Priscilla

Met up with Pris yesterday after the conference on Teaching with Newspapers at the Grand Hyatt. Well, you could say yesterday was a day of "catching up", since I also met up with Elaine, whom I got in touch with when she was working at the Ritz Carlton when I was running the ASEAN Lecture event whilst working at NUS. Glad to see that she's doing fine. Also ran into Debby and Mag - great to see you gals again.. Well, we'll meet again on Friday, yah? Can't wait!!

As usual, I enjoyed my meeting with Pris. It's always nice to meet up with her. Sometimes, I feel I talk too much each time I meet with her. It's like I'd pour out a whole baggage of news for her, and she'd just patiently listen. Each time I meet up with her, it's like getting back in touch with my true self.

It's funny but our lives seem so much alike, our characters and our thinking, that we wonder if we were related in some way. It's amazing to see how our friendship dates back since Primary One, and I'd say she's been a dear friend to me since. I remember how she'd give me 50 cents a day when I was in Primary school so that I could have money to buy a plate of mee rebus and have some left over for a popsicle. Not that I was that poor, but that my pocket money was whatever that was leftover from the household money set aside for that week. Some days, that meant nothing since my brother had to have his pocket money too.

I never did ask my mum how she managed to juggle it all, but somehow she did. Things got better when she went out to work, but that meant going back home to an empty home and a plate of cold porridge awaiting me. But I got by. I was fine. I had fun instead with my brother as we played fractions with our cold curded porridge.

Back to Pris - she's giving birth in June. About the same time as Lee Yee. I can't imagine. I'd have two new godsons within the same month! Pris has decided to name her son Christian. Nice. Says a lot, and I bet he'd be a hell of a handsome guy!

We spoke much about lots of stuff. About what has kept me busy, about kids, aboutd disappointments, about aspirations and about making ends meet. Yes, we're going through the same things ironically though we're leading separate lives. She understands how I feel. I understand how she feels.

We both parted with corny jokes that put us in higher spirits despite our fears. I guess we knew that the big guy above will watch over us somehow.