Allow me to ever so subtly side-step the large elephant in the room and proceed with blogging under usual circumstances.
I think for clarity's sake, I shall number my points to avoid having to write in progressive prose.

1. Ever since having drinks at Cuisine, the bar next to the It Club of Manila, Embassy, and that fateful game of Circle of Death on our first night in Palawan, I've not had a single drop of alcohol, largely because I've been on one form of meds or another. I've also not had a drop of coffee ever since that Iced Caramel Macchiato I had on the morning of results day. Tea on the other hand has been regularly consumed, be it the canned peach and green variety or the fresh lemon one at japanese set lunches.

2. The PSC Psychological Interview I had on the 21st of January was long and at times tedious, but necessary. My Board Interview scheduled for the 9th of February has been postponed indefinitely.

3. I'm waiting for the LSE response for Politics and Philosophy before I decide whether or not to sign the remark forms and/or appeal the Durham conditions. Have gotten the Pin Letters from NYU and Yale, waiting for Harvard. In the midst of filling in the last part of the PSC application, which is on hold because I need to finish the NUS application first.

4. I have finished Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. You constantly read reviews about books hailed as politically critical; the definition of that term has surely been diluted. But if you want to read a work of fiction that can be said to be a political satire and comment, this is the book for you. It is because it adheres to the strictest definition of this term that it is the Man Booker Prize Winner for 2008. My next read shall be George Orwell's Why I Write.

5. 2009 was put on hold after the first few days of excitement. It resumed on 24/01, where I first went in the morning for an assessment with the former head of Respiratory Science at SGH at his private clinic in Mount Elizabeth, which cost me more money than I've spent in all of last year, followed by lunch at Sun With Moon, Wheelock Place with Deon and Sean, Tea at NYDC, Holland Village with Paul, preparations for Sam's second surprise 19th birthday party with Josh, Al, Val, Miche and Adriel, dinner at NYDC with Melodie, Cheryl, Joash, Justin, Jim, Song Yeong, Gabriel, John Chris, Darren, Nicholas and Chun Wui, Guitar Hero: World Tour at Elliot's place with this gang plus Gerald, Mong and Patrick, and finally the rest of the party at Sam's place with the prep group plus Jake, Mike and Auyong, ending the night at 4ish with just the musketeers. I was the only one to wake up 3 hours later to get to church and cell, then a grocery run for our small class reunion lunch at Agi's cousin's Novena apartment tomorrow.

I shall end with a few lines from The White Tiger which I think encapsulate its brilliance -

"Now, I've driven around Bangalore at night too, but I never get that feeling here that I did in Delhi - the feeling that if something is burning inside me as I drive, the city will know about it - she will burn with the same thing.
My heart was bitter that night. The city knew this - and under the dim orange glow cast everywhere by the week streetlamps, she was bitter.
Speak to me of civil war, I told Delhi.
I will, she said.
An overturned flower urn on a traffic island in the middle of a road; next to it three men sit with open mouths. An older man with a beard and white turban is talking to them with a finger upraised. Cars drive by him with their dazzling headlights, and the noise drowns out his words. He looks like a prophet in the middle of a city, unnoticed except by his three apostles. They will become his three generals. That overturned flower urn is a symbol of some kind.
Speak to me of blood on the streets, I told Delhi.
I will, she said.
I saw other men discussing and talking and reading in the night, alone or in clusters around the streetlamps. By the dim lights of Delhi, I saw hundreds that night, under trees, shrines, intersections, on benches, squinting at newspapers, holy books, jornals, Communist PArty pamphlets. What were they reading about? What were they talking about?
But what else?
Of the end of the world.
And if there is blood on these streets - I asked the city - do you promise that he'll be the first to go - that man with the fat folds under his neck?
A beggar sitting by the side of the road, a nearly naked man coated with grime, and with wild unkempt hair in long coils like snakes, looked into my eyes:
Promise."