Morale: High

I watched Arsenal win Juventus 2-0 last night, Ive got half a day off today and Lost II is showing tmr. When such things happen I cannot help but reinstate my old habit of laughing in class or, really, anywhere else, for any variable span of time and for any inexplicable reason.

Well, anyway, a week or so has passed and I feel qualified enough to declare that Ive just been given a new life. Being able to book out every day translates into approximately 3 hours of free time every day, and with no obligations (academic or otherwise) or worries to attend to at this stage, that amount of free time easily means pure bliss every day.

I've generally divided these 3 hours into 2 portions: 1 portion for checking email and surfing the net and playing Age of Empires III, another for reading books and magazines. It's curious--and quite worrying-- how few people here in Singapore are catching up with the game, they being either too caught up with DOTA or too caught up in the army. Please, if you fall into the former category, get away from that grotesque investment and start investing in age of empires III, tis what you call a fast-paced strategy game.

It gets quite lonely playing alone on weekdays though, with all of my allies staying-in in their respective camps. Losing quite a bit (risen to the ranks of Lt-colonel, though, but cant seem to get an anchor down there, nor am I able to push my winning % up a bit to 75), since Im too used to being a cavalry guy, both in the game and in life, which is incidentally why I support Arsenal, with all its connotations of speed. Never seem to be able to muster the patience to micromanage infrantry and artillery, though Im learning now through the hard way of losing. Well anyway, thats that.

Curiously enough my lifestyle has come to resemble my primary school lifestyle. Wake up at 6, have my father fetch me (he hasnt been doing so for the past 6 years) to my school, attend morning parade, which, of course, reminds me of flag raising every morning in the past, go for classes, have 2 tea breaks and a 1-hr lunch break in between, have evening parade (flag lowering), dinner, rest and recreation, sleep at 10, sometimes 11 if I need more recreation than sleep. And it feels good, really, because Im having block sleep rather than fragmented sleep, the system which got me through upper sec and junior college, and block sleep is giving me a multiplier effect on my productivity and overall attitude to things, which is, in case you havent noticed, why Im so much more sociable these days. In fact I dont drink my tea alone during those breaks, I join the rest just like how I used to in primary school.

And it's great, really, being part of a large group, though sometimes I find they walk too slowly.

It looks like Im undergoing an upswing in life now. While thats good, of course, it's leaving me worried because from experience in primary school things always work in cycles: there would always be a long period of good time, and there surely would come an event which would mess things up in the most terrible ways-- a project, an untimely make-up lesson that would devastate my daily table-tennis schedule (I used to play alot of table-tennis back then, maybe I'd take it up as a recreational sport in the future), girls all flirting with other males, things like that.

Now, 6 years down the road, while reverting back to my primary school way of life, things have changed alot. Things have changed, myself included, and I now find myself laden with the more important concerns in life: where and with whom to have my next dinner with, for example, as well as how to improve my winning % in age of empires III, how to put in the least effort in my vocation and still get away with it, whether I should try to be funny with my insurance agent, things like that.

Till those concerns bog me down significantly though, converting my upswing into a downswing, I think Im going to enjoy life for now.