An introduction to Rugby Union

Starting life as just an offshoot of football, rugby union is today a major outdoor sport in its own right. One of the two forms of rugby football (along with rugby league), it is generally considered the more popular, being played by men in over 100 countries in five continents and by women in 52 countries. Indeed, according to statistics from the International Rugby Board, approximately 3 million individuals aged 6 to 60 years regularly play rugby union.

A substantial reason for such figures is rugby union’s cross-sport appeal. It is typically compared to an array of other sports such as football (with the game tracing its origins back to the beautiful game), American Football (largely due to the emphasis on ball-in-hand in both games) and rugby league (for obvious reasons). As such, for any sports fan, there is something familiar and therefore attractive about rugby union. However, while such similarities make the basics of rugby union easy to pick up, to understand the game properly requires more than a little effort and patience (which is where we come in!).

Such nuances are perfectly logical considering the physical nature of rugby union. Statistics have shown that injuries in the sport have increased commensurately with the growth in rugby’s popularity. A look at the injury record of England’s Jonny Wilkinson, for example, will give you a sense of the physical demands of rugby union. As such, setting out detailed regulations on what can and cannot be done is the best possible safety guarantee both to individuals starting out in the game, and experienced professionals.

Nevertheless, the expansion of rugby union over the last two centuries is proof of how, with the proper safety precautions and on-field attitude, the enjoyment you get from playing or watching far outweighs any risks. Rugby union’s status as a worldwide sport is confirmed by the 85 national members of the International Rugby Board, and the old image of the game as divided into northern and southern hemispheres with just a few teams from each composing the sport in full is long gone. Instead, the modern rugby union is thriving, with the old core of England and the Home Nations, Australia, South Africa, France and New Zealand expanded to incorporate teams from Argentina, Fiji, USA, Italy, Japan, Canada and even Romania.

Frequent international and club level competitions illustrate the sport’s prosperity, while its global reach is confirmed every four years with the World Cup. First established in 1987, this tournament is today considered one of the world’s sporting highlights behind the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics. Whereas the 1987 affair saw a cumulative audience of 300 million, just 16 years later the 2003 tournament attracted an incredible 3.5 billion viewers all together, with the event broadcast in 205 countries. The nearest equivalents at club level, the Heineken Cup in Europe and the Super 14 in the southern hemisphere attract millions of viewers in their own right, with the events broadcast in over 100 and 40 countries respectively.

Facts such as these have led to increasing calls from the International Rugby Board right down to the players for rugby union to be re-instated as an Olympic event. First included between 1900 and 1924 (with the USA remarkably winning two gold medals in 1920 and 1924 during highly truncated competitions), the Olympic board have been lobbied by many countries since the 1980s to reconsider their cancellation. There are positive omens as well, with the shorter ‘Sevens’ form of rugby union currently a part of the Commonwealth Games.

The greatest argument in favour of rugby union as an Olympic sport is the sheer number of adherents to the sport. At its best, the game is an incredibly entertaining, physically and mentally challenging affair. Moreover, with the proper guidance, it’s very easy to understand, both as a spectator and a player. With that in mind, put your learning cap on and get involved!

Get Money Savvy

According to money expert Antonia Magee, “As soon as you start getting money, you should learn how to save it.”

As teenagers, some of us may think that it is unnecessary to start saving at this age. Think of it this way: the more money you put away today, the more money you will have tomorrow to get that awesome prom dress, designer bag or heels! Having said that, let me lay down a few ways so that you will not shy away from all that money woes anymore.

Firstly, know your income. If you get a standard allowence, this is a breeze. But if you supplement your allowence with earnings from working part time or other means, you need to at leat estimate how much you are getting. If you do not know how much you have got, you would not know what you can do with it.

Next, track your spending. The next time you reach out for your wallet to pay for something, make a mental note and later jot it down, even if its just a couple of ringgit. This way, you can know how much you spend daily, and at the end of the month, you can roughly estimate if you have been overspending or otherwise.

Set aside savings. This is not an option! In fact, your spending should only involve what you have left after you have put away some savings. At the same time, be realistic. Make sure you have enough with you to spend on food and other neccesaties. As a guideline, experts say you should put away 10% of your income as savings.

