The Pursuit of Capital Letters

I miss school and its familiarity. The safe bubble which shimmers like seamless armour sewn with millions of rainbow-hued scales. (and oh-so-fragile, oh-so-transient, sizzlecracklepop!) The trustworthy trapeze net which always has your back. And ohmygoodness, the people. Everybody is different, yet everybody was the same in school. There were always things to say, jokes to create and jibes to exchange. It was effortless. It was easy. It was... natural. I am not used to trying this hard just to sustain a conversation with people. At work, I am always alert and on-guard, with doubts constantly racing across my mind: "Would they understand this? Would they find it funny? How would they continue?" I know socialising is not supposed to be this calculative or business-like, but that is all I seem to do these days. I have lost my spark, my gab, my comfort in social situations. It is wearisome to be unable to relax and unwind for hours on end, and I dislike this high-strung, pathetic side of myself. Furthermore, the people at work are very friendly and warm and I have no reason to be so uptight. Maybe this is the adjustment period, growing pains, coming-of-age, whatchamaycallit. Either way, it needs time. I guess. I hope.


On another note, I was looping Satellite Heart and looking through the 2009 pictures in my camera an hour ago. Oh boy, waves of bittersweet nostalgia came crahing all over me. I miss there, I miss then, I miss them. School years are really one of the best parts of a person's life. I have always envied the lives of international school or boarding school students, but it is only now that I realise I was pretty damn fortunate to have what I had. My school, my friends, my life was not the edgiest (not by a long shot), not the coolest, not the most fulfilling, but it kept me happy enough. Just that was enough; that was what I needed. And gosh, I miss you so much. Your smile, your kind eyes, your compact built, your strange lilt. Japanese Gardens reminds me of you and every time I pass by it, I wish that I had fulfilled the promise of bringing you around. Phone-call alarms remind me of you. Beer cans remind me of you. I wish you were here, by my side, just as a friend. But you will probably not know this.:(

Today, I bumped into a schoolmate. I was on my way to Chinese Garden for a run when I saw him behind the traffic light. We had never spoken before, even though we both took the same bus and alighted at the same stop at times, so I was surprised when he responded to my small smile with a little wave. The friendly exchange was little awkward and very brief, but it made me think about how quickly and how readily we warm up to other schoolmates after we have graduated from school. It was quite funny when you think about it: not smiling at schoolmates you don't know, looking the other way after scanning the surroundings and identifying the people around, pretending to fiddle with something as you walk past another so that any eye contact is prevented, all these tended to happen when you were wearing the school uniform. But out of the regimented environment, running into a schoolmate is not a happening, it is an event. You would start to think about his/her name, his/her CCA, your friends that might have known his/her, general impression of his/her character and ecetera. You would want to make him/her acknowledge your presence, so that you two would be mentally in agreement of what an amazing coincidence this is: that in this vast vast world, you two happened to be in the same place at the very same time. And indeed, it is heck of a coincidence.

( ramble ramble )

2009 is well and truly over now. It has been.. quite a year. There was always something to be done, and for most of the time, they were not done until the very last moment, which resulted in more than a few close shaves and heart attacks. It sure made life then more exciting, until I realised (too late) that these mistakes may result in a tepid existence in the future, but oh well, that will be for me to decide. :)

( 2009 )

Okay, too lazy to think anymore. Time to sleep or play Sims haha. Tataaa.