Bangkok Refereeing Assignment

Hello,i think i look like a good columnist. Especially when i have both my hands placed by my sides & my gramma's pretty healthy.

When the coach from Bangkok invited me, she said she needed 3 good referees. Our referee director sees a lot of potential in Stumpie so he nominated her to work under our capable guidance.

Ok, so if Lil' Stumps comes along, that means i have to be her mentor and a role model to her. A good role model. That means for this trip, I cannot:

-surf our 5 star hotel's porn channels (coz our room has this big hole they call "adjoining doors"),
-walk around my hotel room naked,
-make new friends & utilise my king size bed fully
-buy porn magazines (for friends, really, really)

The tournament was held in International School of Bangkok. Its really like an expat village there. Place has high security & even their own Starbucks.
The teams were still as competitive as I recall back in Taipei 2006. The boys play rugby 10s while the girls play Touch. Great carnival atmosphere with life size mascots, school band & cheerleaders entertaining the spectators at half time & in between games. You can tell everybody, players, coaches, friends, including the parents, took this tournament seriously & had put their all into this competition.

Heard at the tournament:

From coaches-
"Fly up on defense!"

"Pass left! No,pass right,pass left now! Come on Sandy,make up your mind!"

"Tell the ref you touched her!TELL THE REF YOU TOUCHED HER!"

"Are you trying to say my player lied?"

From parents-
"Katie don't stand there!You're useless!"

"What are you doing??! You are running all over the place!"

"GO BAaaannNNNKKOOoooOK!!!" (at 199 decibel,point blank range)

From referees-
"Is my hair messy?"

"How's my hair?"

"Did you go for foot reflex last night?"

Day 2 of the competition I wasn't lucky enough,i didn't get food poisoning like 5 other people at the tournament, including Lil'Stumpie. So on day 3, Lil'Stumpie gave us the "touchdown-all-clear" hand signals lying under the announcer's table.

All in all, although a Baby-Tok was under my care, i must say i still learnt some from a 20 year old. I learnt i can go for facial & get them to rub my dark eye cirlces off & drinking beer can "cool" my body heat down.
For now, it's back to Wantoks in sunny Singapore...

Anne Goh

Writer just had her virgin facial & is still peeved that the beautician did not rub off her dark eye circles.
And the part about making new friends to utilise her king size bed is purely her superego joking.
She still referees/coaches/ panicks actively.