8th May 2000

When honour's at stake, this vow I will make... Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart are promising all for love at the moment, and I've just imbibed possibly the most perfect cup of amaretto coffee I've ever had. Of course once the novelty of my new bottle of amaretto wears off it'll just be amaretto coffee and my bottle will join the now passe bottle of Bailey's in the fridge to wait for friends to come over and finish it. I've had my bottle of Bailey's sitting in cryo for over a year now.

I finished "work" on Friday at about 1 pm, and it was a glorious day. Glorious days are rare in London, and Friday was exceptionally glorious, with air temperatures rivalling Singapore (only without the humidity) and sunlight... such sunlight as I've never seen before, or at least it feels that way. Searing sunlight that brought back faint memories long submerged in the fog of time... sunlight that called out to me to rejoice in it (and sleep in it too. There's something about sun that makes me want to lie down in it. Me and the rest of the human race I reckon.) Then I thought about the patients I'd resolved to see that afternoon, some to follow up and just talk to and ask how they were feeling, and some because they have what we call "good signs" and cold and impersonal as this sounds, we have to see clinical signs or we'll never be able to recognise them. Some people think this dehumanises the patients and turns them into slabs of meat with signs. I've come to the conclusion that I still see them as patients. The signs are just signs, the people who talk to you about the signs are Real. For a minute my resolve faltered, because I knew by the time I was finished the weather would probably have changed. Good weather never seems to last more than a few hours in this land of "eternal rolling fields and royal scandals". Grey tends to predominate. London's the greyest city I've ever seen. But in the end something (what?! What?!?!) got the better of me and I resignedly gritted my teeth and got on with being a med student. Reckoned I could always get more of the same another day. I finished at 5pm and the sun was still up (it sets at 9pm nowadays) but it had lost its warmth. Went to the park and ate dinner over an oncology book but it was a chilly dinner with sunlight everywhere, and not a bit to drink. If you get my drift.

Saturday was, for once a repeat performance of Friday and I rushed headlong out to the park to dozily read, eat and manufacture vitamin D. Saturday was simply perfect. I don't often feel as sleepily contented as I did then. Something about how my life's evolving has me constantly feeling out of time else tired. But thankfully there will always be perfect Saturdays somewhere in between to get me holding my head high again.

Checking my mail just now I realised the only mails I get nowadays are smutty links from stupid email addresses like sharon1593@hotmail.com or cindy888@hotmail.com to see how they've just turned 18 and performed all sorts of wild and wanton acts to celebrate it. Something to do with my email address being listed on ICQ pages or something. The point is I don't get personal emails anymore. Friends I once had have all evaporated. I do get occasional mails from my tried and trusted friends, but I remember a time when I got all sorts of mails, more than I could read, every day, and how I used to have trouble finding the time to reply to all of them. It's the same with my answering machine, where once it was filled to capacity with messages it's now an unblinking red light on my desk starting balefully at me everytime I get home. Not that I mind that much, I'd rather it be blank than filled with messages from "false" friends asking me out to god knows where for a lapdance or something stupid (some of my "friends" are very keen on lapdances and dodgy massages), things I'm far to sensible to bother with. So how long have you been suffering from this problem you ask. Are you antisocial. Well truth be told I don't think I'm antisocial, so to speak. I've met up with complete strangers before erm quite a few times now, people from IRC who wanted an ear because they were depressed, other strangers from IRC meeting in groups, attended friends' church services in foreign churches because they asked, gone to parties that I only knew one person at, the usual teenagery stuff. And I never really got a kick out of it. Lucian writes on his page how he left such parties with a bitter taste in his mouth. Well, not quite like that for me, I never really get the feeling I've wasted my time, because my time isn't really that important to me, I guess. I've never experienced ennui in my life, nor really had a real sense of urgency about anything except maybe on odd occasions (eg pre-exams and er flying headlong across the ocean but I've only done that once so far). So I leave the parties feeling rather tired and slightly morose about things that have nothing to do with the parties, and don't spare them a second thought. But they're not terribly enjoyable and I'm not crash-hot on attending social events. I've never been to the medic's summer ball although I've had three chances now, and the forty-seven pound ticket fee is only part of the reason (but a large one at that). I remember being keen and enthusiastic in first year and attending a cocktail night at the union. Free cocktails for "initiates". The only memorable thing about that night was drinking 20 cocktails in three hours because there was simply nothing else to do; I didn't know anyone there and it seemed poor form to walk around exchanging introductions without anything in your hand, and the cocktails were free and not unpleasant. I decided to leave after I realised I'd had twenty too many, and I'd re-introduced myself to (and been re-introduced to) a million James and Stewarts for the tenth time and that I wasn't really getting anything out of it. Couldn't imagine staying another three hours and imbibing 20 more cocktails. Alcohol doesn't normally have much effect on me, I'm a fast metaboliser and I've never actually got even moderately happy on alcohol before so it's just a waste of money to me, unless it tastes unusually nice.

