I left the house at noon heading for.. somewhere. I had no place in mind, as I absolutely have no one to meet up with as well as anything for me to do, well, besides getting a haircut.

Headed for the train station and instinctively hopped on the one to Marymount since it came first. Transferred over at Bishan and continued on towards town. Whilst on the train I was pondering over where to alight.. And just two stops later at Toa Payoh, something just took over me and I exited the train. A road and an expressway later I found myself at a bus stop waiting for.. a bus. A familiar service came and I hopped onto it without any thoughts whatsoever.

The bus rumbled past my alma mater and a hugely unfamiliar sight greeted me. Ugly looking pits dug seemingly everywhere with heavy machinery strewn all round. So much land was cannibalised that I wasn't even certain if there's even a field left any more. Thankfully I graduated before my memories of the school were adulterated by all these developments.

I dropped off at King Albert Park and walked.. and walked.. to Toh Yi Drive. At a whole row of hair salons I stopped and made a U-turn, turning left at the intersection and headed up Upper Bukit Timah Road. Passing the row of eateries along Cheong Chin Nam Road I realised that the outlet peddling Taiwanese porridge , memories of many an after-band supper with the rest, had closed down.

Turned into the Courts building/mega-store further up the road for much-needed cold air before heading on my way again. Past another bus stop and I reached the old fire station. There I finally got sick of walking (that wart on my left foot made walking long distances rather uncomfortable nowadays) and crossed to the other side to the bus stop.

Bus service 171 arrived and the bus captain's smile temporarily lifted my mood from the doldrums. As the bus unwind the route I had spent close to half an hour trekking in just a few minutes, I had a flashback from 2008 (I just looked through my archives after drafting this and fixed the date to be 17th Nov) running through my mind.

Back then I was on 171 as well, albeit with a friend of mine. We had just parted company with a few others after an early morning/afternoon filled with activities - if I wasn't wrong it was pool and then Wii with some juniors. I was on the way home while my friend was headed for town. Sometime before I alighted, after the bus had ascended and descended down the hill followed by a sharp left turn, our friend boarded the bus and the rest they say, is history.

No idea why it was that vivid. And that sudden.

I dropped off at ION Orchard and spent some time milling around in the iconic mall.. particularly at the Adidas outlet. Orchard's rather crowded for a weekday though I noticed. At nearly 1530hrs I took the train to Bishan.. and went walking around Junction 8. Went into Popular soon after and bought three books on a whim, using my card for the very first time. Those lucky three are -

Too Big to Fail - Inside the battle to save Wall Street by Andrea Ross Sorkin
The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Best I Could by Subhas Anandan

Great stuff that I'd been eyeing for a while. Is this a case of a shopping binge? Hm.. Finally went home after that at five - after my haircut at a salon five minutes from my place.

So instead of spending five minutes to accomplish my goal, I took five hours. Wandering around is my way of relaxing I guess. Probably what sparked it off was when I took 'no' an answer the night before.

And those bungling fools just took my Saturday away from me once again. What happened to the 'do NDP = no YOG' agreement? Down the drain as usual. Once more they failed to plan for the manpower required beforehand.

When can I ever see them again then? Or you, and you, and you.
Today could have turned out so differently.. But I'm OK now..

Lastly, I shall end my aimless post by sharing with you guys a quote from Judy. Guess some people (Aaron I think) will recall that I'd quoted this before in June 2008. This quote is so good that I think it's worthy enough to enter Wikiquote or something

i'd think that if it's love,
you won't change just to please the other party
(not talking about changing for the better here)
or agree to whatever the other person says
or something along those lines.
ie. simply not be yourself.
and if you're confused,
i'd think that you should really do some deeeep thinking,
rather than make the wrong choices,
do the wrong things,
only to regret later,
or worse still,
hurt others.
not to mention,
be the talk of the town.

- Judy, Oct 2007

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