It's sad to see so many of my friends and hall mates suffering from hall life. Yes, Hall has it's fun times. Doing crazy things out of nowhere, e.g drinking sessions, talking cock sessions, counterstriking (althought I've yet to experience that) blasting musics to disturb your neighbours, shouting across the corridor to your great neighbours, having great fun on courts or fields during IBG/IHG trainings and the matches, flashing lights from the SOC(technical) room onto the stage to irritate the performers and KAOPEHING everyone else for the kick of it! All these brought great fun and memories to my short one year plus stay in KR Hall.
Of course, like all things in the world, there's always a balance of equilibrium. With happiness and fun, there are bound to be sadness and sorrows, struggles and agony.
I've seen too many people in Hall committing too much into the activities here that they couldn't let go. Like what Bro YoW said before, Hall is addictive...once you are into it, it's hard to let go. That explains why I stayed on for FWOC 2004. My initial intention was to leave after checking in. I can still remember being assigned to E block without my friends, *Tissue and *Kaopeh Cho. To make it worse, my room was in a horrendous state, the previous owner was an Ah...N(sensitive, I don't want to be sued), curly hairs, dirts, soaps staining all over the place and the cupboards and even nails lying ard the floor and the bed's headboard. Somehow, I stayed for orientation. I don't know any of the people in the group, made new friends in Ivan, Xinli, Jac, Zhiyong, Ivy, Song, Joseph and many others who showed up here and there (Teckie was one of them). I must say I didn't really have lots fun during FWOC, but somehow I was attracted to stay on. Maybe it's the mystery that beholds everyday's events, the fwocers would always say,"tomorrow is very important, we have many fun activities installed for you guys...". Being a stubborn yet curious boy, I was bluffed into staying and I must say i stayed on just to experience the so-called fun.
Although the whole fwoc wasn't a superbly fun experience but RAG and FLAG was. I can still remember what Tootall told our group, why the final years are still doing this FLAG thingy, it's because they see the importance in building up the rapport between the Seniors and the Freshies. And so it was true that it's during this one day that I felt intergrated to the blog. Yes, to me it was this very day that I felt I am a Kent Ridgean (more of an Eguana actually), not even those fwoc or block initiation can beat this day. It was on this day that I see the TLC shown by all the seniors in the block, it's on this day that the seniors showed me that winning wasn't important (to those peepz who always claim E block is all about winning, BALLS to you!) but the welfare of our own residents.
Come Rag Day, KR lost, I teared (full stop).
Back to the topic of being too involved and absorbed into Hall life. Till now I would always ask myself the question, what's the point of putting in so much efforts into this place? Seniors may claim that it's for personal satisfaction and for the others, e.g friends and juniors. But are you happy at the end of the day? If you are able to commit yourself well and lead a balanced life outside and with your family, then I would say yes that's personal satisfaction. Sadly, that's not always the case, I've seen many faced many various problems as a results of Hall. BGR, Family, Financial, Studies, Self-esteem, Confidence, Reputation, just to name a few were all damaged if not destroyed during their Hall stay. I am not saying commitments in Hall is no good, but at the end of the day, what's it for? I feel when the time is right to let go, you should let go. I am glad that some of my mates are letting go and I would advise others who are considering to it go too...it's still the old quote by my idol(this sem) "back to basics - think for yourself" and the new quote by him "life is about choices". Choose carefully my dear friends, my dear hall mates. Let it go when you know it's about time. There's really no point sacrificing your own happiness for a place which might just forget about what you did for them in the future.
With that, I should really go and sleep, else I am going to get a big time nagging from my Baby =) I love YOU!!!
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