Entered into B class in Finnish Badminton

I have been playing badminton in Finland as a registered player in C class for few years now. After playing for some time I managed to get the necessary ranking points to be classified as a B class player just now.

150 points is needed to become a B class player. At this moment I have 179. So, after this summer I will be playing in tournaments mostly in B class. I am not allowed to play in C anymore. I can play in A if I want, but that may be a bit difficult for me, not yet my league :P

It has pros and cons. In B I will have more difficult games which is good for my improvement. On the other hand, I guess, I will lose more matches. But, that is how it is, and I have to cope with it :-) Let's see how it goes.




Programming Solution

First kayaking experience

I had my first kayaking experience 2 weeks ago. It was with my team mates in office. Ericsson has a kayaking club which owns few kayak of its own. We just had to reserve the kayak for that day and went for a team day out.

It was quite a nice experience even though at the beginning it was a bit scary. we were in water for two hours. The weather was good and sea was not too much wavy. So it was not very difficult for a first timer :-)

Here are some pictures:

Kayaks are out from the storage

Kanwar and Satish are trying one in very dangerous environment :P

Putting on that skirt like thingy was funny :D

Jukka and me are already took our place properly

And, we set off :-)

Quite happy to see such a nice weather

Kanwar and Jocke had good synchronization

In the sea

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Badminton tournament in Siuntio, 2016

Last Sunday(17.01.2016) there was a badminton tournament in Siuntio for hobby players. I participated in both singles and doubles category. I spent the whole day in the sports hall and it went pretty well for me. I have won the singles "kunto" (casual) series. In doubles I played with Mohsin as partner and we managed to make it to semi-final and lost.

My first single game was 09:00 AM in the morning. So, I had to wake up very early in a Sunday morning. The place is around 35 kilometres from my home. It took half an hour to drive there. The game started just as scheduled.

I won all the games in group level. So, I moved to semi-final. I won the semi-final as 2-1. Then came the final, which was quite difficult because I was very much exhausted. But, I managed to win it by 2-0. The doubles series started right after the singles final match.

In doubles, we did quite good in group level. We won all the matches and secured place in semi-final. we lost the semi-final match. The team who won us became the champion. So, they are really good.

All in all, I would say the day was very successful for us. Had lot of fun. I have counted at the end of the day - I played 20 sets in total - 12 singles & 8 doubles. I was totally burned out but very happy :-)

Here goes 2 pictures from the tournament:

 Taking a gift from the organizer after winning the singles final match

 With the runner-up

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Herwood deshi badminton tournament 2014

Last month a badminton tournament among the Bangladeshi folks has been arranged in Tampere. It was a whole day event on March 15. The idea of the tournament was as following:

Interested cities give names of their players for both single and double games. 2 single players and 2 double teams. Players play with other city players and collect point for their own city. At the end total points collected by all players of a particular city will be that city's final score. In this way the best city in badminton will be decided.

Along with badminton there were table tennis tournament as well. In badminton Tampere became the champion while Espoo being runner up. Table tennis was individual competition. Shaikat vai became champion there and Mohsin became runner up. Also women were playing badminton.

Aside from sports there was a small food fair. The food were prepared by the women and sold for a small amount of money. The day was full of event and everybody seemed to be very much enjoying it. We stayed in Tampere on that night and came back the next afternoon.

I have only one picture from that day. Here it goes while taking our runner up trophy in badminton for Espoo.

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Finn-Bangla cricket tournament, 2013

Cricket is not a popular sport in Finland. However, it's extremely popular in our country, Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi immigrant here in Finland are very much eager to play cricket but it's only possible during summer which is unpleasantly short. Still few enthusiastic people wanted to have a tournament among different cities in Finland. As a result, the first ever Finn-Bangla tournament took place in Tampere in 2012.

In the first tournament 4 cities participated - Tampere, Espoo, Pietarsaari & Jyväskylä. Espoo became the champion beating Tampere in the final. This year also people were interested and Espoo organized the second Finn-Bangla cricket tournament which took place in Olari (inside Espoo) on 8 June, 2013.

