Getting to know TPKRT: Episode 4: Quartermaster Damien
Mr Muscle. Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I get the image of Damien wearing that tight orange bodysuit you see in those corny detergent advertisements. 

zomg lol i can't stop laughing.

But hey, you know, you never really should judge a book by its cover.

(aw. Kitty.)

You know, Damien's actually a really gentle kind of guy. Although he looks like a dragonboater (and constantly gets mistaken for one), his personality is anything but. 

If you happen to be next to him when he buys a drink or a snack, he'll automatically offer some to you first. Sometimes second, if he's really thirsty.

He never hits anyone. Well, sometimes it may LOOK like he's smacking Bryan or Kok Wei, but obviously he's not hitting them for real or they'd wind up in hospital by now.

His loyalty to the team is also commendable. Earlier this year, before you guys came in, He entered the track and field team (on request. Because of those muscles, methinks) with a close friend. 

Coach, however, chewed them out because having two sports CCAs means that your commitment level will drop for sure. (are you taking note of this?), and gave them the ultimatium- leave track and field, or the Canoeing team (we were still the Canoeing team, back then.)

I'm sure it must have been a difficult choice, due to friendship and whatnot. But Damien chose to stay on.

"“The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.”" - Rensis Likert.

 To de- cheemify it, the more visible loyalty there is within a group, the more motivation there is to acheive the collective goals of the group, and the more likely the group is to succeed.

I guess you can say that indirectly, Damien's choice to stay on was one of our greatest motivations.

See girls, he's quite the catch. Seize your chance, quick!

(not just girls chase after him. xD )

Jokes aside... Damien and Weijie are alike in the sense that they do not have that 'Seniors ego' which i notice in most of the other sports clubs. 

The structure is roughly shaped like an hourglass. The top bulb is all the seniors in the team, the waist of the hourglass is the Captain, Vice-captain etc and the bottom half is the juniors. The only link to the juniors which them have is mostly through the Captain or vice captain.

But in TPKRT, we were never shown that isolation. Damien would ask us whether we want to go gymming, or, during the holidays, whether we wanted to go down to row twice.

In spite of that, when we get punished, Damien takes most of the responsibility, and double the punishment, without complaint.

Errr.... punishments are rare. Thats why it was so memorable, the day we spent the afternoon raking ALL the leaves up from the club.... (and then the rain came and the wind blew MORE leaves down from the trees and we were like #$%^&.)

Team matters aside, he loves his friends, and will go out of his way to do stuff for them. (No matter how much he whines xD) In fact, i don't recall him missing any of our team's birthday celebrations so far. And not just because he happened to be present.

On my birthday, he came all the way to my house (Bishan) although he stays in Bukit Timah (you can see the hill from his house ^_^ ) with a group of my friends to surprise me with a cake.

My Jaw dropped open that night. Seriously. Its these small things people like Damien do which are often overlooked, and underappreciated. But do try to look out for them.

While i've spent all this time ranting about how nice and fluffy Damien is, do remember that he IS your senior, and the fastest rower on the team. 

(And he IS strong. That's roughly about 150 KG, 5 reps If you think I look strong, my maximum is 100. once. Do the math.)

He also makes a study of the word 'perseverance' (No, not void stone and ring of health.) He may be the fastest now, but he was the slowest in learning how to balance on the racing kayak, K-1.

In fact, he spent the better part of a month longer on a T boat when everybody else on the team progressed to the K-1. But he didn't give up. He simply went for his first competition in the T boat category... and proceeded to win a Silver Medal. (losing the gold only by one second. He's still kinda sore about that till now.)

When you ever think about giving up, think about Damien. That's the kind of resilience you ought to have if you want to succeed in life, not just in kayaking.

Anyway, if you ever wanna bulk up, learn how to start gymming without hurting yourself and the like, he's your man.

Ok, time for a secret.

Do you know one of Damien's nicknames?

Its *whispers* *CoughGaymiencough*.

Because....

Its no secret that he enjoys a little hot man-on-man action every once in a while!! =D

......

Is it just me, or do i feel the earth shaking?

*Runs away very, very fast.*

-Kiiro (The donkey who ate 4 cadbury bars for breakfast and tried to go bullimic.)