where the juniors meet seniors
                                  tapping on the power of community

May 27, 2000

It all began with a phone call...

On May, 20th (SAT), as I was working into the night, I received a call from Chek Mong. It's been such a long time. I could still   remember the last time we met. It was during one of his graduation photo-taking sessions. Poor thing! At that time, I was asking myself, when would it be my turn? ;)

After a short chat, I got to know that there was an upcoming outing for all fellow CHAIS members. I immediately made my commitment on the spot to attend the all-too-important gathering. And to top it up, I even sent an email notice to all the 70 CHAIS juniors I had access to (mostly from NTU). Despite the fact that most juniors had gone back to Malaysia during the vacation, and the fact that buffet dinner in Hotel cost the student a bomb, we still managed to get four to turn up. Quite a feat, indeed.

The event began at 6pm at Raffles MRT Station Control. All of us were supposed to wait there. We had a good time mingling with each other. Since some of the attendants were late, we split the group into two, and the biggest group proceeded to Merchant Court Hotel first, while the rest waited. 

It was 7.00pm before all of us were seated. Not too bad for a typical Chinese dinner, I presume. ;p  With altogether 19 of us, we took up two long tables. Naturally, the three juniors who came earlier, Kean Fei, Meng Tin & Chin Hong, sat together, while the rest of the 'great grand' seniors took the other table. I was, of course, with the juniors and Chek Mong. 

Just before we began, another junior, Lipp Tatt, joined us. As a 'penalty' for his late arrival, he had no choice but to take another table, going with all the big brothers and sister whom he had not met before. Wonder if he ever doubted that he was with the right group of people, since all of them seemed to be strangers to him. Well, I guess, with a head which has been 'completely trimmed' (bald), nothing could have possibly stopped him from socializing.

The food served in the buffet had been surprisingly good, given the fact that it only cost us $27.50 per head.  But the gist of the day  was still the chance to chit-chat and share experience. To start with, each of us took turn to do a short introduction about ourselves. It began with a senior, followed by a junior. The difference between the two had been an interesting one, esp. when you start hearing things like 'I am unattached'. Oh boy, was that a spill-over effect from orientation camp? Give me a break! We only had one female member at our table, and she was our 'great grand' senior. ;p

To better highlight the opportunity of learning from seniors, I brought up the issue that our seniors could provide us a glimpse into the future, from which we could know what we were going to be like in the next few years. Hence, the most interesting topic took the center-stage: Are our seniors attached? Fortunately or unfortunately, the default answer, at least at our table, was a NO. 

In order not to instill any pessimism among the juniors, I stepped in to discuss about how we could create the right atmosphere for finding our soul mate (lessons learnt from the book, Mars and Venus on a Date, by John Gray). Still, I couldn't help but to point a finger at our altar mater, Chong Hwa KL, which prohibited any boy-girl-relationship back in our secondary school. What I didn't realize was, I had another four pointing back at myself. I concluded my 'mini-lecture' with an argument borrowed from SM Lee:

"That which did us good in a phase that was will NOT do us good in the phase that will be."

Other than this topic, our conversation also spanned across other spectrums of life. At 9.20pm, all of us called it a day, with a replete stomach, of course. Chin Hong won a unanimous victory over the title of our greatest eater. He had hell of a big stomach, as if made of rubber! :)

Again, during our departure, we split the group into two, one heading Raffles while another heading City Hall MRT. As for the four juniors, the night was still young. They decided to patronize Coffee Bean till ungodly hours. When I asked them why, they simply answered:

"There isn't much thing to see back in NTU."  

You and I know what they were referring to. Kudos to the juniors! I think they are pretty hopeful. ^_^

Contributed by:
Yin Choon