i was just looking at the index of journals and realising that it's august already. the whole summer has gone by so quickly. i should start to think about throwing things in suitcases and revising greek and latin and coming up with a research plan for next year. all i can think about, however, is how much there is to do in singapore and who i've not spent enough time with. yeen teck is leaving first thing monday, so perhaps tomorrow or tonight would be the last time i see him. poach and i said we'll go out eight times at least, but we've only seen each other thrice, and there's barely anytime left, her weeks are all packed. i've seen addy only thrice too, before she went off to japan, and when she comes back on the 17th, i'll have one foot on the plane already. i miss addy the most, i think. there have been no humanz parties this year, and i realise it's becos addy isn't here, and parties at addy's have for me become so closely associated to being back in singapore - the swing in her garden, the tea lights in the porch, the ducks, people draped all over the furniture, someone or other pounding on the piano, bad jokes, good food, her mother asking how i like virginia - that it all seems very wrong. i was just thinking we need a national day party next week, when i realise that we can't, cos addy isn't here, and i would have to volunteer my house again, only nowadays because of tuition students the house is only free one night a week. i miss minyin too. i only saw her for a week this time, ordinarily we have much more time to be silly and frivolous together in july. i'm getting increasingly restless because everytime i think i'd like to do something, i realise that i not only had an activity in mind, but i'd factored in someone particular to do this with, and that person has gone back to the states, or is leaving soon, or not yet back, or not free. living all your life in singapore, you don't measure time in seasons, or at least you don't feel time in the seasons, but the whole of this last week i've had this line running through my head, the strong sense that the summer is over. the summer is over! and the parties are breaking up, and people are leaving, and all is coming to an end! this is a gentle sort of apocalypse, the kind that doesn't come in a stroke, just peeling your whirl of nights and days from you until you find yourself restiven and petulant and left with a persistent yearning for something you can't remember.