The Accidental Swimmer

Shell IT is currently having its Inter-Departmental competitions with events such as karting, ping-pong and athletics going on these few months. I'm having a ball of a time cause it's really a great opportunity for some de-stressing and networking with the rest of 1400 staff around. This weekend, we had a swimming competition at the National Aquatic Centre at the National White Elephant stadium, Bukit Jalil.

I went there to cheer for my housemate but lo and behold, the moment I reached there, I was greeted with some anxious-looking faces cause one of the team swimmer, who was unfortunately in my actual working department (Global Linux/Unix, we're hiring Linux/Unix System Administrators, btw) had Fong-Fei-Kei-ed (cantonese for renegading on a deal/promise, it's acronym, FFK, is also used pretty often in conversations). If there's not enough swimmers in the team, we would be losing quite a few points due to non-participation. So, no choice lor, I was volunteered (this is gramatically correct:P). But honestly speaking, I had quite a lot of fun and there wasnt much pressure cause I was in 2 relay races and everytime it was my turn to swim, the opponents were already like 10-20 seconds ahead. Of course I still gave my all lah. I think the spirit of participation and teamwork really shined through during the competition, so in the end, it was more my honour and privilege to be part of such a special occasion than me saving the day or whatsoever (no unexpected heroic victories here:P my housemate did win one of the relays and he was the anchorman. So i did get some 2nd-hand glory. No complains there:)). And this did prove, ahem, that my current twice-weekly gym sessions seem to be bearing fruits.

As a treat to reading this boring article let me share an interesting-looking picture, which i took from my loyal camera-phone while I was exploring the Aquatic Centre:


If there's any gauge of the typical Malaysian maturity, this poor door-sign says it all. This was a sign at the Doping Control room. The Malay translation "Kawalan Dadah" has been reworked and now says "Awalan Dada", which means Early Boobs (we're not even witty in our vandalism, that's even sadder:P). Considering that this is a National Sports Centre, used for an international sporting event 8 years ago (Commonwealth 98) and is still being used for "occasional" international swimming events, you would expect better maintenance. Of course, one could argue that the probability of a foreigner understanding Bahasa Malaysia is lower than the moon going off its axis and striking the earth, landing at the White House or Pentagon (especially if its a Hollywood movie). Well, nuff said! All the best to Visit Malaysia 2007. Hopefully I'll be some-place else by then:))

Photos of the event:

Immigrants who have just came on-shore and are being registered:P

Orange is the flavour of the day;)