its been so long since i last played weiqi or even showed up at SWA. so long since i kept in touch with any of them and since i didnt use fb much till recently... haven been in touch with any new at SWA either... just looked thru pics with me tagged in them and saw the picture of this scrapbook photo album they made for yang lao shi. very cute cover page... yeah the pic was put up like in aug last year... but goes to show how little i check of my FB PLUS how out of touch i am - yes i hate to admit it but it was the 1st time i'm seeing that photo. it was... as yang lao shi's farewell present. after like decades of teaching in sg, he's decided to go back to China for good...
despite how i've given up on the game... abandoned it... how i dislike swa at times even... yang lao shi is really someone unique that i'll never ever forget. a very friendly, fatherly figure... despite the fact that i hadnt bothered to practice, hadnt bothered to improve my techniques... very warm, very nice... i'll nvr forget his face, his smile... the face of some ppl fades in my mind over time... but some will remain embedded forever... i remember his speech, his actions, gestures, stance, posture... his smile... all so very clearly as if i've just met him once more yesterday. how i used to call him every week for zhi dao qi until he knows its me the moment he picks up the phone - or maybe he just has caller id, i dont know. for some reason, i was one of his favorite students, something special... but i nvr made anything out of the time playing weiqi - i was neither strong nor lucky enough. than i got sick of the whole thing and called it quits. nothing to do with him... i wont say its entirely my fault/mistake that led to the quitting, not trying to push the responsibility, but lady luck just wasnt looking down on me during my stay... the chore of being the 'star player' in sch wore me down, i got less and less interested in improving myself, my parents pushing behind my back made things worst (same thing happened for chinese and maths, i just cant survive that way)... i gave up. towards the end i was just sleeping in every single lesson - struggled to stay awake but failed, same as i do in every lecture now, and finishing each game asap just to get away. i even skipped class with my sis who was equally sick of going for lessons. (skipped class alone too)
i knew i had to work hard to get anywhere in weiqi, but i knew that i was too uninterested to make a difference... dont quite like the wave of ex poly students taking the helm at swa... (maybe i'm just an stupid biased idiot, and a lazy one at that) but the last straw came at the lanke cup when i was in jc... 1 or 2? i cant quite remember now. by then i'd stopped playing for a long time... i went back and realised that the calm and the coolness i once had was completely gone. as much as i pretended to look cool on the outside... my heart was thumping like an idiot inside. so hard that i could really hear my heart beat. my pulse racing. literally. NEVER had i ever had that feeling before in ANY game. and it was just a small game against a noob guy and i'm feeling the heat... on top of that... my memory skills was gone, my area recognition skills gone... all gone. i used to be able to tell that a particular plot is a 7 x 3 or 5 x 6 area in a milli second glance. not anymore. and now that i've given up, nvr again. everyone says its such a waste that i've given up halfway, that i'm so good yet... so wasted... but truth is, i was nvr good. yes, in the beginner classes i 'shone' in class, but dude, that was against other fellow beginners, many of whom were much younger than me. against the other players, i was nothing. amongst the females i can still 'hold' a bit of place, but amongst the rest of the guys, i'm just average. eons away from the top HC players, or even my own jc senior like xudong.
and now... my shi fu is 'gone'... all i can say is... it'll bring a closure to the weiqi arc of my life - not a full closure, i'm certain bits and pieces of it will still resurface, but a closure nonetheless.
敬爱的杨老师，谢谢你为我们做的一确。您的教诲我会牢记在心！
despite how i've given up on the game... abandoned it... how i dislike swa at times even... yang lao shi is really someone unique that i'll never ever forget. a very friendly, fatherly figure... despite the fact that i hadnt bothered to practice, hadnt bothered to improve my techniques... very warm, very nice... i'll nvr forget his face, his smile... the face of some ppl fades in my mind over time... but some will remain embedded forever... i remember his speech, his actions, gestures, stance, posture... his smile... all so very clearly as if i've just met him once more yesterday. how i used to call him every week for zhi dao qi until he knows its me the moment he picks up the phone - or maybe he just has caller id, i dont know. for some reason, i was one of his favorite students, something special... but i nvr made anything out of the time playing weiqi - i was neither strong nor lucky enough. than i got sick of the whole thing and called it quits. nothing to do with him... i wont say its entirely my fault/mistake that led to the quitting, not trying to push the responsibility, but lady luck just wasnt looking down on me during my stay... the chore of being the 'star player' in sch wore me down, i got less and less interested in improving myself, my parents pushing behind my back made things worst (same thing happened for chinese and maths, i just cant survive that way)... i gave up. towards the end i was just sleeping in every single lesson - struggled to stay awake but failed, same as i do in every lecture now, and finishing each game asap just to get away. i even skipped class with my sis who was equally sick of going for lessons. (skipped class alone too)
i knew i had to work hard to get anywhere in weiqi, but i knew that i was too uninterested to make a difference... dont quite like the wave of ex poly students taking the helm at swa... (maybe i'm just an stupid biased idiot, and a lazy one at that) but the last straw came at the lanke cup when i was in jc... 1 or 2? i cant quite remember now. by then i'd stopped playing for a long time... i went back and realised that the calm and the coolness i once had was completely gone. as much as i pretended to look cool on the outside... my heart was thumping like an idiot inside. so hard that i could really hear my heart beat. my pulse racing. literally. NEVER had i ever had that feeling before in ANY game. and it was just a small game against a noob guy and i'm feeling the heat... on top of that... my memory skills was gone, my area recognition skills gone... all gone. i used to be able to tell that a particular plot is a 7 x 3 or 5 x 6 area in a milli second glance. not anymore. and now that i've given up, nvr again. everyone says its such a waste that i've given up halfway, that i'm so good yet... so wasted... but truth is, i was nvr good. yes, in the beginner classes i 'shone' in class, but dude, that was against other fellow beginners, many of whom were much younger than me. against the other players, i was nothing. amongst the females i can still 'hold' a bit of place, but amongst the rest of the guys, i'm just average. eons away from the top HC players, or even my own jc senior like xudong.
and now... my shi fu is 'gone'... all i can say is... it'll bring a closure to the weiqi arc of my life - not a full closure, i'm certain bits and pieces of it will still resurface, but a closure nonetheless.
敬爱的杨老师，谢谢你为我们做的一确。您的教诲我会牢记在心！
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