Down with a bad flu today, and hence unable to mug. haha. anw, was randomly looking through the photos and decided to post a short entry.

it isnt really a random post. all the 21st bdays, with party or not, reminded me that all of us have officially stepped into adulthood, though in my case it was supposed to be two years earlier. haha.

anw, what does that signify? It means we will going through uni, graduating with a degree and working. It means the paths we take are diverging even further. It means, because of family and work commitments, personal and public commitments, we will be seeing each other less, understanding each other less and remembering each other less.

People from schs such as raffles are, in my opinion, generally more jaded about life, abt common memories, as compared to many dhs ppl - at least i feel so. Perhaps it's the influence of 4/6 yrs of uniform grp life as well.

As I was looking at the photo, a few thoughts occurred to me. One of them was the value of common experience and common memory to all the faces in the photo. I have to admit, I feel closer to some than others. Everyone feels the same: some faces are less familiar than others.
And time and distance are going to widen the gap, and sharpen the divide. The less familiar faces are probably going to fade away and disappear from each other's photo years later.

Then I questioned myself: what then is the value of photos such as this? Take this blog for example, it's probably not really a squad blog, but a group blog - visited and valued by a small fraction of the large group who shared a common paths a few years ago. Does valuing such things as grp photo and sqd blog make one too sentimental and hence too naive and too un-20+-year-old?

I think not. Looking back, I feel it's unavoidable that I feel sth towards these faces and this grp. Not only because of the 6 years of time and efforts, but also because how it had unknowingly shaped the way i think and the way i view the idealism of friendship. Coming overseas and interacting with some of the so-called future elites and the rich of sg, makes me more pragmatic and realistic, if not jaded, than before. Time and again, I thank npcc and those faces in the photo - even if it means not all 30+ of the sqd - for helping me hold onto some idealism.

haha i better stop typing, before this turns into a pop-style msg. nothing sentimental actually. just penning down some random thoughts.

jf