... notable events : My old spaceship

Zipping through the asteroid belt, bright splashes of high intensity laser beams flashed past us, drilling holes in the surrounding rock, barely missing our spaceship by mere inches.  Giggling quietly as we flashed past the vaporised rock and dodging tumbling mountains of cratered monoliths, we flew our spaceship faster than we had ever flown before.  My co-pilot (to him, I was the co-pilot as we never agreed on just who was the co-pilot and who the pilot) gripped his joystick tighter, pressing it even deeper into its wooden socket.

Our angled bow ploughed through the airless void.  The asteroids begin to thin, as did the almost too bright stabs of lasers, still trying to skewer our tiny spacecraft as we pulled clear of the asteroid field.

"There!" I mumbled as loudly as I dared.  "We head for that planet."  I pointed.  A bright blue orb no larger than a ten cent coin could just be seen at the bottom left of our forward screen.  Ten cents was all it took to buy a nice packet of rice or mee, I thought to myself, smacking my lips as I turned to look at the clock on the wall in front of me where Mr. Peter Siew our class teacher stood, monotonously droning on and on about something.  Not long now till I get my packet of mee.

*Bump!

My co-pilot leaned hard against me.  "What?!!?" I whispered fiercely to him.  "I'm diving the spaceship!" he whispered back louder than he probably intended.

"You two.  Keep quiet!" the familiar and hated voice of our nemesis cut across the classroom.  "And straighten your desks!"

"Yes teacher." my co-pilot and I chorused together, pushing our desks back together from the "V" shape they formed, and pulling out our two joysticks that were stuck into nicely chipped holes in the surface of our desks, joysticks that looked very much like boringly mundane pencils, now that the fun was obviously over.

My co-pilot nudged me, and I nudged him back.  Yeah, yeah I know, I nodded  at him.  We still had our plasma bombs made out of hollowed out pieces of blackboard chalk, a small pile of that deadly ordinance sitting in our desk drawers, chalk that had been carefully and lovingly chipped and hollowed into very thin rings so that they shattered very satisfyingly when thrown against a wall, a blackboard... or against a hated teacher's back.

But we were spacepilots and no one ever said spacepilots were dumb.  No, not us.  We could throw our plasma bombs at our nemesis right now for having intruded into our awesome space battle, but that wouldn't be the smart thing to do, not right now at least, not with the whole class staring at us.  Besides, recess was next.  I didn't exactly want to spend recess in detention.  Noooo... I wanted to go to the canteen and spend my ten cents on a packet of mee and then maybe trudge over to the other side of the school field and climb the sheer face of the school mountain until the bell rang for classes to start again.

My co-pilot nudged me again and I nudge him back, hard.  "Stop!" I whispered at him.  I didn't even particularly like him.  We never played together except in class, and only because he was sitting next to me and we both had little other choice if we were to survive the boring class lessons and the even more boring teachers.

I can't remember his name now but I still remember his face, as well as that of my Standard Five class teacher, Mr. Peter Siew.  We really should have been studying hard since it was the year of our country-wide Standard Five assessment exams, the results of which would see our placement into secondary schools but, but... those pesky aliens... the world needed someone to stand up to them and fight back!  Who else could save the world.  Who else would do it but for my co-pilot and I in our slightly beat-up desks angled into a "V" and our pencils struck into carefully chiselled holes in the desk surfaces in order for us to execute those high G turns and fantastical bursts of speed through interstellar space thumbing the pencils' rubber tips to fire our laser beams, zapping aliens as we go.

That was a magical time.  Everything was a game, everything was full of possibilities, everything was just as an imagination away.  Today, as I sit on my sofa with the TV on, watching as my son tries to overturn my telescope, yank down the curtains or eat the remote control, crawling around picking things up to put into his mouth, poking, twisting, yanking, pulling at anything that strikes his fancy, I can't help but think back to my time, when everything was so wonderfully new, a simple pencil could be a laser gun or a spaceship component, a piece of chalk could be crafted into devastatingly deadly bombs to be used against aliens, both real and imagined, a six feet high yellow earth mound on the other side of the school field could be an almost unscalable sheer mountain cliff (well it probably felt that high to an eleven year old kid)...

What would his future be, I wonder.  What are the games he would devise?  Where would his imagination take him?  There is so much beauty in a child's simple games, their wide-eyed wonder at the world around them as possibilities after possibilities open up and yield to their explorations.

Enjoy your childhood my son, they are the most precious of times.

... notable events : New life

He was 17 days early.  His expected due date was supposed to have been the 14th of February 2010, Valentine's day and the 1st day of the Chinese New Year and therefore a Tiger.  Instead, he decided to be a Bull and come out early.  The morning before, we had the doctor's appointments and imagine our surprise when both doctors declared that she was already in labour....  The rest of the day till the time we registered at the hospital at around 9:30pm was spent in a daze.  Niangzi even went back to her office to hand over her work to her colleagues while I went back home with the maid to prepare the baby cot and things.  A slow surreal McDonald's meal later and we were at the hospital's delivery room.

9:32pm entry into the delivery room

9:47pm registration

10:12pm waterbag is punctured

11:50pm epidural

12:34pm alls quiet and asleep

The soft barking sound of the recording machine times the contractions and baby's heartbeat as the mother slumbers.  I sit quietly in my corner reading, sipping coffee and surfing the net.  This is going to be a long night, but one that promises to be both exciting and nerve-wreaking... nothing short of life-changing.

The matron has estimated between 6-8am would be when the contractions are sufficiently strong for delivery.  The doctor is expected then.  Meanwhile, the regular barking sound and the lone nightlight are my only companions as my niangzi sleeps.  She will need her strength in 6 to 7 hours.

The room is cold, thankfully my parents came by earlier despite my protestations, bringing a thermos of hot coffee and a light jumper.  They weren't allowed in by the nurses, but everyone understood their excitement, including the night duty guard at the door whom I chatted with briefly after my parents had left.  Everyone was excited, who could blame them for being soon to be grandparents.

It had been a hectic, almost crazy couple of weeks leading up to this.  A new maid, the final weeks of my project, switching of doctors, choosing of name, working out schedules, finding out information on birth and national registrations as well as residential status for my yet unborn son.

The barking sounds from the monitoring instrument seemed to have stopped, a quick peek reassures me after seeing that the heartbeat is still constant, only the peak intensities of the contractions seems to have dropped, hence the lack of sound, but the frequency has increased.  A slight moment of worry when the monitor strapped to her swollen belly moved a little when she woke up to shift her position a little and the machine, unable to detect a heart beat, made urgent and insistent beeps.  Clicking the call button, the elderly matron soon arrived, clucking and reassuring us and deftly repositioning the monitor back where it belonged.

2:56am.  Stil another 3 to 4 hours to go.  Niangzi is sleeping again.  I try to catch naps but it is hard, what with the expectations of whats to come, and the 30min regular visits by the nurses to check on things.

I fell asleep and snored... at least that what niangzi said when we both awoke to yet another insistent beeping sound.  It is 5:42am.  I went to take a look and apparently one of the drips had finished.  I was just about to look for the call button which had slipped off the bed when a nurse walked in and chided us for not calling them.  *shrug oh well.

5:53am.  Is it time yet?  Its freaking cold, or at least I am.  Niangzi who is wide awake now says she's toasty warm under her blankets.  Well.

6:15am.  Time to wake up!  In 15 minutes, practice pushing!  Niangzi gives me that worried look.  Completely dilated.

Pushing and holding, timed with the contractions, but he refuses to come out.  The night duty nurses change shift and give way to the morning duty nurses.  "Push and hold, push and hold, push and hold."  1 hour later and still he refuses to leave his comfortable cocoon. Niangzi, collapses back in exhaustion and pain.  "Doctor is coming." the nurses say.

Doctor arrives.  "Ok give it one big push, forget about the next push and put everything into the first one." he says.  Kicking, screaming he is dragged out into this world.  Smiles all around, exhausted faces with silly grins, niangzi completely expressionless in her exhaustion and pain.

I turn papa-razzi, taking pictures of everything, the weighing scale, the baby screaming, the tired mother, cutting the umbilical cord with the scissors the nurses passes to me, like a VIP at a ribbon cutting ceremony.  "Cut the cord between my fingers but don't cut my fingers." she says.  Ok, maybe not quite like cutting ribbons.  I must have had that wild-eyed look brandishing the scissors in my hand.

His first cries are recorded with my sound recorder, pictures and videos are taken, even today's Straits Times I have kept to be sealed for posterity.  The nurses count his fingers, his toes, checks his ears, clears his nose... Niangzi asks, is he ok?  I smile.

The text messages start to arrive.  "How?", "Any news yet?", "Can we come now?" anxious and newly minted grandparents text excitedly.  "Yes." was the only word I needed to text back.

Postnote: Baby born on the 29th of January A.D. 2010 (Chinese date 15th day of the 12th month in the year 4706)

... notable events : I'm... spinning around... move out of my way...

Thrice I've driven to Calgary from Vancouver, thrice the same stretch of highway almost took my life, with each time worse than the last.  I dare not go the same route a fourth time.

Eastbound on the Transcanada Highway 1.

It was the stretch that emerged from the Rockies from Banff to Calgary and all three times in late Summer/early Autumn.

Driving down from the Canadian Rockies from the ski resort town of Banff, one goes from steep ravines and mountain walls to suddenly emerge in the flat rolling terrain of the Canadian Prairies.  Featureless for miles upon miles, golden fields of wheat in summer, white sea of snow in winter.  The Transcanada Highway 1 would run almost straight due east spearing towards the city of Calgary.  As you drove further and further east, the awe inspiring visage of the Canada Rockies would grow, spreading out behind you in a massive wall of snow capped rock like a giant wall running north-south as far as the eye can see in both directions.  The contrast between flat prairie and sudden vertical mountain could not have been more stark and spectacular.

Calgary was a very different city from Vancouver, a smaller sleepier city in the middle of no-where, sticking up like a sore thumb out of the flat featureless prairies.  A city built with oil money, it was a strangely quaint city, a hive of humanity, an oasis of modernity in the barren expanse of nothing-ness, but it was the home of my good friend Steve from UBC, and a city I liked so much that together with my sister, we ended up eventually buying 1/2 acre of land out at Northridge Estates by the airport, land we still hold to this day.

My first trip into Calgary was a leisurely trip of exploration with my then girlfriend in second year of University.  We rented a car in Vancouver with my Malaysian driver's license, promising them not to drive it out of Vancouver city limits, and promptly driving it 3000 km round trip to Calgary and back.  It was an eye opening trip, seeing the wonder of the Canadian Rockies up close and personal.  More spectacular than the American Rockies south of the border, the Canadian Rockies rose higher and craggier as it thrust north towards the Arctic.

On the approach to Calgary, with the Transcanada 1 running straight eastward, with nothing but miles upon miles of open prairie around you, the Rockies an aberration, like a sudden backstop behind you, it suddenly snowed and hailed on us.  Cresting a small hill, the road in front of us was suddenly white with snow, the sky closed in, grey and foreboding.  Worried, we slowed down and drove through the rapidly melting slush, ever conscious of the summer tires on our Vancouver rented car and the many stories of slippery unseen black ice.  After no more than 10-15 minutes, the sky opened up blue and clear with sunshine, the road dry and the previous few harrowing kilometers seemingly nothing but a figment of our imaginations.  Smiling, we sped up back to the speed limit and motored on, breaching the city limits to enter Calgary proper.

We stayed at the Elbow River Inn, taking the subways and free tram to explore downtown, taking in the one street that was Calgary Chinatown, walked the Plus 15, shopping and exploring.  Steve met us in his parent's van at Calgary Chinatown and took us up to Saddle Ridge by the Saddle Dome for us to see the cityscape, its urban sprawl but a lighted blur surrounded on all sides by a sea of dark night-time prairie and the black outline of a wall of mountain in the west barely contrasted with the marginally lighter sky above.

It was a fun casual trip that took us up north after Calgary, to Edmonton with the usual tourist sights like West Edmonton Mall and Fort Edmonton, then due west back through Jasper and southwest to close the driving loop at Kamloops for the drive west back to Vancouver.

On our second trip to Calgary, I was in my third year of University and the trip was prompted by the visit of a good friend of mine from secondary school.  She had gone to the UK for her university and was already working in London when she flew over to pay me a visit.  "Let's drive to Calgary I said to my skeptical girlfriend."  We ended up not only driving to Calgary but also driving the other direction to take the ferry over to Vancouver Island to visit the city of Victoria, a complete round trip of some 3000 + 1000 km.

On this second trip to Calgary, after visiting a few glaciers like the Crow's Feet glacier in the Rockies and doing some irresponsible 180 kph in the wildly vibrating rented Hyundai down a straight mountain road high in the Rockies, we again found ourselves driving out from Banff on the Transcanada 1.  Again, during our approach into Calgary, the road suddenly filled with snow and hail.  Cresting a hill, we hit a white expanse of snow and slush.  Frantically slowing down the car, I found the brakes wouldn't eat and like all novice drivers from warmer climates, I turned the steering the wrong side.  The car spun around 180 degrees, spinning off the road onto the middle grass divide but thankfully to a stop.  The great thing about large countries is the large generous expanse of middle divide between opposing lanes on their highways.  If there had been a central divide, I would have hit it, but thankfully Canadian highways in the prairies were wide affairs with nothing but a broad strip of grass between the two sides.  "Cool!" my London-based friend said from the backseat as the car spun to a stop, our headlights facing the other direction.  My girlfriend never forgot that one word and won my London-based friend her undying enmity.  "Cool??!! We could have died!" she whispered harshly to me out of her earshot.  Yeah, it was close but thank goodness we came out alright, people, car and all.  A very slow and careful next couple of kilometers and the roads and sky were clear again like waking up from a bad dream, the nightmare nothing but puffs of imaginary smoke.

In Calgary, this time we crashed Steve's house late at night while his parents slept, their next day's work papers artfully laid out all over the floor of the house while Steve's dog Jake leapt and rolled over for bits of cheese.  Steve offered us to stay the night in his basement with the heater and all but I didn't think it too convenient for me to be bringing girls to his house for sleep overs so... we ended up at the Elbow River Inn again, and other than an earlier minor hiccup of locking the car keys in the car and needing a tow truck come open the car door for us, we did pretty much the same things as the first time we were in Calgary.

After Calgary, our journey again took us north to Edmonton and an overnight drive back through the Rockies at Jasper, stopping once for me to gaze at the incredible star-filled night sky unpolluted by silly things like street and citylights.  From there we went back through Kamloops to Vancouver and onto the BC Ferries for the Orca-spotting trip to Vancouver Island.  On Vancouver Island we stayed overnight in Victoria, then up north to the town of Nanaimo which was directly across the Georgia Straits from Vancouver, and back home to Vancouver.  Another nice and pleasant journey only slightly marred by the near accident and the dagger eyes between the two girls the whole trip.

My third trip to Calgary was in my fourth year of university, at graduation.  My parents had come for the ceremony and what better way to keep them occupied but to take them on a road trip.  Yeah.  Calgary.  Again.

Ever mindful of the past two roadtrips, I chatted with my father in the passenger side seat of the rented Dodge Neon, telling him that this Transcanada 1 highway was wierd and you never know when you might hit snow.  Barely were the words out of my mouth when again, cresting a small hill, we hit snow.  I was much more careful this time, one year older, and at least I'd like to think so, one year wiser.  I drove slowly and the slushy road wasn't a problem this time.  We drove on, watching as a few cars ahead of us swung side to side, hydropanning on the icy road when suddenly, I saw in my rear view mirror the frenetic flashing of headlights. 

Oh... Shit...

Pumping the brakes, and trying desperately to not let the car spin, I remember telling my father that we better pull off to the side of the road.  My mother sleeping in the backseat never knew what happened and I doubt my father knew more than what I was telling him but with the rear view mirror and side mirrors I could see exactly what was happening.  I had to get the car out of the way.  The massive truck behind me was barreling down the road at high speed, flashing his headlights probably because his brakes were not working in the snow.  This was after all, late-summer/early-autumn.  No one had snow tires or chains on their wheels yet.

I thought of speeding up to pull away but that risked putting the car in greater risk of spinning if I ever lost control and at high speeds... no... that would only end in disaster... the only way was to get the car off the road and out of the truck's way, and quickly.

The one thought that kept running at light speed through my mind at the time was... my parents... my parents are in this car!  Smiling calmly to my father, I explained to him that I was trying to get the car off the road as the car wheels were slipping.  He nodded to me, I'm not sure if he knew the exact danger looming from behind but I'm pretty sure he sensed something amiss...

... the brakes barely slowed the car as I tried to gradually steer the car off the road.  A couple of times, I felt the car slip and begin to spin before I corrected and brought the car back straight.  Unable to speed up, unable to slow down but most alarmingly, unable to turn the car without risking it going into a tail spin, and all the while this damn truck flashing his lights got rapidly closer and closer to me.  It was very obvious that the truck was not going to stop... he probably couldn't stop.

To be honest, I'm not too sure how but the car wheels gripped and at the very last moment, I spun the steering wheel and plunged the car off onto the side service lane just as the truck thundered by, its horn blaring.  My mother woke up at the loud sound, wide eyed to see the truck pass so close just outside her window.  "What happened?" she asked in Cantonese.  "Just stopping for awhile mom.  Go back to sleep." I remember replying calmly whilst my heart thundered in my chest.  I knew how close we got to being hit by that truck.  Ice and snow on the road was definitely NOT fun.

Things improved considerably after that.  The road traffic thinned out as I drove slowly forward on the service road, only moving back out onto the road after checking and rechecking that the lane was clear for miles.  Then again for the third time, exactly on cue the roads and sky reopened into bright blue sunshine and into Calgary we drove.

We visited a few more places this time, even driving 110 km northeast of Calgary to Drumheller on the Red Deer River in the Badlands of east-central Alberta to the famous Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology to see dinosaur bones, before heading back north to Edmonton where my dad got his spectacles snatched off his face by a young girl at the West Edmonton Mall and who would probably have had a lot more fun with him if I hadn't stepped in and asked for it back.

After Edmonton, the routine took us as usual, back through Jasper, Kamloops and Vancouver, then to graduation.  A total round trip of some 3000 km and I had done it three times, with each time all the more harrowing on that strange stretch of the Transcanada 1.  That was my last roadtrip to Calgary as a student at UBC.  It was the close of another journey, a journey of four years spent on the North American continent and it was a plane journey back to begin yet another new journey in my life, at a place where it never snows... ever.

... notable events : Tequila and the Terminator

When I first heard about it, I was excited! Coooool! We did such things here?

An annual mini themepark....

Wow, just... wow!

... and I was going to be part of building one. How cool is that?

My residence house, Cariboo House was one of the most active and notorious houses on campus. That it was an all male house probably helped maintain its yearly reputation at the pinnacle of notoriety. It was known for the crazy antics of its residents, it was also known for some of the rowdiest and noisiest room parties on residence, as well as rather sadly, a somewhat not so stellar reputation to help keep students in university. Cariboo house however, was also well known for one thing... its annual theme park event.

At the house meeting to chose a theme for this year's event, the vote was unanimous. Terminator II Judgement Day was THE movie event of the year. Dared we even attempt anything less?

Last year the theme had been Peter Pan. I rolled my eyes when I heard that, many of us stifling sniggers and grins while what must have been silly visions of our guys prancing around in tight green pants swimming through all our minds. I wondered who played tinkerbell?

There would not be silly pansy tights, gossamer fairy wings or gleaming hooks this year however. We were going pedal to the metal in cool leather jackets, terminator shades and mangled pronunciations of "Esta la vista, baby".

The house was broken into teams. Every floor formed themselves into two teams except for my first floor which only had enough people to form one. Each team was tasked to construct a theme park ride station based on the movie.

The idea for it was simple. With the chosen theme, teams were to pick a particular event from the movie and build a theme park ride or setting around it. A path through all the rides would be worked out for guests to "experience", with each guest party guided through the whole course by a guide dressed up as the Terminator complete with toy gun and phony Schwarzenegger accent. Guests were charged a token fee to cover for the cost of the booze, and at every station, they would be given a shot of tequila prior to riding our park rides. Needless to say, most guests come out pretty sloshed at the end, and needless to say, females were our most preferred guests.

This annual one day event was to be held at the basement of the residence cafeteria, with my team assigned to be the very first station at the south western corner of the hall. The implication of this was that people entering our ride would be sober having only taken their first shot of tequila. This mean that we could really go crazy with our design to make a really great ride with minimal fear of people throwing up and soiling our station. However, this also meant that there wouldn't be any half drunk girls to "assist" into or out of their seats, much to the disappointment of some of the guys. Nevertheless, despite this great set back to their more nefarious plans, we stoically soldiered on.

The Engineers in our group such as myself, were tasked to draw up the initial plans, although, how much "engineering" a 1st year student like me could input was highly debatable. We had picked an interesting but difficult assembly, having chosen to recreate the scene in which the Police van where Sarah Connor and her protector were driving in, overturns during a highway chase with the Terminator. The "van" we built, needed to safely seat 4--5 people, roll down rollercoaster rails and then somehow, tip over to fall onto its side, sliding to a stop where the back doors of the "van" would then open for the guests to continue to the next station. It had to be safe, reliable, robust and easy enough to be reset over and over again for group after group of guests to ride.

We considered all sorts of designs and finally settled onto a simple large box for the "van", mounted onto wheels. These wheels were then set into tracks made up of pvc pipes cut lengthwise like two channels on a wooden frame. This was to be our "rollercoaster" portion of the ride. A raised concrete stage at our end of the hall was used as the starting platform from which the two rails would start. In order to tip the "van", the two rails, starting out parallel to each other would then be twisted, one rail straight while the other gradually sloping downwards until at about 2 to 3 metres away, the rails were at a 45 degree angle to each other. We tested and tested this, playing with the heights of the rails until we were confident we could get the "van" to fall at exactly the same spot every single time. This was important if we wanted to avoid injury to our guests. At that exact point below and to the side of the rails where the "van" was to fall, we placed a flat trolley with a mattress on it to cushion the fall of the van. No rails were built this time, instead we planned to use the original forward momentum of the initial rollercoaster to continue moving after it landed onto the trolley. When the ride was in motion, we would be standing around the fall area to ensure the "van" falls properly onto the mattress. The seats in the "van" were arranged along only one side of the box with rope handholds on the opposite side so that when the "van" tips over, the guests would all fall onto their backs and not hurt themselves. The trolley would be allowed to coast to a stop a further 1 to 2 metres before another "Terminator" would open the door and extract the guests who were now laying on their backs, out of the "van". The station was reset for the next set of guests by us having assigned roles, 3-4 guys to lift the "van" back onto the rails and push it back to the starting position while another guy would check the mattress and reposition the trolley to the fall position. The Resident Advisors took an interest in our station, coming over to watch our work frequently, possibly because of the concern over safety as the whole "van" would drop a full metre from the top of the stage to the trolley on the ground, with the tipping point a drop of as much as a foot. They insisted we test and retest the whole assembly to their satisfaction before it was opened to the public.

We spent so much time in the construction that we barely had time to see what the other teams did but from the one time I took a break to run through the whole sequence myself, what I found was pretty amazing. The stations ranged from a simple "Mexican tequila bar" which incidently was the very next station after ours, to a cage suspended on a cable strung across the ceiling of the hall where guests would ride a "helicopter" to the other side, and a waste-land war zone with strobe lights and other lighting effects. Black curtains were used to block off the individual areas so that guests could not see what was coming next, allowing the "Terminators" to dictate the pace and sequence of things.

We were all very excited when D-day arrived and the first batch of giggling girls were led to our station by an overly enthusiastic "Terminator". Bundling them through the "van" door, the only part of the van they could see past the curtain, the guests were settled into their seats, strictly warned to keep their backs straight up against the "van" wall, and cautioned against moving around while the ride was in motion. Then with much anxiety, the guys on the floor behind the curtain released the van.

The screams were simply lovely. At the tipping point, the "van" fell off the rails beautifully, settling with a dull thud onto the mattress as the trolley took over, the sound of its wheels squeaking rather convincingly like that of a real vehicle screeching on its side. We let out our collective breaths as the "Terminator" quickly opened the door to very puzzled and confused girls.

"Huh, was that supposed to happen?"

"Did the ride break?"

We wanted to laugh. If they were asking such questions, it was working perfectly!

To the credit of the "Terminator" he played his part beautifully, fulfilling his role to the hilt, gesturing for the girls to exit the "crashed van", "Come quickly. There's been an explosion. Your van has taken a hit and has crashed."

Still looking wildly around, the smiles returned quickly enough as they were bundled past the next curtain into the next station, the "Mexican bar" and given their second shot of Tequila. They were out of our minds by then as we were already lifting the "van" back onto the tracks, resetting it for the next group who's excited chatter could already be heard behind our curtain.

This went on the whole evening, some guests coming back for seconds, paying their entrance fees again and again, and getting progressively more and more drunk. The screams never failing to come whenever the "van" made its 1 foot drop and we still got the occasional confused look and odd query but we were pros by now, not even batting an eyelid, like a well oiled Formula One Pit Crew muscling our "van" back up as yet another group of guests awaited their turn on our rollercoaster.

... notable events : Rats? or perhaps the computer mouse making holes in our walls

Castle Wolvenstein, DOOM, Descent... this was the time of the initial explosion of 3-D first person shooters. What could we do? We were mere university students. Resistance was futile.

I remember playing Castle Wolvenstein back in the late 80s, early 90s so imagine my thrill when DOOM came out. It was an event rapturous enough to drive the likes of us catatonic in our excitement. DOOM was light years better in graphics, sound effects and game play compared to the already ground breaking Castle Wolvenstein.

Promptly deleting space from the harddrive of my awesome kick-ass i386 1.5Mb RAM personal computing machine bought from Future Shop in downtown Vancouver, and lovingly carried home in an overly priced taxi driven by a chatty pakistani with lots of head swaying to accompany his accented english, I installed DOOM with great anticipation and fanfare. The world we discovered within the confines of the computer screen was breathtaking. With surround sound speakers, playing in the middle of the night, nudging your computer self along with your keyboard in the eerie glow of the monitor, the experience was so real you jumped in fright every time one of those brown imps with fireballs jumped out at you from around the corridor, or a darn pink pig-monster rushed out of the dark at you with gnashing teeth.

Computer games were the mainstay of campus residence life, the life blood of our community, and the bane of our existence. Long before DOOM, back when I was still a first year student at a dormitory type residence, we had discovered the wonderful world of networked computers! A short walk from our residence was the Macintosh computer lab, open to all students to use. This was a time when personal computers weren't exactly very personal as yet. There were still more students without their own computers than there were students with one.

The game we played at the Macintosh lab was a simple tank programming game. One would write simple programming commands from a fixed set of available commands for your tank to follow. You then, sitting back to watch, set your tank loose into the virtual arena against other tanks to do battle, pitting your programming against the others to see who had written the best and most robust programme to win. It was a simple game but yet the very novelty of actually playing against another player was..... uhhhhh.... yes....mmm.... addictive doesn't even cover it.

We spent days and nights working on our tank's programming, tweaking it, adjusting it, re-coding it to anticipate the changes also being made by the guys to their tanks at the next computer terminal. Over and over we would pit our tanks and then go back to the drawing board and tweak it yet again. I started naming my tanks with each increasingly elaborate revision, the first was called "Tune", the next "Song", going up to "Concerto" and my final masterpiece which I must proudly say, pretty much trashed everyone else's tank, was called "Symphony". My good buddy Steve ran through the Macintosh lab after classes on two consecutive days and found us still busily tapping away at the keyboards, having not left the lab except on emergencies to eat and for toilet breaks. This was what set the scene for DOOM and the next big thing to hit us with the true 3-D engine, Descent.

During the summer was when we really went wild. Most of us stayed on at Fairview Residence which were the university's summer residences as most of us didn't go back home for summer. With hardly anything else to do, except for a few summer classes or make up lessons, the monsters of DOOM ran riot through our rooms.

Steve moved into an apartment with a few other guys, and armed with their latest i486s, their walls vibrated to the haunting tunes, hellish screams and unearthly sounds of a nightly full scale battle royal. Running cables through tiny round holes in their walls which they swear were made by rats, they linked up their computers into one big virtual world.

As for me, my poor i386 was simply too slow and too obsolete. As the games got progressively more elaborate, my little computer couldn't keep up, and besides, I was in an apartment across the courtyard from Steve and the guys. Instead, while the daylight hours would find me spending time with my girlfriend, by night I would be over at Steve's room to take over his computer while he slept between games. Immersing myself into the gore-splatted corridors of DOOM I would run around with my chainsaw in some of the most insane 4 way deathmatches and frag-nights. The guys would create their own maps and challenge each other over and over, racking up kills or frags as they were called, as they go. DOOM was our world. We would get so involved with the game that the eerie music and monster sounds emanating from the surround sound speakers in the dead of the night would sometimes scare us so badly that we would need to log off, turn on the lights to take a look around the now silent room for a reality check, heart beat racing, completely spooked.

We weren't complete geeks however, we played ice-hockey in winter and ball-hockey in summer, we cycled through the university's endowment lands, went camping, chased pretty co-eds, watched movies, partied hard (just minus the beer for me), joined in the Engineering pranks that my university's Engineers were infamous for, and generally had a great time but none topped the computer as out main waste of time. Whatever activity we did in the day, the nights were the sole domain of DOOM and its denizens.

However, insufficient sleep and a lot of missed 8:30am classes soon took its toll on us. Grades suffered. Going into 3rd and 4th year, the credit courses became increasingly critical. No longer would we have the luxury of summer make-up classes as we were running out of summers. No one wanted to do a 5th year. I even started getting a recurring dream of impending exams. In my dream, it would be the end of the semester with exams around the corner and I would be endlessly searching the corridors trying to find my class in a last minute attempt to at least attend the final few classes having not attending any yet, panicking with each passing moment as it dawned on me that I didn't even have an idea where my classes were. So persistent was this dream that years later, long after I had graduated this dream could still wake me up in the middle of the night in cold sweat to ask myself, "I graduated... right?", and fall back to sleep in great relief when the answer thankfully came back... "yes".

We never really stopped playing our computer games, but we did stopped being so crazy about it. Steve and the guys yanked out the cables, giving the holes in their walls back to the rats that made them to focus on studies and graduation. The monsters, imps and pig-demons of our nights were put on hold till we were safely past the finish line, degrees in hand, mortarboards on our heads.

We grew up somewhat I suppose, because graduate we did, much to our own relief. I left for home after graduation, returning to Singapore to start the next phase of my life, but I understand that the guys still in Canada, now fully-fledged working adults and productive members of society, restarted their games, rejoining the monsters in that unending struggle for supremacy.

... notable events : Ragging, hazing and puking

"Look at how Kit wears it. Follow him." the seniors yelled at the struggling group of first year students, or "Frosh" as we were known. I spied a few smirks and not a few annoyed faces. I smiled impishly, half amused at their efforts to mimic my "diaper", half indignant thinking how they must already assume I knew how to tie a loin cloth because I was Asian. Tugging at the cloth for like the umpteenth time, making sure nothing embarrassing was showing past the edges, I re-adjusted the knot, wondering whether what seemed to me the most logical way of wrapping a loin cloth around your bottom was really the actual way Gandhi would have done it. It was my first time wearing one afterall.

It started early one Saturday morning. We had been forewarned a few days earlier that this weekend would be the day the Frosh would be "initiated". I was dreading it and my mind scrambled to find a way to duck what was obviously going to be nothing but an embarrassing day of humiliation, drinking and puking. All the horror stories of ragging and hazing ran riot through my overly active imagination in technicolor.

*knock* *knock* "Get to the TV room" I heard a yell outside my door. "Strip to your underwear and bring your bedsheet." the obnoxious voice added. I kept quiet, hesitating...

"NOW!" he yelled.

Heart racing I half considered not replying and pretending not to be in. But if I was to stay here and face these guys for the rest of the year... fine. Suck it up and let's just do this, I told myself. "O...K...." I mumbled, just barely loud enough to be heard, the banging outside my door already moving on to the other room doors. Yanking my bedsheet of the bed and stripping down to my briefs, I just knew this was going to be painful. The scrawny body of mine would only add to the jeers. Just recently, my neighbour in the room across the hall from mine had already remarked, accompanied by a lot of headshaking, "How the hell can someone (alive) be as skinny as you?" Sigh. This WAS going to be painful.

Assembled in the large TV room was all the Frosh of Cariboo House, the only all guy house in Place Vanier Residences of the University of British Columbia or UBC for short. I apprehensively joined them.

"Mumble *Mumble the low rumble of excited but muffled chatter... "Stop talking!" *grumble *grumble the low rumble of excited by annoyed chatter....

With our loin cloths tied, or rather as the seniors insisted I should say, with our diapers tied, we lined up into neat lines as numbers were painted onto our foreheads and onto our shoulders by seniors with silly grins plastered on their faces.

Suddenly a ragged cheer started from the front rows. Now what, I thought, the drying paint already making my forehead itch but not daring to scratch it in case I smear it and incur a senior's wrath. "Beer!" I heard someone say. Oh right. They did promise as much beer as we could drink all day long as a reward for us if we meekly submitted. Not much of a reward for me though, since I hate the taste of beer.

Large white plastic cups of beer started making the rounds, handed down the lines. Groaning inwardly, I braced myself, knowing this would be hard to avoid. I wondered if I could get away with nursing just one drink the whole day.

"Hey you! DRINK UP NOW FROSH!"

Sigh. *gulp gulp gulp gulp

I was on probably somewhere between my 2nd and 3rd cup of beer when the order came to run down to Wreck Beach, Vancouver's local nudist beach. We were all standing by then outside on the grass field next to Cariboo House. It was a little chilly, me being Asian from the tropics, this being Canada not in the tropics and in Autumn to boot. The beer helped I grudgingly admitted, but I was already getting very sick of the taste and smell of the cheap diluted beer they were drowning us in.

Down to the beach we went. The trail in front of Cariboo House was one of the largest and best frequented trails down the 50 odd metre high cliff to the beach at the bottom of Point Grey, the spar of rock that my university was sited on. Already feeling a little sick from yet another cup of beer thrust into my hands "to stiffen us up" for the run, we pounded single file down the steep slope, the headalong mad rush only made safer by the many trees and tree roots serving as speed bumps and steps. What made the run interesting however, was a parallel line of girls in bedsheets running down the slope with us from Tweedsmuir, our sister residence house! Mmmmm nice. I wondered if they too had to strip to their underwear underneath that white linen. From the many grins and catcalls from the guys, I suspect I wasn't the only one holding that thought.

I cheated. The order was for us to run down the trail to the beach, run all the way to the water, take a gulp of the Pacific Ocean, or more accurately, the Strait of Georgia, then run back up the cliff again, back to the house. Well, who's ever known me to completely obey anything. Run, run, run, then around the tree about midway down the slope I went, like the big bossomed Indian actress in a Bollywood movie, only I wasn't singing Hindi love songs, high pitched or otherwise. Back up the slope I went, intentionally slowing down, easily done since this was now UP HILL, and allowed some of the faster guys on the return trip to pass me. Up we went and back to the grassy field and... yup, another rewarding cup of beer! Oh yay, and all this before breakfast. Oh what joy. *Gulp *gulp *gulp

By then I was really feeling sick and my head was spinning. The lack of food, the alcohol coursing through my veins, coupled with the slight shivering from the chilled air and not to mention the oxygen deprivation of my brain from the run... I bulldozed through the seniors blocking my way and ran up the steps to my room, thinking to laydown and rest, but only managing to get there just in time to puke all over my nice carpeted floor. Ewww... That was and still is the very first time I've ever puked from drinking alcohol. I don't think I was drunk although for the rest of my time at UBC, my good friends never failed to tease me and remind me of the time I got so "drunk" that I puked all over my room.

I used it as an excuse to stay out of the next "festivities" and armed with a few tissue rolls, started cleaning up my carpet. A few resident advisors (RA) came by to check on me, I waved them off, saying I'm fine, secretly happy to be able to skip whatever joyous activity the other Frosh were going through but not relishing having to smell the puke in my room for the next couple of weeks especially with winter approaching and with it the ability to adequately air the room without turning it into a refrigerator.

One of the seniors came by later and asked if I was ok and if I was up to rejoining the group for lunch. Nodding my head, I re-tied my diaper and off I went, back into the TV room. I didn't really have much choice since they had already taken all our meal cards that morning, but I was feeling much better, and not a little sheepish from having puked after only 3 or was it 4 beers. Everyone was in good spirits, jovially laughing and chatting away and drinking still more beer. This time however, I successfully declined the offer for another cup of beer. Yay!

In single file we marched out the house door to the cafeteria where the very lovely sight of Tweedsmuir girls greeted us, already in line at the cafeteria and like us, still in their bedsheets and a little drunk. Not for the first time I thought it a little unfair that we had to wear loin cloths and bear the cold while the girls get to wrap the sheets practically over their whole bodies, and following up on that thought, letting the mind wander to ponder again over that most serious of questions, as to whether they were also equally in their underwear. Grinning, happy with those thoughts of gender equality in my head, I followed the herd up into the cafeteria to get my food.

Lunch was a little awkward, each one of us seated as it was facing a Tweedsmuir girl. Speeches were made, and like in a 3 course meal, we were to eat our food in sequence and with the right utensils.  My lunch partner ate quietly, not saying a word to me and I reciprocated, happy to just get food into my tummy but feeling a little self conscious from having the girls in front of us as well as from the very obvious grins and giggles from the little group of familiar Singaporean and Malaysian students watching me from the next table who had drifted in with the usual lunch time crowd.

We dispersed after lunch, allowed to dress and wash off the numbers written in permanent ink on our foreheads, the "initiation" over, the beer kegs all empty. There was a distinct change in camaraderie after that. The seniors more friendly, the other frosh with more ready smiles. I was one of them now, a full fledge resident of Cariboo House.

All in all, that was a rather tame ragging compared to the horror stories of ragging I've heard, some of which ranged from the obscene with unmentionables tied to ceiling fans with strings, to seniors dropping freshmen naked in distant parts of town for them to make their own way home. It was however, my first and I dare say, I'm happy I went through it, not so much that it was relatively mild but that it seemed to bring an added skip into our steps, adding a couple of inches to our heights whenever we looked out at the residents of the other houses. Ours, with the Tweedsmuir girls were the only houses to hold such public and elaborate initiations. It did wonders to my confidence, like a rite of passage into the life of a university residence student.

The house bound together well after that, its members sharing in movie nights, room parties with way too many people crammed into a tiny residence room and dancing/bouncing on the bed to overly loud heavy metal music, guitar jamming sessions that literally shook your walls till you learn never to place anything breakable in contact with certain walls, all night RISK gaming sessions that usually saw players screaming themselves hoarse for nights on end, undeclared competitions to top each other building "mysterious" sofa-henge formations in the TV room in the middle of the night, ball hockey games or "gymnastics" jumping off the 2nd floor at the old Armouries building, public service activities helping the RAs carry in drunks who fall asleep outside so that they don't freeze in the night, to simple riotous shared laughter when indulging in our favourite spectator sport of watching people with one too many bounce off walls all the way down the corridor.

Ragging, hazing, and puking. That was my first experience as a Frosh, living on a campus halfway around the world from home. It set the tone for what was to be some of the best fun filled years of my life, years fill with the smell of stale puke on the weekends, classes on the weekdays and lots of new experiences in between.

... notable events : My atypical SPM and GCE "O" levels - the untold story (PRIVATE ALBUM)

I woke up early that morning. It was the day I was to take both my GCE "O" level English language exam and my Malaysian Sijil Pelajaran Menegah or SPM English language Exam and as luck would have it, they were both scheduled for 8:30am on the same morning at exam centers across an international border.

It was a period of transitions in my life. It was my final year in Secondary School, sitting for the all important SPM, and it was also the year I moved from the comfortable world of my large dog-roamed garden and my large bedroom with a self drawn worldmap wall mural overlooking my driveway with a basketball hoop, to the tiny pigeon-holed living existence of the Singapore housing scene.

Father had moved down to work in Singapore the year before. The rest of the family had stayed put in Malaysia in order for me to finish my final secondary school year. Things were being readied for the family to join him at the end of the year, after my all important SPM examinations.

It was to have been a simple affair. Finish my secondary schooling, take my exams at the end of the year while mother and sister packed, then move down to Singapore during the New Year holiday period, just in time to apply for and get into a Junior College in Singapore for my GCE "A" levels. How complicated could it get?

Well.

As stupidity would have it, I had not had the foresight to take the GCE "O" level English 1119 in order to qualify to enter a Junior College in Singapore. The English 1119 exam, the equivalent to the English 1120 of the Singapore schooling system, was administered by a private college in Kuala Lumpur and was held only once a year and me in all my wisdom, missed it by a week. What this meant was that without passing GCE "O" level English, I would not qualify for a Junior College slot the follow year. Boy, was father angry, giving me an earful even from 370km away.

The simple plan suddenly because infinitely complicated.

Two weeks before my scheduled exam, I disappeared. After 5 years of schooling at my old school, I left it at the very cusp of taking the concluding SPM exams. A quick session with my Form teacher and Headmaster at my old school, and I was off, school leaving certificate in hand. The plan was now to get the English 1120 done and the only place to do this was in Singapore.

What happened next was a whirlwind of activity that until today, I still have trouble believing that I actually went through it all.

It was a grand adventure. In order to take the GCE "O" level English, I had to be in Singapore, but I still had to take my SPM exams. To achieve this, I started attending school at one of the top schools in Johor Bahru, traveling every morning by bus number 170 from father's rented house in Bukit Merah, wearing my old school uniform complete with my old school badge. For two weeks, passport in my pocket, I went to this school, alone, stared at, and pretty much ignored while I waited for my SPM exams to begin. My official SPM exam center remained in Kuala Lumpur but I would physically take the exam instead, in Johor Bahru. The unfamiliar surroundings was initially hard on me and I spent a lot of time just finding out where the toilets, classes, and science labs were. I was helped by an Indian boy who had lived in Kuala Lumpur before, having coming south to live in Johor only the year before. So with me in tow, he showed me the ropes, even having me over at his home for his mom's very nice Indian curries for lunch.

Meanwhile, corresponding activities in Singapore to correct my missing the 1119 exam saw me take my initial Sec 4 English exam as a "Convent girl" of a local Convent Girl's school in Singapore. Again, I was alone, stared at, and pretty much ignored, the only male in the whole school, with my own private exam room. But pass it I did, and all without even needing to wear a convent girl's uniform complete with knee high socks. With my exam result in hand, an application was made to the Singapore exam board to take the GCE "O" level English exam.

The time soon came for the exams. The exam schedules were matched and things were looking up. Studying in my little HDB room, books scattered all over the floor, listening to Zoo 101.3 the Batam hit station and sleeping on the floor on a thin foam mattress, I got ready for my academic trials.

Back to Johor Bahru I went, every morning riding the bus through immigration and customs to continue familiarising myself and generally sitting at the canteen to wait for the exams to begin. But of course, when it rains, it pours. The gods they conspired against me. From Athena in the far west to Shen Nong in the far east, they didn't like my life to be this smooth. The monsoon rains fell heavily that year and SPM exam centers on the east coast states of Malaysia were flooded. ALL SPM exams were pushed back by at least a week or two to allow for flood waters to subside.

Well.

Of course, NOW my new exam schedule had my SPM English paper scheduled at the same time and same day as my GCE "O" level English paper. One was in Johor Bahru, the other, 20km away in Singapore. How can I not love my life? I should have bought a lottery ticket that day. Would probably have won the top prize and negated the need to ever take exams ever again but naturally, even this was denied me since I didn't buy one.

So, with that looming crisis weighing heavily on my mind, I bussed to Johor Bahru as usual one fine morning, to take my first SPM paper.  It was a laboratory practical.  After getting a little mixed up, I finally found the right lab just in time and sat down as the exam began.  My desk was the only one with a pink coloured piece of paper pasted on the right hand corner.  Everyone else had white coloured pieces of paper stuck on their desks.  On theirs was their names and their school exam center number, on mine was my name and my old school's exam center number.

A couple of chemical titrations, half a dozen test-tubes and a lot of unfamiliar lab equipment later, my first exam was finally over.  My test paper was personally collected by the examiner and slotted into an individual envelope to be couriered back to my old school.  This was to be the modus operandi for all my exams here in Johor Bahru.  I would sit alone, at a desk with a pink coloured paper in a sea of desks with white coloured paper, and my finished exam paper would be collected personally by the examiner and in front of me, it would be slotted into an enveloped and sealed for courier.  Pretty neat, I remember thinking at the time.

Ok, pretty neat but what of my English paper?  There were many things I had learnt in school but being in two places at the same time simply wasn't one of them, even if they were both English language papers.

I woke up early that morning.  It was the day I was to take both my GCE "O" level English language exam and my Malaysian Sijil Pelajaran Menegah or SPM English language Exam and if luck would have it, they were both scheduled for 8:30am on the same morning at exam centers across an international border.

{CENSORED}

I didn't get full distinctions for my SPM and make top student in the whole of Malaysia that year, I blame it on my unusual circumstances and the stress that I endured.  Otherwise by my reckoning, I would have been destined to break the all time record for decades to come for excellence in SPM results and honoured as the best the entire Malaysian schooling system had ever produced, but alas that was not to be, and we shall never know what may have been.

My friends back at my old school never knew what happened to me.  My desk with its pink coloured paper sat empty at the school exam hall while everyone else filled their desks and took their exams around it.  I can imagine the quizzed half panicked looks on some friend's faces when I never showed up for not one, but every single exam paper.  Friends must have wondered if I had simply decided to drop out of school, foregoing the SPM to perhaps follow the noodle stall uncle in his early morning rounds with his pushcart.  Over the years, I've never told them the full story, only that I DID take my SPM (thats for you guys who are reading this and STILL don't believe me), only not at my old school but in Johor Bahru.  A few weeks later, I was back at my old school for the last time, and when I finally left it again, I had my school leaving certificate with me as I headed down to Singapore for the next stage of my life.

I was welcomed into a Junior College of my choice in Singapore.  Because of the circumstances surrounding this unusual chain of events, I have not dared tell this story.  I had not breathed a word of this for years, with only my family knowing the full story, until now, many, many, many years later when most of the dust would have settled, the partial story of this is told.  Perhaps, when the grey finally not only outnumber but overwhelm the black on my head, I will tell the full story of this very colourful period in my life.

... notable events: Pains of the Journey

I was angry.  I wanted to lash out.  I was hurt beyond belief.  I felt lost.  I felt anguish.  I felt betrayed, I felt dismayed.  It was the worst of times.  How could something like this happen to me?  I asked this to myself over and over again.  For months I cried, quietly into my pillow at night, masking the sorrow stoically in the light of day.

Why?  The questions never stopped.  Why?  Why?  Why?

I had always thought I had lived a blessed life.  Things fell into place for me.  The world was perfect, and so it was... so how did it, could it, would it happen?  ... to me?  I felt the loss of the orderly march of what was meant to be.  I grew angry at the false promise of perfection.

Wasn't it preordained?

How could it not have meant to be?

Wasn't love supposed to conquer all?

But yet... end it did.  And the world stopped turning, the sun rays grew cold, the colours of life dulled to black and white, and I cried, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces, my very being ripped into ribbons and flung into the uncaring wind.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

But you know what?

.

.

.

Things sometimes happen for a reason.

You might not believe it at that very moment in time, I certainly didn't believe it at that very moment, but it is true.  I believe this to be true.  I now know this to be intimately true.

Looking back through the murky tint of our memories, I can sometimes still feel how it had felt, the heartache of loss, the pain of what could have been... but this has been tempered by the passage of time and more importantly, replaced by something far better.  Believe you me when I say, that sometimes, things do happen for a reason.  I live that reason now.  Looking back, while I can't say I'm happy for the pain and angst I went through, I can say that I'm glad that it happened for without the rite of passage, without the trial of sorrow, I would probably never have found what I believe I had truly been looking for and for that I'm am thankful for the way my life has thus far turned out.  Is it perfect?  Nay.  Of course not.  Nothing really ever is in this world.  But it is perfection enough in my eyes, flaws and all.  It is my life and the scars that were once hidden in shame, are borne now with pride, having been soothed in the embrace of that simplest of cures... love.

I am happy.  I have been for many years now.  The past long forgotten, a dull distant memory.  The painful events while once seen as a marring of a promised perfect life, now merely just another learning experience on the continual process that we call living.  I have gone on from there.  Done things I might never even have thought of doing before, chosen different paths, walked the unbeaten track, achieved many dreams that would have seemed wild or maybe even impossible back then.  I am happy... and really thats what truly matters at the end of the day, surrounded by the dearest of things, the beauty of the simplest things, the wholeness of being.

So what happened I now firmly believe, happened for a reason.  It was the worst of times, but it was also the best of times.  It brought me to this place.  This here, this now.

What is life but the maintenance of fulfillment, to live a fulfilling life, to live one with meaning and contentment, one filled of renewed hopes, of sharing and dreams and most importantly, of love.  And yes I have that.  Love.  Hell yeah.

I have no regrets.

... notable events : Of helicopters and derelict 747s...

Cycling and exploring is one of the little pleasures in life to a young teenage kid curious about the wider world beyond the small confines of his house.

We had just shifted into our new house in SS3 in 1983. SS3 at the time was at the extreme outskirts of the Petaling Jaya township beyond which was empty undeveloped lands with small scattered kampungs.

Just across Jalan Majlis, the major arterial road fronting our new home, was an indian village. This wide expanse of zinc-roofed-timber-framed-squatter housing was a squalid place with yellow mud roads and open surface sewers. The storm drain that ran along one edge of our house crossed under the road and opened up into a dirty sewer-fed stream on the other side.

My first bicycle had been a cool blue chopper. This was the bike that had seen me through the primary school age in my previous home in SS2, a more established area in the middle of Petaling Jaya. SS2, like SS3, was also once the edge of the township when father had bought our first house there in the 1970s. My first explorations of SS2 had taken me up and down the residential blocks all the way to the edge of the rubber estates of rural Malaysia. Over the years, the expansions had engulfed the empty lands and SS2 had become the heart of town, with SS3 now the town's border.

Father had purchased the land and had hired an architect to raise his dream home on it. Contractors were employed and the land, once grazing ground for cows and overgrown with shrubs and trees, was backfilled to match the road level and pounded with timber piles to establish the foundations. My maternal grandfather, a civil engineer from China his Chinese degree unrecognised and hence disallowed from practicing in Malaysia, monitored the progress for us. Father winced everytime a new pile went it as it meant another few hundreds of dollars extra was being hammered into the ground. Eventually of course, our house was finally built, and in 1983, we proudly moved in.

I had by the time we arrived at our SS3 home, outgrown my chopper. Constant pleas for a new bicycle fell on deaf ears. It was that very storm drain next to father's new house that brought a change of heart to my parents. I had one day on my foot explorations of my new surroundings, found an abandonned bicycle at the bottom of the drain, some 2.5m down. It had a bent front tire and looked to have fallen in only recently. The frame looked to be in reasonable condition.

For days I eyed the abandonned bike. It was one of those expensive racer frames in a period when they were all the rage. Taking up the courage one day, I climbed down into the storm drain on our house side, and made my way through one of two tunnels which ran under the short service road fronting our driveway. At the end of this was a large area which opened to the sky prior to going under again into tunnels crossing Jalan Majlis, here the bicycle laid.

Dragging it home, I hid it at the back of the house, cleaning, hammering, bending and refixing what I could of it, excited with my newest project but fearful that mother would find out. For weeks I tinkered with it, for weeks it fought me and refused to align sufficiently to be roadworthy. That was when mom found out. I got an earful from her for picking up stuff out of storm drains, but it got me a new bike that year for my birthday. My parents had finally relented and I was very sternly told to rid myself of that old piece of garbage. But I didn't care. New wheels meant I could now range further and longer than on my mere two feet!

I explored everywhere. I conquered the indian village, I made hunter-gatherer-like foreys to the shops to buy candy, I imagined my bicycle was a highly modified Colonial Viper from the Battleship Galactica out searching for stray Cylon raiders. I was free!

Eventually, the indian village was torn down, and in it's place grew single storey low cost housing. I explored this as well but found it much, much less interesting than the old indian village with it's muddy paths, rickety houses and naked indian children running around, but what this development did was to open and connect yet another area to mine! Kelana Jaya, an area previously only accessible via a roundabout way was now a mere straight road away!

Eagerly I roamed the area, going as often as I could, sometimes right after school returning only when my tummy rumbled at dinnertime, but definitely during the weekends when I had two full days of free time. I ranged far and wide, all the way to the link road that led to the then Subang International Airport, the one and only major airport in Malaysia at the time.

It was along this route that I first noticed in one of the numerous terrace houses along one of the many side streets, that someone was constructing a small single-seater helicopter! I went back week after week, never quite daring to stop too long to stare, but often enough to see the slow progress. It stood filling half the driveway of the terrace house. I never saw the owner but I did see the slow incremental building of the small white coloured craft, from the base frame to the engine mounted on the top.

While this rather amazing aircraft was under construction, yet another aviation wonder appeared in my biking territory. In a large field which also incidently housed a fishing pond I had frequented on occasion, appeared an old derelict jumbo jet! It was obvious that someone had purchased it possibly to be converted into a restaurant or some other similar enterprising venture. For many weeks I would make the aviation rounds, to check on the progress of my little helicopter and then to see what was happening with the strange 747 in the middle of the field. I yearned to explore it but a high chain-linked fence and the fear of being caught kept me on the outside looking it.

One year passed. I don't remember exactly when but the helicopter disappeared one day. It had never been fixed with rotor blades and at the time I had thought it would probably have been the last thing I would see attached before it was taken away. But on hindsight, that was rather poor thinking on my part. The rotor blades were probably far too large to be mounted onto the frame in the middle of a terrace house driveway. I never saw the helicopter again. It was a bitter disappointing blow to me. I had so wanted to see it completed and perhaps even seen it flown. Nevertheless, one aviation wonder remained for me... the 747 jumbo jet in the middle of the Kelana Jaya field.

The expected development of the plane frame into a restaurant never materialised. Malaysia was firmly in the grips of a terrible recession. With the disappearance of the helicopter, I too was in turn gripped with a terrible fear that the plane might also simply one day disappear, and with it my chance of exploring the innards of the aviation world!

I picked up the courage one day, and together with my little sister, slipped into the fenced compound through a rusty gate. Circling the plane, I looked hard for a way in but there was only a singular open cabin door, high above me in the centre of the right wing. It seemed dangerous and thoughts of tearing my clothes in the climb, imagining stepping on rusted nails and bleeding to death within the plane, fears of unholy apparitions of passengers past appearing to scare the crap out of me, worries of the owners or their security guards appearing to arrest me for trespassing, ran riot through my head. I got cold feet that day, and turned tail.

I couldn't sleep for days. The 747 haunted me. It called to me. I wanted to explore it. I needed to see it. I yearned to go into it's unseen, unexplored, unlit interior. I went back 2 more times, and every single time, I found an excuse not to attempt the climb up the wing and turned back increasingly disgusted with myself.

On the fourth trip, I finally made up my mind to do it. My sister and I cycled there one evening and we parked our bikes in an inconspicuous place so as not to attract the notice of anyone who might take offense to my intrusion. I circled the plane, it's gleaming white steel and faded painted insignia still majestic in the failing sunlight. I concluded that since I had not attracted any undue attention or brought down severe repercussions during my 3 prior trips here, I should be reasonably safe. But it was the thought of losing exploration time with the sun low on the horizon that finally spurred me to action. Finding abandoned tires, old wooden crates and other such stuff, I stacked them just high enough for me to vault onto the large broad wing of the aircraft.  With my sister watching worriedly from below, I clambered into the plane.

It wasn't quite what I had expected. I don't even know what I had been expecting but it certainly wasn't this scene of total devastation within. The seats had been ripped out, the floor was strewn with discarded plastic panels, ripped carpets littered the place, and lengths of coloured wiring saggingly spanned from ceiling to wall. It was nothing but a shell. Even the overhead baggage compartments were gone. I walked the entire length of the aircraft, noting even that the small toilet cubicles were missing, as were the partitions for the crew kitchens. The cockpit was unfortunately locked, but I suspect, other than empty dials and sockets, nothing much would have been left for a curious teenager like me.

I was determined to take something for my troubles. Evidence perhaps of my having been here, a small souvenir of my little side adventure. I found little of interest. Everything had been ripped out probably for scrap or for recycling. Bitterly disappointed but feeling rather pleased with myself all the same for having done it, I took one last look around and left. I didn't exactly relish the thought of being caught up here when darkness finally fell. The aircraft was spooky. The story it told of past evidence of human occupation now so obviously missing made for wild imaginings in the fertile mind of a young teen. I also didn't really want to find myself some 3 metres off the ground and not able to see the ground in the darkness.

Holding onto a length of plastic tubing with an emergency mouthpiece from one of the overhead panels, the best souvenir I could find, I scurried back out the door onto the plane's wing, and with the last of the sunlight, gingerly eased my butt back down onto the precariously stacked jumble of rubbish I had so carefully placed earlier.

I'm not entirely sure what eventually became of that derelict. It never became the restaurant it had originally been destined for. It simply vanished one day. I lost interest in Kelana Jaya after that and seldom if ever, went cycling back that way. I was also a little older by then, and had started biking to school some 10km away on the weekends for scout gatherings and for an entirely new developing interest amongst my schoolmates and I, our earliest forays into the world of girls and skirts.

... notable events : My final grading...

I eyed him nervously as we faced each other. I knew him rather well since we were in the same class. We were about the same age, the same build and progressed at much the same rate... but yet as we circled each other on the cold concrete floor, I realised that I didn't really know him well enough. I'd wish I'd paid more attention to his style during class. Now with the Masters watching, I was nervous knowing I had to perform or fail.

He started first. Launching into a combination of kicks and tentative punches, I realised that he too was feeling the same about me. Blocking and counterpunching him in return, we traded a few half-hearted blows.

I saw Grandmaster shaking him head. "Oh-o." No good, no good. We were being graded and this tentative fighting was obviously not pleasing him. "Stop dancing around like girls and fight." I heard my Master say something to that effect from the sidelines.

The unfamiliar surroundings may have contributed to our skittishness. We had previously been graded at our training centre where we trained. The Grandmaster would come and we would then be graded in turn, cumulating in a new coloured belt if we passed. Today however, was different. We had turned up in the late afternoon with the usual expectations for the Grading but had instead been bundled into cars to be ferried off to an unknown destination. Where we ended up was an old Indian village called Kampong Gandhi. It was in this old dojo in the middle of a sprawling expanse of rickety wooden houses that the Masters assembled to watch us fight.

"Ok. Stop. Bow." a black clad master stepped in. "What's wrong with you two. You need to do better than that or you'll both fail." he chided. "Now... bow. Fight!" he chopped the air in between the two of us and sprinted back out of the way. Not waiting, I lunged in a forward kick immediately following the bow. He blocked me expertly and swung a return roundhouse aimed at my chest. Dodging I stepped back. He was one belt higher than I, the two of us the most senior of our class, on the verge of obtaining the much vaunted black belt. He was being graded for his 1st Dan Black, I for my 3rd Kyu Brown Provisional Black. I knew we were underperforming. I rubbed my forearm where he had blocked me rather viciously in the earlier bout.

Stealing a look behind my opponent's shoulder, Grandmaster looked stern and a little disappointed in us. Suddenly, my opponent yelled loudly and launched into a series of kicks and punches. Staggering back I blocked and dodged, only just barely able to avoid all the hits and slashes, even the near misses throwing me off-balance. F.. A... I... L... the word rose in my mind. Dammit! Do something... now before I fail, I told myself. Concentrate...

Concentrate...

I needed to focus and concentrate. Forget the strange surroundings. We were here because we were not being graded for lowly blue or green but because we were on the verge of black. No more horseplay. We might only be youngsters, still in high school but that all didn't matter to Grandmaster, not tonight, not now. Tonight we were two aspirants to the final level. All he would be seeing are two combatants who have now come before him to be graded to join the upper belted ranks, he to join the rarified circle of black belted Masters, I to join the level of provisional black.

Concentrate...

This was what it all boiled down to. The surroundings didn't matter. The cold concrete floor didn't matter. The ring of watching Masters didn't matter. The belt didn't matter. The Grandmaster didn't matter. The odd smile of encouragement from fellow students didn't matter. Our ages didn't matter. The few villages gathered at the windows to watch didn't matter. The departure from the regular grading routine didn't matter. The entire world, didn't matter. There was only him, me, now and here, and the skills of our hands and feet.

Concentrate...

I seemingly suddenly felt a lightness in my being that night. Time seemed to slow. It was strangely liberating and liberatingly strange all at once. I watched as my opponent launched into attack almost as if in slow motion. I watched as his bare foot defied gravity and rose off the floor. I don't remember much else that happened after that except that I fought... and defended... and fought... I blocked... he blocked... I took a punch... he took a punch... The whole world condensed into just the two of us. His torso now exposed. His kick a possible opportunity. His block opening up my defenses. My forward motion too vulnerable. His turn a little off balanced. A minute twist indicating a following kick.  A side sway a tighten defense.  It seemed to last forever... it seemed to last only a moment.

"Stop!" Our Master stepped in between, his hand slicing a divide between us. "Enough. Now bow." he commanded. Our hearts pounding, chest heaving in laboured breath, hair messy from the vigorous jumps and twists, clothes disheveled from landed punches and grabs, we stood and bowed to each other. "Face forward.... bow." we turned and bowed to Grandmaster.

I remember to this day the words he said to me that night as we stood before him and awaited his verdict. "Put your heart, mind and body into it." he started. "If you keep dancing around and fighting like you're both scared of hitting each other, you don't deserve the belt you wear." he scolded. "But I will pass the both of you. But this isn't because I was particularly impressed with your performances tonight. Both of you obviously have the skills or you won't be here tonight, but you were too distracted, too easily distracted... but at least for the last 10 minutes, just as I was going to fail you, you showed that you could find it in yourselves to concentrate and focus on the task at hand. Don't think. Let your instincts flow. Focus on fighting... nothing else matters when you're fighting... understand?" We both nodded.

We both bowed to Grandmaster and then bowed to the assembled Masters after that. I'm not sure how I felt that day. I felt exhilarated to gain another belt but yet his words bit deeply. I needed to learn how to focus. I knew I was easily distracted. This wasn't just about the grading, it was about my life.

"Focus.... remember... focus."

... notable events : Wreck beach... of ding-ing dongs and bobbing boobies

Ask anybody in Vancouver about Wreck beach and the response you'll get would range from knowing sniggers to shocked looks of pretentious primness.

We'd of course, all heard about it well before we even left Singapore. How could we not when every returning student and alumni would regale us with tales of the forbidden, each slightly more risque and each increasingly more elaborate than the next? Who wouldn't be curious if you were told that the university you would be going to had a certified nudist beach not 100 metres from where you'll be having classes in an endeavour to broaden our young minds?

So it was with the greatest of expectations that I, a young impressionable undergraduate student from the prudishly victorian societies of Malaysia/Singapore came to Point Grey, Vancouver, the home of Wreck beach. Ironically, as fate would have it, the residence I had chosen to reside in was perched as it is, right on top of one of the major entry trails down to the infamous beach as if to tempt the very soul, and to seek forever the shattering of childhood innocence.

I arrived in late autumn of 1991. Settled into my room on the first floor of my new residence, Cariboo House of Place Vanier, it was time to explore. Together with a new friend I'd met who incidently also hailed from the beautiful tropical emerald country of Malaysia, we had at first resisted the sexy siren's call. We traversed the campus, taking photographs of the Rose Garden, posing by the Statue of Democracy, visiting downtown Vancouver and the famous Stanley Park... but it beckoned us. Like a viral hunger it ate at our resolve, eroding the barriers of our minds, eating away at the rigid moral codes of our upbringing.

... nude...
... women...
... sex...

... the ageless call to every hot-blooded male. Who were we to resist? We are but mere mortal men with mortal failings.

With winter approaching and classes starting to pile up, we decided it was now or never. Donning our jackets against the growing cold, we found ourselves standing at the top of the winding dirt trail which led down the wooded cliff to the beach below. We stumbled apprehensively down the slope, tripping on tree roots and protruding rocks. Apprehensive because of the wild stories of "beach creatures", the inhabitants of Wreck beach at night. "Go if you want to..." older students they told us, but "... always wear shoes, watch where you step and leave before night fall." they warned. Wreck beach... was the exclusive domain of beach creatures where even the much vaunted RCMP dared not tread after dark. Yeah right we both thought. It's just a beach. Ain't it?

The path opened up at the bottom to a scene of chaos. Timber littered the stony beach. I'm not sure what we had expected, beautiful sandy beaches with crystal clear waters perhaps, but not this rocky expanse of broken cliffside beach. We shivered in the biting sea breeze searching for the beautiful naked bodies we were expecting to see... where were they?

We found lots of evidence of people having been here, a punctured beach ball, a torn picnic mat, some unidentifiable article of clothing, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, questionable containers, broken bottles, rusty tincans, broken syringes... but no heavenly bodies. Sigh.

With a heavy heart we turned back. The beach was empty. Nude season was probably over we concluded. The biting cold wind blowing at us from the northwestern sky was probably the reason. This wind came straight from the frigid wastes of the artic and was hardly a conducive environment for a person such as I who was fully clothed, what more a naked one. We'll be back next summer we both agreed and promised.

So that was how our first personal attempt at peeling back the naked secrets of Wreck beach ended that year. The school term really began as the winter set in and we were soon busy in our studies and struggling to cope with a new academic system so different from what we were used to back home. A brief day of hazing by my residence house brought all the frosh, as all first years were called on campus, in a quick run down to the beach while wearing nothing but diapers one cold October day, but I already knew what to expect having already been down to the beach earlier. A quick forced drink of sea water and we were running back up the wooded trail again to the campus proper as part of the hazing ceremony with me puking my guts out later from the non-stop beer, sea water and diapered run. The beach was empty much as my earlier explorations had already revealed.

Time passed with exams, snow, skiing, Christmas holidays, skiing, parties, studies, and did I mention skiing? ... and all manner of interesting things happening on campus. E-week stunts, Lady Godiva parades, Red underwear checks, Centurion drinking matches, Cross-dressed engineering student cheerleaders, International House dance parties, and every other conceivable form of chaos. I would watch my wall vibrate and knock my entire can collection down whenever "oldman fossil" as we called him in the room nextdoor played his electric guitar. I would watch as an assortment of females would enter certain rooms and not emerge for days. I would watch every weekend when whole residences would smell of puke and stale beer. I would watch as people come in at weird hours of the night and intoxicately go bouncing from wall to wall. Sometimes they managed to bounce back to their rooms but more often than not, to spend the night on the corridor floor. We played weird games with those drunks as part of the fun but I also spent on not a few occasions, time to help the Resident Advisors carry drunks back into buildings so that we won't get a frozen dead body in the morning. Sometimes we would have last minute room parties with girls from the other houses, where the bed was the dance floor and the whole room was standing space only with loud music and booze aplenty. Sometimes we would go to the old armouries building to play ball hockey or just do somersault jumps off the 2nd floor onto the gymnast mats below. Sometimes we would spend countless night in a row missing classes with no sleep either playing risk, or sneaking into movies, or stealing into the Arts computer lab to play computer games, but all this study, fun and games passed quickly, and soon spring was in the air. .. and again, soon... oh so very soon... it would be sunbathing season we grinned happily.

