The Beauty of Friendship

i had the most fantastic weekend.

simply because i met my old friends, and we had fun catching up.

to my ex students who think that a reunion after a year or 5 is superb, well wait until you hit 19 years. but by then you'll be slightly (it's all in the state of mind) older and matured, and the topics are wide-ranging.

that happens every time i meet up with my 5 ilmu seri puteri classmates and we just go crazy (not wackos, just girls who laugh out loud). the gatherings are done several times a year, but now it's more of a regular meeting as our friend Ina is back from Sudan.

so there we were - me, june, shidah, anne and ina - sitting and munching at our favourite spot Chilis, talking and all the while laughing so loudly that some people from the other tables looked. i'm not kidding. seriously. we just forgot where we were and we were again those giggly teenaged girls studying in girls boarding school, reminiscing the days when Miss Hamid punished the Set B girls for not completing their summaries (they had to run around the entire netball court for how many times) or when our favourite Cikgu Poyah shushed us up when we were in Form 2 until her saliva went flying everywhere or those Friday nights when we ran up to the field to book places for "wayang".

on Saturday night, i went to my friend As' house and met up with another classmate, Zana. although this was more a sedate and quiet meeting as compared to the boisterous one on the previous night, i enjoyed seeing my friends - seeing Zana as a mother catering to her "askar" and also As - our all-rounder, intelligent, opinionated classmate - a hepatologist who has reached another level that i don't know if i can reach.

on Sunday, i met up with my M.A. Literature classmates Elison and Iris. Elison is an outgoing lawyer with the gift of the gab (of course, or else she wouldn't be a lawyer, would she?) and i remember those classes when she would cheer up the otherwise serious class with cheeky comments. and then there's Iris, who's motherly and speaks and writes beautifully, who gave me a pep-talk on the morning of our final paper presentation because i hadn't done anything as i just broke up with a boyfriend. she saved me, actually and i did well in the Stylistics class presentation.

and you know you're having fun, because when someone had to make a move, you felt sorry that the meeting had to end, and you just wish that you could just sit there and talk and talk.

that's the beauty of friendship.