So, recently, I'd been trying to learn to cook because the Redmond/Japan trip is coming and I really need to be saving money when I'm in Redmond, hence I need to be cooking quite often. Also, I'd always wanted to learn to cook, except that I had been lazy for so many years.

Labels: rants, reliving those days, things that happened

Now that school has restarted and I'm taking a game design module again, we were given an assignment to do a really simple 2D game, which prompted me to research on really old but fun games I used to play. And then I fell into a rabbit hole of nostalgia, so I kind of just want to talk about certain small-time games that I used to love a lot.

Disney's Pocahontas (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive)


Image from: http://games4win.com/games/pocahontas

This was one of those unlikely games that I happened to have played because my cousin recommended us to. My siblings didn't really like it but I got obsessed with it for some reason. Basically, Pocahontas (the Disney character) walks around, jumps around, and platforms around, trying to gain the "spirit" of animals in the forest. Using these spirits, she gains abilities to do various stuff, such as swimming (Otters), running (Deer), etc.

It is pretty generic when I think about it now, but for some reason that I couldn't remember, it was really fun to me, but at the same time, it was really short.

Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle (Gameboy Color)


Image from: https://gamefabrique.com/games/the-bugs-bunny-crazy-castle

This crazy game has 50+ levels. I really want to make a casual game like this one. Basically, you are Bugs Bunny, you can only walk left or right or press "up" at stairs/doors to enter. All you have to do is to collect all the carrots in the room without being killed by the "bad guys". You can also push things into the bad guys to kill them.

It is really fun because the levels were so well-designed. I found myself cornered, facing near-death, and breathing huge sighs of relief in this super simple but difficult game when I was in primary 6, I think.

Neopets: Meerca Chase
This was essentially "Snake", but in Neopets theme.

Neopets: Potato Counter
This was esssetially counting the number of potatoes they print on the screen. But back in my primary school days when I had nothing better to do, even that was fun.

Neopets: Fetch!
I actually forgot how this game works, but it was one of the few non-flash games. My computer was so shitty that it didn't even have Flash, so I really appreciated it a lot.

Facebook: Typing Maniac
I wasn't that obsessed with this typing game. It's just the only typing game I ever played and it was recommended by my sister's English teacher, which somehow mattered.

Facebook: Restaurant City
I remember spending so much time building my restaurant, deciding which dishes to serve, arranging the furnitures, and visiting my friends' restaurants to look at how beautiful they made things. My restaurant was called "Super Restaurant". Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't earn enough money to upgrade it into something as big as my friends'.

Mega Man __ (Game Boy Color)
My first exposure to this awesome series is, of course, Gameboy. But I can't remember which Mega Man it was and I couldn't identify through the videos online, so meh.

I'm getting pretty lazy. Let's stop here.

Labels: games, reliving those days

My platoon before heading to Brunei
This post is actually way overdue because I finished my service at the start of this month, and then I just had a lack in any form of scheduling for my posts, so I ended up pushing this all the way till now so that I won't clutter the blog.

You probably forgot this post, but this is a continuation of that. Basically, I'm going to list down some memories that I'll remember for the second half of my army conscription period.

Calling my friends ugly
Surrounded by people who give very low insults, such as Jaryl, who always play the mother card, and... It's mostly Jaryl, actually, but others followed suit. Anyway, surrounded by people who give very low insults, I had to find ways to sink lower so that I can deliver lower blows, so I started calling my friends ugly. It's a pretty common thing, I believe.

The "Special Friend" song
One of the few things I'll miss are those days when we end early (most of the time) and just talked cock in bunk. There was once when we started talking about Steven Lim and started watching weird videos and somehow it led to watching this:


Enough said.

Auntie
Most of the time, some of us (usually me) would be craving supper and there is this really "on" auntie who went to sell food in the camp every night without fail. This is one of my favourite memories.

There was once when Gabriel, one of my platoon mate, helped us buy. So we gave him our orders and one of us, Lai, gave him an order that was something like "$3 maggi only mayo spam a lot". What all of us understood he meant was "$3 set, maggi, only mayo - spam a lot", but what Gabriel understood was "$3 maggi only, mayo spam a lot", so when he brought back a packet containing super a lot of maggi without anything else inside, topped with one fucking thick layer of mayo, we were all pretty speechless for a while.

A lot of parades
I believe this doesn't really need elaboration.

Speech Impediments
Being in the army kind of means always finding ways to boost your ego by finding faults with others. At least sometimes that's how it feels. So, it's hard not to notice when annoying commanders can't speak properly. It's also hard not to give knowing glances to one another after a not-annoying commander says something like "after you put on your camo, I don't want to be able to see your fresh." The moment that commander said "fresh", a number of us repeated "fresh" by reflex.

Bitching, bitching, bitching
I won't say I'm a very professional specialist. In fact, my platoon's style is to get personal and try to erase the line between commanders and troopers as much as we could. So, I can remember a lot of bitching sessions with my troopers, be it my detachment or my temporary details. But all's well. We all bitch about one another.

"Running your own army"
This is my sergeant major's favourite criticism towards one of my platoon mates, Hon Chin. He tends to overwrite everyone and overwrite any rules and just does his own thing. Towards the end of our service, it got pretty extreme so my sergeant major started being extra strict with him. From then on, Hon Chin would never go one day without saying "I'm running my own army".

The number one priority
When the sentence "SAFETY IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY" flashed on the screen during one of the briefings, Jasper, the detachment commander of my detachment, and I couldn't help but turn it into a cheer thing.

In the army, regulars always like these cheers. There would be sergeant majors who go to their company, shouting, "Train to fight..." and then the entire company would have to shout "Fight to win!"

So, we decided that for our detachment, it would be...
Us: "What's our number one priority?!!!"
Them: "SAFETY!!!"

My Detachment
My Command Team
I would say each detachment's commanders have certain characteristics. Hon Chin and Udaiya are pretty serious when it comes to training; Lai and Clement are pretty chill and can't be bothered most of the time; Jasper and I are rather bitchy; Kok Pin (he's the only commander in his detachment) is kind of upz. Then there are Kent, the dictator-ish guy, Jaryl, the pushover-ish guy, and Gabriel, who was on MC most of the time because of some surgery.

It's all pretty good memories combined with lots of things I won't want to do again.

In the morning of the day when I returned to camp to collect my pink IC, I was pretty excited, although it's just a card. My OC returned us a piece of paper with our leadership goals which he made us write at the beginning, together with the certificate and the testimonial.

