For once in my life, I felt like I really needed a break on Valentine's Day.
For the past week, I've been living the life of a madman, rushing about to meet various deadlines for the V-Day event. All Interact Club Excos have to organize an event of some sort, and for some reason mine was the fund raising for the MINDS home. We decided to sell real roses and bags of sweets during Valentine's Day, and what a nightmare that was. I practically slept at like 12 plus every night rushing the proposal, order forms, collection and wrapping of roses and sweets, etc etc. Worse of all, if anything went wrong, my head is the one on the line. It was such a torture.. Thankfully, the sales were better than I expected (which was none), and we managed to sell off more than a hundred roses.
So after that crazy hectic week, I decided that I needed a well deserved break, and joined the class (should I call them the 'class' if there's only 7?) for ice skating at Kallang. There used to be one at the Jurong Entertainment Centre, but the idiots closed that place down. So now we had to travel 45 minutes just for an ice rink. Those bastards.
It was around $18.50 each ($14.50 for 2 hours, plus skates and gloves that were undoubtly designed by someone color-blind). I very nervously put on my skates, while praying hard on the inside that when I fell, it would be a glamourous and graceful one. I tied up the laces and stood up shakily. I realized that I was the fastest to put on my skates and shakily sat down again, not wanting to appear too enthusiastic about it in case I was the first to fall and end my life.
As it turns out, I could ice-skate. Surprise!
I didn't know it at first. It was terrifying to step onto something so shiny and slippery wearing a thin blade on your feet. All my life-preservation instincts were telling me to pull those ugly skates off and throw them at whoever came up with the idea of skating, while running away screaming. I fought those insticts, however, and gingerly stepped onto the ice. My hands automatically reached for the barrier at the side. All eight of us 17 to 18 year olds were clinging on desperately for our lives on the side, while a 5 year old boy whizzes past. I felt like reaching out to trip that little showoff, but was afraid I would die if I let go of the barrier.
I finally gathered up the courage (more like the $18.50 I spent coming back to scream: You paid the money, now get the hell out there) to take a step out on to the ice. To my amazement, I didn't tumble down, break my leg and have my fingers chopped off by a passing skater's blade. I found out that I could actually skate quite comfortably on the ice, and that it was quite similiar to roller-blading. Ta-dah! Mystery solved. As it turns out, if you could roller blade, you could ice skate. How convinient to skip a very long and ardous road learning to ice-skate.
In 10 minutes I was gliding around the ice to the music of Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Those workers definitely had taste. I was living my 'Cutting Edge' moment. It was as if I was in Ontario, with Moira Kelly was skating alongside me and the icy cool breeze tickling my hair.
Then I returned to the very unglamorous reality of Kallang, and realised it was Chieh Suan I was skating alongside. I spent the next half and hour excorting people ( people that I know, obviously) across the region that didn't have the barrier to hold on to. Tai and CS got better after a while, and got confident (or silly) enough to hold on to each other.
I felt so lucky to have learnt how to rollerblade all those years ago. Never thought it would extend to ice-skating. If I hadn't learnt, I could be the one that slapped a few people on the way down, like Kiat Wah did. I almost fell while holding on to Chieh Suan. Chieh Suan almost tripped, but he grabbed Kiat Wah's shirt and yanked him back, and I grabbed his arm and somehow twisted him back up. The miraculous thing was that none of us fell. The three of us struggled for very long on the ice (but still not as long as the guy I saw that was waving his arms about and jumping up and down for 5 seconds. He must have broken some world record for 'Longest Time Spent Struggling To Regain Balance'), doing some sort of weird wobbling and still managed to ragain our balance. We definitely deserve a medal for that.
I'm so happy to discover that I had a hidden talent I never knew existed in me. Next up, I shall be attempting to do the backwards swizzle before moving on to the triple axle, which would be when I make my first visit to the ICU. Wish me luck!
For the past week, I've been living the life of a madman, rushing about to meet various deadlines for the V-Day event. All Interact Club Excos have to organize an event of some sort, and for some reason mine was the fund raising for the MINDS home. We decided to sell real roses and bags of sweets during Valentine's Day, and what a nightmare that was. I practically slept at like 12 plus every night rushing the proposal, order forms, collection and wrapping of roses and sweets, etc etc. Worse of all, if anything went wrong, my head is the one on the line. It was such a torture.. Thankfully, the sales were better than I expected (which was none), and we managed to sell off more than a hundred roses.
So after that crazy hectic week, I decided that I needed a well deserved break, and joined the class (should I call them the 'class' if there's only 7?) for ice skating at Kallang. There used to be one at the Jurong Entertainment Centre, but the idiots closed that place down. So now we had to travel 45 minutes just for an ice rink. Those bastards.
It was around $18.50 each ($14.50 for 2 hours, plus skates and gloves that were undoubtly designed by someone color-blind). I very nervously put on my skates, while praying hard on the inside that when I fell, it would be a glamourous and graceful one. I tied up the laces and stood up shakily. I realized that I was the fastest to put on my skates and shakily sat down again, not wanting to appear too enthusiastic about it in case I was the first to fall and end my life.
As it turns out, I could ice-skate. Surprise!
I didn't know it at first. It was terrifying to step onto something so shiny and slippery wearing a thin blade on your feet. All my life-preservation instincts were telling me to pull those ugly skates off and throw them at whoever came up with the idea of skating, while running away screaming. I fought those insticts, however, and gingerly stepped onto the ice. My hands automatically reached for the barrier at the side. All eight of us 17 to 18 year olds were clinging on desperately for our lives on the side, while a 5 year old boy whizzes past. I felt like reaching out to trip that little showoff, but was afraid I would die if I let go of the barrier.
I finally gathered up the courage (more like the $18.50 I spent coming back to scream: You paid the money, now get the hell out there) to take a step out on to the ice. To my amazement, I didn't tumble down, break my leg and have my fingers chopped off by a passing skater's blade. I found out that I could actually skate quite comfortably on the ice, and that it was quite similiar to roller-blading. Ta-dah! Mystery solved. As it turns out, if you could roller blade, you could ice skate. How convinient to skip a very long and ardous road learning to ice-skate.
In 10 minutes I was gliding around the ice to the music of Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Those workers definitely had taste. I was living my 'Cutting Edge' moment. It was as if I was in Ontario, with Moira Kelly was skating alongside me and the icy cool breeze tickling my hair.
Then I returned to the very unglamorous reality of Kallang, and realised it was Chieh Suan I was skating alongside. I spent the next half and hour excorting people ( people that I know, obviously) across the region that didn't have the barrier to hold on to. Tai and CS got better after a while, and got confident (or silly) enough to hold on to each other.
I felt so lucky to have learnt how to rollerblade all those years ago. Never thought it would extend to ice-skating. If I hadn't learnt, I could be the one that slapped a few people on the way down, like Kiat Wah did. I almost fell while holding on to Chieh Suan. Chieh Suan almost tripped, but he grabbed Kiat Wah's shirt and yanked him back, and I grabbed his arm and somehow twisted him back up. The miraculous thing was that none of us fell. The three of us struggled for very long on the ice (but still not as long as the guy I saw that was waving his arms about and jumping up and down for 5 seconds. He must have broken some world record for 'Longest Time Spent Struggling To Regain Balance'), doing some sort of weird wobbling and still managed to ragain our balance. We definitely deserve a medal for that.
I'm so happy to discover that I had a hidden talent I never knew existed in me. Next up, I shall be attempting to do the backwards swizzle before moving on to the triple axle, which would be when I make my first visit to the ICU. Wish me luck!
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