Sports Day

Last week on Thursday and Friday was the medical college's annual sports meeting, where for two and a half days faculty and students alike take part in a wide variety of track and field events.

On the first day, I actually didn't show up to the athletic festivities until later in the afternoon, when Alan was running a 200-meter dash, which the school asked him to take part in. I meanwhile wasn't requested to do so much as a jumping jack, which was actually perfectly fine with me considering the fact that rarely do people use my name and "fit", "sports", or "athletic" in the same sentence.

The day before, Alan had requested both Tim and I to come and record the event for him, and so as asked we both showed up with cameras in hand. It was Tim's duty to use Alan's camera to record the event on video, and my assignment was to try and snap a few photos. To make sure that we were in the right place at the right time, we were informed that his specific heat was to take place at 2:10 PM. So, by 2:00 we were both dutifully waiting in place, equipment at the ready. Ten minutes later almost on the dot, we heard the gun go off and for the next half-minute or so we were recording away like a pair of madmen.

Above are the pictures that I managed to take, and if anyone is willing to take a good look, you'd see that Alan is absolutely nowhere in any of them. Unbeknowst to us, the races were running just a few minutes behind schedule, and unfortunately for us Tim and I had no idea of kowing this. Our position in the stands was on the exact opposite side of the track, and more or less as far away from the starting point as was possible.

So, as soon as the race came to an end, we hastily began to try and squint through the glare of the harsh sunlight at our respective camera screens to see if our mission had been successfully accomplished. No sooner had the truth dawned on us when the gun went off again, and Alan's race was in full swing. Tim soon found himself of little use, for Alan's camera had actually run out of memory for another short video. Meanwhile, even though I was a bit flustered, I still managed to capture several admittedly unflattering photos of my fellow foreign Maryknoll teacher.

(In case anyone is wondering, Alan is the one clad in the red, white and black shirt in the center).

Our success had been rather limited. However, at least I had another shot to put my amateur photography skills to use. Besides that race, Alan was also scheduled to take part in a four-person relay the very next morning at 9:40 AM.

Alas, for the second time in a row Lady Luck decided to take the day off. Once again everything wasn't going precisely to schedule, only this time all the events were running a bit early. Thus, on Friday morning I trooped through the main gate to the sports track around 9:25, just in time to hear the all too familar sharp pop of the starting gun firing off once again for a race that was supposed to start fifteen minutes later.

As you can guess, I wasn't able to grab any shots of my friend rounding the track with relay baton in hand.

Thankfully though, despite the semi-comical mishap I had still arrived with more than enough time to spare to watch the closing ceremonies, the highlight of which was a drumming performance put on by the '10 English nursing students, half of whom were mine from last year.

Not too surprisingly, I ended up being worse than a helicopter parent at his child's school play, and just like last year I took yet another enormous amount of pictures.