On Saturday I went for my first fireworks photo shoot with classmates and friends. Learnt quite a lot of stuff, but found it really hard to apply. I was given a piece of black paper, something that was used if I wanted to shoot just one explosion in the night sky. Most of us used a remote, as the shuttle speed was set to the user-defined setting, also known as the BULB mode, where one would just hold down the shutter button for as long as he or she pleased. At the start, I simply thought all I had to do was to just press, and release. For the first wave of fireworks, all I had were photographs of nothing but black. As the time went by, I guess I did better, managing to catch some of the explosions, with 2 to 3 good ones. The segment where the Phoenix mother ship, with the torch bearer on-board, was escorted by her 10 Dragon Boat escorts, was definitely the coolest hands-down. However, the fireworks simply sucked. Compared to the National Day Parade's fireworks, the arrangement for the finale was more disappointing. Yes, the variety was there, but the duration just simply wasn't.
As I was unable to get my hands on the closing ceremony ticket, I shall be joining them again on the 26th.
The coming week was spent solely on our final year project. We did make some progress, and all that's left is the report, some experiments to determine the finalized product, and the manufacturing.
Yesterday, was probably the most eventful day in August. It was also the day I was blur as a sotong. In the morning, I woke at 8am, and took my time to turn on my laptop. It took me 10 minutes to realise I had a dental appointment at the National Dental Centre 9am, and I had not done anything, except to turn my laptop on. As a result, I arrived at 9.20am. When asked for my Identification number, I recited my Student Card Number. Twice. In addition, I let out a loud "huh" when I realised I was reciting the wrong set of numbers. In the end, she simply passed me my queue number. 5 minutes later, I was in. 10 minutes after that, I was back out, getting my appointment. For some reason, I blindly requested to have my appointment pushed back to 5th October from 30th September, although I was able to make it on both dates.
I took a bus home, and it rained heavily just as I made my transfer home. As I left home in a hurry earlier, I brought nothing but my gate key(I had it detached from the key chain as I went for a run the evening before), phone, and wallet. Without an umbrella, I waited 15 minutes for the rain to reduce its intensity before I walked home, only to find myself locked out at 11.15am. My mum had taken my relatives to the museums for a visit, and would only be back at 4pm.
I took an umbrella, went to take a bus to my dad's workplace. 10 minutes after arriving at 11.40am, I drove us out for lunch at a market nearby, before doing some grocery shopping, and headed home. At 2pm, I went to the Jurong Regional Library to do a quick research on some stuff related to the final year project, from 3pm to 3.50pm. I had thought the few of us would be meeting at 5pm instead of 4 in school to prepare a surprise. After some confirmation, it was indeed 4pm as stated a few nights before.
Once in school, I found myself going back out to purchase a few stuff at King Albert Park. 40minutes later, I was back at the venue at 5.25pm. We were preparing a birthday surprise for our club mentor. He came by the back door. I happily took my time to paste the photographs onto a large card. He asked a friend to get some cash ready to purchase some refreshments to break fast with our fellow Muslim members. He walked past. We saw each other in the eye. He went in. Awkward silence. Well, at least the night went extremely well, and he apparently forgot about the card, until we brought it in to be presented to him
Today, our group had a 3-hour meeting at the library to plan for our design and the manufacture of our product. We even met our lecturer and supervisor who were there to get a few books! I went home, and slept the afternoon away after a short revision. Woke up at 5.30, before going for an evening run. Covered 8km in 50 minutes, by far the best timing this month.
This afternoon from 4.30 till 5.30pm, I revisited an old dream. It felt kind of weird, almost as if I was dreaming in a dream, yet I felt awake the whole time. In the dream, I was with my neighbours, relatives and parents, going to Malaysia on a holiday to stay at a bungalow. Here's the thing. Apparently, I was the only child, and the only one who looked my age, my parents looked a few years younger. My neighbours are supposed to be around my age, but in the dream, they looked like 5 or 6 year olds. Everyone else was the same, except that the cars we travelled in belonged to the 90s.
We arrived at 9am, and at 12pm, a young child wanted to trek along an abandoned railway to the country side. instead of by car, with 3 toy pushcarts stockpiled with snacks, drinks and clothes. We were going to stay at a country club till 6pm. My parents said that we had visited the place before when I was younger, except that now they had built a country club near there(they did not even mention my brothers, who were apparently non-existent in that dream... The railway hike experience was a revisit of one of my dreams when I was somewhere between 3-5 years, where I had this white cart with a yellow seat on one end and a long, blue handle on another).One way, the journey would take an hour. This was the thing. We had to walk along the tracks, and about a kilometre to our destination, we had to pay a toll at the first booth. The guard stationed there was short, old and grumpy. The second booth sold drinks and snacks. The journey there seemed rather easy. Until we reached the toll booth. the kid ran past the guard, and as our carts were all connected, we were unable to stop. He started to chase us, and he eventually caught up when we stopped at the second booth to buy drinks. We paid him, and continued on.
Why I had thought it was a dream in a dream, was simply because the country club looked like the Singapore Zoo and Botanical Gardens combined, and it was in Malaysia, facing the sea. What's more, the place even had a golf course, with some holes located at the gardens and the zoo! A friend hired a buggy for us to travel around in. I decided to walk through the zoo, and we caught an elephant feeding session, before I hopped back on so that we could complete a tour of the place.
We went back to our starting point, which was a canteen facing a large swimming pool. Not too far in the horizon was the beach. We had a nice afternoon chat with some tea, coffee and biscuits. At 4pm, there was a warning. Yellow lights were lit and an air raid siren was heard. My uncle told us that the place prone to sudden gusts of wind, a result of the vast open area of the country club. In a moment, it came, and the whole structure shook as though there was an earthquake. After the winds stopped, we saw water sprouts appearing near the beach. I counted out loud for everyone. There were 6 or 7 of them, and they were big. We did not feel any danger, so we went for a short walk nearby. I followed, but went back after awhile. Back at the canteen, I saw someone familiar by the balcony, and went out to confirm it. She was roughly 1.5-1.6m in height, and wore a red shirt. Maybe she was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans as well? I went up, and yes it was her(Apparently, I have never seen this girl anywhere before, and somehow my subconscious picked her up to be someone I knew, and yet I din't even say, or hear her name once in the dream. Sadly, I was unable to remember all her facial features.). We had a good chat, sat down, and continued our conversation over coffee. She needed to go to the wash room, so I followed. Something unique about the country club was that, the taps were shared, except the toilets, changing area and the showers were not(just like Makan Place @ NP, though the colour scheme used was different). When she came out, I learnt that she was there with her family, so I guess it wasn't really a coincidence afterall.
At 5pm, we parted ways. We promised to ring each other up once we're back in Singapore so that we could meet. I did not get to return to the canteen to see if the weather had improved as we were going to trek back to the bungalow. The journey back was tough, especially at the start. The guard at the toll gate was there to stop us, saying that the railway suffered some damage, but if we wanted to carry on, we had to be prepared for the worst. The kid was upset, but stubborn and he wanted to keep going. The adults contemplated our options. A quarrel ensued. 30 minutes later, we decided to set off at 6pm. We had a few more carts so that the adults could sit in and enjoy the ride back instead of going on foot. I linked all the carts together, and we had an engine to help. Somehow, halfway through, I simply broke down, badly. I had no idea why. Even if there was a reason behind it, I can't remember. After we set off, the journey was great. a stretch of the slope that was there had collapsed, and along the way we were able to see the sea and the horizon! It was 7.30pm when we reached the bungalow. We sat down together for dinner, and at 8.30pm, my aunt asked me to the porch, and we had a conversation about my conversation with that girl from the afternoon. I can't remember the details about almost every conversation from the dream, but that one, was filled with lots of advice. I only managed to remember the last part, where she said that if I wanted to, she could send me back home so that we both could see each other the following day. I agreed, and the next moment, I found myself awake, at 5.30pm.
Tomorrow and Sunday, it'll be intensive revision all the way till the end of next week, as August edges to an end and September arrives.
It seems not having the usual conversation for just one day, makes me feel as though something's missing. Maybe with my tone and words, you might find it rather boring? Every moment in text, was lived like there was no tomorrow.
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