That time of life

I always open snail mail from my alma mater university with a little trepidation. If it's the quarterly alumni magazine, there's always the feature stories of current and former university students overachieving their way through life, not to mention the "Class Pages", which I scrutinise for alumni from my years with the same glee that some people read the obituary pages --- except with the reverse outcome because finding out what everyone else has been up to inevitably makes me like I haven't been doing very much myself.

And if it's not the magazine, then it's usually a plea for money. Which is what I got today, but with a twist.

You see, my tenth class reunion is upon us next year.

I sort of knew it was creeping up upon me because I finished that bloody eight-year bond last year , which means I've been "back" for eight years, which is something some people still ask me: "How long have you been in Singapore now?" Also, because I'm now freelancing and I look younger than my age (yes, I'll stop smirking now), from time to time I also get the question, "How long have you been working?"

Too long, my friends, and without enough to show for it. But this isn't a pity party blog entry.

No, upon perusing the latest attempt to hit me up from money, I noticed that the Class of 1997 Reunion Committee was handily listed in a sidebar and that two people I actually used to hang out with in university are on the committee. Since they're also people who held fairly high-profile positions in campus organisations, part of me isn't really surprised at that.

Naturally, after I read out their names to Terz (they're both female), he immediately asked, "Are they cute? Are we going for your reunion?"

The thing is, I can't remember the last time I saw the both of them. One was pretty good friends with my ex-flatmate, at one stage, which might or might not also have been the stage when one of our guy friends was trying to go out with her. I say trying because I'm fairly certain it never took off.

The other girl I was closer friends with and the last thing I remember us doing together was heading down to a Lincoln Park street festival of some kind just before graduation. Did I even see her at graduation?

It's amazing the things you forget after ten years.

Anyway, they were both what, in Singapore parlance, one would call "high fliers" --- overachievers, extremely intelligent, extremely motivated and extremely able to get things done. I'm sure they have high-profile careers to match.

I just wish the alumni mailer had included their email addresses so that I could contact them and find out.

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