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February 16, 2003
Weekend Warrior
Eventful weekend. Lots of sporting events, including my swim meet, the English FA Cup, the cricket World Cup, the America's Cup, and the Six Nations Rugby tournament, along with some major political events- Hans Blix' speech, followed by demonstrations in major capitals across the globe. (Puzzingly, the Independent on Sunday reported that there was a demonstration in *Singapore*. I don't think so!) Much kudos to Sarah Boyd, our swim team's Women's Captain, who managed to party like an animal on Thursday night in London, oversleep, and then wake up at 1130 to rush to catch a train back to Oxford to meet us to go to Sheffield for the meet. We had arranged to leave at 1300 to be at Sheffield in time for the warm-up; Waiting for Sarah, we ended up leaving at nearly 1400. After driving like mad, we still made it in time for some warm-up, and swam decently. However, Sarah wasn't done. The next morning, despite training less than any of the rest of us, she qualified third for the 50m Backstroke final (to our utter astonishment). She then topped that by winning the silver in the final, the only one of us to medal. Quite a phenomenal talent, although to be fair the field wasn't very strong. Still, it's quite an achievement and she should be congratulated. Now imagine if she had actually trained... Speaking of which, looking back over the course of the season most of my swimming was done on the weekends, given that that was when the team had 3/4 of our training sessions, not surprising. I'd do most of my weights/gym work and running during the week. It's not a pattern conducive to improvement, because swimming requires a tactile feel for the water, an awareness, or muscle memory, that must be constantly worked on or lost, and lost very easily. Furthermore because your weight distribution is very different in a water environment, and your load bearing muscles are completely different from your land muscles, thus you need to actually swim to train for swimming. Hopefully next year we will be able to work out more regularly, and I can do more pool work over the week. I'm excited about next year. We've got almost everyone coming back, and I feel I have a lot to contribute to this team in terms of my knowledge and experience. We're finally going to have our own pool and I think it will be a terrific year for Oxford swimming. I've got a lot of ideas and hopefully I can help everyone improve themselves. For now, though, swimming season is over. What on earth will I do with myself? Posted by pj at 09:55 PM
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yes. singapore had a *small* demostration in front of the US Embassy but 3 persons were taken away by the police for protesting without a permit.
if they had a permit, it would've spoit the fun of a protest right? Oh well...Prof Jayakumar said it's the minority of s'poreans that are against the war. Well, we're in a supressive society. We have no choice to say no, do we?
evie spoke on February 17, 2003 03:14 PMWow, 3 people. That's amazing. I didn't think anyone would even care! Still, demonstrating is illegal in Singapore, and it always weakens your case when you have to break the law to make your point. There must be other ways...
PJ spoke on February 18, 2003 09:30 AMhm...
1. hire a super duper lawyer (or perhaps even hire their lawyers?)
2. become the system (ie member of) and work that thing ^.~
Actually, I think Jayakumar subsequently commented that it was policy not to issue permits anyway, and that it's bloody unlikely to change anytime soon.
Also, breaking the law to make your point is civil disobedience if you do it right, so it doesn't necessarily weaken your case.
I think civil disobedience works as a mass movement, but it is doubtful if you are in a minority. However, I would presume the existence of legal alternatives when your movement is limited but impassioned and the majority of the people are apathetic. In such a case, civil disobedience may well alienate the majority of the population.
PJ spoke on February 20, 2003 01:41 PM