I wrote that I wanted to allow self-expression and have the troopers feel the pride of being mortar operators; I would say I've done what I can to achieve that. Before I was about to leave the army, there were moments when I pondered on what a shitty commander I had been, but then I remembered all the things I've done that many others wouldn't have done before, and I realise I'm actually not that bad.

When I was in basic training, the prospect of going into the forest and living there despite rain, mud, and fatigue, was so daunting that I spent my entire MC dreading. One year later, I was trudging up and down a forested hill in the middle of the night when it was pouring, guiding troopers out when they got injured and stuff. There was no time to be afraid of getting lost; it was a lot of pressure. But I did it. I landed almost knee-deep into a mud-filled shell scrape in the process.

When I was teaching tuition before army, I would lose my patience at that one kid who refused to focus. Granted, I have more power in the army, but I managed to talk through most stuff with the troopers. The only times I shouted or resorted to punishments were intentional, when I was trying to set myself up as a no-nonsense sergeant. Joke.

All in all, army was alright. I survived. I'm a happier person now that army is over, but I guess army did change me in some positive ways.

Labels: NS, reflection, reliving those days

This is not an angry or emo post. It's more of a random opinion thing.

If you're familiar with trading card games, you might agree that half the battle in such games is determined by how you set up your deck; the other half is how you utilise your cards in each battle itself.

Basically, for those who never played trading card games before, such as Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic or Hearthstone, these are card games where you...

• Collect cards - each card has a different use, different power, and different rarity;
• Put cards together in a stack (how many per stack depends on what trading card game you're playing) and call it a deck; and
• Use your deck to battle against another player's deck. Usually, this involves drawing one or more card(s) from your deck per turn and putting it in your "hand". You can choose when to use the cards in your hand.

"How can I know how to use Swords? I don't know how to navigate. I can't cook. I can't lie. I am sure that if no one helps me, I can't survive! But I can do one thing. I can kick your Ass!" - Luffy, One Piece (Oda)

Labels: preachy, reflection, reliving those days

This post is a series of apologies to the various people that I remember I've wronged through my life so far. Obviously, none of them is going to see it, except maybe my grandparents, who have passed away and and who I believe can now see everything, but that's not the point. When I was in secondary one, a beloved teacher, Mrs Teo, taught the class about this thing called the Empty Chair method. By this method, we speak what we want to speak to an empty chair, visualising or pretending that the audience is sitting on that chair, and it's going to have a similar impact to speaking to the actual person. This is what this post is about. My blog is the chair and the audience is presumably behind the screen at the other sides. Hello.

The first person I want to apologise to is my grandfather. I'm sorry. I'd been a horrible grandson despite the fact that you were a good grandfather. I remember the days when we still lived in Serangoon and you taught me about the floor, the bridge, and the umbrella. We moved on to live in Bishan and I schooled in Serangoon at a primary level. You fetched me home after my CCA twice every week. At that time, I would take you coming all the way to Serangoon from Bishan for granted and called you to come and fetch me when it suited my interest - such as when I missed my school bus. To my defense, I wasn't allowed to go home on my own; still, it must've been quite annoying.

Yet, after grandma passed away, I let you sit on your bed alone with the radio and didn't talk to you. I knew that being home alone all the time must've been so lonely, but I didn't even talk to you. And in your final days in the centre, I didn't even visit you often enough. And I know I've already told you I'm sorry and I know you'll forgive me but I want you to know that if I could do it again, I would put in more effort in actually getting to know you. I would call you "ah da" like I used to when I was in primary school, and even when I have nothing to say, I would lie on that empty bed that used to be grandma's and subtly remind you that you're not alone.

The second person is, naturally, grandma. As I've already mentioned, I'd been a horrible grandson. The most vivid memory of me wronging you is that day when I came home from school when I was in secondary two, and I dumped my uniform onto the floor. Immediately, you picked it up and put it into the washing machine. And then I got a call from my Maths teacher, who asked me why I didn't go for the remedial lesson - I forgot. Panicking, I asked you where you put my uniform, you said you washed it, I asked for another, that was the last, I got angry, and I shouted things at you to hurt you intentionally. I said that all you knew how to do was to wash clothes. It was a jerk move and it was untrue, but it was a representation of the kind of person I was. I'm sorry.

And thank you for always seeing the best in me. My dad told me that in your final days, you asked him to dote on me because I was such a good, intelligent boy and he didn't realise. It made me cry, because despite all the shitty attitude I showed, I loved you the most.

I love both of you and I'm not sad anymore because I know you're in a better place and sometimes I feel you with me.

The following people are still alive.

Mum and dad: It's going to be hypocritical that I apologise (and confess) that I'm a lousy son, like how I'm a lousy grandson. And I'm not even putting myself down. I snap at you way too often, refuse to talk to you, and see the worst in you, although I realise the things you do for me. I realise that a lot of things you do are for me, even if they don't connect. And it is impressive how you can continue to love me despite all the shit I put you through. And I know apologies are not enough because they're just pretty words. But I can't do it and I don't even know why. I'm working on it and I always failed, but I'll keep working on it and I will succeed in being a normal son as soon as I can.

Wei Ling: I hate bullies. Turned out I was one of them. You never offended any of us. We were young and fragile and filled with negativity which we could only get rid of by projecting it onto others, and that's what I did to you. I'm sorry. I sincerely wish I didn't destroy your life, but honestly, I won't be surprised if I did. I know what kind of impact bullying has and I'm so ashamed of myself for having bullied you. You deserve better.

The secondary school teachers I bitched about in my blog and might've chanced upon it: Mostly, Ms Aljunied, Ms Diana Koh, Ms Ang - I think I bitched about them the most, although they are not the only ones. Anyway, I was stupid and full of myself and I do realise how difficult it is to be a teacher and the kind of effort you had to put in. When I was a student, it didn't really occur to me that teachers are humans too. Now, it does. I'm sorry.

The other victims of my adolescent insecurity: It's impossible and impractical to apologise to everyone and I don't want to. I just want to add Xun Quan and Man Kit into the list, just because I'd been a horrible friend who acted like I was better as well as bitched way too much. Oops.

I believe one of the most important people I have to apologise to is myself, cliched and all. There are many things I could blame myself for, but I only want to apologise for being too hard on myself. Others can be hard on me, but we all hold a responsibility to be kind to ourselves. Even if we've been horrible and have made a lot of mistakes and even if we didn't turn out to be who we wanted to be, we owe it to ourselves. It might have been the negative self talk that made me stumble so often. I don't know. Whatever it is, I will be kind to myself from now on.

