Wednesday, July 07, 2004

believe in thyself

there are times when all you need is someone to believe in you. when you have let yourself down, and you don't believe in yourself anymore.

there are also times when you yourself are the only one who believes you can. when others look at you and think you're hopeless, but you know you have it in you to succeed.

other times, you have the best of both worlds: your self-confidence and also others' confidence in you. that is when you can soar and touch the sky, pluck the stars from the dark canvas above you and reach for eternity.

but what happens when you have all that...and the stars remain out of your grasp, and still elude you no matter how hard you try?

when will exceeds ability, i can tell you that the only thing you really want is for people to stop believing in you. what was once a form of encouragement becomes pressure. that extra light driving you on suddenly becomes a raging fire.

that was how i felt about passing napfa.

last year, i failed, but that was my fault. there was no effort in my training, no effort in doing the test. my teacher knew that, so he did what any good teacher would do: push me harder.

this year, i passed the 2.4km run, shaving a full minute off my previous test time. and it was because each time i felt my body giving up on me, my teacher would yell, "lishun...RUN!" across the field. it made me angry, because i've never done well on the track, but that anger drove me on. the frustration i felt each time he called to me made me cry, but i ran harder.

and i passed.

i had my first breakdown this year. early this year, i weighed in as overweight and found myself in a compulsory morning run programme. that, coupled with my failure to improve my fitness, drove me to the edge.

i'm not used to having my efforts being "not enough". my best has always been good enough, and it was tough to finally come face to face with a situation where everything i did wasn't sufficient.

after getting out of the programme (rather unhealthily...but i was stressed!), napfa came looming at me again. as i mentioned, i passed the run, and barely passed everything else...except the jump.

and still my teacher wouldn't give up on me. i really wished he would. i wished he'd look at me and think, "she can't pass, and she never will".

but he didn't. and that pissed me off.

it brought that familiar anger and frustration that came with every PE lesson. i totally broke down in tears when faced with the possibility of having to repeat the entire test again. it was the first time my irrationality took over. the first time my head lost the battle.

and he still didn't give up on me.

i didn't achieve the standard required for girls to pass. but i did get a bronze for fitness, with alot and alot of help from my teacher. he didn't tweak my scores, and he never gave up on me.

i hate him for that, but i'm also immensely grateful at the same time.

thanks, mr ong. you really are our dear gto.

lishun at 10:12 PM

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