Relativity

Presenting the latest collection of short stories, I guess it's the best way to compile topics that haven't much to do with one another -- like fish, climbing, and time. The thoughts get deeper further down hahaha, happy reading!

Ikan Bilis Ignoramus

During the weekend in Kluang we stopped by an ikan bilis wholesaler so my mum could restock. As I wandered around looking at all the different kinds [this suaku hadn't seen dried anchovies in so many different forms before], the seller was explaining how whole ikan bilis cost RM(x) per kg while cleaned ones cost RM(1.5x) for the same, with x denoting an amount I've forgotten. She then went on to say that the higher price was to compensate those who spent time and effort beheading the fish. Therefore, the uncleaned fish were "cheaper". 

I clearly rmb feeling something fishy about that whole reasoning... but it failed to register at that point, thanks to the heat and sleep deprivation. Lol the wholesaler even mentioned that cleaned ikan bilis weigh a third less than whole ones after removing the head, bones, and squishy black stuff inside. Yep, thanks to my lagging brain I'd already beheaded and gutted hundreds of the small fish, before it hit me that we could've gotten someone else to do it for practically free. But then again I don't normally get much chance to unravel the inner workings of ikan bilis. Had a few suans shot my way while at it though. Hahaha I'd actually thought I was going pretty fast... until I looked up and saw that my pile of heads barely reached half of my mum's and grandma's. I may not speak my dialects well, but I understand them fairly ok, especially when my mum announced in hakka that for every fish I cleaned she'd have cleaned three. My grandma sniggered too, but at least she praised my immaculate fish -- quality counts!

Also interesting was how I got to put my finger armour to the test. During a long break from climbing the excess skin sheds from underuse, and with it goes the notable ability to handle hot stuff. This meant that I definitely felt the heat of the freshly scalded bitter gourds while helping to stuff them (for hakka yong tau foo). But my fingers held up well against the ikan bilis. At the very beginning of the cleaning session, my mum got up to get gloves to protect her hands coz apparently the fish bones were sharp and pricking her. As I was experiencing none of this assault, I carried on gloveless... until I felt the needle bones of one of my final few fish pierce through. So they were sharp after all, but my skin was thicker HAHA. Looks like the armour has many uses other than allowing me to stay longer on the wall and help people open their stingrays at bbqs xD

Climber Finder

I seem to have some kind of fortune when it comes to finding people to climb with. When I started in Y1 I joined the club alone, but I made friends there and we progressed together through those shaky newbie days. On exchange, I met my first climbing friend halfway up a stairwell in London, and she led me to people I climbed with regularly till now. When I jio-ed in REP, people came, and people stayed. Even out of nowhere in the most random of situations -- helping facilitate an unaffiliated camp for money in the summer -- a climbing friend awaited. When I started work I always knew that I'd one day jio my colleagues to climb (and have done so, it's great fun!). Usually, there'll be people interested to try it for the first time or else they might have done it once in OBS and want to give it another go. But lo and behold, there's a colleague who'd started climbing before I was even aware of such a sport called rock climbing. Stun.

This might seem a little like bragging, but that's really not my intention. I just feel from all my experience that this is a sport where friendships come easily. Climbing is unlike many other sports which are predominantly team-oriented. Of course we all come from schools/clubs/countries which we may represent in competitions, but nothing stops a climber from climbing with another climber wherever they come from. It's a sport that bonds rather than divides. And now that our sport is growing, it may be easier to bump into random climbers in random places. But given that I've only been in this sport for 4+ years, my situation seems a little 夸张.

Haha, it's as though certain specific lucky stars are constantly shining down upon me, while others adamantly face away. If only this strange luck of mine could be transferred to other aspects like say... keeping injury-free. [It's no joke given that the breaks I've had to take total up to roughly a year #sibeisian, but that's another story] As it is currently, I spread my ~6 climbs per month amongst different people, but I look forward to every session. Mostly it's because of the awesome people I get to spend these good times with :)

 

Time

Since Y4S2 I've been fascinated with the perception of time. How not to be, when the whole of 2016 went like: blink one time, end of the week, yawn another time, end of the month. Like tumbling through some sort of final year wormhole, until Y5 vanished and 16th Jan arrived.

For all of us who started work on 16th Jan, we've crossed 3 months in the workforce! Huh wait... Only 3 months? Feels too short a time to have contained everything that's happened so far, but it is. A few friends have reported similar sentiments. But strangely reaffirming is the fact that I've had colleagues remark the same thing I've been feeling -- that it's as though I've been around for half a year or so at least.

It's like time is always on the move from day to day, not quite in a rush but definitely enough to create a conveyor belt kind of feeling. But zoom out and it's only been a fairly short ~3 months, quite the opposite of how 2016 went. Why ah? It's not like time flew > Mach 1 in 2016 coz final year was too much fun, and it's not like I'm suffering now. Loading-wise, Y5 was hiong enough to sort of rival my current work pace. So that overused adage clearly ain't everything. Thinking about it, if fun (or lack thereof) isn't the culprit, then it could be 2 other things.

