It's a long road
Only two things can make me brave peak-hour morning traffic on a weekday at Raffles Place - a five-figure monthly salary and breakfast with an old friend.
Deepa and I go back to my radio days, when we were carefree young girls in our first real jobs. We had quite a bit of fun, I think, scheming and plotting our way to world domination. She said she wanted to work in TV and I said I wanted to write for a world-famous magazine which shall remain unnamed. Drunken nights, $2 lunches in the MediaCorp canteen, talking about the crushes we didn't really act on - thank God, otherwise they or we would have been roadkill - it was all such good fun.
Then I left for Hong Kong in March 2000 to pursue my dream of being a jetsetting journalist and we exchanged emails occasionally. She went to various financial media before landing a gig as a markets reporter at Channel NewsAsia and I remained in print, where my heart truly is.
It wasn't until October last year - more than 6 months after I came back from Sydney - that I bumped into her for real at the Bull Run at the Padang. And that's the amazing thing about old friends. It's always so easy to pick up where you left off, there's a sense of shared history and you can spare each other the often painful small talk.
A lot has happened since we last chatted - she has moved on to the corporate world and gotten married - but we've both grown up quite a bit. Sure, the total disregard for authority and rebelliousness is still there, but it's tempered by experience and the knowledge (and skill!) that there are other ways of getting what you want without dashing about like a bull.
On a separate note, found out last week that my St. Nicholas classmate Cindy was pregnant. Yes, I attended her wedding in late January and the next thing we hear, she's going to be a mom. We're planning a baby shower, but without the baby-shower games. Brrrrrrrrr.
Deepa and I go back to my radio days, when we were carefree young girls in our first real jobs. We had quite a bit of fun, I think, scheming and plotting our way to world domination. She said she wanted to work in TV and I said I wanted to write for a world-famous magazine which shall remain unnamed. Drunken nights, $2 lunches in the MediaCorp canteen, talking about the crushes we didn't really act on - thank God, otherwise they or we would have been roadkill - it was all such good fun.
Then I left for Hong Kong in March 2000 to pursue my dream of being a jetsetting journalist and we exchanged emails occasionally. She went to various financial media before landing a gig as a markets reporter at Channel NewsAsia and I remained in print, where my heart truly is.
It wasn't until October last year - more than 6 months after I came back from Sydney - that I bumped into her for real at the Bull Run at the Padang. And that's the amazing thing about old friends. It's always so easy to pick up where you left off, there's a sense of shared history and you can spare each other the often painful small talk.
A lot has happened since we last chatted - she has moved on to the corporate world and gotten married - but we've both grown up quite a bit. Sure, the total disregard for authority and rebelliousness is still there, but it's tempered by experience and the knowledge (and skill!) that there are other ways of getting what you want without dashing about like a bull.
On a separate note, found out last week that my St. Nicholas classmate Cindy was pregnant. Yes, I attended her wedding in late January and the next thing we hear, she's going to be a mom. We're planning a baby shower, but without the baby-shower games. Brrrrrrrrr.
posted by Jean.Chua at 7:50 AM
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