End of the Line

I must have did something wrong in my past life, to go through this tumultuous mess right now, probably allowed a basket of kittens to be run over by a ten-wheeler or something. It could also be merely circumstantial - things are happening the way they are due to the accumulation of a myriad of different factors encompassing a whole spectrum of situational conditions and environmental concerns. Regardless, the matter is evident at this point in time, and like a pus-filled tumor, might just explode at the slightest prod, saturating the area with its toxic fallout.

As a general rule, we are all victims of circumstance. Who can proudly say that he/she is who he/she is because he/she wanted it? None, because everyone is moulded by their own individualistic experiences, the building blocks of your character, your personality - what makes you who you are. Like people, happenings in life go through this process, nothing is smooth sailing, rarely will things follow a straight line.

I was naive to think that it will.

As the negatives continue to pile up with no slight, even remote, positive in sight, my thread is wearing thin. Our publics - both internal and external - are getting angsty and upset, and for good reason. Honestly speaking, we expanded too much too fast, didn't calculate the logistical concerns for such a massive undertaking. We also overlooked an important factor: the functional publics.

Even if we're doing this activity out of our passion for the sport, that passion will burn out, even if you are a ultra-enthusiastic, all hyped-up practitioner. Running chaotic civil wars week after week tend to grind away at your passion, patience, and then your temper, and doing so WITHOUT any form of visible return just accelerates the inevitable process. Underlying issues now find themselves floating to the top of the agenda, and eventualities predicted have begun to manifest themselves. On top of all those, the parent organisation just switched hands, effectively ending the relatively hassle-free venue system we previously enjoyed.

It is not that I don't want to do anything, it is just that there is simply nothing that can be done at this point in time. The primary, crucial concerns have been highlighted to the higher-ups many, many times, but there is little they too can do. If the main organisation's goal is profit-oriented, logically speaking, the activities going down the flowchart would be revenue-based as well, which is the case right now. All of the ideas being thrown around right now to resolve this issue sound good, practical, but is the result worth it?

Sadly, it probably is. We are still too young to be less selfish.

I will hang back and let you guys settle this mess the way you want to, observing the process, anticipating the outcome. If you guys manage to calm the storm, good for you, all of us can continue with the new status quo. If nothing is changed even by your hands, I will do something, provided my motivation is still intact.

My thread is at its end, and there is no spool to reel it in.

I am really spent.

Maybe its time to head back into my own little bubble, where everything is perfect.

What a wish.

Rebuilding

Feelings come and go, just like friends who appear and fade away like so many grains of sand plastered over the beach, few substantial, some significant, but mostly fleeting. It is rather troubling to note that I go through this same thought process many times a year, and though some last for mere days, most drag on for months on end, sowing emo-seeds of self-contemplation into the arable neural farmland of my cranium.

Without much tender care or high-tech agricultural machinery, these seemingly-insignificant seeds will waste no time into blossoming to towering canopies of sunlight-blockading evergreen structures of despair. They constantly grow, evolving into newer, more dangerous strains as time goes by, furthering barricading the once-healthy farmland from the rest of the world, sapping the nutrients from the once-fertile soil while leaving nothing behind.

Alas, all it takes is for the farmer himself to raise his double-barrel, point it towards the heavens, and pull the trigger. As the buckshot soars towards the suffocating cover of darkness with relentless determination, the farmer knows that he can begin cultivating his more profitable cash crops soon, once the darkening canopy is destroyed.

In an instant, the rounds breach the desecrating trees, eradicating one structure, with the others falling away soon after, leaving but a single pod behind, ready to burst open at a moment's notice should the opportunity arise. This particular pod remains hidden from view, concealed from prying eyes, immune to even the most advanced scrying techniques, awaiting the best moment to shroud the entire world in darkness once again.

For now, all is sunny, all is well.

At long last, everyone can now breathe a collective sigh of relief.

It took a while, and the battle was tough, but the armistice has been signed once again.

The Rebuilding is complete.

