chuannnn.tumblr.com, for the parentals/siblings mostly. But seeing as i lack the time to keep updating the 101 thoughts that go through my head, it will be my main, less rambly one! 

应该是前天晚上吧。不知为何睡不着，拿了mp3听了又听。 可能是拜六回了rj 突然发现对那个地方和某些事物的回忆还是蛮好的。母校的感觉应该是这样吧。在那里读书的时候因为有考试的压力，巴不得考完了可恶的a levels快快从这里毕业，但是毕业了之后才发现这里的一切就像很很久以前的rgs，有一种说不出的熟悉感。

情歌（梁静茹）

时光是琥珀
泪一滴滴 被反锁
情书再不朽
也磨成沙漏
青春的上游
白云飞走
苍狗与海鸥
闪过的念头
潺潺的溜走

命运好幽默
让爱的人 都沉默
一整个宇宙
换一颗红豆
回忆如困兽
寂寞太久
而渐渐温柔
放开了拳头
反而更自由

慢动作 缱绻胶卷
重播默片
定格一瞬间
我们在告别的演唱会
说好不再见

你写给我
我的第一首歌
你和我 十指紧扣
默写前奏
可是那然后呢

还好我有
我这一首情歌
轻轻的 轻轻哼着
哭着笑着
我的 天长地久

命运好幽默
让爱的人都沉默
一整个宇宙
换一颗红豆

回忆如困兽
寂寞太久
而渐渐温柔
放开了拳头
反而更自由

长镜头 越拉越远
越来越远
事隔好几年
我们在怀念的演唱会
礼貌的吻别

你写给我
我的第一首歌
你和我十指紧扣
默写前奏
可是那然后呢

还好我有
我这一首情歌
轻轻的 轻轻哼着
哭着笑着
我的 天长地久

陪我唱歌
清唱你的情歌
舍不得 短短副歌
心还热着
也该告一段落

还好我有
我下一首情歌
生命宛如 静静的
相拥的河
永远 天长地久

这首歌又反复听了好多遍，突然有一种怀旧的情感。 原来青春年华逝去得那么快，18 19岁的日子也一去不复返。往后回忆起这段时光，我又会想起什么呢？学业果然没有那么重要，以前关于学业的挫折也一扫而空。 还是人吧。认识的人，信任的人，可以一起努力一起互相勉励的人，这些人才是回忆里该有的东西。高中生活说起来对我而言平稳而平淡，或许就是这样才能确保我有一定的成绩吧。却觉得我的青春不能用挥洒来形容，似乎也没有疯癫的过一下。听着这首歌让我的思绪真的如潮水般汹涌了起来，不禁想着如果我没有放弃一些事情，反而去追寻，结果又会有什么不一样呢？在我生命中的过客，又会踏上什么样的旅程，如果十年后再遇到这些人，我们又会有什么样的交谈呢？在新加坡的话，还没有那种各奔前程的沧桑感，但是出国的人这种感触想必非常自然。

回首高中的日子，让我更清楚接下来的生活应该怎么走，怎么过。。。努力吧 (:

I woke up today feeling blue.

Monday blues? probably not. these kinds of odd emotional cycles have been happening a little as of late. I suppose partially because I have Grade 8 weighing on my mind and my lack of practice last week compounded the stress today. Also because I felt like i lost focus of what i should be doing and that sense of purposefulness that should be in me most of the time i wake up. I couldn't help but feel like i needed people, need my friends and needed company, that's become increasingly hard to get because everyone else is away at school now, only those headed to the UK are prolly lounging around.

It struck me suddenly that all my good friends were gonna be here, in Singapore. Sure, I've become acquainted with those going to the UK, all thanks to PSC and the Cam fresher events and a handful of people here and there that i know who are going the UK. I'm lucky enough already, to know there's a support network even in the UK, at Homerton, at Cam and I'm not alone. But then knowing that those i really really really connect with are not gonna be with me in the UK felt sad. I've come to the realisation that it takes me really a while to be really close to people, and i'm not the kind that makes instant friends. Or rather my definition of friend is more uh stringent. I'm still not used to the feeling of being without close friends and just hanging or floating about. That's prolly why i'm feeling a little worried.

I guess it's moments like these that i wonder what it would have been like if i stayed locally to do law etc. Perhaps i wouldn't have to worry about finding another group of ppl that i can be soulmates with and be excited about seeing. Then again i always remind myself that I'm not a person easily satisfied and i should stop looking over the other side and thinking the grass is greener. Deep down this voice says hello who was the one who was so scared she wouldn't meet her conditions?! Argh. And i've come to also realise that my house and my family really give me strength. It's inexplicable, but when i just lie here and sit around i'm somehow recharged emotionally. I was really tired on top of my sore throat over Camp Bridge but when i got home i just felt so recharged and so at ease. I know now how hard it would be for me to be away from home, even though i was so enthusiastic so fervent about going overseas. It's like a tension between going away and exploring another world and being at home and being close to where my heart is.

