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- CCYAA

 I’m sorry that I wasn’t born a happier person – sometimes I’m quite the optimist but most of the time, I’m not. It’s hard to be an optimist if the world constantly crushes your hopes and dreams and tosses them effortlessly onto the 401.

You’re probably asking what my hopes and dreams are (were) and what did the world do to it that’s got me bitching about it online (like I always do)

Well, I went to Midnite Madness last week and I found two things out:

2)      I’m the jack-of-all trades and master of none.

I guess this story would help if I put it into some sort of context, so here it goes: at the beginning of the summer, I made a promise to myself that I was going to be more active in competition. I don’t know if I ever told you about that time in business school, when our Organizational Behaviour professor made us take a self assessment test to learn about our own personalities. Long story short – I found out that I’m not a very competitive person. The national average for competition was a rating of 5.6.

My score?

0.

I’m not kidding – I had a big fat zero, which meant that I wasn’t competitive at all. This score caught me by surprise since I considered myself a very competitive person. Even when I was in elementary school, I was ready to victimize the girls in order to win a basketball game during gym.

Look how the mighty have fallen.

So this summer, I made a conscious decision to be competitive, which meant signing up for CCYAA events. As you know, the first event was the 3 on 3 basketball competition. That went okay…so this time, I decided to try volleyball. Why volleyball?

I realized that I couldn’t match the intensity of Asian guys when it comes to basketball. This is what I realized about Asian guys: Asian guys define their lives according to how well they play basketball. You can be a college drop-out, work at a dead-end job and be a dead-beat father but as long as you’re amazing in basketball, you’ll always get the respect of Asian guys. I conclude that a lot of guys pour their heart and soul into basketball because when the going gets tough, the tough plays basketball.

When you watch these guys play, they’re so intense that sometimes I’m afraid they might transform into wolverines or something. What’s funny too is that Asian baller intensity is so strong…yet so quiet at the same time. It’s like you can just feel the intensity in the air…like a sixth man. Forget Leandro Barbosa, the sixth man award goes to…Asian intensity!

For those reasons, I decided that basketball was no longer my thing. I could not match the intensity. For me, when the going gets tough…the tough Goes for Tea. I like their beef ramen.

So with basketball out of the picture, Clem sends me an invite (from facebook, of course) for “Midnite SPIKE!”, a volleyball tournament.

Great! I thought, there’s a net to kind of filter out the intensity, plus its co-ed so that means that there’s going be girls there! One thing I didn’t like about basketball is the constant sausage fest. Hopefully, vball would be better.

I had several expectations going into Midnight Madness.

First Expectation: Someone would be down with volleyball.

Wrong. (Strike One)

My difficulty with finding friends who were willing to play some volleyball was pathetic. Everyone had some sort of excuse not to play: “I’m too tired, I have to go to this dinner, I lost my legs in the war…blah blah blah”

Finally, I gave up like the girl who couldn’t find a date for the prom and I started sulking by my computer. Luckily, my friend messages me and lets me know that she’s looking for players as well. She rounds up enough people to make a team.

Second Expectation: People would be playing at my amateur level.

Wrong. (Strike Two)

One of the things I grossly underestimated was the level of intense competitiveness that was in volleyball. This I could not fathom since all my memories of volleyball come from non-competitive beach volleyball and Super Spike Volleyball for the NES. Surely, everyone plays volleyball for fun…right?

Well, a clear indication that I was in for a rough time was the large disparity in uniforms – namely, all the teams were in one and had kneepads. I was too busy looking pretty with khaki shorts and flip flops. Whoops.

So apparently, everyone belonged to some sort of volleyball league and knew how to spike, which was something I’ve yet to learn. Just recently, I learned to serve over-handed. Oh yeah, one good indicator that the other teams were serious: they were jogging and warming up while my team was smoking and watching basketball.

Third Expectation: It wasn’t going to be that bad of a beating.