Power Overwhelming

I now have an idea of how it feels like to be overwhelmed, to be overworked, to be overclocked beyond your advertised specifications. So many things are on my mind right now: work, the PR assignment, the PR exam, the first contract for our cosplaying services (if it goes through), tomorrow's Tactical Mob lesson (with its own mind-map of considerations), Saturday's birthday hosting (again, with its own web of intricacies), the massive BBQ gathering occurring on the same day, as well as the exact tactics which I would use in line with an always-altering strategy to achieve one long-overdue objective. Even typing those out took some time. Sheesh.

Anyway, SOF: Blasters is well on its way to establishing it own identity and image, with a website, ratecard and/or brochure in the works. Although still in its infancy, it is nonetheless priceless motivation for the people working for it, shedding sweat and blood, toiling through soil and mud. Just yesterday, I was about spent with everything related to this alleged-hogging of my spare time, but Edward's little proposal got my business gears running and restored a significant percentage of my motivation, even if it is for the time being. We'll see how long this will last.

In other news, it's been some time, but her visage still fleets through my mind everyday, although in decreasing frequency and intensity. Nonetheless, the phantom still exists, and remains a poignant force in my locus of control. I felt my lip muscles arch into a slight smile when I received her acknowledgement to a global message I sent, felt my pulse race a little, felt my heartrate increase. The canvas is still blank though, nothing has been written or doodled on it since the day I decided to leave it empty, since everything reverted to square one.

Awash with purity and laminated in innocence, the canvas remains oblivious to the movement around it, most of them without a shred of relation to the object, but some of them wrought with clandestine intentions. Nevertheless, the canvas still portrays its whitest side to anyone who would see, keeping the less-appealing wooden frame hidden from the rest of the world. However, all it takes is just one stroke of the paintbrush, and everything will change forever.

Should I lift up my slender brush, dip the head into my palette of unusual colors, and skillfully paint a maverick picture of chaos, anarchy and seclusion; or should I fold my arms, tip my feathered hat down ever so slightly and stare at the still-blank canvas with longing, hazy eyes?

Decisions, decisions.

In any case, she has to know through one way or another, that she appears in the mind of another living, breathing, thinking human being every single day.

18.

Approaches to Life

Advertising is over: exam, post-assignment, the works. That module is now in the history books, and even if I didn't have a clue to what body cathexis was, it doesn't matter.

Let sleeping dogs lie and snoozing cats stretch.

Besides, I still have PR to contend with. No time to mope over gulped milk, and even more pointless to compare and contrast our answers with that of the notes or each other. Focus on the more important tasks people, most of you have yet to start on your PR post-assignment, and we don't have much time left. Keep at it folks~

Just this afternoon, I suddenly realised something about myself I had overlooked all this while. The way I do things, the manner I tackle problems - it is very similar to how I approach a particular type of assignment that I relatively enjoy doing: the research paper.

Whenever I'm tasked to submit a research paper on a given topic, the first thing I would do is to head to the library and look for hard-copy sources. Even if the assignment requirement dictates three sources as adequate, I usually go for ten from a variety of media before I call it a day - better to have more information than to have insufficient data when you get down to writing the paper. Next, it's time to hit Google, and with a simple search with the base keywords, I work my way to upwards of another ten sources, refining the keywords and selecting only the articles of the highest academic integrity or journalistic credibility. Only then will I start a new Word document to do some generic format setting and then proceed to process all of my sources.

Processing is a whole new ball game altogether, and the hard-copy sources will take the most time and effort. Merely reading, highlighting, re-reading, removing and re-highlighting journal articles can take an entire day, and the usable material - which isn't much most of the time - is transcribed to the Word document, for consideration of use. Its source is also properly credited and stored away for the inevitable Works Cited page to be born at the end of the paper.

Once all sources have been read through and information extracted from them, the paper can now be written. Typically, I would sit myself down (sometimes forcefully) and will myself to start writing the paper. Most of the time, the first paragraph I create will only exist for a few minutes, after which its existence is reversed by the Backspace. To me, the most difficult part of a research paper is the start, but once that's out of the way, the rest of the paper will flow like a broken dam, or an unblocked toilet if you're more of the lavatorial persuasion. I make it a point to finish the first draft of the paper in one sitting, no matter how long it takes, but it usually requires a good three to six hours of discipline and mental fortitude to complete the first manuscript. Once that is done, I back the document up online, emailing it to three separate email addresses, one created expressly for the purpose of storing backups and backups of backups. I would also save a copy of the paper onto my Berry, for mobile review and also to serve as another channel of backup. If the assignment is important enough, its essence will also be shared across a thumbdrive and two portable HDDs. Even if the world ended the next day, my paper would be safe.

After a day, I return to the first draft and start to edit the whole thing: whole sections are removed or rewritten, words are changed, sentences are restructured, grammar gets Nazified and vocabulary finds new meaning in its boring life. I have a bad habit though - whenever I ought to cut down on the word count, I end up adding even more words to the original number, and it takes so much effort just to destroy one whole paragraph, or to squeeze all those words into a single page. It's worse than using Occam's Razor on Schrodinger's Cat. Maybe.

After the torture to cut down on the words and to be that bit more concise, the paper is printed out and read through. With a colored pen in hand, my eyes scan the physical copy for errors which managed to evade my radar the first time round. As expected, multiple blemishes appear as I roam the pages, and mistakes are forcefully crossed out and corrected in pink ink as I mutter under my breath for this gross negligence of vigilance.

Anyhow, the paper finally gets edited to my satisfaction and it is now time for the most exciting period in the research paper writing process: formatting! That particular margin must be of the default setting, font size must be exactly 12, font type must be Calibri if its for a school assignment - Times New Roman for all others -and page numbers must be present. A cover page is also fabricated from nothingness and smacked on top of the first page of the paper, with all personal particulars present, clear and in bold. The Works Cited page must be properly formatted as well to MLA/APA standards, with each second and subsequent line indented once from the original margin, and all entries must be sorted in alphanumeric order. When that's done, the research paper is officially finished.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I approach life's problems.

All the world's a research paper, all the men and women merely sources, helping me to answer life's enduring research question.

As I pondered this revelation, I realised it made perfect sense. How many times have I seen myself constantly finding out about something just to make sure things are the way they appear to be? I think things through, through and through, and seek a variety of informational avenues just to confirm or refute a point. For the minor issues, a single source would suffice, but for the more complex algorithms (like the one plaguing me right now), a whole plethora of opinions across the whole spectrum of sources is needed. I have to admit, that is so damn true. I talked to a whole bunch of people about this issue, all of them unique, all of them special in their own way, but united by the fact that they are the ones who gave me information related to this personal matter. I couldn't believe it at first, but as the idea floated about in my head like a ghost, I accepted it as part of my character.

Insights however, like to happen in pairs.

A friend told me this afternoon that he noticed I was always rushing around, be it within a work-related environment, a school zone or even when at leisure. He said that I seemed to always be in a rush to complete things, which results in turning in work quickly (but with quality), studying for tests early and generally just completing tasks way before time. Dad also concurred with this friend's analysis over dinner earlier, stating that I do things fast, even when I'm eating. I start eating quickly, then end off quickly as well, while the rest of the family is roughly midway through the meal. Well, people have said I inhale my food, so I guess the speed-eating thing is not an isolated observation. I admit that facet of myself and wholly embrace it, eating quickly means freeing up one chore for the day.

But coming back to the issue of my apparent rush, I guess it is due to how I was brought up. I was trained to do things quickly and accurately, with longer break times between tasks if the first one was completed swiftly. I reckon Palov had a part to play with this sort of learning, and till now I still cannot bring myself to do something slowly - it is just not a part of me. Believe me, I have tried to slow down or delay doing something which is usually completed with speed, but I felt immensely uncomfortable and chock full of self-guilt that I abandoned the notion altogether. It is this trait that creates me, and it is in me that I must trust.

Well, this is a pretty inspiring and self-insightful post, looks like you really do learn something new everyday.

Let's hope I get the answer to this part of the lifelong research question soon.

