The Jon Chronicles: Growing Up

What does growing up mean to you?

The day when you hit 21?

Freedom? Booze, RA movies, cars and babes? Sex?
Anything goes, but Whatever is cool.

Neither for me. 20 made me feel old. 21 was nothing special.
Well, at the very least i ROD from army and get to do things I love to do.

26 Sept 07 - Wednesday

Class outing:
The day spent at esplanade library was fantastic. What place to enjoy the scenery and get lost in literature and music and the arts. Simply the joy of life. Unfortunately, I was doing my lab report. Either way, the piano in the practice room was enticing..except that it costs money for rental for the hour.

Like many smart Singaporeans, me and dear went to enjoy a free performance, a string ensemble by dunno-whom. A typically chinese string orchestra, except that there were some non-chinese pieces played, which were pretty interesting. The chinese ones on the other hand though, some of them sounded pretty nostalgic, like playing Elysium or other chinese martial arts based games.

Dinner was a simple and quick affair by the bay. The esplanade open food court, or other wise known as makan-sutra foodcourt (i think) was pretty expensive, but oh well. As usual we talked cock even when we got no cock to talk...

The group later split up. Some went Zouk to Zonk themselves out, while the other few - Alex, Meilin Rende Dom Esther and me went to (supposedly settlers) starbucks to chill. Had a few good laughs really. Showed them my 'ahem' video. Spending the night travelling back to Boon Lay sucks; Needless to say we missed the last bus. We saw 2 girls looking at the 199 signboard and thought they too missed the bus, so we tried to call them to take cab. We assumed wrongly; made an ass of ourselves haha. We (actually Rende) tried to call out to the remaining girl as she was walking towards the road. Finally she turned around and we asked her if she was taking cab to NTU. She turned around and shook her head and laughed. Blab.

28 Sept 07 - Friday

Not exactly eventful for the earlier half of the day, except that Esther cannot remember, till now, the food we ate for lunch. Let me tell u la! It's nasi-briyani(sp?) and Muthabak...haha...silly you.

Anyway, friday evening at 8pm was the first time I attended Lighthouse Woodlands. My, it has a grand lobby and a huge interior. I thought it was a grand 5* hotel lobby haha. It was the once every 3 months "Holy Ghost Meeting". I get to see unusual manifestations, at least the last time I went. I shan't elaborate too much on this.

Nevertheless we ended at 10pm, met Russell (as usual he was late). His philosophy: Other people will surely be late so I(as in him) dun need to be early. Anyway we took a cab down to ECP. At 10pm? Yup.

We had an organised overnight cycling for the cell group to meet at 11pm at the previously known costa sands resort. I'll try to recall who went: Daniel, Russell, Lisa, Lie Cong, Eugene, Flannery, Zhi Wei, Esther and me.

I'll just bring up the general route we took (photos below and more to be added):
From costa sands we wrote to the other end of ECP. Near the end of ECP, Zhi Wei was taking photos on his bike, and i thought, Wow cool idea. Esther was saying "wa, so skilled" and the next thing he braked and fell. His camera broke..ouch..599bucks(he later bought the same model at Mustafa) Quite a shocking start... anyway we headed down to fort road>>
Anyway, shopping at this hour with very little people to contend with gives me a certain...thrill and excitement. Makes you feel like buying everything if you stay there for long, or so Eugene says. And so we did...stayed there for a tad too long...not too sure but it probably was an hour or so.

And thus our troubles began..
The trip back was fraught with danger. It was the road leading up all the way to Serangoon, and the road was treacherous to the inexperienced. The pavement was narrow and littered with lamp posts and dust bins that threatened to knock over the unsuspecting rider. Knocking into them is okay, but there is that danger of falling on the wrong side of the road. That person is Esther. She was so wobbly with every obstacle I got really worried, and cycling behind her initially was amusing because she kept banging to the sides of things, such as the construction fence and poles and such. But at this point of time the cars were threateningly close and fast, and danger was real.