I'm older and wiser now, when people ask me out to random events with more strangers around than I fancy I don't even bother trying to delude myself that I might meet interesting people I could befriend there. There probably will be one or two potential Real Friends at the events, but chances are they'll be as put off as I am, and won't be up for chatting so we won't get to know each other, other than a perfunctory hi. I'm at UCL. I'm at Kings. Oh. Ok I need to get back to my, uh, friends now. Bye. Said "friends" will either be busy chatting up random people, hanging with other "friends" or just standing around posing. So I make convenient excuses not to go and that's that. Doesn't do wonders for my social circle which is gradually contracting to one or two true friends here in London, and scattered across the globe. But it just doesn't seem worth the effort.

Lucian writes on his page (a lot of the things he writes about spark off memories of things I'd meant to write about but just never got round to) that he'd rather spend quiet moments with a good book or a true friend, at least I think that's what he wrote. I suppose I'm like that in a way. I like my friends alone, to myself. I enjoy quiet evenings or afternoons out with friends, one on one or one on three. As long as they're all Real friends. I don't like going out with gaggles of Real friends and Others. Somehow I switch personality mode and assume a quiet, observant persona that makes the occasional witty remark from afar but isn't really enjoying his friends' company as much as he'd like to. Distant. I guess it's all in my head. That's exactly how I am on IRC too. On the main I just get increasingly irritated watching strangers attempt to look cool, and occasionally pass the odd scathing semi-humourous remark. I don't really know why I IRC, truth be told. I don't enjoy it much either but it seems something to do while waiting for mails to appear in my mailbox. Occasionally, some of the one-on-one conversations, unfortunately vanishingly rare nowadays are enriching and enjoyable, and of a calibre far higher than the usual "age/sex/location oh you're male sorry byebye or oh you're male I'm female shall we meet" conversations which predominate IRC nowadays. It used to amuse me when IRC was still a novelty, but now it just leaves me rather disgusted with the human race. I suppose it doesn't help that I IRC on galaxynet, a predominantly Singaporean community.

One of the other medical students was chatting to me over brunch in a park the other day. (During which time I wondered why we have "brunch" but no "linner" or "dlunch") He thought it seemed rather sad that human lives are driven by the urge to procreate, and how most things were really about sex at the end of the day. I realised with a shock that he's actually right. We haven't really transcended anything have we, we've just romanticised things and disguised them with nice words. Romance isn't really about the thought anymore, it's about sex. Except to a very few people. And it all stems from the very, very basic need to procreate. I'd like to imagine I'm not like that, and that my priority in life is to become a doctor. That women (plural) will never rule my life, decisions or actions. And that I'm a rational, thinking, sort-of intelligent individual who won't be led by the ear by the pull of sex. I'd give my life for love, perhaps, but not love based on physicality, but rather on intellect and personality. Or so I'd like to imagine.

As an aside, I've noticed the singaporeans on #UK on galaxynet act, and speak even more "singaporeanly" than the singaporeans back home, on #rjc and #poetry. Everyone back home types like an american. Everyone here in the UK appends a lah or lor or hannor to everything they type. There's food for thought.