One of the most amazing things I have witnessed happened to me just a few hours ago. Here is what happened. Nigel the badminton captain found me online on MSN and proceeded to tell me that of the 10 IVP (inter-varsity polytechnic) players he needed for badminton, he has already chosen 9 and I am not one of the 9. Fair enough. Your the captain, you pick the players you want. He said that I was one of the 4 remaining players being considered for the remaining spot. Fair enough. Here is where it starts to get strange. He cited the reasoning for me not being in the initial 9 due to my commitment issues. To cut a long story short, he basically said that my attitude was bad and that my commitment to the team wasn't there. I have been leaving training early the past few times and my attendance during gym training leave much to be desired. So he was asking me what I thought about it all. Well there isn't really much to it really. I'll cite down my side of the arguement here.

1. If your looking at attendance, prove to me that my attendance is horrible. I have attended trainings every Saturday even during the examniation periods when no one else attended (you and the coach included).

2. During the december holidays, the coach skipped gym training so that he could rest for his tournament. Tell me again, did I go down for that very training even though I also took part in the same tournament as the coach?

3. If you cite commitment to the team, remember how you also mentioned punctuality for training being one of the most important quality? Well, how many times have I arrived 30 minutes before training only to see people starting to arrive only 10 minutes after training is officially supposed to start.

4. How many times have you had to take charge of training because the coach wasn't around? How many times did I train on my own accord with Bai Kun (the other singles player). How many times did we come up with our own training schedule and footwork regime?

5. You refused to support me in my decision to join the AUG because as you said they are making use of me to train them. Fair enough. I didn't want to tell you that I will probably improve much faster training there because of the number of quality players there. Furthermore, you highlighted that my commitment was to this team not the other team. I dropped the AUG in show of my commitment and now you question me? Seriously?

6. Finally, with respect to your decision saying that I left training early a few times. How about we put it in another way. I could have skipped training altogether. Maybe you should give it a thought how much harder I have to squeeze to make it to training only to have to squeeze again to rush down and meet my friends.

I hate raising a ruckus. But I don't think that I am the Ian I was 3 years ago. 3 years ago, Siong Boon disbanded the team for exactly the same reasons I am facing now. 3 yaers ago, I was guilty because I did have an attitude problem. But this time, I will not let it go so easily. Really. You should have just told me you didn't want me in the team because you hated me or something. Any reason which I cannot dispute. For now, lets just see what happens.