Ultimate

Despite my blog name is Jakarta Athlete, I realized that I have rarely posted anything about my athletic life. So I'm gona do one right here.
On Saturday, May 18th, 2013, the SWA Ultimate team participated in the first ever high school Ultimate tournament ever. Four schools came to play, Bandung International School, Jakarta International School, SPH and SWA. There were 6 teams in total, JIS had 3 teams.

We had trained for about 4 weeks, with only 2 practices that the whole team had come, mostly it was small groups coming on one particular day.
We were the unlucky team, we had three back to back matches. Also the playing field wasn't what we expected. The playing field was a soccer field cut down in half, but it was the long half, not the wide half which we have been practicing on.

Our first match was against Bandung International School, a veteran of Ultimate, they have been training for two whole years. Even though we were up against a great team, we played good defense, blocking them several times, but always give out turnovers. Africa, James, Min Hao and me gave out several blocks and steal, but on offense we were bad. Our long range passing wasn't really effective, and was blocked often. We lost that game 7:0 I think. BIS team captain was the best player I ever saw that day, with amazing speed, stamina, high jumping abilities and quick reaction.
The second match, which we played 5 mins after the first one, was against SPH. They were fast and quick, their passes were good. Most of their players can both throw forehand and backhand. Which made it hard of us to intercept, but we still did on multiple occasions. James played defense extremely well, with lots of block from his basketball skills. Africa could have done better, he was the best player on our team, but he just gets nervous and sometimes hesitates too long. The girls were improving as well, they begin to go after the frisbee but our stamina isn't very good. We lost that match as well, actually, we lost all the matches that day.

After the first two matches, the toll of playing of matches in a row took its toll on us. All of us were tired, and our strategies weren't really working out. Therefore, this game we devised a simple strategy which was kinda effective. James would play defense and stop them from scoring, after picking up the frisbee, he would pass to Africa who was in the midfield. Africa has the best passes and can be very accurate, he would then pass to me at the end zone. Ms. Z gave me the scoring role because I was the best catcher after Africa. Min Hao would be the back up plan, if Africa can't pass to me, he would pass to Min Hao.
That game we played against JIS III, the strategies worked out quite well. I scored one with an assist. Rhein scored too. We lost the match 3:2. But we were improving. Gyu played good defense, he succeed in denying the frisbee from player bigger then him. Bening was injured that game, she twisted here ankle on the dash for defense.
The games after those were fun, because we got used to playing and began to score much more. James played extremely well defense, foiling several great offense plans. Our defense was really our strength, we had great steals and blocks. The problem was really our stamina and the cooperation between boys and girls.
I think Ultimate is a great game, because we are required after each game to gather round with the opponent team and high praise one another, well in our case of praising them was all true, but them praising us was all lies, well kinda lies.

I Hate Unicorns

      I have discovered quite recently (though my sense of time is quite twisted and my recently might have been a few months earlier than your recently) that I am not alone in this passionate hatred of Unicorns. I stumbled upon a video while surfing the vlogbrothers channel in which John elaborates upon his intense dislike of them. He also owns this wonderful shirt that says "Unicorns were left off the Ark for a reason." It has now become my life's ambition to acquire that shirt. Enough said, let's start with my reasons.

1. Unicorns are overrated. I'm sorry. I cannot contain myself on this. Whenever I go on tumblr (which, admittedly, is very infrequently when compared with the rest of the internet-addicted world) I am bombarded with pictures and quotes like these:
   
   (taken from naharoo ahjumma on tumblr)
   
   
   Bad Idea!!! (I only used 3 exclamation marks because 5 exclamation marks are a sure sign of an insane mind, and I'm only partially sure) Unless you are a girl named Bella, your inner alarm system would be blaring right now. Don't get on the unicorn. It's a ploy, I tell you!
   
   
   
   (etsy.com)
   
   
   Do not be a unicorn. Your horns will be cut off to make corn dogs.
   Perhaps that is why I particularly enjoy corn dogs so much...
   
   
   
   ( keepcalmandposters.com)
   
   
   A unicorn farm?? Why would you want that?? They would trample you to death.
   Slowly.... And painfully.
   
   
   
   (the villainous unicornappreciationsociety.tumblr.com)
   
   
   See what I mean?? There is a UNICORN APPRECIATION SOCIETY. Help me.
   
