Back in Singapore after a memorable first year

being back in Singapore has been a weird experience because it doesnt feel like i am home in the sense that there isnt the warmth of community that i get back in Warwick. in Warwick i have a closer knit community of friends and we are always doing fun things as groups or being all homey to make ourselves feel comfortable in the new environment. in the short span of 9 months, i have made friends with such an amazing group of people, some of whom will not be there when i return in september.

so thanks to jen and eliza who have been such great support to me in prayer and advice in my walk with Him and in life... thanks to wei and ana for amazingly fun times of just letting go and enjoying life... and thanks to yan for the few car rides! thanks to weiliang for being the funny guy to bully (and for being the first during orientation to make me feel less lost)... thanks to jierong for the chilled out conversations we used to have after church... thanks to mark alexander for all the laughs over lunch every sunday (esp when teamed up with josh to bully ben)... thanks to jean foo for the antics and the cheesy grins... thanks to deqi for being the senior that hung out with us lowly first years in the first term... thanks to edwin siow (and weiwen...) for the funny conversations and that wicked chicken rice... thanks to adeline koh and tricia for all the great times and the banter...

and thanks to anyone else i might have forgotten...

the day i returned my keys for Whitefields 17K, i bid a teary goodbye to the room in which i have had so many experiences... tears, laughs, pain, joy, all-nighters, sleepless nights from my drunk housemates coming home, memorable meals, just looking out of the window and watching the seasons pass... it really was my home for the past 9 months... it felt sad saying goodbye to the house knowing we were not going to ever come back and live in it again, that the people we said goodbye to on leaving the house would never be my housemates (all at once) again.

Warwick has been an amazing place and truly i have learnt so much and grown up in that place. perhaps i have become more liberated, more cynical, more emotional, more fun-loving, more of a person who likes solitude, who likes company, more of a watcher, more of a participant...

over the last year i have loved and lost, and loved again... an emotional rollercoaster... it has been an exhilerating yet exhausting year but i wouldnt trade it for anything.

i am physically back in Singapore but missing Warwick...

thanks ivy for getting me out of the house today... it feels nice to be welcomed back...