Yourself?

And so we trooped to VJC. Huilin asked me why I liked VJC so much, as a few of her friends hated the place. I like it because of its familiarity, because its a place I've spent time in. I like it because I have friends there, that I was really close to, that I haven't contacted since comming to RJC. I love VJC because there were memories I had there, and memories I shared. I like VJC, because we all had fun.

While walking past VJC in the dead of the night, 3.00am, I had this sudden urge to climb into the VJ premises, to shout that I'm home! To wander to places in my memories, the corridors I've spent my first three months in. To don the VJ uniform and wonder what could have been. To see myself in both the RJ and VJ uniform and make a choice. I'm sure I'll still choose RJ... but why is that decision so hard to make? Why am I still unsettled?

Perhaps its because I've made really great friends there. I still communicate with the chem tutor I had, sometimes going back to the bandroom, sometimes meeting friends outside of school. It seems that there are so many people I've known, that I was not aware of. And also probably, because I made a friend there, by pure chance of sitting next to her at a lecture, that I could share my thoughts and feelings with freely, a friend just like Geraldine. I suppose I felt lost in RJC, because I didn't have such a friend. My used to be best friend went into social withdrawal, others have changed, and I never really felt comfortable in a RJ game, where I'm uncertain of the underlying currents, and all the politics that were never present in VJ. I don't have the luxury of seeing people in their secondary school uniforms, and I'm not conditioned to think that people know people in RJC. in VJC, your secrets can be kept very safe because people know most people at a superficial level. Not so in Raffles dominated RJC.

Anyway yeah. I wanted to run in VJC, and feel free again, and enjoy the same feelings I had in my first three months.

Then we walked the same way I ran every PE lesson. Up the overhead bridge to the East Coast Park, like images from a once forgotten reality, in darkness, a way that I've never seen it before. And we trudged along the way from pit 30 something to 10. We could see stars, the bright ones untwinkling, the fainter ones twinking behind the movement of the wind, the ones that you couldn't quite see, but could tell was there in your heart. And they talked about the North star being quite invisible from Singapore, and I was wondering silently as I looked skyward, Which star is my guiding star? Which star would I follow when I'm lost. Confused. Tired. We reached the pier and camped.

The place was really nice, if we had gotten there earlier, and could make everything pretty again. Just kinda half flopped onto the bare concrete. Denny and Yanwei spent the whole night watching stars together. I kept my eyes opened to look for shooting stars but didn't see any. Put my head on my bag, with the crunchy film boxes, and fragile camera and slept. I couldn't care. The place was rather damp though, and my hair smelt. Still, stars, breeze and the sea, and the constant sound of swash. I closed my eyes, and felt almost like the sky, with the waves making sounds that encircled the patch of sky my eyes were half looking at. Where I felt totally at peace, and knew that i was asleep.

Woke up, and trudged to the toilet, some many miles away. Still kinda groggy. Thought I might have a blister on the ankle due to sandals, but it didn't form. Lucky. Washed away the mixture of sand, sweat and dew, And walked out. Then, I saw a gradual lightening of the sky. And I realized what I was waiting for was going to happen. Half running, reached the place and set up my tripod and got ready to take photos. I wasted a whole roll of film on that morning alone. The faulty reasoning goes. I am SO NOT going to wake up this early ever again, so I'd better make the best out of it. It wasn't a really beautiful sunrise. Like my friend said, not poster card quality. But I try to make the best out of it. Its sad that the sun didn't really break until it was way high up in the sky. Some cloud covered it up and kept growing larger as the sun rose higher. Like it was purposely trying to prevent us from taking a nice picture. It was wonderful seeing how the meter readings changed though, and how little we percieved as actual brightness changes.

The blues of the sky and the oranges were really beautiful. If anything, I hope the colours come out well... those are the things that only matter.

Then contentedly, trudged home, took a taxi back, costs me 5 bux! And wondering how I'm gonna survive the next two weeks.

posted by Downhere. @ 12:05 am