Enjoy this rare, not-that-emo post guys, and remember to feed the fish! :)

Sweepstakes

Even now as I pour over my books, notes and notes of notes to cram in some last-minute information for tomorrow's assay, I'm preoccupied with other thoughts - some positive, a portion negative but mostly neutral and random. Sometimes I wish I had a more generic "guy's" brain: no long drawn-out thinking process, no calculation of every possible outcome along with their specific countermeasures as well as the absence of the tendency to pre-empt anything and everything. Nevertheless, some higher power has blessed me with this model of grey matter, so I've got to use it the best I can. Besides, what other choice have I got?

We should be cognizant about what is realistic, specific and measurable, in order not to step into patches of quicksand that are remorse and regret. It is alright to dream, dreams are what give you drive during your waking hours, no matter the acceleration and direction of that drive. It is however, pertinent to recognize that the importance of snapping out of a dream and dropping back into cruel reality. It won't do you any good to stay in a permanent dream, as good dreams are wont to do. The occasional daydream of the "what-ifs" are great, only if you remember to withdraw from it at the end and return yourself to the "now". It is a difficult task, yet it can be surmounted with practice, and a whole lot of discipline.

On the same note, I noticed that a lot of people around me always muse about the "what-ifs" of a given situation. They go on about if they had put in that little more effort into their project, they would have gotten a better grade, if they had woken up a little earlier they wouldn't have been late, etc. Strangely, most - if not all - of the "what-ifs" I've heard recently are always accompanied by a "little" within the same sentence. For example:

"If I had been a little more careful, I wouldn't have made that careless mistake on the exam. Damn it."

Hindsight is always better than foresight, no matter the circumstances. Plan as you may, account for errors if you must, things will still manage to go wrong. That is just the brand of irony this universe so favours. How many times have you seen cars breaking down on the most crucial of days, how many printers inexplicably failing before a major deadline or better yet, the absence of a taxicab when you desperately need one? I've been on the receiving end of that too many times, seeing the comprehensive planning disintegrate before my eyes because of a freak incident or an event which evaded my predictive radar. Now, I still plan a lot, but allow room for these "eventualities", as I feel that if you prepare for their existence, you are prepared for them even if you cannot have prepared for them. :D

So to the people around me fretting or fussing over their own planning/coordinating commitments, take a step back, observe the situation, take in the current process and allow yourself space to breathe. Even if things do go awry, at least your highly detailed and comprehensive plan will be able to project a professional image to whichever audience you're targeting, even if a war is raging backstage.

It could be time, or it could be the happenings in my life, but the feeling is dissipating, albeit at the pace of a snail drenched in peanut butter circumnavigating a spherical minefield dispersed in a beta pattern. Despite that, deep down, I still wish for her to drop me a message, to wish me good luck for my paper tomorrow.

What wishful thinking, she probably forgot all about it.

In the sweepstakes of life, my coupon has yet to be drawn.

Feed the fish kids. :)

The Red Pill or the Blue Pill

Today's lesson went unexpectedly well, with a very-organised and relatively-disciplined Kids Group and a cooperative Adults Group. Looks like segmentation worked, spilting the entire swarm up into two general categories allowed our limited manpower and equipment to be utilized to the fullest.

Still, as per Murphy's Law, things managed to happen. A kid ran into a pillar while being chased by seven others, and parents complained that their kids were not getting enough playtime. Accidents happen, and we can't be responsible if your kid slips on a piece of tissue paper and breaks his fragile head. All necessary and general precautions have been addressed, and if fate decreed that your kid smash his head into this pillar, it would take nothing short of the finger of God to cushion the impact. Thankfully, the child's parent laughed it off as a play-related mishap and not one of malicious intent.

As for the insufficient playtime, we have way too many kids to cater to, and in order for them to experience a big game with multiple players, we had to cut short their smaller, more cohesive team-based games. The kids didn't seem to mind, but the parents - ever vultures - noticed that their children were not getting the same treatment as the rest, and they paid the same price. Singaporean kiasuism even permeates something as unconventional as Nerf. After some explanation, the parents just wanted their kids to have fun and play, and was only asking for the rationale behind the shortened game time. There you have it, we have too many registered participants.

As a whole, today went extremely well, and I wish for this to continue, even if I'm running out of steam, motivation and encouragement. I'll live.

