Birthday 2015

The last time I celebrated my birthday with Ken Bin, Cordelia, Ken Lin, Yean Mun and Elsie was during my 21st in Adelaide, when we were in university. If my memory serves me, I think my friends from boarding school, Mike and Ching were also present then. Fast forward to 2015, and in Bali no less, I had the good fortune of celebrating another birthday with the same friends from university plus Ken Lin's wife Sally and their kids Leticia and Lenora as well as Ken Bin and Cordelia's children Brandon and Bryan.

 

I am not one who typically celebrates with a party and cake, and for the past many years, I've kept it to quiet, intimate dinners with family and friends. In fact, I am prone to being in denial when it comes to aging, something that my close friends will attest to. Truth be told, I had the candles on the cake removed before this photo was taken haha! And although a different version of this photo exists, a version with the candles intact, it shall remain safe in my hard disk drive, away from prying eyes!  

 

The company of these 'old friends' during my birthday this year was indeed a blessing. We grew up together during some of our most formative years, and have had enduring friendships. For the most part, there is little of each other that we don't know, and little that we don't accept. Here's to longevity of friendships and many more years of celebrations.

 

 

At Villa Heliconia in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

Boarding School

I seem to be doing good in making it a point to keep in touch with those I went to school with. Ching, Ken Bin, David and I attended Immanuel College in Adelaide, the latter 3 of us as boarding students in Year 12. I have always been in contact with the guys; I was even bestman at Ken Bin's wedding more than 10 years ago whilst David and I meet for coffee whenever our schedules permit. Come to think of it, I was also bestman at Ken Bin's brother, Ken Lin's wedding ... but I digress. As for Ching, I haven't seen her in a few years although we've been in touch on and off.

As luck would have it, plus a little bit of effort on all our parts, we all made it to dinner last night at Ken Bin's recently opened cafe, The Olive Tree. Theoretically, it shouldn't really be that difficult for us to meet, since we all live about 10 to 15 minutes' drive from each other. However, it's the complacency that gets in the way at times. Not last night though, and we had a blast musing over some of the fond memories of our days at Immanuel - morning wake-up calls, trips to the city on Friday afternoons, the dinner and dance (OMG ... some of the photos in Facebook; 'nuff said!), the Vegemite incident (does this ring a bell Paul Jericho, Tom Brown?), and many others.

Those were carefree days and don't we sometimes wish we could re-live some of those treasured moments? For me, the happy memories are meant to be cherished and laughed over from time to time. They are the foundations of our happy state-of-mind. What we should always strive to do really, is to harness the happy thoughts and channel them towards creating similar days ahead.

Photo (from L to R) of Ching, Ken Bin, yours truly and David at The Olive Tree, Petaling Jaya.