T - 9 hours to lift off. Here we go!

Finally met you again. No one reads this blog and it's even more unlikely that you will, so being the cowardly me I shall write what I wanted to say to you all this while here, instead of gathering the courage to say it when we were face to face.

You were like a breath of fresh air when I first saw you. I imagine you rolling your eyes and saying 'lame' after reading this but it's true. Maybe I'm romanticising vague, rose-tinted memories but indulge me while I reminisce.

You were my first new friend in a new environment. A place that seemed so foreign to me, but with you it was a little warmer, and little more cheerful. Bubbly and easy going, you made me feel comfortable and welcomed. You talked to me while I sat there mostly silent, not because I was bored of your company but being the awkward me I just didn't know what to say.

We drifted apart and talked less and less because the stupid me was unwilling to invest time into a friendship I should have cherished more.

I didn't ask for a photo, because I felt that you should be left in my memories unaltered as something precious I hold dear.

I didn't say goodbye, but see you instead, in the hope that we would meet again. But as soon as our paths split, I felt a sense of finality, a sense that this might be the last time I would meet you.

As we depart for different places hurtling towards our separate futures, I just want to say thank you for everything. What you said to me or did with me are things you probably do not remember, but I will.

I would have sent you off if I wasn't going off on the same day. I didn't even ask you for your skype id, so contacting each other will probably be quite improbable. It's probably better this way anyway.

In any case, I wish you all the best.

As the day of departure draws closer, I'm feeling more and more empty. I don't know why but I don't really feel that excited to go to a new environment, a new place to live. One of my friends, Blim shared with me that he felt the same way. Though I guess it was because he went through the full 2 years of NS first.

I must have skipped past the first phase of euphoria really quickly haha. I still remember being extremely happy when I got my acceptance letter, but then it tapered off. Or it can be because I have never been terribly excited about a new school before...

In any case, a new school, a new country, and a new life. Ahhh nerve wracking

Just over 2 weeks before I leave the country for a while. It's still pretty surreal to me, the fact that I actually got the opportunity to do so. I think half my JC life I convinced myself I would be one of those in NUS doing medicine or law or some other conventional subject. 

I am just another ordinary person. Or am I? Being a third/fourth generation Singaporean makes me one of the unique few ethnic Chinese who use English as my first language in history. I live in a country that's 49 years old, younger than my parents. 

I spend a fair bit of time using the internet, even though only around 2.8 billion people in this world have access to it currently. I live in an age where products I order online come within a week, or a few days if I fork out more. 

But am I unique? Am I distinct? I think in history no other person had my name and lived exactly the way I did or have so far. 

I mean I have wrote in different applications how different I am, why I should be selected. It's not like nobody in this world think geography is somewhat relevant and important though. 

What determines who gets in, and who goes out? Despite having been part of a committee that conducted interviews and tried to make the best decisions I still have no idea. And that's with people I've seen for 3 years. Imagine meeting someone for the first time, maybe for 30 mins, and making a decision. Or worse, just reading what he wrote or what he submitted.

Just be yourself. Just write who you really are. The problem with that advice is that I think most people do not really know who they are. To be so self assured is something I still cannot grapple with. Is that not just the effect of cognitive dissonance, when one has told the same lie over and over again until it became the truth?

I digress. In the end being unique isn't that important anyway. Ultimately, you just have to convince others you are special is a certain way, a way that may be minor but till edges you ahead of the competition.

I guess my university admissions counsellor summed it up well. You may not think you are unique, but to someone living in the western world, a Singaporean living in a public flat that's actually pretty good, in a absurdly young nation that have one of the world's highest living standards (though quality of life is up to debate), speaks the lingua franca of the world pretty well and probably has a work ethic that beats the one most of their local students have, is quite special.