Things (whether at work or outside) normally overlap/run in parallel but the time spent doing them is perceived in series. Coz even if there's many things to do it's still not technically possible to be doing 2 different things at the same moment in time, at least at the newbie level I dunno how it's like higher up. [Drinking tea while reading doesn't count, y'all know what I mean haha] The constant switching between tasks gives the illusion of things being done one after another, but this is just the micro aspect of larger things that don't actually come after one another. The time and effort we perceive to be spending in series actually feed into different parallels that all stack within the same time periods. Hence, my friends, this is my theory of why we're only at 3 months even for some of you fantastically overworked people. 

Also important is that I think I'll be working here for some unknown length of time. It's not like a summer internship racing the clock down where with every passing week we get so much closer to the end. Ah it's definitely not like a looming graduation, which for me came like one of those ghosts that suddenly crawl at high speed towards you on your screen. Endings are like islands in the sea of time; without them we don't really know where we're headed and how long it'll take to get there. And so we keep cruising/swimming/drifting, whichever floats your boat. Well who knows where the end is now, but I highly doubt I'll get to it very soon. 

In the meantime let time flow slowly if it wants to, so I can enjoy my youth longer haha!

Student-mode

Recently, while in the lift with le sis, we met a neighbour she was acquainted with. It was a weekday night, so I was in office attire and she was wearing the Singaporean tertiary school uniform (t-shirt, shorts, slippers). The neighbour stared hard at both of us and went "who's the older one?". Le sis responded that I was. To that, the neighbour blinked and then went "ohhhhh, but you're twins right?"

For those who don't know, my sis is a good 4 years younger than I am ;) The above situation is also v common.

Then at the IT fair yesterday (where I was scouring for a new laptop), there was this salesman. Clearly I look like I've just finished my O levels, coz he asked if I was buying a laptop in time for poly to start. Or it could be that he was being exceedingly polite. So I shook my head slightly and he corrected himself: "Oh, starting uni?".

The attire probably played a part -- t-shirt, shorts, slippers FTW.

So it seems, school hasn't left me yet. Or maybe adulthood hasn't found me yet xD
In any case, I don't mind!

Some pain, some gain

Not sure if I've ever mentioned here, but I believe in fate. Mostly coz multiple times now, I've gotten this feeling that life's been neatly planning itself into a prescription. This includes meeting (literally) painful lessons which I'd very much like to avoid.

Rewind a few weeks back to sometime in Feb, where my left shoulder decided to go exploring the world outside its socket. Once it felt like the bone was invading muscle space, I disengaged and leaped off the wall so the shoulder didn't come out completely. Still, it was damaged enough to end my climb right there. SADDED. I think... I'd somehow failed/forgotten to engage the surrounding muscles before moving off from a straight-armed position. Kinda like hanging from the skeleton and trying to pull with one arm all of a sudden.

Most interestingly, this happened at the time I was (mildly) considering staving off climbing for a bit to let my wrists regain some normalcy. But yea, all climbers know that the hardest thing about climbing is not climbing, so while I was indeed considering pausing... I prob wouldn't have done it. *Dry laughter* So life handed me a better reason to stop.

Well, life for me doesn't revolve around climbing, but in any case it's dreadful having to stay away. So even more curious was how everything else kinda fit into this particular chapter and made it lots better than it could've been. It so happens that in those weeks following the curious shoulder incident, I wouldn't have climbed after work anyway (coz busy/sleepy). And on the weekends, there was this coincidental abundance of other fun sporty stuff to keep me happily exhausted.

[Must admit though, I did climb a tiiiiny bit coz of the UMC alumni event. Restraint was hard work. My favourite kinds of routes involve inclines and heel hooks, but my shoulder couldn't seem to tank the overhangs much :( If you like food, it's kinda like refraining from eating that one more serving of whatever sinful thing it is you shouldn't be eating too much of. So I spent lots more time than usual on the flat wall. Or else I sat firmly on the mat and resisted the itch to do some fun (but likely damaging) stuff. Was nice to be back at least -- it's the place where it all started.]

Other highlights of the past few weekends include running around in NTU, running around the CBD, and also running around in GBTB trying to corral runaway children. It's no fun to wake at/before 6am on weekends just to get to places on time [always a loyal pasir ris girl but living here does have its drawbacks]. That's actually even earlier than workdays. Yes, I do question why I treat myself this way at the start of 2h journeys, but lo and behold these journeys have always been more than worth!

Out of all these, I think most deserving of attention would be the Urban Adventure Trek with team Cockfosters. [Cockfosters is nothing vulgar -- it's the name of a terminal tube station in London. But as young ppl, we find these things amusing.] After all, we almost won. Coz it happened that for that set of station activities, being a team of climbers was pretty advantageous ;) Slacklining, anyone? 10 seconds for a full 3 points was a pretty steep requirement, esp for non-climbers seeing the line for the first time. But we aced it! K not saying I'm any good, but proud to say my team member cleared a whopping 17 seconds on the line. Totally should've given us more points for that haha. So in terms of mastery (being one of the rare teams to complete all stations with full points and visit all photo checkpoints), we'd have won... If not for a slight slip up in technology: a single lost photo which cost us the winning point and put us in 14th place.

Live better indeed. Without climbing and all these other sports stuff, I'd become a potato soon enough given the excessive consumption of muffins at work lately.

