The simpler life...

[This is to fill in on what happened on the 24th and 25th]

I guess i just can't shake off this habit of doing things at the very last minute. first there's schwork, then studying for tests and exams, then holiday homework and now even christmas. even terence called me a 'last minute friend' the other day, though of course it's meaning is a li'l different... but anyway, i've never really celebrated christmas but this year was a li'l different ;P

on the 24th decided to go get a gift, but last minute shopping is so, so tough. there were so many people and somehow all the gifts that were left for grabs seemed kinda generic and not special. so i walked down orchard road from far east to plaza singapura and couldn't seem to find anything. and my, the popularity of plush toys is so bad now... relegated to one small section in the corner of all those action figures and electronic toys in those shops... initially wanted to find nermal, but heck, i didn't even see odie much less any other character in the strip... to think garfield-licensed plushies are no longer 'in' now... in the end settled for pooky... but still last minute christmas shopping is so, so tough. i started in the afternoon cos i know i had to get things done before sunset and all the lightings come up, making me too sentimental and stuff but i barely made it... legs ached from all the walking around trying to find a decent gift... (maybe it's from the swimming lah ^^)

then on christmas itself for some reason i felt so weird in the morning and afternoon. it was as if something was missing from my life even though i can't find the reason for me feeling this so i slept the day away. woke up at 8, then slept and woke up until around 5... was doing some web browsing and suddenly this made my day:

garfield strips during the christmas period has always been nice cos of the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see it, but Jim Davis really made my day then... how nice ^^

so i thought of the list, went to check a bit and then got this incredible urge to revisit my old neighbourhood. but well, there's the gift first...
wrapping paper + gift + untidy, impatient person who'd never wrapped a gift before = weird, odd-shaped polygon...
tried to find some tips online but ain't helpful at all... then halfway while trying to figure out how to wrap a gift i thought i should put a card in it too, so had to run out to admiralty central and back... so rushed... finally got things done and went back...

back at the neighbourhood it all seemed so familiar yet so strange... i stopped at yck mrt, and started walking up to the market. at least i've been there a few times for meals during bowling trips at the grassroots club so it still felt pretty familiar. just too bad so many of the stalls have changed, but at least my fave wanton mee stall is still there along with the porridge stall.

then walked up again, this time past those private houses down the stretch of road... whiffs of nostalgia slowly came as i remembered those times i had to walk home from the market... i used to dread these walks, especially when i'm helping my parents carry groceries from the market, but now...

soon got to 608, and yet more memories came back... the coffee shop i used to frequent but with the crappy food (good stalls seem to move out after a few months everytime they set up shop). the shops i used to buy things from after school. han language centre where i had some pretty fun times... then there's the mini-park or something beside it... the times my family and i celebrated mooncake festival there and so many more memories...

esso was next. i've always went there after school to have a look at the newspaper before putting it back, lol... too bad they changed the layout of the entire store so much so that it no longer seems like what it was... the casher was initially on the right of the store and the delifrance corner right beside it, but now it's changed so much... but things change...

finally it was my old house, and all the memories started coming again... took the lift up to my old floor and remembered all the times i was pacing around inside it when i was late for something or just want to rush home... it's still so slow as ever, and at least it's not changed. then there's the walk all the way down the corridor to my house at the far end... used to like running that distance when i was a kid... and it seems like the present family did not change the doors of my old flat, so it all looked so, so familiar. they even kept plants outside the house just like us...

it was a really nice house... the living room was those long types so i always made use of that place to play soccer by myself when i was young, hitting the ball against the wall, running from end to end of the living room.... the location was good as well... a short bus trip to amk central. yck mrt is within walking distance (though i'm prob the only one in the family who walked there). thomson also a short bus trip away (though there was this one time during exams i wondered around the whole area and walked all the way up to thomson plaza)

and slowly i started remember bout the things i did during my childhood days... when i was very young (kindergarden to p3) my parents were pretty protective so i spent most of my times indoors and could only go out when they decide to bring me somewhere... those days i'd 'invent' so many silly games that i can play by myself (including the aforementioned soccer with all the twisted rules)... thankfully i had very nice neighbours and 3 'big sisters' (bout 4-5 yrs older than me) who will come to my house and play with me pretty frequently. and there were fortnightly trips to 'yaohan' (i never knew it was called thomson plaza then before yaohan collapsed and ntuc took over) where my family will do some shopping there, have dinner (sometimes at swensens complete with ice-cream and the sumptious meals!) and my fave, the arcade. i used to love the motorbike game and another one where my father will drive and i will shoot at the enemies... how fun... then there were times i'd try to earn tickets to get a plush toys but never once managed to get enough (after all, i'm on a $10 budget, though that could play quite a lot of games then).

