It's been a long and short semester - long because of how often I have felt lonely, and short because my mind has conveniently deleted those long hours. It's not been a good semester, but a growing one. I have lived with a great amount of uncertainty before, and discovered that the worst kind of uncertainty is the one that exists within myself. How trapped do you feel when you don't know what you want? The uncertainty of the world can always be rationalised into patterns, but the uncertainty of mind cannot be tamed or calmed. The effect is to spill over into daily actions, brewing petty spite, unreasonable demands and some kinds of cruelty. Worst of all, uncertainty blinds me from the people who stolidly and very certainly want to care and love me. I am not so silly to tell you that my uncertainty is over, because that is the nature of uncertainty, its amorphous, ethereal, slipping, sliding, cold, and constantly unexpected. I may tell you though, that I am growing more certain, and with that certainty, mildly but surely, more happy. I suppose some degree of uncertainty must always exist, and I am clever enough to accept that, so that life should continue to surprise, excite and encourage my chase. I shan't like to get comfortable, that sort of comfort usually entails boredom. And I am pleased to say I think I will only get better at living with uncertainty.

Rachel and I went to watch Humpday in the rain today - my first r21 film. Among the themes were growing up, settling down, pride, and reconciling personalities. This week I have been learning that adults that were supposed to be good do bad things. I thought that learning that adults are not perfect was growing up, but now I'm certain there's more to it - knowing that these people who have gone before you have made those mistakes, and making yourself strong enough so that you won't make those mistakes. These wrongs are now mine to avoid.

While I have been in bed the last three days nursing myself against some superbug, outside Singapore seems to be changing in curious ways. Are these the first signs that we are becoming a real, ragged city?

1. A homeless man asked Abel for money on the street outside my house.
2. A man dashing across the road outside Orchard Towers got knocked down by a motorcyclist, climbed back up and continued running across the road.
3. A significant bunch of Singaporeans got together and pulled off a very successful flash mob at lunchtime Raffles Place. (video available on Youtube)

I am not sure if I should begin to fear for my elderly grandparents' safety or get excited about finally starting to live with the freedom of variety, uncertainty and grit.

You know how Bumblebee talks to Sam through the radio? When time had just entered my 21st birthday this year, about 12.18am, I was driving home with Rachel after supper with Luke at Old Airport Road, and just as we passed the Sims Ave junction, a pop song came on the radio that kept singing my name in the chorus. I got very excited then, thinking that just as I turned 21, the universe was calling out to me. I believed that the song spoke to me, even though as I lay in bed that night I couldn't for the life of me remember any of the lyrics. Tonight, it came on again as I took the car down the CTE. I believe the universe has been saying to me "Don't waste your whole life trying to get back what was taken away."

Kristy Are You Ok?
Offspring

Can you stay strong?
Can you go on?
Kristy are you doing okay?
A rose that won't bloom
Winter's kept you
Don't waste your whole life trying
To get back what was taken away

Oh, clouds of time
Seem to rain on
Innocence left behind
And it never goes away

Sugar Addiction:

In 1998, Kathleen DesMaisons outlined the concept of sugar addiction as a measurable physiological state caused by activation of mu opioud receptors in the brain. Her work extracted data from studies done by Blass showing that sugar acted as an analgesic drug whose effects could be blocked by a morphine blocker. Acting on years of anecdotal evidence from her work in the field of addiction, DesMaisons noted that dependence on sugar followed the same track outlined in the DSM IV for other drugs of abuse.

Hoebel and his team also have found that a chemical known as dopamine is released in a region of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens when hungry rats drink a sugar solution. This chemical signal is thought to trigger motivation and, eventually with repetition, addiction.

In experiments, the researchers have been able to induce signs of withdrawal in the lab animals by taking away their sugar supply. The rats' brain levels of dopamine dropped and, as a result, they exhibited anxiety as a sign of withdrawal.

How is it that this show has all the answers to my life?

Two weeks.This must be the longest I have ever kept away. The death of my blog corresponds to the death that I feel. I have been working so hard at those parts of my life that don't have place on this blog that I feel very, very ordinary. And oh, it seems I have now caught a cold.

