability to set up the boat with their eyes closed.
The good thing is, even though I have only sailed like 4 times on my own, Coach Mus thinks I've improved a lot. He had been helping us set up the 470 eversince I started sailing. I'm still waiting on Coach Rani to evaluate my certification. Here's my problem....... I have to capsize the boat and get it back up........ And learn the flags too........
I don't know if anyone knows at all that I am terrified of fish........ And I am terrified of swimming in waters which I cannot see the bottom of....... And I am terrified of fresh water fish........
So far, I have managed to get myself into the water everytime I need to get the boat in and out of the water. The sailing school is located where the fresh water from the rivers meet the open sea. Not entirely fresh water. Not entirely sea water but I am quite aware of what swims in these waters and it terrifies me. I'll get over it, I'm sure. I just need time.
I have automatically made it a point to make myself useful when helping other sailors get their boats up out from the water. I especially help the Optimist sailors coz they are so damn tiny and I try to help Coach Mus with the Hansa boats coz most of the sailors get off at the jetty area onto their wheelchairs so he's usually left alone to get all those boats up. I just tend to help around with ILCA sailors as well whenever they get up.
There's been a lot of competitions locally and in Singapore and Thailand recently. The international competition was the one in Langkawi. I always hope these kids get to break into the Olympics some day. I hope they'd get to train in different waters and wind conditions too like in Australia or New Zealand. They can qualify because they are highly skilled. They just need to win. That also means they need sponsors but they need to win. I hope they'll find the right people to guide them all the way up there. I know the head coach is up for it........ I just hope the rest of the management team are in the same boat.......
Shu and I got to talking about something that made me realise something about the attitude and mentality of a certain group of people which got me thinking, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. But that doesn't seem to be the case with some people and it bothers me because it was the same reason I got annoyed with something one of my students said all those years ago when I was lecturing.
It made me gave up teaching under grad students entirely because I can only do so much but if you don't feel like it's a need to do better than the best, it's just a waste of time and energy.
Having said that, I was asked why I didn't join the recent open class sailing competition. I just don't think I'm good enough. As it is, I've been struggling to keep up with the herd during training. But I'm also beginning to see why Coach had me set up for the Radial instead of the ILCA 4. At some point, that sail made me feel like I was taking a walk in the park. He wanted me to challenge myself which the Radial did. I sailed that the first time I sailed alone and I was so afraid if I was gonna get yeeted off the boat 🤣
