how time flies

how time flies. i was in a japanese restaurant last night and there was a young waiter. i told my friend, he's around our age. he said, "younger". i said, around 18 - our age? he went, we're half a decade past 18. OMG. so true. i feel really old. i'm always aching cos i go to the gym every day. i can no longer stay up throughout the night like i did in the past. it's all signs of aging. my mellowing is a clear sign of aging. no longer do i shout or scream (rarely la). even when i get frustrated, i kinda don't lose control as much as i did in the past. getting old aaron chew. getting old. :(

have been sleeping late this week because of a case competition. not a big case competition la, just an internal one here. but still, effort was required. and we got first runner up! woohoo!! so proud of pars and myself because we (the two singaporeans) single-handed held the team up. we did the analysis, we worked on the presentation, we presented (we took around 6 of the 10 min). i even had to write the scripts for the chinese! q&a was all pars and me. what one of the chinese girls did was do a very classy presentation. which was wonderful. u need someone like that for your case. and we won (first runner up). when it was announced, i looked at pars and said, "that's us!" she was obviously in shock and didn't say anything. anw, the winning team had a singaporean too. four singaporeans, three won something. not too bad.

time flies so quickly. i was just so recently so looking forward to returning to singapore. and now, i'm back in china. while i love beijing and i love china, i love singapore too. and the earliest phase of moving out of singapore is usually very hard. you will miss singapore so much, and then you get used to wherever you are, and then after a while (maybe two or three months in my case), you start to miss singapore exponentially.

i was so used to a lonely life with few friends here, i really didn't know how it was going to be like in singapore. i had arranged to meet pple before i returned to singapore. six dinners, three were at home. the other three went to the chinese cg, sebastian and ac leaders+javier. my lunches were full too. yujie took my first lunch on thurs, then pastor and claire on friday, then my cousin on saturday, church on sunday, michelia on monday and liang yuan on tuesday (mon and tue were eventually rearranged). but anw, a packed schedule. hence, i had to expand into suppers and breakfasts. man. there were so many pple to meet because i missed so many pple! i was bursting with anticipation. literally bursting. i haven't seen my baby brother (who is actually turning 15 soon) in three months!

a chronological recap:

wed, 27 may
wednesday was d-day. i woke up so friggin excited. went for class, skipped lunch to go to the gym so i could save time after class. next class was until 5pm. i was seriously going to burst in the class. seriously. after class, went back to do laundry. i hung everything up and intended for it to stay that way till i returned. went for dinner with pars and edward and then went back and packed up. 7 bags. seven. all shapes and sizes. i was only gonna bring three back though. the rest would go to dad who would bring them back for me slowly. the driver came. there was a jam on the way to the airport. so frustrating. at the airport, i had to take out some of my stuff from the big check in bag cos it was too heavy. put them in a spare bag i had (smart!) and hand carried. so i had three hand carries! aiyo. and no aisle seat. double aiyo. but nvm la. i was happy to be going back to singapore.

thur, 28 may
thursday morning slightly past 5am, i landed in singapore. whee! i was so happy. bought a new absolut (as always!), got the mango this time. it shd be yummy! got scanned at the customs so i declared my mongolian knives. they got detained for approval. so anw, i got out at 6am and there the guys were! yujie, jason, jiajun, leslie and joshua. what a surprise! i thought maximally i would see yujie. we hang around the airport for a while before yujie drove me home. back at home, a big star was hanging from my ceiling. it was a surprise from yujie!! haha. i unpacked and had fried black carrot cake with chilli and soya bean for breakfast. woohoo! hahaha. spent some time catching up with my mummy. then went meet seb to drive him to work. it was the first time i touched my car in three months. i was so elated. i love the feeling of driving. it's so therapeutic.

following dropping seb off, i decided to drop by suntec office! claire was there so we chatted. then i went to carrefour to do my grocery shopping (smart move because i didn't have time the rest of the trip). then i met pastor. it was great talking to him again. we basically just chatted over drinks. as a reminder of what it meant to be singapore, the singapore police force called at around 12 to say i could pick my knives up from cantonment. i was like...u detain the knives at 6am at changi, 6 hours later they are ready for collection at cantonment? we are more efficient than efficient man.

after leaving suntec, i met yujie for a late lunch (lavender food square where i had beef kway teow, turtle soup, cheng teng...everything yummy!) because he woke up late. smashing! we caught up...something we did not have a chance to do for as long as i remember. it was nice sharing our aspirations, dreams, struggles with each other once again. i rushed home for dinner. then rushed to the gym for my daily work out (it ended on thursday...the first and last time i visited the gym in singapore). then rushed to newton for supper with the rj pple! didn't have a lot of time but it was wonderful meeting them. then had supper with seb. i managed to successfully majorly piss seb off. omg. in my years of knowing him, it was one of the worst times. haiz. anw, i apologize and all.

fri, 29 may
lunch with claire only because pastor was caught up. went to asia grand because i feel the peking duck there is sooo much better than the duck in beijing. which is palatable at best. had dim sum too. love asia grand! following that, headed to sentosa with seb! i was desperate for a tan. my skin had been hiding under layers of coats during the winter and hence, i had become even whiter! omg. there should be some mechanism in a guy's body to stop turning so white. for ladies it's fine. for guys, it's gross. anw, we ended up at palawan beach against seb's protests because i really didn't know where siloso was. anyhows, as a testament to how much my physical fitness had increased, i beat seb swimming to the mini island and i beat him swimming back too! my daily 5km was absolutely paying off.

after the beach, seb went to get his htc and i went for my knives. i then met the chinese cg at expo. i could converse so smoothly with them i was amazed. my chinese level has indeed been propped up. well done aaron, well done china! guess what was next?? it was church wide bible study on song of solomon! wow whee!! the chinese cg sat with yujie's cg so it was nice meeting everyone again. i was so excited. praise, worship, pastor tan collecting the offering and then, pastor kong teaching. so good to be in church again. so so good.

following that, kenneth met the youth leaders. cleo, jermain, shaz, darice were all there. it was the first time i was seeing kenneth and serena's baby. so cute! had a little bit of time to catch up with cleo. the both of us just went off like bullets updating each other on stuff. she's going to shanghai after i leave! good for her! seb and i then went bowling (i beat him!) and had supper.

when i reached home, i saw an email from hp. i had been offered the internship position! woohoo!! hahaha. i was so happy!! whee!!

sat, 30 may
i woke up bright and early on saturday because i was slated to meet my cousin for like a morning walk/jog and breakfast. because my time was a bit tight, we skipped the exercise and went straight for breakfast at bak chor mee with fish maw soup (the yummy one near my place). then it was to malaysia with seb! i love the food in yong peng so we had lunch there and then drove to kl. omg the drive was so long. shopping in kl was no longer than fantastic thanks to china. hahahaha. then we had supper in yong peng and headed back to singapore. the drive was really quite fun at times. but others seb just slept and i drove on and on. i hope he'll be able to drive by our next trip to malaysia. then at least we can take turns driving. heh.

sun, 31 may
church day!

picked grandma up for church and then went to get coffee for pastor. then i met javier! took him to get breakfast because he was "very hungry". then went down to b4 for service. man oh man. no church like city harvest. no place like basement 4. wow. and all the wonderful people. i was walking to the front and someone shouted my name. it was my "dajie" linying! so happy to see her. and then my favorite couple derrick and ruxin!! and then the chinese pple from yujie's cg. before i could talk for long with them, my phone rang. it was whalen! i rushed up to meet whalen, weiling and yong chai. i miss their cg a lot man. and then service started. sat in front with yujie. and shawn came late! but at least he came!

i spent the service soaking up the atmosphere. no church like city harvest. that's my home church. no matter where i go. after service, went up to b4 and just had fun meeting pple. man oh man. how i have missed out in the recent months. haiz.

dinner was at home! my aunt cooked and we had combined dinner. whee! seb came and stayed over that night. great!

mon, 1 june
finally got a chance to sleep in (a little). but anw, ran a few errands, bought lunch back for seb and i and then we headed to meet javier! it was javier's day out with us. seb, yujie and i. oh man. that little boy is so cute (and quite spoilt also ah...always gets what he wants from us). we went swimming at the club! ja was so excited. we actually went to the big pool. and he knew how to swim! we had a relay. ja and i vs yujie and seb. ja started from the opposite side whereas the rest of us swam there and back. and ja and i won!! he outswam yujie and i outswam seb. i think i'm quite remarkable. i can actually outswim yujie and seb now. that actually feels quite safe. in a shipwreck situation, it's good to know i'll be the one saving them and not vice versa. i don't think either of them can take my weight. hahahaha.

we went bowling thereafter and seb beat me twice! well it was out of four games but he beat me in the last two. oh man. :( then we had dinner with the other leaders. shaz, jason, jermain, tina. lina and darice came later. such an awesome bunch of pple. i love them man. we had fun just catching up. we went to the fountain at suntec and they dedicated a song to me. hahaha. that was actually quite sweet.

seb was so funny. initially i told him i'd meet him the next day at 4 after he finishes work. he was like, "so early for what?" at the end of the night, he asked me, "you're leaving tmr ah?" i was like, "yah?!" and so, he said, let's go for a movie then. night at the museum 2. i loved the egyptian dude. he was so funny. great movie overall. before the movie, met cousin yun. only for a short while. time was so tight for my trip back. she was complaining i didn't have time for her. sorry!!

tue, 2 june
drove seb to work, mail some packages out, met michelia for lunch. there was my dose of craziness! that woman insisted i meet her, even if for only an hour. so i did. cafe cartel where i had my pan fried macaroni. i love love love cartel pan fried macaroni. i miss it already. anw mich, hope u've got everything sorted out. do update me. p/s: i think you're a genius!!!!!!!!!!

then went to meet yujie at ps cartel. sat, talked etc. then seb came and yujie had to leave. and seb and i went home. i bade my closest friends in singapore farewell for another long three months. dinner at home. finally the whole family was there! food was good. and before long, it was time to leave for the airport. i brought a half full check in bag and an empty hand carry. wow.

leaving singapore was so difficult. the pple i love are in singapore, the food i love is in singapore. what do i have in china? my dreams, my aspirations. but this journey here, is littered with loneliness. i miss everyone.

people i didn't get to meet this time - cousin yun, zhanwei, liangyuan, charmian...see you when i get back.