Basket.

Ah, the end of the year. A traditional time for reflection, for reviving old friendships and strengthening present ones, for get-togethers and for looking to the future.

Honestly, I wonder about 2007. I'll be a civilian again, of course, but what other new experiences will this new year bring? New hopes to be dashed, new obstacles to surmount, but new sweet memories to store away forevermore? Definitely all of those - but which will dominate?

I don't think I've had a good year since 2003. Obvously back then I felt the crunch of schoolwork, but I was to realise the very next year that it was actually nothing. My days were packed, but packed with things I actually enjoyed doing; I have so many warm memories from that year that come to mind every now and then. Ironically it didn't begin so well because I never quite got along with my OG - we simply lacked things to talk about. After a while we just stopped knowing each other.

Fortunately things looked up a lot after I met my class. Here at last was a bunch of people I could relate to, and everything fell into place (that feeling you get... is amazing. Pity it is so rare). Some of us went our own ways after the first 3 months, but that was inevitable. Life had to go on and it did, even as SARS struck Singapore and the workload became noticeably heavier. We enjoyed school because we enjoyed each other's company - even the Maths lectures were tolerable most of the time, and even Project Work didn't seem so bad in the end. Nor will I ever forget all those lunches at Ghim Moh and then McDonalds', and all the dinners at various barely-affordable (for me, then impoverished) spots around the island, although they left me scrabbling for cash most of the time.

It helped that I made the right CCA choices. Although every time I tell someone new my CCA, I feel their unimpressed vibes; academic clubs and musical groups never get the glory, after all. People have the perception that all we do is shuffle papers and scores about in air-conditioned rooms, while the uniformed groups drill in the blazing sun and the rugby players fight (at times literally) for school glory. That, of course, could not be further from the truth. Who organises Singapore's largest student-run event (whether it is still, I'm not sure. Back then it was)? It's not Rugby, or NCC. It is RJC HISSOC, and I am still proud that I was a part of it.

Of course, my fellow committee members were a brilliant bunch as well. From Tse Yang, with whom I once spent an entire SAF Day lunch break discoursing about history, to Aaron, always hardworking and generous, to Mark the technical saviour; we ran the club in those long afternoons-evenings-nights in SR4, usually only barely managing to put everything together, but having so much fun in the process. I'll never forget those days, and I'll remember as one of my few so-very-right decisions the choice I made to join the club and exco.

Following all that was, what else, the Countdown. Although I never really liked the infamous club (which I need not name), those cool nights and long bus rides to and fro were really the best times I ever had for quiet lonely reflection. At the end of the day I could look with somnolent satisfaction upon the event's success, too, as a job well done. All-in-all, an overall positive experience.

But what I look back upon most fondly was the spirit of the times. The idyllic mood, especially at the long, long end-of-year period. After exams and then Open House, there was little else for me to do, aside from weekly Countdown meetings. The days stretched before me, empty and full of promise, waiting for me to fill them with whatever I wished; whatever crazy whims and fancies to enter my mind. I went to school for Project Work, and stayed unnecessarily long, just wandering about, talking to whoever I happened to meet, looking around, contentedly bored. When I was home I spent long, long nights engaged in meaningful conversations with close friends. Whenever I felt like doing something else, I read, losing myself in worlds of the past and fascination of events that never were but might have been. Now and then I went out with a few good friends, creating sweet memories for the future. It was an idyllic time, and though the future was uncertain, it was promising.

I'll never recapture that spirit, I recognise. After three much more tortuous years, I have myself changed, hardened into a cynic with a lot more steely determination and a lot less time for frivolity. On the cusp of adulthood, university, the workforce and greater responsibility, the future does not anymore seem like a snowy-blank sheet, promising and ready for me to fill with whatever I so wish. There will be difficulties ahead, obstacles which I can only depend upon myself to cross, many various and myriad frustrations which I can only myself face. It is a different world, a crueller world.

I will still look back upon those days, however, days that seemed to stretch forever, rich with possibility. Remembering those times inevitably brings a smile to my face and a warm feeling in my heart, and sometimes, just that has to suffice.