9 Dec - A reporter's debut
I woke up feeling excited. I was finally going out for ENG shoot! It was the first block of the Masters where Valerie Teo, Jennifer Tan, Remy Ong and and Lee Yuwen were in the run for medals. Vivan and Kiok had their breakfast at P9 as they were going to Qatar Airways to check-in early for us.
Prem had set out early with Shaffique and Rabi to the Sailing Centre. The sailors were bringing home the gold medals for sure. So Biao shu, Dollah, Ghandi and me piled into Manueer’s car. I was to drop Biao Shu and Dollah at the Al-Arabi Indoor Hall, the venue where our fencing girls were in action.
Biao shu let me have the front seat as he, Dollah and Ghandi squeezed behind. It was as if they were bringing a small kid out. I was amazed and amused by the surroundings and everything around me. I started asking Biao Shu about “Mama”. Whether he called her or not and stuff like that. Little did I know that this will turned into our major topic during dinner for the rest of our stay.
Qatar Bowling Centre was located some distance away from the IBC, and we had to turn off the main road, into a dirt track before we could see the building. Carrying the camera and leaving the tripod with Ghandi, we made our way into the bowling alley. I was slightly overwhelmed by the occasion, but Ghandi introduced me to the team manager for our bowlers and even got a pin for me. Due to debutant’s nerves, I had to “mark spot” at the bowling centre and stayed in the toilet for quite some time. Bringing bottled water back for Ghandi, I familiarised myself with the scoring system of bowling – to learn about bowling, in half a day.
The men’s first block for the Master’s event ended with Remy at 6th place and Lee Yuwen at 12th. Staying a while to get some shots for the women’s team, Ghandi and I made our way back to the IBC. Instead of dropping us at Gate 9 or Gate 1, Manueer drove us right to the doorsteps of our booth in IBC. But the price to pay was to empty our stuff out of the car for security scans. I finally decided to leave my name-card holder in the apartment. I kept getting problems with it during the scans.
According to Vivian, the Qatar Airways wasn’t open while they were there and they had a field trip, exploring the whole city centre. After enquiries, they would need to make another trip there. It was too early for us to check in. Kiok grabbed the opportunity to shop and bought a pair of sandals even though it was a size smaller. She even had to run back to the IBC to change riyah with Wendy for that pair of sandals!
With Alvin back at base, Kiok and Vivian were able to get lunch at the City Centre, after their excursion at the shopping centre. Kiok took plenty of pictures there, with the excuse that they were for me to write my blog. I was thinking to myself that I wasn’t even with her to experience her shopping trip, how to write for my blog?
The down side to having Alvin back was that I could not longer have easy access to a laptop. So it back to pen and paper for me to write my script and I have to complete the whole story in 45 minutes. A time frame set by the editor for us to finish our stories that included editing time. Erquan kept walking in to disturb as he tried to peep. I told him to GO AWAY. He wanted Vivian to vet my script after I was done. It was like getting my English teacher to mark my essay. Vivian had to rewrite the whole script. First attempt, so I hope it will get better.
Going out to do story has certainly drained me. After editing my story, I sat down to do my supers. As Biao Shu and Prem had other stories to do, they started to paste their lists of supers for TAG on the wall, near the clarity, and this became the practice for the days to come.
Alvin showed rhythmic gymnastics for those paedophiles back home. His lineup was simple and Kiok was puzzled by it. Well, he more experienced mah. Of course lah. I need to have something concrete to fall back on. Alvin then playback the badminton’s men’s singles final between Lin Dan and Taufik Hidayat. As conty people don’t have an idea what’s going on here, they thought the badminton game was live until they saw the freeze frame. They actually asked Kiok who won. Well, Kiok too didn’t know and Alvin told them to watch to find out.
After the heavy dinner, the few of us walked back to P9. Kiok braved the cold to walk with us. She has started complaining that she has been gaining weight with the heavy dinner every night. Hahaha!. But there were times when she couldn’t resist the temptation of Mr Baskin/Robbins and indulged together with Prem and Vivian.
