Lonely Road

This year has brought about quite a few changes to my routines.

During early-middle year 4, early in the morning I would go to class and sleep or socialise a bit with the people in class. During late year 4, I would on some occasion have gone to fireAC. During exam period in year 4, I went for a prayer meeting with Isaac, Russell and a few other people. Post-exam was a mix of early and late year 4.

This year, I find that I've become more reserved, more sealed up, arguably more lonesome. The first 30 to 50 minutes of my day that are spent in school first switched to the SAC, where I'd sit alone, and bump into people once in a while, such as Herrick or Henry (there are more, but these are the only 2 ppl I remember meeting). FireAC grew in size, and honestly even with the previous size I felt a bit uncomfortable... It's not a good excuse, but I guess I gave in to my egotistical impulses. Later, I switched it again, to a more private place where I'm rarely, if ever, disturbed.

The other change, I guess, would possibly be my recess routine. Previously, I would often go around with the rest of the GEPs, forming tables of 9 or sometimes even more people; nowadays, I rarely have a table sized more than 4 or 5 (I usually aim for 3 when I plan for lunch), and in fact I've started meeting people on a 1-to-1 basis significantly more than last year.

In a way, I consider myself quite blessed to have these opportunities to talk on a more personal level to friends who are closer to me, especially the 1 to 1 sessions. I find that with the IB system I have little spare time to balance quite a few relationships - sometimes, even pushing out 2 hours per week outside of school can be tough, especially given that my schedule is starting to become busy (5 days like last year, just Saturday is busy instead of Monday), Scholar's Cup is approaching soon and I'm starting to get back into the mugging spirit of things.

At the same time, I don't want to become an antisocial, angsty outcast either. Things seem tough when I spend only 1 out of 6 classes with my class 5.14 (there are quite a few people whom I spend 3 or 4 classes with and are not in 5.14; conversely, there are also quite a few 5.14ers whom I share 0 classes with), have two CCAs where I am active yet not 'on' in both, and also because I have a pretty introverted and reserved nature. I've noticed that I'm also not very good at small talk - I tend to go little further than cliched issues such as O level results, IB targets, IB life etc, before going into tough areas like philosophy, science, sociology and theology.

But for some reason I really like 1-to-1 interaction. The personal factor makes it very... heartwarming? I don't know.

Work's starting to heat up, and effectively Russell told me today it hasn't quite reached terminal velocity yet. STRESS.

two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.
- robert frost

jk