Thursday, May 14, 2009

The Big Amnesia

We had to ditch our names, literally. Reverting to our Chinese names, except for a couple or two who have been using their English names all along, we re-introduced ourselves again to squeals of delight and gasps of astonishment from the two rows of eager adults sitting facing each other at a long rectangle table. 

Welcome to the world of secondary school mates reunion!

If there was a contest of memory, I would have lost hands down. I couldn’t even remember those from the same batch as me, let alone those who were my seniors.

But, forgiveness was graciously given, peppered with some bits of sarcasm, of course (who would let such an opportunity off?) that night as I kept bowing and apologizing (while making lots of excuses for myself) for my poor memory.

In times like this, one really wonders what have we done or not done in the past. Why couldn’t I remember most of the “incidences” so effortlessly described by these ex-school mates as I struggled to put the pieces together in my wretched state of reminiscence? 

One big consolation, however, was even though we haven’t seen each other for more than a decade (yes, I won’t tell you when I graduated, and you’re not to even begin guessing!), there wasn’t any need to play ice-breaking games. The freely-flowing (ahem, not free flow, but it keeps flowing from the repeat orders), nice golden calamari and red hot buffalo wings aptly warmed all of us up.

Plus, the excitement of not seeing each other for so long actually melted away any apprehension all of us would have and brought everyone straight into the most anticipated session – gossip! I mean, catching up, really. We’re just concerned with those who were present, though bits and pieces of information were passed round on those who were unfortunately absent. 

What a nice feeling to be back in good ole’ company once again. 

Hail Facebook! If not for it, the gathering wouldn’t have been orchestrated and played out so smoothly. Looking forward to the next one …

When was your last school gathering? Were there any special or funny moments that you like to share?