Labels: reflection, reliving those days

Singapore MRT's red line
Last year, I wrote a blog post sharing some memories I had of various places in Singapore's red line, but I didn't really finish writing that post because it was way too long. So, I'm going to finish it up now.

Toa Payoh
This was a place where my family and I always went when I was in secondary school. It's a beautiful neighbourhood with nearly nothing. The only reasons I can think of for ever coming here is to eat or to utilise the rooftop garden of some HDB flats.

There was this breakfast kopitiam-esque shop hidden in between two buildings that had, in my opinion, really good laksa, but no one in my family really liked it. When I was a kid, I would bug my parents to come here for breakfast so we could have the laksa, along with half-boiled egg, bread, and hot milo.

Another memory of this place includes counting down to the end of some years at a rooftop garden with the mehmehs. There was once we sat in a circle and talked about our new year's resolutions. I mentioned wanting to find inner peace. Lol. Now, I'm the epitome of repressed inner chaos.

Novena
Moving on: Novena. It's where Tan Tock Seng hospital is. When my grandfather got hospitalised for the first time, which was when I was in primary school, I enjoyed visiting him. Kids take pleasure in weird stuff, but I guess there's a certain comfort in bonding through "difficult times". But, when my grandmother was on the verge of passing away, my family came here everyday, and it was sad because everyone was sad. We would visit her, and then head over for meals in the nearby malls and stuff. I would watch how sad my brother was and wondered why I wasn't as sad. By now, I've realised that people feel emotions at different timings.

This is also a place where Artika, Man Kit, and I came to for some reason. I don't remember. I only remember it was a pretty good day.

There was once when I came here shopping for props for 'Scrum!'.

There was also once when I got pretty depressed and my parents brought me out to breathe the fresh air. Jeanette happened to be working here at that time and I came over for a job interview. It was a pretty bleak period of time. Novena is a rather sad place. That's what draws me sometimes.

Newton
After poly ended, everyone was trying to find jobs. I had a year's break before army, so I wanted to do production-related stuff. Joey suddenly had a PA job for The Amazing Race, which was coming over to Singapore, so a number of us went over for the "interview", which was in some hotel at Newton. I was pretty excited when they asked me to go over for a "job briefing", which just turned out to be a small talk session with one of the producers, who decided he didn't need my help after all. It was a disappointment, but I guess it doesn't even matter anymore.

I also remember coming to the same hotel for the premiere of 'Scrum!' and being kind of impressed with the first episode because when I read it on the script, it felt really different.

Orchard
One of the first times I've been to Orchard, I came with my siblings and cousin, Ping Cheng. He was pretty well-versed with the place, especially compared to stay-at-homers like me. It was a day after we went to Sentosa, and it was one of the best days of my life at that point, just sitting by the fountains outside Ngee Ann City and taking photos.

Years later, at the same place, I paid $30 to participate in a green event which I thought was free. When they asked for the participation fee, I couldn't say no, because I was a yes-man. I was so angry at myself, and I projected that anger at everyone else.

Somerset
During secondary school, there would be many Christians who would try to convince their classmates to go to church with them in the weekends. I went with this guy called Kelvin, and it wasn't what I expected. The people there tried to psycho me to join their group, believe in God, and pray with them every morning. Being the passive guy that I was, I just went along until the next morning, during my first praying session, I took the courage to say I didn't want to do it. It is not difficult, but it was. Oh, by the way, the church was in Somerset. That's why I mentioned it.

Dhoby Ghaut
At the same period of time as my first paragraph under 'Orchard', my cousin introduced my siblings and me to this place called 'Just Acia', which sold decent food and free flow of ice cream and was located in Dhoby Ghaut.

Maybe the more prominent memories include coming here during Christmas with my family to look at the Christmas lights, as well as one period of time when my brother was getting his first MP3 player, which kept spoiling. I was really young, so I don't remember much, but leaving the usual places (Bishan, Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh) was always a good experience.

I guess that's about it. I would probably not write about any other stations because it's kind of tedious. The memories I had in the areas nearer to Bishan were more prominent.

Labels: places, reliving those days

When we were told to smile
To be honest, Chinese New Year this year had been kind of disappointing, but it was this disappointment that made me remember certain things.

Ever since I started the habit of buying clothes whenever I felt like it instead of buying them right before Chinese New Year, this festival had lost some of its magic. When I was in secondary school, and actually, even in primary school, I would always look forward to wearing new clothes, because they would be lying in the cupboard, untouched, until the first day. The same went for CNY cookies and the sweet drinks. We would bug my mother when we could open them up and she would make us wait till the reunion dinner. Now, we've lost all these "rules". It's just different.

I also miss eating reunion dinner with my family at home without the relatives. When my grandparents were alive, that would be what we do. Now, we always head to some restaurant that my uncle really likes and eat with all my uncles and aunties and cousins. I guess it's nice in its own way, but I miss the older days.

The worst is the attitude we now have. At least till last year, I think I actually looked forward to meeting my cousins and going to Hougang Green or the neighbourhood with them doing nothing in particular. As years pass, we start deeming those things as pointless and boring, which they are. This year, I felt nothing.

To me, Chinese New Year used to be magical, and I can't wait for it to be magical again. It's funny how I realise that I miss my family when my family is right here with me. And when we're physically together, we're still apart.

On a brighter note, Wei Jian returned from Brunei for these two weeks, and on the day of his arrival, we met up because we wanted to throw him a surprise, which he already suspected. I dug out my PS4 box, Joshua and Jessica got some vegetables and luncheon meat and stuff, and then we filled the box with those things as a present for him.

Obviously, he didn't believe it when we showed him the box.

Then on Saturday, we met to go to Wei Jian's house, and I'm glad we did because this was the only day I felt like it was Chinese New Year.

It was the usuals: Cards, mahjong, steamboat, watching Youtube videos, watching embarrassing videos some of us made during secondary school (such as Joshua's singing and a crappy vlog we did during a chalet), and chatting with Wei Jian's mum.

Today, I took half a day off because I did duty on Sunday, and for some reason, I just miss home. Sometimes I have days like this.

Labels: emo, family, mehmeh, reliving those days, things that happened

Being in the army has been a bane of my life, but, as everyone says, everything happens for a reason; this applies to army too. I won't say that it has made me a better person, because I refuse to make it sound like the more aligned one is to the military-type behaviour, the better a person he is. Instead, I'll say that army has brought out some confidence in me in interacting with others, as well as some deeply-rooted angst.

