Wednesday Remnants

Whatta jewel.  Found this banana peel in my backpack side-pocket.  Utterly shriveled, peppered with mould, but surprisingly firm and well-preserved.  The wonders of the cold!  In Singapore it would've been fruit-fly-haven by now.

Surprised as I pulled it out--I vaguely remembered stuffing it in my bag on the way for Wednesday's supermarket rush.  Ah, good old, leisurely Wednesdays!  As usual, training ends at 7.30-7.45pm, but I have to shower, have dinner, and be at the parking lot by 8.15pm to mark attendance.  No joke when I say the 12-hour shift kicks-in immediately.  The nerve-numbing adrenaline rush leaves no room for fatigue hangovers.

Obviously, it's a horrible scramble.  Think grotesque images of food-shovelling, scant showers, and hurrying in the cold with a full head of poorly-toweled, damp hair.  Hideous in form, nature and appearance.  To make up for the literal lack of nutrition, I take out the random banana during the short bus ride.  While I chomp it down, I hope my innards won't burst from poorly-chewed, digestion-inhibited constipation.

It's hard not to feel like I am, this blackened peel. 

Squashed, shriveled, but hardened, tough, and still damn... damn around.

Ties that Run Deep
While walking out of the clubhouse after dinner a few days ago, I was arrested with a startling, heart-rendering sight.

Kids who come and go at Sanchez-Casal are an almost-weekly occurrence.  These souls drift in for a taste of training, and just as they're settling in, they are inevitably whisked away by the next wind of change.  For obvious reasons, friendships formed with others are scant, and family bonds that bring these players here dig deep.

One of the kids I've noticed in the past week is this young teenage Indian boy who's been walking around the Academy with his mother.  While he's on court hitting balls, she's sitting by, sipping coffee.  While he's in the gym, she's standing by, holding jackets.  Her kind of parental love obviously comes in deafening devotion, devoid of distraction and unabashedly unadulterated.

But I suppose that's only half the story.  All too often while the tennis world gripes (read: criticises) professional players with over-protective, close-knit families, they forget the most important thing.  Without family, it's almost always, bloody impossible to make it big.  The media negates the stress families go through, the stressful re-locations, painful spousal-separation, heavy financial challenges.  Most crucially, the bonds between parents and child are tested and re-tested, time and time again.

That evening, that little Indian boy's father had finally touched down in Barcelona.  Just as I was shuffling out of the restaurant, his dad was running into the foyer from the cold.

"What's this?--" I thought,

and before I could think any more,

he had swept his little boy into his arms.  They stood there for a good thirty seconds, still.  The boy's cheek was plastered tightly against his fathers coat, his eyes closed, his arms locked around his father, who, with his face buried in his boy's hair, was smiling and rocking him gently from side to side.  All this while, the woman stood by, smiling.

"How nice," I thought.
"I know how that feels," I thought.
And then suddenly the tears started creeping into the corners of my eyes.

I hurried out into the cold--reluctant to impinge on their private moment.  Reluctant, also, to feed that welling hollow in my heart, yearning for my family.

- Think about other things, Sarah.  Think about other things. -

Maybe about my stilted breath that broke into clouds against the still, cold night.  Or about my numb fingers, as I stuffed them into my jacket pockets.  Searching deeper and deeper for warmth.

My Elbow Room!
Space is so important.  Especially when you come back tired from a long day out running, jumping and god-knows-what-else.  For me, I only want a place (cum space) where I can truly unwind.  Off with the shoes, switch on some jazz, shrug off the sweaty clothes.  Zone out. 

Here's a photojournal of my humble abode--the 15m2 space I've been trying to make home:

The things I like most about my room: 1) The relatively high ceilings 2) The big, beautiful windows, looking out to green boughs.  In the first few nights I was here, the weather was good enough to sleep with the windows open.  I woke up to cool morning air and the sounds of birds chirping just outside!

On another note, cleaning ladies come to make the beds for all rooms in the Residencia Mondays to Saturdays.  They also sweep and mop the room, but obviously, the job is hardly thorough.

Good cupboard space, floor to ceiling shelves.  What's not so cool though is that the doors clack against the wood and because the walls are so thin, I can hear my neighbour's.!

 

Paraphernalia.  Thank God the room comes with a fridge--I keep my stash of huevos (Spanish for eggs) here, among other items like red wine and crackers (holy communion), carrots, orange juice and wholemeal bread.

