What's in a name?

2004-08-11 9:02 p.m.

This is another one of those short entries (short is debatable, but it won’t be like the previous one) that precede another entry of certain significance—these entries are those that take days to construct. Just some observations and events of the past few days. Don’t take the titles of them to heart, their just to sprinkle some light humour in this entry….

Observation Number One:The unrecognizable pair

Yeah, well to me that is. Sometimes, people whom you just come to know suddenly pop up when you least expect it. Nothing wrong with that, except that when their faces don’t register in your mind until a few moments later, it sorts of creates and embarrassing feeling. It’s bad enough if the other side is directly in front of you (think back to one of my other entries). It’s not so bad when you traveling at 20 to 30km/hr and getting a two second glance at the person/persons. So yeah, at 12 something on Saturday, 7th of August, it’s plain old me in a car heading towards Ghim Moh, when I spied two girls walking. (Sue me, I notice anything.) Ok, so thousands of females do that, but not a pair that wore dark blue T-shirts with one in a skirt and on sharp high heel shoes. Now who on earth wears high heel shoes and walks in the blazing hot sun? About fifteen seconds after they crossed the road and entered one of the lanes, the puzzle suddenly materialized. Amandae and Serene Foo, back from NUS. Ouch. So simple.

Observation Number Two:The old face in the sea of faces

This one’s rather bland but what the heck. Watching movies would mean dragging yourself down to meet up with your friends and listening to their comments before, during and after the show. However, there’s something more stress relieving when you venture to the cinema on your own. So that’s what I discovered at Lido theatre on a Sunday evening. It’s far much better to stand at one corner and watch the crowd run by rather than run out of topics to chat about with friends. And from the see of faces you may spot pretty girls, handsome hunks and if you’re lucky enough old faces. So I caught an old face, Christopher Seck, ACSian, chess player and scholar while traveling up the escalator. (Now, this is a face I could recognized, despite the head). Yeah, fleeting moment again. I seem to have one too many of these. Why?

Event Number One:Attention in attendance

It’s something when you have a guest at a function like a Church sermon on a scorching Sunday. It’s another thing when that Guest delivers a speech to all the adults about the history and importance of Small Groups. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, never mind.) So there I was along with the other SG 13 members and about a hundred plus other people listening to the Bishop's speech. Attempting to listen was more the case. Some were sleeping ( I shan’t say who), others were just chatting with their neighbours and some like me , were doodling on the notes provided. Well, I wasn’t exactly doodling, but copying one or two phrases down as the speech went on. In more accurate terms, I was trying to regain my debater and copying skills and hopefully formulating a question to ask later. Gabriel was much more creative, drawing sheep (I think they actually represented lambs) and other small cartoon like pictures. Terence, in my opinion was the most creative of all. (Ahem) What were two sheets of notes regarding the history of Small Groups became rough paper for an integration equation. Yes integration, a topic that has long disappeared into the past for me. I could decipher the exact problem for is was all in light pencil marks. But damnit, you would expect a NSF to be busy solving some Maths C problem which most would have last seen in November of the previous year. No, not Terence Leong, DSTA scholar and Double Maths genius. Naturally of course, Gabriel was discussing the problem with him. So there I was, amazed at something totally unexpected to happen during a lecture by our Bishop. I guess the notion that an ACSian’s attention span is only around six to eight minutes still hold true until today. (Oops, I hope Dr. Robert Solomon doesn’t read this, or he’ll feel all his effort was wasted. Ladies and gentlemen out there, here’s an example of not what to do during a speech by a VIP…)

Event Number Two:What’s in a name?

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, so wrote Shakespeare. There certainly is, however, quite a lot in a name especially when you anglicize your name. Yeah, so some of you might have realized that I’m called Jason now. Sort of fits me well, so I saw no harm in telling my Upper OPSSPEC, Paul Lie that he could call me that. Simple so far right? Well the next part is when you tell Paul that you have a friend in NUS law by the name of Grace. (Uh-oh). Never mind, so you also tell him that that’s as much as he should know about her and he replies that she may not be in his OG. So you forget about it until the below conversation transpires….

Tuesday, the day after National Day. My handphone buzzes. Notices that the call is from “3SG (NS) Paul Lie”. Now what does he want? Did he leave something behind in the Brigade?”

Me: Hello Paul…

Paul: Hi Jason. Paul here. Remember you told me you have a friend named Grace in law?

Me: Uh…Yes… (Red lights flash in my mind.)

Paul: Well, she here in front of me right now. (Me thinking: what on earth? I told you not to seek her out!) Would you like to mention your Chinese name? It’s hard to say that I know you… (Not his exact words)

Me: Paul! This is so unexpected….

Paul: Well yeah but she's here in front right now. (Super great.) It’s hard to explain who you are.

Me (still disbelieving this conversation): Aren’t you suppose to be at lectures or something?

Paul: What? You think lectures are on whole day? Come on…

I walk down a corridor, glancing around. Luckily no one else is listening. A new voice comes on the line.

Grace: Hi Jiesheng. Since when were you known as Jason?

Me (gulp): Hi…Yeah well I anglicized my name quite a while back. (Quite is relative over here)

Grace: Oh ok… hold on let me hand you back (Me: Is that all you want to say?)

Paul (back again): Hi yeah well.

Me: So what are you doing now? Resting in the Canteen or what?

Paul: Actually no. We’re procrastinating. (We’re? You and Grace alone?)

Paul: So yeah see you next time…

Me: Bye.

(The above conversation is not exactly accurate, but this is what I remember).

So yes a one minute fifty five second conversation out of the blue, just trying to get some facts straight. And around ten seconds talking to Grace. (Chih Hung, you lose again.) Wow. I wanted to talk to Grace more, asking about present life and such but somehow that never transpired. Why do some of my conversations always turn out this way? Oops, now Paul can discover all the stuff about me from Grace and Grace can see what a nice NSF I’ve been in Paul’s eyes. Wait a minute, I thought. Paul knows Grace. Grace certainly knows some other NJ students in NUS. Paul will get to know the other NJ students. Paul gets to know who I am to them. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I guess I can’t stop it, not after Paul SMSed me saying, “She’s quite cute ha ha. I’ll ask her about you next time”. Oh bugger.

Yup that’s it. By and by, with so much revealed here, I just say that it’s all for some smiles and laughter. No one will force me to edit it like in previous times I hope…

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