2028.

It's interesting how every thing changes and yet some things are so similar.

Was near the neighbourhood I grew up in today, a town called Ang Mo Kio. Had lunch with two friends I knew since Secondary School, persons I have known for nine and ten years respectively. We lunched at Maccers (In Sg, we just say Macs), a place which was started during our early teenhood and where we spent much time after school. It was the "cool" place, I guess and sitting around junking on junk food was somehow revered. I can still remember our clique sitting around a table, all elbow to elbow and munching away on fries. $2 for a large one, I think it was.

On Monday, when I walked into one of said friend's place, I took the lift up with her dad and we were both unsure if each other were who we think. I've grown up into a lady, he said. When I stepped into the 3-room HDB flat, I realised it has been 10 years from when I first stepped into the house.

In that apartment, we congregate for various work relating to our fave past time then. I ate her Mom's Burmese styled curry and I remember a few of us dressing up and taking photos of each other once. You know, teenage girls do that... and yes, it is excusable for teenage girls to do that.

When I was at Causeway Point on Sunday, I walked into a photocopy shop (!!! 35cents for 6 pages!) and realised the girl serving me was the same girl I talked to before when I was temping in the shop opposite. The Christian bookshop which has been replaced by a winter wear shop called Cold Wear. I spent the interim period of waiting between O levels and poly (about 6 months) working at Mount Zion bookshop, and returned almost every holidays to work there. We got so used to each other, I was such a maniac in knowing the products - I could memorise where books, gifts and CDs were... and ahem, if you wanted a song but didn't know the title, you could sing it to me and I would find the song and CD for you :) - that I could return as supervisor. Which honestly was kind of errr.

But that shop was no longer there, the new shop space had a different lay out, the cashier counter was in a different place. And a part of me was like, "Aaaaahhhh, you can't do that!"

But I will live.

I mean, I'm typing this now which does mean I have not expired.

The night air - its smell and caress, the way it's not cold or warm, just balmy, the way it lifts your hair and tempts you to just stretch out your arms and make like you are flying or something - is the same. As lovely as ever.

People still talk the same. And I am not complaining.

Singaporeans - or maybe it's just the young and supposedly in crowd - still have terrifyingly high expectations of body image. Now, that bit I will gripe about and say shut up and let any one wear what they want to, whether they look perfect or not. It is very wrong when the average young girl is probably a Size 6. It's plain wrong. Don't impose standards on people like that.

There are still buskers playing at Woodlands Mrt station. The sound of kids playing at the playground still travels very clearly to my room. The other day, an uncle started singing karaoke on his home entertainment system. The Malays still hang in the void deck and play guitar, people still beep their ezlink card at the outgoing beep point as they walk to their seats on feeder 900. There are still kids who scream in public places and my friends still get annoyed.

The sun still rises and sets and I saw the first nice sunset since I got back the other day. Peeking from between Hdb flats, that's the same sun that captured my heart in Melbourne as I shot it again and again from my bedroom window.

I count the days every day, days since I left. It has been five days now.

Last Thursday, I started it off screaming in the rain for a while running back home in pouring rain from Bummers Paradise with Ray. Made my Safeway run, placed my clothes into my suitcase, met a former cell leader for dinner, accompanied a former cell member to my place to pick up the electric guitar, then went to 609, lounged around then to Norturnos for a last (for now) late night coffee.

I still think of home. And wonder if I overused the word "miss".

In time, maybe I would think of there as just "Melbourne". For now, it's always "home" before I mentally push the word away to replace it with just "Melbourne".

I still think life is strange but some things are getting clearer.