Memories...

5/25/2006

I was back in Singapore last week to visit my grandfather, who's suffering from liver cancer. It was a bit of a shock to see him -- he's lost a lot of weight. Some of my earliest memories of my grandfather were when I was 8 years old or so, and we went out for turtle soup at one of the hawker centers in Singapore. Turtle soup was one of my grandfather's favorite foods, and even now with his dietary restrictions, his eyes lit up when I mentioned that memory, and he asked if I wanted to sneak out with him for some turtle soup.

Later that week, I was cleaning out my old room so that my mother could make it her real estate office (translation: stash more junk), when I came across a pile of old letters many friends had written me when I first moved away to go to school. Aside from a few close friends I kept in touch with, I had lost track of many of the others. I caught up with one friend, Jon, to see if he knew where these other friends were, but he proved largely unhelpful. The conversation went like this, "Whatever happened to X?" "Disappeared". And Y? "Got married, and then disappeared". What about Z? "Dunno." So as with all things, when you just have to know, I did what I should've done in the first place. I googled.

However that's an adventure in itself. See - my parents are the last people in the world to get Broadband. (OK, not really, but I tell them that to motivate them to keep up with everyone else). So I end up stealing one of the neighbor's wireless connections. Catch was - I couldn't sit comfortably on the couch to do this - I had to stand on it. Even then - it was painfully slow.
But the net result was that I found one friend, Trina - who I knew had gone to Australia to study physiotherapy. I found a company web page, which listed her as the owner and manager. I sent an email, and a couple days later received Trina's trademark sarcasm in reply.

Well - hopefully one of these days we'll get together for a reunion. It has been 18 years. Maybe in 2008, we can have a 20 year reunion somewhere.