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Zach’s gone for Canada.

We’d met a few days ago, with him asking if I’d “care to join” him in a final gym session and of course, I had agreed fervently.

The gym was full of people, lanky, fat, midges and beefcakes, all sizes of them burning off the Christmas dinners and holiday waists they had accumulated.

My mind was buzzing through gym and the short walk to the food court, trying to come up with all the conversation I could muster while looking like I just came out of a shower.

Through the whole journey, I swallowed my uneasiness in short laughs and random questions to make use of the time we had left.

—

We sat silently, listening to the whirring and clicks of the restaurant’s cookers and pumps while I twirled my straw round and round the circumference of my cup.

Usually, I’d run out of things to say and panic internally, while he’d look at me like I was an interesting leaf in the forest and sometimes laugh, thoughtfully and hesitantly, at moments which made no sense.

This time, he seemed to talk more, and it felt like he ran out of words as well.

We were all too aware that this was the last of each other we would see for a long time; the cymbals were petering out and the atmosphere was static, the words we spoke were static, everything was static.

My phone quaked on the table like a punch in the gut and I hesitated before answering the call.

“Yeah. What, aren’t we eating outside? Okay, ten minutes… The stop before Kovan. BEFORE. The one slightly after Serangoon JC?”

I caught Zach looking at his feet.

“Al-alright. See you. ”

—

I can’t remember what it was that I was sad about.

The fella who brought me, against my fears and anxiety, to meet my block, to gym consistently and believed in me more than I did myself?

Or when he said “Take care too” with so much more emotion than I’d ever heard from him?

There’s an ulcer between my bottom lip and gums; the thin flap of skin just so happened to be inflamed and anything that touches it sets hell fire to all the nerves in my mouth.

The rest of this post was made in a hazy, bored melancholy. Excuse the poor writing.

(more…)

I’ve spent the last four days swimming in the evenings in preparation for my Lifesaving 1, 2 and 3 course. It would usually take a few months, but Derek sourced for an instructor that would cram all the nitty-gritty of dealing with weak, non-, injured and unconscious swimmers to just slightly less than a work week.

I’ve passed, of course, and it wasn’t so tough after all.

I was surprised that no alcertations rose between Derek, Rayyan, Chuan and me in these days, as past events (NS, Batam, Taiwan, Europe) had shown. Perhaps it’s not my fault those were shit times after all.

(more…)

On the way home from Stage last night (2300) the seniors started asking each other about our gaits. To describe them in one word.

I thought for a second and blurted “calculated, no, gingerly, no, ginger? Calculated.” They glanced around in mock surprise, asked if every step was a huge consideration and I answered in my usual way of peeping a cheerful answer before my rationality took the reins, driving my mumbles into murmurs.

We had a camp and script read today; the camp was largely improv-based (which boosted my confidence, seeing how Michael, who had blasted us the day before for being unprepared, was laughing voraciously at my adnittedly-clever use of “ice” and “gateway” to sell drugs to an Eskimo) while the script read was interesting in the way that made my eyes and mouth smile but shift restlessly on my crossed legs.

They nominated me as the Stage Manager, which the exco was rather respectful for, on the condition that I couldn’t act this time. I gazed blankly, discarding my ideas of being a manager both in Six Characters in Search of an Author and faked an enthusiastic, gracious thumbs up for the tough days ahead that Steph and Michael promised.

I didn’t know what they thought of my script reading… Was I bad? Atrocious? The medicine coaxed me to forget about it (it does that a lot I think) and I continued to talk to myself on the way back from the loo. The doubt is there but it’s not threatening me at knife point.

I was sure if I knew less than or equal to what the others did, and that this role, although not on Jesus’s level, was a huge sacrifice at least. Tears will be shed and my heart will be wrenched… Plans will be ruined. I don’t know. Maybe everything’s gonna work out just fine.

What’s the point of joining Stage if I can’t be an actor, though…

Mum always says I was much happier when I was younger; she’d ask where that little boisterous boy went and I wouldn’t say anything because I didn’t know either.

She also asked me just this evening to pursue what I wanted to do and I coldly replied that just a few months ago, when I asked her if I could pursue graphic design, she told me I was better off choosing a subject that “educated people do”. I stared out the window for the rest of the ride.

I spent the previous week slaving over a competition that I didn’t know I hadn’t registered for in the end, and I spent this week doing that Personal Branding Video for a friend and leaving mine till the last moment as a grainy rushed mess.

I received my midterms and although it showed that I was in the 75th percentile for most of my subjects sans MA1505, I felt nothing but worry that the competitive, bragging ‘friends’ of mine would overtake me in the future while the ones who don’t study would complain to me about how bad they got it.

I’m not even sure if I can keep the advantage up. I’m slipping.

Why do I even hang out with all these people? Aren’t friends suppose to not worry about their place? MLM solicitors, braggarts and those fucks who don’t listen when you provide help but whine when they fuck things up?

God, at least in army they’d tell you what to do.

Here? It’s once every 2 weeks.