This year the idea was not just having the cricket game rather having some other activities so that most of the people can participate and enjoy the event. It was a whole day event with over 150 people. The weather didn't betray us, it was a bright sunny day. We arranged several events, such as musical pillow passing, spoon-marble race, mina-bazar (small fair where they sell their homemade snacks) for the ladies. For guys we arranged basketball and 100 m race. There were also race for kids. At the end of the day there were raffle draw, prizes for all the events and dinner. Aside from above mentioned activities there were 4 cricket matches. This time Tampere won the trophy beating Pietarsaari in the final. Espoo lost to Pietarsaari in their first match and secured 3rd place by winning against Helsinki.

The day was packed with many events and activities. Finally everything went well. We could execute everything how we planned. At the end of the event people were giving positive feedback and expressing their gratitude to us for organizing such a colorful event. I was part of the organizing committee, so I felt good and all the hardships I went through before the program were paid off :)

Here are some pictures from that day:

 Tent, organizers' corner

 Team Tampere

 Team Pietarsaari

 Team Espoo

Bowler in action


 
Batsman in action

 

 Part of the organizers

 Twin :)

 Small fair by the ladies. There were many delicious foods.

 Beginning of marble race

 100 m sprint

 Fastest runner among us

 Medals

 Tournament trophy

 Prize giving ceremony

 Tournament winner, Tampere :)

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Flying kites

I watched a video yesterday. It's an interview of one of my favorite celebrities in Bangladeshi showbiz, Humayun Faridi. He passed away one year back. In the video, he has been talking about many things. The good thing about the interview is it was done very casually. They were eating, walking in a park and finally at the end Humayun Faridi was flying kite which reminds me of my childhood.

I used to fly kites in my childhood. Every afternoon I used to go to our rooftop just to compete with other kite flyers in our area. My elder brother was an expert about kite stuff. I learned a lot from him. He also helped me in several occasions to prepare the string properly. The process is called manja(মাঞ্জা) which makes the string strong and sharp to cut others :) There are so many interesting terms related to kite flying. I will provide the list later someday at the bottom of this post. Some of those are really funny :P

While watching the video clip yesterday I was thinking will I be able to fly kites ever again? I really enjoy it but will there be chance again to do it by my own? It made me sad knowing that may be that time will never come again in my life when I will fly kite and shout with joy while cutting others' :(

Here goes the interview:





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Pietarsaari trip for badminton tournament

I haven't written in my blog for long time. It was a long break. Finally I broke the ice and decided to give my updates here again :) Good thing is it's resuming with a trip post :)

I am going to Pietarsaari today to participate in a badminton tournament. I will participate both in singles and in doubles. In doubles I will play as Babu vi's partner. I am really honored that he allowed me to be his partner. The initial schedule for my matches can be found here. All the 3 matches are knock out fashioned. If I manage to win any of these games I will play more. Wish me luck :)

I will take the train from Helsinki. It will take four and half hours. Tareq vi is supposed to join me in the same train from Tampere. Babu vi will be in the train station to fetch us. It will be a nice trip I guess :)


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Finally weekend came, now it's almost gone

Weekend feels much better after hell of a week like last one. It was a very busy week for me. The week started with the event "World Class Team" in Siuntio in a hotel. It was organized by our office. It was a two days event. We stayed overnight on Monday. The room was quite spacious and cozy with a balcony. The event ended on Tuesday afternoon. There were several nice discussion session, lots of food and drinks, sauna, swimming, billiard and so on. I must say that it was a nice event and I enjoyed every bit of it.

On Tuesday I had a badminton match in the afternoon. So I went to play badminton straight from Siuntio. I played for an hour and then came back home with a very tired body.

