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It was one of those days when everyone seemed to talk about how the future was going to be another set of checkmarks, or how they’re leaving for the Great Everywhere Elses and having the next stage of life decided and ready to go. 

Yirui and I had an intense discussion about something like that which quickly devolved to me desperately seesawing between reassuring him that life isn’t as bleak as we thought and sullenly agreeing that being dealt a bad hand in life meant second place. He curiously apologised on WhatsApp after he left, almost as if by courtesy and a bit of embarassment that he got carried away with apathy. (would you look at that?)  I hesitated and replied to him with what felt like a very halted shrug. 

After CS3242 (Clarence claims that sending him super low res pictures of Dr Huang was bullying) I finally steeled myself and went to UTown, that Sheng Siong near UTown and Clementi to search for an AAAA battery which was the last hope for my Surface 4 pen. And it worked! 

Cider leaves me unfiltered and boisterous. 

Watched La La Land with the D Blockers (smuggling two Anchors in) and gushed about how the entire movie was made worth it after its end-scene. We crossed paths with Steven Lim thrice, and I got a Long-Island, a-whisky-coke and two-beers-worth of being hammered and hungover. Ended up wandering through the seedy, smoky Orchard Square looking for two more shots before giving up and stumbling back at 4am.

Told An how I saw him so much in Seb and the suit who was dumped and he agreed.

Kor came back from Sweden after 6 months and it felt like he’d never really left. I ran out of things to say but pointed out hot girls to each other and we shared a haircut. Mom was peering curiously into the salon, occasionally coming in to make comments and suggestions while I squinted disapprovingly at her through the mirror. She said the hair cut was better than what she could’ve made.

I’m afraid to think she’s lying, but that’s no way to live life. 

Blue ticks are the worstttt

Since when did 3am nights become a bad thing? 

Doing Videography for ICG. A lot of discomfort… But a lot of gladness that I’m doing something out of my comfort zone. 

Now I’m just thinking about which lectures to skip tomorrow. 

God, I don’t want to go back to school. 

I’ve sent dozens of WApp chats requesting people to partake in the InterCollege Games trailer and I don’t see this ending any time soon.

I have a couple of videos to make for RVRC. 

I have a production coming up with Stage. 

I’m the fucking 财神 for NARVI (actually this is cool) 

I have 2 proposals to write right now, before school’s even started. 

Two of my days end at 7 or later. Shit! On the bright side, I can still apply for exchange at the end of this sem. Maybe that will make me a better person. 

The fireworks weren’t as great as the previous years’. I don’t know. My favourite kind of the lot, the massive, flashy, ones that reach over your head were obscured by the bowl of the museum. The company was unfamiliar (not that I didn’t love them to bits for just being there). The air smelt like ass.

The entire day had me worrying about going to the fireworks alone. To me, the fireworks were just more than a flashy display of cash blowing up in the atmosphere (it’s really hard for that imagery to make sense for anyone). It was a physical manifestation of a new start, a period, a dropped-capital that precludes a long, long paragraph. Hope’s a rare commodity.

Was much of the previous year just… wrong? The worst semester, academically. The non-stop feeling of being just absolutely lost and flailing for a handhold. Getting fat as fuck again? The feeling of being dejected from time to time?

Then again… I had my first acting gig. I had a couple of dear, dear friends. I’m getting 2 views from the UK daily. (Thanks.) I’m learning how to not judge, and of course I caught up with Ping and An in the way that I’m finally seeing the adults that they are.

Maybe next year, I’ll post more pictures. Get everything prioritised. Save some money. Get help. Keep in touch. 

Listen more. Love myself in the way that I haven’t for too long. Love others.

—

I still grinned at the very glittery, sparkly kind of firework. I like those too. Hope.

Results were horrendous, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I feel like I’m going to submit to mediocrity at this rate. 
I watched two plays last week. Dear Jay, starring Zenda and In Search of Salt starring Ranice. They were plays that touched on suicide and grief and depression and very much letting go of a person that tethers human relationships together. Jay made me smile foolishly at all-too-familiar situations and the very surreal feeling that I was being watched by a God who appreciated dramatic irony very much. Salt was painful as I had wanted to love it so much, but had been thrown out of immersion by the lack of casuality between characters at a play where grief, pride and anxiety were turned to eleven. 

The trip to Bintan was very much a lazy contained getaway to a beach that was a tinge too brown and a sky that was threatening rain for too long to be in the running for paradise. The buffet almost made me cry with its magnificence and we ate like kings. 

The first night was spent at the beachside with An strumming the guitar and crooning Damien Rice. His voice was low and gravelly from the pain of a breakup. I laid on a beach chair next to him and asked him everything about her.

The stars and guitar and waves and sandy toes and full moon fit the gap where Salt had missed. 

The next night, 5 hours of ferry with Ping learnt me so much more about the twins and me and her and her. 

I roamed Clarke Quay today, wondering how she was doing. 

I lived in the now, I said. I was thinking about the breakup and growing at the same time and I learnt that I had the capacity to change others and by extension myself and that nothing could stop me. 

I felt like the world hadn’t left me behind any more.