That isn't the point of this entry. Here, I am going to be recalling some memories I've made in my one year and six days thus far of service.

Disclaimer: There will be some bitching. Minor ones.

Playing lame camp games to pass time
This made up the first three days of my army life. We were supposed to enlist on the 7th November, but due to administrative cock-ups involving last minute changes, we came on the 4th November (I've come to realise that a lot of administrative cock-ups involve last minute changes). Still, these three days were blessings in disguise because it still counted in our duration of service, although we didn't really do anything besides sitting in bunk, waiting for further instructions as instructed, and playing lame camp games to pass time. It was fun, though, bonding over hitting one another on the forehead as penalty and all that.

Being forced to fall out after the climax of my first field camp
Skipping to field camp, it was the most tired I'd been as far as I could remember. If I remember correctly, I wrote down notes while half-asleep. I'm impressed. So, when the climax of the field camp, namely the tekan session and the receive-a-letter-from-our-parents session, was finally over, the rest of the days would've been a breeze... except my buddy noticed my eyes were way too red and my encik forced me to fall out. It was good news until I learned that I had to redo field camp.

Proudly telling my friend that I won't cry, and then crying like a baby afterwards
During re-field camp, I knew what was up. We all knew there was going to be that tekan session and letter session again and that most of us would cry. I told my fellow re-field campees that I would not, and I was so sure. We even made a bet. But then I received a letter from my section mates cheering me on, and I cried anyway.

Cooking maggi mee outfield
This is arguably my favourite NS memory. One of the nights in field camp, we were told to get our mess tins, maggi mee and fire equipments. We were lead to a field where we cooked under the clear sky and the stars, and the experience of having really hot half-cooked maggi-mee outfield is magical.

Getting lost in a 100-metre by 100-metre forest
This was for a navigation practice when I was a specialist cadet. It was the day I realised I suck at navigation.

Watching as my friend faints out of exhaustion
Although a bad memory, I'll choose to remember this, because despite not being close to him, I still felt horrible as I watched the others scream at him to hang in there before the medic evacuated him.

Watching as mud flies to another friend constantly
It was during a live firing of the mortar, and it was a rainy day. The gun being fitted into the ground, every recoil would send mud flying towards a certain direction where either my friend or I had to take pose at. He challenged me to a game of scissor-paper-stone to decide who that guy would be. I won, and it was funny.

Searching a vast field for a small pin
This is an army thing. When someone lose an equipment, everyone had to search for it no matter how unlikely it was to find it. I mean, it was a freaking pin in a freaking field. It happened twice in my NS life, not including the following:

Searching a vaster field and digging holes for a lanyard
This was my detachment's fault. We lost the lanyard and I realised and we had to search for it right before we had to rush back to camp after a field camp. We ran all around, searched for the exact spots where we deployed, dig up holes that we covered up, and so on, but it was gone. The result: We had to write a 3000-word essay about the importance of taking care of our equipment.

Realising I have no talent in the army
I can't navigate, I can't shoot, I mess up my commands from time to time, I'm disorganised, and the list goes on. It doesn't matter though. There's a reason why I'm not an army person.

Realising I have bad luck in the army
I enlisted early, went for BMT field camp twice, drew lots to be one of the unlucky guys who get confined for the platoon, got caught for a mistake that everyone made despite giving more fucks than them (re: my 7 extras), got sent to a course and then got rejected on day one due to administrative cock-ups involving last minute changes (re: a class three course), gave a farewell speech which I had to take back the following day (re: the same thing), and the only night I stayed in my most recent field camp, it rained and a number of recruits needed urgent medical attention, which leads to...

Going up and down a forest in heavy rain in the middle of the night

Pretending to flare up because of a chair
This was fairly recent, during one of the recruits' stand-by areas. We agreed that for one particular one, we would be strict and angry. I went overboard because in the midst of pretending to be angry, I realise that what I said made sense and I really got angry.

Doubting my understanding of left and right
This was yesterday. I told the driver to turn left, in Chinese, and he turned right. I repeated, "left," and he laughed at me, saying that even after twenty years of my life, I couldn't get my left and right right. For the next few minutes, I was so confused. And then I realise that in thirty years of his life, he couldn't get his left and right right. And he is a driver.

Realising that even after one year and six days, I still hate being in the army
No need for more elaboration.

Labels: NS, reliving those days

As you can see, I have a new layout for my blog again! I'm really sick of the black one before this. It depresses me. This change in layout prompted me to look back on previous layouts I've done for this blog, and I've got to admit that I'm impressed by the amount. It's a good thing that I keep the codes for most of them, but I'm only going to show and talk about some of them.

Copyright: All content in this post belongs to me and no means of plagiarism is permitted.

Here goes:

Labels: objects and stuff, reliving those days

I get the feeling that this post might just be the most honest yet because I'm writing this in what I think is emotional instability; it's going to be highly mushy, but I promise myself that I won't delete it, because ever since this year, I've vowed to myself not to take back what I say. I don't want to get the sense that there are no consequences to the things I let people see and hear. I don't want to filter myself because I want to live a more open-hearted life. But that's out of point.

Here goes:

If you read my previous post (which you probably haven't because I only wrote it, like, three days ago?), you might remember this part where I mentioned about this Facebook group that my secondary school clique used to post in, and how no one uses it anymore. If you've known me for long enough, you'll know that this group of friends is close to the most important thing I have in my life. I wouldn't say this too often, because it's embarrassing, but what triggered me to do so is the fact that I feel safe admitting it.

The previous time I revisited the page, I only scanned through. Today, for some reason, I missed them - it doesn't make sense because I spent so much time with them nowadays, especially this weekend - so I went to read some of the posts. I realise how much things have changed, and how life had made us better people, at the expense of some sort of soul in what we had.

You know how I'm pretty open about letting people know I value this friendship? This is nothing compared to what we used to say to one another. There was a period of time when all of us had a blog each. They would write posts that would later on (aka now) bring tears to my eyes because it was about how important the friendship was to them. I quote one of them here: "Our relationship may seem normal but to me it is 100% magical."

And then as time passed, we cross boundaries in life. We went from lingering individuals to poly, where each of us went through a bunch of things that make us more mature people, and then we went on to internship, then to work, then to university or army. Each step of the way distanced us from the past. In the midst of it all, we got into fights, some of us got tired and many of us made mistakes. Things changed. Changes are not always bad, but in this case, they were.

