aLL 'BouT 'Fe-Ar'

Now is the last day of 2008, although it's still 00.45 AM. I am here now, blog, not to write any resolutions for year ahead. I am here now, blog, not to record all my journeys throughout this little part of my life. I am here now, blog, to tell you that one of my wish list has come true.

Hall 6 (including me) has won the Scrabble IHG!!!

We got GOLD!!!

Yay. I am very happy. After I knew that we won, I forgot the pain, sweats, and tears I felt for this whole week because of so many the-so-long training sessions, I forgot all the time I spared for the three letter words list, I forgot all the nightmare I had about tiles, tiles, and tiles. I just could feel the euphoria. Whoooz. It revived everything.

I don't remember what my first scrabble in this year IHG is. I also didn't remember how much the spread I got for each games. I know nothing except the fact that we deserved to get the gold. Really. We have trained so much. We have done our best. We have fighted together, as a team.

Stifen, the captain.

Ivy.

Jing Lun.

Sudhansu.

Myself, Febrina.

Becky.

Waiji.

Angie.

Kai Yang.

Yannick.

Chris.

We are a team. TEAM.

When I first came back from my holiday, 10 days before the competition, I felt like I was only something. Something, not someone, that everyone ignored. But luckily, I was wrong. We are a team. I am someone, each of them is someone, and all of us is a team.

I was very happy to see our seniors came back. Thanks a lot, PSC. Thanks a lot, K Andri. Thanks a lot, K Anton. They trained us and they motivated us. I was so touched when they all put a big effort to come back although they didn't have to.

We beat all 7 halls we played against at the prelim. Yay, it's very cool.

Hall 6 vs Hall 12  4-1

Hall 6 vs Hall 3    5-0

Hall 6 vs Hall 14  4-1

Hall 6 vs Hall 10  5-0

Hall 6 vs Hall 8    5-0

Hall 6 vs Hall 5    5-0

Hall 6 vs Hall 11   4-1

The spread was also very cool, I think. I cannot really remember, but due to my bad memory, all should be above 500. That's very cool, right?

Then, the match came to the semifinal. We play against hall 16. Ivy played against the strongest player, Stifen played against the captain, and I was partnering with Sudanshu against their double players at table 4. I was so scared that we would not win the game. They got signaling, and they almost made a scrabble word. Luckily, we decided to gamble and challenge them. Then, I put EVET and QUOPS that made them challenge and give me extra points. Haha. And this game, we won by 5-0.

Final came. All of us could feel the smell of champion euphoria as well as the smell of the tears of losing. The chance was 50 : 50 although we hadn't beaten them by 5-0 before. We were still very eager to give our best. We knew that we deserved to get the gold.

Table 1 : Ivy

Table 2 : Stifen

Table 3 : Sudhansu

Table 4 : Febrina n Jing Lun

Table 5 : Becky n Waiji

That's the line up. But we tried to believe everything would be okay. We went inside the fighting arena. We respected our opponent (as PSC told us to do), we put our best effort, and we would win. 

I didn't know what happened at other tables. The one I knew was my tiles were not really good, but we could still win, until they put their scrabble word, TALLIER. They led us, but we managed to catch up, and whoola, I got my scrabble, SNORING. I told Jing Lun and he opened up for me an 'S', but, my bad, I didn't dare to put my word there because I was not sure. I put the thing at other open place. And we lead them by almost 100. 

While I was drawing my tiles, they put eight letter words scrabble. Eight letter, yeah, eight letter, and it went trough two boxes of triple word score, and you know how much it scored? ONE HUNDRED FORTY. I was stunned there, even could not move. What the hell? We just led and they put that super big scoring word, NEEDINGS, through my G there. Again, luckily, Jing Lun healed fast and challenged that weird words. Five points didn't mean anything after one hundred forty hit.

He took back all his tiles, Jing Lun closed the place, I closed another placed. He couldn't put his scrabble and he broke it. Jing Lun closed the board again, his partner opened up for him, I closed. It happened all the way through the end, until we led them by 77.

Phew. I was very happy. That was the most shocking game I had this IHG, and we managed it. Jing Lun, you are a good partner. ^^ .

But, as we walked back to PSC and all Sixians waited for us, I was schocked. Ivy had lost. 1-1. She didn't cry although I knew she wished she could. But she believed that others could save her, because we were a team.

Stifen came back, and he lost. His partner made 2 scrabble word and led him by 180. 1-2. All of us were very scared. How's Sudanshu? How's Becky and Waiji?

2-2. Sudanshu won. Our fate was in table 5's hand. They had to win this game to bring us gold. We waited for so long. We got nervous. We kept praying. We kept shaking.

And, they WON.

We kept shouting. We kept clapping hands. We kept yelling.

I felt very touched when I knew we were the champion. I almost cried.

But I knew, we deserved it.

We had trainings.

We had PSC.

We had Eddie.

We had Ivy.

We had Jing Lun.

We had Ko Andri.

We had TEAMWORK.

P.S. I am damn happy I haven't been beaten for 2 years consecutively. Lol.