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Yeah, I named this post so that it sounded real profound and all. But I guess I need to wrap the year up. After all it’s the year when I ORD!

• How can I not start things off by mentioning Asia’s biggest natural disaster, which made a gloomy start to the new year? It was a real shock due to the timing and all, yet coincidences happen in the most unwelcoming times. I must say that the SAF was very quick in providing aid, and Alvin Tay was called up to go to Indonesia in less than 4 days. He didn’t even get to celebrate New Year. Quenvin and I wanted to volunteer and help out as drivers there, but there was still this thought at the back of our minds — would we be able to come back before our ORD date? Selfish thoughts? I don’t know, I really don’t. Well, in the end there wasn’t an opportunity for any of us to go down there anyway.
• The start of the year was bad, also because I had finally seen the worst of the army. I thought the previous 1 year in Stagmont was crap already. It was total bullshit whatever the FM and Dy FM told us before CMTL begun. Empty promises gave way to reality. Justice gave way to politics. I’ve never seen such an incapable person before, and to think that he would hold such a high position in the hierarchy only due to seniority. C’est la vie.
• ORD loh! Went to work at Cafe Cartel J8 almost immediately after NS. I think the F&B industry is really interesting. Service, service, service. The buzzword all year and rightfully so. Why provide a service if you well, cannot provide one? Then again, consumers are real pains-in-the-ass when it comes to service. As someone who can now claim to have worked in the industry before, I think I can appreciate them better? =) Cafe Cartel was a bitter-sweet 8 months, and largely a learning experience.
• 5 European Cup successes.
• Hong Kong with the guys in June was simply great. I think we’re just such a close bunch of friends lah, getting even closer as the years have gone by. We’re just so similarly grounded in values, and I guess also accepting of each other’s quirks. We went shopping, eating and having fun all day all night in Hong Kong. And we’re gonna do it again tonight at Cindy’s chalet!
• SMU. Already half of my schoolmates are complaining about SMU, but I beg to differ. I don’t think I will ever lose sight of why I chose SMU in the first place. The opportunity to learn, the opportunity to put my brains at work. I’m not the most intelligent of people, and certainly not the most hardworking of them, but I have self-belief second-to-none. The important thing is to learn from this 3.5 years in SMU, and not simply finding short-cuts to getting a higher GPA. What’s the point of good grades if you didn’t do it the way it was meant to be? LTB was a great learning point. Miss Chia is without doubt a very good professor, yet I got a B-. And why did I get such a poor grade? Why was I one of the bottom 5.2% of all LTB students? I know why. And I will learn from it. How many of you can say that?

As usual, 2005 had its good and bad moments. I’m just glad I’m no longer in NS, and on to a new phase in life. 2006, here I come!