In the end, despite considerable protesting from classmates I tried to drag down that we're too old for this sort of things already, I headed down to my alma mater for the annual orientation campfire for JC1 students.

It wasn't that bad after all--I didn't feel left out in the way I'd thought I would, more because I didn't try to deliberately fit myself in to anything or to force myself to search for some little thing(s) that told me that I was still part of all the action--hence the absence of feelings of discomfiture that I used to have at these large-scale events of school.

Curiously, the mass singing session turned out to be quite enjoyable, even if I was only watching from atop on the second floor instead of squashed in the throngs of students down below in the central plaza--the enthusiasm of all the fresh students was amazing, the school walls reverberating with the whole-hearted voices of all of them, the singing louder than I'd ever heard. It was so infectious that I couldn't help but join in the merry singing from my vantage point (because everything was so loud that nobody could've heard me haha). And all the old Mandarin school songs whose lyrics I never knew just sounded so good, just like they used to when we used to sing them, on Chinese New Year celebrations, Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, etc. And the songs brought back nice memories, and I felt close, fuzzy, warm, to the school again, albeit in a distant, nostalgic way.

Frankly, I never liked the administration of Hwa Chong much--the bureacratic way in which it's run--so there. Haha. But still, it's the memories that're associated with the times there.

As the mass dances got underway, looking on from above, I can only say that it made me feel old--that this is old no longer for me, that my time and place are elsewhere, and everything has moved on--I don't feel bitter about that, because I've learnt how to accept things and move on.

And really, I quite prefer my life now, quietly introspective, as I go about my work, and my own pursuits in my own time. Life really isn't that bad, while everything else, is just a distant memory, close to my heart, yet far, far away already.