11:48 a.m. - 2004-09-12
Finals
well its another job well done
NJRC is finally over and to be honest i'm just a little sad that its ended. ok so the 5am wake up call was murder and the food we were given everyday sucked majorly, but the atmosphere of the whole thing, being in charge of the kids' teams, sharing their excitement and happiness and all that stuff.. and of course the freebies they give out, being called 'teacher' by the primary kids.. ahh the funness.
things went a little differently for the Finals though. as soon as most of us arrived, Jennifer and i were put in charge of marking attendance for all the secondary school teams which was fairly easy since we already knew most of the teams and we breezed through the session with time to spare. after that all of us had to shoo the kids to the playing field area for the revelation of the surprise mission. i gotta say, that was one damn tough mission.
upon learning of the mission, teams then had 3 hours to build and programme their robots, which left us coordinators with nothing to do for that while.
breakfast was decent: sausage mcmuffins from McD's.
of course the five best cheer-teams came in to compete for the award of best cheering team so the noise they made with all their drumming and screaming sent the decible level through the roof. my ears are still ringing cos we were forced to endure it for about 9 hours nonstop.
what was fun was when the DJ played music and all the teams stared singing and dancing along. what can i say, its infectious cos alot of us started singing and dancing as well. the best part had to be when everyone started imitating William Hung's 'dance' to "She Bangs". LOL!
our real work started at 12.30 when we had to get the kids to bring in their robots for quarantine before they left for lunch. speaking of lunch. what we got had to be the worst of all the days of crappy lunches. we barely ate anything.
after that it was time to lead our respective teams to the playing fields. i say again the mission was slagging tough. at least 3/4 of the teams didnt score any points. i stopped on the way to give my favorites some encouragement, namely the girls from Lab-Finder, Torque and Dolphin, but i couldnt watch much cos soon after we were called to get the groups ready for the SumoBot and Sprint side-events. it ended up being a case of too many people trying to do too many things so i made myself pretty much invisile and slipped away. that, and i was also getting sick of listening to the cheer-teams.
so i went back to the booth areas to check on some of my fave teams. all of them had failed the final mission but they had done their best, so i told them not to feel bad. the Admiralty girls from team Dolphin even asked me to sit with them and talk for a while, which i did, though most of the time it was playfully teasing one of the girls about a boy she fancied. =). teenagers, what do you expect? they're really sweet girls though, i must say, at least when some of them are not off being drama-queens.
finally it was time for the awards presentation. Judges, referees, robot inspectors, officials all took their seats in front of the stage. team coordinators sat on the floor on a side. *rolls eyes*. we had a good time though. quite a few of the teams i had been in charge of for the past few days picked up prizes. team Dolphin got alot of awards, as did the girls from CHIJ and the boys from St. Andrews. and i was pleasantly surprised when the Dolphins won the top championship for secondary schools. of course i was very happy for them. they did deserve to win cos i personally saw the effort they'd put into their work.. now if only they'd learn not to stress out so much.
bwahaha, the Admiralty Dolphin even won the best mascot award!
after the awards were over, i was just standing around, idly watching the continuation of the SumoBot competition, when Jen tapped me on the shoulder. i turned back and saw the entire team Dolphin standing there and as i started to walk towards them, team leader Baoling comes up to me and gives me a big hug, followed by the rest of the girls. awwww i was so touched =).
they thanked me for being their coordinator, and being there for them, cheering them up and encouraging them all throughout the competition. *blush*. they said it helped them alot. awww, i'm just doing my job girls, really... they insisted i take a photo with them and Baoling shoved the championship trophy into my hands to hold for the photograph. omg.. i was so honored i didnt know what to say. i mean.. the championship trophy for Primus' sake! that just.. really meant alot to me, that they thought i contributed to the team's success, when really, all i just did was be myself.
man even their trainer, Mr. Wee, came up later and thanked me very sincerely for taking care of his girls during the competition, so did the asst trainer and one of the mothers. *blushes crimson* omg, stop! i didnt really do anything that great. all i just said to them was 'do your best and dont give up'. and they were nice enough to give me a ride to the MRT station after work... that really made my day.
aww and Idzhani got all emotional too. she gave all of us her namecard with a sweet little message written on the back and we took more photos. now i'm just waiting for copies to arrive.
mre, but some teams can be sore losers. at the end of the day some teachers were arguing with Ross and Anna about why they didnt get certain awards. sheesh man! for goodness sake accept defeat gracefully and go away!
the only downer for the day was that someone stole the t-shirt i bought from the CHIJ girls that afternoon, but i spoke to Ross and since he knows the trainer, he said he'll get me another one. so yay! *fingers crossed*.
all in all, it was a very good day.
