Being SDU - Get a life

I still recall the 5 week tuition I had during my Secondary school days. Things like this don't get forgotten very easily, when you practically lead a monotonous lifestyle during your early teens.

The only enjoyment I had was on Saturdays, when I was given the licence to not study. While other kids grew up with piano, ballet and violin lessons, I grew up playing the arcade.

Every Saturday would be either spent in Hougang SuperFunworld or AMK Funland. I learnt how to fully utilise my allowance and maximise my time spent. I learnt how to play those long games from stratch. In those times, one credit can let me play for a minimum of half an hour. The longest game I played with one credit was 1.5 hours.

Sometimes, Saturdays weren't enough. I remember me and some of my classmates used to bring a spare t-shirt to school every Friday just in case we wanted to go to you know where.

I was so hooked that me and a few friends of mine even formed a team and competed competitively.

Initial D? Nah.

Daytona. Give me a Daytona machine and I can still show you my skills. Its like cycling. Once you know, its hard to forget. It was drilled into me already.

Ok, I'm digressing.

When I was 16, mIRC was still very popular. Outings were organized and I would meet up with some or all of them. We would laze the afternoon at Ray Wilson Starbucks and pop over to Cineleisure and spend the rest of the day at the arcade.

I have no idea how much I've spent on the arcade already. I shudder to even think about it.

Sometimes, the meetups will be at Potblack, behind Forum the shopping mall. That was when I was first introduced to pool. I tried the game and I loved it. I also upgraded to playing snooker, the Ah Beng sport.

When I entered Polytechnic, when I'm not studying, all I ever did was either go to the arcade or play pool. I didn't socialise much. Although there were a few single babes in my class, I didn't do anything. The ratio was 2 girls to 1 guy. And there were only 5 guys in my class. And one by one my classmates' status changed from single to attached. Except me. I was still learning how to be at ease with the other species.

One day, my classmate said something to me jokingly but I still remember what he said word for word.

The conversation went something like this.

"Monk, how you going to spend your weekend? Going out ah?"

"Yah, going to meet some of my online friends tommorrow. Got outing."

"Outing?! Sial lah monk, if life was for sale ah, go and buy one! Haha!"

The other guys started laughing, either at that line or at me. It wasn't funny being given a low blow but I just laughed along.

To add insult to misery, Dido came up with a CD album at around that time too.

Life for rent.

But after so long, and thinking back about it, its all very funny actually.

How do you define having a life?

Having the company of women or always going out with groups of friends?

I had very few female friends during that point of time. I also had no luck in women in Polytechnic.

Does having going out on "outings" and playing arcade games & pool alone equate to having no life?

Its still a life ok... just that its a lonely life.

Till now, I'm still pretty much the same. Old habits die hard. Really.

I got so used to going to the arcade that I would step in everytime I walked passed one. Even now. If I had to wait for a friend and I'm alone, I would go over to the nearest arcade and ask my friend to find me there.

Sometimes when I am alone I would also go play pool at the challenger table.

Or walk around town alone, window shopping and watching the world go by.

Maybe this behaviour contributes as one of the reasons on why I am still single.

I wonder how long will this go on, although things have been picking up recently.

Because of getting onto a bad/wrong start in my early teens, I need to do alot of changes and amendments on my part.

I'm still not there yet.