Basket.

Shuang Ning's reflection on this coming concert being her last made me think of my last concert too. Similarly, I knew it marked a passing, and I didn't want it to end either. RAGE was always an experience. In Sec 2, the newness of it all, that special feeling that marks every first time. In Sec 3, the disappointment of SYF 2001 a cloud hanging over us; the memory of not reaching home before ten every day (except weekends, and Saturday practice ended at about 7pm) for over a week (and then having to re-do an Additional Mathematics assignment lost through no fault of mine despite being utterly tired-out). In Sec 4, the feeling of sadness that this would be the last (I did make some effort to go back and play in the alumni segment, but was simply too busy to practise), and the memory of having to squeeze in a tiny dressing room in the Singapore Power auditorium with 32 guitars and their cases, having to tune most of them to boot.

I was reminded, that year, that it would be my last. "Eh, your last year here". My senior's words still ring in my ears. I knew, by then, that I would not again join the guitar ensemble in JC. My mind was made, although a brief moment of madness during CCA Feste almost made me rush to the booth to sign up. Instead I stayed, watched, and eventually walked away. I have wondered whether it was a right decision, and on foresight, I do think it is. I would have dropped it eventually, if I had joined, I believe.

Yet I spent four fruitful and, for the most part, enjoyable years in the RIGE. Initially sceptical, and having joined up without a single moment of formal musical education, partly to experience something new and partly because of elder's recommendation that it was "slack" (which, I can say after four years, turned out not to be true at all), I grew to love the CCA and classical guitar music; previously it was an instrument I knew not a single thing about, not even that it had six strings. Looking back, even sectionals on hot, endless afternoons with uncompromising section leaders and pieces with plenty of seventh-position playing was fun. So was later becoming the uncompromising section leader with a Napoleon complex but who always gave 15-min breaks while his contemporaries allowed only a quick trip to the water cooler.

Yeah, it was a fun four years. At the end though, I had to move on. We all do. I still nourish all those memories of guitar camps, late practices, the luxurious guitar/CO room, sectionals, concerts, public performances and, of course, though it was a disappontment, SYF 2001. I still like guitar music. Maybe I'll pick it back up one day.