It's probably not enough to say I love Faraday house. It's way beyond that. Awesome house, awesome spirit, awesome people. Lianhan, Cheryl, Rachel and the rest of the exco, great job, really great one. It was an honour to be back, to be holding on to that flag we painted (and to get my finger cut by the wooden pole as well lol). Make it a good year, for yourselves and for the juniors. It's an awesome house. Proud to be a Faradian, even if I'm a graduated one right now. <3

St John's Island was pretty good though the turn out was less-than-expected (or at least less than what I expected haha). I guess some were scared off by the crazily early meeting time. But wells, it's worth it when you're meeting up with people that you know you won't have that many chances to when school reopens for many of them. (:

I guess Harmony was right when she mentioned while we were on the boat back to Singapore that at times just standing on the deck of the boat, enjoying the breeze, the waves, the company of friends makes a really good get-away from the stresses and hectic life in Singapore. Technology has impacted our lives greatly, but it has also created a huge dependence on it such that we are not often willing to get away from the comforts of our handphones, laptops, television, gaming sets etc. Yet sometimes in life, all you need is a place for a good get-away, it works wonders on the mind and on the soul, imo that is.

With that, while it was a little tiring to be running around in slippers on sand/soil one day after training, I had a really great time being a group of youths from all walks of life bonded by a single cause we believe in. (:

One of the things I dislike doing is to commit to something and then back out because of a clash in schedule. But at times, sacrifices have to be made. I would have wanted to attend Jang and Sry's wedding (argh, I mean Mr Ang and Dr Yong's. Slip of the tongue fingers) mostly because they are two ex-teachers that I've once crossed path with and more than just that, they are two teachers that have impacted my NUS High journey quite a fair bit. But partly because I wanted to see Sry in her wedding gown as well as seeing how lovey-dovey they two can be considering that Nes and I have been talking about them quite a fair bit while we did our ARP. All that aside, I couldn't and I didn't. I couldn't really make a choice, which saved the hassle of thinking, but there's still that "damn I could have been there" feeling. But life moves on, the choice I made right from the start already meant sacrifices would have to be made along the way such that play would have to be one of the last priorities. I'm sure I said this before, but wells again, life is about making sacrifices, for your family, for your friends and for yourself.

On my first non-student price MRT ride back home, I had an interesting encounter with a 4year old girl who made me wonder if I should consider a career dealing with kids. Hahah. What happened was that I smiled at the little girl who was sitting opposite me and looking at me and as a kid, she was rather shy so she kept looking back at her mum. Then she'd turn back and look at me and I'd smile at her again. That went on numerous times until she asked her mum if she could come sit next to me (to my surprise actually). Her mum agreed and she came over, but still rather shy. She just kept looking at me so I had to remove to ear phones to know if her mum/her was saying anything. And I had to control that urge to touch her cheeks (she's really really chubby, haha) just in case her mum doesn't like it. Her mum called her over, said something to her and she walked back. She looked at me and then she said, “姐姐”. I asked her what her name was in Chinese but I guess she heard wrongly/thought I was asking for her age so she replied “四岁”. And then my station was nearing so I said “姐姐到了，要走了” and she initially said bye to me but when I was at the door waiting to get out she looked at her mum and said “姐姐不要走可以吗？”

Sometimes it is these small encounters you have with strangers that can make your day interesting, be it a little kid (little kids always make my day though), a completely unknown adult stranger, or an old folk you may help. These little things in life can go a long way. Just a smile can make a kid happy or a small action like helping an elderly pick something up or with directions are greatly appreciated by others. These are things within our own capabilities, and it takes barely any effort. It really is a privilege to make others happy sometimes. (:

I just had training and I decided to pick up 剑. Well I can't say I'm totally new to it because I did learn 4duan in Nanyang, but I never competed for it cos each school could only send 2 per category and we already had two doing jian as a main tao (while my main tao was my changquan followed by my gun4). But I must admit, I never really mastered the basics of jian, I never actually learnt it properly in fact. Hahah. So I totally didn't do my quan tao today (wahahahaha, slack life), and just focussed on jian's ji ben gong.

I figured that often enough, if time permits, it's always better to start from the basics, you may be slower initially, but you'd be way better in future. Nanyang wushu did not have the luxury of time for that, xue once said that by right we should have spent half a year in Sec 1 mastering our ji ben gong, but because the coaches were all busy with the senior's interschools, we learnt our ji ben gong based on intuition and by the time interschool was over, we started picking up routines and some of us started competing for Nationals in Sec 1. Thereafter, it's just practising routines for interschool. The foundation's always the hardest thing to master, imo. Be it for your studies, for sports or for any random skill. But with you go far with a good foundation and it's easier to master new things. I'm pretty glad I had a good foundation in Math, for it helped me a fair bit especially when in NUS High, sometimes you don't have the luxury of time even if you wish to spend time on something. I had to prioritise and I could simply because I knew there were some things that I could depend on my foundation to get through. Now as I move on in life, I keep this in mind as I continue to learn new things and pick up new skills. Life's often about learning too.

Apologies for the poor structure of this post though. I typed as my thoughts flowed. (: