It's a small world after all..

Hm...why do I say that?
Just now came back from watching Nuansa 2008 (Great performance, btw, salute to all who worked so hard for the production!), and took the bus together with some friends. So, I started chatting to a girl that I know studies in NUS but whom I'm not very close to..and she was from the same primary school that I was! And possibly my classmate! (ungh...I can't remember her face..my bad...but she knows all the names that I'm mentioning, names of ex-classmates that I remember.) Remarkable, since I moved away from the town where I was born, Semarang, when I was just 9 years old, and afterwards lost contact with all my Semarang friends. Was trying around to find them through social utility websites...and voila! There's one just studying at NUS! Happy, happy, nostalgia-ing about all my primary school and kindergarten experiences..hahaha.. I was quite a trouble-maker, btw... cuz then I wasn't the sweet, innocent bookworm I am now..haha.. I remember I got punished for "fighting" with boys..and once in 3rd grade me and another girl "ambushed" and fought a 6th-grader..and defeated him too! As in..we kinda like just randomnly hammered him till he fell to the floor... Man...I wonder how my friend and that guy is doing now..hahahaha...

Another reason that I think the world got comfortably smaller... Met an exchange student in archi that's also a vegetarian becuz of "i don't want animals to be tortured" reason. Dang! That's the first person I meet who's my age, vegetarian but not related to Buddhism..hahahahaha.. Pretty cool...to get to talk to someone that I'm vegetarian cuz I pity animals and get a respond: "Me too!" Instead of weird silence or suppressed smile..hahaha.. Hm...I like all my friends wholeheartedly, vegetarian or not, but it's just great to be able to connect with someone, with a side of me that not many people understand.

Hm... thinking about my personality... (ok not related to the blogpost...forgive me on this digression...).. I think it's shaped a lot by the fact that I moved houses quite often from an early age. I've moved house more than 20 times though I've only moved city 3 times - grew up in Semarang till I'm 9yrs old, moved to Pekanbaru till I'm 13, and came to Singapore till now. (btw if anyone moved house as much as me do contact me, I want to chat to somebody about it ;p ) So... I'm really used to adjusting to new environments and leaving familiar ones.. which resulted in me being easily getting to know people and being friendly, but also easily 'forgetting' people especially if I don't see them a lot anymore. (That is, except for very few people who left permanent imprints on my life.) Being blatantly narcissistic, I'd say I am a fascinating mix (fascinating for myself, of course) between a friendly, over-confident, funny (at least, trying to be...) person and a fiercely private person that needs a lot of time for solitude... I used to struggle with the question, which one is the real me, and am I presenting a fake front to the wolrd, but well... I've since accepted that I'm both..the two sides of me are real ,that my personality just changes according to circumstances and the people I'm with, and that there's nothing really bizarre or shameful about that. (or is there?)

In any case... had a "revelation" today about why my favorite place is the library.. It's just an amazing place, really, in the sense that it's a public place but it's also a very private space as well. You don't go to the library to interact, to see others, to "hang out" (well I do hang out in the library..but let's skip that..).. you just open your book, and there you go, you have your own world and your own space and no one will disturb you. It's funny how I like to strike up random conversations with people in the lift, bus stop, malls, but never, never in the library eventhough it's the place I visit most often. It has to do with maintaining the impression of a "private space" in the midst of a crowd. Just the way I like it.