It's Been...

...Months since i last posted (Bad lag due to the month long trip to Hungary and all the applications to places and all the distractions which come along with the discovery of free time ever since the end of school and JC life).

Hungary turned out pretty well! Going there definitely helped both training wise and for experience. Teaches you alot how to fight. And here's a bunch of photos! Could have taken more though, but training most of the time makes it hard to carry the camera around and sometimes you'll be too dead tired to do anything else.

Pictures (Possibly) in order. This are the better ones i think. Because Flickr has its 100mb limit. ):



On the way to Vac from the airport. I love this shot so i shall make it damn big. Almost like flying.

Considering the fact that i've not updated since Hungary, looks like i've missed out Christmas and New Year posts. Ouch. (Laziness is getting back into your bonessss).



Part of Vac. Its a quiet little place there, with nice people and all. Hot wine and Milka chocolates! I miss the food there. Nevermind, unrelated with photo.



Love the streets there too. They are nice and have this aura of coziness. And they got those old cars too! (I know Lada sucks but i think they look nice somehow)



And here's how the city hall looks like. Old-ish but really beautiful somehow. The white building there is the church, but sadly couldn't get a proper shot of the inside because of my loud shutter and terrible handling of lighting D: The interior is jaw dropping, i swear.



A pretty flower in a vase. At the restaurant where we had our meals in almost everyday. Its a warm little restaurant in some underground cellar (or bunker?) which had brick walls like castles and dim yellow lights. And the food was damn good. Haha.



Coach's bro was nice enough to give us a tour of their local fire station which he works in. He has two cute daughters too.

And no. one is a few months old? (I think) And the other is 3 years old.



Of course alot of time to explore, for example the many playgrounds all over the place. They got awesome swings. (Okay luh, ordinary swings, but Singapore seems to be lacking those so whatever :P)

Oh oh, and we went cross country skiing too! But i don't have photos of those. I make a lousy photographer sometimes.




And of course, coach's very fat dog, Pocak. He's damn smart though. Coach says all he does is eat, sleep and play, which is why he is so fat. So he got to climb up the mountain with us. (I've got mountain pics though! Which i will spam in the next few posts. Or next month. When my Flickr account quota is reset.



And at the local train station in Vac. We didn't always train. We had sightseeing too...



...to Budapest! I love this shot too. Budapest is a nice sort of place, with some really awesome architecture too. They have their version of Singapore's open air market too, where they sell a whole assortment of stuff, from food and paprika to toys and cutlery. Except their ones aren't too open, but in a enclosed shopping centre like place due to the seasonal weathers.



Here's an edited version. Like one of Suzie's strange pictures with words.

Shoot all the panorama's seem better big, so click them!



The Parliament house here



The view from the same place. It was chilly there.



And one of the statues there with the bright blue sky



And some random awesome graffiti on the way up!



We also went trekking on the free days where we couldn't ski at first because of the lack of snow at times



The view from the castle at the top of a huge mountain/hill



Hero Square, before we went to the mass hot bath over there in Budapest, which was awesome anyhow. Its like a massive relaxing pool with hot water in the open. During a chilly winter night. Too bad Singapore doesn't have one of those. Haha.



And of course, I miss the snow. Pity Singapore doesn't have seasons. Heh.

Well better (very) late than never. I guess i could start thinking of month-after-new-year resolutions at the moment too.

So this is how it goes,
Well I.
I would have never known

2009 has been a pretty strange year both good and bad i guess. Actually now, thinking about it, JC years seem to be the ones which teach you the most. And i'm beginning to feel that with the older you get, the more you learn, doesn't seem to make things alot easier in certain ways. Sometimes i get this feeling that there were some things which i could have done better, more different, in JC, but when i think about it again, maybe its those things which i've learnt alot more from than anything else.

That day i went back to school to chat a bit with the teachers since swimming training at NUS was pretty nearby (Yes, there is swimming training for canoeing now. The Past seems to have a sense of humor.). Walking into school was much more nostalgic than i had imagined. For the first time, it wasn't the kind of feeling you get when walking into school every morning during the past 2 years; the kind where you walk in with a sense that there's a day's work to be completed, there's a favourite lesson you're looking forward to (Art!), there's a terrible training after school when you're dead tired, but you still go do it anyway because its something you must do (Well some of it you don't want to do of course). Instead it feels like you've done all that; there's no sense of rush or dread of deadlines, but at the same time, it makes you feel kinda empty. The kind of feeling you get when suddenly you realise, you have no more guide-to-life school schedule, no more aims, particularly one which i like, quoting Aiman on facebook:

"i miss the days when NS meant National Schools"

which is part of the reason why i decided (with a slight loss of common sense) to join the 36km Singapore Canoe Marathon just a few days after Hungary. At least its something to make me work for.

While sitting about in the art room and admiring the pieces of the current batch of year 6s and at the same time watching them rush around (A few of them asking me for wisdom and guidance which was rather awkward, considering that there's alot of things in art which i still wonder how i managed to get done), it took me some time to finally come to the conclusion that i'm gonna miss school. ALOT.

No more sleeping over in school for art

Last minute rushing with art buddies too,

Cycling the corridors at night,

Looking for the right moment to talk to certain people,

Drawing in lessons (I think my most creative ideas were inspired by those rather humdrum lectures and lessons of certain subjects)

Prata in school (Food will always be an integral part of school life. In all walks of life actually)

Free periods (Though i got alot of free time now, i think free time is sweeter when you don't get it so often)

Training for National Schools (In my opinion, the most nerve wrecking and important of all competitions in my school life)

Sitting around the pond bitching about life.

etc etc.

Haha I miss school basically. Freaking nostalgic post.

So back to the past. I guess i learnt alot. (Probably in order?)

Not to love, then look for what you want, but rather the other way round; maybe i'm wrong but who knows? I'm still learning though.

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught to me lie


To think before speaking, not speak before thinking, because words aren't forgotten easily.

Not to be overconfident with what you have, but with enough confidence to know that you have it. To be satisfied with what you've got, instead of being jealous with what you don't.

Probably the hardest was learning when its time to let go, and then again, fighting for what you don't want to lose. And again, learning not to keep just because its there.

I learnt not to hate without knowing, because people are alot different from what others portray them to be. And at the same time finding people you can rely on when the going gets tough.

Strangely, its not the experience in doing art which taught me quite a bit, but the experience which comes with doing art; learning not to shy away, have confidence and courage to do the unexpected, because sometimes the random shit like this can turn out pretty good.

Enjoying what you do, because it makes a difference with how you do it; along the way learning that hard work pays and its not too late to try.

Probably after all those up and downs, realising that Adidas might actually be right somehow