24.1.2026 Saturday - Gala Dinner

Henry arranged for a few of our former teachers to have a meal together, including some of our classmates. Unfortunately, I have no time for one of them, we were not in the same class and he is not a nice person. I thought about declining but then thought 'I would just go and enjoy what I could of the afternoon'. And I am glad that I did. Our teachers are getting older, with health problems though they seem to enjoy the chatter. I wish for a larger group with more people around the table

Today is a day of doing not much, except cooking at No. 40 for Bel and EH - Sean was telling stories during dinner time, entertaining us about the silly antics of the office interns. It is good - like Louise said 'your children seem happy, you have done a good job'.

23rd November 2023 Thursday - Curating PDF2023

I thought I would put this information on paper, as a record of what was needed to make PDF2023 work. There were some queries and 'wonderings' about how and why we did certain things - so here I explain, and record for myself. I put Si Yong's name to the piece as well, because he is more than half of the partnership of two of us.
 

Boon Boon left St Tom after Form 3 to continue Form 4 Science in Green Road, and I have not seen him since. It seems that he worked for a time in Kuching, and then KL before settling in Singapore.

13 May 2023 Saturday lunch with Mike and Don

changing design and the sub-con meant an extra set of drawings and another level of attention needed to ensure compliance from someone un-familiar with what we want in our design.

 Early start, no exercise as yesterday's tennis combined with the extended fasting (until one meal a day: dinner) seemed to be adequate. I was in the office later as it was raining, when I arrived Jenny was also coming up the stairs, she is dedicated I must say. I wonder why this commitment did not help her through her Part 2. At the office, she wanted to discuss the master plan, and begged off and postponed till the afternoon. When I came out later, she was tidying up the PCs and my books - I was first annoyed then decided that she has a point and moved my stuff into the library. I do like a clean 'house'.

At the next table, is a tennis friend with another woman (not his wife) and Solomon described them as regulars and 'partners'.

Don is in Vancouver doing research into cancer ('I am a scientist') and Mike is with the Sheraton in Hangzhou, and has not been back for years. 

Lunch with Mike and Don, and Da and Hoon Kwang at Solomon's shop - talking about school days and retirement. I really enjoyed the banter as these two were good at it, and I have not seen them for a long time. There was a time when I looked up to Don, who was so knowledgeable and cool, with Mike Wong (and Ho, this one) with their soccer, and Nazir with his wit. 

watching Sia's niece's graduation from Oxford

Later in the afternoon, I cooked ginger chicken with rice wine, chicken and sweet corn soup, a prawn omelette, and stir-fried cabbage for dinner. I am making this my routine on Saturday, cook for family - today's family include Ivy and Sia. Pleasant surprise when Hong Yi showed up at Jenny's invite - he is working and gave Ivy his contact; draughting services, rendering, and the such. I invited him to drop by any time to use the office, he is a good 'kid' self taught with a good design eye. He has problems with deadlines, etc but people do grow out of that.

20th November 2022 Sunday - meeting Henry and Solomon

We made plans to play tennis with Solomon Tan who left St Tom after Form 5, he went to Arizona and now lives in California. I have not seen him since 1981 nor kept in touch as we were in different classes, but for people like Henry Sia we might not have re-connected this morning. It was a unusual type of reunion, a tennis game but perhaps also best suited in this case as we had little to chat about in the beginning. 

He plays a good game, though at our age the upper hand is usually gained by having better movement/mobility (the strokes and courtcraft is not so important). I recall that when we were in school, he often wore a worried frown which he still does (captured in this photo when we collected him from Urat Mata)
 

After the game, we met Henry at Lau Eya Kheng and talked about the old days which Henry remembered vividly. We recalled Mrs Eng and Cikgu Latifah who taught us English and BM, who treated us like adults even though we were snotty-nosed kids then. And the late Minah Foo who was firm but kind, stoic in school but colourful after class. 

As usual, the conversation drifted to retirement, Henry has fully retired while Solomon seemed to be heading that way. I explained to them (and to myself) that I can't yet as I am supporting many people, and still found rewarding challenges at work. As if to prove it, I offered a renovation solution to Henry's old house which I recorded for him later.

6 Feb 2022 Sunday 5 Thomians eat lunch together

 

In the last few years, we lost Churchill and then Vernon - there is a chat group where the same several people share their insights and opinions daily. One of them shares a daily salutation at 430 a.m; I suspect he is getting up for work around that time. He sells fried crullers (you-tiao) at the Kenyalang Market, he is a school mate whom I have no recollection of ever meeting in school. Nonetheless, he is regularly in our phones now. I share caption-free abstract black and white photos of our construction sites. Mike share cat photos, because he has 7-8 of them. Sometimes, someone makes a comment and there is a spurt of short lived conversation. Otherwise our 'fellowship' is limited to images that ping into our screens. 

Sometimes, I post an open invitation in the group to have breakfast/lunch/a quick drink and see who turns up. Last Sunday, 4 showed up for lunch, as a Chinese New Year celebration, two were class mates from Primary 1; one of them is a engineering works supervisor and has been at his job for more than 30 years. He has 3 daughters, one of whom was in the team who shot our SD video. The other is probably the wealthiest person in class, and rightly so too he was the highest achiever in Form 6. I told him that was because we were all gone; gone overseas to our year 12. He sells the raw ingredients for food manufacturing is probably the wealthiest one