Pretty good day! Pretty bad day!

Yesterday was a good day. Because I was with friends. I got up early to go to Macritchie Reservoir for a hike with 4 other Stanford Singaporeans. They were Jason, Chee Hau, Hon Mun and Shuzhen. We wanted to go to the HSBC Treetop walk. It took us about 2-3 hours for the whole walk. It's great hanging out with them. The 4 years together at Stanford has brought us close. Apparently, of the 7 guys, 4 will be heading back into Officer Cadet School, 2 are medically unfit for combat and that leaves me, with my medical checkup this Friday. We'll see how the checkup goes.

The walk was very relaxing. It was really hot and humid in the jungle, but the conversations were fun and lively. We talked about everything, from our future postings in the army, to our trips that we had before we got home. It rained halfway, when we were on the tree top walk itself. The tree top walk is a huge bridge, 25m above the ground. We got a nice view of the top of the jungle, as well as the reservoir. Being up so high reminded me of my mountain biking trip with David back along Skyline Boulevard. The reservoir and the scenery were absolutely unSingaporean like. Except for the tall HDB flats in the distance, everything seemed very different and natural. I was thinking that it was very weird that 5 people will be out hiking on a Tuesday, because I don't think very many Singaporeans will actually do that. Maybe because we're so different after being overseas, that we become tourists in our own country. And also because we enjoy different things from the average person here.

After the hiking trip, we did what ALL Singaporeans love to do. Eat. We ate at Junction 8, at Ajishi Ramen House. The ramen was pretty good, but the sushi was horrible. The salmon was not fresh at all. I had a bad stomachache that night because of it. Chin Lum joined us for lunch after that. He got there late because he sleeps in. He's extremely bored too, just like most of us. We went to watch Fantastic Four after lunch and some shopping around. It was pretty good, lots of eye candy. "Jessica Alba is SO hot!" I mean, Reeds Richards must be blind for not noticing Sue for most of the movie, especially when she's acted by Jessica Alba. As usual, the ending is left open ended, with the HUGE possibility of a sequel.

Dinner was with Clement and Jason. It was great catching up with Clement. Heard him talk about his time at CMU, his new girlfriend, and his life. He was suppose to come visit me at Stanford, but somehow, the timing didn't work and it fell through. Damn. We wanted to head over to his place to drink and hang out, but we were pretty tired. So we're going to do that on Friday night instead, to drink and crash at his place. Hmm, but I gotta make sure I can get up pretty early Sat morning to pick up a friend from the airport who's stopping by before continuing on to Bangalore. I'll be hanging out with Clement and Jason more before I get into the army.

Today, however, wasn't such a good day. I was just not happy I'm home at all. Being in such close proximity with my parents just ticks me off. Their constant attention bugs me, because I just want to be left alone. Then I went to get my medical records from the General Hospital, before I felt so bored with life here.

I took the train to Orchard Road, and sat at a cafe outside Borders to read. After an hour, I was hot, and done with reading. I had my iPod in my ear the whole time, trying to close off the noise that Singapore is constantly filled with. Cars, people, talking, more noise. No such thing as silence. I can't even hear the music from my iPod unless I turn it up to 60% volume, compared to 25% at Stanford. Walking along the streets bug me too. No longer can I just go visit a friend. It's just too far to walk, or take the train and find that they are not in.

I'm not at peace. Not at peace with the world, with my situation, with myself. I want to imagine this all being a dream, or actually, just a nightmare I might wake up from, and realise that I'm back in the Bay Area, waiting for my job to start. But this is reality. My reality. I have to be here for a long time, absolutely no doubt about that. I want to be strong, to enjoy my time here. It's still my life, and I want to enjoy life. But somehow, I can't. I'm forever comparing here with SF, with the Bay Area, with the freedom I had. I'm making myself miserable, by not looking on the bright side of things. I should be making myself happy.

So, this is what I'm going to try to do. Make myself happy with my situation here. I need to draw up a plan that will make me happy that I am here. I gotta start filling in those blanks about how to make myself happy and do it. So that I can say that I did not waste 8 years of my life in Singapore, and that no matter how horrible the situation might be, I still survived and made the most of my life.