Lastly, you have to pick your splurges. You have to know the difference between wants and needs. Then be wise about splurges, if you really want that hot handbag from Carlo Rino, you may have to give up a couple, or even more dinners at Nandos! As tough as it may seem, you cannot have everything. So weigh out your splurge options and make sure it is really worth it.

Just follow some, if not all, of the steps listed above, you would find your bank account growing in no time!

How to wake up EARLY in the Morning

Kring…….!!I dare ask that how many of us did actually wake up early in the morning? Well you might as well answer that for yourself. Yep,after hearing the annoying alarm snooze some of us might just wake up from the temporary death while some of us would just press off the button on that alarm clock (or handphone) and get back to his or her slumber. Late for lecture,late for tutorial, would be the effect of it. Yet here I am,trying to give some tips on how to wake up early in the morning.

Yes,as I said earlier, some of us would get back to their slumber even after hearing the alarm clock.This would make us late waking up in the morning (or rather afternoon).So,to prevent us from getting back to our pillow,prepare a glass of drinking water besides your sleeping place and drink it as soon as you open your eyes from sleep.The thing is that your eyes is open when you just wake up but some of the organs inside of your body isn’t. Thus it need to be refreshed and water is the thing that they need.

The next,would be one of the most obvious yet mostly ignored is,sleeping early.Though it is not alien to us,this might as well be a reminder.This is what happen if we tend to sleep late in the night,OVERSLEPT.Sleeping at night is a whole different thing than sleeping during daytime.Sleeping during the night refreshes our mind and body thus making it easier for us to wake up earlier at the same time getting enough rest.

Last but not least,create a compelling reason on why should I wake up early?Ask yourself about that and make it a strong one.By doing this,it will set our mind and body to wake up at the o’clock that we want to.Maybe at first it won’t be successful but you know what they say;diligence is the mother of good luck!So keep trying harder and harder everytime to wake up early in the morning and at last you would succeed in doing so.

In the nutshell,waking up from the slumber early in the morning is essential as we would have more time for the day itself and feeling rather refreshed and ready to face challenges of the day.Early bird always catches the worm so be one now and see the changes in your life as it will be better.Last word from me,sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.

My Life

It has been already almost 4 months that I spent my new life in PETRONAS University of Technology as a foundation student in technology, majoring in Business Information System. A year of struggling, and everything will seem to be to fall in place just like I planned. But the rest is very subjective. I cannot seek to ponder on what would happen next but I believe that I have put my faith in the right place. Let the everything unfolds by itself. It is very hard to adapt to my new life here, being independent in such many ways. People have told me before that life can be hard, but I never get the chance to experience it myself. I am very grateful now that I am able to take care of myself in terms of my own life, my time management, the peculiar education system which is defies theidea of school that I had indulged in nearly 11 years, and the abundance of course works.

I get the chance to make new friends from all over the country. Men and women. Sharing different perspectives and ideas that I have done before in time, but the thing is that, being a grown-up means having a whole new layer of knowledge and level of respect and that is what different from schools. Being here, with all of my new friends makes me feel safe and secure, but most of all, as a person, I am genuinely happy of finally free to be who I really am.

Thank you for reading

WAN AFIFI ZAWAWIE BIN WAN ZAKARIA - 16543

One Man Band-Irony

The character I like most in the animated short movie, One Man Band which was played during my English lecture is the little girl, Tippy. The main reason I like her is because she is very cheeky. She has a gold coin with her which she wanted to drop into a fountain. However, just as she was about to do that, a musician, Bass at the roadside catches her attention. He tries to convince her to give her the coin.

Just as she was about to give him the coin after listening to his music, once again she is distracted; this time by another musician by the roadside, Trebel. The movie goes on for a while with both the musicians trying to prove to Tippy that they are better. Suddenly, the little girl's gold coin drops into the drain. This makes the girl very angry. She forces one of the musician to give her a violin. When she gets what she wants, she plays a tune and a passer-by gives her a bag of gold coins. This is when Tippy is cheeky. She acts as though she wants to give the musicians a gold coin each but in the end she drops the coins into the fountain.

Towards the end of the movie, we can see irony, where both the musicians, who were initially competing for one gold coin, end up working together and helping each other to extract the coins from the fountain.

