Reminiscence
It's been over 2 years since I left Singapore. Frankly, I miss the place. I miss my school, I miss my boarding. I miss all my friends. I really miss turing to my seniors for advice and being the elder brother to my juniors. I miss my teachers, and boarding masters. I miss my bandmats, especialy my fellow percussionists. I miss the rest of the ASEAN scholars, whom I meet 3 times a year and never get to know better...

I left for Singapore on 27th December 1998, and came back 6th July 2003. 4 and a half years there and the many ties that was formed just leaves me with mixed emotions.

It's too short a time to know half of them half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of them half as well as they deserve.

Every year, for that 4 years, I've seen people go and people come. It's just so sad sometimes, but I can't stop the change, no more than I can stop the suns from setting...

Year 1
My first year. My first room. Two chinamen and a fellow Malaysian from Batu Pahat. Professor Who and Lychee, and Cacing and me...

It was a new place for me and I have to learn to adapt. I had a plan before coming, and that was to do homework in the afternoon, and study new things at night. It was a good plan while it lasted. Lazyness took me as my discipline went away. But good boy I remained...

Raffles Institution was the top school in Singapore and I am questioning why I was sent there. There were 5 of us in my batch. I first felt that I was better than all of them, given my history in my hometown. But I was wrong... I was average, only an average.

I failed my first English test. I have never failed English. English was my forte. English was my mother tongue! But failed I did. But we all had to take extra English classes. And in this class, this was the first time that I had to do lines. I shall never forget the word that I spelt wrongly: immediate.

Made a few friends, a few enemies... There were strange folk about. Crazy people they say, and extra too. But I enjoyed being friends with my friends. Martin, Jonathan, Elvis, the Vietnamese (interestingly there are 4 of them and all had hair similar to the Beatles)... just to mention a few...

I started to read a lot. It started with a book list that we were supposed to read. And for the first time, I began reading out of my normal Star Wars stuff. Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, Michael Crichton, Orson Scott Card, James Herriot, Frank Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkein, etc... they were interesting reads. And i grew to like Michael Crichton's books. As for the author of the Lord Of The Rings, I couldn't understand his books at all and I gave up there after.

As the year drew to a close, Elvis pioneered a video production in which I was proud to be a part of. This was my first experience in video editting and working in a committee. This was a task that was a dream, and became reality. And only now I can recall and say that this project was built with a dream, and that they can come through with hard work and committment.

...to be continued in the next year