wordplay 2012

Last week, 

26th September 2012

My Wordplay team - THE SMSA WORDPLAY TEAM, consisting of Yutong, Syazwan, Bazielah, Ummi and me WON WORDPLAY. NATIONAL WORDPLAY.

Epic? Ummm well the winner's prize was actually a trip to UK.

Epiiiiccccc!!!

I know I was amazed (still am) too. I mean, we just had this random audition for wordplay a week before the real wordplay. I tried out because miss Umi asked us to. We went along with it and passed the first round....and the second too. 

Syazwan really didn't want to play because it seemed like a distraction from his studies and I agreed but since it was going to be over in 3-4 days (our group was finalized 3 days before the competition), I urged him just to go along with it. I mean, he is smart and would be useful for the team, even if I was not in it. But eventually, I became a member of the team too :D

Wordplay : Preliminary Round

We were up against 4 teams: PTE KATOK, PTE MERAGANG, PTE TUTONG & MAKTAB DULI. 

You know, these schools reputations are no joke...so yeah, my confidence crashed kind of early in the game but it was not a really devastating confidence crash. I had hope still left for us. 

Round 1: General Knowledge

Round 2: Wordbricks

Round 3: Spelling

Round 4: Vocabulary

Round 5: General Knowledge

Round 6: Anagrams

(Im really not sure if the order went like this...but similar)

So, anagrams were given early in the game for us to solve throughout the 1 hour while doing the other rounds.

The anagram was a picture clue with jumbled words beside it. It always had an overall theme.

For general knowledge, we were pretty good with it...I admit. 

Wordbricks, the first time we did it we only got ONE MARK. Apparently, we got one of the rules wrong....mostly because the presenter not explaining any of the rules! Unfair, right??? We didn't even get pity marks. We were last place in the beginning because of this.

Spelling was okay for us.

We suck at VOCAB. No, - seriously - it is a genuine suck. hahaha. 

For anagrams, we did well for it. 

So we were last place right? RIGHT? We were kind of disturbed about the fact at first...you can see our spirits dying down in the first part of the game but we picked ourselves up. THANK GOODNESS FOR MATURED TEAMMATES. Seriously, if they were the kind of people who were just so emotionally helpless, we couldn't have won.

It was teamwork. Definitely. 

So after we finished all the rounds, we had a short break and repeated all the rounds again. Which school had the highest marks (top two) went into the finals.

When we did the first round of the 6 rounds (sorry for being confusing), we went up 3rd place. I'm serious. From last place, to 3rd place... quite a few points behind the 2nd place. I really thought there was no chance. 

But our teachers supported us throughout (mostly because if we won, they get to follow us to UK too). They had high hopes for us and said that if we failed to go to finals, they were going to leave us in Bandar. with our phones. hahah.

So then we went again, repeated all the rounds again. Up we went. Still third place. Mhmmm

until the final round...our heart beated so fast...

We managed - just managed - to get ahead of PTEM by 2 points. We were second place! Against PTEK!

Unbelievable!!!!!!!!

WORDPLAY FINALS

This time we had buzzers for ourselves and had to race against time to answer questions. Spelling and wordbricks were individual rounds. Others are team, but for anagrams, instead of getting picture clues, we get statement clues and jumbled up words - given orally. 

No writings, just scribbles on our own. Previously, all our answers were on paper but not in the finals.

For the 2 rounds before Vocabulary, we were tied with PTEK (frustrating!!) but after vocab, we fell behind by 6 points...then for the next, we were tied AGAIN. Final round: ...

just one point ahead. 

I really thought we would not be able to win (our training was difficult) and speaking about the UK trip was a taboo subject, didn't want to jinx it and overhope, but now WE WON.

WE WON.

I cannot stress it enough. It just feels so surreal and felt dreamlike, the moment we won by just one point, Just ONE.This kind of happiness always feels like a fantasy. It is hard for me to accept it so easily...nevertheless.... that doesn't ruin it at all.