I like that we just shrugged and went off for lunch with our nice new free towels. Would've been nice to win, but winning isn't everything! The whole thing was pretty fun -- getting up the low wall without help, doing random legwork activities, being smart enough to understand hints. I realised something from all these team events (both sports and non-sports) I've been joining. I can be quite chill about things, and I don't enter competitive events with a competitive frame of mind. It's only when/if the feeling comes that we stand a chance, that I fire up the engines. It seems like my team was mostly like that too -- IIRC we only started running from station to station after the slackline challenge ;)

Getting injured sucks. But wow, in a flash it's been ~3 weeks since my last proper climb and things haven't really been all that bad! Aiming to get back on the wall soon, maybe climb cautiously... Which means, it might be a good time to gather some new kakis from the workplace as well!

Last bit! One restless day after work I took the 1.5h walk to Stadium, and took this pic:

Person who guessed this place wrongly I am disappointed in you xD

So yes, it is possible for me to get to a post-work climb session by walking, provided I have some form of dinner with me. That aside, what was nice was that from my chosen sitting spot, much of the distance covered was visible (as can be seen from the photo). *Thinks philosophical thoughts* I get this feeling sometimes, that in climbing we don't always appreciate our own improvement and that it takes time. Because climbing is a sport of continual challenge, from the micro POV it can become about sending that one hard route now or else leaving the session feeling unaccomplished. Yalor, so that's prob why I kept trying moves that hurt. It's only when forced to step away from the grind that the bigger picture, and the past, become more apparent. It'll prob be healthy for me to rmb that it took all these years for me to get to my current standard, and if I'm gonna continue for years, I need that same functional body to take me through.

Haha I think I've learnt the lesson life wanted to knock into my head and yet tried to make comfortable for me. Enough of using my body in an unsustainable manner, there's still a long way to go.

Snippets

We're not that far into the year but it's been pretty eventful so far -- how often do we clear two new years in a month? And also, I've roughly just completed my first month in the workforce! Haha, how time flies. At least there isn't that feeling of slipping and sliding from one month to the next, but maybe that's yet to come and before I know it 2018's gonna come knocking. But I'll take things as they come, and in the mean time try to keep up some diligent documentation!

First, CNY fortune! My fortune slip from the office CNY celebration told that I'm destined to own a cat. Definitely looking forward to that hahaha. But generally, the animal of the year always seems to get a bad lot. "Respiratory illness" is predicted to befall roosters this year, but since I'd already spent the first 2 weeks of the year with lungs on fire I hope I've filled my quota.

Legit.

There's nth much else to mention about CNY coz it's usually quiet for my family. We don't do chain visits -- just one mass visit to the grandma's and then come home for a nice long afternoon nap. Very efficient.

Oh, must mention the office celebration. We played 老鹰抓小鸡... and it was the most violent game I've ever witnessed. Never knew office workers could be so zealous when it comes to games haha, kids need to learn to play harder. Like, eagle just go ahead and tackle the mother hen otw to mass murder of the chicks.

Work thankfully hasn't been that murderous (thus far). Currently still finding my way out of the fog and bumping into things along the way. And things are ramping up, set to rocket very soon. In retrospect, it's prob a good thing that the final stages of uni weren't as chill as we'd have liked -- not much time for us to grow sluggish before getting thrown into the workforce. I must say though, that it's a blessing to land in an office where everyone is so nice and helpful, taxed as they may be. Never in my life have I felt like I don't know so much, but people here are very kind :')

Aside from work-work, there's a whole host of other things to get used to. Firstly, I swear work has doubled my appetite. Lunch for me used to be a low-priority meal and snacks were never really part of my diet. Then enter office hours, where breakfast, lunch, and dinner seem to be 12 hours apart and I need biscuits or whatever other "emergency sugar" to tide me through in the meantime. I dunno man, how is it I feel so hungry just by sitting and typing? How many calories worth of brain juice is exerted in one day?

Maxwell is the most convenient cure for midday starvation, coz it's practically downstairs. But sometimes I go exploring. My first trip and back to Amoy food centre made for one such adventure. There is a shortcut through a carpark and another building, taking a few flights of stairs/a lift along the way. As I'd never been there before, my colleague offered to show me the way... only she's relatively new too. So on the way there we climbed a few flights and walked a few loops more than necessary, and although I'd tried my best to remember... we did the same on the way back. *Insert sweatdrop emoji* Hahaha I got asked how I survived one year overseas with such dismal navigational sense. The thing is, I can navigate well when necessary (I did go on a 10-day solo trip and clearly survived), just that I can't seem to keep my nav-sense switched on when there's other people around. Call me reliant, but I prefer to frame it as trusting ;) Here's to overshooting a floor by one up and one down and chuckling all the way back to office.

Unlike uni life, work life doesn't seem to deal compulsory sleep deprivation (at least for now, when there's minimal homework). Just sleep at 10:15pm lor -- like a well-behaved pri sch kid. Tried and tested, I need a full 8 hours minimum, esp since 2 hour naps are no longer possible during work days D: I do have a choice of getting up later because of flexi-hours (start anytime between 7-10am). But then, the later one starts, the later one ends. Hence, even while temptation runs high on mornings that follow the late nights after climbing, I refuse to pay for today's enjoyment with tomorrow's time. So far.