after p3 my parents started relaxing their control and i started to hang out quite frequently with my friends after school.... the shop at 173 and all the problems our school had had with it (i still remember that time a whole group of us had to be punished because we played with a ball which someone had sneaked out during sch time to that shop to buy it... hey, i didn't know that! lol)... the playground at thomson hills, the mcdonalds beside kebun baru cc where we'd argue with those st nick's girls (how bad of us then.. haha)... then there were those silly things we'd do, like getting out of school by crawling through a small hole in the fence at the end of the field instead of using the gate, climbing into those drains outside school and getting ourselves all stinky... and catching! at first it was in the sch field, then it slowly became block catching before my fave, estate catching... so many places to run, so many turns you can take and so much running... sweet childhood memories they were...

then at p4 i started picking up basketball and played at the court just below my house very frequently... the times when i used to spend almost every evening out there playing and all the friends i've made thanks to basketball... i really dunno how my enthusiasm started to fizzle after starting secondary school...

but then i digress... so i was at 604... next i went back to see my school...

[typical conversation with people then]

person x: what school are you from?
me: kebun baru
person x: huh? (gives a weird, confused look) where is it?
me: ang mo kio
person x: which part?
me: kebun baru lah... um, amk ave 2
person x: huh? (gives that confused look again)
me: it's right beside st nick's
person x: oic

as much as i would ridicule my school sometimes (esp the school uniform with the sch name written all over it... and to think the principal and teachers called it unique and the only sch in singapore to have this kind of uniform... only our sch will have THIS type of uniform, sheesh...) i have all my respect for it... after all, it thought me a lot in my 6yrs there... the teachers were great (special tribute to mrs chia, the teacher who managed to make my class so lively with interaction all the time and people actually volunteering to do things in class and mrs lee-ng, my fave teacher of all time and how she managed to make me like maths so much... and to have a discipline mistress as ur form teacher is funny lol... sometimes during lessons she'd get some of the 'troubled' students to come into class and start asking questions and their conversations would be so funny. and for someone who's strict with the em3 pupils and yet still gain their respect i have to take my hats off for mrs lee)

and there was the principal, mr tan. too bad i never realised how gd he is after i left... he joined the sch in p3, but initially i complained about how strict he was and sometimes how he can make assemblies so long by telling us motivational stories (and i only realise how great those stories were now). he set up the yangqin and ruan ensemble, and made the sch strive for excellence... i still remember that yr in p5 when our sch got 9 syf golds despite being such a lowly neighbourhood sch and with enrolment dwindling down to 2 p1 classes when i left... and my experience in chinese orchestra was bitter-sweet... there were the times where things did not go my way but i learnt immensely from the years... appreciation for music, how we should not be overly concerned on results, those talks with mr tan near graduation, gd friends i've made there, etc, etc...

but so much have changed... i really detest catholic to the core... to think the day that they are going to use our sch as its new campus when we merged with amk (and damn amk as well... they were talking bout having a new name but now it seems like kebun baru have been absorbed by amk) they complained bout us being unruly and undisciplined and the place as dirty.... curse you... this is our sch, our students, and if u're gonna use the place how dare u criticise us. ur students are just as ill-mannered, evil and with ur students in the compound the sch's gonna be even dirtier...

and the effects of having a rich school: they built a bus stop right outside it. for so many yrs of kebun baru history our nearest busstop was 5min walk away but right in the yr catholic moved in they had a bus stop! so money talks after all... and then there are this group of posh houses right opposite the sch.. looked like chalets imo... but the memory of my old neighbourhood will live on forever in my mind... too bad i didn't have the time to walk all the way up to relive the days spent at my friends' houses in teachers' estate, green meadows or even further up to see pierce reserviour and thomson plaza...