Its always good fun to meet up with old friends, see how all of the gang have been doing, see who's getting married soon, who's working in which line, who's deciding to start learning how to pimp themselves... oh yes...

Today was the day, don't really know how it transpired but SL smsed me the other day about it and I just cleared my schedule to accomodate. As usual, the Ang Moh Gang didn't turn up (no offense peeps, its just a term of categorisation). So it was left with the Teng Lang Gang (Chinese).

Most of them turned out to be students, as in the typical trying to get pass with a degree sort. Some have started part-timing here and there, the girls have graduated...

The frequency gap between me and my peers have often been a bothersome issue, some little voice in my head telling me its really a waste of time to hang out with them, either because nothign constructive will turn out or that its simply an intellectual torture. I think I have come to change that perspective a little today.

Admittedly we were talking cock, paying reminiscence to the good old days and cracking corny jokes at each other. But it just seemed so right! It didn't feel frivolous, instead it was both refreshing and slightly rejuvenating, truly close to living the past.

So maybe love is not so uncontrolled and entity at the end of the day (I have always thought it to be the greatest force, or rather we have been educated to believe it is, but really it is not so unpredictable). The essence, if I can aptly summarise, is as thus:

I was feeling bored today and so decided to catch a random movie, something I wouldn't watch with pals around... The random option turned out to the "Dragon Tiger Gate". I think the hong kong producers decided that since hollywood was working on reproducing marvel comics as movies, that they would do the same to keep pace.

Well the movie was satisfyingly action packed, thanks to Donnie Yen's martial arts cheorography. Watch it for the action, and maybe to laugh at the plot as well. The scenes, other than the fighting ones, were so corny you don't even know whether or not to laugh.

The "Master" of the dragon tiger gate (some martial arts school), was played by the same guy who played the crappy landlord in Kung Fu Hustle. He seemed coller fighting with his slippers than the big blade.

Donnie Yen's good at fighting, and that's about it. He seemed to have only one facial expression - grouchiness. Nicholas Tse also only had one expression - like a kid who just had his toy snatched away and was about to cry.

Shawn Tue didn't look like himself...

Oh well, for entertainment value i'll still give the movie 4 upon 5.

Now that I’m 3 months or so from my official retirement date, its time to do a little planning; to give a little thought to the few upcoming purchases / expenditures. It’s times like this where you suddenly feel free of all obligations, free to pursue the little things in life you have somehow left behind in the frenzy of success and failure.

Let’s just say the budget for the next 2 years is 2 million bucks. Distinguishing between the priorities of needs and wants, whims and fancies, I have settled on the following:

1) Condominium – 800k

I think it would be nice to settle my permanent accommodation before all else. After all it’s the one thing, if fully paid, that can count more as an asset than liability (I know this sounds fundamental but it’s true). Of course the whim factor plays a role too, since I just paid a visit to one of my folk’s friend’s house, and the interior design was just so cosy… makes you feel like getting one yourself.

The hall will be installed with a karaoke system (possibly the set from Party World with touch screen features and quarterly updates). A nice plasma screen and all-wooden furniture. Might want to get one of those Arabian carpets too. The sofa must be of velvet material.

My room shall have my king size bed, a smaller plasma and a brood of stuffed turtles. The walls shall be painted crimson red. The master bath shall have a Jacuzzi pool with a sliding door so I can watch TV and soak the day’s woes away at the same time.

A room will be specially set up for music composition and recording. The other will be my mini-gym (must have free weights). The last room shall be my study, I guess, where I store my library of books and a few computer terminals.

Wonder if I still have an additional room for guests?

2) Vehicles – 400k

I must get by Mercedes 4-seater convertible, CLK or SLK I can’t really remember. It’s what I promised myself as my first car. I should get another MPV for the family as well, so the 6 people do not have to squeeze during outings. I can take the Sunny as a spare vehicle.

3) School – 100k

This is quite a budget for a 4 year university course, but well, I can be living on peanuts, so I guess it can’t be helped. School itself is probably going to be boring, the curriculum repeating itself in stifling monotone. But well, it’s a part of my childhood I have missed.

4) Wandering – 500k

I will set this sum aside as contingency fund, go to the airport, pick a flight and get out of this country. I will spend 3 to 6 months at each destination; get a job and some accommodation. I can travel and write music at the same time. It will be a cool 5 years.

5) Business – 200k

This amount can go to getting the warehouse space and store equipment for the business. Not too much but sufficient. It will grow anyways.

The order of purchase should be:

Business – School – Condo – Cars – Wandering

School and Wandering will probably be some sort of either-or option.

And damn I have no more budget for the steward! Goes to show there’s never enough when it comes to human wants, hahaha... :)

I recall just three years back I would give anything for wealth and the commonly preached “financial freedom”. I recall diving at the numerous “opportunities”, thriving in some and devastated in others. I also recall my most impoverished moments, when I had SGD 1.64 left in my bank account, not enough to even withdraw for a bus ride back home. I ended up walking back to my place in CCK from Raffles Place.

Despite the poverty, the though times, and the occasional relief from a scoop (coupled with irresponsible spending habits I have yet to drop), there was freedom, there was hope and there was always something more to conquer. There was fun.

A book I purchased recently tells me to look at the consolidation of our small achievements and feel good about it. Let’s try, therefore, to piece together my humble portfolio:

Academics: Not that I have a fantastic track record. I got 260 for PSLE, 13 points for Os, CCD for As and dropped out of university after the first semester because I thought it was boring.

Military: I contracted myself with the army and got commissioned as an officer. Got to handle some larger scale projects as EXCO, such as NDP and AA.

Sports: I’ve got a little collection of medals for running, kayaking and adventure sports. Probably lost in some box at home now.

Employment: Apart from freelance design projects I take up from time to time, I have tried part-timing since 14, hopped about 8 side jobs.

Music: I play the electone (the organ with 3 keyboards). Composed about 40 songs till date, mix of mandarin and Cantonese, plus a few instrumental pieces, all nicely filed in my desktop. By the way, I sing them too. Maybe I should sign a contract with some recording company, or for that matter, I can start my own.

Art: I am beginning on a comic. Have completed the first few pages. It’s really quite tedious to render.

Literature: Written a few books, still in softcopy. Rules of the Game; an illustration of the fixed and variables of life, and the practice of detachment in the same manner as gaming. Revenge, a dish best served cold; a guide to getting back at your enemies in the peacetime. A guide to legally executing your personal vendetta. There’s also a fantasy novel about the 4th dimension. Should I get them edited and published?

Business: I have lost count of my name card variations, and have recently given up on printing anything new. About 90% of my ventures have failed, but the one going on now seems pretty promising, lucrative. Ok it doesn’t seem, it is.

Other certificates: Well I am definitely not a fan of certificates, but since the world places judgement on such trivial things, I shall name some: Counselling, Psychology, Rock Climbing, Long Distance Swimming, Management Stuff, blah blah blah…

Income: Enough to buy a car each month. Not so much because of business, but because I chanced upon a gold mine (something like that). Maybe I should go get my license now. Does it matter?

I think that’s about all I can remember off hand. Ok, I have done the exercise, and does it make me feel any better of myself? NO!

The throbbing question echoes: “What’s Next???”

I start spending as irresponsibly as I can. I throw hundreds away every day, sometimes thousands. My meals never cost less than 20 bucks, they go above 100 sometimes if I am feeling hungry. I end up sick of all the restaurant variations. (I don’t have the habit of spending on clothes though…)

I go home each weekend, sleep till the noon, watch some lousy DVD (the storylines are all the same), blast on my electone, get drunk sometimes and go to bed.

I am still keeping fit, but it seems quite pointless…

Emptiness seems to be the only gratification I derive from these “achievements”. Friends of my age can never understand the sentiments coupled with what they have not, and sadly, might never achieve. Foes are squished like ants. Love shuns itself in the glare of material success. You stand alone, atop a mountain of corpses you have passed, looking at the bleak sunset.

I still have about 50 years to go. What the hell am I to do with it!?

Whispering words of wisdom, let it be...

And so it is sung, in Mother Mary's own words, that we should, when we have done all that we could, when we have taken control of the situation and moulded it for the better with every tool and trade we have, that the result, if different from what we desire, can only be the wiser choice of the universe manifesting our efforts in accordance to the bigger picture we always fail to see.

And so, to the one I love,

Thank you for teaching me how to love, for I would never otherwise learn, and would be as incomplete as the chipped moon. If Da Vinci was right and life was truly about experiencing, living every detail, You have completed my experience (at least conceptually).

Thank you for loving me back, even though I shall probably never get to hear these words. Worry not, for words are immaterial, and pale in comparison to the emotional telephathy we shared, with which two hearts beat as one. The link seems to have broken somehow, but as I have said, it was the experience.

Thank you for dislike all that was a human vice in me, and with that giving me the courage to curb these vices. I cannot proclaim the discarding of such vices to be solely for you, for should "we" never come to fruitition, I shall still benefit from the positive changes.

Thank you for being all that you are, even though we may be polar opposites. You have taught me the next greatest thing to love; acceptance. I shall accept all that you are and are not, and also all that you wish for me to be, and not to be.

It was not choice that we met, for in all logical reason martians do not talk to venusians. It is fate, a cosmic arrangement for two scarred souls to find the antidote in each other's company. You have healed me, and yet I may only look from afar, and even then shall faithfully pray, though I have never prayed, to the higher wisdom to guide you in your course of healing.

I wish for union in form, but I wish even more for your union with yourself, the truth in you that have been hidden away amidst all the dark times you have been through. I hereby pray you may find trust and truth in love once again. Remember, my love, that there are no hidden paths, if only we choose to open our eyes and see. In love, there is no win or lose, and if there must be, it can only be either win-win or lose-lose.

Remember, stop loathing and start living again, so that the light of the inner glory in you may once again shine a million candela.

And finally, remember, I will die for you, but even more, I will live for you.