Chicken Sopas with Gravy

I bumped into two long lost friends here in Singapore. It was fun seeing them again. Seeing people again after 10 years makes you realize so many things in life.  You are able to realize what have been lost and gained for the past 10 years. Questions and ifs getting answered. Memories are coming back… memories of 1997; one of the best years in my life! My family was doing very well during those times, not just in financial side but also in the level of happiness and relationships. And this is not just limited to my parents and siblings, but also to the entire clan or at least to my relatives in first degree.

Everything looks promising in my life in 1997. I am about to finish high school and it was crazy… really crazy and fun! There is not much pressure in school to pass the course. I am one of the 3 that has the highest IQ in the batch. I got many good friends at school and in our village which many of them I still hold on to although I haven’t seen them for a very long time.

I passed my admission exams to the two most prominent education institutions in the country; the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) - the premier Military Academy in Asia and University of the Philippines the premier state university in the country. At hindi lang basta-basta UP, it is UP Diliman on a quota course. My moral was very high. I choose the former (PMA), and after a few months I changed my mind and quit military training to enroll in UP for the second semester. From the time I leave for PMA things have never been the same. Ten years have gone by so fast… and like a song "it’s all coming back to me (now?)"…

Later this year as we all hope, our high school class will have a grand reunion. I will definitely see a lot of people and friends that I haven’t seen for a decade. It will be nostalgic. More memories will come back, more question will be answered. It will be a time to catch up and make up for the lost time, the way I am doing now for my two long lost friends that I bumped into here Singapore.