7-Year (B)Itch

29th February 2008

"Hello, hello," she said repeatedly, with a smile brightly lighting up her face as she took her seat at the other end of the table.

"Oh, Hi Stella. So how's the wedding? Saw the pics on your Facebook...." Her words slowly faded into the background, as my subconscious took over, and I started scrutinizing the changes on her countenance.

"Oh, Pamela, how have you been? What are you doing now?" she asked eagerly as I continued to sip my Lime Frozen Daiquiri. Time hasn't been particularly kind to her; while still largely recognizable in an instant, closer scrutiny only brought to my attention the changes in the details, particularly the loss of the youthfulness that was locked into my memories. Then again, it is hardly surprising considering it has been a good 7 years or so since I (or any of us, for that matter) last saw her.

She moved down one row of the table and turned to her other side, in shock, unable to recognize the face that was before her. "Deyao?! Wow, I can hardly recognize you, you've changed so much," she uttered.

"Then do you recognize him?" Jason asked, pointing in my direction.

I looked down at the table as I continued to sip my drink.

"Of course, that's the asshole, Jer. Of course I recognize him," she replied. And that was the beginning of the busy laughter-filled conversation that filled the empty halls of the Shanghai Bar on a Friday night.

We spoke of the present, as she wanted to know the gist of our lives; where we worked, what we did, what we were into, who we were seeing, and all the other needless details that only mattered because of the timeless friendship that we shared.

"So what do you do at work then? Just play games?" she asked me.

"Well, partially, but I prefer to call it Game Research," I replied with a slight grin on my face. "But I do a lot of other things too. I'm like an everything-man in the company."

"Oh really? Like what?" she asked skeptically.

"Well, I do presentations, documentation, creative work, and technical implementation; basically everything that sprouts from Design upwards."

"That doesn't sound that hard. You don't need to program or anything." she replied typically.

"Hah. That's where you're wrong. I needed the programming to understand the process and the logic that goes behind the development. Like the limitations for instance." I answered, eager to prove my point.

"Hah. Like what?" she asked, equally eager to disprove my point.

"Like fluids simulation...." as I went on a continuous rant of my knowledge to silence her while baffling the rest of the bystanders.

She was always this questioning, and some things never change.

We spoke of the future. With talk about career advancement, job prospects and (very scarily) marriage; roughly where were we all intending to be and what we hope to achieve in the next 1 or 2 years.

"Its just scary, to know all of you gals are getting married soon," I said.

"Why? What's wrong with people wanting to get married?" she replied.

"Well, for me, its like marriage is not even in the most remote recesses of my mind at the moment. There are so many other things I want to do. But I guess I understand, I mean for us guys, we still have quite a long ways to go; after all men are like wine, and we only get more refined with age. Well, for you gals, I guess most gals at 25 are already starting to realize that they are starting to go *ahem* over-the-hill, so its only natural that most gals at 25 already want to consider marriage," I explained dogmatically.

"My ass, man. Who the hell told you that?" she vehemently rebutted as she slammed down her beer mug. ""Men may be like wine, but women are like... like grass. We are evergreen."

She was always this argumentative, and some things never change.

Most importantly, we spoke of the past. And indeed, nostalgia ran thick as we collectively dabbled in our childhood memories. The catchphrase of the night had to be "Do you remember....", as we used this primer to recount the nitty-gritty details that littered our childhood days; from recounting the bad habits of the teachers that taught us, to our collective attempt in trying to recollect the faces and the personalities of the ex-classmates buried in the deep recesses of our memories.

We laughed about the acts of mischief we got ourselves into: pranks we played on the *ahem* less popular classmates (that were obviously not at the table), and even the rivalries and arguments between the few of us at the table. But the peak of the nostalgia had to be collectively piecing together our sitting arrangement back in Primary 5 for our entire column, filling in the blanks of the spaces in between us with the pieces scattered throughout our collective memory.

Indeed, Primary School was a memorable time; a simple and happy time, where we meant every sound of laughter and every tear we cried much more than we do now. We were far less political, with far lesser agendas, and far more sincerity. The only reason we clicked the way we did was simply because we wanted to; nothing more, nothing less. And while time and tide has pushed all of us in different directions in the Sea of Life, it is good to know that there are some bonds that at least thread on despite the turbulent torrents of Time.

As the clock struck 2, we were tired from laughing and consciously aware of our outstanding presence amidst the empty bar. We made our way out of the bar as she said her farewells; farewells that would at least last another year till she next returns to the island.

"Bye, Roder. It was nice seeing you." she said.

"Bye Jason, thanks for organizing this gathering. Take care of yourself," as she bid farewell to each individual.

Then it came to me.

"Bye, Jer. Stop being such an asshole."

Yep, indeed. Some things never change.

Oosh: Jinxes & Diamonds

29th October 2007

The deafening sound of the crushing metal rang through the air as we both sat upright in our seats. "Did I just hit the curb? Oh shit! Tell me that I didn't just hit the curb," she said, as I remained silent, partially in shock, partially in tactful denial.

But the denial could only last so long, as the nearby valet came over and knocked on the window, telling us, "Erm Ma'am, I think you didn't see the curb on your left, you have to reverse your car out of there first."

She did as she was told, reversing her car to the piercing sound of the metal being scratched as the car moved into a safe spot. We both alighted with bated breaths, mentally preparing ourselves to see the disaster, but our hearts only sank deeper (her's much more than mine) when we gazed upon the huge deformation on the back door and the deep scratches that spanned across two panels of the door. It was definitely more than enough damage to remove the brand new polish of her 2-day old Red Suzuki Swift.

"I'll kill you if they tell me that their fully booked, after all that has happened. It's all thanks to you and your stupid choice of wanting to come here," she said, as we were waiting to be seated. I remained silent. Fortunately, my life was to be spared a little longer, as the captain showed us the way to our seats, a little table under a tentage set up in the midst of the garden.

Lit by warm candlelight against the greenery of the garden, the ambience proved to be soothing and luxurious. Scanning around the vicinity, I caught love-birds and expats sitting out in the middle of the garden, portraying an image of a mid-summer's night dinner in the garden, one that we of the tropics do not fully relish.

"You know, I am surprised that you are more concerned with wondering how to hide this from your mum than the actual heartache of wrecking your 2-day old car," I said, in my typical brutal honesty.

"Well, I've been in worse accidents before, like some really bad ones. Wait, let me show you," she said, as she browsed through the photos in her phone to show me an even more worthy debacle.

Convinced, I said, "Well, then I am surprised that you are taking it somewhat optimistically. If I were you, I would be damn pissed and jittery, by now."

"Hey, says who, I damn feel like crying now, but I just don't want to spoil the rest of the night," she said, as her words rang with truth from the watery look in her eyes. She's always been a strong one, or perhaps just blindly optimistic. Whatever it is, for as long as I've known her, she's been a self-proclaimed escapist and has been more than able to dodge the pessimism in her path time after time.

The Seafood Sampler Appetizer arrived just in time to ease the weight of the moment. While measly in terms of portion, what was there was mouth-watering enough to warrant the monicker of "appetizer." The prawns were fresh and succulent, the salmon was suitably smoked and the tuna with avocado was surprisingly tantalizing to the tastebuds despite its overly-greenish appearance (by my standards).

Her phone rang again during the course of the appetizer, as I reached into my pocket to attempt to dig mine out for a routine check. But my pocket was unexpectedly empty as I started to look under my chair and table for my phone.

Seeing my frantic actions, she asked me what I was looking for. I told her that I probably had dropped my phone, and it could be in the car, or maybe not. She beckoned me to go back to the car to look for it, but I was reluctant; partially due to the distance from the carpark, and perhaps partially because there might be some form of silent comfort in company if she knew that she was not the only one who had something bad happening to her, despite the insurmountable difference. But being the selfless angel that she was, she convinced me to take a walk back to the car to at least find some peace of mind over dinner.

I returned relieved and to the scent of my main course aptly placed in front of my seat. Wasting no time, I sliced into the Beef Tenderlion to sample the wellness of the meat. Perfectly medium with a juicy finish. The brown sauce proved to be ample and provided much-needed flavour to the staple taste of mashed potatoes. Her Lamb Shank was well-prepared as well, with the meat tenderly roasted with a pink centre. But beef beats lamb any day for the Vampiric tongue though.

"It's just me, right?" she asked over dinner "I mean, its just my bad driving thing, right? And not like I'm cursed or something, right?"

"Uh, would you actually prefer it to be that way?" I questioned her question.

"Yeah, I would rather it be something that I can control, than something I can't," she said.

"Yeah, don't worry, it's just you." I assured her.

"Then again, it may be this whole thing about us knowing each other for 7 years now, and it might just be some 7-year curse thing that is causing us to jinx each other," I said cheekily, as she looked on unamused.

Jinxes

After dining, we took a stroll around the place to check out the decor of the surroundings. Oosh essentially consist of a luxurious open-mansion portion, complete with an overhanging balcony and a little pool / fountain, and also a lavish garden with a rather elaborate pond to top it off. While most of the areas were mostly are for drinks, they were somewhat segmented into different classes based on the crowd. While the mansion looked to hold expats and executives with long glasses socializing, the balcony and garden areas served more intimate purposes, with friends sitting in sofa clusters or under little wooden pavilions in the midst of the garden. With such an ambience, it is little wonder why Oosh is the one of the forerunners of the revival of the Dempsey Road district.