I suppose all this emo-ness will come to pass when i reach there. But i still can't help but feel that fear of the unknown, fear of whether i will find another grp of close friends at Cam...

I've been journaling on my reliable little book ever since PDC started and it really is a good way to keep track of things. I realise it's like a mini Pensieve which allows you to throw in threads of  your thoughts that distract you, or throw in emotions that you feel negative about so it cleanses your mind.

PDC/Attachment this week has been meaningful in the sense that it probed me to think of the various issues like eldercare, adoption, education. It made me reflect on a lot of issues, not least about my parents, about how I would have to handle all these eldercare issues for my parents in the future as the eldest.

There are too many thoughts for me to type down here but these are the most important/interesting/meaningful moments of the past 2 weeks.

1. Kite flying at Marina
All i want to say is that I'm extremely glad I had ppl in my class to hang out with and that they're still so friendly and funny...they feel like family. Perhaps not the closes friends ever, but still a great support group, amongst whom I know there are always friends I can count on to help me or to listen. The sun was glorious and really beautiful.

Was blinking back tears when Mr Chan said to me 'Hongchuan, be strong when you go over to Cambridge, don't cry so much.' I was tearing when I said 'Yeah I know.' That sounded so much like the truth. I guess he's right that I'm gonna have my weak moments and it's like he really has foresight...I've been feeling oddly melancholic lately about leaving all these friends behind.

2. Post OBS
Was really happy when I returned home from OBS coz I received like 101 smses from friends. I guess it felt good that I was wanted and needed and that I wasn't the only one who felt a certain way about things. Was somehow relieved with Jane's call and it felt great to speak and hear her over the phone again. Am really glad there was sth about PW outing (finally!). It's these ppl that keep me going and looking forward to the end of July and can motivate me to hang in there thru what I dont' like. I'm glad my friendship's reciprocated.

3. Circle of trust crap.
Seriously, guys? Was pretty shocked they started ranking the girls in the OBS group. LOL. That goes to show the difference between girls and guys. We are so demure by comparison. 
 
4. MPS (Mon)
MPS reminded me of why I was in this altogether. Seeing all these troubled ppl made me forget all that was negative that I felt about some things tugging at the back of my mind about SGSO and future plans. It seemed like fate too that I went back to URA  near LAB. That reminded me of what I learnt at LAB and how motivated I was in some way, to be able to help all these ppl with my knowledge of law in the future. I think what I have to do is to try and focus on what I love doing and ppl that I admire, to keep me going.

5. Elyse (Tues)
Somehow I had this sense of trepidation towards going to Cambridge, very suddenly after I heard about it being so very far, about its lower acad performance and stuff like that. And that meeting with Elyse changed my perception so much because her enthusiasm was infectious and she made the supervisors sound so good and cool that cambridge was morphing back into my idea of academic heaven. I'm glad Homerton's got good tutors thought they didn't produce a first in law this year. It's a little daunting to think that few ppl end up with 1sts and I'd better get one eventually. Though it's good to be prepared that in the first year most graduate with 2.1s. I'm not gonna go all out mugging for it, or give up a normal life for it, coz I want to be truly involved in sch activities.

here in chenghai again. it feels familiar enough so much so that i don't feel like i'm in a completely foreign place. maybe because it's only been a year.

off to shanghai tomorrow! sad to hear from the tour people that it's only one and a half days in shanghai and only one day at expo before we visit the rest of jiangnan :( i hope the weather improves it's been really chilly here which is odd because it's actually summer! and i was covered in winter blankets most of the last few days.

grandma's been very hard to communicate with. i've finally realised how difficult it is to communicate with older folks. i think other people normally would get pretty used to doing that, but i guess for me because i've never really lived for a long time with my grandparents i don't know how to react besides being polite etc. and it's stressful when we can't get the point across or when she's being crazy frugal about things :S was very glad yesterday to have my uncle troubleshoot for me and we had a heart to heart talk. it's great to hear things from his point of view since my mum's not been on the best terms with him.

very touched by all the fussing about my being here and the troubles they go to to make me feel more comfortable. even my elder uncle who's in guangzhou contributed here and there to my staying around here. and dad's side cook every single thing i want while my dad's bro runs around getting medicine and stuff i need for the trip. second uncle also doubles as my pseudo driver who's practically on call. i think it's great to be back home amongst relatives who go the extra mile. i guess that's what i never experienced in singapore. :)

thankful. and slightly worried about the weather i hope i get to wear all the pretty summer clothes i brought along instead of frigging windbreakers -.-

Was pretty bored yesterday so I decide to blogsurf--haven't done that in ages.

