Citylights

So on my second day at URA, I was taken up to the conference room at the top of the building to sit in on a briefing that my mentor was giving. Its contents are totally classified, and it was rather posh; when you enter a pastel-coloured room with a large wood tabletop layered with nametags, paper, pencils and glasses of water, you can feel the atmosphere shifting. While I can't discuss what was said, I can at least reflect that this was an illuminating insight into the art of information control in Singapore.

All this, of course, was part of a build-up to an even bigger event that is about to be unveiled. I don't know whether I can talk about that either...I reckon it'll be harmless, since it's general public knowledge, but I still feel rather vulnerable because I haven't signed any legally binding documents with URA yet. So indulge me while I err on the side of caution. But rest assured that you will know all about it soon enough.

After work, made a quick jump to Lavender to join the old RJGE gang for a reunion over pizza, chips, root beer floats and far too much soft drink. But meeting them again (for the first time this year, no less) was a real breath of fresh air. The night started with a hilarious round of Kboxing to Jay Chou's insane raps (which I refrained from participating in lest I caused a commotion among the neighbours) and a retrospective on Michael Jackson's music videos, from back when he was still human.

The conversation quickly turned to more serious things, however: medical housemanships, professors at the university, foreign exchange programmes, waiting to matriculate. Those of us who have yet to start university were raring to go, while those who were in the midst of their courses were cautioning us to take it easy while we still can. And we remarked on the change in perspective, and how this has influenced our conversations. Four years ago, as part of the ExCo, we would have been worrying about booking the venues for the following week's practice, ensuring full attendance, sourcing for scores and enforcing practice regimes. The biggest worries we had were in the run-ups to performances like SYF and our yearly public concerts. And now, we were talking about degree programmes, job prospects, exchange rates. It's a far cry indeed. And, for better or worse, it's a sign of the times.

(I like what my phone camera can do...especially at night!)

At any rate, at least these shifts in perspective and conversation topics are occurring against a backdrop of connections that have remained largely constant. Though the mode and content of conversation may change, the motivation behind the conversation, that desire to get to know more of another person and to be amiable in the way that we have grown used to, still remains. And you realise that over the years, as old friends take divergent paths, if the previous foundation is good enough, what you have is not a distancing but a purification, a shedding of superfluous and ephemeral quotidian connections to preserve the real core of a relationship: the fellow-feeling.

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Today, started doing some real work. It wasn't very high-level work, considering that I hardly know enough to participate in actual planning decisions. But it does feel good to be doing something material, to see your effort producing something that contributes to a material end, rather than simply doing something with the painful awareness that its objective is just to pass the time, and nothing else. Over the last few days, I have resolved to make myself useful as far as possible and, above all, not to sit still and waste time. The latter is too easy to slip into, and I don't want to lose the momentum that I've built up over the last five months!

It rained today, with stormclouds so pregnant with rain that they swallowed up the tops of the tallest downtown towers. But I didn't notice it until I stepped out to the lobby on the way to another meeting (once again, just to observe). The building itself insulates you from the outside world, and URA deals with so much theoretical and hypothetical stuff that it's easy to become divorced from the reality of things, I think. You pass your days among artists' impressions, those images that are an uncanny blend of drawing and photography, a collage trying to look realistic, an imaginary scene that is disconcerting not because it is fictitious, but because the perspectives aren't properly synched. Somewhere, something is out of place, or tilted wrongly, or clashing with the context. In this weird arena, your own perception starts to warp, and there is a danger of forgetting that what you are looking at is an image of imagination, and nothing more. Stepping out of the door is thus a disorienting experience, a realignment of your perceptions to the real world.

More questions raised about the wisdom of signing the deed today. I realise that there are many, many scholars in URA, and that most of them are really very young. It shows that the retaining power of URA isn't very high. And most of the people bonded to URA that I've met have cautioned against a hasty decision to sign the bond. This, needless to say, clashes a lot with my original expectations of what this internship would be like. Firstly, after waiting two years to get to this point, I don't think that the decision I have arrived at is hasty any longer, though I do concede that it could have been made prematurely with insufficient data. Secondly, there is a difference between objecting to the bond in principle, and having concrete objections against the kind of work that the bond demands that you do. For most people, I surmise that they are bothered with the surrendering of freedom for six years, rather than with the job itself. And this is rather encouraging. But of course, more observation and discussion is warranted.

At any rate, travelling to and from work is invigorating. I find myself constantly looking upwards, my gaze drawn inexorably towards the lofty tops of the mighty towers all around me. In the morning light, the towers seem to reach upwards in anticipation. In the gathering dusk, the towers gleam in triumph at a day fruitfully concluded. Of course, I am romanticising. But isn't the fact, that this kind of romanticising is even plausible, something worth mentioning? It keeps you looking forward; on the brink of sleep, you anticipate the next morning, and in the hours after lunch, you anticipate the homeward journey.