my last night at home again, always a curious feeling. up at 3am, emptying my wallet of my singapore cards and removing singapore notes, rummaging around for things to throw into suitcase, and generally cleaning up my room, while listening to the swan lake suite - tjan reminded me of it the other day, i was trying to tell him the story but had to get off the bus. having a conversation with von about the relationship between low self-esteem and intellectual curiosity/apathy. mater looked in once to say, hai bu yao qu shui ma? and pater looked in earlier to say good night. i've got a huge suitcase this time, so that i can bring more things home with me in may. i really shouldn't be bringing books back to school - but i am - oh dear. all this up four flights of stairs too.

i was in amoy street twice today - the first time rather more purposefully, and the second time quite unexpectedly. that's not to say that the first time i had meant to go there - i was really trying to get to neil road for tea at chayuan. but took a wrong turning, and ended up at cecil street. and remembering that, if i got myself onto the parallel street, i would be able to get out of the rain and into the relocated big apple, which would offer me good cake. big apple has the most annoying habit of suddenly closing down without explanation and reopening in an entirely different part of the island without announcement. from bukit timah to serangoon gardens and now amoy street, it's the most bloody peripatetic cafe i know. it is pure chance that i keep stumbling on its new premises - if i hadn't turned a corner at serangoon gardens, if i hadn't been getting lost with von in tanjong pagar - i'd probably never know it has turned up again, bad penny etc.

shared a basket of wedges with a to-be doctor friend. that's the other thing i seem to talk about a lot nowadays. minyin and i at least have been having an ongoing conversation about what the medical profession is all about. an art masquerading as science, is what she thinks. at 5.30 i remembered i hadn't yet got a raffles hotel postcard. i meant to when i came back, for prof nohrnberg. it's the only singapore landmark he's heard of, because his father stayed there once! it was drizzling as we walked from amoy street back towards lau pa sat, along shenton way, and to raffles place mrt, tried the tourist shops in change alley: clarke quay, parliament house, padang, westin stamford, temples mosques and churches, markets and orchard road and sheares bridge, even one of raffles landing site, but no raffles hotel. it was only until i got to the mama store at clifford pier that i found one, just one, which i can't decide whether to bring back and hand to him, or to post and have a race with back to school. hmm.