HALFWAY TO HALF

NAILED 17.9KM WOOOOOOOOOOT
HAHA GONNA FINISH MY HALF BABY!


Almost didn't finish too...me and my miscalculations. all cause i reversed my route instead.. Ran from queens to holland and down towards dear old sunset way.. thought that be 10k, thank god i realized it in time and took a diversion into my old neighbourhood.

Sunset way. I ran down past the bus stop down the street that leads into the heart of the little neighbour, past balmoral bakery where i used to eat nice curry puffs and mummy would order our birthday cakes, past the old barbers where i used to cut my hair as a kid. Malay barbers, and a really straight cut which had no parting no matter what you did. i was also skinny and 150cm..HEH...

Down I ran into clementi arcade, all the new shops i saw. It was so strange, now that the montesorri was gone. A wine shop, cake shop, the daily scoop. Bather's is still there, the cafe that used to have a cybercafe. We'd play there all the time, how many tuitions i skipped to try and frag people in CS, till daryl got caught in school U and the police caned the outfit. Man i was so lazy in the those days, i'd cab out to the place so i didn't have to walk the km out. And i remember the lagasne, was so good (:

Past the now opened new condo that was still in it's development when i moved out and away from my beloved hometown. I remember there used to be a rockies there and a dominos. We used to munch dominoes a lot for a dinner treat cause it was good, till the rats closed the place, the condo developers killed the other good pizza place. Blah.

Then the boy ran past Mark Chu's old place, the memories of those carpooling days in primary 1 flooded his memory. I remember the mark chu before he got all gangsta. He collected lego and fish, his family were well off i guess, he was always getting all the nice castle sets i wanted. heh.. We connected through lego. The ultimate connected must have been michael, he lived further up in sunset square, we carpooled with him too. He was p3. Aquanauts came out that year, he got the nice old huge base. Imagine that, Lego was a boys world in those days. I had a collection of the small ones, at home and in Yeh Yeh's house. I loved the construction vehicles. I still keep my book of construction vehicles. My favorite was and still is the backhoe bulldozer. Boys are heavy duty creatures. Wonder if Mark still lives there. He changed so much in sec 1. I remember the nursery behind his house, my used to get plants there. Heh I remember in p1, toilets were evil and i peed my pants once.. was so embaressed.. silly silly me. That was also when i first wondered about the concept of time. What is time, does it exist, is it all a dream and how relative is it? Everytime i ponder this, i get draw to the memory of going home with slightly damp pants in the carpool. then to the present, then to other far off memories. lucky no one noticed. Photographic memory sucks and I like castles.

As i ran up the hill with much difficulty, I ran past the blue roofed house with the chinese lion statues. I briefly had chinese tuition there when my mother thought mr ng wasn't enough. that was p6, i remember the other david went there for tuition too. he lived a few blocks down and was in GEP in nanyang. He went to acsi and i never heard of him again. I wish i had gone to GEP, might have found more companionship. I remember i ponned chinese a lot, i went to do stupid things like play lan at clementi arcade. Now i feel bad, she was a nice lady.

Nearby was the park. That was were we gathered every evening to play soccer. The more inclusive soccer, where the whole neighbourhood got involved. James and John, uncle habajan. Andrew Yap was there too. I think about Lay Yung, he lived on sunset walk or square.. nearby my flat.. we had the same p1 and 2 class. I wonder where he went. Think he moved. There was Meng WeiJun. He went to I and AC and graduated with 6 As. Wonder where he is now.

After the park i past the backgate, and the clubhouse entrance. I remember all the swimming, the badminton, the machomee and snacks, and the walking home. As i pass the condo's park, i remember the soccer we had there. We played on my seventh birthday, i invited my classmates and neighbours.. Uncle edmund was referee. I was so lousy at soccer. I still am. Pity ADHD people learn differently. I pass the old basketball court, and Alex's house. Wonder if he still lived there. I learnt a lot about life from Alex, whom i'd met in p2, he was p6, we had the same bus. The bus driver's name is Ah Chai. He was a little crazy, and we were bad kids. Heh.. It takes a lot of patience to drive a bus with hyper primary school acs kids. That was where my interest in aeroplanes was festered. Fighter planes. We roleplayed the games to pass the time. I was so fascinated and engulfed, it was just so magical, like a dance we recreated with our hands of ariel dogfights. Guess to the other's they were just passing time. Alex read thrillers by Tom Clancy. He went to NJ, i met him two years ago at tanglin mall. wonder where he is now...

Past the playground, the slides and all are still there, we'd meet there and have fun after school in the afternoon. Kids are mean things. I remember one boy was nicknamed some hokien swear word. Poor kid. Digimon was king then and we all just wanted to fit in and collect digimon cards, then pokemon cards. We all just wanted to fit in, guess as a kid you fit in much better. That was were i met Jansher, his parents knew my parents somehow. He knew what a pun was and was a parent flatterer. He influenced me to get our own PSone, and stuff. They shipped him off to austrailia...Wonder what happened to him. His phone number was like my best friend's with one number difference. He was in henry park.

