Basket.

Well, I'll be off for much of the day tommorrow at the Countdown, so I'll have to do this now.

And thus we enter the last day of yet another year. 362 days have elapsed since that morning of 2nd January 2003 when I woke up to begin a new syllabus with new classmates and new subjects at a new school. Like every other year as far back as I can remember, those 362 days have been variously boring, awful, long and tiring, slack, joyous, routine, plain weird and a million other things. Yet combined together, they have made up a memorable year indeed; one of the most turbulent and remarkable for me in recent history.

To think about it, the years in RI were pretty plain-sailing. Sec 1 was a bit of an exception as we began by being tortured in the mud of Sarimbun, but it zipped by quickly enough. Sec 2 was a great year, it was very fun and will always remain in my memories (playing San Guo every recess, Mrs Jasbir Koh's lessons, studying, crapping or just fooling around with ZIhao and Yen Yeong... those were the days), but certainly not tumultous. Sec 3 was... ordinary (aside from our adventures at Ngee Ann Polytechnic). Sec 4 was great fun once more (bridge every recess, chess every after-school and before-assembly, fun and games during Bio lessons, more fun and games during English lessons, a magnificent FT 2 and an amazingly creative and smart class on the whole) and also a year of close escapes (what the fuck, I needed remedial for five subjects after Common Test and an L1R5 of 24 points; this a bare two months before prelims, AND I MADE IT TO RJ?! HOW IN THE...), yet it still did not match this year.

Everyone is saying 2003 is a year to forget. And it was, largely, for the world. What with war (Iraq and still ongoing), disease (SARS SARS baby, don't kena...) and disaster (what a horrid Christmas). Yet it was a year to remember for me, a year of surprises, good and bad (I am still unable to fathom a 4.5 Arts cut-off and how the heck Zihao ended back up in my class and a position to continue to hold me to ransom with notes =p), a year of cherished memories and a year of tragedy (no, not real tragedy that affected me, at least) and triumph. All this, crammed within a short 365 days. It seems amazing; it is not so.

Think back to what you were doing one year ago. A mere 365 days ago there was so much I, we, did not know. On 31st December 2002 I for sure had no way at all of knowing that I would end up back together with two former classmates, one of which I had not seen for four long years and never thought would see again. Nor had I any way of knowing I would end up in such a class with such a CT that gave me and us all one hell of a year. Hell, I did not even have an inkling, one year ago, that I would one year later be in possession of a blog and be typing this on it!

Think about how different things were one year ago. The holidays were ending and we had to awake from the post-Os snooze to face a whole new year and a whole new bunch of people, with whole new subjects and whole new teachers. How different, how new?

Think about what has changed. A lot, or very little? For better, or for worse? And why, and how, and what, once more.

Think about one year. Long, or short...?