We, who used to laugh at everything, grew up and jokes that used to be funny were no longer cracked. I remember we used to meet almost everyday. We would cycle, explore the new park together, buy stuff for one another, celebrate birthdays, bake cakes, make cards, and do all sorts of stupid things. We were ~ thee 9 mehmehs ~. That was our soul.

The best part of the whole thing was our immaturity. It was our inexperience and the fact that we didn't know better. Most of us didn't know what we want to do for our future, neither did we really understand how people outside our circle, our neighbourhood, our school, and our perceptions were like. At least for most of us. It was a journey. We explored. We learned. We had a metaphorical growing-up-quick crash course. That wasn't much. I wanted more and better, but I didn't know that what I had is magic.

I try to recreate that feeling in life, but I can't. I try to move on, but days like this get to me. I know. I need to get a grip, but sometimes it's not the sad memories that stun you - it's the good ones. This bunch of people is family to me, more so than anyone else emotionally. It makes me guilty to think like that, but that's the truth. It had always been the truth.

Labels: emo, mehmeh, reflection, reliving those days

As a media student, writing this post already feels like writing an essay. This is not an article or whatever. I just want to talk about how different media/communication services have changed my lifestyle here and there, just for the fun of it.

Neopets
I guess you can argue that Neopets is a game, not a service, but in some ways, it kind of resembles social media, just that everyone is pretending to be an owner of one to four creatures which don't really exist. When I was twelve, I thought I was really mature and that I was pass the age for Neopets although that didn't stop me from playing it, but now, I believe that twelve is kind of the perfect age for it.

People like to argue that games and virtual reality stuff makes people anti-social and ruin lives, but I would like to raise the point that just maybe, it could make people more sociable than they could've been or even save lives. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Neopets saved my life, but it did have an impact. Back when I was twelve, it was something I engaged in during my unlimited free time to get by. It unleashed my passion towards the visual, introduced me to HTML, web-design, and eventually led me to creating my own blog - something I was hesitant to do.

How it happened was this: My classmates were playing Neopets, and I envied how nicely-decorated some of their shops were, so I began looking up ways to make mine even nicer. Back then (or maybe even now), they had websites dedicated to these things. People would design nice text boxes, dividers, backgrounds, and so on for these shops and contain them in some HTML code. Me being the curious person that I was, I eventually delved into it. Some of the websites focused more on the art while some more on the design.

When I finally moved beyond Neopets, I discovered blogskins.com and several other web-design websites centring around animes. After a while, blogging became an outlet for me to express myself in the online world visually, and it still is.

MSN Messenger
The other day, I was just reminiscing about MSN messenger. It was such a beautiful thing. In my mind, I can still hear the sound of the popout which appears when someone comes online. When I quarrelled with someone in primary school, I would mercilessly write shit about him in my Descriptions. I would change my name so often, because everyone else does, and it's hard to get to sleep because bedtime is always the time when my friends started chatting on MSN. Those were fun times.

MSN was the ultimate digital place to chat with your friends, and remain in contact with them despite not being together. I believe it's something that many people my age will remember, especially since it lasted so long.

Friendster
Actually, I didn't care much about Friendster. I just included it to remind whoever reads my blog that it used to exist. Or maybe it still does. I don't know.

Facebook
Along with MSN was Facebook. It's the place where people create groups for their cliques, play games, do lots of personality quizzes, communicated indirectly, poked one another, kept their digital photo albums, and so on. Feels a bit like Neopets to me.

During my poly days, one Facebook group would be created for every group project, of which some would be used and some would not. It's a productive platform.

It also used to be the hub of communication for my secondary school clique. The other day, I revisted the page and found we would write status updates like "Anyone want dinner tonight?" or "Post your poly timetable here". We would quarrel in the group and comment essays on one another's statuses. I actually forgot how we used it till I revisited it.

But then it got replaced by an even more convenient thing called Whatsapp.

Whatsapp
There was this period of time when everyone started using Whatsapp and I couldn't because I was using an outdated Window's phone. It wasn't fun to be out of the conversation. So during that period, everyone would be talking in Whatsapp and I would post stuff in that Facebook group which no one cared about anymore :(

And then there would be people quarrelling in the Whatsapp chat and I wouldn't be able to join in the fun because I wasn't even in it!

Sad times.

But now, it is almost the only way I communicate with people on my phone.

Instagram
I used to scorn at the idea of uploading pictures that you take on the spot, with added filters and whatnot. Photography, though I am somewhat good at it (just let me, okay?), isn't my lifestyle, so I saw no point in it. One day, I created it because I wanted to show off to the world the first breakfast I ever made for myself. And then, I realised the purpose of Instagram in my life.

Then for a while, I would say "wait, let me Instagram this" before eating.

And then I overused it afterwards when I travelled to Melbourne and Taiwan, and then I realised that Production is kind of instagram worthy, and then now, most of my pictures are group photos. If I were to define the purpose of this service in my life, it would be to show people a limited number of things I want them to know about my life, no matter how uninteresting. More so than Facebook or Twitter.

Tinder
I'm not ashamed to say that recently I started using Tinder and I chatted with a few people. It's pretty fun actually. I feel like it's helping me get better at talking. Maybe it would have an impact somewhere down the line?

Twitter
This is my favourite. I used to accept followers like nothing but now, I practice discretion, because over a few years, Twitter has developed into an internal war zone for me. Most of my rants and bitchy thoughts go there, as well as whatever random thoughts I conjure and really feel like telling anyone. Slowly, without me realising, Twitter had enslaved me.

It's pretty obvious that there are many services that I don't use, like Snapchat and Vine and all that. I'm lazy to try new things too often. There are too many nowadays anyway. But those I used, I liked them. Even though all these conveniences are said to spoil humanity, fun is fun, and they really do change lifestyles.

Labels: objects and stuff, reliving those days

Singapore MRT's Red Line
Living in Bishan, The Red Line in the MRT is suppose to be one of the things I am most familiar with about living in my country because Singapore is only so small and these places are quite close to my home. So, I've thought it would be a good idea to reminisce a little on my earlier, more prominent memories I have on each station. Of course, I'm not going to talk about all of them because that will be way too much, so I shall just go from Khatib to Dhoby Ghaut.

Khatib
I never had a reason to go to Khatib before but now it's one of the places I frequent the most. But let's not talk about that because that isn't really memories. Let's talk about that one time my friend, Afiq, and I went for a jog, at Khatib of all places even though it was kind of in the middle of nowhere for us.

