alma mater revisited

2 weekends ago (this entry had been waiting for its photos), some of the people including myself in our batch of sekolah menengah melayu jalan stesen had a casual teh tarik session in bukit jelut0ng mamak restaurant. why there? it was supposed to be easier for those people staying in usj, bj and sa area but in the end, only three people from those areas turned up so the venue for the next session would definitely go back to its original one in muti@ra damans@ra@ since most are staying around that area anyway.



in terms of the crowd, socially we had a good mix of people. mostly were married with children, two guys whom married twice (not second wife but second marriage) and one single guy. for those singles reading this and looking for a mid 30's, he is the guy in long sleeve black t-shirt with white stripes on the sleeves, women preferred. throughout the night, they were talking about him waiting for the 40-year old ella the singer resolution to get married and till the end i didn't know whether that was serious or they were just fooling around, met with silly grins of the incumbent. we also had one haji who had never set foot in s@udi but only because he looked like one when he was 16! if you are looking for me in the photo, i am in the foreground with the white t-shirt. (you could at least see my hand and hair that is thankfully still intact)



career-wise, we also had a good mix of people with multitude of social standing. mostly are slave labourers like me for various local companies glc's, international firms and private ones, there was also a cfo of a main-board public listed company, an i.t. entrepreneur working as a ceo of his own company and a fully-qualified uk doctor on his sabbatical to babysit his child turned short movies director.



while the projected hot topic was supposed to be about one guy who 'came out of the closet' and another guy who had lost quite a bit of other people's money and disappeared during the 1997 stock market crash, it didn't turn out to be.



while several of them are starting to be concerned about the readings on their blood pressure, the sabbatical-doctor-turned-director proposed an ingenious way to relieve the pressure by slicing open one of those major veins (preferably ventricular) to relieve some of the pressure before any major check up. he even stressed that veins are a better option than arteries despite the higher pressure in arteries due to the more efficient blood platelet mechanism in covering up wounds inflicted on arteries, hence less bloodshed.



the hot topic under discussions were mostly about this guy who has to bring several pak haji (real ones) clients to karaoke with some backup singers to go along, much to his distress of course. and another guy who just moved into his new house and got conned by the same contractor, twice. not much advice you could give there. another favourite topic of discussion was the development of fats around ones waist and how difficult one guy went through to convince his office mates that he used to play hockey for the school and district, after visibly putting on at least 30 kilos compared to when he was 17.



the good thing is that everybody stayed back until the end of the session at about 3am and i guess everybody was happy seeing each other again despite having less and less things in common to talk about. i will definitely do it again the next time they are having it, at least for old time sake. (20 years ago, i was in form three and panicking with srp?!!! daymn!)



[ note: this one added later, searched the oxford dictionary on the definition of alma mater (to make sure i got the correct spelling) and the origin of word is from latin meaning bountiful mother! hmmm ]