Wheelchair Basketball

Today was a long day. A long, meaningful day. A day which gave me a new perspective of life. That life is wonderful. And beautiful.

As an occupational therapy student in my second semester, I have to complete 20hours of fieldwork. One is to go to this recreation centre and watch wheelchair basketball. I am not a fan of basketball and have never been interested in the sport. Neither have I nor will I ever watched a basketball match. The only thing I know about basketball is that Yao Ming is really a tall basketball player lol. 

So today there was a wheelchair basketball happening from 6.50 pm to 9pm, and I went there with a few of my course mates. When I entered the court, I was amazed by what I saw. There were a bunch of people sitting on wheelchairs, moving about freely. I thought they were the people with disability so I watched them closely on how they carried out the activity (for we need to fill in reflection sheets). All of a sudden, one of them just stood on his feet. I was like "Wait a minute!! What was that supposed to mean??". Only then I realized all these people who were chasing after a ball on wheelchairs were not immobile. In fact, they were normal and healthy....

Fortunately our purpose of the fieldwork wasn't wasted (to observe how people with disability carry out this activity in wheelchairs). After the match finished, another group of people entered the court on wheelchairs as well. This time, it was different. They were people with various levels of disabilities, although one or two of them were healthy and fit. Looking at them, I somehow felt different. 

"This is the real one." I thought to myself.

And hence I sat upright, opened my eyes widely, forced my brain to be alerted, and started to observe them. I witnessed how they cheered each other, changed from their normal daily used wheelchairs into the special ones for sports, adjusted their seats, placed safety straps across their feet, and marched into the center of the court. 

As soon as the game began, they engaged themselves completely in the game. They were chasing after the ball so violently. They were extraordinarily fast that you would even forget about the fact that they were sitting on a wheelchair. I personally thought that they were really good players and perhaps were better than those with healthy limbs. It was no doubt that they were way more better than me who could not even score.  After a short while the game had started, one of the guys scored a goal perfectly. It was spirit-lifting. We just burst into cheering and applauding. As the game progressed, I observed how they gave everything into the game. They loved running after the basketball, passing it to the team members, avoiding the opponents' attacks, and finally scoring the net. There were sweats. There were smiles, There were senses of achievement. There were encouragement. And there were meanings of life. 

Later I was offered the chance to hop onto a wheelchair. I tried on a wheelchair once before in my tutorial last week. But the I did not feel the same in this situation. As I looked up unto the net, which was quite a distance from me while sitting on the wheelchair, there was an urge inside of me that wanted me to reach it. So this was how they felt when they were at the court. The basketball net was their goal. Their only focus point. They strove for it and enjoyed the process. 

Looking at them, I was really inspired. They led me to think that life is still beautiful even though you might be disabled in some ways. There will still be goals in your life and you should never give up. We should always be grateful to what we have and even what we do not have. Life is life, it is wonderful. 

And in my eyes, they are the most beautiful basketball players.

Wonderful Start

Today was amazing. My class started at 10 in the morning and I didn't have to catch the bus 'cause Jon would pick me up. So I woke up at 7.30 a.m, intended to do my quiet time. Yet I just lie on my bed until the clock struck 8am. Epic fail. Then I decided to make myself a sumptuous lunch since there was plenty of time left. I wanted to make some healthy sandwiches but I couldn't make up my mind on the ingredients. This was the conversation that took place inside my brain:

"Hmmm ok I'll put tomatoes.... Wait a minute, the tomatoes are too hard! They are not ripe yet!"
"Ok I guess I'll put chinese cabbage then..."
"Hmm now I have vege, what type of protein should I choose?!"
"Hmm fried eggs? No no that would be too oily..."
"Oh there's some Hungarian salami left! Well I guess not... Salami is much more fattening than eggs~"
"Oh spam!!!!! Yummy!! Oh no! It's so unhealthy! I guess not then.."
" Sigh what should I put for my HEALTHY sandwich!??!?! "

In the end, I did not make sandwiches. It was too hard to decide on the ingredients so I just packed the leftover mushroom chicken rice and a banana for my lunch.

Jon was going to pick me up at 9.15 (*that was what he said yesterday night) but his car only turned up like fifteen minutes later. I had this feeling that I was going to be late for my class but I decided to brush it aside. Let's think positively. While on our way to pick up Aaron, we lost a bit of time on getting back to the right driveway. Then the same thing happened again when we were picking up Sandra. It began to dawn on me that yes we gonna be late. The fact was: We were late for twenty minutes. Actually we were late for ten minutes and we spent another ten minutes trying to figure out our way to the classroom. Curtin is freaking big and I guarantee that anyone can get lost easily in the campus. Thank God that we could still be in the same group even though we were late. *There were people who entered the classroom later than us so I guess we were not as bad XD

P.S. I'm so proud of myself I think I'm getting better at cooking muahaha. My dinner tonight:

Last Day of Winter Break

As the title suggested, today is the last day of my uni winter break. Well if you ask me what did I do during my whole winter break, I could easily answer you with a word : Nothing. Yes. Nothing. I did nothing. I thought I was going to work but I ended up staying at home doing nothing for three long weeks. So this was basically how I spent my day:

Woke up. Drank water. Quiet time with God. Opened up my laptop. Facebook. Dramas. Net surfing. Dramas. Shower. Leg exercise. Sleep.

And the next day began with the same routines. I lived like a robot man. Yeah I didn't eat anything. I wasn't crazy. I was having my body detox. Since I wasn't working, I took this opportunity and gave my body organs three weeks long of holidays as well. (Plus I ate so much 'rubbish' food when my mom visited me and I thought my body was contaminated quite bad) So I only drank Melilea Organic nutritious botanical powder  six times a day, three of those with soya powder, for twenty-one days. I DID IT. I'm so proud of myself. I had done this three times ( 3 days, 7 days, and 10days). So now my longest record is updated to 21 days oh yeah! Now I feel healthier and I think my skin is super good. My face looks flawless lol. It's like glowing.

I had been craving for mushroom chicken rice since then, and today my tongue papillae were satisfied. My uncle and aunt are now in New Zealand so I have to make my own dinner and my cousin's as well ('cause she doesn't know how to cook). Guess what did I cook? It was........................... MUSHROOM CHICKEN RICE!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was my first time cooking this and it turned out to be extraordinarily delicious. When I took my first bite, I almost died of happiness. It brought back my childhood memories too. The canteen at my primary school used to sell the dish and every student would just queue for it. The tempting mushroom scent would just attract all the students to go for it. Plus it was super cheap. You could buy a plate for RM 0.50 only. I also made tomato soup to go with it. I missed Mom's tomato soup so I made one to relieve my homesickness. It tasted almost the same as Mom's and it was really appetizing. The main point is, I ate A LOT for dinner. Now my stomach is bloated like a hot air balloon. Great.

My masterpiece XD

Thank God for His words that I shall always find rest in Him. Tomorrow is the first day of semester two, enjoy =)

Heart to Heart

I don't know what happened but my previous blog was deleted for no reason. Guess I will just have to start all over again.Recently many things happened and they caused me to think about life seriously. 


Last Sunday morning was the day when Mom and family left Perth. Although they only visited me for just ten short days, their leaving made a huge difference in my daily lifestyle. I woke up in my empty room, had breakfast by myself, sat in front of my laptop alone, had no one to talk to... Strange isn't it? Habits can develop over a short period of time. During those ten days, every morning I was pulled out from my sweet dream by my baby sister and spent the rest of the day with Mom, little sister, brother, and aunt. It felt so different having my family around. Warmth. Love. Happiness. 

That Sunday night, while waiting for Mom's call from home in Malaysia, I received a call from my best friend.   All I heard was her crying over the phone,
" Esther, my uncle killed himself..."
Those words stabbed straight into my heart. My mind went blank. I didn't know what to say that I even blurted out "Hmm...Hmm... Are you okay?" when she was obviously not and crying herself out. All of a sudden I just felt so depressed and sad. I was overwhelmed by pessimistic feelings. I felt so lonely without having my beloved family around. I felt helpless and guilty too that I didn't know how to comfort my best friend and help her. Then I was thinking, " If only I'm like he/she, then I'll know what to do." I'm the type pf person who really doesn't know how to comfort people in situations like this. All I know is to give them a hug and be a good listener. But I am learning. I wish I can be helpful in the future when those around me are put under the same situation again.

This week will be my last week of holidays, which means that I'll have to delete my "holiday mood" and activate my "study mode". 2012 second semester of first year uni, here I come!