 

 My desk.  Two computers.  The one on the right is the residencia computer with incredibly fast internet but disappointingly slow ram.  Pictures above desk remind me of home--and more importantly, that I'm not alone in this tennis endeavour.  In the words of my older sister, to a certain extent, it makes things easier because it forces me to realise (esp. when I feel down) that there are a ton of people back home who care and support me, and want to see me succeed... :)

This computer gives me access to cameras located around the residence.  In many senses, it is a like a panopticon, and many a time, I feel like a voyeur!  But it helps lah, especially keeping tabs on the kids.

When I first got this room, it was fitted with horrible florescent lighting.  It reminded me too much of the squalid hdb conditions so remniscent in depressing Eric Khoo movies. I got two lamps into the room, fitted them with warm bulbs, and they basically constitute my entire lighting system now. 

On another note, room in the evenings is always treated to breathtaking sunset sky.  You can't really see it much in this picture, because of the lights, but there it is.  The trees block out the actual sunset, but the sky is always tinged with brilliant shades of purple, pink, lavender, or even red.  Quite literally, what a palette to play with... :)

Lunch Hour: 2-3pm

Menu for the day:

• Tuna Egg Salad (I personally never touch the tuna)
• Braised Beef Slices (super protein fix)
• Brown Rice w Green Peas (tough to munch, but good for lunch..)
• Chinese tea (Actually from China but still reminds me of home. Strangely.)
• Macaroni chicken soup (warm liquids, always welcomed :) )

Teeth-Chattering, Knuckle-Breaking Cold

I know by many respects, the Spanish winter is mild compared to many other parts of the world.  As we start to turn on the heaters in the dorms, the Russian kids have also started complaining that 21degrees is "wayy too hot, Sarahhhh!" 

That said, I am still by and large (pun intended), a tropical creature.  For the past few days, weather has gone down to as low as 3°C in the morning, and I have resorted to walking about on court wrapped up like a muffin.  Sometimes, it means six or seven layers on me (two jackets, and two track pants included) just to keep warm.  Sometimes it feels a little awkward, because some of my more acclimatized team mates still prance around in their tops and shorts, but I have long decided that I'd rather keep warm and look stupid than look cool and get injured.

Regrettably, the only part of me that I can't really cover when I play are my hands.  They have suffered a brutal beating from the blasted cold, especially my poor knuckles.  From lip sores, to torn hamstrings to cracked knuckles--what is there to say?  I love the cold :P

Left hand

Right hand.  This knuckle started cracking first--it has healed some, but it was pretty bad in the beginning.  I'd be playing tennis half way, and I'd look down at my hands and I'd be greeted with oozing blood!

Middle knuckle left hand is my current star attraction.  She bled quite a bit during practice today--my coach was shocked when he saw her scarlet and all.  Here, the wounds, as you can see, sear quite deep.  It only really hurts when I rub hand sanitizer on it--obviously, because the wounds are still open.

Visiting Strangers, Dogs Barking, "Women" Wailing
I'm going to use this post to share a little more about my new job with the Academy--as resident guardian and overseer to 28 kids over 18 rooms in the Academy's dormitory, known as The Residencia.  The Residencia is on the second floor of a stock block grey building that also doubles up as the school's administrative block and classrooms.

I have 20 boys and 8 girls under my care, with ages ranging from 12-17 and they come from all over the world.  The kids come from Russia, Israel, China, Uzbekistan, Liechtenstein, Germany, Romania, Ukraine, Malaysia and the UK, to name a few.  It all sounds pretty cool but when you factor in the fact that many of them are rebellious and going through that often problematic puberty-adolescent stage, my "job coolness" factor gets notched down. 

My job scope follows such:

1. Being on night duty at the Residence from 8pm to 8am, Mondays to Fridays and a full day on Saturdays.  Aside from
2. Doing call every night at 10.15pm, making sure that all are present.  This includes menially asinine task of asking/getting them to brush their teeth.  This is something especially tiring (and trying!) after a long day of training, particularly when they don't want to listen.
3. Locking up the building and switching on the alarm system every night.
4. Throwing out kids who don't live in the Residencia, and who aren't supposed to be there (sometimes a tiring task).
5. Checking their rooms in the morning to make sure all are in school/at training, and that none are loafing around/oversleeping.
6. Switching off the security alarm in the mornings.
7. Giving weekly updates to the administrative manager during my precious lunch hour, on what's happening at the Residencia.  Often, this includes telling her about problem kids, unpleasant incidences that have happened. 
   Aside from all this, I also have to
8. Stand guard at the restaurant during dinner to make sure they don't throw food across tables (has happened before)...
9. Collating feedback on the food from the kids, and giving suggestions to the restaurant on ways to improve its menue selection.
   
