First league game tonight. Felt so helpless. While my team mates were warming up for the game, I was at home lying up on bed like a useless bum. Since that shin injury and operation, I had felt lost and detached.

I missed soccer more than anything.

On the morning of the operation, my team was playing a friendly game. That was the first time I felt I am not where I should be. The first game since I wore no.1 that I wasn't present. Nobody except my coach knew my absence until that morning. I entered the operating theatre at half time, and emerged with an sms telling me I had been replaced. The substitute keeper was exactly who I had in mind.

First heart pain.

I couldn't sleep even though I was dead tired. I felt my legs were detached from me. Absolutely no strength to move them. The hole was still deep and painful. It was the thought of my team mates far away on the soccer field that kept me waiting through that 90 minutes.

I was fidgety. I looked at my handphone for any updates almost every 5 minutes.

I badly wanted to know how they fare. I wished they could win, because it is my team they represent. But there is this nagging feeling deep inside me. I wanted them to lose terribly, I couldn't bear the thought of a person who has only trained a week to play better than me between the posts.

If only I could be a gracious sportsman and suppress this feeling.

They came after the game. My coach and my team mates actually came to see me after the game! I was touched. I missed them all. I found I could joke and laugh with them as though I had known them for ages. They had come to see an injured team mate. They told me they lost 0-3 to U-19. Incredibly, my first thought was 'oh dear, we lost'. It was hours after that I realised: someone has done much better than I did. I made it 0-4 in a half on my debut, she made 0-3 in an entire game. I did a 0-4 against U-19 after 2 years, she could do 0-3 after a week's training. She's certainly the future of our team. I'm proud. I'm jealous.

Tonight, I felt I'm only wanted by my soccer team. One week more before I return to school. I really didn't want to return.

Throughout the week, I'm made to feel like a soccer player, not a student.

Blank slate... what is it exactly?

As a person who draws, or rather, doodles in class during boring lectures, a blank slate is definitely any piece of paper I can get my hands on... the back of a tutorial sheet, the margins of the lecture notes, anything... anything that can make me look like I'm taking notes...

And what do I draw on them? Anything... anything that comes to mind that day. One day I might be doing 'abstract art', another day it's a 4x4 comic strip, and another it could be a fanart of some cartoon character... just anything... you never know when I might just draw you in class with your elbows crossed below your face and your hair sticking up. When things get awfully boring, I've been caught in the act of drawing my own hands, or more precisely, my own fingers. The same ones holding that pencil.

Blank slate... what is it exactly?

As a person who plays the role of goalkeeper for the university soccer team, a blank slate is definitely a clean sheet. Different keepers might have different ideas and motivation to play in between the uprights, but the utimate aim of any keeper is to keep a clean sheet. That's the role we play, and that's the meaning of our existance on the field.

A clean sheet, how easy (or difficult) is it?

It's never easy to keep a clean sheet, or should I say, a worthwhile clean sheet? If we were to play against the national seniors, their keeper would definitely keep a clean sheet, but of what value is it to her? If she only stops the ball once in 90 minutes? Compare that to an IVP game in which both our team and the opponent's skill level is almost identical. Now a clean sheet in such a game is definitely worthwhile, because the keeper and her defenders would have had to give their best to earn such an honour.

We always celebrate wildly with the forwards whenever they score a goal. This celebration is too far away for the keeper to enjoy. Nobody sees a keeper rush up to the halfway line to hug a fellow teammate who just scored a goal, do they?

In 90 minutes, regardless of the number of chances she has, as long as a forward manages 1 goal, she is hailed as the hero of the game. In 90 minutes, regardless of the number of saves she made, as long as a keeper concedes 1 goal, she is condemned as the villian of the team. In 0-1 losses, this drastic difference in emotion on both sides of the playing field is very obvious. The losing keeper will be upset over that half-a-second concentration lapse, while the winning keeper will be relieved over the narrow win she has grasped on for dear life for 90 minutes.

Blank slate... what is it exactly?

It's life. We add things to our own blank slate everyday. We were each born with a blank slate. How we add colours and patterns on it is all up to us. Some choose to fully express themselves on it, some choose to hide their slate away from the public, and still some choose to make a mess of it. Sometimes we draw streaks of black; sometimes we paint a beautiful picture; sometimes we make scratches on it; sometimes we mend it; sometimes... ...

Whatever we do, the slate will never be the same again.

Life has no undo button, live it once and live it well.