i like the 4-11ers very much, they are a lively bunch, more "normal" in the sense of well-fitting into the world, unlike the 4-10ers, who are some of the quietest and sweetest people i've known - gentle and reserved, extremely smart, rather solemn, but not without humour, very diligent - or the 4-12ers, an odd assortment though not so odd an assortment as the 4-13ers, each somewhat temperamental and individual, but cliquish in some ways, most of whom ended up in humanz later, warm but wayward and self-possessed. it's been a while since i've been out with a bunch of girls, at least, outside of the old group - poach and cindy, addy and xinyi, mingchen and jiahui - i haven't spent so much time in girl talk: i find myself raising my voice and speaking faster and at a higher pitch, giggling a lot more, and talking in a rather gossipy way, not really because that's what i'm feeling, but because i've adjusted to fit in. the big debate of the night was: aragorn or legolas? i was quite glad to shilly out of answering that one, waffling and offering arguments in support of both men. i don't know the answer you see. i have to say that in this particular instance my impression of orlando bloom was rather breathstopping, and he does resemble a wuxia xiaoshuo hero with that hair and dress, although on principle i prefer men of the viggo mortensen sort, and even now his rugged gentleness warms me (if he wasn't always so mud and blood encrusted in this movie!) and because the girls had inserted a personality litmus test element to the debate i was unwilling to say legolas lest anyone think that i would usually prefer his sort. and then you can never get out of being asked if you're seeing anyone at gatherings like these, which is an annoying question. as cindy put it later, if you are going out with someone, those whom you consider close friends will know it, and if you have a break up, the whole world hears about it faster than you can imagine. if you haven't already been told, you probably shouldn't ask, especially not so bluntly. i give the usual evasive reply about having had enough bad relationships for a lifetime and being off men for the time being, although i was v annoyed. but why i should feel so defensive is also disturbing. i never used to, between relationships, although, as both choonping and cindy were pointing out, at 16 it's okay because you are sure that someone else will come along and the future seems to stretch on, and then there's school and so much else to be worrying about, but at 22 you're constantly having to deflect relatives who want to know whether you'll get married before they die, and generally thinking you're running out of shelf life, (von told me i didn't have any!) cindy and i parted from the group after dinner - i was secretly thinking that maybe we could see the two towers (yes, again. although i dun think i can stand seeing anymore walking trees) but cindy said she had to watch a romantic comedy or die, and we did, and she's the only person i've ever been with who can finish all the popcorn *grin* at the end of it we said goodbye as if we wouldn't see each other again. it's already tuesday here, and i'm leaving v soon. i really need to stay home and work, and stop going out, unless it's relatives whose claims on me cannot be refused and/or who will leave me a substantial legacy. and i'll make an exception for yanmei who wanted to meet up. and xinyi told cindy that we have to go out once before we all go back to the states, although xinyi is on a business trip to dc next week and i can see her there. and i told my mother we'll see wujiandao tomorrow, and there's choonping's first greek lesson - dammit i am not going to do any work, am i? oh bloody hell this is a holiday. a holiday is what it should be.
12.13a.m., and that's the latest by far that i've got home in these three weeks! absurd! look at my summer journals! if i got home at this time it was a miracle.
without yeen teck and von around, i am hardly out nights, and even if i have dinner out with cindy and su-lin, i'm home by 9 or 10pm. last night i was coming out of lido with cindy after watching two weeks' notice, and glancing at the clock near the escalators and thinking, oh dear, 11.15, and all the automatic associations of that hour: midnight surcharge, dearth of cabs, last bus, night service. and then the wondering realisation that in all the time i've been home this was the first that such considerations had crossed my mind. i thought it safest to get the bus from town, even if it takes longer, and although cindy and i were going the same way on the train, for there mightn't be a bus by the time i get to angmokio. i'd bumbled into a 4-11 gathering earlier today - although cindy wouldn't let me call it a 4-11 gathering - i had different plans for the day, and when they were cancelled i rang cindy, although at 2pm i wasn't really hoping anyone would leave home at short notice. i merely called on a chance that she might want to come out in the late afternoon, if only for bubble tea, but she said she was meeting mingchen for a movie and having dinner before. "oh, and liangfen and yanmei". this was good, since i hadn't seen mingchen since june - we went to see action theatre's mammon inc, and of course we had duck in london the previous december - or yanmei at all - yanmei gave me such a hug from behind that i thought i'd dislocated half my joints - but i had absolutely no idea when i showed up that so many 4-11ers would be there: ruth ling - she's hoping to go to taiwan to work in the music industry there, and told me about lin zhixuan's new album. jackie - with pictures from her macau trip. liangfen, and celine leong too - she's in med fac and i can see her in a white coat very well. i haven't seen any of these people for 6 years - i mean, not even once have i run into them at orchard mrt or wisma tunnel, the one place that you can almost be sure of running into the rest of the world, waiting for yet other people - where do all these people hang out? singapore is small, and orchard smaller - but it seems as though they have led a separate existence - of course, i'm away two-thirds of the year, and maybe i would have met them had i been home more often.