Even though the stadium we were going to was walking distance from Khatib, he'd tricked me to meeting him at Yishun Station instead just so that he could take a bus to Yishun and then we had to then take a bus to Khatib. See, I remember and I hold this grudge and I will hold it forever. Anyhow, it was the first time I'd been to Khatib. That's kind of the point.

Yio Chu Kang
I had some pretty good memories of this place and one pretty annoying one. I shall not talk about the annoying one because that will risk offending a certain person who probably already forgot how he had offended me. Grudges grudges.

The first good memory is coming to YCK stadium for Guang Yang's sports day. It was a good memory because I was the anti-social guy in class when I was in secondary one but I made friends and I had a lot of fun waiting for sports day to start with my new friends. It's kind of interesting to think about it now.

Another good memory is going to one of my poly classmate, Chuan Ying's, house to celebrate her birthday. I believe that was the first few times we all hung out and it was surprisingly okay. It was even quite fun. I still remember how we were stuck inside the confines of the condo because Chuan Ying wasn't there yet to help us tap out when we were about to leave, so a few of my classmates just decided to climb over the fence.

This place is also where Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) is, and that is where a bunch of secondary school classmates and I had our Advanced Elective Module for our Food & Nutrition class. It was a good memory as well, just basking in the polytechnic atmosphere even though we were secondary school kids, being impressed with the fact that there's a Mac Donald's inside a school, not having to report to our own school and have morning assembly, and so on.

NYP was also a very prominent venue for the Scrum! shoot that I was involved in for my internship. It was the place where I started working in a production team. I still remember my first day as a PA, and my colleague, Pearlyn, was teaching me literally everything. She even taught me how to fold plastic bags into triangles because I didn't know how to.

Ang Mo Kio
There are way too much stuff to remember about this place: Hanging out with Man Kit and co, waiting for him for 30 minutes to one hour right below his house just for him to change his clothes (-_-), practicing playing certain arcade games with my siblings just so we could prove to our cousin he wasn't better than us, eating a lot of dinners with my family, working in NTUC, and so on.

What I really want to talk about is a memory I have when I was a kid. It's really fuzzy, but I remember two particular things. The first one is: As a kid, I was really bored of walking around and looking at things, and I kept asking my dad when we would be going home. Obviously, my brother didn't want to go home so quickly, so we had to compromise. I was so excited to return home to play a Rush Hour-esque toy that my parents bought for me. There was another time when I was angry (I was always angry) because my parents bought something for my brother because he wanted it, and there was nothing that I really wanted but I insisted that my parents get me something as well just to be fair. They refused, because it didn't make sense, so I threw a book from Popular across the aisle, in front of a shop assistant. My parents apologised to her and scolded me, but she said it was all right. With pride, I told my parents, "Even she said it was okay!"

Ang Mo Kio also housed my favourite Fish and Chips of all time. No other Fish and Chips that I've ate ever since it closed tasted as good. I loved it because it was nicely fried, there was always a layer of skin under the crisp, the tartar sauce was the best, there was always fruit salad, and it was presented on a white piece of paper on a tray instead of the usual plate. Although sometimes I pretend that I'll one day find Fish and Chips that is as good as this one, I know that it's never going to happen because the reason why it tasted so good is probably the context in which I ate it. Maybe it wasn't that good, but how I remember it, it cannot be rivalled.

Bishan
I live here. My secondary school was here. I can create an entire blog just to document my life in this place. But, let me just talk about a specific group of memories, involving someone I would consider my best friend, except that we do not consider each other best friends anymore because we've agreed that it's kind of weird to deem someone as the "best".

Jt and I used to hang out here a lot more, just chatting. We became friends when we were in secondary two, and we went to Japan together. We could chat for hours in the bus, we chatted for hours in the classroom, and even after all that, we became friends again towards the end of secondary four and we could chat for more than five hours, none stop, over bubble tea. I don't know how we could chat for so long, so often, we we did and we do. We'd named hangout spots: The cockroach place, the “还有两个” (still have two more) NTUC, the "hehehe girl" playground, and so on. It's kind of interesting. Some of them were inside jokes which would not be funny if I describe them, so I shall not try.

Fun fact: Before Bishan Park got a complete makeover, I never visited it although I lived so near. After its makeover, my parents had not visited it, even till now.

Bishan Park. This park itself holds so many good memories, but let's leave it for some other day. For that purpose, I have created a new tag in this blog, 'Places'.

Braddell
This post is getting really long, so I'll just stop at Braddell and continue next time. Before I met my friend, Guang Yi, I never had a reason to go to Braddell, because it's a very neighburhood place. But now, his house became one of our more common hangout spots. I remember the first time I came, it was to study with a bunch of Guang Yang friends, including Melvin, Syahindah, Ru Wen, Wai Min, and some others I cannot remember.

His house was also the place I first met my friends' girlfriends. One of the days, we were going to have steamboat for some reason, and they had invited Wei Jian's (then) new girlfriend, Jessica, along. It didn't feel like a very distant memory, so it's kind of hard to imagine years had passed since they got together. We also first met Han Hui, Joshua's girlfriend, in Guang Yi's house. I remember that day quite clearly because it was the first time I vomited because I drank too much.

There are a lot more times to remember about, but if I'm really going to do that, I would be writing about my entire life, which will be way too boring. I hope this post had not bored you, though.

Labels: places, reliving those days

Okay, I should really be rushing transcipts now, but... They're transcripts.

So recently, my fortune cookie app prompted me to think about this thing called "what you've been dreaming about your whole life", and that actually made me think, a lot. I think I did realise what I was suppose to realise, and I kind of figured certain things out, but that's not completely the point. The point is, what I wanted and the kind of people I met affected me quite a lot throughout my life, and I have a few groups of friends/acquaintances that I feel grateful to have through these stages of my life. So this post is dedicated to them. Kind of a thank you thing.

I get the feeling that it may end up quite personal and emotional, so if you're not up for it, you've been warned.

To the people who made the worst days of my teenage years:
You guys were a turning point in my life, in both good and bad ways. I went to you unguarded, and stuck on days after days of your nonsense, but it was worth it. That's because you filled in a gap for me during those days. Without you, I would've been an epic loser. I feel like I've talked about this way too many times, so I shan't elaborate much.

To the mehmehs (although we kind of aren't the mehmehs anymore):
At first, I wanted to make this whole thing anonymous, but I'm trying to do this thing where I openly express my affections and stuff, so, yeah. I hope it works. Anyway, to put it in a really cheesy way, I'll say you saved me, in very subtle ways.

