Last night a group of us gathered at 925 Yishun kopitiam for a little gathering session for Henry before he leaves.
Jason was there, Clara and Don were there, Tharik and Aik were there and then me.
I took a step back and looked at all of them. I've known them all for six years, inside out. Literally, for a couple of them. I used to remember the days the group consisted of 12 people. Now it's floating at around 3 to 5. Pretty much all of us have moved on with our lives. I have. Don and Clara has. Aik and Tna has.
But Henry has never really tried to keep his distance. To put himself out of his comfort zone. As a friend, naturally i'd be pissed. Especially when I, with others, have something to show on how good change is. You can say I'm stubborn.. or straightforward... or just plain nosey. But I'll always be pushing Henry to actually "grow up".
Eventually everything broke down and I left, angry, thinking of starting anew. So i closed this blog, woke myself up and kept away from the usual three of them. Maybe i wanted to prove something. Maybe. Maybe i realised this arent good friends to hang out with. Maybe?
Then 3 months went by. In some weird fluke we got down together. All of us. I forgot what it was. And all i saw was the same old rubbish. Same old. Same old. But this time i had more experience to share; where i've been, what i've been doing, etc etc.
I had outings with Sly... I went clubbing deligently.... I smoked a ton of different varities of ciggarrettes... i met so many kopitiam uncles. So many.
But for what? i've came to accept the fact that my old sec school friends are naive, immature pricks.
Then came 24th March 2007. When I finally hung around with Henry at his house in the middle of the night. He opened up a bit.. which really isnt very often (to anyone, maybe Sarah) and confided in me that, yes, he wants to mature.
What else can I ask for? Cause I know that this person is the one that's on par with me. And once he gets his gears right, I'd at least have a good sparring partner. Cause i dont believe in keeping things the same old same old. Change is good.
Henry and I initiated a challenge. Three challenges, in fact. And i shall list them now.
Challenge 1
Fitness
I'll make this simple and clear cut. The way it is now is this:
Obviously with all the years that's passed since O-levels and NCC, we've all gotten pregnant and soft. I dont like this. Henry doesnt like this. I dont like it more because as a smoker i see the effect of non-exercise more than he does.
One thing that i've noticed that has declined tremendously for me is stamina. If you're talking about strength and build, we are on par. But why i will lose out is because i cannot hold on for the next 20 seconds. Yes... i take 2000 years to complete my 2.4km. Add that to my asthma.
I'm a martial arts enthusiats. Henry just wants big balls and wanna learn how to fight. Tharik only thinks he knows how to fight. So with this set, we've planned to actually sign up for martial arts classes. I thought of submission grappling but he doesnt like hugging sweat. We didnt conclude on an art yet but i'm firmly believing in returning to Ki-Aikido. And if we could, Kendo.
Days of long ago.
So Challenge 1 is actually to increase our fitness level. When he returns (if he returns... he could get married there...) we'd compare on our own stats and see who wins. Loser strips naked.
We've actually started training since two weeks ago; swimming every Saturday. Glad to say i lost my gut and improved from swimming half a lap to four.
Challenge 2
The longest hair.
Yea we get funky ideas once in a while. We're talking about hair-hair here incase you're a sick fuck.
At its current state, Henry owns me by an inch. But only because i have thick hair and his is relatively straight.
This one is rather simple; the one with the longest hair in 4 months, wins. Sounds simple? Yeah... but fuck my dad is already bitching about me and my "long" hair... calling me a fucking indonesian village boy.
So the purpose of this? No purpose.. i just wanna fucking try a new style, okay?
Challenge 3
Income.
I'm already thinking of my future. After getting a job at DW Group, along with other endeavours that i simply cannot mention, I strongly believe that i could earn SGD$10,000 by the time Henry returns.
As it stands now, Henry has around SGD$2,500 in his bank. Not much... but I'm the special child; I've got SGD$8 in my bank.
Obviously it isnt fair for him now beacuse he's on attachment and cant possibly find a lucrative job in China whereas I can (in Singapore).
We came up with a plan. We found something that would actually help us financially. I kept tabs on it for a few weeks before and finally told him that, yes, this something works.
I wont (and cant) show his bank account growing but I will actually show the progress of my account every month. Maybe i'd hit the target of SGD$10,000 in 4-5 months. Maybe i will fall short... or maybe i wont even have anything grow at all. But only time will tell.
So that's our three challenges that Henry and I have placed infront of ourselves. At least it gives us something to do to keep up our "brader brader" spirit. I've transferred over my secret blog address to him for him to use while he's in China. It can be found in the links. The address is simple: henryaw.blogspot.com
The next morning I promised him I'd send him off to the airport. Flight Mi934. I remember. Sarah gave it to me. I told my mother to wake me up at 7 and told her that i gotta send off to China.
I didnt expect many people to be there.... knowing how the others work. So of course I must show myself to see my little brader off. It could be the turning-point of his life and i wanna be there!
and then.... BOOM!
"AUDI I KEEP TELLING YOU TO WAKE UP SINCE SEVEN AND NOW ITS ALREADY TEN!!!!!!" shouts my mother.
I woke up, shouted. She yelled at me not to be rude and i simply had to shout back,"MY FRIEND HAS LEFT FOR CHINA, UNDERSTAND?!" She kept quiet.
I know her style... wake me up at seven... go back sleep... then wake up when she wakes up and tells me she's been waking me up at what time what time. Crap. She never understands the fact that i have the strong Chinese "brotherhood" character in me, thanks to my beng friends. It's one of the values of a human being that i find valuable. My mom thinks that my friends are like her friends. That my relationship with my friends are just thin lines of gossip.
I threw a punch into my window blinds and heaved in anger. My heart was at my throat. I tried hard to force it down.
I looked at the sun shining so brightly onto the people walking below me. Is this really how it's
supposed to end, if something happens to Henry in China?
I pounced on my phone, it's 9:45. His flight is at 10am. I called.
...... "hello?", came his voice.
I smiled.
The rest is history.
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Audi
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