I read through my previous blog posts earlier today, and realised that the style of writing hasn't really changed. Yes, it is still flamboyant at times, but as compared to the posts of say 2006, I have toned down a lot. No longer do I use six different descriptives in the same sentence, and nowadays I hardly use vocabulary unrecognizable from Greek. One thing remains constant however, and is coincidentally the blog's primary driving force: emo posts.

Writing emo posts is just a way for me to vent frustration and unhappiness, like how some people punch the walls to relieve their anger, or how others shout out to the sea to eradicate their pent-up sorrow and stress. Instead of bottling it all up, which is bad according to certain prominent people around me, I pen those emotionally-charged thoughts and feelings down into this little weblog, one for further review, two for keeping record and three for others to have a glimpse of what goes through my cranium. So instead of asking me to stop writing emo stuff, try to encourage me to pour my heart out, as the more I write, the better I will feel in reality - it is just how I function. :)

As I scrolled through post after post, I found out that I write in very different lights under different circumstances. The post can be extremely flattering for the person mentioned, but the same person can also be written about in an utterly depreciating manner in a later post. I frighten myself sometimes.

Observation: we tend to want to confide in someone close to our heart whenever we're stricken with a crisis, hazard or threat, and want to let the other person know about the entire situation, even if she cannot do a thing about it, or doesn't understand the context at all. This manifested earlier, when those PR disasters emerged from the deep. I wanted to text you, to tell you how frustrated I was, how annoying those parents were, just to elicit a reply, even if it was something as shallow or simple as "Haha". My Berry actually came out of its holster, my left thumb scrolled to the appropriate screen, and with bated breath the other fingers were poised to commence the construction of a text message.

I stayed my hand.

For too long, the process has been lopsided. For too long, everything only happens from my end. For too long, I have pointlessly waited for the change which never came. You said plenty of stuff, but rarely did you carry those words through, leaving me to pine, to hope, to rot.

One message, or one call.

That's all that I ask for.

It will be an indication which speaks volumes, from which I will know when to release my grip.

When to give it all up.

When to let it all go.

So, if you're reading this, just send me one message, and from its content I will judge if I will carry on with hope or to let everything go with sorrowful despair.

Feed the fish kids. :)

Wedding Dress (Spartan's Version)

As most of you might know, I'm a great fan of this gem of a K-Pop song, and as such I've written my own version of it in the spirit and direction of the original. Credit goes to Taeyang for producing and performing such a wonderful masterpiece of aural perfection.

Yes, it is written for someone in mind. Enjoy~

***

Some say it’s not over till it’s over.

I guess it’s really over now.

I got something I gotta say before I let you go,

So, listen.

Every time I think about it,

Every time I would cry.

When I remember all the good times that we had.

I only want to make your wildest dreams come true.

That is the only thing that will make me complete.

I’m afraid that you might start to treat me differently,

When you know that the feelings I have for you are indeed clandestine.

I hold back my tears,

My heart shattered to pieces.

I pray that you would just look at me.

Baby, give me a chance to show that I love you.

Cuz you should be my lady

All that matters is your sweet embrace.

When the music ends, you will start to walk out from my life forever.

My heart is screaming out so don’t go

Stay with me and let us grow old.

Let me see you in your wedding dress, dress, dress

Oh see you in your wedding dress (with me right next to you)

Let me see you in your wedding dress

Oh no.

I didn’t have the courage to tell you

Nor did I ever try.

You really ignored all the small things that I did.

I really should have just told, told, told you so.

But right now everything is just impossible.

All this time while you were sitting right there by my side,

All I could do was only to show you my other side.

I guess it’s too late,

Nothing more will change.

I just hope that you will keep on smiling.

Baby, give me a chance to show that I love you

Cuz you should be my lady

All that matters is your sweet embrace.

When the music ends, you will start to walk out from my life forever.

My heart is screaming out so don’t go

Stay with me and let us grow old.

Let me see you in your wedding dress, dress, dress

Oh see you in your wedding dress (with me right next to you)

Let me see you in your wedding dress

Oh no.

Baby girl you can forget,

All the memories that we shared.

But please don’t completely erase me out of your heart

I know that it’s difficult and unfair to you since you did no wrong but, no~

When the music ends, you will start to walk out from my life forever.

My heart is screaming out so please don’t go

And stay with me till we grow old.

Let me see you in your wedding dress, dress, dress

Oh see you in your wedding dress (with me right next to you)

Let me see you in your wedding dress

Oh no.

***

Up, up here we go...

A lazy scorpion crisscrossed across the scorching desert sand, its spiny arachnid legs creating interweaving lines across the strangely smooth sheet of grainy particles, drawing a fleeting pattern lasting only an instant, quickly erased back to nothingness by the unforgiving wind. A human figure lay face down in the brownish grime, unmoving, unyielding, yet very much alive. With a painful groan and a forceful heave, the human raised himself from the sheetlike particles, head hung low, eyes shut. He exhaled explosively, clumps of sand mixed with saliva erupting from his gagging maw. A while later, all is calm, and the human slowly stands on his battered feet, a little wobbly at first, but managing to execute a perfect stance once his muscles regained their lifelong memories.

The human looks up: an endless clear blue sky, however marred by the dark, orange-tinged plume of thick black smoke streaking across the otherwise tranquil stratosphere. His eyes begin to track the atmospheric anomaly, making contact with a huge, burning object at the end of the smoky trail.

A starship.

In an instant, the damaged hulk made landfall, impacting into the ground several miles from where the human stood, throwing up plumes of dune sand a hundred feet high and fifty across, while simultaneously transforming into a massive fireball of tremendous heat and fiery death. Debris rained down around the doomed ship, dotting the tragic landscape with millions of sometimes-microscopic shrapnel falling at two times the speed of sound. For the creatures inhabiting that particular piece of real estate that day, the Rapture never seemed so real.

The human watched in awe, shock, and despair. He knew where that ship had come from, knew its purpose, knew its crew. At this moment however, he knew that he was lucky to be alive -probably saved an orphanage of kittens in his past life to deserve such a fortunate fate. As the flames onboard the wrecked starship started to fade, the human turned around and prepared to leave.

He paused.

A single tear dropped from each haggard eye, traversed the distance between optic and ground, and seeped deep into the shifting desert sand, never to surface, never to be found again. Steeling himself, the human lifted his head up high, teary eyes ablaze with confidence and passion, ready to face the challenges ahead. In the distance, he could barely make out the looming hulk of a Leviathan-class battlecruiser, his ride off this accursed desert, and also his only ticket off this god-forsaken land which held many terrible, painful memories.

All things must end, and new ones must begin.

The human turned to take one final look at the now smoldering carcass of the fallen vessel, a mere shadow of its former, glorious self. No matter, the new one would be better. The human turned towards the Leviathan, and began the long journey towards the magnificent starship, and ultimately, towards the stars.

Up, up here we go, where we will stop, nobody knows.

***

Feed the fish. :)

Time is Life's Panadol

I'm sure I've said this plenty of times before - to friends around me, to family members and also to myself - that time will heal all wounds, that nature will run its course and that the universe will continue expanding, or somewhere along those lines.

The gist of it however, is that no matter how damaging something might have been to you, after a sufficient period of time, it will fade into your consciousness. Mind you, it's still present, just that it is now concealed under days and weeks and months of other events. Bad experiences are like scars: they remain with you forever, but can be hidden from view. So by that theory, given a long enough length of time, even the most devastating episodes can be tucked away into a lonely, dark corner of your psyche.

I think not.

Even if time manages to push these negativities to some other unused areas of the brain, buried under layers of good memories and distractions, bits and pieces of the bad stuff will still manage to seep through. Every now and then, an "attack" will occur, plunging the brain into a state of emotional alarm, as if it is back during those dark days it worked so hard to suppress. Bodily functions are affected, as are emotional interactions, and such behavior can last for days on end, giving others the impression that you are "emo". Indeed, when such assaults assail the mind on top of your other commitments, the stress can get too much, and it shows on your physical, fragile, frame.

Such is the cruelty of Life.

I now know with a 95% confidence level that you do not feel the same way, despite all the fruitless hope and pointless contemplation. The Predictor had painted this picture, but I did not want to accept it as the gospel. No matter, the Prediction has come to pass, and I am thus forced to bear the ramifications of my strategic inaction.

The time has come, for Time to do its miserable work.

Again.

Feed the fishes guys. :)

The Prophecy of Regret

It is times like this that make me question the wisdom of my actions, to contemplate that path not taken, to look back and think:"Hmm, I probably shouldn't have done that". Life is simply too short to have regrets, but even if a structural framework is in place, gaps will still exist.

Even now, the yearning, the pining, the hoping is ceaseless, although the severity has lessened somewhat. The threshold was crossed, but nothing was changed. Perhaps it is time for more overt measures, enough of the subterfuge.

One way or another, you have to know.

Time to do some revision for next week, feed the fish kids. :)

Befuddled Emotions, Frazzled Feelings

Our very first Nerf Blaster "lesson" just ended, and all I can say is, it was absolute chaos. Try as we might, there were just too many people for us to handle, and their myriad of age ranges just compounded the problem, not factoring in the typical "kiasu" and "understandably upset" parental figures. No matter, we'll probably do better next week, after segregating the two main age groups into their own warzones.

The following portion is dedicated to my lovable colleagues who made the past five months more bearable with their quirks and antics, so pardon me if you (my other readers) cannot find links to the references I use. Without further ado, here goes.

A tsunami of emotion crashed into every fiber of my being as I walked into the office today, almost the same feeling that came over me as I walked out the back door of CS CDC about ten months ago.

The Cat and Tig weren't there at their usual places when I walked in, always ready to greet me with a drowsy "Morning~"

I reluctantly moved my personal belongings over as the minutes ticked off, passing the time when Pancake would walk in with her headphones and wave me a greeting, and then past the period where Cucumber and No. 1 GDGD would lazily trudge into the Medical Park and aggravate the Cat and Tig, resulting in some early morning laughter.

The Coin and the Running Nazi would then appear, and float past the Gloomy Room's door as they entered their own room. Mr. Soh would then stomp in behind them, earphones in and with a lethargic expression on his face. At 8.30AM, the Bigbang Fan would trot in cheerfully, and as I moved the last pen over, I looked at the Gloomy Room.

Empty.

At this time, Miss Sleuth would stomp into the Room, nod me a greeting with music blasting out of her headphones. The Tengster would come in a while later with the Claud, arguing with each other over some random matter or just gossiping about something or other. The Salty Couple would then make a grand entrance, and HX would switch on the fan and stand in front of it as though she's filming a music video, while the guy retreats to his seat and starts up his computer, sometimes in a daze from the lack of sleep. Finally, the Partner would run in and start to apologise profusely for her lateness, and automatically surrender 20 cents into the Nugget Fund as part of the Room's contractual agreement.

None of that happened today.

Instead, I was greeted by Joyson's mom in the morning, and later by the Kong - basic, familiar, yet missing something. Perhaps it is habit, since I had been watching the abovementioned scene unfold every workday for the past five months, a rather long time by any measure. I am one who prefers familiarity to novelty, and indeed I got used to the kids around me, screaming, laughing and generally just being themselves. Perhaps I had gotten too used to them, resulting in this strange sense of longing and nostalgia this morning. I admit, things were more exciting with them around, lessening the mundane rigidity of the work we were hired to do. Alas, all good things come to an end, and yesterday was that final period in their chapter.

May good luck guide your paths. :)

As the curtains drew to a close, certain emotions refused to leave, remaining confused, unsure. Furthermore, after what transpired last night, those same emotions strengthened their resolve to overstay their welcome, when it was high time for them to start leaving. Occasionally, I question my actions, and yesterday was one such time, but your reaction only transformed a quadratic equation to a bilinear integration problem. Perhaps you really do know me, or perhaps our paths were meant to diverge from the beginning. One thing however, is concrete.

Your actions paint a vivid yet ambiguous story.

Now I fully understand the meaning of "being too nice": suspension in a stateless limbo.

Feed the fish guys, before they die of sorrow. XD