One link on my LJ led to another and then another. Familiar names (met them, been class/CCA mates, acquaintances in some point in time), unfamiliar people, but all the same--vacated. I was suddenly reminded of the blogging craze that took over the first years of secondary school. I was pretty much a trend follower, opening one after my good friend of the first half year of RG, GV, opened one. (As a sidenote, it was kinda sad she wasn't a friend I could keep.) I remember roughly the look of the first blog layout-white and clean, with raindrops falling over the header. Changing templates was the craze, I kept going on blogskins.com during Com Studies so haha no wonder why my com studies skills suck if not I would be at the level of mandity now. But I digress. Those were the days when I was childish and loved to use lah lor leh and all sorts of weird internet short forms. (Not that I don't now, but less.) A blog was like a crap rubbish bin cum diary, it was like an obsessive compulsive disorder to update once a day, whether it was worthy of remembering or not. I needed or rather thought I needed a space to ramble, so rambutan67.blogspot.com served that purpose.

Then I grew older and felt that my thoughts shouldn't be in the public domain too much esp once when my blog popped up in some Google search. But that was already in Sec 4 when I realised how very unsophisticated my old blog was, when the blogging craze kind of died for me. rambutan67.blogspot.com suddenly became a rather ugly patch in my memory of lower sec because I would just cringe at the way I wrote my blog. I couldn't quite bear to see anymore of it because I thought I sounded crappy and ahlian and a bit bimbo with too many short forms and emoticons and the like. It became like a shell I wanted to shed. I made the shift to LJ and deleted the old domain as a fresh start, to remind myself to document only the important things that I want to remember. Sometimes I wonder if I should have kept it--maybe it would be worth a laugh 10 years down the road, but at that point in time I think it was just too eeky to bear.

Seeing those empty domains void of human traffic reminded me of how much teen blogs are like shells and old skin. Grow, moult, shed etc, and the cycle restarts again. Every blog is another new beginning recording another chapter of life. LJ accompanied me for a good 3 years, past the memorable CL debates, the tumultuous and challenging JC years, my first tussle with pseudo relationship issues, A levels and the triumph of getting where I wanted to go. And now I'm ready to undergo another metamorphosis...probably with a new tumblr in place.

Argh...the transience of things on the Internet.

Wrote it on the pink diary on the train to pri sch gathering. Why do I feel like I'm aging! An old heart in a young soul.  

Goodness seeing this post reminded me suddenly that omgosh I'm growing old!

This playlist was from the days of primary school. Heard all those singers and all those songs at a certain point in time. At that point in time they were the hottest hits. They could have included Westlife too. There's no mentioning BSB without Westlife! And while browsing through Westlife news recently I noticed their transition from pushing out albums to touring around and just keep singing their famous old songs i.e. oldies. Funny how their songs never sound like oldies to me but rather create this special feel. Must be that weird reminiscent feeling that keeps those songs alive.

Here's to those carefree years forever gone! 

I've somehow opened a floodgate of emotions lately. Becoming more attuned to the little things in life, probably in line with playing tumblr and all...and taken to thinking so many things that i don't have the patience to put it on lj but rather to keep it in a pink diary that a friend gave for a b'day ages ago. hopefully i'll have the patience to put it up soon as proof that the writer part of me is still alive! i realise i'm pretty unimaginative to write a novel or anything and would rather stick to recording random daily observations!

Anyway this month has been annoying and tiring and i can't wait for june to come! my shanghai expo trip is still in the plans i can't believe how effing difficult it is to get someone to accompany me. well shanghai expo's like a geek's thing unlike korea/japan/ so i'm not surprised i can't quite look to friends to accompany me esp since i'm going back to the hometown after that...but relatives wise it's so difficult ugh everyone's working/studying. and my own parents? too damn busy too. All my hopes now rest on my fabulous uncle. I guess there's no other time to witness a China on the rise, and this coming out party's more accessible than Olympics, so why not go. This unique China obsession must come from the fact that my forefathers-wait, my parents- were from there...hmmm. Ok can't wait to be in a sundress and in front of the UK pavilion! No.1 spot to visit. And the China one, if i actually am able to get tickets. But still, the prospect of going back to visit relatives and eating good food and shopping is still very exciting, with or without expo!

something new in may--getting a tumblr. It seems to be on the rise, but hey i think the functions are a bit lousy in terms of interactive-ness and that's gonna be a huge roadblock to it becoming more common. There isn't even a comment option! But for an 'online scrapbook', as the creators call it, it's really fab and I like the concept. don't ask me how i decided on my domain name-it's changeable anw-but i think it's a good reflection on what kind of a person i am lol. sane on the outside wild on the inside! And I guess it could be a way to document the very exciting uni life! :D 

Ok to better and more creative days ahead!

this week can only be summed up in this word.