This morning's thoughts on Foreign Talent and Democracy in Singapore:

Foreign Talent

I thought this topic was talked dead. But yesterday night after a lovely dinner at Racecourse Road, I was directed to something particularly well-written by a girl my age about recent immigrants in Singapore and I couldn't help feeling that we are ignoring an important point.

The political leaders in this country often cite 'natural resource constraints, hostile neighbours and multi-racialism' as the underlying rationale for some necessary policies. I don't think this reasoning works anymore. We panic whenever dangers of 'natural resource constraints, hostile neighbours and multi-racialism' are emblazoned across the front page of the Straits Times. This insecurity leads us to become fearful, jealous and blindly discriminatory. We form unapologetic prejudices according to race, income, education certificates, nationality.

The issue is framed as such - tension between the necessity of foregn labour/talent, and local job scarcity. The answer has always been 'the necessity of the economy is more important than the social necessity of local household income'. Singapore has consistently picked economy over society for the last 44 years, but individuals are beginning to frustrate. I see disparate pockets of opposition building up across all classes in our country. This equation no longer supports policy, and I attempt an overlooked, lasting and potentially socially harmonious solution - We are a multi-racial society. What? You say you've heard this before.

No, what you have heard before is that as an explosive multi-racial society we need to feed our economy in order to preserve peace, therefore economic concerns always trump. But when I say 'We are are a multi-racial society' I mean look where your parents came from, where your grandparents came from. We are a multi-racial society precisely because we are an immigrant society. Do we really dare say that we lay more claim to the resources and opportunities in this land simply because our lineage has been physically located here for a couple of years more than 'new immigrants'? Dare we stake our citizenship superiority claim upon our political and social contribution to our neighbourhood and country? To discriminate against foreign-passport-holders (I feel uneasy even using the word foreigners) is to discriminate against yourself and your grandparents. To hate anyone speaking a Bengali, Thai, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish is to hate your grandparents who cannot speak fluent English.

Sure, there are many people who are using Singapore to lily-pad to selfish accomplishments. Those should be hated for using and abusing our country, then giving nothing back. But there are surely more Singapore-passport-holders who mumble the pledge and take education subsidies for granted, never contribute to country, and spend all their free hours in our clean parks and city facilities planning escape to another country. Contribution evaluation is not going to help.

What we need to recognise is that people reciprocate. The worse we treat the guests in this country, the less they are going to act like family. Can we blame them? We are going to end up in a web of jealousy, arrogance, and self-sabotage. This hypocrisy must stop.

Uniquely Singapore - it has taken me years to understand what this feeble sounding catchphrase meant to communicate. Yet this is what I understand of it today. It is far easier for Singapore to become a welcoming city of the world than any other city of the same economic development. We are arguably the most multi-racial first-class developed city in the world. Do you realise how amazing that is? Other cities, London, Hong Kong, NYC, Tokyo, Zurich all started with far more homogenous populations, and some are still more homogenous in culture, philosophy and policy than Singapore. While other cities struggle to integrate wildly different new people into their homogenous societies, heavy with history, it is easy for us to be accepting and accommodating. Don't waste that.

Democracy

I also want to say something about social Enlightenment and economic growth. This country brings its children up to believe in the triumph of the free-market and its eventual ability to transform civil society. And for a while I have been similarly lulled into sitting back and waiting for our unhurried, smooth, graceful transition to individual freedoms and equality. But look at how much wealth the Middle East nations have, and how much inequality their constitution shelters. Singaporeans cannot sit back and allow the government to plan for 20 years of excruciatingly slow democratic reform, we have to want it for ourselves. Money does not make morals, and economy does not create society. We cannot wait for them to tell us we are ready, when they think that we are ready, because this is growing up. You are not grown up until you can stand up and say for yourself that you are grown up. We can have no freedom and no identity until we claim them for ourselves.