Post-dinner, a little drive took us to a cosy Ben & Jerry's further into Dempsey Hill for a much-needed sugar-rush after the entire debacle. Wooden cottage-like decor finished with an almost authentic fireplace, this branch of Ben & Jerry's proved to be the most appealing yet, for just whiling one's time away on ice cream. Perhaps its a treat to compensate for the inaccessibility of its location, or a reward kept to the those privileged enough to be able to find wheels into the depths of Dempsey Hill.

An excellent live-duo sang the songs that both she and I were familiar with, classic rock ballads that we both shared a love for. "You know, as much as I think she is a damn good singer, I think they're a little too young, and somehow lack the soul for these kinda songs."

She was right, they lacked the soul alright, probably lacked the jaded-soul that she and I had to fully appreciate the meaning behind the lyrics. A better half of my bitter soul was cultivated in the last 7 years of my life, in her constant presence. Peiwen and I have somehow managed to share a non-committal yet always dependable "special" friendship that has endured the changes that both of our characters' have undergone over the last 7 years.

If all the people close to One touches one's Soul in one way or another, then Peiwen has been playing the part of my CONSCIENCE, always patient, mostly moralistic,but never judgmental, Peiwen more than makes up for this vacuum in my dark soul.

Genuine Smiles by the End of the Night

On the ride home, I asked, "You know, of the 5 closest friends in my life, 4 of them are female. So that makes 4 Queens and 1 Jack. Now then, if you had a choice, which Queen would you be?"

"Well, I'll go with the Queen of Diamonds," she replied.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Hearts can be broken, but Diamonds are Forever. Haha." She replied wittily.

Forever indeed.

Eski Bar: Frozen Assets

31st August 2007

"So, who's the boss here?" asked the waitress dressed in a thick winter coat.

"He is..." Fabian said, pointing to me, "it's his pay-day."

Indeed it was pay-day, and my very first one at that, at least since I had ascended into the working class. And in classical fashion, there was probably no better way to seal the significance of the moment in time with a couple of drinks alongside some great company. The Clubbing 8 (with 1 substitute) were out on a full-force encore as we buried our heads into the menus, deciding on the choices before us.

I looked up to absorb the surrounding ambiance, scanning the interior of the pub, with my eyes already accustomed to the overall blueish hue accentuated only with warm yellow candle light. The overall ambiance accurately conveyed the literal, tongue-in-cheek "Chill Out" theme of the bar. A few years late from the initial hoo-ha perhaps, but after countless impressions formed from local dramas and pictures, I finally found a reason to check out the flagship branch of the rather renowned Eski Bar.

The interior of the bar was a little smaller than I expected it to be, and the infamous "Cold Room" was disappointingly only a very minute portion of the bar - housing only a couple of 2-seater tables - while the rest of the bar was "conventionally" air-conditioned, greatly rendering my Rock Star jacket rather unnecessary.

While waiting for the drinks to arrive, we dabbled in a little time waster. 8 middle / index-fingers firmly pressed on a coaster in the center of the table, as each of the fingers exerted all the force it could muster to attempt to pull the coaster towards their respective directions. A scene out of the rather pointless party game Demolition, but as with all party games, the laughter it brought about was more important than the game itself. After minutes of not being able to move the coaster anywhere due to the table surface, we gave up weary with laughter.

Group Photo

Our selection of mostly signature drinks arrived promptly, as we savoured the unique concoctions of the bar. Mine was an Eski Blue, a fitting signature drink that was more for the ladies perhaps (but then again, I'm quite the ladies' drink fan). Rather fruity, and sour, with a tinge of sweetness brought about by the Lychee Liquer. The drink further reinforced my mantra that anything with Lychee Liquer can never go wrong, and left me high and dry for another drink as I went with the more experimental Arctic White for my second round.

Blue never looked so Appetizing

Milky white with soft, jelly-like pearls littered on the surface of the drink, the Arctic White was as *ahem* milky as I had anticipated, with a slight burning tinge of alcohol to top it off. The table was filled with other rather interesting drinks as well, as the rest of the 8 were decidedly experimental in their choices, ordering drinks such as a Chocolate Martini (which wasn't half-bad) and a weird alcoholic Margarita chocolate-float of some-kind that was actually quite good.

Milk and Honey

With our glasses half-full, the entourage turned to me to come up with one of my trademark games to keep them (and myself) entertained. Looking around, I only saw straws and drinks and with a flash of sudden inspiration, I laid down the rules.

