Some time up in the clouds

The extended family hired a van and we made our way to Kuala Lumpur and Genting over the Christmas weekend. It was a wonderful time spent with my family, especially my two sisters. Ever since I've started at SMU, I've always felt like I was neglecting them. I hardly see them during term and it is so easy to just lead seperate lives during this period of growing up.. but I won't allow it or at least I try not to. So it was really good to spend a couple of days with them and the family.

The trip up was quite uneventful except I remember having really good prata at dawn in some nondescript area of Johor. Oh, if there's anything to describe this trip by it would be GOOD AND EXPENSIVE FOOD. My generous uncles and aunties took turns picking up the tabs to our meals and we went to really quite classy places to eat. Sirloin steak, fish and chips.. I probably cost a hundred over bucks to feed just over that weekend. =p~

Khai mentioned KLCC as the place to go to at the end of the year for bargains. I went off shopping there by myself and found in one shop, a 980 ringgit pair of jeans. I was quite dismayed. I decided to scour the whole area and I knew I had only slightly more than an hour. I ended the session quite happily trading in $150 for 1 pair of U2 pants, 2 pairs of jeans and 2 really nice tees. I badly wanted to take the 150 bucks and spend it on this pair of jeans and tee from topman but I figured it was a little out of the budget. Ah well..

So, after an intensive shopping session at KLCC, I decided to just take a walk around. I didn't really know the area and I was walking around alone in KL and it was approaching eleven. Common sense would have dictated taking a cab back to the hotel but curiosity (besides killing the cat) led me to explore the area. I wanted to find my way to Bukit Bintang, which I knew would still be quite lively at this time of the night. I would have gotten lost if I had not found Zouk KL. I contemplated going in but I had quite a number of shopping bags and I wasn't in the mood at that moment to mix around with strangers. I hit the dirt road behind Zouk KL.. which I knew would lead to Rum Jungle and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It was dark and I was alone and the probability of getting mugged was high but nothing happened. I walked down the row of clubs there and then walked all the way to Bukit Bintang (the distance of which was a LOT further than I remembered).

The area was still lively. There was this percussion group performing at the junction in front of Lot 10. I walked around the area, thinking back to the time when I came here with friends for holiday as well as to watch Incubus. The old Master Po reflexologist place has closed down. The McDonalds has renovated. There's more sheesha along the streets and more gelato too. I was seriously contemplating getting a massage but it was getting too late and I had to get back to the hotel.

Genting was good. The weather up there is seriously amazing. It really is quite surreal when you step out of the hotel and you see clouds puffing past on the roads. We took the cable car up there and the whole area was covered with clouds. In one of the rooms I was in, a white flouroscent screen on the wall was actually an open window with nothing but white clouds outside! It was good =)

The Return to the Regatta

I was pulled into a sailing regatta. There was a J24 Sailing Regatta last weekend and the girl's team needed another person on the boat. For those of you who have no idea what a J24 Keelboat is click here. It's a 5 men keel boat and they needed another trimmer. So after a more than three year long hiatus, I found myself officially sailing again.

Being a trimmer was really rather fun. It was tiring work, one had to release the headsail (called the jenny) during tacks or gybes and pull the other sheet (or rope) as fast as we could once we hit the other tack. Tiring but hardly mentally tiring. Somehow.. Su Jun persuaded (I would say hood-winked but I dont really have any evidence to prove such a case) me to be take over the helmsman position and there I was.. helming a boat that I have hardly any time to get accustomed to and gearing up to a regatta in three days.

I admit I wasn't really stressed about it (I know some of you would go.. aiya.. he sure can handle it one) but it did take quite a bit of mental activity to remember everything. Oh sailing the boat wasn't the problem, remembering the finer points of sailing and racing was. It was quite a re-introduction. The regatta had only 5 J24s racing and consisted mainly of veteran sailors. How did I do? We were decimated. haha. It really was quite a learning process as the J24 had significant differences to the laser (the boat that I was used to and have been sailing for years).

After the first day of racing, I went down to the substation to meet the guys. Almost everyone was there and despite being tired as hell, I went along to Arab Street for shisha and chilling out. It was a hilarious night and while it was definitely crazy for me to have stayed over there and not get any rest in between the two days of racing.. i would say that it was probably worth it. I rushed back home by cab, took a quick shower and grabbed about 2 hours of sleep on the trip to Changi Sailing Club.

We were better on the on the second day. My starts were a little better and arguably the boat speed increased, although I realized that the big boat can't take going against waves very well only after the race. For one of the starts, I banged into another boat but I had right of way... it was quite a crazy moment, our lines got caught and needed untangling. For another start, the mainsheet pulley came apart in my hands and at another point during the last race, Miranda (one of the girls on my boat) fell and hurt her back. We stopped racing and headed back. We called the ambulance and sent her off to CGH. I was thinking to myself I must have made a helluva reputation as a J24 helmsman.. banging into boats and getting my crew carried off by ambulance after the race. Haha. It was definitely an experience.

Yesterday was a holiday.