Heh I remember the super soaker wars. We all got super soakers to play wargames with each other, split into two teams. It was Alewx's idea, living his dream. He was the influence for me joining NCC... It was so weird... He should have signed on the army. We would play using the condo's basement and levels as a complex. It was our own laser quest. I even had a party in p4 to do just that. P4, that was when i met David Ng and there was Ian Ong from P1 and 2, we were all interested in planes and war games. There was also marcus chin and a lot of people. I remember Melvin Sim back in ACS P, i remember how i got in trouble in p5 and he was sent to counsel me, we always had a close relationship after that, when i was not in trouble that is. He followed me all the way to the end of barker. Those who disregarded him are idiots. He was great. He and Mr Wan and Mr Leong, the three P6 teachers who greatly influenced my life. I haven't seen them in a long time. He used to play basketball with us during recess. Bookworm club was the in thing then too. There was starcraft as well. I remember we'd flood the bookshop with our newly found powers of economy to buy little toys and trinkets.

I remember too all the talk about the p6 medical tests. We had a lot of stupid stories, especially about the foreskin test, to check for abnormal penile growth. The year before us the boys had to drop their pants infront of a female nurse. All the strange stories we heard and the slapstick sex jokes we made about it. We talked about it all the way into or p6. We were discovering our sexuality.

P6 was also roy and alwin and kumar. We were the clique. I wonder where they are now.
Since then, only jason tan and aaron wong followed me through class into sec 4.

Then i remember the accident in p4, there was a car crash just outside the carpark of the clubhouse, and my mum stopped to help, her friend someone from paeds was already there. The owner was rather rude accoring to my mother and refused our help, she inadvertantly drove off. The car involved was a blueish grey jeep-like car. The sky was orange red. We had started driving Toyota MPVs.

Then i ran past the guard house. I remember in p5 and 6, i made friends with the guards. One knew my grandfather, my grandfather unfortunately couldn't remember him. I learnt to take the condo bus. It cost a dollar then. I remember my house was so nearby to the clubhouse, it was a nice flat, #05-07. I loved it. I still dream of the kitchen, and everything in it. I can still describe it in great detail. I remember the black stove and the folks and spoons were in the drawer underneath that of the ladles, and other cooking instruments. The dinning room, with our current dinning table, the living room, with the rattan furniture and our coffee table we sold. My room with the double decker beds and 3 computers. The baby grand, the placement of the cupboards. Everything. Next door was shuying, we didn't get along much those days. Now, we're good friends. Downstairs was sarah rod. heh...it was so long long ago. one floor below was darren, single child, dad smoked, tried to quit. I foolishly and naively tried talking him into doing so. silly me. I made darren cry a couple of times, we were so mean as kids. Luckily we made good friends and left on those terms.

Then there was Brookvale minimart, place to get snacks and when we were slightly richer other more exotic snacks..They sold good sausages. As well digimon cards galore.

I ran down sunset square, passed lay yung's old house, then later on the house we almost bought and uncle habajan and aunty daisy's. They bought taught me lit for a time. Lovely couple. I miss them a lot. Uncle habajan got baptized at st iggy's last year, still attends twelve noon i think. Aunty Daisy is a great pranakan cook (: I wonder why they had a soft spot for me. I wonder why a lot of adults in my childhood had a soft spot for me or either didn't want their kids to play with me. Could they have subconsciously seen the adhd and asperger's and too the logical appropriate steps that their parental instincts told them?

then i ran out one of my walking routes to get into my hard to reach condo. So ended my trip down memory lane. 2k in, 2k out. In sec 2, i took the bus to school on many mornings, with the full trip out and in.

Then ran down clementi, till i hit bukit timah road. If i hadn't stop the nice smoker for the time; though he still gave me the wrong time, i wouldn't have realized the nice miscalculation i'd made. From queenstown to holland, was 1.5, then down holland to clementi should have been at least 3.5; didn't go through the canal, then another 4 in out of sunset, with 2 down to bukit timah. With bukit timah it would have only been 16 in total.. so i was supposed to run down farrer and back to add the last 4. i died at the end of farrer. so 17.9

blah. the reverse would have covered everything, since the loop would have me going through farrer twice to get home.. still it's not too bad.

God, i think was with me, i only had to wait at 2 traffic lights, it was perfect timing. But i dunno.. i didn't feel him. could it be...?

I guess i spent a lot time thinking about childhood. I'd like to know what's so good about it that people want to go back? They think kids are not judgemental, i think kids are innocent, but they can be more easily swayed to biasness than older people, and they can be very cruel, without even knowing it. We've all had our fair share of people that we've made cry. What do you have to say about that? I feel a little remorseful and embaressed when I think about it.

I feel bad for my parents. They go through a lot with me. The unpredictable chaos in the life of the yung family, who likes to hear bad things about their kids when they know deep down it's not the kid's fault? How do you live life worrying what will happen to your child next, when every day could be fraught with so many painful things. The pain that your child is not developing normally, is getting bullied, but not knowing it's cause it's different. The child is so intelligent yet it's not performing in school, and the teachers are calling. As doctors, worrying whether the kid's liver will flip any day from the daily medication. I think they suffer an identity crisis everytime i have one. The worse part is knowing there's nothing they can do. I love you Mommy, I love you Daddy. Thanks for life.