There was a junction where things got really bad. There was literally no pedestrian crossings. The first we took we had to cut across the road when the lights turned red. Bear in mind that as we were cyclists we need to take turn to take off. This particular crossing Esther tried to cross and stumbled, and it turned green when she was halfway across it. The cars and buses, which were now increasing in numbers, were ever speeding. So it was a moment of panic and chaos and all of us, who were waiting on the other side of the road shouted: Off the road!! Go up! Up! As cars and some buses zoomed so close to us, I did feel my rear tires so close to being run down. The next crossing also had no pedestrian crossings, we crossed only when our side turned green and had to take turns as the ones at the back cannot cross in time. I was particularly worried about Esther as she has problems starting off, almost every time wobbling and sometimes stumbling. Somehow, we got across that huge circle junction eventually...I think it's Macpherson something?

Anyway, dawn was breaking and the number of buses and cars were speedily increasing as we made our way east towards Ubi. What a mad decision. An experienced cyclist like me know how treacherous that road was. The busy hussling of cars and buses, as well as undulating pavements, if there were any present was difficult for the less experienced cyclists. Before we reached Ubi however, the road along Serangoon was bad enough. The lamp posts made the pavement to cycle very narrow, even I had difficulty and fear of knocking into the lamp post and falling unto the roadside into on coming cars. Esther had a much worse time than I had. Everytime she stumbled she cannot catch her balance as her bike was too tall for her. That whole stretch made me worry excessively as to how to handle Ubi...ohh treacherous Ubi. We resorted to walking at certain stretches of the road due to the stupid lamp posts.

Anyway when we finally reached the Paya Lebar side of Ubi, there was a close shave for Esther. She braked at the junction and somehow lost her balance and nearly, just nearly, toppled unto an on-coming bus. It was insanely scary and I could scarcely breathe. That particular junction was excessively tricky to cross, when you keep stumbling each time you start off. The other side of the road we got to had no pavements, and the road was narrow and the buses shave pass your bike if you would cycle too close. A little while later I realised Esther was shaking involuntarily and very stressed. I would think so too...so many life threatening situations and a long way more to go back to ECP.

Eventually, we made our way to Eunos. There was some incident at yet another crossing that Esther broke down in tears from the overwhelming stress and fear...nevertheless we pressed on. Wei ling met an accident. She bumped into a lady and got the lady's leg scratched. Poor lady. Anyway, we eventually parted ways after crossing a junction as the people in front decided to head towards the main Ubi connecting to parkway and I thought...CRAZY!! No way am I going that way...so I brought Russell(he too agrees) and Esther and went our way through Tanjong Katong, through Parkway, and eventually reaching the underpass and its safety. The sight of Parkway was unprecedented in the way it gave the assurance of safety. We finally made it. Amazingly alive and unscathed safe for a few scratches from the bumps that Esther had. Amazingly she didn't fall unto any oncoming traffic which I feared so much throughout the later half of the journey I was literally praying under my breathe all the time. She broke down...but I too was very stressed... Life and Death was very real...and suddenly the human being seems very frail and vulnerable.

And so, I thank God for bringing us through safely...all 9 of us. It was, undoubtly, an enjoyable and memorable event after all. But I would, the next time round, consider very carefully safety as the top priority now.

Anyway, Russell and I, thought to be crazy, ran from costa sands (we finished everything at 8 plus in the morning) to Mac. After 9 hours of cycling we think we could be Iron pussies. It was a good run though and I felt my body was strange in that nearing Mac I was neither tired nor breathless as I normally would. But that was enough anyhow.

We rested, played sandcastle:

Yep that's Daniel..dunno what he doing.

Went subway and had a very hearty meal (and drink). Yummy. Makes me crave for some subway now..NOW!!

I taught the group how to play this ice-breaker game I played during Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) FOC. We had a good, extremely good laughing session. I swear, Daniel is extremely amusing in this game. I'll teach the game the next time we(whomever 'we' is) get to meet.

Anyway, we ended around 12 plus and simply had to head home. On the way out of ECP we did this: