no more walks

There used to be a time when weekends were stuff I would look forward to. Right from primary school through to JC, fridays were much cherished because they right after that comes the weekend.

National Service soon followed. Weekends were even more precious then.

Then I had to sign on.

So I kinda manage to trap myself in a permanent conundrum. another three years. at least.

university wasn't so bad. being in the outdoor society meant that sundays were for galivanting in the yorkshire dales and the north york moors. I always wondered how the amk felt about having a asian guy bringing them through the english countryside. I had been through to most walks in my first year in uni. Since I was so into the whole english tradition of sunday walks, with a sunday pub lunch in between, I decided to join the society as a walk leader and very soon found myself being drafted in as the quartermaster (read: storeman) as well as the merchandise rep (read: salesman). The training was conducted by a mature student (not that we were immature, it's just what they'd call folks who return to study after working for some time) who was once a SAS serviceman. It was really easy to learn the first-aid techniques, basic/intermediate orienteering/map reading methods and other rudimentary skills. It's easier than BMT.

So here was a singaporean guy, volunteering to bring his peers who were british, germans, americans, chinese (from china), japanese, norwegians, spaniards, swedes around the english dales and moors. My first walk was conducted under supervision of a senior walker, annie. It pretty much went alright. Made a wrong turn about midway through the walk but was not critical as I was at liberty to change the route on the fly.

My first solo walk was at the lovely coastal town of robin hood's bay. I took the smallest group (it was because the walkers could choose their walk leaders and nobody thought a non-native bloke could take them through an english coastal town). One of my best buddy in outdoor society, lee, took another group and another by someone else, i forgot. perhaps a little bit ironic, when Lee got his group lost and their 12km medium paced walk became a >15km forced march nightmare. Lee, whom I just googled, is working at Stratascan Ltd. I am going to write him an email asking if he remembers this singaporean guy who played badminton with him, hitching a ride in his dad's car up to newcastle to visit a friend before coming back down again in a weekend, drank pints and shared chips with in too few a pub lunch.

I thought about my days in university this weekend because of jammie and eric's wedding. another york alumni pairing. this is the second of such pairing. or at least that i know of. kenneth and jean have already got baby timothy. I am so proud to have been their bestman however much i felt i wasn't up for it. they reassured me that i would be their choice. kenneth will soon be off to seoul as the second secretary. jean and baby tim will join at the end of the year.

went clubbing with yugin last night and before that dinner with him at brewerkz. also such interesting gabbers when with yugin. we can go on. i hope v didn't feel left out.

jammie said "don't just keep in touch during weddings." and proceeded to stretch out her arms to give a hug. it was just like uni again. eric said "wei, why you hug my wife without my permission." I then gave eric a hug as well. Sometimes guys don't have to apologise for burst outs at each other because neither was doing the wrong thing. when eric and i had a tiff in siena, basking in the tuscan sun, it was in 2000. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was about but...

I don't think I want to actually live through my days in uni again. but if given a chance, i certainly wouldn't want to change a single thing. there might have been petty grievances but they only serve to spice up the otherwise dull life in a university town. everyone was gossiping as much as being gossip fodder. yugin was saying our (jammie, yugin and I) holiday to dublin staying at ashfield house was his most stress-free ever. it was indeed great fun for a junior like me to go dublin with yugin who would fill jammie and me up with joyce's information. I can vaguely remember him in his (blue?) waterproof jacket, jammie in her burgundy jacket and me in my khaki, walking along temple bar, trinity college, liffey river, trying to figure out which is the millennium bridge, drinking guiness after visiting the james gate guinness hop store, learning about the book of kells, o'connell road and even going to the location of the road at which boyzone's by request album cover was taken. sigh...

I later had great trips to mallorca and malta as well. pretty stress-free too. =)