le gal;

I’ve been facing really rough times recently.
Also, I just happened to be thinking about last year, and I feel very sad, the sentimental sort.
Sorry this blog can’t be what I hoped it would be forever since I started it. It was nice, when we were young and in lower sec, to have all those dreams, to know there was such a thing as being unrealistic, but never thinking that these both would cross paths.I’ve been realising why school is really such a fantastic place after all.

The locations of the downtown line stage 2 MRT stations are really odd in that they seem extremely constrained. And it certainly looks like Duchess/Watten/Kah Kee station is going to be built in our school field (college side) - no exaggeration intended! I suppose they are going to be entirely underground… Even the existing stations which are underground have some kind of structure above ground to feed passengers into the station, but it seems like there’ll be hardly any space for these even. The suggested ‘Kah Kee’ station is obviously a concession to the efforts of Hwa Chong students and alumni to get it named Hwa Chong Station. I’d thought that LTA wouldn’t even bother in the first place. I would much prefer Hwa Chong though…

“Others, like 23 year-old SCI student Nathaniel Tan, were fully supportive of the protest. He felt that “not being able to apply what we learn in school” is a major concern for students.”
- extracted from The Online Citizen’s report on the NTU students’ Speakers’ Corner protest regarding the canning of student-produced articles and broadcasts regarding Dr. Chee’s visit to NTU.

Somehow the above struck a chord with me. Maybe it had something to do with my conversation with Mr. Liew earlier, which touched quite a bit on education. Naturally. Yes, I had dinner with him earlier. It left me with a good feeling. And I actually haven’t seen him since 2006. I have been getting good feelings recently. Like after I watched My Magic. Oh and the songs I sang at KBox yesterday have been wandering about my mind today (none of the english ones, btw).

Several things:
1. Anyone wants to go to the Big Walk with me? You get to see the new Marina Barrage which noone else has seen

1. The hokkaido crab my aunties flew over back from their holiday are heavenly, out-of-this-world. I have never tasted crabs with such abundant, tender and succulent meat before.

2. I regret forgetting about and not going to JBJ’s funeral yesterday.

3. Today was my virgin experience at K-Box. Went with Hang and Danny. It was most rewarding and enjoyable - I think I need to return to that little singing room in a few days time. (We sang both English and Chinese songs, if you were wondering/sniggering at me)

Most of these were supposed to be Facebook status messages, but I realised there were too many for today.

I still don’t understand why I can be my totally cock self with certain people, but I’m serious with others. And the latter tend to be my better friends. Yet sometimes I wonder whether the people I’m more impersonal with are really my better friends in a subconscious way.

The movie made me miss you. I thought I wouldn’t and shouldn’t have to again. But sometimes I think it means something, despite everything. I miss you.

Well, this period of life is very destabilising indeed. Previously, I tried to hide my dark side. Now it’s as if it’s all breaking loose, proving that it’s either God or the world, egged on by the vulgar and perverse nature of army life. Time to time, the urge to blog wells up in me again. And nowadays, increasingly, I feel that the entries I type in my mind are private. I don’t want them to be displayed in a public blog. I wondered whether I’ve become more private, or my proposed entries have been. It is both - I suppose in the case of the latter, I’ve become more sincere. I sat with Teo at MacDonalds, Terminal 2 until past 2am yesterday. Friday nights have become very similar recently (for those who don’t know, I don’t stay in camp) - with Teo, a friend from my little cozy formation in the army, doing some sort of entertainment for the younger part of the night, then ebbing off with conversations which inevitably veer into the same, related topic areas. He is the only person whom I talk to on these affairs.

Bye Helen. Have a great time in London for the next few years. I expect you to change - though I think not, fundamentally - though that’s a possibility considering what I think I know of you. I can feel the change sweeping in me the last few months. Enlistment formally put an end to my JC life, which didn’t fully end after the A levels, some of it sweeped and oozed its way into the three months of 2008 I had before enlistment (when most of my fellow ‘top jc’ peers were having their BMT). I am changing, and certain things are threatening to sweep me into a horrible spiral of confusion, hopelessness and desperation. Not that I don’t know the solution. I’ve known this song before, but it only fully entered my consciousness when I visited Helen’s church during their anniversary and it was sung.

In Christ alone will I glory
Though I could pride myself in battles won
For I’ve been blessed beyond measure
And by His strength alone I’ll overcome
Oh, I could stop and count successes like diamonds in my hands
But those trophies could not equal to the grace by which I stand

[Chorus:]
In Christ alone
I place my trust
And find my glory in the power of the cross
In every victory
Let it be said of me
My source of strength
My source of hope
Is Christ alone

In Christ alone do I glory
For only by His grace I am redeemed
For only His tender mercy
Could reach beyond my weakness to my need
And now I seek no greater honor in just to know Him more
And to count my gains but losses to the glory of my Lord

This is the solution. I’ve tried it before, it works. It is not about whether it works, but my own stubbornness. I am a horrible, stubborn person.

I want a girlfriend but I shouldn’t have a girlfriend - not now.

I wonder what Big finds out, and maybe they’ll realise how different and stiff I am back there and what I’m really like (or at least as my friends see me). And I wonder what they’d make of the previous statement as well. Dependent, emotional? All sorts of generalisations? Hopefully I can write about the changes of recent months in my next post.