101st

As a matter of course, I do still read all the blogs on my blog rounds on a regular basis. It is something to look forward to every day, to keep up to date with lives that are no longer connected by face-to-face proximity. Some of the blogs have grown bittersweet, because I cannot any longer sympathise or comprehend what I am reading as well as I used to. But I still think that, as a point of principle, it is important to continue reading. And so I do, day after day. I continue to read what you write.

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The day before, went out for dinner with Joel, KH and YJ, who had just come back from Melbourne, fresh from a semester of medical studies. It was hilarious; this was a guy who once wrote, during a final-year English exam, a short story about a babysitter who ate her charge and the family dog as well, a person who himself ate an article during the morning reading periods because the offending item was too boring, and who ate an eraser just to prove a point. And in between his strange culinary habits, he found the time to tackle various members of our old gang from behind and set the batch record for number of consecutive kicks of the capteh (but even as I look back now, I notice that the memories are somewhat faded; one must be careful not to inaccurately attribute memorable activities to any particular memorable person, and in this was condense multiple personalities into one and use that one as a proxy for the many).

Went in search for porridge buffet (for the uninitiated, that's basically a Teochew idea where you get many dishes of various meats and preserves to go with plain white porridge), but settled instead for a steamboat buffet. The restaurant gave us all individual steamboats, which I thought was no good at all, since one tiny little pot was not nearly enough to properly cook lots of food, and anyway, steamboats are meant to be communal. Afterwards, adjourned to the nearby 7-11 because the restaurant did not serve free water. There was a ledge in the store for filling in TOTO tickets, which also had a good view of the street outside, so, lacking any concrete plans to go anywhere else, we hung out at that ledge and nursed our Slurpees with talk of university life and absent friends. Interesting, how the ubiquitous convenience store can become unlikely venues for good conversations.

After, went in the direction of the train station with a vaguely-formed notion of going home, but passed by the closed Coffee&Toast shop at Citylink Mall, and sidetracked to sit at an empty table, which clung to a lingering aroma of fresh brew and bread (truly, is there as effective and visceral an advertising method as propagating a delicious aroma?). We were in a strange conundrum: we didn't want to go back yet, because we were already 21 years old, and at this age one thinks that any time before midnight should be considered early, but on the other hand, we had to catch the last train because Nightriders did not run on weekday nights, and so we were somewhat bound by the concerns that had restricted our outings since schooldays. But then again, there was something comforting in the awareness that some things have stayed the same; that, indeed, for these people, it has always been easy to pick up from wherever we left off, and indeed, it is inconceivable for me to ever lose contact with them.

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Yesterday night, met up with Kels, who came back from Cambridge last week. In a corner of my mind, I've always seen her as something of a glimpse of what might have been, because she's doing the course that I had gotten into two years ago, but which I had given up because of NS. In an alternate universe, I would also be in a Cambridge college, doing the SPS programme, and at this point in time probably fretting over my final-year dissertation and contemplating the approaching end of a golden age, the end of a borrowed time away from the Army. But as it turned out, it was not to be. The alternative, as it turned out, is a good replacement; it can even be regarded in some ways as a superior arrangement. But I daresay there will always be a part of me who will wonder about that big what-if, that road not taken, as it were, and what kind of person would have come out of taking that road.

Anyway - had cold soba that night, because the steamboat of the previous night had proved to be quite lethal to my stomach, and over the refreshing and cleansing fare, talked about EDB, URA, universities and, delightfully enough, teaching. Kels had done a stint at RJC, prior to going abroad, so we could compare notes and reminisce about classes. This is, I think, a privilege of all teachers, and relief teachers get this on the cheap, because we take classes without paying the high personal costs exacted on real teachers. And after, went looking for dessert (Hokkaido ice-cream from Takashimaya, to stay faithful to the theme of the night) and strolled along the darkened and thronging Orchard Road, pointing out what has changed over the year, what has come be seem more important from the perspective of one who has been away, and whether signing our respective bonds had been the right decision.

Such friendships, I think, are curious entities. On the one hand, they are fundamentally strong, being built on a shared past that doesn't shift, even if one's perceptions of that past may change. On the other hand, they are seemingly fragile, because as the shared past becomes more remote from the present, one tends to lose the vocabulary that one can use to talk meaningfully with the other party. It creates a strange relationship, in which one must effectively make the acquaintance of a stranger, and then, after a point, one suddenly finds oneself talking easily and frankly, like in the old times.

Of course, as it turns out, for some people the second phase does not happen, and one feels overwhelmed with a feeling of awkwardness and alienation. But, thankfully, though each loss is felt keenly, these are in the minority. It also occurs to me that I have probably already made the best friends of my life, and anyone who comes after this will sem to be more like functional acquaintances, unless one gets really lucky. In fact, when I think of it, I have not really made new friends since coming out of JC. If I lost these friends now, I would really not know what to do.

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At any rate, I'm feeling much better after the last two days. They have shown that some parts of normal life can continue, and it is good to be able to get out of the house. After the gloom of the past week, this feels like a new day: it really feels like something big is starting to happen. I think I will make it a point to get out every day from now on; although I may not have specific business outside home, at least when one is out, one is in the position to be surprised by chance encounters. That is the healthy thing to do; that helps to put my perspective right, to pull it out of the narrow confines of its inward-looking contemplation, and to align it with the real world out there.