The next morning, Wednesday, I had a business trip to Sweden. My flight was at 8 O'clock in the morning. My home is quite far from the Helsinki airport. So I had to wake up so very early to be in the airport in time. I woke up around 04:30 and took the 05:20 train. The flight was quite short, only 50 minutes. The office gave us business class, so we got nice refreshments. We reached in Kista Ericsson office in Stockholm around 08:45 local time. Then starting from 9 we had whole day meeting until 4 O'clock in the afternoon. The meetings were quite fruitful. We had nice lunch and several coffee break. The coffee from vending machine there is better than in our office here in Finland. Our return flight was at 18:00. On the way back the flight was even shorter, about 40 minutes. We reached Helsinki airport at 20:00 local time. Good that we took taxi to home, so I reached home being totally exhausted.

On Thursday I went to work, was quite busy at work and I had another badminton match on that day. It was my last match in this round and I must win to enter into group 2, which was my target since I started playing badminton in LMF badminton club. Thursday's match was really tough. The opponent is almost of my quality. I had hard times to win against him but finally I managed somehow with a set 2-1. After playing for an hour with him another employee from our office asked me if I wanna play more because he has a reservation. I agreed and I played another half an hour. He is also a tough opponent. I could hardly walk after playing one and half hours in a row. On Friday morning I could feel every muscles of my body when I tried to move. I had to leave office early, around 16:00, because I was really tired. Finally the weekend came and it felt so good :) Weekend feels so good after such a hectic week. Now it's almost over again. It's Sunday evening now. Need to prepare mentally for tomorrow's work. Good that I have got an invitation in Khokon da's house to watch the Final match of ice hockey championship between Finland and Sweden. I will go watch the game there and most probably stay overnight. His home is quite close to my work place. Most probably I will go to office from his home tomorrow morning :)



Programming Solution

Ericsson Badminton Doubles Championship

Today I participated in Ericsson LMF badminton doubles championship. I missed the singles championship due to illness. This time I was so eager to participate and I made it. And you know what? Me and my partner became the champion :D

Only four teams participated today. The partners were put together by lottery. I was really lucky; I got the best player among us as my partner :P Each team had to play against all other teams and then best two teams would play final. We won all the matches in round robin league and secured our place in final. At the end we managed to win in the final as well. As a matter of fact, there was no trophy, rather each of us got a box of victor shuttlecock which is really good to me as an award.

I played 11 games in total within two and half hours. I was totally exhausted and I feel pain in many parts of my body right now. But I enjoyed it very much. This championship turned my boring Sunday into a great enjoyable day :)


Programming Solution

70 years old guy surprised me

I had a badminton match today at 1630 and my opponent was a 70 years old guy. He had been working in Ericsson for 27 years and retired 13 years back but he is still playing badminton as a club member. At first I didn't know any of these information. Seeing him I thought he is around 55. While playing the first game I had to work hard to win. After the game I asked him, while panting like hell, how old is he. At that moment I came to know about him. I was so surprised, such an old guy competing with me quite well. I managed to win the match but I had to work hard for every point I achieved. He played with me for the whole hour and it seems that after an hour I am more exhausted then he is. How can he be so strong in this age? :-S I wanted to know more about this guy but he can't speak English at all. I had to extract all the information with my very little knowledge of Finnish language :-)


Programming Solution

Lost the badminton match today :(

Today was my first match in my new group. I couldn't make it a win. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the game. Actually the guy is clearly better than me. As he said, he has not been playing for last few years but before that, while he was regular, he used to play in group 1, which means he is a real good badminton player.

It's a best of 3 set match. I lost the first 2 as 21-12, 21-17. After the two matches he told me that I have good control but I must add some spice to my play, I should be more aggressive. Later we played 2 more games and I experimented his suggestion by being attacking with smashes. And you know what? I won these two games as 21-17, 21-14. Well he is a big guy, weighs 106 kilos, he might be very tired after the first 2 matches but still I found that following his suggestion helped. I will remember it in my upcoming matches. I just wish he would have given me this suggestion at the beginning :P



Programming Solution

Promoted to upper group

I played the last badminton match in my group today. And guess what, I won :) With this I won all the matches in my group. So now I have been promoted to the upper group.