The F1 will be here again this weekend. I can't believe it's already been a year. Recently, I have not felt sure enough about my thoughts that I cannot write. But my blog has always been a commitment and I would like you all to have at least some news about me. The Friday earlier, Rachel Russell and I went to the Hari Raya fair at Geylang Serai, watched big tanks of paper money burning, screeched up and down and around a multi-storey carpark, and walked through carpets and curtains stalls for ages before Rachel and I tried our first Ramly burger. Today, Navjote brought me the most awesome silk scarf/pashmina/stole from India. It's silver and gold and lilac and beige and very Indian. I was very pleased. And yesterday Adeline Joy and I met for lunch at Ion, in a little stall in the basement for ramen. It seems that since I learned to like ramen in Marutama early 2008, it has become incredibly popular in Singapore. Then while walking around we saw the scariest whole red pig lying on a stand staring at us and Joy shouted 'Lord of the flies, lord of the flies!' I watched Ghostbusters and ate chocolates that night and laughed a lot. I have been trying to keep myself at home to work on the mountain of impending assignments and exams, mostly.

Recently, a new friend I made said to me 'I am lucky, and very privileged, and I don't want to see the world, I just want to stay in my comfortable bubble and go on luxury holidays'. While many of my friends and I admire the rugged exploration of foreign perspectives and delights, I laughed quite happily at this statement and fully respected it.

When I was younger, sometimes my mother or my aunt when I stayed over at my cousin's house would gather us together in our pajamas, fed brushed and washed, to pray to God. It was never the kind of selfish bargaining prayer that people make when they are alone, it always began with 'Thank you God...' followed by a list of 'the food we eat, the friends we have, the parents who love us, the fun we had today, the life we have...' And it always ended with 'Dear God please bless our grandparents and parents and friends with good health, please help us see truth, please help us to study hard, please heal our friends who are sick, please help us be good...' I don't do that anymore, but every few months you have witnessed that I come here to write the things that make me thankful for the life I have. I do this out of appreciation, sometimes desperation, but always because I despise the failure of consciousness, and in this case, the failure to be conscious of the extreme luck I have.

Here is the new list of my Favourite Things
1. The Pidgeot and driving
2. Rollercoasters
3. My funny father
4. Red
5. Ice Cream
6. Law and mooting
7. Late night phone calls
8. Dancing
9. Books
10. Writing
11. Rain
12. Shouting
13. Sex
14. Politics
15. Art
16. Cologne
17. Cake
18. Learning
19. Meeting new people
20. Music
21. F.R.I.E.N.D.S and friends
22. Beaches

Two things I thought about Singapore this morning
1. I really don't like how we have no respect for anything but money.
2. I really like these electronic real time signs around town that report parking availability.

Dear Rachel and Jerrine (particular because they were there) and All My Dear Friends,

We have been adrift for a while now, battling our own confusions. But today a picture of this place on this night appeared on my desktop and looking at it made me remember how full of life and love I felt that night. I remembered it was possible to feel so content, and so in awe of the world, so quietly delighted with a corner of a street in Florence and 90s ballads and a 12-euro gelato cone, so filled with timeless peace, so tingly with the possibility of a life well-lived. It was one of those Que Sera Sera nights when we felt the edge of the future and tried to see into time, but didn't look too hard, because we knew, certainly, that it didn't really matter what the future was. If life could be this great in this simple evening after dinner, it would find a way to return to this greatness again.

I like to put up pictures that show you the places and things that have thrilled me.





Royal Copenhagen tea













Yogi's Lexus












Marathon day












(which I did not run of course)













Night of 28 August with Sinni and Ying Sze
















KPO at dusk
















Nonnie Node













(Lornie Road flyover)











Cooking Mama and milkshakes at SMU











The walk into Halia on a weekend morning.

As I was walking to my car in the surprisingly cool breeze, under the cute blue sky patterned by green leaves, I realised, my school is so much of a garden, that it actually smells like flowers. Where else in the world is there such an awesome place, when at dusk you can take the lift up to the fifth floor and watch Bukit Timah hill in the distance surrounded by pink clouds and the straight lights of distant traffic, through a window specially designed to look like a picture frame?

My birthday started early this year. It's my 21st, and I really never thought this day would come. Six, yay! Twelve, sure. Sixteen, wow. Eighteen, kind of nice. But Twenty-One? Never. To distract me from my impending independence and corresponding responsibilities, Jerrine brought me something shiny:














and Siew and Rachel brought me something red. My sweet friends came over in the middle of the night, having brought me furniture for my adult birthday, and stayed through the thunderstorm. This morning I woke up in delight to this:














I found the perfect spot by the window. They'd sewn the entire thing by themselves and bothered Popular staff for stuffing, and cut computer packing material until they blistered.














Details in the Fabric.













This is where I'll be spending many slow afternoons and some cold nights watching the street, where I will put a puppy if there is one in my room, where friends will fight to sit, where I will eat cake and read books and where I will plan the rest of my hopeful life.

Since nothing exists before it is perceived, it always takes a personal experience for us to see into the lives of others. My birthday is in a week. Throughout the year I have watched all my friends from school slowly turn 21 one after another. I wished them great happiness and meaningful lives not really comprehending that it was not just another birthday, and that every year is not just another birthday. As mine tumbles towards us like a rock down a hill, snapping, rolling, accelerating, I am stunned by how much growing up is necessary for me to do, frustratedly and inevitably. I have no doubt that as my friends turned 21, they learned from life, found great strength within, that they were touched by compassion, were approached by cruelty, and surprised by love. At the cusp of 16, I felt helpless to predict our futures. Today I feel equally uncertain what countries we will live in, what intellectual pursuits will absorb us, which people we will choose to hold tight, what happiness or unhappiness we will allow to cloud our days, or whether some of us might even die before our friends can form plans with us. I don't know if we will grow wicked or vulnerable, jaded or dreamy. I don't know how many chances to perform noble acts we will get, and how many petty tantrums we will throw. I cannot say if success will build us big houses, or unluckiness will shame us. I don't know who we will eventually decide to be. I am scared of what lies after 21, but if my friends are any indication, I am very relieved and comforted to see that good things are going to come my way too.

After Sam's awesome backyard barbecue yesterday, I have decided that I could live on roasted marshmallows for the rest of my life.

I didn't sleep much, but I popped up in bed at seven when Shumin called. I started the day in the most unusual way, at the airport with friendly faces. I received many delightful morning hugs, and wished my friend Sam Jo fair and well. Then I sped home to check what homework I had, then to breakfast with Dwayne Jerrine Sam Shirin at Provence. An afternoon at the computer lab with Ben followed, we did our respective readings studiously and happily, then I went to my first Corporate Governance class under a very old professor who talks to slowly and gives out meandering notes but seems to have interesting stories and a firm outlook on life and Company law. I tried to learn all day, I will admit to some distraction, and when I finally emerged from school, Singapore was already all darkness and electric twinkles. Siew and Rachel (surprise) were waiting for me, and even though my brain moaned with the effort of staying awake any longer, we went to Island Creamery for ice cream where Rachel (Heng) called out my name and I touched Wen's neverending growth of bouncy curls. I just climbed into bed with my homework for another morning class tomorrow, feeling a little too desperate to be entirely happy.

In International Patent Law class,

Classmate: Intellectual Property is really interesting stuff. International patent law is especially interesting, it's really policy-based. Have you done the readings? Are you interested in IP? I really think IP is something I want to pursue.
Me: Yes, it's all interesting but I find IP too bourgeois.

The first day of the semester was pretty great. I enjoyed crawling awake to sip soybean milk in the garden that is my school, I loved singing while driving, I laughed at all my new professor's jokes, I formed a timetable, I had dinner with sunburnt friends, and found a loving note clipped under my car's windscreen wiper. We discussed the misery of work, compared it to happiness and the dreamy life, but the first day of school reminded me that work, if it does nothing else, still satisfies.

A wariness of words has descended upon me. I guess in the last year I have lost a lot of prudent balance, filled with an eagerness to taste life that was slightly self-destructive, I waltzed into a lifestyle I didn't quite understand. School starts tomorrow (time is always right), bringing freshness, independence, possibly old habits, and many new lessons.

Here's what we did on National Day :D

Best show ever.

Singapore Cowboy just saved my blogger. Here's what I've been doing with my holidays.

It looks like pictures are never going to go up on What a Thrill ever again. I shall be forced to be a (wo)man of my words. I took a walk today, from home to the Ion where Luke was waiting in white shirt, we ate very cheap sushi from 360 Marketplace and nibbled on a mediocre pumpkin chocolate slice while we walked through the new Wheelock underpass and waved goodbye to the expansive crossing that will be tarred over tomorrow. We came to a rest at the sunken Starbucks at Liat Towers, also known as people watching central, inhaled some second-hand smoke, admired the plant totems and listened to great lounge music blaring from delightfully hidden speakers. I walked home past the colourful RGS blocks, so still and silent in the night, nestled in wet dark trees. I'm very thankful for the weather tonight.

I've been intending to do a picture post for a while now and I am going crazy not having been able to post pictures onto blogger for almost a week. Wait for them.

Sunday already. I gaily whiled away my Wednesday blogging, reading, watching Desperate Housewives and skyping Jerrine, my Thursday with a box of cereal, the newspapers, Siew Rachel and Russell playing squash, then Island Creamery and Holland Village with Siew, my Friday nights with Ashlyn Karen and Jason again, and today I made everyone (Ashlyn Jia Ching Kenny) go to the beach for barbecue, sea breeze, the twinkling Singapore coastline sundown, rude comments and a walk. I wonder if I'll spend most of my life as an individual or an creature defined by the people around me.

Something's up. Change is in the winds, I can catch whiffs of it everywhere like the smell of cooking oil at dusk. Right now, I have a senseless life. I am tucked in my bed trying to recall the happenings of the last week. The exact dates are lost now, but I know that Sam Shirin and I went cycling at East Coast, a bunch of us swigged wine at the Merlion and danced to Michael Jackson songs at Butter Factory, Ashlyn and I went to Tong Shui with Karen and Jason and ordered up a whole tableful of late night nonsense, Fawn Sam Luke Abel and I had weekend brunch at Rider's Cafe with the horses and the green fields and Jerrine on Skype too noisy to be heard, Ashlyn Yogi Kenny Abel and I went to Marutama again, and everyone piled in and I drove to the Laurent Bernard chocolate cafe in the rain, Sunday night was all steamboats and hugs, I found truant Yogi at Ashlyn's house and we met the baby Megan, Ching came to laugh about dead skin with us as we got our nails done in a really purple room, to beat Monday blues Sam Yogi Karen Ashlyn and I crawled awake before noon to have chicken rice at Far East Plaza and lined up for bubble tea and the bus, walked around Orchard, Abel and I spent a whole evening at the Taka food fair dripping crepe cream at the fountain, Luke and I ate grapes and avoided the terror in Sam's house.

I was looking at facebook pictures and these were taken secretly, beautifully and told such a story. Every picture of this girl in the album was perfect. I felt like I was seeing everything exactly as the photographer saw it. How nice it must be to be loved by someone who watches you with an eye of fascination, who snaps images of you at the exactly perfect moments when the lights falls on the right angles of your face, and your limbs are aligned to make pretty shadows, when your body is positioned in a beautiful shape, when your eyes say everything you hope the world to see but nobody does except this person who loves you so that he enjoys constantly looking out for the beauty in you. While everyone else glosses over you, somebody who loves you lingers, and invests effort to find your perfection. How nice to be thought of with the absolutism of romance, by a heart determined to love, with the patience for overlooking and forgiveness, with often undeserved appreciation, how nice to be chosen, not because you're perfect but to become perfect.

It's not easy for me to say what youth is made of. This stuff is the structured, sometimes dull days of school semesters, but mostly it's the stuff of late nights in the summer. I don't know whether these nights are true happiness, just ignorance, or just information to be manipulated in the future by new perspectives. Some day all we'll have left will be memories, so they'd better be damn good ones. I like the holidays without those mindless blocks of profitless hours, but filled with freedom, humans, and senseless joy. I like the holidays for bringing everyone home to me, for reminding me who I used to be, who I am, and who I want to be. Today I drove in the rain and had lunch with Joy, I hung out with Sam, I talked to Rachel on Skype, and sang karaoke with Luke. I could have lived without them, just as I live without them for most of every year, but then I would slowly begin to forget what winning feels like.

The last time I recorded days was last Thursday. I recall meeting Ashlyn and Karen for lunch at an Indonesian place in Lucky Plaza, then cutting hair at a random Far East salon during the rainy afternoon, I recall having great Turkish kebabs with Siew, Rachel and Andre later that night at Amirah's in Bussorah St, and eating cake in front of a Chinese serial on TV. On Friday, I met Shirin and Joy for a quick while, then caught up with Wanyi for the rest of the afternoon with deceivingly-awful Gloria Jean's cake, when night fell I had burgers with Jia Ching, Ashlyn, Yogi, Kenny and Abel at Raffles Hotel then we traipsed to OChaCha that green tea cafe at the Raffles City basement. Saturday and Sunday were slow - parents wanted to go to Jumbo in Dempsey, the night was spent over dumplings at a cute little market in Serangoon Gardens, War of the Worlds on Channel 5, and Dwayne came to chat. Monday came too fast, Luke and I rolled out of bed to have brunch at Simply Bread, we enjoyed the greenery outside the window until we got sleepy and went home. I hung out with my brother for the rest of the afternoon, then went out with Abel at night to make a 7pm movie with Karen Jason and Ashlyn. We found ourselves late that night in Soup Spoon with the smell of disinfectant. Today, I picked Joy up in my bright red car in the grey rain, and went to Paragon again to find pasta at Spageddies. We caught up over our peas and she nibbled her brownie while we made jokes, then Sam ordered us home and the three of us ended up in my bed skyping an initially topless Rachel. Sam and I took a nap, then hopped down to the Environment government building on Newton Road to sing karaoke with Dwayne and Gwee which later expanded to include Luke, Abel, Michelle, Guanghao and Jerry. We drove off in many cars and made friends at Newton hawker centre later. It still tickles me to see everybody our age driving real cars.

This was the first week of holidays again. I have few words. I remember that on Saturday I went to Tampines with my parents and grandparents, that it was a breezy, mild day spent watching the adults drink coffee. I remember that I spent Sunday waiting for plans to come through, had tea at Royal Coppenhagen with Abel, went to Kinokuniya then zipped to Navjote's for a very warm night. Then Monday came, and I didn't have to pop out of bed to get to the Treasury, so I munched on banana muffin and real banana slices while counting how many days of freedom I had left. I had tea with Athletic Ashlyn at Raffles City later that afternoon, and walked around with her until the world went dark, ending the very short, complete and excellent waste of a day. Tuesday hummed along, starting with watching the old woman at PS fry, grill and dip my Indonesian barbecued fish. I lazed the rest of the afternoon away, then called Ashlyn and Yogi from my bed and met them at Wheelock where I had supreme good luck with parking lots. We made a sufficient amount of noise (that is, for teenagers) at NYDC and Big O. Wednesday rolled along in all predictability, and I started it running an errand, then had ice cream topped with a squabble. I was comfortably snuggled up at home that evening until Siew and Rachel came to fetch me to Marutama, where the noodles weren't quite like the first time we discovered that shop.

Today is a pretty day, really light. But I'm having trouble opening my eyes because I think I scratched my right eye in my sleep.

The pictures from below are from the weekend before. Since the week started, I've almost fallen sick, battled my allergies and avoided a cat to laugh with newly-returned Yogi Ashlyn Ching and Abel at the HongKong cafe in the corner of Marina Square. Also, I made Rachel and Siew drive down to Circular Road to try new ramen with me and went home that night with a splendidly icy mountain picture for my wall. Yesterday Sam Luke Simon and I went to watch Transformers 2, another American-pride film, which delighted us at first with very good acting from the boys but the action sort of flopped near the ending pyramid battle scenes.

In the regimented part of my life, I've met a friendly district judge, a business-like chief of SLA, a sensible, energetic superscale civil servant, a very excited IP registrar, a couple of strange in-house counsels, a surprisingly responsive cabinet minister, academics who talk slowly, and officers who are intelligent, fun, and still moral. I've seen beautiful offices, and offices that are ugly but have excellent views, I've seen something of how the machinery of Singapore is operated.

So yesterday Jerrine and Luke asked me to go to Chomp Chomp, and after dessert at the shop with the really cool miniature Singapore shops, I was driving home in a stupor and it started to rain just as I was getting off the expressway. I didn't think to turn on my windscreen wipers because I was so sleepy, and the raindrops splattered on my windscreen in regular sizes and patterns, conclusively distorting the world outside as I waited at a red light. The Toyota in front of me had the number plate SFE 60D, and through the rain and the wild red brake lights, I read "SEE GOD". Startled, I blinked a few times, then the traffic lights turned green, and I followed the Toyota with my eyes for as long as I could.

In the last few years, I've been so busy catching up on the million sleep hours that Raffles stole from us and treating my physical shell well that I've forgotten how exciting it is to lead a life of regular sleep-deprivation. I have been constantly sleep-deprived for half a month now, and the pleasures of slavishly obeying the needs of my body is just setting in. Any pressure in life is not self-created, but all sessions of reprieve are self-rewards. Okay, honestly I'm not working that hard at all, I'm actually having a surprising amount of fun in my office, it's only the hours that pose a challenge. But the feeling of desperate sleep-deprivation is familiar, and the constant one thing to do after another and another and friends to see one after another after another, making the most of every holiday, every hour, is even more familiar. On Saturday, I went to school to attend a symposium on Indian constitutionalism, then met classmates Huanting Zhifeng Navjote Hanyi Ramu at Masala Art, then drove with Abel to Jerrine's house where we found Dwayne in a head-squeezing and possibly brain-sucking device, and Luke in a cheeky grin. We settled in to watch Planet Terror, and I fell asleep very happily in between Jerrine and Abel. The next morning Abel and I went to the usual PS cafe for breakfast, we sat outdoors in the very pretty sunshine and I had ginger tea. I had to sleep for the entire afternoon but when night fell we went to Paragon with his parents, where we had dinner in an awesome glass corner of the new Sushi Tei. That night we stayed up late talking about what it was like being children. On Blue Monday I tumbled home and hung out with the family, then Jerrine came and we ate unusually fat Honey Stars in bed. Today I've taken a bit of time off editting a memo to blog, because I was overcome with that lovely familiar sensation of constant sleep-deprivation. Funny how I feel like I'm in control when the facts are that time absolutely controls me.

TGIF? So quickly this week flew by, I just got home from intensive strolling (stopping only to get junk food) around City Hall malls with Yogi, I had a surprise Pocky-bearing visit from Abel, I watched Ninja Warrior, and I finally had lunch at that place with yellow walls and cool plastic lights by the river at Robertson Quay, Brussels Sprouts. The weekend promises to be filled with activity, I am excited about life.

Must chronicle the days. The last weekend was tiring. First it started with Stef's birthday. I drove down to the Anchorage after it got dark, where Rachel Ming Andre and Cass already were, then Shirin and Sam Jo arrived. We gathered around to sing Happy Birthday, but over the lighted candles a funny song was sung first. The night ended with Stef walking me to the carpark in her shiny dress and rubber slippers. On Saturday afternoon, Abel and I went to get giant burgers at Carl's Junior, waffle fries and a lot of iced tea. Then hung out with friends around Orchard Road like everyone in Singapore should on Saturday afternoons. We shopped with Jerrine and Andre together for a good part of the day, then met Luke Simon and JunSheng at the sofas in Banana Republic. When it was time for dinner, I took Jerrine Luke and Andre to wanton mee at Far East. We all drove home in our separate cars, showered and lay in bed for a while before meeting at Jerrine's tv room to play Raving Rabbids. The night ended at about three, in a crowded McDonald's somewhere in Ang Mo Kio. Sunday began with my grandmother calling me, lunch with my grandparents over which they sang Teochew nursery rhymes, and driving around the east. I spent the afternoon in my room by myself, then ventured out to Little India with Siew who had paint in her hair, and Rachel. I drove out just as the moon was rising - it was huge and round and golden. Being in Little India on a Sunday night was interesting. There were no roads to drive on, no where to park, no shops to walk into, for the sheer amount of people thronging the little shophouses. People were exchanging wads of cash, buying vegetables and onions, collecting sacks of rice, forming queues outside money transfer businesses, just chilling out with their friends over paper cups of beer. We weaved through the crowd and Tekka market construction boards, and by luck and a little navigation found a little eatery called Sri Kamala's where Siew had to have the thosai. I got home happy and excited with the smells of a different country.

