MASUM rants and groans...

Okay, as promised here's the update on my archery adventure, representing the university you'd love to hate (UIA) on MASUM '06... Sorry, no picture... ... ... Yet :p...

We arrived at UITM on Thursday, and were lodged at one of the female housing college (which, during one of my early strolling, happened to STILL have some female inhabitants)... It's kinda shocking to see how "open" UITM towards free mingling between the opposite sex (and perhaps, the same sex)... But being the typical Ismat, got over it in no time :p...

Us 2 and a half guys decided to survey our battleground, the UITM stadium, and perhaps have an early training... We were later joined by the girls... Much to our dismay, the shooting ground is not even prepared yet, and there's a big chance that the tournament is being postponed without our knowledge... We asked whether there is a shooting range available for us to start practice, which of course they do... Problem is, we have no idea where on UITM is the place -.-"... On top of that, the weather is just not on our side; it rained as heavy as you can imagine 15 minutes after we were back in our rooms... Haih...

The next day, we went to MSN Sports Complex at Keramat for training, and it's clear enough that we have improved a lot... Kak Aisah, our coach, gave some tips and advices, and reminded us to take the tournament as an exposure towards greater level of tournaments...

Saturday marks the beginning of the battle... No real battles yet, since we were just "target-practicing", or in archery term, sighters... Only managed to have it for half day, since, like I said before, the weather is not on our side for the time being...

Sunday, and the battle starts... All of us archers had to shoot 144 arrows for 4 distances: 90m (male), 70m (male n female), 60m (female), 50m (male n female), and 30m (male n female)... It was damn tiring, and yours truley here got trouble finding his "form" for the first 2 distances... A combination of mismatched equipments (will explain later) and windy range was believed to be the cause... Come evening, I managed to get a grip on myself, and landed on number 18 (or was it 19) overall... And for staying under the scorching sun for the whole day, the already hitam legam writer here got even darker than the darkest night (will tell about a funny story related later)... Kak Aisah told us to get a good rest, and Encik Ismail, her boss, told us not to take spicy food (whice we gracefully ate later that night XD)...

Monday, last day of the tournament (for archery, that is)... First of all, Individuals Olimpic Round... All the players, save the captain and 1-2 of the girls managed to fight it out twards the semi-finals, captain lost at quarter finals... Next is the Team Event Olimpic Round... Our first rival was USM... The sure underestimated us a lot, since we were using aluminium arrows... UIA's archers were yours truly, the captain, and our "Abang Long", 26-year old Azril... We beat the crap out of USM in all 3 rounds XD... Next on the list was UPM... They treated us with respect, we were fighting almost with an even footing (minus the arrows), until yours truly lost his grip again, and we lost by 20 points... Nonetheless, we landed on the 4th place for team event, which according to the captain, was not bad at all, considering we were all (minus the captain) newbies, and were competing with mismatched equipments...

Went back to our respective rooms, start packing, and yours truly starts to fall ill (and still not well while typing this post)...

Back home, I got news that we were mistreated by the UIA Sports Officials... Consider this:
UM players got RM150 for the span of 3 days as allowances,
UITM got a lump sum of RM800 as allowances,
UIAM gave its athletes a meager RM45 for 3 days (UM got more for 1 day)

KUIM offered RM500 for each medal won, regardless whether it's gold, silver, or gangsa (I forgot the term in English <.<)
UIAM refused to give any incentives for medals won... The most they can offer are the jerseys...

What a letdown... Here we are, UIAM students, sacrificing our time and efforts, only to find out that our efforts meant nothing...

INFO ON ARCHERY
If you guys got interested about archery, here's a list of links you can visit if you want to:
http://www.yale.edu/archery/about.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/joetapley/ (A very nice site, explaining the physics of archery...)
http://www.kyudo.com/asahiam-intro.html (Japanese Archery...)
http://www.strictlybowhunting.com/Anov01issue/carbon_vs_alluminum.htm (Explaination on why we lost...)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/joetapley/target.htm

Funny story after archery
Remember I mentioned about being darker?... Some of the students were collecting donations room-to-room... They came to mine, and to my feverish confusion, start talking in English... At first I thought they were high on English, but then I realised: They thought I was an International/Overseas student (WTF *sweats*)... Once they finished explaining their objectives, I told them, "Bahase Melayu pon takpe"... Oh, the joy of seeing their expression... And as I went to get my money, I heard one of them said, "Serious, aku ingatkan foreigner tadi"... Tell me, should I get furious, or should I be proud?...

Ihab's singing clip
http://www.savefile.com/files/2242136 Here it is...

Okay, that's all for now... PLEASE VISIT MY BLOG MORE TT__TT...