I sometimes wonder what I would be like today if I'd gone to RGS instead of Dunman High. I've realised that most of my close female friends today are ex-RGS girls, and I generally get along better with the RI/RGS/RJ crowd nowadays. It's especially obvious in NIE, where Rafflesians are few and far between. Most people assume I'm an RGS girl. (Which, hmm..)

For so many of my good friends, though, RGS seems to have been a decidedly mixed - if not downright miserable - experience. I feel oddly spared (and thankful). When I think back upon my secondary school days I usually see it as a rather.. stultifying time. I don't think any of my subjects or activities in school really stimulated me or helped me to grow as a person. But at least the vulnerable and uncertain teenager I was wasn't scarred by the experience.

Junior college was a wonderful time. I think choosing to go to RJ instead of the 'easier' choices of VJ or HC was pivotal. I had wonderfully engaging teachers who exposed us to so much that I didn't know existed, so much that intrigued and fascinated me; who, cliched as it sounds, believed in me and made me believe that I was actually fairly adept at a number of things. I mean, I did well in Dunman too. But it was always just grades, a number. No one tells you they think very highly of you in Dunman. No one tells you they think you write beautifully. No one tells you you're intelligent. No one tells you you can go places. For that I will always be grateful.

People tell me RJ was - probably is - a bitchy place. I know JC was a difficult time for many of my classmates and close friends. I guess I was lucky to be a nerd of no consequence, and so emerged fairly - not completely, though - unscathed, untouched by the vicious gossip that goes around. I just didn't encounter the bitchiness. Maybe I was lucky. Maybe I'm like a block of wood. Whatever the case is, I'm thankful for that. I may be one of the few people who actually found RJ a fairly nurturing experience.

Cambridge was lovely. So much of what I think and who I am today crystallised during my time in Cambridge. (I think my emotional and psycho-social development probably came later than most people's; Cambridge was really, for me, the crucial formative period.) I want to say that as people get older they get less shallow and petty and hurtful and vindictive, and so it was natural that the people I met in Cambridge were almost all really nice. That's not true, though. I think I was just really, really blessed with nurturing friends and tutors in Cambridge. Most of the people I met in Harvard were also lovely, and I built some incredibly strong connections with a few people in the short time I was there. Grad school paled in contrast to Cambridge in terms of the support and camaraderie available, but I think by the time I went to Harvard I was old enough and ready to live in my own apartment, do my own stuff, and engage in intellectual exploration pretty much on my own without feeling lost and miserable. I feel like I've really had the luxury of time to grow up and be able to face the world with confidence and conviction - all in an incredibly loving environment. Things are often not-so-nice at home - which makes the four years I've spent abroad that much more precious.

I really should learn to thank God more, and more often.