12/3/2017
Day 2 of Davis tournament
Once again we left for the gym around 8am. It was funny when we got there because we walked in as a group and some girl at the check in table was like “Excuse me you need to check in.” I said we already did yesterday and kept walking. And she’s like “oh you have to do it again today” and I replied with “Someone will do it for us” and kept walking. Now that I think about it, it was kinda rude LOL. Our team was laughing cause Thinh, the guy from yesterday’s dinner, was like damn Derrick literally just shut that girl down like she has no say in anything. Oops :P
Doubles day! I was excited for this because it’s my strength. Van and I first started playing our entire B flight, which only consisted of 2 matches. We started off against Max Kam and Dexter Vu. Van said he has never beaten Max before and that his arm is a cannon. I feel like Max and Dexter weren’t warm yet because we beat them fairly easily in 2 games. Next we played Calvin Dai and Tim Tong, who actually ended up winning BMD. Gdi Tim is, even though by small increments, getting better every time I see him. Van and I call him “The Gatling Gun” because once he hits 1 drive, he keeps pushing forward with rapid drive shots and nothing will get past him. Like it is nothing I have ever seen before. Calvin would literally take like 10 steps every rally because he either starts with a smash followed by Tim’s drives or Tim’s drives are so pressuring that someone lifts and Calvin kills it. Stupid strong pair.
I won CMD! But this was a disappointing victory if I may say so. We “played” 5 matches to win first. Destroyed some nobody’s in the first round who somehow beat Lawrence Chen if you remember who he is. 2nd round we played Pho Ly if that name rings a bell. Never played him but I’ve definitely heard of that name at our tournaments. All the D men’s players on our team was like dude you have to beat this guy. Prove that he isn’t a B player like most people say he is. And show him that his smash isn’t as hard as people say. It was funny cause once we got on the court, Pho and his partner asked Van if I speak Viet in Viet…and then they started having their own convo. Would have been miserable if they started counting score in Viet too LOL. Super intense game and my hardest match of the day. The entire team watched us win 14-21, 21-12, 23-21. I mean I threw my racket at the end so you get the idea. Quarters we played Tommy Chiu and Matthew Hsieh. Their drive game was troubling for us especially with Tommy’s fast cut offs and Matt covering in the back. 2-0 them.
Semi-finals, the one I think you’re happy to hear, was against Anjo and Patrick Tsai. Literally one of the most disappointing matches I have ever played in my years of badminton. It ranks up there with my NCS with Chris against Robert and Justin from Logan. 21-2 and 21-10. Like we had a score conflict in the first game and we won the argument making it 5-1 and then next thing I knew they got a point making it 2-18. Before 2nd game, I spoke to Danae in Canto that we won 21-2 and she was like WTF and everything in Canto. Thinh who was sitting next to her looked super lost so Van spoke to him in Viet and we all started laughing LOL. 2nd set they showed why they lost. They are good individuals but a horrible pair with no chemistry and communication. Patrick is left-handed. Considering that these 2 play together so often, I would expect better rotation. Van just kept pushing left and right and they kept crashing into each other. He also told me to just keep smashing to the middle and their rackets kept clashing.
Finals, we played Max and Dexter again. That was short lived. They pushed themselves so hard in semi against James and John (the twins) that Dexter collapsed with a cramp after 4 points. I offered him rest time, Gatorade, and even said we have PT people with rollers who can help. They forfeit in the end as we predicted. And that’s how I walked away with a 1st place LOL check out the pics tho. Too bad the one with Randy is somewhat blurry but I thought it’s pretty nice.
After we left Davis, we went to BJ’s. Almost an hour wait because we were waiting for another group of 25 to leave and they were just chilling. Some people wanted to drink such as Van and Peter. Van I didn’t say anything because he’s driving alone. Peter said he’s ordering something if Van is and I’m like aren’t you driving. He said just 1 and I’m like but there are people in your car. And he’s like that’s true and took it back…Daniel Wong ended up being the only person who ordered a beer and shared it with some people. I ordered a prime rib and my god this is actually the saddest steak I have ever eaten. I ordered medium rare and I think it came out medium well. Chewy and dry and I have never had a steak over-seasoned. Super salty. At least the monkey bread pizookie I had in the end was good. Oh yea! After we ordered our drinks, Randy and I saw our waitress, who was super nice, sip one of the drinks she was putting on the tray and took it to our table…not sure who’s it was but that was awkward LOL. I also secretly told the waiter that it’s actually Thinh’s bday in a few days and was wondering if we could include something for him. He was super surprised wit his pizookie and also said kinda gave a thank you speech before we got into our cars to head home. I actually found out his bday at the HK cafe but he said to keep it down because he didn’t want everyone knowing…I hope he wasn’t upset or offended in anyway but I just wanted to do something for our teammate :P
The drive home was horrible mainly because every ptfo so I had no one to talk to. We set our destination at the Shell near Van’s house to gas up. So here is where a rant begins. Basically all cars arrived at Shell at different times because some people, such as myself, dropped off people who lived in Milpitas before arriving. CJ, who is already the slowest driver, dropped off someone in Union City and also had to drop Aliza near Great Mall. He said it’ll take him another 30 minutes to get here. So I thought heck instead of everyone waiting in the cold, the fact that I’m driving a van, and also I’m not paying for gas, I could just drive a bunch of people, drop them off on campus, then come back. This way drivers won’t have to be going out of their way later and I can just do 1 trip while waiting for CJ. Everyone liked the idea so I took people who lived on campus and people who had rides waiting at school. Randy is one of the drivers. After I called out who lives near campus, Daniel Wong asked if he can ride with me. I mean I knew he was an asshole but this is far out there. Even Van called him out for it over text and he’s usually the one who tells me to chill about him. I’m like wait aren’t you going home with Randy? He said if I drove him, he could shower and sleep 30 minutes earlier. I’m like so you’re just gonna leave your housemate here? He gave me a glare and was like fuck it fine I’ll stay. I’m like ok fine wtv so Daniel muttered something under his breath and went to get his stuff. Randy literally double flipped him off and mouthed “fuck you” right behind Daniel and most people saw. Then as I was loading the van, Danae was sleeping in the passenger seat. I was 2 seats short so I asked if she could stay here with the others. She tackled me with questions which I got super pissed about: “Why do you need to take them back? Why can’t they wait? Why do you have to be the one to take them back? Who am I waiting with?” Like I had to answer everything and people hear this. And she was complaining when she got out of the car. Daniel Wong eventually got the hint we were short on seats and reluctantly just grabbed his bag and got out without a word. I’m like seriously you two?
While driving back, I couldn’t help but think Danae has actually caused more trouble than anything on this trip. And it just really pissed me off. Even while driving people back to school, they jokingly said dude Danae looked like she’s gonna murder us. I’m like dude these people barely know you but I feel like they can judge you accurately. She caused a fuss on Saturday morning because she thought someone was gonna go get breakfast for the team. I asked her if she coached anyone during this tournament and she’s like no because she didn’t have breakfast so she can’t think straight and in the middle of the day between her games, most people lost already so there’s no point. I’m like dude, you’re a coach. Take some damn responsibility. She also got breakfast on Sunday morning and didn’t offer to get me any. I didn’t mind but knowing her, it is surprising. And I was swerving a bit on the way back from Davis because I was sleepy but not once did she offer to drive. I hate to admit it but she’s just leeched on this trip. Just pissed me off the whole drive from Shell back to Fremont.
When I got home, I jumped in the shower and crawled into bed asap because I was too dead to care for anything else in the world LOL what a trip :)