Unpredictable

Unpredictable

I'm back from Cambodia! After a 3 hour flight delay we finally touched down at 2.35am and waited at the McDonald's Terminal 2 while waiting for public transport systems to start. I reached home at around 7.30am and have been sleeping ever since even though I still feel exhausted.

Cambodia has been an enriching and touching experience. I will never forget the delightful and carefree faces of the children in HVPV which shimmer with innocence. They are inspirational.

I'll elaborate more when I have the time and after we compile the photos tomorrow so I can refer to them while blogging about Cambodia.

I could sense something was wrong this morning when my mum came down to pay for the taxi for me. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn't at work. I found out that I won't be having another brother or sister after all. Heartbeat stopped. And my mum went for surgery on Wed.

Many things in life are often unpredictable. But this is an outcome I would never have expected.

Surprise!

Surprise!

The news came to me last Sunday in the car. My mum is pregnant! According to her, she was waiting for my sister to come back from India before breaking the news, and so that was the first opportunity she got.

Well, my first reaction was of course shock, but I was happy. It was pleasant shock, if that phrase can be used. I had been joking about her giving birth to another since the day my brother was born, which like, 11 years ago. And 11 years later, my joke came true. It then dawned on me that my mum giving birth when she's older might increase the risks involved in pregnancy. And I became worried. My parents then told us they, too, had been worried earlier, but the doctor had told them it was still okay. So I am going to have another brother or sister!

Every time we move house, there's a new member of the family. When I was born, my parents had moved house. When my sister was born, yet again. And my brother came, again. In between we moved house once without any new member though(freak reading). And now. I'm moving house next year (Hopefully as soon as possible so I don't have to travel so far to school anymore), and here comes a new sibling! The coincidence is unplanned for, actually, according to my parents.

Maybe it is God's way of saying, "Hey, moving to a bigger home is too much space for the family, you need it to be more cosy by having more people". There's logic in that. Imagine a home where everyone has loads of private space. That home will simply become a place to sleep, eat and bath, because of the fewer opportunities to interact and talk. We need to share the space, share stuff, eat at the common table, watch TV together, play random board games together then can we call it a real home.

So. I look forward to receiving my new brother or sister.

Next year will be an exciting year!

Thoughts

Been doing research at IME the past few days. Gives me a lot of time to think. My experiments are conducted as such: Soak the substrate for 1 hour. Stone. Transfer the substrate to another dish to soak in another solution another hour. Stone. And it goes on. Of course, in between the steps I have to prepare the solutions and stuff. But it still gives me a lot of time to reflect and think. Usually there's no one in the lab I am in, except myself. Quite wierd considering this lab is supposed to be shared by a few others.

From my lab I can see other researchers in other labs concentrating on their work. I think I know why I've decided research will not be my career path. The topic I am researching on is interesting, but.. its the enviroment which is not exactly appealing, not when you don't get to speak to anyone for hours except yourself unless you use the phone next to you.

S47 chalet last week was fun! Although almost everyone who came was from our clique since half the class was going back home overseas. The chalet started with 3 people. Jt, py and me. We carried the snacks from Giant (lucky we didn't take MRT or bus) and the BBQ stuff from the carpark opposite downtown east. And we decided to visit the supposedly-haunted redhouse which didn't seem eerie in bright daylight.

Then steffi came, then wayne, who told us it was already late, so we'd better start the fire for bbq quickly. The BBQ was one of the few I actually felt full, and with so much extra food even though wayne dropped-goodness-knows-how-much food onto the floor accidentally. It was quite cool when we started talking about more mature topics like politics, the enviroment, the degeneration of the younger generation and stuff.

Playing 'I never', as always, revealed much. Except that I found it difficult to think of questions after the 2nd or 3rd round and well, asked the wrong question. Wild wild wet was wet. That whole sentence starts with W. Lame. The most memorable part of WWW was the wave pool. It took a lot of effort to stay together once the waves came. But in the end, we managed to:)

On the last night of chalet, we started talking about our first impressions of the class. And I have to say, back then on the 1st day of school when we all met each other during our 1st CT session, I would never have guessed we would have a chalet, and the many class outings. When I first stepped into V43, and saw that everyone was so stone, I was thinking, as I am sure everyone else was thinking, 'Oh no, why everybody look so sian' and 'Oh no, I'm going to be in this class for the next 2 years' and 'so many scholars!'. But when you're with s47 now, its hard to imagine that situation on the first day. S47 rocks man.