Before you, my main objective in life was to fit in like a piece, and be like everyone else so that I can live my life impressing those around me, and being "good enough" for everyone. It's not even a secret that for a very long time, I needed acceptance. But you guys unintentionally (or maybe some of you intentionally) showed me another way - accepting myself and, perhaps, finding myself.

And eventually, I found myself, and I think I kind of accept myself for who I am now.

So yeah, it's not a very dramatic thing or a one-off situation that improved my life, but the little things you inspired in me. I guess it's just you being you.

To my poly friends:
You guys are a complicated lot, to be honest. Thanks to that, you managed to bring a lot, a lot of changes to my life. As some of you pointed out, I changed throughout these three years - less stubborn/intense, less fragile, and stuff.

Which is probably true, because I feel like I'm no longer that transparent glass that shatters when you so much as rub it too much. I'm still pretty fragile, but not as much, I hope. I guess I've been promoted to a porcelain cup or something. And then of course, group projects and stuff, and a duration of me feeling forever left out made me realise certain things about myself and the people around me.

And the one thing that I'm really thankful for is that you guys helped me fulfill things I deemed as my goals ever since primary school. As I've mentioned, for a very long time, I needed acceptance, and perhaps some significance, and you gave that to me. You were the first who didn't look down on me in certain areas, and the first besides my family who willingly celebrated my birthdays and such (have I mentioned before how I forced people to celebrate my birthdays? :P). I'm still really grateful about the whole yacht thing.

To a separate group of friends, also from my course:
I lied a little during our sharing session, but I'm pretty sure it's really obvious. I think some of you lied as well. But that night, which may have been insignificant for some of you, was pretty important to me, in the sense that I said things I otherwise would never have shared. Thanks for opening that channel up for me, but still, whatever is said that night stays in that night.

To my internship friends and acquaintances (production, not office):
For one of my first few times, I really felt like a team, rather than an individual in a team. Thanks for that. It was really important to me.

To my parents:
I'll never forget that you were there through some of my harder days, like that time when I felt super lost after quitting from NTUC, or through the first few days of my internship, when my phone and laptop gave out on me when I needed them most. And then there's the whole thing where you woke up super early to cook lunch for me because I told you that my warehouse workplace didn't have canteen. I can never say anything decent to you like that, but thanks a lot. Sorry and I hope that one day, I'll become better.

Yup, so that's the list of people I wanted to thank after my moments of sentimentality.

Back to transcripts.

Labels: personality, reflection, reliving those days

The Hideout Spot
You don't know paranoia and helplessness (and stupidity) until you start to think that every ant you see is a baby cockroach. That happened to me a few years back. It was the first time ever that I picked up Baygon and sprayed at them like mad. But ants being ants, they're never gone. I even traced them all the way to their hideout spot, which turned out to be that tiny hole at the corner of the bathroom.

I told my dad that too many baby cockroaches lived in the house and there's nothing we can do about it, because we shouldn't kill animals.

And then my sister told me that those are ants, and that broke the illusion that formed itself in my head.

From then on, I made sure to literally blow the ants out of the way before showering so I don't kill them. One day, I saw the ants carrying a dead lizard and squeezing it into the hole.

After a while, the ants mysteriously vanished.

The Monster in the Ceiling
A few years before that, I looked up at the ceiling of the bathroom for the first time and saw dirt/corrosion/whatever-that-is in the shape of a human, with an angry face. I got afraid and hasten all my showers and stuff from then on. Soon, I forgot about it.

Today, I looked up again and it's gone, probably covered by even more dirt/corrosion/whatever-that-is.

Rats Invasion
There were two times when rats came into our house. The first time it happened was through our gate. We lived on the first floor, near a park connector. So, it's hardly suppose to be surprising that a rat entered. We were eating in the living room and I saw this figure at the other end, sneaking towards the food offerings we gave to our deities. I wondered if it was a giant cockroach, and the next moment, I think my brother exclaimed that there's a rat. My family is terrified of rats.

The other time, a rat ran into our kitchen, and my father spent a very, very long time trying to subtly lead it out of the house. We built a barricade that created a pathway for the rat to run out.

The Black Cat
When I was a kid, I was sitting innocently on the living room sofa, and then I saw a black cat suddenly, staring at me, a few distance away. Panicking, I ran to my grandma and told her about it, and she wasn't surprised. When she came out to shoo it away, it wasn't there. She said it probably ran out, but my brother told me that black cats meant ghosts. For a long time, I didn't dare to be alone anymore.

I then wrote this story for S-folks, or S-fogs, I can't remember. When I was a kid, that's a popular website everyone submit their horror stories to. That story never got accepted.

Monster
When I was even younger, I loved ultraman. We went to buy ultraman toys, and one of them is a really scary-looking monster that I was so afraid of. My sister (or brother) bought it and I was trying my best to avoid it.

My sister couldn't believe how afraid I was of it, so she pretended to turn into that monster. I believed her and I cried.

Childhood is funny. Children are stupid.

Labels: family, reliving those days

The Ultimate Selfie from DTVM Awards / grad night
If I try, I can still remember quite vividly how I felt when I first met my classmates. Unlike most of them, I did not attend majority parts of the Freshmen Orientation Programme because I went for a mehmeh chalet instead. So, it felt kind of intimidating meeting them for the first time, especially since right from the beginning, it was pretty obvious that they're not the kind of people I was used to.

The image is still pretty clear in my head: We were sitting in a circle (of course...) and eating SP-provided food in Sentosa. While everyone else went to try out some free attraction, the unenthusiastic bunch of us just sat there quietly. And I was trying to convince myself, "okay, this is my new so-called family".

And to be honest, it didn't start out too beautifully. A lot of dramas, a lot of intensity, a lot of people crying and fighting, and a lot of unwillingness to open up to one another. But time quickly flew by and then we were in year 3, tackling our final year project, making our final short film, thrown into Penang to make a short documentary, brought to Melbourne for a creative writing trip, and so on.

By then, we've gotten so close, went through so much (just for the sake of it, I shall copy and paste what I wrote some time ago)...

As for the whole DTVM, there were a lot of painful times, honest. But there were a lot of great memories. Filming, discussing stuffs, watching one another panic before a major pitch, creating a haunted house together, torturing our main characters together, preparing for skits, celebrating, eating, playing catching on Marina Barrage, Christmas celebration, going for LEAP camp, and so on. I built memories with most of my classmates.

