Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The weekend that never was and the weekend that became!!!

I was supposed to go to Kelantan with the rest of the staff last weekend. We were going to fly Air Asia from the LCCT to Kota Bharu and spend 3 days and 2 nights in KB. Well, that did not happen. We found that the booking of the tickets has a MAJOR error and my group did not make it on the plane. We were going to try MAS too, but well, the tickets were just too expensive, so we abandoned the plan. No KB trip for the few of us. I was slightly disappointed, I guess, because I have never been to Kelantan and thought it would be my first visit. Nevertheless, being a positive person (my 2009 resolution), I decided not to bother moping or feeling disappointed. Afterall, I had something else I WAS planning to do. This brings me to the weekend that became!

On 6th March, the cheer girls and the two of us advisors, PD and me, went to Berjaya Times Square for the CIMB KL Open Squash Championship. The girls would perform before each game and cheer for the players during the rest times. Well, it was an eye opening experience for most of us. Never watched a squash competion before, and this happened to be a world class competition. For the men's competition, we had the world No. 10 and a few others ranked above 20. For the women's competition, we had the world's top players, starting with No. 1, our own Datuk Nicol David, and those who were in the top 10. It was fantastic and the cheer girls did very well. After the initial hiccup of finding out what exactly to do, the girls did well. They knew what to o, albeit feeling a little bored when they did not have anything to do. It was hilarious when one of my good friends texted me when she saw us on TV 'live', and asked us not to look so bored, and she also commented that some of the girls needed to sit properly!!! Well, that day ended late for us. We only got back to school at 10 pm. And I only got home at 10:30pm! How's that for a looooooooooooooong day? It was exciting getting to meet the squash players, and take pictures with some of them.
On the 7th, which was the day we left the LCCT "sadly", I went home and almost straight away drove to school to meet the girls and soon drove them to Berjaya Times Square. That day was rather exciting too as among the VVIPs were Tunku Mukhriz, the new Yang DiPertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan. The girls had to be briefed on the way to enter the court before the performances and how to bow respectfully. It was funny for them, but they did a splendid job. I am very proud of them for putting up a good job, performing and also cheering for the players.
It was sad for us that Nicol did not win. Blame it on the thing that kept falling off and disrupting the game. Nicol, although put up a brave front and behaved as if it was ok, was certainly upset. We saw the frowns. And obviously she would have preferred to win, and keep the winning streak of 56 games. Oh well, too late to do anything about it.
But the exciting thing was that after the whole competition, we all got to take pictures with the winners and runners up. Of course, Hailey was the most ecstatic. She got Peter Barker's bouquet of flowers and spent the next hour telling everyone NOT to touch her bouquet. Even Millie and Ee Von, who were there to support us, had a good time. Millie had a programme book with autographs of Nicol and some other players. Both managed to sneak in with us for the "high tea" with lots of yummy food. And of course, we later cornered Adrian Grant and Anissa got to hug him!!! Adrian was very friendly and everyone enjoyed the little hcat we had. He'll be back in July, and I know, Anissa will be there to watch him play, or just to watch him!!!!
So ... all in all, it was a nice weekend. It was tiring, even if I just sat and waited most of the time. But it was great, having the girls appear on live TV, and getting all the publicity.

No comments: