A lot's happened in the last three months. I've just been too lazy to blog. :P

My last exam was on 2nd May, my Commencement ceremony was on 10th July, I went for my first international competition in Thailand on 17th July, and of course, my birthday was on the 22nd.

And shortly after that, on the 27th, Joseph and I broke up. Well. That's the gist of things.


Commencement was a... chaotic affair. After the ceremony and we'd all got our scrolls and everything, everyone was trying to take pictures with everyone else. We might really never see each other again, sadly.

While we were all seated listening to the speeches, Ivan actually messaged me to wish me happy commencement. And I wondered why Joseph didn't do the same. We actually hadn't spoken for almost a month; his reservist was 3 weeks long and started on the 24th of June and only ended later that week. I never really knew when was a good time to call, and when I did call, he was always out elsewhere with other friends. He said he'd call back, but he never did. And I just chalked it up to his usual forgetfulness, or maybe he was tired and had to be up early the next day.

Things hadn't been feeling right for a long time.

I left for a competition in Thailand on the 17th, and Joseph said he wouldn't be able to come see me off coz he had to give tuition in the morning. For a minute I wondered, isn't seeing your girlfriend off more important than giving tuition..? But I decided to let it go, since he's always been so work-oriented. Eugene keeps telling me I made too many excuses for him.

So Wai Xin, Xingjuan and Weiquan's girlfriend, Jeslin, came to see us (Fred, Weiquan and me) off at the airport, and just before the plane took off, I sent Joseph a message; since it was our anniversary that day, I said bye and I'd be back in 5 days' time, and happy anniversary. I never got a message back.

Thailand was fun; we landed in Thailand in the afternoon, and the people from the Thailand Outdoor Archery Club were there to pick us up at the airport. They brought us round the shopping district, and we bought ourselves a few things. They dropped us off at the hotel in the evening so we could check in and leave our baggage there, and then they brought us to the competition venue, just 800m from our hotel, haha. So we got to see the competition venue in its early stages of setup, and then we set off to find ourselves our dinner.

The next morning the van driver who helped drive us around the previous day brought us round to do more sightseeing; we actually intended to get a look at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the Royal Palace Gardens and the Temple of the Sleeping Buddha (Wat Po) just opposite the Royal Palace, but when we got there, the Emerald Buddha was closed the whole day for some ceremony, and we spent 3 hours just in the Royal Palace alone! So that meant we didn't have time to see Wat Po before the van came to pick us up and drive us to TOAC's range where that was a dinner-cum-team briefing session.

TOAC's range is a nice place too; their range is small, but in a cosy kinda way. The area where archers stand to shoot is sheltered, and just behind that, there's a pro shop and small cafe where the archers can get refreshments. If only that kind of thing existed in Singapore.

The next two days, Saturday and Sunday, were competition proper. Saturday morning and the earlier part of the afternoon were individual ranking events for us; I shot in the morning, and the two guys in the early afternoon. Later we went for lunch, and in the evening we had the team event for the University category.

Fred, Weiquan and me were the 5th seeded team; we weren't expecting to win anything, since it was an international competition after all, and we thought that the overall standard had to be pretty high.

But we beat our first team opponents, Chiang Mai University, and then we went on to face Ramkhamhaeng University. And when we beat Ramkhamhaeng, we realised we might actually have a chance of winning something. Coz after Ramkhamhaeng, it was down to the top four teams, and surprisingly, of the top four, three of the teams were Singapore teams. Our team, from NUS, and the two NTU teams.

Unfortunately, because of our initial ranking and the bracket that we were in, we went against the first-seeded team first, and we lost, leaving us to compete for the bronze medal against one of the NTU teams. We beat them in the end and managed to bring home a bronze medal each, but I still think that if we'd been up against one of the NTU teams first, then we'd have got silver instead of bronze. XD

So we came back on Monday night, on the 21st; our plane only landed at 9.30 pm coz it's been delayed by about an hour in Thailand. The only people who came to receive us were Wai Xin and Jeslin again, and Fred's parents. No Joseph again, but I thought it was probably pretty later for him and maybe he was tired after work. More excuses made.

My birthday was a rather dismal one; two weeks before, I'd already received the only present I'd receive this year-- ten people in the club had got together to buy my bow from the club and give it to me. So my bow of three years now is finally really mine. Thank you Weiquan, Wai Xin, Fred, Connor, Sylvia, Joshua, Xingjuan, Serene and Joseph. :)

But my birthday itself was quiet; Weiquan and I dropped by the range in the morning to see Fred, who was still conducting training despite getting back late the night before. Then we went for lunch and I went back home. Happy birthday messages trickled in, including one from Joseph which simply read "Happy 23rd Birthday!"

And I wondered why he couldn't even be bothered to call after I hadn't seen him for almost a month.

Even the breakup was done by way of an SMS, five days later.

I suppose you're right; I'm not the kind who's good at providing emotional support. Perhaps I'm really just selfish and I keep relying on someone to make my life more bearable while not reciprocating.

And you say that your feelings changed, that you felt our relationship had gone stale. And I remember what you said in the beginning, about how you were tired of playing around-- I wonder, if you were really tired of playing around, wouldn't you have made more of an effort to see that it lasted?

I'd had my own suspicions for the last month. Everyone else has their own. And y'know what they say? They say that you've been seeing someone else for some time now. And perhaps I'm not all that surprised; you left another girl for me, after all. And perhaps... against my better judgment, I said yes to you. Because I thought at that time that you'd only realised you'd made a rash decision too late and that you and that girl were not really to be. Because I thought that you were a better person. But it seems I judged wrongly.

I've asked for all my explanations now, and I can't really tell anymore how much of what you've said is truth or lies. But if you say that you haven't got together with anyone else, then who's the girl in all the Facebook pictures that you went to Bintan with?

Maybe she'll make you happy. Maybe all the numerous girlfriends you've had all this time were really just keeping space warm for her. Maybe this one will finally last and you'll find that candy-coloured forever so many of us will never reach.

I hope you won't let her down like you have the rest of us.

But I suppose that isn't my place to care anymore.