when are the times that make you wish you had made a different choice?
or times which make you look around you and question the sincerity of the reality around you?
or just make you feel so blessed to be where you are rite now?
the past two days was days when i finally came to realize that there are some things i need to admit...
not only to ppl who i trust and still don't know,
but to myself, officially, on the blog which i've had since starting sec school...
i dun feel the need to start a priavte blog to share my feelings or encrypt entries with a password...
the ppl who visit are the ppl i noe, so yeah...

sonicfest last nite was a CLIMAX! even better than the already awesome first nite...
the crowd on thursday was 1500, but it was 4000 yesterday...
went there straight after cycling at east coast with joel, cherry, jo and darius...
backtrack a bit and i haf to mention that i went down to school in anticipation of an important lesson, but was sorely disappointed... its a long story. but the crux is that cherry, yingting, mel and i upped and left for plaza sing to buy sonicflood cds and to subway/kfc at far east to buy lunch...
got sonicflood's autograph on my copy of "cry holy"
planetshakers performed again, but the stars of the nite were sonicflood...
1 hour of energetic dancing and music, and i think all of us there were really moved...
i was with abby, deb, dan, jake, jansen and their friend for the first half, then joined jo, cherry and mel & her friends later...
mel has these two friends who, when standing next to each other, provide for a stark contrast...
john chan was this really enthu jumping-clapping person, while john yeo was so quiet and unmoving next to him...
ppl of my namesake can be so strange sometimes... x)
but what really struck me was that i saw so many ppl i have not even contacted for years...
sean was there with mark bala and mark lui, both of whom i haven't toked to since last year...
jia lin was there... (i'm not evil!)
ryan lim and isaiah peh were there, both my sec 1 classmates...
justin chiam the fellow choirster was there...
some primary schoolmates who went to barker, whose names i've sadly forgotten...
and russell kang!!! we were classmates in p5, but then he moved to 6.8, and then to barker, so i never really got to see him...
i did see him once in 2003 in barker on my way to one of the first dep sessions, when he was with isaac loh...
then once more this year while i was on a 171 passing by the barker bus stop to town...
so seeing him and waving and we being able to recognize each other after 3 years is pretty amazing...

last nite brought back memories both sweet and sorrowful, dating back all the way to my days in acjs...
6 years around the same ppl does that to you... i can clearly remember many of the more prominent ppl in the level, but haf forgotten some of my classmates... (not those from 6.9 coz most are in acsi)
i can remember seeing the head prefect antony chee boon kiat (how can i still remember??!!) outside barker in 2003...
and of course those ppl who are in aci... all of them have changed so so much, and i guess so haf i...
*adriel once wrote in a christmas card that aci had done something to me, though he wasn't sure for better or worse... i can't quite answer that either...*
the only person i'm still really close to now is seb koh, and we've been friends since p5... we used to haf these really long phone convos i remember... hahas... but sec school threw us into busy lives, so free time was more or less non-existent...
sometimes i also imagine what it would have been like had i gone into another school... ya'll may noe that i didn't do as well as i had expected for the psle, which is a good thing... coz if i had gotten any higher i would haf applied to ri... but what would it haf been if i had gone there? or if i had gone to vs or barker? (mich keeps telling us about the lucrative debate scholarship and book prizes)
i would haf met and bonded with different ppl, but would i haf had as much fun and experiene as i had in aci?

this morning i met cherry and jo for breakfast at macs at ps before going to sonicfest day 3...
the early part was uneventful and rainy, so nothing much happened till about 1 plus...
even then, the bands were quite lousy, so we went to han's at park mall for tea...
mel and dan met us back at fort canning, but there still wasn't much to do...
the good stuff like sonicedge and sonicflood were only taking place at nite, so we sat near the stairs to the village eating salad...
*i must mention that after that i saw jia lin and she was like "i wanna draw fruits... let's draw strawberries!"*
mel, john yeo, dan and i went to explore fort canning... basically just walked and walked... came back to the point where we started... we were so bored to the point of going to macs at ps to just sit down...
in many ways it was really awkward for all of us, coz we were all only connected by two degrees of friendship via mel, except that i noe dan as a debater and john yeo as another ac guy, so hmmm...

left for ac drama nite...
met up with tim chan and jeremy and joseph wong...
decided to be these kiasu pigs and rush in when the doors opened and get the best seats in the cpa... (2nd row from front)
jin, jlo, daniel (gep omers from div two team last year, now in the div three team, replacing me, andrew and rayan), peter and collin ho came...
we were writing dhanesh's birthday card before the show and during the interval...
the show itself was nothing to cheer about, and it really didn't measure up to the standard set last year...
but props go to all the drama ppl, both actors and crew...
problem with the play was that there were alota inside jokes, many of which only the drama or om ppl understood...
and the bird costumes (the majority of the characters) were like an almost-replica of my om costume last year, peacock feathers included...
dhanesh of course managed to bring across the whole lame thing across really well, with the indian accent and all...
oh and the random out of point songs were quite badly done... they really didn't serve any purpose, and some of the actors, no offence, really couldn't sing... they parodied the star wars theme song (which i'm sure sam must haf cringed at) and sweet child of mine...
tim and i were trying our best not to laugh when jordan was singing/dancing... hahas...
after the show we did the whole congratulation thingum, and i saw many of the om ppl of this year... rayan, andrew, joshua cao and gang... *jc: singapore is sooo sexy*
really brought back memories...
went for supper at kap with tim, daniel, jlo, jeremy and jin...
chatted alot with daniel on the bus there...
he's one of the friendliest ppl i've come to noe...
they told me all the silly stuff they did in colorado this year, plus all the silly lame jokes a la om...
and then they were like "come back to ac to do om lah, screw nj"
so that's where the second part of my reflections stemmed from...

its been 10 months since i made my decision to come to nj...
the nite before i told my friends in school, i was still all 50-50 between ib and ip...
so i weighed things out over and over again...
in the end, the real reason i wanted to leave was because the regimentation of the uyos there...
was that enough justification? up to now i dunno...

i left alot behind in ac... more that i think anyone else who came to the njip...
most of them wanted to get out of their schools coz they didn't fit in or were peeved ppl/teachers etc...
but my life in ac was perfect, save for the uyo thing...
everything was really falling into place *miche says hi!* *welcome to the china club* *jake rox* *write one para for deb soon*
i had a future in the choir, the best teammates i could haf in debate, and a chance to go to the US again to *adriel's talking nonsense again!* compete at the world finals of om, and my academics had peaked when i got my 10 As...

i'm now in nj, and though i'm not top ten in the level (coz of the 20 scholars who took up the first 20 placecs), there are things that make me grateful...
jo, cherry, mel, and some of the other classmates who are awesome...
but i only haf one cca and a B div trophy, compared to *adriel is begging miche, which is a first*
compared to the last two years of syf accolades and world silvers and such, its really not much...
plus i cannot help but think about what i could haf gotten if i had stayed in ac...
debating with paul and sam and getting A div champs?
om-ing with tim, coll, dhanesh, jc and gang doing stupid stuff and singing american idol songs...
getting syf gold with the choir...
sometimes i still harbour thoughts about returning to ac, but how possible is that? i really dunno...

this post goes out to team C, OM '04 and ppl i've left in ac..
also to my friends in nj whom i've been so blessed to noe...
and to deb, coz she's asked me to dedicate a para to her... hi deb!!!!! :D

you can take the boy out of ac, but you can't take ac out of the boy...

8 years does that to you sometimes...
jlc.