Before we had the chance to attempt another descent however, one incident illustrated to us the dangers we would face and emphasized the warning we had heard over and over again about beach creatures. It was late one night and I was in my room, when I heard a commotion outside my door. Footsteps thundered down the hall and there was the sounds of crashing on the walls and doors. I rose from my table from whatever I was doing at the time and stood at the door as the sounds of running feet stormed past my door. Mere moments later, two sets of heavy booted footsteps came pounding past after the first set. Hand hovering over the door handle I deliberated silently. Should I open the door? What's going on? Soon however, the reassuring sounds of some of my floormates chatting loudly in excited voices helped allay my fears and I too stepped out to see what was going on. Following the excited group of fellow students out the rear entrance that was just next to my room, we piled out the door and assembled just outside the building to watch, emerging just in time to see a disheveled man disappear into the undergrowth along the dark path that led down to the beach with two large and burly RCMP officers with their radios and firearms drawn in hot pursuit. Then to our amazement, just as we thought the fugitive would be caught, the two police officers stopped short right at the edge of the trail.

"We've lost him. Repeat, we've lost him. Over. bzzzt bzzt bzzzzzt" one of the officers radioed.

Dumbfounded, we just stood there, eyes and mouths wide open in the cold dark and stared at the two police officers who were just standing around peering down the slope and frantically gesturing. The message hit home. That was how dangerous Wreck Beach was at night that even two armed RCMP police officers would rather let a fugitive escape then to continue pursuit.

It was in this frame of mind that we attempted our third descent into Wreck Beach. We purposely chose a bright and sunny summer day. Exams were just over and it was the start of our summer holidays. So there we were, a little older, a little wiser but not the least less enthusiastic about Wreck Beach. The events of the past semester only serving to heighten the excitement and curiosity.

We trudge down the same windy trail, stepping over roots and protruding rocks. The initial signs were promising as we passed a few scantily dressed people on the way down. Emerging once again at the base of the cliff, the same cluttered beach greeted us but this time... this time, things were slightly different! There were people and lots of them too! Suddenly we both felt extremely self conscious. We exchanged a glance... Nah... I didn't exactly have any particular desire to strip, but more importantly, I definitely didn't want to scar my mind with the sight of him naked... and I sensed the same thoughts going through his head. Ok, fine. We'll go in fully clothed and hope we don't get pelted with rocks.

Gingerly we made our way along the beach, heading to the water's edge, still careful to avoid the scattered dangers on the broken ground. To be honest, that was all we dared to do. Looking anywhere else just seemed... inappropriate. I mean... for real, these people were... NAKED. We walked on, our eyes darting all over the place, trying to see yet trying not to see... screwing our nose in disgust whenever our wandering gaze passed over a particularly disgustingly shriveled sight, sniggering privately when we spotted a group of men and women playing a very bouncy game of volleyball, doing a couple of double-takes whenever we see any reasonably youngish female.... and all the while, feeling SOOOOO out of place in our clothes.... maybe if we pretend like we're looking for a place on the beach to sit and then strip... ugghhh... no, maybe not. I don't want people to think we're like butt buddies. Better to risk looking like nerdy curious students...

.... but for the most part, Wreck Beach was a disappointment. We were expecting beauty of the California Beach variety, and we found... uhhhhh.... less then par. Having walked down to the water's edge, we paused to stare out to sea and stood there lost in our own thoughts, having passed through the thickest part of the nudist camp and not a little relieved that we hadn't been accosted and made to strip.

"Go back?" I asked. "Yeah." came the muffled reply... we were suddenly unwilling to make eye-contact. We took a different path back, not wanting to walk through the mass of wrinkled flesh anymore than we had to. Skirting the edge, we headed back towards the exit trail. Interestingly though, it was while we were walking our circular path that we actually saw stuff that came closer to what we had originally expected in our mind's eye. There were a few couples hidden amongst the larger boulders by the cliffside that were fairly decently proportioned. Large grins began to spread over our faces. Now we're talking! We kept walking, not daring to stop and stare, stealing fleeting glances whenever we could but most of the couples were quite well hidden, and glimpses of rounded rumps, fuzzy hair and fleshy mounds were all we were afforded.

Still grinning like idiots, we soon arrived back at the start of the trail. Halfway up the trail, we couldn't hold it in any longer and we both started laughing and giggling like little boys. It was fun, the experience to us so out-of-this-world that we really had no words for it except to grin and laugh away the mixed feelings of nervousness, excitement, disappointment, happiness, satisfaction and fear. This was our university. We came here for an education... and boy did we get an education. ;)

Wreck Beach.

Point Grey.

Vancouver.

British Columbia.

Canada.

... notable events : Bigfoot's Footprint

1978. Father had shifted us out of our rented house at West Vine Street and moved us onto campus family housing. He was in his final year of his Masters at the Western Michigan University and this would be our last home in Kalamazoo before returning to sunny, tropical Malaysia.

I was still forced to learn and study my Malay although to a small kid, I couldn't for the life of me understand why Mother insisted that learning "Satu", "Dua", "Tiga" would matter the slightest bit in a world of American kids who took pride in bullying small statured Chinese boys like me.

It was an exciting year. I was in Grade 2. I was 7 years old. A big boy now, not a crybaby 1st grader! It was also a time of wonder and a time of change. Star Wars had been released only recently and having caught it with parents and sister at the local cinema, I was filled with an unstoppable sense of wonder about the world outside my limited viewpoint. I gobbled up everything I could get my hands on. TV was full of science fiction shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, and the toystores were stocked with X-wing Fighter models and small figurines of Cylons. It was also the year when I got my first snow sled which prompted me to abandon my old faded orange plastic kid's motorcycle that Father had found in the basement of the old West Vine Street place. It was bright red with yellow hold ropes along the sides and heaps of fun! It was during this year when my teeth started falling out too. "Baby teeth." said mother. Milk teeth, she meant. Father also got himself a video camera at about this time and we made loads of silly videos with it, including one of my little sister with my sled in an encounter with a tree and one where I was made to stand on a table and sing. It was also the first year when I had a proper halloween complete with costume. But it was also the year I first heard about... Bigfoot.

Bigfoot. The mysterious monster in the woods. It was in the news, it flew around the school yard on the wings of rumour, it fired the imagination. Cool... Bigfoot.

I heard it first at the playground with the 3-D space frame. This playground out of a total of some 5-6 playground scattered about the campus family housing, was the only one with a 3-D space frame which I loved climbing in and out of. It was relatively far from our unit, practically on the other side of the housing area, but it happened to be the playground right by the campus residence entrance gate where I had to walk to every morning to catch my yellow school bus to go to school. So I knew exactly where it was and exactly how to get there. The kids on this side were strangers but I loved the space frame and would trudge over whenever I could. It was here when I heard the news from some of the other kids. A footprint of Bigfoot had been found! Not only that, it had been found on a small knoll, just across the road from our playground.

Little eyes watched that hill. For days I entertained thoughts of going over to explore. It was out-of-bounds of course... the little hill sat just beyond the perimeter fence, on the other side of the boundary road... but it called to me. I dreadfully yearned to see that footprint!

"Where was it exactly?" I would ask the other kids. "Can I see it?" I would bother the larger kids to show me. "There." they pointed. "Just on the right slope before the trees."

For weeks, I dreamt of going. I couldn't think of anything else. I just had to see it! The desire burned in me, a desperate need to go. It was never far from my thoughts. Bigfoot. Whoa... I was on Bigfoot-mania... it captured my imagination and fired my curiousity. It was my life ambition, my one true goal in life, my life's burning mission...

So one day, I made up my mind to go... and I went. None of the other kids would take me so I'd decided I'd go... by myself. I stepped out of the house with a purpose and made the long journey to the playground. Hanging around the playground for awhile, I watched and I waited. Seized with indecision I paused, the thoughts running through my brain. It was harmless wasn't it? The road was a carpark road, no traffic. The fence had a gap in it. Then I would be over and back in barely any time at all. I just needed to take a peek at that slope!

I could see it from my vantage point, perched as I was on the top of the 3-D space frame. So close... so very close... and I just needed to see it from even closer. But what if it was dangerous? What if I went over... and I met... Bigfoot! Did he eat little children? Probably. But dammit, I want to see it!

Seeing no other kids around, picking up the courage, but knowing that if Mom found out, I'd be whacked for sure, I went.

My heart was pounding as I walked across the tarmac. The rip in the fence was easy enough to get through for a little boy like me. I was a little fearful, yet excited all the same. What drove me was a feverish desire to see the footprint for myself, but more than the threat of Mother's whacking or Father's lecture, I was more afraid of meeting Bigfoot himself.

The climb was easy, it was summer and the grass was green and the soil firm beneath my feet. I topped the hill and found a hiking trail. Where was the footprint? I was exactly where the kids were pointing to and said it would be. Where was it?

Looking back over the residences, I saw the road, the gate, the playground and the white walls of the residential blocks. I saw the university campus spread out just beyond the roof tops. I saw some of the kids coming out to play. But I didn't see Bigfoot. I didn't see his footprint. Where was it? That it might not even exist never even entered my mind. I searched frantically. I dared not step beyond the edge of the trail. The dark woods beyond was a promise of danger too great for the likes of me. If anything, I would be safe here by the hiking trail. But beyond this, in the dark woods, Bigfoot lurked. My eyes scanned the ground... a gnawing urge to run back home but yet unable to pull myself away... desperately searching.

I'm not sure what I found. To this day, I can't say for sure although logic tells me that it can't be true. What I do remember seeing was a larger than normal footprint. Was it Bigfoot's? Maybe. But maybe not. To a 7 year old, any footprint was large. In my desperation to see a true footprint of Bigfoot's I would probably project just about anything into the form of a footprint in my mind. Could I truly have found Bigfoot's footprint in the dirt on that grassy knoll by the side of a university campus residence in the middle of the urban sprawl of Kalamazoo, Michigan?

*Shrug* Who knows.