Ten years.

When were we in Sec 3 again? Five, six years ago? It feels like it was only yesterday that we were still in SAS, enjoying the wild, rebellious teenage years I think the teachers hated 3B. We were such a notorious bunch. But most of us have turned out pretty well, I think. Haha. That picture was taken a few days ago when we visited the school, and found our old classroom empty. The current class was probably in the lab or something, and we quickly took advantage of the situation to snap a few pictures for nostalgia’s sake.

Most of the teachers who taught us are still around, although quite a few have left already. It was great catching up with some of them, and we interrupted a few classes. It used to be that we were those students sitting in the class, and saw former students come to the school to visit; it’s a role reversal.

The school looks so different now, after the renovations. It’s a lot nicer, granted, and it’s like, we could really have used some of those changes when we were still in school! There are new labs, the library has undergone an upgrade, the staff room shifted, the school hall’s tiles changed..

Mrs. Anil roped us in to talk to her primary 5 kids about where we were now, and just sort of give advice on what they have to do if they wanted to choose their future career paths. So there we were, standing in front of 40 primary 5 kids.

As we went down the line and introduced ourselves, talked about what we were doing, and where we are now, I looked at their faces and thought, “Gosh. That was me – once upon a time.”

I look at their faces and think back to us, when we were in primary 5. What did we know of then? We were carefree and innocent, living under our parents’ discipline, protected and sheltered. We knew nothing of life. We were just a bunch of 10-year-old kids growing up, only just learning to find our feet, and barely begun the journey of self-discovery (or losing ourselves) in the process of growing up.

I look at their faces and thought of all the things that they have yet to experience in life… dealing with friendships, that chasm that sometimes comes between even the closest of friends (yeah, that person you call your best friend in primary school?); dealing with parents, and eventually learning that they sometimes really are wiser and better than you after all; first relationships, the trivial ups and downs of the teenage life… Seriously, some of those things we agonized over back in high school – were they really that important??

I guess coming back each year, and just catching up with everyone, seeing how everyone has grown in their own way, changed (for better or worse), makes you realize certain things every time.

There’s an innocence that we can never return to anymore. That little girl sitting in the classroom ten years ago could never be able to fathom the same girl sitting right here, typing this out now, ten years later.

But this girl is thankful for everything she went through, whether it was a good or bad experience. This is where I am now, this is the person I have become. I might change ten years down the road, who knows – but I know the person I am right now.

And I wouldn’t want to change that for anything else.

KB trip.

A little bit of geography lesson for those unfamiliar with Brunei: Brunei is made up of four districts – Brunei-Muara, Tutong, Belait and Temburong. The Belait district is where the oil towns are, and we visited both Kuala Belait (KB) and Seria towns, the same places that you would have to pass by in order to go down to Miri, the neighbouring Malaysian town.

So, on what seemed like a lovely sunny and bright morning, at 9 a.m. in the morning, the gang met at my place, since the highway was just after my place.

Jerry the manic driver

We set off in two cars at approximately 9.30 a.m. Hui, Sebastian, Marshal and I became Jerry’s passengers, while Maggie, Jerome and Juan rode in Tiong’s car. Journey to KB: approximately one and half hours.

On the way to KB, tailing Tiong’s car.

At the rate that both Jerry and Tiong were speeding along though…

The sleepy-eyed passengers.

Sebas.

In the more than fifteen years of my life growing up in Brunei, I have never actually visited KB or Seria towns. I’ve passed by them millions of time on the many trips down to Miri, so…

This is how big KB is:

KB town part 1.

KB town part 2.

Welcome to KB.

Yes, that’s really all there is.

Obligatory stroll around the town, just for the sake of it.

The dark clouds that had already descended over KB released their load, and that was the end of our trip as we know it. Plans to visit Sungai Liang and the waterfall, Labi, Anduki airfield, etc. etc. had to be all canceled.

We arrived in KB only to have roasted duck on rice for our breakfast/lunch, and left after a look around the town, and drove in the rain to Seria. We took the old road in order to pass by all the nodding donkeys.

Two nodding donkeys in the background.

Nodding donkey, a closer look.