Nothing new on the climbing front, except I should've written "stay injury-free, please" on the 天灯 we set off in Cambodia. Left wrist hates slopers. Now right wrist hates slopers AND pinches, oh joy. Maybe I should be thankful my wrists are rarely injured at the same time... but let's not jinx anything. I have intentions of keeping up twice a week as long as the body doesn't complain. Still need that active lifestyle and the friends that are a part of it.

Speaking of active lifestyle. On Fridays I get to wear the most comfy attire of the entire work week (yayyy sneakers); perfect for taking walks after work ends. It's the day to skip the crowd-jostling in good ol' Tanjong Pagar, and head somewhere else. I usually decide on an end point in the office, but I don't always end up where I plan. Inaugural walking tour was to City Hall mrt (30 mins), inclusive of discovering that there is an actual bridge between North and South Bridge roads. [Suaku I know, haha that's why trying to get to know central-south SG better] Latest journey took me all the way to Promenade (~1h). I'd been aiming for Marina Bay, with the intention of scouting an alternative way to get to the climbing gyms, but along the way I got distracted by the 海边风 coming from the bay. Weather was nice and for once I wasn't that hungry: good conditions to take the scenic route all the way down the boardwalk and across the helix bridge towards Promenade. There, I was like one person crossing in the direction against the huge flood heading to Chingay. Future plans? There is still Chinatown and the like around the area. Also, it is technically possible to walk to Climb Central from my workplace... maybe one day soon when I've got more emergency sugar on hand haha.

The usual view was pretty dusty that day, and I'd never noticed these "box pavilions" lining the board walk.

And speaking of friends. Props to Cow and family for organising the R2 (bonus one R5) CNY steamboat session! It's interesting and different to see everyone standing around after dinner and just talking. Haha, almost like real grown ups meeting again after a long time. Alright it hasn't been that long; our final finals only ended about 2 months ago now that I think about it. But still, the people I used to see everyday in school have been replaced by a new set of people. So it really felt like REunion :) While I cannot comfortably partake in gambling, I was pretty happy with watching others/watching things like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KuwVAq8-lY on the smart TV [Go and check out the original of that song. It'll make the cover the best thing you've heard all day.] So much entertainment going on inside while the gambling den outside was exploding with noise. At the end of the day, we had the prettiest yu sheng ever. Now we know to use pink pomelo if we ever need to beautify the dish. I had to miss my family lohei for that night... but I guess while family ranks v highly, it pays to be flexible in life! Won't get to see these people all that often, but I hope everyone gets all the good things requested with blessing of the lohei (bonus and GPA 5.0 especially ;)). We'll catch up again, let's not let work eat us alive!

For the rest of the year ahead, huat ah!

Cambodia 2016/17

Oh look, a travel post! It's been a long time. 

Prelude

There was this period in the final sem where I didn't think I'd be leaving the country after graduation, because (a) I'd yet to secure a job and (b) I'd already traveled a fair bit for over the summer, purely for leisure. I guess I was pretty indifferent about traveling, as I'd already had my fun with some of my best friends and my family wasn't planning on going anywhere. However, while sitting in class and watching people plan their chain-travels one fine day, I remembered an opportunity earlier extended to me. An opportunity to travel and do something meaningful. And that was how I ended up going on my sole grad trip, destination: Cambodia.

Tiny background: this was the 6th or 7th installment of Project Smiling Angels, an annual community service expedition to Cambodia, where the aim is always sustainable improvement. Every year, the team comprises members from Zone 8 SJAB (of course, because this was where it originated), and I guess occasional outsiders like myself. I got on board by virtue of knowing a certain Mr. Sim and a few others on the team with whom I'd worked before.

As with everything 2016, Christmas eve chionged forth and off I went to Phnom Penh. And then *snap fingers* I was back in SG looking a few shades darker and covered in mozzie bite scars. The meat of this post is dedicated to the village experience (6 out of 10 days), because in all my years of education I've never been on OCIP. It really was something... different.

Village Experience

We spent the 2nd to 7th days at the village proper (just daytimes except for Christmas; the other nights were reserved for crashing/drinking in the hotel). Our time there involved carrying weights of all sorts (rocks, sand, water, ... children), and can be divided neatly into work and play, all under the scorching Cambodian sun. Best pre-trip investment: spectacle hooks.

Work

Werk werk werk werk werk. Actually no, it was more like work, take 5 (x10), lunch + wonder/wander, work, pang gang (sometimes early). This year's task was to build part of a new school block -- the end-goals were a little vague at the beginning -- and it soon became clear that we'd get no further than the foundations. Not that we were slacking, at least not by Cambodian standards. These people really know how to chill, and when they work, they do one thing at a time, or sometimes one thing in a day. And go for 2+ hours lunch breaks. I realised how difficult it was for me to just sit still and do nothing. It's not a lifestyle I could get used to in a short while, but hey, when you're in Cambodia do as Cambodians do. The thing is, when Cambodians actually do, they leave us feeling like we'd be of better use giving eye power.