I was in school early yesterday for a meeting but after lunch I decided to spend some time alone in school. I walked down the concourse, taking in the emptiness of the place. It has begun to rub off on to me. It's plain and gray and white but it didn't ask to be that way and I shouldn't judge the school for it, especially not compare it to the beautiful previous one at Bukit Timah. I walked through the empty concourse which was empty except for a girl at the end of it, posing on her heels chatting away on her phone. It was her, haha... decked up for a Blurt photoshoot. I remembered feeling at that moment how long ago September seemed to be.

I spent a few hours in the student lounge, supposedly resting but I was spending some time on the World of Warcraft. I then made my way by MRT to Tampines. I hardly ever make trips to the East by train.. and everytime I do, I can't escape the feeling that I was travelling back to my past. The train will pass by two of the houses I grew up in, especially the one in Tampines. The place is made of childhood adventures, ghosts and void deck games. The carpark and grass around it is my own personal sacred grove.

I made my way to the stage which was sitting before Century Square and Tampines Mall. The Leaven Trait, Set For Glory, West Grand Boulevard and Surreal were going to play. I remember feeling confused for a bit at how two seperate worlds in my head were colliding, my childhood memories of Tampines Interchange and the local bands that I have come to know and the music that I have come to enjoy since I was a teenager. My friends were there and many more came. The Leaven Trait has a legion of fans =) Everybody rocked the stage that night.. It was pure fun.

We decided to hit the bumper cars. Leaven Trait (& Friends) Vs West Grand (& Friends). Nobody won cuz everyone was hitting everyone (except Ben whose car was going so slow it could have bumped a cockroach and the cockroach wouldn't have noticed =p) Joel and I were cramped into one car.. Two twenty-something men cramped into a child-sized car happily driving around and hitting people. Charlene was extreme-bumpercar-ing. It was a good thing we had the Burger Ramly-ies after the bumping.

Shisha at Al-Majlis was pretty good, I admit I had my doubts. Company was even better with the jokes, the games, the impromptu Santa "alHabla-habla" Serial-Killer video, toast and eggs at dawn and the struggling to keep awake when daylight hit.. this is the stuff holidays are made of. fun, friends and a touch of nostalgic visiting. and you dont even need a passport... the only that was missing was a scenic photograph with the words "wish you were here" written on it. haha.

Facing Up.

Half of the room is littered with my old army stuff, freshly dugged out from under the bed and given its ceremonial dust off. I should pack all my stuff but the room's a mess and I can't be bothered. I just throw myself into more music and games, stuff that I have put aside for the last one year.

Ever since I dropped out of the SA, I have been coming to grips with the sudden void or lack of direction. I have never realized how much my day to day life depended on the drive or pressure of constantly having something to tend to or do. While I have complained about having 100 over emails a day to read and reply to and getting random students messaging or calling me about stuff, secretly.. it gave me a sense of purpose. And many of you have asked me, why then did I drop out of the students' association council?

I know I have given many answers to this question but it was only a few nights ago, in the still of the morning.. that still of the morning when its so quiet you could finally hear your heart speak.. that i realized why i dropped out of the SA. It was because of the team of friends that I gathered to come with me into the 6th SA. The team that I failed and the team that failed me.

I knew they would follow me (although one has always chose his own path). I knew I could lead them. But for different reasons, I could not get their commitment to follow me into the new council term. Some of you who may not know about the SA may scoff at this but please know that SA work is a thankless service, thankless most of the time at least. They dropped out and I lost my team and I have only myself to blame. A leader is nothing without a solid team. Oh, I could have still run and tried to work it out with the new team and many (and sometimes even I ) believe that I should have. In my head the vision and achievements I had for the SA burned too strongly for me to scale down and in my heart I knew I couldn't do it all. The landscape changed the last five days before the elections. I didn't recognize the view anymore. What a lesson.. you're not a general until your soldiers actually follow you into battle. Before that, you're just potential.

I felt I had to say it. I've had many serious blows during the last one term. It took all my energy to keep going, especially during the exams. I was ready to give up. Wayang Ramayana was a wonderful distraction from thinking. I can't imagine what would have happened if I didn't have it in my life at that time. Friends and family help. I feel the tendency to turn into a social recluse for awhile but I know that should hardly be the thing to do. I have to face all these issues to exorcize them. And that is why I'm writing about it.

Yes, I am disappointed. I have shared my vision and goal with you. You were inspired to follow. We were supposed to be a team together. While the work that this duty demands turns off most of the other students, I imagined that we would still do it. together. You changed your mind at the last minute. You never made clear your priorities till the last minute. You shut me out till it was all over. You didn't want to go for it because the rest didn't. I am disappointed in you but I do not blame you. Honestly. I blame myself. I am 100% responsible. If I was a good enough leader, you all would have followed. But I am not. I never made sure.

I knew some people whose men would follow them to hell and back. I am very far from these people but one day, I dream to be in their league.

Ah well. It is a lesson, among many. And letting this out here has somewhat lifted a weight off my chest. Now, to find the strength to get the rest of the weights off. I realized it is all these psychological baggages that puts a distance between me and everyone else.. and between me and the way I used to be, young and fun-loving. Gotta get rid of them one by one.