Happy and sick!

Hey all!

How are you all doing? I'm not really doing well, I'm feeling a little sick right now. But I think I'll recover by tomorrow after I wake up. Since I'm a little sick obviously I'm not working on the story. When I do, I will definitely start writing it. Until then, please bear with me!

Aside from that, do you remember few days ago I said that I lost one of my Shogi's piece? I was really depressed about it so I went back to college and look for it again. Even if there's no hope in finding it again I tried my luck. Unfortunately I can't find it. I CAN'T FIND IT!!! Instead of being depressed, I cheer myself up by using the extra "pawn" piece to replace the "gold" piece. I put a tape on the back side of the pawn piece and used it as a gold piece. I'm thinking of going back to the shop in Brunei next month and purchase a new set again. Until then I hope I won't lose another piece.

After a few days of losing the "gold" piece, my shogi set has finally arrived from UK!!! WOW! I didn't expect it to arrive in less than a month! My last purchase took a month and a half to arrive. I totally didn't expect it to arrive so fast! I was going to upload the picture of it but since I'm so lazy maybe I'll upload it next time. There are few things that I'm not satisfied with my "Play Shogi Today 2" set. First the "promoted" side of the pieces are not written in red! The other thing that I'm not really satisfied is the shogi pieces are really flat! Nevertheless I will try my best to get used to this new set. At least I don't have to worry about the wooden board tearing up, unlike my paper shogi board.

Last Friday I went to Ipoh with my assignment group. It was fantastic! After our site visit in Ipoh we went around town to look for the best food like "white coffee" or "ngai choi chicken" or whatever you called it. Nevertheless I really enjoy hanging out with my new friends.

On the next day I once again went to JCKL (Japan Club Kuala Lumpur) to play Shogi. However there are only four people playing Shogi (all of them are japanese) and LOTS OF LOTS of people playing Go! It's sad to find that Shogi population is so small. Because I don't feel well, I couldn't concentrate on my games that day. My first three match was against a rather short old japanese man. I lost my first two games to him but later made my victory on my third game. I was very ashamed of myself because i made countless of mistakes just because I couldn't concentrate well. Finally he have to go home and guess what? My next opponent was the old japanese man who defeat the crap out of me few months ago! If you actually remember reading my journal few months ago about an old japanese man who beat me, it's him! I was very nervous facing him because I'm scared I might lose to him again. To make things worst, I couldn't concentrate properly just because I'm sick. And so our match begins.

It was rather hard for me to break into his enemy base. Eventhough I succeeded in breaking into his base but it only took a while for him to break into my base. He kept on breaking my king's defense. Whenever I have the chance I took my opportunity to continue attacking his base. After a few moves he began tearing off my defense. I defense all I could to prevent myself from checkmate. However he made a few minor mistakes. He actually made a wrong move on his "Dragon" that gave me an opportunity to check both his "Dragon" and his King and I captured his "Dragon" with ease. But he doesn't give up, he still continue to attack me with all his might. After exhausting almost all of his attacks, he proceed to capture my "Lance" with his second "Dragon". Again, because of his greed, I made another attempt of checking both his King and his "Dragon" again! Soon he used up all his "captured" piece and he was only left with a few pawns! The only pieces he have in my base are his "Horse" and "Silver". I managed to capture all the pieces "Gold, Silver and Knight" when he attempt to checkmate me. "Now it's the opportunity to counterattack," I thought. So I proceed to attack his king with my "Horse" and start checking his King. Finally his King has nowhere to run - I have defeated him! Admitting defeat, he was impressed of me and we both nod to thank each other for the game. Before he left his seat, he actually took out his hand to shake hands with me! Feeling proud I shake his hands with great happiness and since all the Shogi players have left, I continued to study Shogi in JCKL all alone. I couldn't believe I actually defeated him! I should have asked his name! The only regret is I couldn't show him my full concentration because I'm sick. I hope I get to play with him again next time and show him what I'm capable of! Only half a year have passed and I've already made a lot of improvements in my Shogi. I gotta work more harder so I can become a professional shogi player!

Anyways that's all I have to report for now. Sorry for talking too much about Shogi again. It seems that I talk about Shogi almost everyday with my friends and family. I hope my friends won't get irritated about me talking about Shogi all the time. See you all next week and I hope I can get my story done in time!

Regards,
Ryou Takehito