   

I've been at the job for a total of one month now, and it was initially very, very stressful juggling a full day's worth of practice, having no time to relax, and then starting work almost immediately.  My first night at the Residencia was pure rot--the older boys decided to see how far they could go with their limits, and so at 1am in the morning, they all went into cahoots and started screaming and banging their doors together.  The problem with the Residencia is that the walls are very thin--so you can effectively hear many many things from one end of the corridor, to another.  If that wasn't enough, some of them started playing porn movies in their room and cranked out the sound really really loud.  A few others went down to the boy's locker room downstairs and started screaming/wailing at the top of their lungs.  After a while, I also heard what sounded like a dog barking.  Yeap... all past mignight.

I didn't get much sleep that first night.  None at all, actually.  Curled up in my new room, my tired body was unspeakably tense in this new... environment.  No, it honestly felt more like a hell hole.  With past midnight bloodcurdling screams, deafening shouts, doors banging and a host of strange noises, for the first time in my life, I simply didn't feel safe.  I didn't feel safe, so I couldn't sleep.

In exchange for this, I get free room, board, meals, and a grand total salary of EUR300 a month.  Numerically, it's worse than a cleaner's pay back home!, and I initially honestly felt pushed between a rock and a hard place to accept the job.  I had to because I wanted to keep my chances of training here.  But I didn't want to because I knew it would affect my training.  I get interrupted sleep and less hours, simply because I am on stand by and have obligations and duties to fulfill.  Sometimes during roll call, I feel so tired I feel feverish. 

The plus side to all of this is obviously the full room and board, and the fact that I can use the extra 300 (though not much) to offset my steep training costs.  That and that the room I have is a nice spacious one with big windows and a big cupboard.  Minus the horrible walls and the often antagonistic kids, the job would be tolerable.... :(

Tree-Clapping, Field-Singing Joy :
Salvation Comes to My Family!
I believe that the older we grow, the more separate our paths veer from our biological family. Nature dictates we branch out to new roads, into matrimonial families, individual units, independent entities. Considering that most of us in Singapore live our entire childhood, adolescent, and young adult life with our families, this process of separation--though progressive--is a painful one. Particularly when 1) we are close to our families, 2) when we become conscious of this yawning, inevitable distance.

This process of separation is always something that's been for my five siblings and I. It started off when the oldest two got married, when the grandkids started multiplying, when girlfriend and boyfriends started creeping into the picture, and we all, well... got older. We plucked the courage to venture and live our own lives. Amidst this excitement, there always was also a tinge of sadness—that the love we so know between us was being forced to change, in lieu and light of other loves arising. I guess this Barcelona endeavour is the perfect case in point.

When I woke up this morning, I was crabby and tired. With only 6 1/2 hours of sleep and a 7am Wordswright conference call to prepare for, I felt like a slug that'd just gotten salt sprinkled on it. As my toes tingled and (what little of) my leg hair raised in the chilly air, I sat down with a thump at my desk. I fumbled around, grumbling for my phone.

What greeted me on screen were two messages. One was an advertisement (bah, delete!) and another, interestingly, was a text from my oldest brother.

I've always loved my brother. Tremendously. All my siblings for that matter. But as is with most Chinese families, we are shy to be frank, blatant, and perfectly honest with our feelings. Which explains the heartening, thankful feeling that welled when his initial “How are you Sarah?” quickly gave way to sharing how he was now experiencing the start of a greater love from Above. As I read his text, 10,900km away on a frigid Spanish winter morning, the fatigue that was hovering above me dissipated into thin air—quite quickly, and quite literally. Like a Cyril Wong poem I once read, here suddenly was honesty peaking like warm sunbeams, past dark clouds. In its place, I rediscovered that indelible warmth and confidence that can only exist between siblings.

From surprise to excitement to a massive grin, what finally replaced that cheek-aching smile were warm, fresh tears. Of joy. So strange considering I was feeling crap just moments ago. But still, even when we are faithless, God remains good and ever faithful. My precious brother’s salvation is the perfect case in point :)

*A toast, to a day filled with incredible rejoicing :)*

SP Lactic Glue--Best in Singapore, JB, and some say Batam
Quick note before I hit the sack.

I lost my match yesterday a blisteringly disappointing 2-6, 3-6 to a 17 year old Indian girl also from the Academy.  She was #5 (in my excitement I got the rounds wrong!) and in many respects, I should've beaten her easily.  But let's face it--should'ves are always lousy excuses because they focus more on could'ves instead of what really was.  Should'ves ignore what really was, and what could've been improved.

