Marina's Bloggariffic

My night-classmate, Zuraidah and I met to have dinner and we met the friendliest and sweetest person ever.

It was friday night, and we decided to meet in the city. I reached there at about 6.30pm and it was already extremely crowded. The roads were full of cars weaving in and out, honking and being impatient. I dare not cut between, as I used to. Better be slow but safe than be sorry. I tried desperately to find a place to park the scooter, however, there didnt seemed to be anywhere scooter friendly. And even when I reached the parking lot, it was already parked full of motorcycles with other motorcyclists waiting for someone to come out so they could park in their place.

It was hopeless. I doubt I’d be able to park there.

After contemplating, I decided to ride around the area again. And soonafter, it started to drizzle, and I panicked as the accident was still fresh in my mind.

So I quickly went into a random shopping center carpark and parked there and went up to meet Zuraidah. My goodness there were people everywhere. You couldnt walk 2 steps without having at least one person to the front, to the back, left and right of you.

I dont think that I’d be riding along these area during the week of christmas. With even more people then, it will be much more stressful.

I met Zuraidah by the junction and we proceeded to Centerpoint. We decided to have dinner at pizza hut and Zuraidah’s eagle eye noticed the name tag on the user.

“Hey, you have the same name as me!”

And they quickly became very friendly with each other.

She was adorable, she was friendly and she was funny. That I couldnt help but to laugh out loud at her mannerisms and quirkiness.

Zuraidah and I finally decided on having the christmas pizza set. But we didnt want to have the hash brown which was included in the set. And we asked the waitress, Zura, if we could substitute it with something else.

“Not a problem!” she replied, with a smile.

Zuraidah and I were floored! We have never met such a positive waitress like that before.

Dinner went on great, with the two of us discussing and talking when suddenly one waitress put the bill on our table. And I thought hmm, are they chasing us away? Till I opened the book and saw that there was a $15 dollar note in there. Someone mixed up our table with another.

Zura then came up and we told her about the mix up and she joked,

“Darn! You should have kept the money and split it up among ourselves!” and lively chatted with us.

“Are you sure it was okay to subsitute the food?”

“Nah, dont worry about it”

Zuraidah and I were a little worried when the manager were looking in our direction. I really didnt want sweet Zura to get scolded by talking too long with us. Eventually, we were done with dinner. And Zura came up with a coupon for us.

It was a discount coupon!

That was the nicest thing any restaurant has done for us. We were floored! It was so nice that I began to feel guilty. Here is this girl, only 18 years old, in her vacation job, being all happy and cheery and being extremely nice, to us, strangers whom she has never met before.

Have you ever met anyone like that?

This is kind of embarassing.

Not only that I am bad at remembering names, I’m also horrigible at remembering faces!

While at Haslina’s wedding luncheon, I was approached by several teenaged boys.

They stared at me.

And I stared back.

They continued staring at me.

And I continued staring back at them.

And we continued staring at each other until one of the boys blurted out

“What lah! You dont even recognize your own students?”

I swear I really couldnt make out who they were!

“Its us, we’re from West Spring! You used to teach us computing back while we are in secondary 1”

Then slowly it dawned on to me who they were. But they looked so different now. I left West Spring Secondary about 2 years ago. When I left, these boys were small, cute and adorable little kids. Now they’ve grown to be little oxes with more physique and look a little more mature.

I thought that that was an isolated issue.

But the next day, while taking the elevator to get to the headquarters for my training, the lift stopped and a man entered. He looked at me and started giggling and laughing and I looked at him quizzedly but quickly dismissed him. He’s probably laughing at something funny that he remembered.

I reached my floor and just while I pressed the door ringer, he took out his access card and tapped on the intercom and the door unlocked.

We were colleagues?!

Thats why he was giggling in the elevator!

How embarassed I was!

And inside the meeting room, there were people waving hi, smiling at me, asking, “Hi Marina! How are you doing, Marina? How’s it going, Marina? Marina! Marina! Marina!”

And I can only smile back at them, “Good thanks, and how about you?”, but in my mind, I’m thinking furiously, “Who the heck are you?!”

Wow, is my memory really so bad?

Maybe next time, I’ll bring stickers and write down their names and stick it to their chest to force myself to remember their names.

In Singapore, kids go to different secondary schools after spending their 6 years in the mandatory primary school education. I was posted to Bukit View Secondary School.

I was about 12 years old then and was just adjusting to the new environment. I was a very quiet and shy person then. I was very awkward at trying to strike conversations with strangers and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever had friends in this strange, new world.

I dont remember how we met, but as far as I remembered, while in class, we found ourselves to form our little groups with the people that we were comfortable with. Jamaliah, the smart one, Surina, the arty one, Haslina, the pretty one, Nur, the leader and me.

We spent years together in school, being serious in school and having fun at the same time. And though we went to different classes in our third year due to streaming, we still met up by the school bookshop, just to spend time chatting with each other. We were more than sisters. We were the “bookshop girls”.

After our secondary education, most of us went to different places to pursue our interest. Jamaliah, Haslina and Surina went to the polytechnic path, I went off to Jurong Institute, and Nur decided to start working.

We still kept in contact and try to meet up once a year during hari raya. Though admittedly, because of different factors, I could not meet up at some events and I’ve been neglecting them a bit.

Some months ago, I had a friendster request by Nur, and then Haslina. I was quite surprised. I never thought that they’d use friendster, but it was another way of communicating, and I poured over their pictures that they have posted up which showed a little peek of their side of their life.

Recently, Haslina invited me to her wedding. Me, Jamaliah and Nur went to her wedding. (su could’nt make it as her father was ill) and I saw how radiant she looked in her bridal dress. She was so beautiful, calm and collected. She looked down at her new husband, as the kadi was reading the solemnisation. And she smiled that familiar smile of hers.

I was so happy for her. It was as if time just stopped and for a moment and we were back in school again.

Some things never change.