Temasek Polytechnic Kayak Racing Team

Getting to know TPKRT [Season 2]

Episode 9: Charles Timothy Tan

*Drumroll*

Presenting to you....

The cheerful creature.

.... o_O

The Butt shall be introduced in the next episode.

Meet Charles. A.k.a Timothy. Or Charles Timothy. Or Tim. Or Timo. Its fun that he has two names, you can pretty much call him anything you like. =D

It gave me great pleasure to write from episode 9 onwards. Because from today onwards we will feature the juniors in the team. And i can say this (I think the grand seniors will understand it better than us) There is nothing quite like watching your freshies grow up. *sniff*

Uh. I mean...

Timothy was part of the october intake in 2008, meaning that they joined 6 months later than our current senior batch. May not seem like very long, but trust me, its a really big difference. Come back to read this 6 months later and you will understand.

And, it sucks to admit it, but the fact is we did not have very much time to spare for the october intake last year, as it was smack in the middle of our season. (Which never seems to end one it starts...) Their batch was not as fortunate as yours to have the seniors' errr...... 'undivided attention' in the form of swimming training and such. They did not even have land trainings, either, come to think of it. Which is why the handful of them who managed to stay on, and reach the level that they have, are truly praiseworthy.

Well, Tim's been a sportsman since before he joined the team.... you should ask him to tell you his story one day. He was 'picked up' from the gym by Weijie. Very randomly. Lol. (But do you believe in fate? =O)

But I know for a fact that Tim was doing self training very regularly in the form of pull ups and running after joining the team. I saw him sometimes, but he didn't see me because i have l33t ninja skillz. =D

I recall during one of the land trainings, i pointed out a couple of guys to the rest of you. I don't know if you remember. Tim was one of them. That was for his initiative, while the other were sitting and waiting for instructions , Tim was one of those who'd pull his group on to the next station... and the next station....

Technically, there's nothing wrong with sitting and waiting for the next set of instructions. Eventually the guys are all going have to do that in the (ugh.) Army. At this point, you probably have some idea of how i feel about lovely Singapore's compulsory conscription policy, but, moving on....

Initiative. That's what seperates the average from the exemplary.

And here's your prime example right he-

What are you doing with that paddle, Charles? o_O

That's one funny thing about Tim. lol. He tends to get himself into many potentially photoshoppable pictures. Its in his nature. Such as this one.

And this one.

I don't know how many will get the 2nd one, but its funny as hell to me. x)

Anyway, counting the days, it looks like we're going to be able to refer to them as 'juniors' for much longer, guys.

Inititally, I was going to post about Tim, the crazy 'junior' who managed to run the 42km Sundown Marathon along with 3 of the crazier seniors...

Which he did. And he ran faster than me. T_T and STILL has strength left to pose.

But then i realised that they are drawing ever closer to becoming seniors as well, in their own right. They've been with the team for more than 7 months, now, and entered a couple of competitions of their own, too... like this one. Oh look! They're winning!