1. i can't recall all the details of this week except that everything that happened resulted in me making 2 trips to the police station and 1 to the subcourts. And after being a persistent teenage bitch (read it from the helpdesk dude's face) and not getting anything out of the help centre, the dude actually asked me if i'm gonna study law. got me thinking persistent bitch is similar to lawyer?

i think i learnt a lot over this week about the hardships of life. esp one where working constitutes selling labour rather than a skill. had to take over cashiering duties and even clearing and washing up duties as my mum finished an op and was shortstaffed for many complicated reasons. Couldn't get the world f***ing bitch out of my mouth for a good 3 days and still have to resist using the word at the mention of a certain effing tenant. this week's event confirmed my lawyerly ambitions and that i couldn't have studied anything else other than law. i felt completely helpless about not knowing anything about the law and i wished i could have done something, anything to mitigate the situation.

2. no wonder why the adult's world is complicated. doing business isn't as straightforward as expected. and often we're caught in a situation where we're helpless. i hate that feeling. i hate it that the law has loopholes and that we can't get past these things without incurring extra expenses. and even if we sue under a civil court case, enforcement of any order is also difficult. esp when the OP is a penniless idiot. or a pair of.

3. difference between police station and yamen of the ancient chinese dramas. in the yamen you only have to beat the drums and miraculously the judge appears before you before you even have the time to shout "冤枉啊大人". here in sengkang npc and like any other police station you need to take a queue number and classify your case. it's like 大人telling you "请按伸冤的button". -.- of course i know it's necessary--citizens like us just love to call the police to intervene in the slightest matters--but i'm just frustrated that at the moment when you need ppl to listen to you the most they're unavailable and you sit there under the frigging aircon and their pledge to serve you in 15 min and feel completely helpless.

4. mother's day event at my yec--made me feel sad at the state of how apolitical bodies like grassroots actually involve a fair deal of politics.

grahh all in all i'm glad this week has passed. 3 trainings per week for taekwondo. that ought to get me up to cambridge taekwondo standard.

it's funny how post As really left a void in my brain. I tried recalling our maths syllabus for some reason over class bbq and realised that i couldn't quite remember it. and that's after 24 months of maths.

i think my brain is degenerating.

working life is really making a negative impact on my brain because i'm not thinking about more interesting issues, rather just dead tired when i get home, which makes me permanently stuck to the couch and my eyes glued to the TV. somehow this life is different from what i envisioned post As to be--i think post As should be some intellectual liberation since i have time to read more interesting books, interesting ideas and think and reflect more about worldly issues. which sadly isn't exactly happening. Dec and Jan have been great in the way that i've been occupied with work, which is immensely enlightening, but at the same time it's all the occupation with first US apps, then the financial aid forms that are stressing me again.

I need to be more productive in using my brain! and i recently realised this is the last hurrah the last empty period of my life that i can waste, and burn, and ignite, before i get thrown into uni and then graduate to work. i must find some interesting work to do. janice and i were talking over bbq about interesting and fulfilling work which didn't have to be so formal and relatively well paid like internships. i'd love to wait tables and i think i will even if my parents are like ?!?! to it. sometimes i think it's a pity that all my work experiences have been internships and not those that really pay a pittance in exchange for human labour, somehow i'm just too fortunate eh, not having to work for holiday allowances etc. in any case i will go look for some waitressing job hurhur, which should be a good skill to pick up (on top of tutoring) if i ever need to self-finance myself to uk.

this week i read a reply from Minlaw to some foreign paper that ran an article on chee soon juan. it was kind of interesting to see things from the govt's perspective (haha grudgingly? i always felt the chee guy seemed quite pitiful) because they could raise all sorts of exact examples of the laws chee flouted and the number of times he went to jail as default payment, which the foreign paper chose to ignore. haha it's funny but i think the govt made sense. and the law minister's Q&A was interesting as well, in raising the point that even though countries like USA etc claim to have a fully-fledged democracy as a whole, their cities are overwhelmed by one party situations e.g. chicago which has always been a democratic stronghold. which lends support to singapore as a one-party state hurhur. hate to admit that the guy did make some sense huh. xD

that's all that's the least bit intellectual that i read this week. hopefully the coming week after getting rid of finaid forms for 3 schools i will have more time to do more reading. and make the long awaited trip to spend off all my remaining page 1 vouchers from pm bk prize which goodness me was a good 2 years ago.

ohh i feel old. [nearly 2 decades old. 1.9 to be precise. Phew.]