Mostly, we could be found transporting a huge mound each of rocks and sand from one end of the school compound to the other. Mounds don't transport themselves, nor did we have anti-gravity force fields to help us. Hence it was time to put in some muscle, one basket-/groundsheet-full at a time. [We did wonder why they didn't deposit the materials closer to the building site earlier on, but I guess it gave us things to do that we couldn't go wrong at. Efficiency got thrown out the unbuilt windows of course -- it could've been 1 truck trip vs a thousand human trips.] When one uses pure strength like this, ahh up goes the appetite. So I ate double of what I usually eat over those work days (and went back to normal over R&R).

Aside from the heavy lifting there were the more skill-based bits such as digging out the ground. Yes, digging and evicting many earthworms along the way. But if you're picturing a circular hole in the ground that's not really it... The ground plan looked more like a grid of squares and rectangles -- shapes which take skill and precision to carve out of the ground. Our first taste of digging went like this: one villager armed with a changkul first dug out perfect square outlines, and we were supposed to clear the dirt from within this outline up (or should I say down) to a certain depth. Well let's just say that some of those squares didn't remain squares for much longer, and who knows what kinds of shapes resulted when we started in those areas without outline guides. I found that while I had the strength to remove fairly sizeable scoops of ground, I couldn't do it for long in quick succession, especially not with great accuracy (aiming is not easy!!!). So once in a while, a villager (probably amused or impatient to the limit) would take over and get the job done in quadruple speed. Essentially, we were the unskilled labour, coz unfortunately uni didn't teach us to use changkuls and shovels.

After the ground was dug deep enough, all the heavy stuff we'd been carrying (except the children) was mixed within these holes, leaving solid cement foundations once dry. [The gross thing was that while the cement was hardening overnight, all the residing earthworms chionged up to the surface for air. And that was where we found lots of them next morning -- dead on the concrete.] Then it was time to put up the concrete pillars! Those must've been the heaviest things I've helped carry in my life -- so heavy that when you're putting in the muscle it doesn't seem like you're playing a part in supporting the weight, something like pressing against a ceiling. But obviously, let go at everyone else's peril. And I wasn't even at the heavy (guys') end! In case you're wondering how: thick, sturdy branches as handles for dozens of hands along with rubber tires as slings. Could be real wrist- and back-busters if one wasn't careful.

As mentioned, when in Cambodia for all parts work done add equal parts rest. Action relaxation. My tendency to fidget surfaced when the time came to chill and hence I was always happy to take extended walks around the village... or find someone/thing to play with.

Play

I hadn't interacted with children in a long time, not to mention a school-load of them. To the kids, everything could be played with -- the mound of sand, empty bottles, a gigantic blue tarp, ... us. It was Christmas day. There was to be a Christmas party for all the villagers in the night but the kids had come in early to play. For the better part of the afternoon, all of us would've been carrying at least one kid on our backs at some point in time. At their command we would run and chase our fellow horses so that our riders could tickle each other/us. The kids also seemed to greatly enjoy aerial manoeuvres courtesy of our muscles. Spinning, throwing, swinging -- the school grounds was transformed into a theme park full of human rides and kids screaming in delight. The kids weighed 15-25kg btw, so talk about working out!

Most of us had our "favourite kid" or else had become a kid's favourite person. The younger kids just wanted to play and run around, and seeing them happy made me happy to exchange my physical energy for their enjoyment. But my favourite kid was this 12-year-old girl who was quiet and reserved compared to other kids -- kinda like myself. It was the our second last day at the school and I was sitting under the shade stoning, when she came along to sit beside me. From then on she stuck with me, playing with me and giving me tiny bouquets of rainbow flowers picked from all over the village. Though small, these were really very beautiful. At the end of the second last day, she asked, "tomorrow?" and I was able to reply "tomorrow" although I knew it would be the last.

I guess what made my goodbye easier was that it happened early, and it was a very solid one. At the end of our final day at the school, we happened to be in a pretty weird position physically. Like we were told to say goodbye to the kids and go settle whatever before heading off, but we were standing deep within the compound, far from the gates. I dunno if you can imagine it, but I really wasn't sure how any sort of goodbye could be definite with a mob of increasingly clingy kids standing between us and the exit. So while some of us were milling awkwardly around waiting for the others to pull away, esp those more acquainted with the younger ones, she just stood a distance away, looking at me. I didn't really know what to do, but I raised my arms and she ran forward to give me one final hug. Then she asked once again, "tomorrow?", to which I replied, "next time". I'm not sure what she understood by that, but I know that she knew we weren't going to be meeting the next day. In any case she turned and walked all the way across the field, out of the gates and in the direction of her house. Not once did she look back. All this, while the younger kids and some of our group had burst into tears at prospect of impending separation.

Insights

What does it mean to be content and to be happy? These children clearly don't have all the gadgets and toys that we grew up with. You see them happy and wonder how they could be happy when they have so little, so much less than we do? But then if we swapped lives, If I went to live in the Cambodian countryside instead and one of the kids took my place in the bustling city, who says we'd both be happy. I'd probably die of boredom and the kid would be dealt the stress and hustle no village kid would ever have to face where they come from. Happiness cannot be transacted but I guess it can be cultivated. We can't just buy another life, but by recognising what we have in our own, we can be happy too. In the city we have sooo much, and maybe it's because we know that there's so much more that we could have, that we lose sight of the things that are enough. Now that I've had this experience, maybe next time I start to "crave more", I'll think back on what it means for me to be contented. I'll think back and remember those kids who have everything they know, and who know everything they have.

As for my interactions with that particular girl, I still don't really know what to make of it. Why she enjoyed my company so much, to pull me by the hand everywhere and give me all those beautiful flowers... Maybe she took pity on me sitting alone and stoning from being too tired haha. Or maybe she and I weren't all that different, if you look past age, skin colour, and language. It's rare that I don't know what to learn from "interesting" or somewhat impactful experiences. At the end of the day, I enjoyed my time at the school and that girl was a major part of it. I don't know if I'll ever see this girl again, and although I didn't cry at the school grounds I did tear a little on the bus ride back while looking at the flowers wilting in my cap. But I strongly believe that we don't meet people by accident in life; paths cross for good reasons. Ah I think I get it now. My time with this girl taught me to live in the moment. Yes it was fleeting, and in the end I couldn't save the souvenirs she gave me, but I enjoyed it, all of the 1.5 days that we were friends. Maybe that's all that matters.

Everything else

 
I went on this trip knowing about a handful out of the 18 other people. This was the first time I'd travelled with people who weren't already my friends or family. It wasn't really a conscious decision, but I spent most times hopping around different groups instead of sticking to the people I already knew. And it also helped that we'd pair up to carry sand/rocks/water, so those hundreds of up-and-down trips really were good opportunities for conversations with different people. Then tired alr, so use long bus rides for recharging. It seems that one thing that's changed about me in 2016 was that I wasn't really scared of going out there and getting to know new people anymore. I'm still a real introvert; interacting with big groups of new people intimidates and tires me. So it really was my fortune to go on a trip with people who were welcoming and kind, and who treated me as one of them. [I will never forget the time I got tickled until I fell off the bed xD]

R&R was nice. Suddenly it was 2017, and we were consuming alcohol as usual. I remember making a mental note that sometimes, decisions can be arrived at faster with two-way communication, rather than waiting around for the bosses to make the call and getting increasingly frustrated. Next day, or more like a few hours later, we were up to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. [Yes, the temples also looked nice and climbable.]

It's not easy to imagine how manual labour with a group of people I hardly knew could be considered a fun travel plan. Then again, I wasn't just looking to have fun, and the stories that the others told me before the trip thoroughly convinced me that it'd be a meaningful way to spend both Christmas and the New Year. All I had to do was go and experience something new.

I guess one of my strengths is that whenever I set out to enjoy something, I usually do :)

Angkor Wat, 1st Jan 2017. Dawn of the New Year!

Night-time Thoughts III

1) Recently, I was reminded of how I'd spent the very first moments of this year: running around the seaside of Nha Trang searching for ice. I'd had no idea that I'd actually ran right into 2016 (it was a few minutes past the stroke of midnight by the time I was done with my mission), let alone how the rest of the year would play out from there. Safe to say now, very close to the incoming new year, that it was nothing I could've ever predicted or even imagined.

2) It's not just the end of a crazy sem, or even a crazy year... it's the end of a crazy 4.5 years of uni. In less than one month's time I'm gonna be out there trying to be an adult, and it scares me. How does one turn all of this into writing?? Nvm, step by step and time to tap on the good old stream of consciousness.

3) Something's telling me to call 2016 the best year ever. Maybe it's recency bias, but if at the end of every year I can say that I've lived the best year ever, I think I'll be a very happy/satisfied person. It's probably got something to do with level of activity. In most years, everything melds neatly into school --> summer --> school --> December. And then there's 2016 which really hit a whole new level of epic: travel --> FYP life, Drif4st, more FYP --> IVEC, REP climbing, ubin adventures, regular meetings at dhoby xchange just acia + daiso trips, MOAR TRAVELS + first time tio cancelled flight and lying on airport floor --> omg Y5 is worse than FYP, Dare or Not, yearbookX1000 --> chill days meeting friends, sleeping, and wondering how the year just flashed by like that.

4) There must be some kind of significance if I'm remembering things in this much detail. Well I definitely was busy (and in the months of Aug-Nov, insanely busy). But it's clear now that I've written it down, that I've been doing lots of things outside of the norm.

5) Maybe, I'm just pretty thrilled at my newfound friends. Doing stuff beyond regular routines comes together with getting to know new people. Usually... I find difficulty in even starting to talk to people I don't know. Given this, if I manage to somehow click with people I meet out of complete chance, I feel it'd be a huge waste to let it just go after we all go back to our normal lives. Why let things fade into memory, when there's a good foundation for building ties? I guess that's why summer 2016 was awesome for me, all those times spent with people I'd practically just met, even though it felt like I'd known them forever. [Not much clicking going on in school, except on my mouse.] Who'd have known that my final year in school would be this lively, this fresh.

6) Of course, it's easy to say that we should continue to meet up and blah blah, and it's easy to not actually do it at all. I know how people drift and friendships fade: uni through the years was kinda like a moving picture of these changes, both on others and myself. Heck, this is current affairs, I feel it happening. It's inevitable. There will definitely be a portion of my relationships that won't survive the test of time, of differences, and of change. I don't think there's any sure way to predict which will go down this path, but only time will tell, and when the scarcity of free time hits once work starts, it will start to happen.