BOLD

It was the first time she’d had doubts about the plan. Since the day Eve and her met, AZMAN had decided to trust her, and just like she always did she’d followed her almost blindly into the mess they had put themselves in. Still, she had to admit it didn’t seem such a bad idea at first; it was an escapade, an adventure, a master plan to change their lives. And to be honest, at least to that purpose, it had worked.
She could hardly remember living with her mother three months before. Her mother’s life consisted in a chain of relationships with abusive men, drinking and the challenge to hold a job longer than a week. All that required a lot of time, so AZMAN was left to take care of herself, and she had easily learnt how to. She would wake up late in the afternoon, walk around the city aimlessly until dark and then meet her friends at The Hole. The Hole was a club were rock bands played almost every day and her so-called friends were those who like her, spent night after night there. Trite conversations, struggling to talk over the deafening sound of the loudspeakers, lustful glances through the smoke that filled the place, ending in alcohol-fuelled declarations of never-ending friendship and love.
She had met Eve there. She remembered the exact date because she had been waiting for that night to come for so long. The 10th of May her favourite band, Dementia, was playing at The Hole. She had been a fan since she was 13, when they’d first started playing four years ago and that would be the seventh time she’d seen them live. She was there early to be right in front, were she could get a good view of Rick, the lead singer. If ZAMAN admitted there was such thing as the man of her dreams, it would definitely be him. Rick filled her thoughts, her dreams and her fantasies just like his pictures filled every space on her bedroom walls. He was tall, dark and very thin. A lifestyle of touring and taking every drug available was the explanation for his thinness and the shine in his eyes. It was also the reason why, after a hit single and a published album, the band was playing in such a small venue as The Hole. After continuous scandals on the tabloids, fights between band members and three years without any new material, everyone seemed to think they had lost it. Except AZMAN, of course.
Eve turned out to be as obsessed as her. They had met in the front row of the audience and spent the rest of the night commenting on just how great Dementia was, the best band ever, talking about how much every song meant, longing for Rick to look at them, to just notice them for a second. And that was how it all began.
They had started hanging out together after that night and one rainy afternoon as they walked around a supermarket to kill time Eve had told her about the plan. She had come up with an idea to kidnap Rick. It sounded crazy but she was convinced no one would take care of him like they would. It wasn’t your typical kidnapping and asking for a ransom, they would only hold him back until he was better, off drugs and writing new songs again. They would be helping him, there was nothing wrong about it and he would most surely thank them for it in the end. The more they talked about it, the more it seemed the best idea ever, and the girls hugged, happy to share such a great purpose. Shoppers walking by looked at them, intrigued by the two weird teenagers who were hugging each other so excitedly next to the milk cartons.
It was clear that weren’t going to do it by force. Both of them were small and thin and looked much younger than their age. AZMAN always wore a torn ballerina skirt and military boots which made her seem innocent yet mildly threatening and although Eve was much more womanly, she disguised her curves under layers of strictly black clothing. They would have to use their minds, and in the end, it turned out to be much easier than it seemed.
They pretended to be preparing an article about the band and contacted him for an interview. They asked him over to Eve’s apartment, which they had properly disguised as some sort of magazine headquarters, and after asking him about the long-awaited new album, AZMAN pointed a gun at him. It was a heavy old-fashioned gun her mother kept in the top drawer of her dresser. She never noticed AZMAN had taken it, nor could she imagine how natural it had felt for her daughter to point a gun at someone. It had really been as simple as that.
The first few days had been the hardest, getting used to Eve’s apartment, the room they had prepared to keep him in, taking turns to keep an eye on Rick. He was too resigned or too doped out to fight back at all, and they almost forgot he was meant to be their prisoner. He was probably glad to have an excuse to get away from all the troubles he was going through with the band. No one found him missing either, they were all used to him disappearing and leaving them stranded mid-tour.
After a few weeks he started to open up to them. He would tell them anything that went through his mind, and the girls would listen with their eyes wide open, like little children listen to storytellers. He had definitely lacked someone to talk to, and to be honest, these girls had paid more attention and cared more about him than anyone had in those last few years. Fame, although if it was only temporary and brief, had left him with a bittersweet feeling of loneliness and isolation under the spotlight, even while he was being surrounded by crowds.
AZMAN and Eve soon forgot that the plan had to end somehow and started spiralling down into an emotional well, trying to capture his attention with every word and every gesture. To please him, to feel approved by the person they had idolised and who in their eyes had turned out to be even more perfect that they could have imagined. It started turning into a permanent competition for his affection, to be the one who cared most, his favourite captor. Love or obsession is something hard to measure, but only one of them could win at that game.
And it turned out to be Eve. AZMAN would wake up after it was her turn to rest and find Rick in the other’s arms. Laughing, at their own jokes, in their own universe into which she was never invited. Once more, AZMAN was the one left out. But this time it hurt more than it had ever hurt before. She had believed he was the only one who could ever understand her. Every interview she’d read or heard, every newspaper clipping about him she had cut out and kept sacredly, had made her sure he had to be her soul mate. And those days with him, all those hours watching him, feeding him, feeling him so close, had only convinced her that she had always been right. Seeing him being taken by someone else in front of her eyes felt like a sharp pain in her chest, which travelled all through her body leaving her helpless and numb.
The situation got worse with time. Eve and Rick would act as if she wasn’t there at all. They would even sleep together while AZMAN, when it was time for her watch, had to sit awake looking at them. Their heads so close together, dreaming of worlds she wasn’t a part of, their deep rhythmic breathing drilling into her brain. Only then had AZMAN started to have doubts about the plan. She had been too naive not to realise before. Eve had used her and betrayed her in the worst way possible. And he had lost him forever.
AZMAN considered leaving, going back to her mother’s, to feeling miserable and forgotten, but it would be different. Until then, she had always had the comfort that he could be hers one day, that he would finally know they were meant for each other. There was no hope for her now and deep inside her, despair had started to take over. Jealousy is a blinding emotion; it leads us to things we would have never admitted to be capable of.
The gun felt cold and much heavier than the first time. A small ray of moonlight came in through a window and made the barrel glitter as she crossed the corridor into the room where they slept soundly holding each other. If she couldn’t have him, if they weren’t meant to be together, no one else should. AZMAN fired the gun twice and didn’t miss once. As blood trickled to the floor, still warm and bright red, she looked at the smile still on his face. The same smile he had on all the pictures in the posters she had daydreamed about. Thinking about it, she rested the gun on her temple and fired the last shot. She knew that she would never be alone anymore, that now he would never leave her..........TO MISS STANEE...^_^

