My first pole vault competition

On 14th August 2010, I had my first pole vault competition which was held at Cedar Girls Secondary. I was feeling butterflies in my stomach as I had never participated in any competition. Thus, I prayed very hard the night before and the morning of the day of the competition.

When, I arrived at Cedar Girls Secondary, I began to have stomach aches. soon, our opponents from Raffles Institution and Catholic High arrived. They were strong opponents and I was feeling more and more nervous. During the warm up session, my performance was already getting worse. During the competition,I was getting more and more nervous.

Although I had been training for quite a few months, I have not learnt how to cross the height yet. However, the starting height was only 2.4 metres. I told myself that I was going to cross it as it was not a very high height. To my disappointment, I did not. For the second try, I was very sure that after knowing the kind of feeling during the competition, and after getting used to the atmosphere, I was able to cross the height. However, again, I did not cross it. The third attempt and also the last attempt, I was really sure that I would certainly cross it. As expected, I did not cross! I was really disappointed in myself. As a punishment, It had to do 500 push ups! I was mental and physical torture!

Although I unheighted, I still enjoyed myself as there were many unexpected and funny cases. I remembered, one of my friends actually accidentally dropped the pole and catch it again, and then, the best part was that he managed to cross the height however, the way my seniors always say- flying pork!

There was also this competitor from RI who continuously bounce on the same spot for a very long time before his started running.

After the competition, I was still very upset with myself. In the later part of the day,my senior texted me saying that the competition was actually for the those in secondary 2 and above. However, they wanted us to have an exposure of how it feels to be in a pole vault competition. Only then, I felt better. Actually, I thought that some of the competitors, who were nerdy and short, were from secondary 1 and was thus very disappointed with myself as I thought that if they could cross the height, so could I.

After this competition, I have learnt how it feels to be in a competition and have seen how hard it was to win. So, I will definitely work very hard and win in the upcoming competitions!

The Cupcaked Crusader

The Cupcaked Crusader is a book by Lawrance David. The story started off with the Cupcaked crusader, Horace Splattly with his friends, always hunting for mysterious things and events which took place in their daily school lives and record them in their book of conspiracies. Once, they discovered a large foot print which the size of Horace himself. They recorded this in the book of conspiracies. However, nothing monstrous had happened despite the appearance of the foot print.

Horace sister, Melody was doing an experiment for a project and wanted Horace to go over to their neighbour's house to spy on her. She made four cupcakes and wanted Horace to eat them. After taking two bites from two different cupcakes, Horace gained some powers and he could suddenly breathe out fire and could also fly. Wearing a purple suit made by his sister, Horace was sent on a mission to spy on their neighbour's project as mentioned.

Instead of helping his sister, Horace went around the city helping others and had fun himself. Then, when it was around the evening, Horace went to the park and saw his school's principal. while he was talking to Horace, a monster suddenly appeared from behind the principal and swallowed both of them. In the beast's stomach,Horace and the principal struggled and finally, after blowing out some fire, Horace managed to make the beast cough and spit them out. Horace knew that the Principal's brother, a science teacher had given his pet guinea pig some medicine and the guinea pig grew to a size of an elephant! He did this, planning to kill his brother and taking over the school.

After all the action, Horace was left with no more power. When he returned home, he stole the cupcakes and secretly hid the cupcakes somewhere and when he needed the powers, he would use them without the control and consent of his sister.

In the story, I enjoyed the part where Horace visited his best friends, who were twins. Horace blew fire into the chimney of their house and gave them a great fright. They thought that it was a fire breathing dragon. Then, Horace appeared from their glass window and was welcomed by the brothers.

At the beginning of the story, I like the part where Horace ate the cupcakes and gained his supernatural powers. The interesting part was him slowly discovering how to use and control his powers and experimenting them out.

I enjoyed reading the book. If there would to be a book 2, I would surely purchase it!