This was either a construction or de-construction of a nodding donkey… can’t remember which it was. Sebastian was the unofficial guide in Jerry’s car, since he’s the most familiar with the area.

Another nodding donkey.

The skies made it felt like it was already late afternoon, but it was only about noontime.

Talk about raining on our parade.

We wanted to visit the OGDC (Oil and Gas Discovery Centre) at Seria actually, and hoped to stop by the Billionth Barrel Monument too (a monument erected in conjunction with the billionth oil barrel produced in Brunei), but the rain ruined all that.

The “Reverse Parking” sign was intriguing for me, because I’d never seen that sort of request before. Apparently, it’s so that people can evacuate quickly in case of emergencies, since KB is literally sitting on top of a vast underground network of oil and gas pipes. It’s a live time bomb!

OGDC was open, but because it was a Friday, they were closed from 12 to 2 p.m.

Just wonderful.

After hanging around for a bit, we decided to just leave and head back up. Note: It is hardly worth visiting anywhere in a Muslim country especially on a Friday.

We ended up driving back up to Tutong district where we stopped for awhile, and then ended up going back to Sengkurong where we had murtabak. Then back to my place, to recuperate and a bit of fun and teasing with the kitten.

It wasn’t all that bad, I suppose. But the rain made it really hard for us to be able to do anything. It felt like just a food road trip. Sort of. Think we might be redoing the trip next week; hopefully the weather will be nice and sunny then.

Home, part 2.

It’s been a whirlwind of activities ever since I got back; I’ve been out everyday since I got back, from the small BBQ and gathering at Jerry’s place on the very Monday night I got back, up till this afternoon’s KB trip (which we might redo because most of our plans had to be shunted aside, thanks to the rain, which never did let up). Pictures from what was left of our KB outing will come soon.

 

In between was all the lim-tehs, one basketball game and the Muara Beach outing. Tomorrow, there’s breakfast, and then to the alma mater to see old teachers and the recent renovations. Heck, there are even plans already lined up on Monday, where the gang will be coming along to my place to ‘learn’ to make ban mien (and eat after), mainly due to Tiong’s craving for my mom’s ban mien .

 

The perfect beach weather

 

Amidst it all, results came out yesterday. I forgot that results are released for certain faculties one day early, but for some reason, I decided to just log onto the Student Portal and just double-check the release date for exam results. 

I literally stopped breathing when I saw the page appear on my laptop screen, and almost did not want to look at the results. My first thought was, Crap, I forgot that results for Music and Arts come out one day early!

Thank God I passed everything; my results ranged from one extreme to the other. =/ It’s starting to be quite a trend.

Re-enrolment doesn’t open until Monday, but I’m already looking at my timetable for next semester and double-confirming my subject selection; and I don’t know how, or why, but I just discovered a time clash with two subjects. It sucks because I want to do both subjects quite badly. 

Looks like this will be occupying my time over the next week as I try to sort out my course plan.

Home.

 

Roaming around Terminal 2 in the wee hours of the morning.

 

Waiting to board the plane to Brunei…

 

I was surprised to be greeted by both my parents at the airport; usually it’s one or the other. My brother was there too, and O. M. G. Seriously, I could NOT believe it when I finally saw him with that long, straightened hair. It’s GROSS to the max. Nothing that we say can get him to cut his hair, and he plans to keep it that way!! (OMG!!!!) My mom and brother came to the airport from picking up my little 4-year-old cousin from school, and my dad, I assume, from work-related stuff. The little girl was quite shy at first, but warmed up quickly. 

From the airport, we left in two separate cars – my dad had to go off somewhere else, and so we went on to the hospital to pick up my sister, where she had just begun ‘working’ yesterday as part of some school thing, and we went for lunch. My brother picked up my youngest brother from school after he dropped us off at the restaurant, and they joined us later. 

The youngest brother is dropped off at tuition after lunch, and the sister returns to the hospital. 

We head home, where I was greeted by this note my sister left on the bed…

New shirts! More pictures to come…

 

Home sweet home… and back in my room… I used to be quite crazy over Pooh… I was into cross-stitching, and the top two are two which I finished years ago, and the one on the bottom a 3-D thing I did with the help of my aunt… I kind of miss cross-stitching now that I think about it..

