Basket.

What better time to return than October, which remains my favourite month of the year. It seems safe to assume that whatever remains of my once-faithful readership is very faithful indeed if they are still vainly checking for updates by now, but then it's really all my fault.

A combination of not being in Singapore and lacking a general motivation to update explains the long absence, but now the inclination appears to have returned. Anyway, to sum up the past few months rather quickly, I went to three countries in just over six weeks, had a multitude of experiences you can read about at our travel blog if it is still extant, returned from Vietnam two days before school was scheduled to begin, and was promptly laid low by illness the very next day. I haven't been incapacitated by disease twice in a single calendar year since... 2005. Damn. It would appear my health is not as robust as I enjoy deluding myself into thinking. And seriously, it was gastric flu. Again. I am fed to the back teeth with that illness.

Fortunately, I recovered in time for the new academic year. Not much to say about that, because little of note usually occurs at NUS, for which I am actually glad. By now it's more than halfway through the semester and I'm re-learning the lesson that time flies, whether you are having fun or not.

In other news, the world appears to be a little more fucked up than usual, as the global financial crisis tightens and the tainted milk scare shows little sign of abating. Domestically, opposition politician J.B. Jeyaratnam died of a heart attack this week, and it was interesting reading our leaders' usual backhanded compliments and condolences. Rest in peace, I don't think there'll ever be anyone of his like ever again.

I also turn 22 the day after tommorrow, but it isn't very important to me really. At least it is a Saturday, which means I won't need to spend it taking a test (last year and various occasions throughout the 1990s and early 2000s) or buried in paperwork (the two years before last). It's a marker, I guess. One year older, maybe one year wiser. I can hope.