Newsfeed

I woke up on a faithful brisk morning with my stomach growling from excitement, on a second thought that might have been hunger, anyway I got out of bed and followed my daily routine except today was different because I was going to the beautiful state of Telangana for the ISSO which is a sporting event where all the best athletes in IB schools from around India come to a set venue and play their hearts out and I was going to to do just that. I got in my school bus with my BIG suitcase this suitcase also attracted a lot of unwanted attention, I had people asking me left, right and centre “ are you going somewhere” said a voice “I wanna go too” shouted another, it was all a bit much although I did enjoy it, after reaching school and almost sleeping in the first period I was called out of my class to get ready to go, immediately I got my energy back and I was jumping around and my head was practically touching the roof. We were called to our esteemed sports head Dr Manish Gogia’s office where he shared some inspiring words of motivation then we exited the building with high hopes and high expectations, we arrived at the bus which was a bit smaller than expected, I was able to fit just fine but my suitcase is a different story. 
 
THE JADED JOURNEY 
We arrived at the airport 35-40 minutes later and I felt like I was about to pass out due to the heat because I was so short that my head was not reaching the fan making me look like a fiery red tomato in the airport, finally I got a chilled soda to cool myself and it was everything I needed, then the standard airport security and check in procedures were conducted but this time the endless cues didn’t feel so long as all I could think about was my competition, the roars and cheers of my teammates, my coach yelling “brake his face” and the adrenaline pumping through my body were all the things living in my brain rent free. 
 
FIERY FURIOUS FIGHTS 
The exciting morning of 5th October I got out of my hotel room bed which we had checked into the night before and got ready, I have to admit I felt like barfing, my stomach was tied up in knots and I was sweating like crazy, this was normal for me as I am always abnormally nervous before my fights although who could blame me, the thought of having somebody kick you repeatedly in the face was a bit terrifying but this time I knew what I was getting into and I had trained for days beforehand and I was ready, we reached the venue 5hrs before the fights even began although this was expected as the school conducted breakfast and an opening ceremony, after that we checked in our weight and age categories and to my horror my weight was over the limit, I had been a chubby kid for the past 2 years due to the pandemic and just 1 year ago I started reducing my weight and I had made tremendous progress losing 10kg but now I was a single kg overweight therefore I was not able to play in my category or so I thought, my team were committed to making me lose weight before the fights so for the next 2 hrs I ran in a bright blue hoodie lent to me by my teammate and I do admit I was looking ridiculous but I was trying, then out of nowhere I noticed my whole team running behind me and helping me lose weight and that’s when I realised the true meaning of sports camaraderie and sportsmanship, after the motivation and exercise I had miraculously lost 850g of my body and my teammate lost a bright blue hoodie because it was impossible to breathe around it due to all the sweat, jokes aside I was ready to play in my own category. After a hew hours. The matches begun and I was the opening act I won my first two fights with ease and fought valiantly in my 3rd round which granted me a silver medal 
 
 
THE CINEMATIC CLOSING 
At that moment I felt overwhelmed with joy and triumph, I felt like I was going to burst out in happiness but I knew that the training I did led me to this point and I knew I deserved this, also in my categories getting any medal was an achievement and I had finally secured my own, after that I recorded my teammates fights and supported them with all I had, in fact I screamed so much I needed lozenges. After the fights had concluded we were returning to pathways with laurels winning 3 gold medals, 1 silver medal, and 2 bronze medals. Throughout this journey I learned many things but the most important thing in this trip that I learned was how to flourish which s in alignment with our school's theme human flourishing, I learned that flourishing doesn’t mean being perfect, it means to try and that’s what I did, I came back from this trip as a better athlete and a bigger person. 

 By Hoash Nanda MYP 2