4 Dec - The Revolution
My alarm went off at 6am. I struggled out of bed, but found that there was something wrong with my right ankle. I could have pulled something yesterday. With 12 more days of the Games to go, I chose to take a break from gym and see how my ankle feels tomorrow.
I texted Alvin about our badminton girls in the semi-finals of the team event today, before I showered. The next thing I know, programming has decided to go live for that event. Luckily I had showered and changed. Charging downstairs, I took a hasty breakfast and was nearly late for the 8.15am bus. It was God’s grace that there was a volunteer there to stop the bus for me as I ran on board the bus. 
Before I rushed down to IBC, Kiok called Jusri and he was still sleeping. After breaking the news to him, he arrived at the IBC soon after I reached. He powered up the machines and went to have breakfast at IBC. Apparently breakfast is free for all till 11am.
Simon arrived while I was trying to check with SOC that they had gotten the correct feed from Doha. Before I knew it, we were on-air. Kiok reached the IBC just in time to call conty for the first commercial break. Alvin wasn’t at the conty to oversee things. The table tennis experience came in handy. Moreover, badminton isn’t as fast as table tennis.
In the end, Li Li dropped her first single, Jiang Yanmei and Li Yujia lost 2-0 in the next doubles and Xing Aiying pushed to a rubber set before losing 2-1. We had to settle for bronze in the Badminton, Women's team event.
The mood in IBC has always been relaxed and joyous in the mornings. There were plenty of jokes around. Kiok mentioned that some of the volunteers thought she’s Japanese. Following that, Simon asked Kiok if she went through Japanese Occupation. Wah lau! Kiok scolded him! “Simon! You think I so OLD huh?” With Jusri around, this could go on forever as he quickly added that he would like to report Simon to the SPCA – Society of Prevention of Cruelty to the Aged!
Soon, our “swimming team” came back from the morning heats. The moment he came back, he re-do the entire live belt lineup and came up with something else. This messed up the recordings that Wendy and Simon have been doing, and once again my effort went down the drain. Getting more and more upset, I text Alvin saying that from tomorrow onwards, I would only come in at 5pm to do supers for TAG, go off for dinner and come back for TAG. I took a walk outside the IBC, debating to call home or not. But the thought of nobody answering was too much to bear, given the emotional stress I was on now, and I abandoned the idea. I’m too used to having him around.
I ended up in an emotional wreck outside, sitting on one the benches around. Trying to pick myself up, I walked for almost two hours around the whole IBC. I called mum, putting on a brave front. The news of her being up and about at home and back to her work station sort of boasted my morale. I went back to our booth and helped Vivian with TAG. It’s time for Biao shu to learn things the hard way. Tonight is the first time we will be going live. No more pre-recordings.
Kiok became the AP for live belt, and Wendy was totally stressed out from 6pm onwartds. Her fingers were trembling after we closed shop. She has been talking to herself the entire period that we were on-air. Kiok was frantically calculating the duration for Biao Shu while calling conty. Nearing the half hour of the live belt, she told Biao shu that he will underrun for 15 minutes. He was desperate and he simply slotted some event in with no proper start and ending, during which Alvin called. I replied him I have nothing to do with today’s live belt. He’s the editor, he’s in-charge and he’s the one who has been making the decisions.
The harm is done. Prem was trying to calm me down during the live belt as I paced in and out of the panel. He said we should trash out everything later. Jusri agreed to sit in. Here’s the person who usually only take care of his technical area. He doesn’t interfere much with production usually and would leave us alone to our work as long as there is no technical problem. He has been hanging around the work area outside these few days, as he’s worried.
All the arrows were aimed at Biao Shu at the meeting. I suggested asking JB to RVO from event to event during the live belt, and letting me helped him with the lining of the live belt. He had to trust others to do the job and not carry the entire workload on his shoulders. We all had a part to play in this. Since we were all in this ship together, we would not let it sink.
It was all against one. Biao shu relented. Simon and Wendy suggested recording feed on tapes and not overload the evs during the live belt. Jusri was for taking live feed as much as possible and mix it with pre-recorded events for the live belt. When biao shu finally understood about not hogging the evs so that the editors, Vivian and Prem can get TAG out on time, he was bent on overloading the recording machines as he wanted to playback stuff for the entire live belt. Sigh… When will he learn??
After work, we all became friends as we never brought work out of our booth. We chatted over dinner, making fun of the huge mountain of food on Biao Shu’s plate.
On the way back, I asked Simon how come it occurred to him that Kiok went through the Japanese Occupation. He said his mum always told him stories about that period and the last time he heard them was ten years ago and he never grew up since.
While we were all waiting for the lifts at P9 lobby, Biao shu told me to do the entire live belt tomorrow. I told the girls about it and they said, “show him how it should be done!” Ladies and gentlemen, let the show begins.