FUBAR (Strike Three)

One thing I really hate about competition is getting blown out. When a team is getting blown out, they get especially sensitive. That’s usually how fist fights break-out since anything the other team does is perceived as a hot dogging.

My friend has observed this about me: “Mark, you’re always on battle-mode.” This is true for all occasions whether it be social or athletic. This is not helpful when you’re losing to tall skinny Asian guys who spike really hard. What can I do about it? Nothing. Well, I can write about them, which is my form of revenge. Yes, the pen is mightier than the sword, or in this case, the hardest spike in volleyball. Here it is:

Volleyball players are once removed in their masculinity to play a real sport such as basketball, rugby or football. Like circus performers, they prefer to be separated from other people through the use of a net because they are socially incompetent. They also subscribe to this idea of teamwork in bumping, setting and spiking because they believe in socialism. Volleyball players are therefore Communists. Guy volleyball players get off on spiking the ball on poor pedestrian players like me because it is their only way of getting back at society in a socially acceptable way. Outside of the volleyball court, these players are the types of people who almost get hit by cars because they’re not significant enough to yield for and they are the ones to have the subway doors close on their faces. At work, their height proves to be a curse upon them as they always peer over their neighbour’s cubicle to catch his co-worker slacking off. Because of this, his neighbour greatly despises the volleyball player and therefore spreads the rumour that this guy is a real “brown-noser” Shunned from work and disrespected by cars the volleyball player looks forward to the volleyball court, where he can exert his pubescent manliness on regular folks like me.

Yeah, you’re a real man now for spiking.

I guess it wouldn’t be fair to talk about guy volleyball players without talking about the girls. I found the girl volleyball players to be hot but it felt like they were beer-goggle glasses hot. Well, I think it was the volleyball shorts effect – which is a scandalous piece of clothing. I’m sorry but you can easily play volleyball in regular shorts. Volleyball shorts are ridiculously over-the-top and girls who wear them should not complain about getting pervy stares from guys named Mark. If they wore those shorts in another context, it would be illegal.

One thing those shorts do is that it elongates the girls’ legs – well, make their legs APPEAR longer. Once again, I think this is the result of beer goggles again as I couldn’t buy the idea that there exists a group of Asian girls with really long legs. Most Asian girls don’t. They have “rural farmer legs” as some people would call it. I was quite perplexed the entire night about the leg issue, which probably explains why I screwed up half the time I was playing.

At one point, I contemplated picking up one of the volleyball girls. I started fantasizing how my life would be if I dated one (since one of my hobbies is fantasizing how my life would be different if I did X over Y – it always leads to regrets, so don’t do it) Anyway, I began thinking about how my life would be dating a volleyball star – we’d go to the beach and hang out all day, she’d be into fitness and she’d make me happy…then comes the volleyball. Every weekend would be: “Let’s play some volleyball” When we want to plan a vacation, she’d say “I have a volleyball tournament” and if we’re planning our wedding, she’d say “We’d have to invite my volleyball team” – that’s like two tables right there! The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I probably shouldn’t go out with a volleyball girl. Too cultish.

Since Midnite Madness took two days, I made sure to go back on Saturday to catch the remaining basketball games. I also made a point to enjoy the food festivities and enjoy what Taiwan had to offer. I finally had a chance to order that coconut drink with a straw sticking out because I easily get jealous when I see other people with it. That damn thing cost me $5 but I thought “hey, I’m never going to drink this crap again anyway” so I paid it. I also really got into lamb skewers so I went and had like 8 skewers. You can’t really get full off of those things so eventually, I had to go to the food court and eat a real meal. When I came back, I was right on time to see a dance off going on in center court.

The dance off gave me a weird vibe because half the girls looked like minors. It’s also weird to see Asian girls dance so hyper – we’re used to them clutching their purses and holding their drinks at the club. I couldn’t believe people had the guts to go and dance in front of everyone. Well, it probably helped that they knew what they were doing.

Well, the rest of the night was uneventful and I got pretty tired when it got late. I had to wake up early the next day anyway so I got out of that place at around 11 pm.

See you next year.