"We play guess the number. Everyone puts 1 hand out and can only do 5 or 0, so you can guess anything between 0 to 40. And if you guess correctly, you get to choose to sabotage the person on your left OR right. And the chosen person has to bite a straw, and pass it using mouth only to the next chosen person. Of course, with each pass, you have to bite deeper into the straw, and it ends when the last 2 people kiss... Simple, right?" I said with a cheeky smirk.

"Man, only Jeremy will think of these kinda games," Jeffery lamented, as I saw a sense of agreement light up in the rest of their stunned faces. Yet, somewhat mysteriously and perhaps almost subconsciously, they all stretched out their hands in anticipation of starting the game.

Yep, I was the boss, alright.

.... The Flow of Assets is Ephemeral, But Memories stay Frozen in Time

181920

26th August 2007

"19. Can you believe it, that we've known each other for 19 years already?" I exclaimed in semi-disbelief as I cut into my New York Fish & Chips. Dinner was spent mostly catching up about our current lives; what we've been busying ourselves with and our current standings in our respective lives. "So what're you doing now?", "How is it?" were the common questions that littered the conversation over dinner.

The real nostalgia set in after we settled into the sofas of the nearby Starbucks; perhaps there is something in the coffee that breaches pleasantries and fosters friendships. We spoke of the common people that we knew, the last we heard of them, who was (scarily) getting married, how so-and-so was doing. We spoke of the memories we shared back in the day; the academic achievements that made us famous, and the strange incidents of mischief that made us infamous: me poking a girl... with a pencil, Zhiwei mining twisted-staples on a certain Honkie-bastard's chair, Jason being a crybaby and always threatening to "tell [his] mother" and Bernard seducing his way to the top in Primary 5 (ok, maybe that is not ENTIRELY true, but we did suspect that he was seeded for his head-prefect shit).

We joked and we taunted each other like old times; key pillars on which we built our friendship upon. Perhaps this was the essence of male-bonding, a stark contrast to the superficial "you go, girl" in so many female friendships. Our verbal exchanges these days matured with us, as the use of more sophisticated linguistic tools like sarcasm and innuendo were deceptively buried in our words; compared to the blatant name-calling we used to dabble in during our younger days. To date, an estimated 3-million taunts have probably been exchanged between the few of us, half of which probably came from me alone. But I knew that it didn't matter, these guys probably wouldn't take ANYTHING I said to heart, after all, these are the people who have seen the Dark Metamorphisis of my Soul, and can probably see beyond all that shit into the core of the person they've always known me to be.

"I really wonder why we used to give in to you during primary school, why did we always let you have the best?" Bernard challenged.

"Probably cause I've always had a stronger opinion than any of you," I replied cockily.

"I think its because we just thought 'fuck it,' no point arguing with you, since either way, you would insist until you got your way." Jason added, with Zhiwei nodding resounding in support of the rebuttal. Yes, perhaps that was and still is true today, but it probably didn't matter even if I was really the worst person in the world, these guys would probably be the last to rain their judgement down upon me, and laugh it off in semi-expectancy.

Perhaps this is the essence of true friendship, a timeless connection that doesn't require periodic maintenance; yet for the rare occasions when the moon turns blue and a meet-up is in order, you feel like no time was ever lost between any of you. They have been friends for most of my lifetime; and I have a feeling that they'll be friends for the rest of my life as well.


As the lights dimmed and we made our way out of the glass door, I thought about us; where we all began and where we were all going. It's funny how we all started at the same starting point, yet now, we are all heading in drastically different directions.

Bernard has continued down the path of academic achievement, going on to become a bloody scholar to top Imperial and leading the cosmopolitan life in Tokyo. Jason has chosen to dedicate most of his life in pursuing a passion, a sport which defines and fuels him. Zhiwei has chosen to take the familial path with the goal of becoming a family man in the next couple of years. And Roder (sorely absent from this meeting) has chosen to put career as a priority and concentrate on scaling the heights of the corporate ladder.

Me? A chose a different path, the path of pursuing a passion and realizing a childhood dream. Perhaps I am the only one that has refused to grow up all this time, perhaps I am the only one that is still chasing ideals while the rest have learned to settle in with reality instead. Still, if we all started out as blank canvases, then I couldn't help but wonder that perhaps I could be one of them today, anyone of them; if the Art of Life had so painted me out to be that way. To each his own indeed, yet regardless of how different our individual roads took and will take us, I am certain that we would always find a way, a place and a time for our lives to converge.

Here's to 19... going on 20.

Never have the Heroes of Light looked so Dicky