10 Years After

Fighting Spirit of a Champ’ ****Warning - Bragging rights below****

The other asset that defines me now is the number of achievements in sports I can claim.

I’ve been playing volleyball since I was 11 years old which adds up to over 15 years of practice now. In the meantime, I’ve earned myself a respectable amount of medals and titles and of course funny surnames...

Here’s a quick volleyball resume :

 1991 : UNSS* Departmental Championship in Pas-de-Calais (France)
 1992 : UNSS Regional Championship in Nord-Pas-de-Calais (France)
 1993 to 1997 : Back in Tahiti, I had some troubles finding a club. Then I had an ankle injury in 1994 so I only had some competition in 1995-1996 and won the local Junior Championship.
 1997 to 1999 : Local Junior Championships and one Senior Championship (1999)
 2000 : Leveled up from R2 to R1 in Tours (France)
 2001 to 2006 : College team, 3 or 4 Regional Championships in Ile-de-France (France)
 2007 : College team, won the National Championship (France)
 2008 & 2009 : Back in Tahiti, won the local Championship (Tahiti)
 2009 : Won matches against Samoan Teams in Queensland (Australia)

*French acronym for National Union of Sports in Schools

From 2001 to 2007 I was in Paris (France) and I participated in numerous tournaments and made several big impressions on higher level players (I was playing in R3 in 2005, Dept in 2006 and N3 in 2007) :
 2003 : Clamart (super conso with Philippe)
 2005 : L’Isle Adam (vs Pros from Beauvais)
 2006 : Argenteuil, Villejuif (5 blocks to 2 in a blocking contest with my own teammate vs someone playing in N2)
 2007 : Saint Cloud (good results vs N2 players)
 2008 : No tourney =(
 2009 : Clichy (2 years retirement from attack position and still in the tempo)

Anyway, the list could go on and on with all the shared memories & fun times but the point in case here is that I’m an accomplished volleyball player. All that’s probably left for me to achieve in this sport is to get selected in the team to represent French Polynesia in Oceania/Pacific Games. This will probably never happen as I’m probably too old for that now (last selected team had an average age of 18y old)...

The highest achievement would be the National Championship and the first Tahitian Championship (became a setter this year). I’m title-hungry no more hence my stopping posting about volleyball on this site.

I’d still play for fun with you if you challenge be but you’ve been warned ok ? >=)

Ten Years From Now

Alright, the flashbacks are now over so let’s take a tour in some of the things I’d like to make/accomplish in the next 10 years...

Work

We all want to be recognised for the job we do and I also expect such gratefulness from my bosses. Thing is, as I work in the education, the Ministry rarely gives medals or bonuses to exceptionally good teachers... Of course, we teachers are primarily working for the pupils in order to make them able to face future endeavours (or at least that’s the idealistic point of view).

We’re actually facing a challenge nowadays because the value of hard-work has somehow diminished. This is probably just a unavoidable consequence of the previous generation trying to make the next one’s life easier. I’m not putting the blame on anyone here. Just that I see a pupil’s life really is easier today :
 They have access to more facilities and equipments
 They usually don’t have to work with their parents at the same time
 They rarely have to wake up early like it’s been the case back in the days
 etc

With their lives made made more easier than their parents’ these kids have lost the value of hard-work and are often waiting for everything to come down in their plates. Moreover, they refuse to make any kind of effort (be it physical or intellectual) in order to get what they want. It’s almost like we owe it to them so why bother ?

My biggest challenge is to change that kind of mentality. It’s really no one’s fault but life isn’t easy and you need to learn it quick or you’re just going to feed the sharks roaming around...

Sports

Competition is probably over for me but I still want to keep my overall good physical shape. In order to achieve that, I’ll probably need to take up some sport anyway... I’m inclined to try to invest more time in tennis, and in individual sports in general.

The next accomplishment in sports would be to recreate this feeling of pure joy when playing while not playing for the win. This kind of amateurish and full of leisure state of mind is hard to reach after all this years of competition... I’ve taken up tennis 4 years ago and I still apply some kind of discipline to myself in order to improve and I feel like I’m not enjoying myself enough when playing. This is gonna be a tough cookie...

Considering my shape, I’ve heard the body changes its ways to deal with food, pain and other physical aspects around the mid thirties which will be my age ten years from now. So the challenge will come sooner than expected and I’d better ready myself and get prepared already...

Family

Of course, I don’t picture myself staying single all my life. Babies and people getting engaged seem to be sprouting everywhere among my close friends so I need to catch up (lol).

Dating someone would be the first step but I lack the time to seek opportunities. You can’t meet someone if you stay at home... Alas, I’m not too fond of parties & alcohol & stuff. I’d rather enjoy an hour or two laying in the sofa on a rainy day than a couples of hour in a smoky room with techno music during the hours in between...

Although I’m not too picky about gals, there are some common values we would have to share in order to start anything :
 politeness
 hardwork
 respect of traditions
 etc

Well, let’s start the journey to find someone !

The Time That Passes By

This ends my projections towards the next ten years. Time goes by so quickly that I’m sure I won’t even see it coming. I’ll be seeing you in a decade to check up what hopes have been made into reality.

In the meantime, enjoy your life !