So what went wrong?

I started strong, kicking off the first game of the first set with a slew of terrible serves.  The first was so fast, she didn't even have time to move out of its path before it smacked her right in the chest :P  I kept on keeping on and nabbed the first set 40-0, game.  We kept on with our cat fight till 2-2 when something started to feel amiss.  I wasn't taking her serves as well as I was giving them, and I could feel my strokes and my footwork slowing down.

"Oh no... oh no!  What's happening?!"

Perhaps it was the lack of a good night's sleep, or that a gajillion people had asked me how my previous match went, but slowly and surely, my body gave way to a paralysing fatigue.  I could feel lactic acid flowing into my muscles, seeping into my bones.  I could feel my right leg aching, my left elbow throbbing from golfers elbow pain, and no matter how hard I tried to focus, simple exhaustion started to cloud my sight.  Very painful to realise, especially when you see easy balls coming towards you.  Instead, what blurred my mind was a series of asinine distractions.  "Those kids are standing there watching the match... my opponent's coach is side-coaching her...boy the wind is damn cold... I hope it doesn't make my elbow worse...I wonder if I waddle like a duck inbetween points?"   The thoughts kept on flying, uncontrollable.  They launched on everything and anything.... but the ball.

After the match I went to Nacho (resident physiotherapist) to tell him about the fatigue and soreness I was feeling.  My left elbow felt sore, the top of my right foot painful, my right quad tight to the point of pain and my right glut painfully sore.  At the core of me, a dull dull sensation of fatigue rested.  Rested!  Ha! 

Nacho took one look at me and simply said "REST."  By sanction and order, I am off court for the rest of the week, and only allowed rehab sessions.  Capi has very kindly offered that I join him for morning sessions, so I get two a day from Thursday, Friday, and our stretching class on Saturday. 

In many respects, I'm enjoying the rest and know I will be better after it, than worse.  I see these niggling pains as part of my adjustment process to this new environment, and the fact that I am clocking close to 40 hours a week of tennis.  A big jump by anybody's standards, and so I should embrace the rest even more. 

Tournament wise, I don't think it turned out that badly.  I am quite pleased with the progress, and though the league was small by any standards, I did reach the quartersfinals.  I'm glad I beat #3 (big mental hurdle crossed for me), and most importantly, I know what I need to do next to push my game to the next level.  I've learnt that it's not about dashing as fast as you can.  It's about lasting longer, as fast as you can!

The next question to ask now is, how do I last longer?

Tournament #1
I was quite surprised when my tutor coach Sergio caught hold of me last Thursday and told me I was going to play a tournament come Monday.  "Are you sure I'm ready?"  was my hesitant, indefinintely reluctant reply.  I'd been plagued with a hacking cough and flu for the past two weeks, and my performance had been as sticky as the green goo I was hacking out :S

Sergio only blinked his eyes slowly and shrugged his shoulders.  "Yes, I think you can play this one."  It was going to be held on S-C grounds, with players both from the Academy, and around the province of Catalunya. 

Here's the receipt I got after being surprised-slapped with a EUR25 entry fee at the registration counter (ouch!).

This is in Catalan.  According to Google translate, it reads:
"Have received from Sarah Pang, the amount of EUR 25 registration fee for Monty Tour tournament to be held in the Catalonia Open Sports Club facilities between days 02/11/2009 and 06/11/2009"

I played my first match on Monday and it was ridiculousy windy.  So much to the point that balls 30cm out would've been blown back in, and vice versa!  But what to do?  We kept playing and I had to concentrate super hard on my ball toss.  In the effort to just keep the ball in, I was guilty of serving like a pondan at times.  I won the match 6-4, 6-0 but walked away knowing I had to work on moving my feet more, adjusting more quickly to the flight and bounce of the ball.

Today's second round match was against the #3 seed, and I beat her 6-4, 6-1.  She was a skinny, gaunt girl  with strong groundstrokes and an aggressive backhand, and she charged ahead 2-0 in the first set (my nerves gave her one game FOC with four double faults!)  On the whole though, after I got past my jits, the game went considerably well.  I was playing better than I did on Monday, more agressively, and with greater fluidity in my strokes.  My feet were moving faster too, and that helped generate more power and pace in my strokes.  The next thing to start working on is keeping my game more consistent(ly agressive).

I play the #1 seed tomorrow, am going to give it my best shot.