The Volleyball Tournament aka Galbi Buffet

BBC had its annual volleyball tournament yesterday. The games were competitive and even my team had some bad records throughout the summer practices, did surprisingly better. Fortunate for us, we had Austin and Jon Jdsn joining our team so that Jung Uk's burden (apparently, he's our only hitter and setter) could be divided to them. Everyone played their best yesterday despite our (excluding the staffs) athletic ineptness, although we did not win any prizes. The freshman team became the champion (with Daniel's unbelievable feat in returning spikes). Almost everyone was bitter with the freshman team because they stacked their team in the middle of the tournament (which is somewhat dirty, if not illegal, IMO). However, I'm contented with my prize: galbi (mmm... yummy). It's a Korean style bbq ribs which are sliced across the ribs and marinated with this wonderful (somehow remained secret to me) sauce that nothing can go wrong with galbi. However, I made a terrible mistake by drinking coke after eating the galbi and was inundated by uneasy and sick feeling in my stomach. That made me more cautious about drinking sodas after or during buffet in the future. And because of that, I could not enjoy the Chinese buffet at Tin Tin restaurant that we went to after the volleyball tournament, although I managed to stuff myself with some oysters, crab legs and shrimps. Mmmm....

Finally I got to watch Cars today. I'm not really into cars (especially race cars), but almost everyone that I talked to told me that it was really good, so I thought that I should give it a try. And I did not regret that decision. Perhaps this is the first time I mentioned in this blog that I really appreciate heartrending movies, and Cars is definitely one of those movies that reached into me and moved my sentiment. It's a very typical Disney movie with predictable storyline, but yet it leaves significant influences to its audience. It starts off with a rookie (and of course, immature) Mr. "One-man-show" race car (Lightning McQueen) who only cared about winning the Piston Cup and did not care if he had true friends. A misfortunate event happened to him and he detoured into a small sleepy and abandoned town Route 66 of Radiator Springs where he was forced to do community service in the town to fix the road that he damaged on his way there. And our hero-to-be was subjected to many humbling moments by befriending the rusty cars, the cars which he did not want to have anything to do with before. There, he learned many driving tricks which most ignorant race cars were ignorant of and he got to see the infamous champion of the Piston Cup for 3 times - the Hudson Hornett - showing off his "turn left if you want to turn right" stunt, which led Lightning McQueen to take the lead of the race. However, the most heartfelt scene of the movie was when McQueen finally realized that there are more important things than trophies which caused him to relinquish his championship to aid a crushed car to finish his race. He finally discovered that life is about the journey, and not the finishing line.

It is easier to know what McQueen realized than realizing it. This message is not alien to me; however, I am still looking only at the finishing line. Very often after I crossed the line, I could not feel completely accomplished and was left with insatiable feeling. And yet each time whenever I'm in a race or a trip, I failed to enjoy the journey. Perhaps this is attributed to my impatience that made me only look forward to the results. Maybe I am over-competitive. Or maybe I am just lazy that I want to get over with anything that I do as quickly as possible. Whatever it is, I must remember to take deep breaths, sit back and appreciate things around me once in a while, instead of only using them as stepping stones towards my goal. Although deep down in my heart I wanted to give up my trophy for a more meaningful cause, I don't think that I could. That's why I am ashamed of myself at times.