Just can't get the best of both worlds

5 things I missed about Singapore when I was in China:

1) Efficient administration (Not couldn't-care-less officials who sent you from office to office across the campus just to get your paperwork done. And no, they could not complete their part first if only to save you that extra trip, undertaken, of course on foot. Perhaps I should be grateful the campus wasn't larger)

2) English reading material (the only Times magazines they had were backdated copies hidden in the English magazine section of the Foreign Languages School. The newsstands were swamped with Chinese and Learn-English magazines)

3) Free and frequent shuttle bus (NUS 40-seater, 5-minute-interval shuttle buses own like no other. The so-called school shuttle buses in Wuda were 15- seater vans, embarked from the school gate irregularly and only when packed to overflowing, and charged RMB1 per ride)

4) Toilets with functioning locks, or doors even (-_-")

5) Clean air (well the haze in Singapore makes it not so clean now but I meant, generally)

5 things I miss about China now that I'm back in Singapore:

1) Cheap buffets (at 38 RMB per head for a steak or steamboat buffet, this was pig-out heaven)

2) Dried figs ( I despair of ever finding the soft gooey dried figs of the type sold in China again, those in Sg-Msia are drier, darker, scaly-skinned, leathery and generally of lesser quality. Why? Why? I thought that the best of the luxury goods were exported. Apparently not)

3) Spring (life was a charm when the flowers bloomed and the climate outdoors was mild air-conditioning all day)

4) Cheap walnuts, cheap street fruit vendors, cheap peaches and apricots galore (twice the price in Singapore here)

5) Steve (awwww... No, I mean, Really. AWWWW....)

Mid-autumn Memories

Well, this has been one long hectic week, and I have been grumpy and stressed and everything else. It's not about to end yet; next week will have even tighter schedules. I think I'll be seeing Steve less and less; he isn't happy but is keeping complaints to the minimum.

Moon cake festival last night was quite a relaxing get together for all concerned, down by the stone blocks near the fountain. This year our crowd was larger, and some would say even merrier than last year. Most of the 'older generation' was there, and by virtue of that one might almost feel that nothing has changed, but for several new faces and new stories associated with them, people who were not with us last year but became an indispensible part of our group this year.

Sadly I seem to have become more detached from the group, in part because of a commitment to a relationship. This is not a wholly unavoidable situation, and I try to balance it as best as I can, by seeing my friends on important occasions when I can't join them for daily activities such as dinner. Well, I avoid dinner because I want to avoid eating in the canteen, I suspect the food is not too healthy for me. Still it makes for that much less time with them, and this is also KY's last semester in NUS, and we are thinking that perhaps next semester, the last semester for this outgoing batch life will be that much less colourful because we are sans the noisiest member of 'The Original Octopeers'(and has it already been almost four years since we started university as a bunch of sotong-slamming friends? Well I never really did much sotong-slamming, but the rest certainly made a hobby, if not an occupation out of it. Poor KY).

There were so many more new, strange but equally cheerful faces down there last night, juniors of our juniors, friends of our friends who barely knew us, if at all. We clustered in different groups, talking. The seniors on weighty matters of moving out and possibly rooming together, amongst other things. There was also a fair share of fun, however as everyone was simply dressed and we were having a birthday celebration for Tiang, which occasioned a decent amount of ragging, done, of course, in the name of LOVE. There was a fountain handy, and the guys just took turns grabbing other guys and throwing them in, while the girls clucked and danced around the commotion receiving unwettable valuables from the pockets of the potential duckee for safekeeping (not 'quack, quack', rubber ducky, but 'splash, you're wet', ducked duckee. Heh, ignore that).

So that was our mooncake celebration in our last year at PGP. Maybe next year if the juniors get something together there we might be able to join in again, but well, next year is too far away to plan for now. It was good, and provides for fond reminescences, as befits any repectable senior looking back upon university life. Plus, the mooncakes tasted great.