 

I don’t normally do this, but what the heck: here’s me parading the clothes, which all fit me quite nicely! My sister did a good job in picking the right size =P

Little Athene sitting on the bed. I think my sister was behind me, doing something at the table. Can’t remember what. Thought this shirt might have been too big for me, but it fitted nicely.
 

I love this shirt: “The best thing about music when it fills you, you feel ecstatic. Music is the strongest form of magic; just enjoy it and love it.”

I like this one too.

I want to go shopping in KL as well!

 

Lady… thought she seemed a bit thinner this time round… 

A failed, blurred attempt to capture a picture of me and the dog… I look like I’m strangling poor Lady… lol. She kept shying away each time I tried to take a nice picture of her and me. =(

 

And of course, the little girl! Athene spent a part of the afternoon colouring. 

She’s discovered the wonderful world of Disney princesses, and that’s her colouring my half-assed attempt at drawing Ariel (“mermaid“). She wanted Sebastian (“Ketam!”) and Flounder (“Fish“) as well, so I had to draw them for her too. Later on, she followed me around for a few minutes, and kept repeating “Selera“, and upon asking my sister, discovered that it was Athene-speak for “Cinderella”. So my sister Googled a Cinderella colouring picture and printed it out for her to colour.

Isn’t she adorable! (When she’s not giving the adults trouble, that is. Haha.)

Later in the night, Tiong called me out to Jerry’s place for a small BBQ and gathering. I was feeling quite reluctant to, feeling tired and all, but he managed to get me out on the pretenses that Jerry was leaving the next day and won’t be back for two weeks; in addition, I haven’t seen him for three years now.

I continue to be gullible even after years. I never seem to learn, do I?

It’s great to see familiar faces and old friends again, although I have yet to see more people who are back…

Okay, I never quite know how to end a post properly.. I’ll stop here. 

More updates to follow!

 

Transit

Ohhh. I am feeling so, so, so tired. Now that I’ve arrived in Singapore, I have to shift the time forward by two hours, and I hardly got adequate rest on the plane, and I was nodding off prior to getting out my MacBook to keep me awake until boarding time. I’m so going to sleep the two hours away on the plane to Brunei. I’m sitting in Terminal 2 now, near the huge windows where you can see planes take off and land, and managed to sign onto a wireless network in the airport which didn’t require me to do whatever login nonsense.

I ended up with the middle seat!! The worse seat ever! It’s ironic because before I left to the airport, I told Yon How about how I usually like taking window seats, but if it’s a long flight, then I’d take the aisle seat, for convenience’s sake. And I walk into the plane only to realize, “Ohh, crap, I have the MIDDLE seat!!”

I sat between a quirky ang-moh guy and an old Chinese lady.

I was actually feeling pretty tired already prior to boarding the plane in Melbourne, but I ended up watching two movies back-to-back – Definitely, Maybe and The Other Boleyn Girl. Both aren’t too bad. Although it probably wasn’t a very good idea for me to watch a comedy romance in the first place At least the tragedy in Boleyn Girl balanced that out. Both movies are alright, but I wouldn’t call them great. They’re alright if you need to pass a dull afternoon, I suppose (or in my case, a dull, long flight).

Terminal 3 is huge, but in my tiredness at 6 a.m. in the morning, I didn’t really want to bother exploring, so I headed straight to Terminal 2 via the Skytrain. SMS-ed my mom (who replied me with a command to go eat breakfast), and then called Yon and talked to him for a bit… (*hugs*)

I bought kaya butter toast and Teh-O for my ‘breakfast’, and was almost surprised at how cheap it was ($3.10 for everything!!), and am reminded of how expensive food really is in Melbourne (where hot chocolate or coffee alone can cost AUD$3.50). At least that’s one thing to look forward to when I reach home: cheap, good food!

I probably should be heading off to the gate soon and wait to be boarded onto the flight. Another few hours, and I’ll finally be home in Brunei again. My dad, sister and brother are back from KL, and my mom told me that my sister bought for me quite a number of clothes (which I hope I can actually fit). Hurrah.

I’m so going to sleep the day away when I reach home…

I’ll do my best to update frequently throughout the holidays. An hour more, and I’ll be leaving Singapore again!