   
   
   
2. Unicorns are too often confused with pegasi. No, unicorns do not fly. 
   
   (fanpop.com)
   
   
   This appears to be some sort of buttercorn hybrid. That sounds delicious. Buttercorn should totally be a thing.
   
   
   
   
   
   This is taken from a webiste called lucylearns.com, which leads to the important question of, 
   Just what are we teaching poor Lucy?
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. They are creatures symbolic of innocence whose sole purpose seems to be to get to virgins and like, do stuff. I have never found any source telling me what unicorns actually do to the virgins, and the fact that they like virgins is kinda worrisome. I mean, sure, I get it. Virgins are supposed to be innocent too, and we are inevitably drawn to our own kind, but if there isn't any info on what they actually do when they get to the virgins, then what am I supposed to think? If maybe, they had said something along the lines of, "Unicorns like to eat the hair of virgin girls" it would have been a more satisfying explanation then none at all. (Though while we're on the subject of unicorns and virgins, here's a link from my friend Alex to the game CLOP in which a unicorn named Clop clops his way to the virgin girl. I haven't found out what happens when you get there, because I'm a horrific player.) 
   
   (foddy.net)
   
   
   The lilac shaded, twilit world of CLOP the unicorn, whose unfortunate nickname comes from his disturbingly loud hooves. Oh, and for some reason, all unicorns are inherently male.
   
   
   
   
4. They are menacing beasts that are somehow presented to the public as cute and cuddly creatures. I mean, people don't worship rhinos in little pink plastic toys that flash with neon lights. And rhinos are also quite fearful, with the same horns and stampeding hooves. 
5. Unicorns never seem to help with anything. They frolick in the forest all day long and never truly have anything to do. They don't eat or drink and just spend their time whiling away, until they are attracted by a virgin girl or someone (like Voldemort) hunts them down to use their blood in ressurrection of an evil villain. The said evil villain goes on to kill or maim hundreds of people and the unicorns don't care. They go on prancing about and making rainbows or whatever it is they do. 

           I am tired, hungry, and drowning in my own sweat. I will rest my case.

DFTBA,

Teachers -- Should They Really Be Teaching?

We have all heard of the occasional cringe-worthy teacher, one that's super strict or overloads you with work. These teachers, however frustrating, are just trying to get us to do work. As much as it pains me to be admitting this, their efforts are probably good for us in the long run.

No matter how torturous they seem.

No, these teachers are not who I'm complaining about. I'm complaining about the legitimately stupid teachers that make me think: if that's the teaching standard nowadays, I could train my hamster to become a teacher. That is not the message a student should be getting from their teacher.

The teachers who honest to god just cannot teach. Their teaching techniques are more painful than helpful and no one actually learns anything. The teachers who even the smart people admit do not have the talent for explaining, so much so that they take pity on you and teach you themselves.

Those. Teachers. Just. Make it. So. Hard.

My exams are coming up, and we need to study for about half a years worth of work which will be tested on the exam. While reviewing for the subject that was taught by the aforementioned -- honestly just terrible -- teacher, I realized something.

I wasn't reviewing the work. I was learning it.

The teacher was so terrible at teaching that I had to re learn everything because I didn't understand it at all when he taught it. So pretty much in the classes I had been like:

It's not just me, either. All of my classmates, even the ones known for being smart in this area, are completely befuddled when it comes to this class. We don't understand what is expected of us or how to go about it, how to do the work, which equations will be needed -- none of it! Our teacher just cannot teach.

He spends way too much time on work that does not matter, not enough time on the work that does, and skims over way too much because of his super-high expectations.

As you can tell, I am super impressed by his teaching abilities.

This isn't the first time I've been plagued by terrible teachers. I had another one, back in the seventh grade, that honestly taught more like a university professor than a middle school teacher. Pretty much every lesson went something like this:

Teacher: *background buzzing noise, a.k.a lecturing*
Student One: Hey. Hey, what's he saying?
Student Two: I dunno. *shrugs*

End Of Lesson

Student One: Hey. Hey, what did he talk about?
Student Two: I dunno. *shrugs*

I am not even exaggerating here. This actually happened. Multiple times.

I don't know if this is just the way I see it, or it other people see it the same way, but I think that if you're a teacher you have the responsibility to be able to  -- oh, I don't know... teach?

But maybe that's going too far.

So that brings me back to the title of the post -- teachers. Should they really be teaching?

Hugs and love and kisses and crap.