Stepfather's Day/Make Your Point Day/Dance Day
2004-01-09 @ 11:55 a.m.

I got a lift from Wan Li's dad, so I arrived home at a fairly decent hour, considering that I was coming from Holland Drive! I had a minor quarrel with my parents over my OG's gathering at Shang Jin's house earlier. First my dad messaged me to tell me he was coming to pick me up, despite the fact that I specifically told him to wait for me to message him first. Secondly, it was my mum's birthday, and I couldn't be with them to celebrate it. Thirdly, it was the last night of Jaxoras 2004, and I wanted to be with my OG, if even for just a little while longer. Things will never quite be the same once orientation is over. It's natural. People will make more friends, have different priorities, drift away. Who knows? I might even be one of those people a couple of months down the road. Still, I hope we can stick together as J'faien for the rest of life in RJC. If not all, at least most of us! After all, as Alina always says, the people in your OG are the first you meet in RJC, and they're the first friends you made here in RJC. Ultimately, it was the same old problem, with them objecting to me sacrificing time with the family in favour of other pursuits. It's been like this since I acted in Joy's drama a few years back. This time I really let my dad know what I thought about this whole issue. I hope he'll finally understand my point of view, which is that it's a natural thing to spend more time away from the family as you grow older, meet more friends, and get more involved in other activities. So I think that cleared up a lot of misunderstanding between us. No point arguing anyhow, it'll only make life more difficult for everyone. Sigh, still haven't picked out my songs for YE worship on Sunday. I want to sing God Of Wonders, but I think there won't be enough time for me to practice everything. We'll see...

Now's the part where you get to find out what exactly happened at Orientation Nite. Aren't you excited? My OG went out shopping after all our respective lectures had ended. Not before we played so many lame games though, I learnt way too many in that one hour. Anyway, we went to Spotlight at Plaza Singapura to buy fabrics. On the way back to school, Vaish wrote a poem for Alina and Gabriel on tissue paper from McDonald's, but more on that later. I bought a late lunch (or was it an early dinner) from some Japanese stall selling croquets. Damn expensive! $7.10 for 5 pieces. Orientation Nite left me feeling high, like that time when we went dancing under the bridge at the Esplanade! We did all the dances again, and this time more J3s and J4s were around to dance their own batch dances, with Amogh of course. Okay, then at Shang Jin's place we read the poem to our Ja'dye, upon which they cried and we all did a group hug. Miraculously, nothing toppled or broke during the hug, though the trampoline might have snapped if we'd put more people on it. I love my OG! J'faien! Okay, to be fair I love my class too. We have loads of time on Monday to bond anyway, seeing as we have no lectures and the gates don't open until 12.30 pm. Sigh, what a stupid rule that is...