When Weddings Become a Great Reunion

H-3 lectures finished last week and I can finally checked that off my list of to-dos and try to clear work for the year so that I may have a peace of mind when I go for hols
The tense situation in Bangkok brought new worries for the Softball Chiang Mai trip which I already have much trouble with - I have been to Changi Ap 4 times to sort out ticketing issues, trying to get EduS $ from the secondary schools, trying to get hold of my personal contacts in Chiang Mai so that the kids will pay less. Sometimes I think I work too hard on this - I should have throw it to the agency to settle everything for me but then the idealist me rather choose to take the alternative route so that 1) kids will pay less and 2) give work and money to the Thai locals who are having difficulties themselves. I have worked with a Thai translator during my YEP trip last year and the last time when we communicated, the orphanage he was managing was facing a shortage of food and children falling sick. So I was hoping to use this trip to do some purchases for him and orphans.
I guess everything will hinge on the political climate in Thailand.

Anyway that aside, it was ringing wedding bells all over town.
On Saturday & Sunday, it was the wedding of my primary school classmate (she had it over 2 days). With the bride and all those around my table, it was 20 years of friendship and for some of us, even longer.
This group of friends are very special to me, even though I would usually be pretty reticent among them (it is difficult when they start to talk about marriages and diapers). But I appreciated their presence for that shared history and also, they always bring with them a very different perspective of life with their struggles which are often very different from my sec/jc classmates. Life has never been a bed of roses for some of them and very often they remind me how fortunate I am and also that the environment we are so comfortable in school is only a mere fraction of the world out there. I think that is why I want my students to go out there and touch the world beyond their immediate surroundings. As a school who supposedly produces leaders, how do you even lead when you do not know the nature of the majority of your population. If you decide that everyone in school is different enough, think again. Which brought us the question of the Community work we are doing - how much do we know about the client we are serving? Do we know their stories?
Bearing this thought, I am also concerned with the young leaders of these days whether they are lacking the 'person' touch while they run plans with great efficiency as one of my frens divulged after working in the gr-roots for a few years.
Don't keep your feets grounded but your heart as well.

The bride and I lived a few blocks apart and when I told my mum that I will be attending her wedding, she exclaimed 'oh, the one whom you always go to the bookshop with to buy things!'. So many years already and the funny things pple remember. And that's right, both of us used to pool our pocket money together to buy comics like doraemon, dragonball and professor IQ. But she got the better half of the deal because the dragonball books are with her hahah.


And on the funny things pple remember, another cupid had his arrow on my softball mate on Mon and I was seated with his secondary 2 classmates. It was particularly amusing when I realised that I know everyone around the table even though they were from a different class. There was TL, the guy you see on TV for Chinese cri**watch and we used to act in a Chinese drama together, there were JS and T who became my JC classmates, AM - a bigshot these days (apparently) and my JC OG mate, KG whom I have been working with recently and N who, for some reason, I can still remember his name. A lively bunch of pple and all of them single haahah.
But what was equally amusing was when KG remembered funny little facts about me like how I also used to be a 400m runner. No one remembered which race I preferred but in those days to do a full round under a min was pretty rare. Actually, come to think about it, I think I am more notorious than I chose to believe. hahah. Perhaps.
Then again, you realised the different profiles this group of frens held compared to the dinner the day before.



I must admit that after next year, I will be the only single among this group of friends