7) On this note, I was thinking about how my climbing friendships should be easier to maintain, as long as all the people/groups I climb with continue to climb. Coz climbing kakis don't just meet for a meal once every X months, we spend X hours losing skin + X hours after that eating together, every week or so. I hope I don't ever stop enjoying this sport, and my friends too.

8) Recent times have been good times. There's been so much free time after school ended, even during the exam period HAHA. So I've been busy doing what young people on school holidays normally do: going out with friends. The difference this time is that there's been a chunky mix of people from point 5 and much older, long-time friends. All the same, all happy, carefree moments (or hours actually) to treasure and remember. There are dozens of thoughtcatalog articles and whatnot listing the things to feel sad about when friendships fade, but I guess if it's impossible to save all of them, the best that we can do is to feel happy that they happened. And when these are actually happening, do our best and put in the effort to make them worth remembering.

9) However, there's always two sides to the coin. This year, amidst all the rush and activity, I've seen sides of people that have caused me aversion and anger. I am also aware that I've chosen to deal with these in cold ways. It probably had something to do with my perma-low social battery (because of endless meetings during the school days) -- it was always easier to totally avoid bothering with these matters. Sometimes I feel that, although we have a right to choose our actions, wouldn't it be nicer to spread positivity rather than misery? Yes I get it, everyone has to have a nice rant once in a while to complain about everything in the universe, just one example. But when all this gets too much, it gets hard for others to be understanding. I guess I'm more of an observant, quiet kind of person, so I'm not about to go tell anyone how to act. High quality feedback is sometimes very very difficult and inappropriate to give. The least I can do is remind myself never to repeat that which I see and dislike.

10) So 2016 was a people-centric year for me. It wasn't an easy year, in fact it was bordering on madness, but it really taught me to find reasons to be happy rather than to get swept along in the drudgery. I really feel a large portion of life is what you make of it, and so I choose to see the positive side of things. In the years to come when I look back and the details fade, I will know 2016 as the crazy year of great friendships. Glad to have met all you wonderful people, whether only just or we've been friends for ages, and thank you for making my final year in school an awesome one! :)

11) End of stream of consciousness, wow it's late. Tomorrow I'm heading off to Cambodia, my one and only "grad trip" because I enjoyed myself so much over summer haha. I don't really know what's in store, but I'm just gonna go with the flow and believe that I'll enjoy myself! Also, this is the 3rd consecutive time that I'll be ringing in the new year from overseas. See y'all again in 2017, here's ending off the final post of the year with a nice song:

"Each day's a gift and not a given right" 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Editor's Extended Note

Dedicated to the Yearbook Team 2016, it was a pleasure working with y'all. It's finally our time to REtire! :)


I can't design for nuts, and this led me to request the role of words person/doer of odd jobs for this year's REP yearbook (the pubs comm's yearly burden undertaking). One of my final tasks was to write the editor's note (the thingy in front that people tend to skip). So having never written an editor's note before, I went to do some Googling and realised that it could contain practically anything. Not entirely helpful, but it did get me thinking about what actually deserved to be said. Eventually I settled for something slightly more eloquent than "please enjoy kthxbye", but when you've followed something over the better part of the year and through the crushing workload of Y5, ~150 words is barely enough to summarise anything.

The main point is that nothing in the yearbook came from nothing. Everything inside and out had to be hunted (when Carina and her camera went shooting), gathered (immense gratitude to everyone we've bugged for all sorts of things), or crafted. And then there was somehow putting everything together into the form of a book - a delicate mix of creativity and anguish. But by no means is this post a form of complaint, take it as some sort of dark humour instead haha. So... Ready? It's time to describe the making of the yearbook in as much detail as I can remember - to all future YBTs, heed a fair warning ;)

Just some general stuff before diving into the specifics. The most fundamental way to describe our work is that we were essentially a team of editors - say about 30% creating and 70% wondering how to make things better. In my domain, there were a ton of edits made throughout the process. Here, there, everywhere! It wasn't just about grammar/spelling/weirdness anymore, but also consistency. Like you wouldn't want to call the same person by different names across the book. Beyond words, there was a whole host of other things to consider and tweak: photos, positionings, fonts, line spacings, brightness, this-one-better-or-that-one-better, like-this-nicer-or-like-that-nicer, and every-freaking-thing else. I can't really speak for the designers, who had to deal with all of the above on top of misbehaving software. But having contributed eye power, I must say that they deserve a hats off for their skill and intuition - knowing what works really isn't easy.

And now on we move to the "troublesome" things. Where in between gnashing teeth and frustrated outbursts, there were bouts of manic sob-laughter when things went beyond irritating and turned morbidly funny.

REClub President's message - edited no fewer than 5 times. The greatest challenge here was really in maintaining the "voice" of Mr. ex-President himself. A message cannot be blitzed the same way as a project report, not unless it is intended to sound like a robot wrote it. Then again, there were space issues to contend with, so unfortunately not every heartfelt word made it to the end. So it's not in perfect English, and overall still fairly unconventional for a keynote message, but it is these imperfections that make it as perfect as it gets. If you ask me though, not as the editor but as a friend, the final version barely sounds like him. But then I remember the reminiscent [read: long-winded], and mildly uncouth first draft, and I think I'm fairly satisfied haha.