Actually I started playing in this round and I was placed in the last group which is group 6. The rule is after each round the first place holder of each group gets promoted to the corresponding upper group. Since I have won all three matches in my group now I will play in group 5 during next round. Let's see how far I can go :)


Programming Solution

Missed the badminton tournament :(

I was supposed to participate in the office badminton tournament on Sunday, but unfortunately I couldn't. The tournament was scheduled at 11 O'clock in the morning and I woke up around 11:30. The thing is I was awake the whole night on Saturday. I went to bed around 11:50 PM but I couldn't sleep. I was in bed and time was just flowing as usual. I thought may be after couple of hours I would be able to sleep but I was wrong. Finally around 4 O'clock in the morning I gave up and got up from bed. I prepared some fried rice. Yes, I was hungry already. Then I watched few episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Finally at 7 O'clock I went to bed again to sleep. This time I fell asleep within an hour. Finally I woke up around 11:30. Well, even if I would woke up on time I wouldn't be able to participate because I was feeling so dizzy and my whole body was kinda stiff. I was so eager to participate in this tournament but I couldn't make it :( May be next year. Now I have another match in my group on coming Thursday. I hope I wont miss this one as well.



Programming Solution

Badminton tournament in weekend

On coming Sunday our office is arranging badminton single championship. I subscribed as a contestant there even though I know I won't do well here. I saw some guys really play well. As I told earlier I have joined badminton club in our office. I played only 2 matches. Those are the two days when I played badminton this year. Today was my second match. I won this one also but I can feel that I am not in good shape; lack of stamina, lack of accuracy. If the opponent is a good one I wouldn't be able to win at all. Luckily I haven't faced anybody good yet.

Now I am thinking should I really participate in the championship. I can feel that I am not in good shape. Moreover I am having problem to sleep at night. I didn't have sound sleep for many nights now which makes me weak and error prone while playing. It would be better if I could practice a bit more before the championship. May be I will participate if I can sleep well in coming 3 nights :)



Programming Solution

Joined Ericsson badminton club

Since I left Tampere, my sports activity lessened to a great extent. Moreover, I had many problems all around. I have been thinking to start sport activities to recover from mental agony as well as to maintain physical fitness. That is why I contacted the responsible guy for Ericsson badminton club and became a member last week. Good that the new round started from this week.


Today was my first match. We went to the sports hall straight from work. My opponent gave me a ride. He is also a new person who, as he said, hasn't been playing badminton for 10 years. So I didn't have any problem to win today. I won all 3 matches of best of three set. It took only 20 minutes to finish the match. Since the reservation is for one hour we continued as long as we had time. It was a good exercise. I sweated a lot also. It was quite refreshing playing badminton for an hour after a long time. Hopefully I will have one game every week.



Programming Solution

Confused about FIFA World Cup official song :-S

I am confused about the official song of FIFA World Cup 2010. Just today I read in FIFA website that 'Waka waka' sung by Shakira is the official song for this world cup. Quoting from their website - "FIFA and Sony have chosen Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) as the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in South Africa. The song was written by Shakira, the world-famous singer from Latin America, who will perform with South African band Freshlyground.". It confirms that this is the official song. I just don't know why I have been listening the 'Waving flag' for last few weeks, and in youtube it is written in many videos as title as official song for world cup 2010. If 'waka waka' is the official song then what 'waving flag' is for? Is it just a song composed by the South Africans keeping in mind that they are hosting 19th world cup of history :-S Anyway, I like both the songs and I am giving link here.




Waka waka





Waving flag



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Waiting for the world cup

I am eagerly waiting for the sporting event with the largest worldwide audience - FIFA World Cup. Only 1 day to go to open the world cup. Tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the 19th Fifa World Cup in Johannesburg, capital of South Africa. The first match will be on the next day, 11 June. The first world cup I can remember is 1990 in Italy. Since then I used to enjoy world cup once in every four years. This is the first time I am abroad during world cup. In our country, it is quite common to watch the game with friends and family together with snacks and tea. Obviously I am gonna miss that :( Moreover, I will leave Tamepre by the end of this month, so I might have to watch the game alone :( Anyway, the whole world is cheering up. I wish I can cheer up as well.



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