A week and a day to our performance of The Odyssey at the SYF. It's a risk not having a rehearsal today but many of our cast are rehearsing for Homecoming/College Day this Saturday and so we had a choice: to rehearse scenes in which cast were available or to forget everything for a day and play our brains out.

We've chosen the latter and once the cast & crew are done with helping the Year 1s with the Homecoming banner, it's off to simple pleasures again -- of running, throwing, catching, cooperating with some, competing with others, and getting sweaty and out of breath while doing it -- back to primeval basics. In prehistoric times, the hunt was the thrill of the week because our lives depended on it for food and materiel, to sustain and maintain our very lives.

Our hunting skills badly need sharpening. We have to remember what it's like to be hungry again. We need to know the importance of playing the game as a team again. We have to look our opponents square in the eye and be sure that constraints or no we will prevail. We will prevail because we will it to be so. Hence, the game is an analogy for our will to survive. How badly do we want to survive?

It's not about winning, it never was. It's about learning to cope and still coming out on top, as Odysseus himself did in Homer's epic. Odysseus had no reward waiting for him at the end of his journey, all he wanted was to come home. If this isn't motivation, silver and gold are even less of a motivation in the long run.

We need our achievements, great or small, to give us the confidence to face harder and tougher challenges as we progress through life. The harder we strive to win the sweeter our victory if we achieve it. If we don't, there is a vaster pool of learning that accumulates towards our victory next time around. Regardless, as long as we can keep on looking for and looking forward to the next time we are already a success.

The contest is not yet upon us, folks. There is still time to prepare. Let's sweat hard for a sweet victory. A week and a day. Let's give it all we've got. For today, LET'S PLAY BALL!