Ah, the REP Fellows feature. Seems innocuous enough. That's before it becomes apparent how difficult it is to gather all the individual photos of sufficient quality, before erasing all of their backgrounds. There was this one photo that was so LQ it managed to set the benchmark for the entire book. So during test printing, as we crowded eagerly around the very first copy to see how it'd turned out, there was an easy test for quality. In Carina's words, "if she's OK *jabs finger*, the whole book is."

Nothing very annoying about the middle sections (for me; again I cannot speak for the designers), not until it came to vetting which we'll talk about later. Here I must stress how much I appreciated all those quick responses from when I went into journalist mode, whether it was for quotes or photos or someone's full name. Not everything made it to the end, but every bit of information returned (along with the occasional encouraging message) really made doing this a whole lot easier.

Achievements page was also unexpectedly troublesome, but in a way it was a happy problem. REP students really are a bunch of overachievers! It seems like it is the hobby of some to join all sorts of competitions and win prizes in all of them. Really like free flow. Things actually reached a point where we had to say "k cut liao this one leave for next year", and even bump 3rd placings off the main display into the "additional mentions". In future yearbooks, the achievements spread might just be columns and columns of 1st placings, no more space for photos. Which is a shame actually, because out of the whole book, this spread is my favourite in terms of design.

Grad feature. Pretty weird to be doing this for ourselves, but I guess it made gathering stuff easier. In this section, crowd-sourcing for ideas was employed to AMAZING effect. To the 5 people whose words I've borrowed and stitched together, a huge thank you, and I hope the end result works! The rationale was that we were but a handful of people who happened to be from the graduating batch - our views and thoughts may not be representative. [Esp since we were so jaded at that point] I was more involved in conceptualizing this spread, and I remember the days where it was blank white. Well let's just say making this spread was a mini journey in itself, with lots of brainstorming, chucked ideas, and on my end, countless experimentations wrt the words across the page. Maybe one day we will conjure memories of our own just from looking at this spread. Or at least, I know I'll be able to.

Pro-tip for future YBTs: PROTOTYPE. As we headed towards final printing, we thought it'd be good to defend against expensive surprises. In fact, we had two prototypes! Two stapled + taped stacks of paper covered in ink from the RPR printer, post-its with scribbles, and even more scribbles by the end of it. Some of our profs would've been proud. Taken from RE6007 notes: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand pictures", which actually, eerily sounds like a yearbook. Some things read differently on screen and on actual paper (I seriously have no idea why), and this means edits using the good ol' pencil. Also, only a prototype can affirm if a design works - if it doesn't look right on the prototype it damn right won't on the actual print. Good thing the RPR has a paper cutter lying around, although it went blunt and we had to manually scissor the white edges off prototype 2.0. The sheared-down size also felt more "handy" than a full-sized A4, and so we kept it that way, in case you're wondering if this year's edition feels a tad small.

Know that phrase "come out of the woodwork"? Yea, errors loved to do just that after biding their time, hiding from sweep after sweep by multiple pairs of tired eyes. Everyone chipped in here, especially to cover for my super ineptness at spotting spelling errors. [InDesign does not have spellcheck. Whut.] It's actually pretty amazing how well errors hide in the big open. Either that or it's amazing how gone our eyes were. [That's why there should be more young people on the YBT not saddled with the burden of Y5 haha] Eventually (n rounds later), we came to accept that the edits must stop, whether for design or for words, and that we had done enough. So if anyone spies anything amiss... Please be kind [unless one has the dying wish of breaking a string of hearts]. These things weren't in the timeline, like a planned "vetting period", but after working on something for so long it'd simply be very 心痛 to find a careless or preventable error in the actual print. I haven't actually read my own copy. It's like some kind of 职业病, but I can't really bring myself to read it all the way through right now. Macam traumatised ahahaha.

Ah, I mustn't forget to mention the promotional spreads and the videos that I'm guessing many people replayed more than a handful of times ;) The stars were the ones who helped us sell the book, but it took the geniuses in our team to make sure they looked their best! #editingbosses Also, those "books" in the videos were really just our trusty prototype 1.0. See the extent of its usefulness? Even if not everyone bought the (real) books, I'm sure the promos were at least able to deliver laughter, joy, and a great deal of distraction to all who viewed them >:D

The final word is reserved for the team itself. For one, I think it's a good thing we all knew how to work together with one another, especially since most of us had already spent so long as classmates. Otherwise, the final product would've been a chopped up mess. Skill-wise, we also had a good spread. Imagine if 5 of me were to do this; the yearbook would look like an FYP report. Also as with everything REP, it was tough work, but we managed to find our own kind of fun in the process! If you ask me whether those cold nights in the RPR and all those hours spent scanning through drafts were worth it, well, I can say that because of those, we can now say that our job is done with confidence and pride!

If you've got a copy handy and haven't yet done so, please sit back, turn the pages, and enjoy! [If not, please continue waiting xD] That is the best reward that you can give us in the YBT :)

YBT 2016!