Went for a swim with Xie yesterday. Turned out to be more of a dip since miss oh-but-the-pool-is-so-dirty refused to continue swimming after like 3 laps? haha.. bet it's the occupational hazard. Can't imagine how we made it through all those overseas trips together! Gotta admit it though, the pool was really bad yesterday. I swear it's the kids!

So we headed for dinner @ Thai Express thereafter before spending the rest of the evening grocery shopping and scouting for her word puzzle book. It was a good night out. Swimming felt sooo great still. If it weren't for those pesty ( is this even a word? ) little kids that crowds the pool this holiday, I wouldn't have switched over to the gym which by the way, is also getting a little too crowded lately.

Don't know what the problem is but I just can't seem to get away enough from people. Maybe Xie was right. We were too gung-ho back in the council days. So much so we are now completely zapped out of every ounce of energy and all we wanna do is just rot away and enjoy our own me-time.

OK, 'we' might be a lil' too much of an overstatement here since Xie is obviously still in her honeymoon period regardless of how much she wants to deny it. haha.

The point is, we are supposed to be living in our prime right now! Instead, I feel like a 60 year old complete with arthritis and a bad tamper.

I still can't believe it's New Years' Eve already. I thought last year was pretty bad but this year.. wow. NOTHING. Remember how we used to wish we were of legal age to drink so we could crash various countdown parties? Suddenly not so enthusiastic anymore. I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that Justin and Wei Wei aren't here. Or that some part of me is still loitering amongst the benches outside our dorm at Yellowstone.

Weird enough though, I'm kinda embracing these seemingly lonely time. You know it's very much like playing with barbie ( weird metaphor, I know. )- I get to create my very own make-believe world except my barbie and ken are wayyy hotter. And non-fictitious.

I don't even know how to explain to concerned friends how I'm feeling anymore. It sucks to have lived a life of getting to be who I want to be and do what I wanted to do just to lose it all in one night. And worst yet, there's no way of trying to share this with others who are nice enough to pretend to understand but you know that deep down, they can't grasp the concept a full 100%.

I guess alot of this has to do with the family. I've probably portrayed a really bad image of them throughout the years. For what it's worth, they are still family. It's just that, I think grandma screwed everything up and hence, preferential treatment and favourtism runs in our blood and that's freaking me out. I feel like I've lead a way over-protected ( ie, over-controlled ), biased, lack-of-faith, etc etc etc life and I want to break out of this. Most importantly, I wanna break out of being judged. But how can I ever achieve that?

Putting it bluntly, I wanna be that irresponsible kid who leaves the home, leaves the mum to explore the world. I don't wanna be that person who gets stuck between doing what I want to do and feeling obliged to stay behind to 'accompany-my-mum' while the rest of the family gets to do what they want.

I hate this struggle and I wanna get rid of it. I don't wanna be my mum.

So when an unexpected experience such as that of YNP comes about, how can I make myself let go?

But who will understand all these? No one back home was there. No one there was here. Yet everyone thinks they know me so well.

Makes me laugh sometimes.

Still ah bert is right. I don't think I would ever wanna trade this year up for anythingelse.

Happy 2010!

I'd like to make myself believe,

that planet Earth turns slowly.

It's hard to say that I'd rather stay

Awake when I'm asleep

because my dreams are bursting at the seams.