I'm going to miss them so much.

Like my course manager, Ms Gamar, says, we're a bunch of weird people who belong together because we're weird.

DTVM has changed me so much. I remember when I first entered, I was the very anti-social, super anxious, super stubborn, super irritated, super irritating guy who chose the word 'emotional' to represent myself when asked for. Now, I guess I'm less of those things and I start to see things differently.

My lecturers, my classmates, my internship, and maybe my own efforts have changed me. After my internship, I feel different. There's this sort of intimacy and optimism that my colleagues had transmitted to me. And then my classmates taught me to accept myself, although they probably didn't realise it. They also taught me to accept others, to have trust in them, and -it took me too long, but- they also taught me about faith, not the religion kind, but the humanly kind.

And I just want to briefly mention how each lecturer impacted me:

Mr Chee Teng - He made me realise that I may actually have a talent for videography, and that encouraged me and made me like film.
Ms Gamar - One of the things she said to me affects me quite a lot. Yesterday, she told me "I'm proud of you", and that matters to me.
Ms Stella - Although no one likes getting their ideas rejected 80% of the time, she taught me to be creative. And more importantly, she made me realise logic in the midst of creativity.
Ms Mary - She selected my group's transmedia project, Grave Business, to win the category in DTVM Awards, and that earned us Ah Huats! And it's also thanks to her that we get such fluid internships, Penang filming trip, etc.


Ah Huat and a book
Mr Mark - I find it very hard to call him Mr Mark, because he looks so much like a classmate instead. He's generally encouraging, with his comments on our museum script and the fact that he bought the shirt I painted for me!
Mr Esman - He is the embodiment of independent learning. For his modules, he pushed us to take learning to a personal level.
Ms Swee Lin - She somehow managed to make me feel good about my fantasy story, and reminded me why I loved that genre so much when she analysed the four elements for my story.
Ms May Lin - Although she only taught us for one module, she has transferred a tonne of unwordable wisdom to us, or to me. As I've said, they are unwordable.

And there are many other lecturers, like Ms Chong Li Min, Ms Mabeline, Mr Josh Hong, Ms Wai Leng, Mr Roy, and Ms Fei Wan who taught us some theory and stuff. Oh, and just to mention, Ms Wai Leng's constant probbing with her whys and hows still helps.

I would love to talk about all my friends individually, but that's too many people to mention, plus I'm not exactly going to stop being with them.

Anyway, the whole chunk above is a very lengthy introduction to say that the whole of our DTVM experience is wrapped up last night by a grad night/show / awards ceremony which they call DTVM Awards.

So each class has to prepare an item to perform, but my class chose to break the rule and made a video instead, because we were all traumatised by our two years of failure :'D

So MJ, CX, Annzy and I met up last Monday to discuss an idea, and we chose to produce the simplest, easiest one: A video to gossip about one another. What's new, right?

But the writing and filming process was pretty fun. Got to meet most of my classmates on an individual level, which is kind of a nice wrap-up for the whole thing.

So the days before DTVM Awards was spent working on the video. Got our formal clothes...


stood at our booths to "pitch" our work, and ate a nice dinner.

And then the award giving/performances start. So partly thanks to the people who followed us on Twitter and liked our Facebook posts and stuff, we managed to get Ah Huats, hand-made by Ms Stella, as our "medal".

And then there were entertaining performances by each class.

Y1/01 - Skit about our lecturers in the same school
Y1/02 - A video about what we've learned, but all screwed up
Y2/01 - Some sponsorship commercial skit
Y2/02 - A Minute to Win It DTVM edition. Thanks lecturers for giving us the winning prize although they won :'D
Y3/01 - Quiz show about DTVM. Winter is coming.
Y3/02 - Our class, as explained above.

And there's the video collage of our journey in the course, as like every year, and then the lecturers played again a video from CASS Commencement dinner where they made fun of themselves.

After that is a burst of selfie angst in which we (or at least some of us) went around taking selfies with everyone.

Which concludes the night, although a bunch of them went for an after-party which I chose not to go.

Oh, and this being my blog, it's mandatory for me to list down a list of things that happened in my life recently:

• Went bowling with Guang Yi, Zi Xing, and Wei Jian, and watched "everything is awesome~" aka Lego movie again.
• Went to Ikea with Guang Yi and Zi Xing to get A3 photo frames for Zi Xing's gigantic selfies.
• Had a picnic with my Melbourne clique - Colin, King, Cheryl, Hira, Joanne, Jez, Elijah, CX - except that Elijah is not there.
• Watched 500 with Jt.
• Filmed an Earth Hour video for a competition with Matin, King, Mj, Kylie, Rebecca, Bo Mun, Hanissah, and Nat.
• Got Dark Souls 2.
• Finished discussing our Taiwan trip. Going next week~

Labels: dtvm, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened

Labels: emo, personality, reflection, reliving those days

Just lying on bed, playing the radio in my iPad, sipping really warm milo and listening to raindrops splattering onto the ground outside the window. Relaxing, without a plan and without thinking about anything in particular. This is just like one of those carefree days I had when I was still in primary school.

Blogging about nothing in particular, just recapping the day with vivid details. I miss those days.

I miss celebrating festivals in MMORPGs, playing lots of online games, lying on the spare mattress in my grandparents' room. Miss listening to them just talk about people I don't know. Awaiting Sundays so I can visit my maternal Ahma as well as cousins.

But life just moves on. And then I went to secondary school. I remember knowing pretty clearly that things would be different, and that my life would change. So I cried every night and my parents didn't know what to do with me. Two weeks later, I got used to it and started enjoying my new life.

And then life moved on again and O`levels was over. I got my first part time job, got scared, and quit and did not know what to do anymore. While everybody else was working part time, I was wasting my life away at home. And somehow, time passed not-so-depressingly, and I'm in poly.

This time, I coped a little better.

Then now, it's another phase of life. I'm in internship, and proud to say I'm coping much better than previously. Maybe I'm getting used to changes.

But thinking back and pretending to relive those childhood days, I can't deny those were great times. That doesn't mean now isn't any better. Things just get newer each time, and I'm pretty sure at some point I'm going to miss whatever I'm going through now.

Life is okay.

Labels: reflection, reliving those days

Last week, we completed and submitted all our final assignments, and then we had our last DTVM lecture last Friday. The sadness seriously began to sink in during and after yesterday/today's chalet.

Labels: dtvm, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened