Monday, December 17, 2007
My favourite Time of the Year again(:
As Christmas peeks around the corner, i was reminded of this dusty old place which i havent really set foot (or fingers, rather) on for a long time. I have forgotten my old love for writing..but today i shall attempt to reenact a post as a tribute to the last time i blogged, which should be about...almost a year ago. :D heehee.
This post is going to have nothing to do with the title, except for my wish to harp on the fact that my christmas tree is up, glowing and glistening preeeeetily, AND YOURS ISN'T. HAH. shame on you. >.<>
i see you turning green already. ((:
That aside, let me tell you more about my November and December. I refrain from using any word holiday-related, for it most certainly was NOT a laid-back, holiday in many ways. My holidays started after OP. OP was a fantastic BAM! to mark the end of a year's school, and the beginning of the year's end, cus it was nothing short of 100% powerpacked fun(: I miss my pw group and all the crazy stay-overs we had..and our efforts were epitomised by out wonderful show on OP day. I love you guys!(:
Right after that week was over, my internshipp at the A&G started. 2 solid weeks of work can be said to have been full of trials and tribulation. Trials, because i went to court for a week, and Tribulation, because it wasnt easy wearing court shoes to work at 8am every morning. (haha, jamie punned! xp) It was great though, meeting new people and watching my goals at work, plunging slowly into the flesh of lawyering a little everyday, and finishing with a great sense of satisfaction with myself albeit the exhaustion that came with it. Our class ice-skating trip and class chalet was squished somewhereaboutinthe middle therein the two weeks, and i must say, it was a great time of fun and bonding, and much mass-screaming while playing snapjack. (:
The last day of my internship at the firm marked the day before i left for Germany, and i bustled away, leaving singapore behind me for two weeks and a half.
Germany was great. Its my second time there, so, no surprises. It was winter so the weather was a killer. Tuebingen-Munich-Vienna-London-Singapore sums up my trip. I cant say it was as great as i expected- i enjoyed my first time in germany more. Highlights of the trip, though, included: 1) meeting up with my old host brother guido 2) hanging out with maggie in the park 3) the broadway dance show thingy in vienna 4) Sledging in the Alps 5) Ice skating at the olympic-sized rink 6) watching my classmates get drunk on german beer. Of course the trip was enriching, we visited museums, castles, monuments, parlament houses, cathedrals, the Schwabish Alps, football arenas, we watched operas, musicals, ate german sausages, drank german gluhwein, viennese schnitzel...but it wasnt anything..fantastic or memorable so to speak. Probably cus i was missing home so much, and missing some people a hell lot too. I thank God for special friends and family whom i could email, just as i thank God for the decency of German technology and confusing but manageable keyboards. Emailing kept me sane, my sanity kept me going. The weather really didnt help either. The cold winds howled and taunted us as we strolled the streets, snowflakes splintered our cheeks with their tiny daggers as we braved the cold, our hands, faces and feet numbly mocking our control over ourselves. I have never felt happier to see the roofs of HDB flats peering through the evening sky that day when we landed back in Singapore. Still, an enriching trip nonetheless.
The week which followed in succession came and went with great swiftness. Most of my time was spent starting on work, unpacking from Germany, packing for Vietnam. Rehearsing for cultural night, ensuring the preparations for Vietnam had been made, yadda yadda yadda. Saturday the 8th of november arrived punctually to my disdain, seeing as i wasn't at all ready to leave Singapore since i just got back, and we were whisked away on our plane, roaring to Vietnam. I kid you not about the roaring- we took Tiger Airways (or was in Airlines?). And if tigers' airways (or lines) were to be anything like the one we experienced, they'd be nothing short of bumpy, rickety, and a pure pain in the arse. My friends, i say this not out of spite. You'd say the same when your tiger's airway is a cramped up seat and a bouncy landing, and when your only inflight entertainment is LongJiaXi.
Still, we arrived safely and made our way to the hotel after a long bus ride in time for a grand welcome dinner with a surprise in everybody's serve of palatable food. (Dilshaad's was a strand of long hair in her cereal prawn, mine was a fly in my glass.) It was an unforgettable dining experience i must say. We dished fresh flowers into steamboats and tried barnacled-prawns which had hidden agendas like Dilshaad's. Still, we retired early for the night in preparation for the day ahead stuffed and happy(: (until jo and i found a cockroach in our room, but that's another story.)
The next few days of work and play sped past really fast! I guess i could sum it up to alot of hard but satisfying labour in the sun, whitewashing walls, painting with prehistoric self-made paintbrushes which turned out to be very good, climbing off scaffoldings with jo, balancing on planks while painting, falling off, hitting my head around 731.18 times on the wooden planks, doing the chicken dance back to back with jo in hope of evading the butt-smacking kids, cultural night practices, laughing and going high at night with jo, minh, leo, basil, tony and long in our rooms, listening to the nasty recounts of tony and long's scarring massage encounter, and overall, having a truckload of fun(:
The last two days of sightseeing and shopping were great too. We visited the cuchi tunnels of the Vietcong- a 200km tavern of intricately woven tunnels underground built during the Vietnam war against the Americans. It was amazing in three ways: 1) amazingly conceptualized 2) amazingly dark 3) amazingly puny (zhangkang almost got stuck crawling through on his fours, and Long almost couldnt exit from below due to his erm. Massive cleavage.) I was given a new-found admiration for the Vietnamese soldiers who had gone through all this to defend their country, and I was really impressed.
Through the complexities and pains I had experienced throughout the trip, I have been taught how one can better treasure the simplicities and pleasures in life. One can never truly learn to appreciate pleasure if he hasnt felt pain, can he? I have been really blessed during this trip, as i was surrounded by a myriad of amazing people who were my guardian angels in one way or another. I thank God every night for you all ((:
There's Jo, my everything-mate. Vietnam minus Jo could never be the same! I miss all the crazy times we had in our room, painting and scaffolding, dinner-times, lunch-times, even the time when we suffered a black out and you had to bathe in the dark with me keeping you company from outside(: I love you jo, and i really thank God for having you around to talk to and have fun with(:
Then there's Long&Tony (sounds like some expensive underwear brand), who have been angels in many little ways. Besides providing us with inflight and on-bus entertainment, they have been extremely responsible, fine, young gentlemen who occasionlly get high on 333 beer and Minh's singing. I'm grateful for Long saving me from the drunk guard, and Tony for always providing the practical perspective (besides his gruesome story of Chinese delicacies) Jo and I always need. I love you guys!
Then there's Basil, Leo, and Minh, who have been the best room-neighbours ever! Thanks for serenading us at our door randomly at night and stinking our room up with dried squid, not forgetting your generosity with the utiliy of your toilet when jo and i screwed ours up. I especially admire Minh for being such a young, but motivational leader who was our guide (he is vietnamese afterall, and very communist :P), and our cockroach-killer when Basil ran away screaming. You da man! (:
Not forgetting the rest of the wonderful group who rose to every occasion and who took every challenge head-on, i am so proud of us. Last but not least, our fourfathers (haha.), who provided insight and hindsight to this unforgettable experience. What would a bunch of 19 kids be without you? (: So closure draws an end to this Vietnam experience, I won't ever forget it. I miss it so much already. Coming back to Singapore with a paradigm shift has indeed changed me. (:
Oh well, my favourite time of the year is just round the corner, my tree is up, my carols are playing but something just doesnt feel right. I remember the last three Christmas's i had, - I know this year's wont be the same. Still, the magic of Christmas always finds our hearts somehow, and till I'm found, i suppose i'll keep myself busy pimping up this Christmas with my family, my close friends, and memories of my not-so-holidayed-holiday. (:
I saw an ad today and it went " What would Your Christmas be like?". So i'm gonna try answering it seeing as its almost christmas and i have no bloody idea. (: Hmmm...If Christmas was a colour, mine would be a purple-sheened snowy White. And if Christmas was a smell, mine would smell like freshly-baked gingerbread toasting by a fire, with a wafting aroma of German Gluehwein. If Christmas was a sound, I would hear the glockenspiel against the light cackle of firewood over a soft christmas carol in the background. And if Christmas was a feeling, I'd be cuddly-warm under my covers feeling your feet against mine, wrapping my hands around our mug of hot chocolate and just hanging out together like we did last christmas. (:
There. :D
What would
your Christmas be like?
JinglebellsBatmansmells,
Jamie! (:
Posted by Jamie at Monday, December 17, 2007