LASIK was a success…

Just that vision is still fluctuating, and the edges of objects look fuzzy… but the doctors say that its normal. Apparently during my follow up, checked that my right eye has a perfect 6/6. I was very very thankful and can’t wait to make a full recovery. On the downside, seems like my left eye’s gotten an abrasion so had to prescribe a gel to apply before I go to bed. Apparently when I sleep, my left eye tends to dry up a bit, and when I open my eyes, probably gotten the abrasion from my eyelids. So now I’ve got to apply that gel every night while asleep.

It was quite tough to get by 2 days without having much vision, in fact the 1st day was the hardest to pass cos only 1 eye was operated and the other… well… it feels extremely weird to have 1 eye that’s over 1000 degrees and the other regaining normal vision. Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t read/watch tv/do anything that required vision for hours and hours…

I’ve just reorganized my blog… felt that maybe organizing my entries made things easier for you guys to read, in case there was anything that you didn’t wanna read like ranting or about food again. Luckily I did this earlier before I clocked hundreds of posts…

Its been sort of awhile since I wrote a proper post. Last week I played in a small pool tourney held nearby my place, I’ve been preparing for it for the past month. And I also finally hunted down an Andy jump/break cue right before the competition (its the only cue that I can jump well with), and thank God that on the same day, I managed to sell off my Joss and the Ed jump/break… leaving me with cash and the best playing equipment I’ll ever need for my future games. Practiced last Saturday to get used to the table conditions, cloth was fast but cushions were slow… so it was a little tricky to move the cue ball around.

On Sunday, got off to what I would say a lucky+great start. Faced up with a player who was also new in the competition, and the first rack he looked anxious and missed a few crucial shots which allowed me to run about 4 balls and win racks. This went on a couple of racks, and I started to get some good rhythm and controlled the flow of the match. Managed to hit a couple of good combination shots on the 9, and for the first time in my competition experience, I broke and ran out an entire rack. It just felt so huge to do it in a competition when I couldn’t do it so many times while practicing. I also played safe to some success… and I led 7-0 in a best of 8 racks match. But I missed the last 9 ball (bobbled out of the pocket), and my opponent scrapped a rack off me. 7-1. Next match was up against a previous semi/quarter-finalist, and he was in good form. Took the first 4 racks off me in a jiffy, and I also had some bad misses. Thing was, he was really laid back and we were actually chatting away about the layout of the table (how the balls laid out), and I kind of lost focus and just played my normal game… lost 2-6. But I wasn’t sore… and I wasn’t as nervous as the last time I played in a competition. My third and final match was against the previous month’s champion, and he wasn’t in form. I made some terrible mistakes the first rack and thought “that was it” but in the 2nd rack, he started to make some positional errors, which led me to take the 2nd rack and build up more confidence. The next thing I knew, he started under/over running the cueball and couldn’t recover on his shots… he wasn’t playing as well as I expected. Took each rack at a time, and won the last 7 racks in a row… of course I didn’t yell out in joy… that would be so unsportsmanlike… but I asked him why didn’t he play that well, he told me that he didn’t practice for 2 weeks… and also, I figured that he didn’t really grasp the conditions of the table to control the cueball… so… I guess it was a really lucky day. Shook his hand and told him that I hoped to play a better match with him again, he smiled and went off… only to have me realize that he hadn’t signed on the score sheet (otherwise it would’ve been deemed an invalid match)… luckily managed to grab him in time to sign off. I won, 7-1.

I guess one of the highlights of the day was seeing the organiser’s face when he saw the score sheet. He had to question me twice if that was the scoreline between me and the ex-champion. I wonder if my ego had soared to another galaxy cos I saw a couple of familiar faces and went up smiling widely to chat up a bit before leaving, and also chatted up a bit with the organiser on the way to the wash room, saying “I was really lucky…” yeah rite… I should just kept my mouth shut.. haha… also smsed my closer friends that I won… hahaha

So advanced to the next round, which is coming Sunday. There’ll be another round robin again, and I doubt that its going to be as easy as the last round… and I have a lady competitor in my group… although it does mean a little eye candy but it also means a handicap on the 8 ball (she just needs to run till the 8 ball to win a rack)… I’ve never played a good ladies player, let alone give her a handicap… And I’m not sure what’s the standard of the other 2 guys I’m going up against. Just hope that by tomorrow/Saturday my vision clears up and am fit to practice before moving on. I just need to make sure I don’t make anymore mistakes and take it one ball at a time, and one rack at time and keep 100% focused on every shot I get.

Thanks and praise to God… pray that I will survive in the next few matches. =p