When the week started, I wrote a memo pretty quick, and had lunch with the new intern. When my mother came to take me home, I was so tired I slept in the car then fell comatose on my bed until dinner was called. Yesterday, Yuch and I went to the Legal Aid Bureau. We ran into Zhifeng, talked to the director about access to justice, found out that the government refuses to provide legal aid to people accused of crimes (atrocious!), was taken out to lunch by two lawyers in a very pretty old wooden shophouse in Kampung Glam where I ran into schoolmates, spent the afternoon listening to the problems of the masses (again, a reminder that we are hundreds of years away from the Enlightenment renaissance), and enjoying the company of people who have the patience to do good things.

Jerrine and Luke came to my house last night and we lay in bed symmetrically blabbering, stretching, laughing and sleeping. Later Simon called, and Luke drove us out (I still don't know what is the car's registration plate except that it starts with SJ...) to Greenwood where we had surprisingly good gelato at Estivo and the kind of extremely comfortable conversation that I forgot we always had. Sometime after midnight, I crawled into bed and fell asleep in front of the pixellated image of a loving (I believe this might be the first time I'm using this word on What a Thrill, how grown up am I now) boyfriend on Skype.

Being free and being loved has always seemed to me a bargain. It is the understanding and affliction of someone who has always had too much.

I didn't waste a single night this week.

The Work Week began in a rather typical manner. I made sure to wear a neat black skirt and white shirt on the first day, without any accessories that could suggest that I was capable of occasionally being anti-establishment, I brought stationery (a clean notebook and a some free gift pen my mother once left lying around in my room) to reduce my usual impression of flightyness, and packed a suitably mild attitude. I've never been in the civil service, but figured the experience at SPH to be a good gauge. The first few days in the bureaucracy were slow, people were kindly, mostly intelligent, some passionate, but all a little unexciting. My intern buddy and I were given a project to work on, which has spun out issues that sufficiently engaged me now, and a timetable of rather unexpected stuff has been planned for us. Legal officer mentor told us we were all ISD approved, which was a fact that pleased and annoyed me at the same time. Tomorrow we're going to watch a whole bunch of Singapore's top lawyers mock test new provisions. I am really quite the eager intern, and glad to find such living interest still finding place in my heart.

The warm (weather-wise and emotionally) nights have been great, better appreciated because of the blindingly cold office days. On Monday, Jerrine came over to have dinner with me and we screamed to each other until almost midnight. Tuesday, Mummy picked me up after work and bought banana muffins and cinnamon buns. Yesterday was the best day all week. First, Siew and Rachel came to the Treasury to surprise lunch me! We ate Thai food next door right next to the glass walls so I could look down at all the tiny CBD folk in their shiny black shoes, there were many hot and sour and sweet things and Siew made me eat more so that I wouldn't be cold. Then during the rest of the afternoon over statute research, I was invited to dinner. At eight, Luke Jerrine Dwayne Abel and I met at Marutama. There was a lot of bad Singlish, table banging, re-enactment of life happenings and shouting. Halfway through our bowls of salty chicken soup, we spied in the little shop window Shirin and Stef's faces! Oh, I was pleased as punch. In a daze, I left Abel in the loving hands of Jerrine Luke and Dwayne by the pretty Clarke Quay river, and stumbled home consumed by the pull of sleep. Today, I had a lovely day in the library, then watched the sun sink in the large windows overlooking the busy Victoria St, the cars sliding upside-down on the window sill, Fort Canning hill providing the illusion something huge and comforting, the colourful windows of MICA shining really quite cheerily. I detatched myself from my keyboard and went to have donuts with Yogi and Ching. Later, they coerced me into eating at McDonald's, I chose a great toy with my Happy Meal but (now I realise) left it on my tray.