The “thing” that changed Me..

banshees ?Are you nuts ?No,I am not.This is me. Fadzly .I’m always skeptical about superstitious “things” such as ghosts,ghouls,vampires and such.Well I do believe that these ‘unseen’ entities do exists in our world,but yeah I’ve never been disturbed or even saw one in my whole life.Oops.But that’s then.It seems that I said it too early.

So,this is my life in a seemingly normal and boring boarding school. Even if I’m skeptical about these supernatural entities,I love to hear tales about them.And yes,please tell me which school doesn’t have their own ghost story.Usually I dig these stories from the girls as they have plenty of them.And I take it as a mere tales.

It’s said that when the school was built,it was the site of deaths of Japanese armies and such.Hysterias isn’t uncommon for us,but still I’m not in my state to believe them.Until one day,one of my roommate woke up in the middle of the night.As I was still on my phone chatting with someone,I asked him whether he’s going to the toilet.Yet he answered with silence.Thus,out of my curiosity and foolishness I followed him downstairs and he led me to the backyard of our hostel.

As he stopped,I heard a creepy laughter of a woman coming from the distance that astonished me thus letting me stood in silence.My leg trembled while I chant prayers to the God.Then a white creature caught my eyeballs.From the figure I conclude that it’s a female.I gathered my courage and ran while leaving my friend behind and the creature flew and chased me to the end of the earth.Out of nowhere,the so called league of ghostbuster came out of nowhere and they chanted some prayers and I heard steel cutting the air.They rushed to the creature and acted in a slashing motion onto the creature which I heard a swordlike slashing sound effect.

As I can’t stand the pressure of the situation,I collapsed and the next day I was at the sick bay with the guy who helped me the night before.He said that my friend that night was a mere illusion to bait me out.From that day on,I watched my mouth not to brag around as the situation taught me a valuable lesson and somehow changed me.