Its funny how the things you expect don't turn out the way you think it will, when the things you don't expect pops out and catches you by surprise.

Fundraising for the Cambodia trip - newspaper and old clothes collection - was a success, thanks to everyone who helped out: jt, py, py's anderson friends, huimin, jason, agung, jiahao, steffi, steffi's friend, xianglin, yingwah. We raised 705.45 in all. Apparently with we surpassed another group who had more manpower than us. And Cambodia is 7 days away!

Over lunch with nat, jo and cheryl on Sun, cheryl, nat and I were sharing our thoughts on research attachment, while jo laughed at us, and apparently, the 3 of us share similiar views on it. Also, I realise I got exactly the same promo results as Nat (Except for physics cause she takes Bio. But we both got E). It runs in the genes I guess.

I met chris chok today by chance, at the coffee shop, after visiting the doctor. He was eating breakfast before going to study before his history A's today. Great chat and company for breakfast! All the best for your last paper man.

I received good but surprising news on Sunday, which I unfortunately cannot post about until the 'official' release date, next mon.

Hope.

I read

Tuesdays with Morrie. The book was given to me in Sec 3, and I only touched it now. What procrastination. Then again, maybe I would not have appreciated it two years ago. 'When you learn how to face death, you learn how to live'. How true that is. Many of us know that we'll eventually die. But few of us believe it, me included. It's like, isn't that for older people to think about? But life, and death, is unpredictable. If only we believed that, we will live life very differently. Don't you think so?

A Day to Remember

Yesterday was a day of many feelings.

I reached school at 8 to help out with the CIC board, and the first thing I heard from Chia Weei was that Aravind got knocked down by a car. Shocked, I went round looking for more info, and got the details I needed from Hsuen Te. Smsed the rest of the scouts, and we decided to meet at changi general hospital after my usher duty.

I went on with my usher duty, and it was fun, I enjoyed bringing people around the school and everything. Haven't done that in a long time.

Amazement, at the liveliness of the open house. The mass dance was especially cool, cause when the MC's announced the mass dance, it was like everyone just stopped what they were doing and went to dance. It was a good show of school spirit.

After that, I went to the hospital, met the scouts and saw Aravind. He had undergone operation for one of his lungs the day before, and seemed quite tired, but optimistic. He was quite lucky, cause his head fell on his bag during the crash which protected him from head injury. And there were no bones broken. He'll be warded for 3 days to a week. And should get well soon. What set me thinking was that the crash made him think about his life and what was really important to him.

Caught up with the rest of the scouts too, haven't seen them in quite a long time, especially Trent. That, was nostalgia.

Was in church for the rest of the day, discussing reflection day and attending the formation session. Learnt a lot.

In fact, as the day played out yesterday, I learnt more and more things, perhaps more than the whole of last week.

Maybe it's time to really think about what is truly important in life, and not get caught up over what is not.

Facebook is: Addictive

I decided to try out facebook last night. It's lame but quite addictive. In a way I managed to catch up with old friends and bite them/throw a cow at them at the same time. Virtually. Well, I was surprised that even Mr Kwang had an account. Anyway, it is like there are limitless applications on facebook. Everytime I log in again there's this invitation from a friends to do this and do that, and now my profile page is congested with all sorts of crap (werewolf/ movie ratings comparisons/ jedi and whatnot). I'll have to limit my usage. If you're supposed to be studying, I suggest you don't give it a try. Just yet.

Its Over

Promos - finally over. Chinese compo was okay, but the compre was quite difficult. Anyway, time really passed very fast - it seems like just yesterday I was in orientation 1. And it'll be quite soon that I'm studying for my prelims and then A's, thinking about how fast time passed since my promos. Chilling thoughts. The only way around this is to make full use of my time now.