Today was the 4-4 gathering. as per the usual style, only 3 or 4 people arrived on time and we spent close to half an hour waiting for the rest of them to arrive. 15 of the guys made it in the end: not the entire class of course, but a respectable number nonetheless. we met at city hall mrt, then walked to marina square for lunch. at first the plan was to go to seoul gardens, but it was too packed so we wandered around and out of nowhere we decided to eat at billy bombers. the stuff there is literally worth its weight in gold (or at least it's priced that way -.-), and if not for a 1-for-1 set meal promotion i would have been able to literally hear the hole being burnt into my wallet. still, $20++ is a lot of money, even when split between 2 people :X afterwards, about half of them went to dhoby ghaut to play lan, while the rest of us stayed behind to play pool. needless to say i sucked at it. then the pool group went to a macdonald's to eat ice cream. andrew joined us, but luke had this retarded idea to "hide" in the esplanade or something, i wasnt really paying attention. so anyway we talked a while longer, then a few of us went home. i have to say that on the whole the class hasnt changed much: jie chou and jeffrey still suaning each other and sebastian, luke's sexuality still being put into question, and victor still trying to find an opportunity to kill khee ern. a pity kevin couldnt make it, cos like marcus said, "the thing that keeps the class together is kevin yeo, but now he's not here" XD all the stupid things from sec school still remain.
we're barely into 2010 and already im starting to feel nostalgic. the gathering probably affected me somewhat, but i seem to be getting more prone to bouts of nostalgia since last year (nearly typed "this year", still cant get used to the fact that it's already 2010). perhaps what i yearn for is not for simpler times gone by, but rather a simpler me. did i have so many unnecessary thoughts in sec school? was i ever so pessimistic? i cant remember a day before 2009 when i sat down, thought about life, and got up feeling a depressing mixture of epiphany and resignation. is this intellectual development? is this maturity of thought? i start to question the purpose of me striving to learn and understand the world around me when all it leads to is a more and more pronounced confirmation that i will never truly understand it, or that even with all this knowledge i will never be able to effect a change. or maybe im just being a whiny melodramatic bitch. i dont know, i really have no idea. how much better off is the man who sees the inner workings of the gun and understands exactly how the bullet is launched from the barrel into his brain, compared to the oblivious man who may not even recognise that a gun pointed to his skull means certain death? what use is it to comprehend exactly how life traps me when it traps me all the same? i am reminded of a quote from Dr Manhattan from Watchmen which is my all-time favourite comic book series, "We're all puppets; I'm a puppet who can see the strings." perhaps the greatest wisdom of all is, after understanding exactly how all the knowledge in the world is useless, living life just the same while in awe of how it works and with the appreciation borne from understanding. maybe that is the mythical feeling of enlightenment.
i suddenly feel that this A7X song really represents what's going through my mind right now. Lost, by Avenged Sevenfold.
