My ex-room-mate
I say just about the same thing to my ex-room-mate ("ERM") in my Christmas card to him every year... It's variations of the same theme about how it's been 4 / 5 / 6 / 7+ years since that day in July 1997 when we were placed in the same group for matriculation.. 2 things stick to my mind..
a. he was wearing these really outlandish Alien Workshop (haha... I cant even find a link with a pic of that anymore!) ear studs... and I was thinking "geez.. what's with this guy"...
b. at sentosa for matric week for some game, he and I were the only ones who did what had to be done, instead of slacking off..
In law school, somehow our chunk of our OG stuck together and survived far longer than the rest.. ERM holds the dubious honour of being the only guy who has stayed over at my Island paradise alone.. that night, we studied Legal Research (duh.. that was totally dumb) and went running... We mugged together during exams, moaned over the girls who were troubling us.. and miraculously, we were 2 of the 3 only pupils on our floor when we did pupillage... and convinced the powers that be to let us share a room when we got called to the Bar..
Our room was our oasis.. for most of the 1.5 years we shared in that room, we had at any one time at least:
3 or 4 stuffed bears,
6 bottles of wine,
3 umbrellas,
5 packs of expired snacks,
4 different types of tea,
20 CDs,
80 files..
We had our own ritual observed almost everyday.. I used to get into the office at around 0850, and would make enough tea for 2 after evacuating the bowels... he usually comes in between 0915 and 0930, and he'd ask "Is it still hot?"
Around July last year, we both kinda burnt out and realised we needed out of the job.. I prepared my resume one week when I was really frustrated at work, and sent it to the recruiters.. the offer same in Sept / October, and before long, we both decided that we were going to quite once we got our bonus.. he to teach, and me to this job.. we even co-ordinated out tendering dates so that we'd leave on the same day, and not leave the other person in a once-lively room...
The last 2 or 3 months passed really quickly.. we stuck a countdown calendar behind our door, cancelling it with glee every few days.. we circulated archived emails which our group of friends used to exchange when we were wee pupils... we lamented, we sat in silence thinking the same things after we reminisced..
We had our last day on that same Friday, and we gave a little farewell party in the office... the bosses were obviously unhappy that we were making a show of leaving the Firm, and so happily at that... there was no time that day to feel sad... but we both came back the next day to send out our last emails... and to copy out stuff from our hard disks...
It's beem 4+ months since then... ERM went to Aust to see his gf whilst i started work the very next week.. he started teaching, then decided in favour of going back to legal practice as in-house counsel.. his hours are better than mine, and it's nice that we get to catch movies on weekday evenings when the rest of our classmates are still slogging at work...
Someone, Miss LiT I think, said something like the nicest relationships (in the broad sense of the word) are those simple friendships.. I guess it's like that with ERM.. somehow it's hard to have that with people of the opposite sex.. at some point, 1 person is likely to become more vested than the other... I've got 2 best female friends, and at some point they've promised me (separately) on those sentimental days that we'd be friends forever... but between getting married, getting (jerks for) bfs, I'm not so sure... as things are, things have already shifted...
a. he was wearing these really outlandish Alien Workshop (haha... I cant even find a link with a pic of that anymore!) ear studs... and I was thinking "geez.. what's with this guy"...
b. at sentosa for matric week for some game, he and I were the only ones who did what had to be done, instead of slacking off..
In law school, somehow our chunk of our OG stuck together and survived far longer than the rest.. ERM holds the dubious honour of being the only guy who has stayed over at my Island paradise alone.. that night, we studied Legal Research (duh.. that was totally dumb) and went running... We mugged together during exams, moaned over the girls who were troubling us.. and miraculously, we were 2 of the 3 only pupils on our floor when we did pupillage... and convinced the powers that be to let us share a room when we got called to the Bar..
Our room was our oasis.. for most of the 1.5 years we shared in that room, we had at any one time at least:
3 or 4 stuffed bears,
6 bottles of wine,
3 umbrellas,
5 packs of expired snacks,
4 different types of tea,
20 CDs,
80 files..
We had our own ritual observed almost everyday.. I used to get into the office at around 0850, and would make enough tea for 2 after evacuating the bowels... he usually comes in between 0915 and 0930, and he'd ask "Is it still hot?"
Around July last year, we both kinda burnt out and realised we needed out of the job.. I prepared my resume one week when I was really frustrated at work, and sent it to the recruiters.. the offer same in Sept / October, and before long, we both decided that we were going to quite once we got our bonus.. he to teach, and me to this job.. we even co-ordinated out tendering dates so that we'd leave on the same day, and not leave the other person in a once-lively room...
The last 2 or 3 months passed really quickly.. we stuck a countdown calendar behind our door, cancelling it with glee every few days.. we circulated archived emails which our group of friends used to exchange when we were wee pupils... we lamented, we sat in silence thinking the same things after we reminisced..
We had our last day on that same Friday, and we gave a little farewell party in the office... the bosses were obviously unhappy that we were making a show of leaving the Firm, and so happily at that... there was no time that day to feel sad... but we both came back the next day to send out our last emails... and to copy out stuff from our hard disks...
It's beem 4+ months since then... ERM went to Aust to see his gf whilst i started work the very next week.. he started teaching, then decided in favour of going back to legal practice as in-house counsel.. his hours are better than mine, and it's nice that we get to catch movies on weekday evenings when the rest of our classmates are still slogging at work...
Someone, Miss LiT I think, said something like the nicest relationships (in the broad sense of the word) are those simple friendships.. I guess it's like that with ERM.. somehow it's hard to have that with people of the opposite sex.. at some point, 1 person is likely to become more vested than the other... I've got 2 best female friends, and at some point they've promised me (separately) on those sentimental days that we'd be friends forever... but between getting married, getting (jerks for) bfs, I'm not so sure... as things are, things have already shifted...
posted by Woof! at 7:29 PM
3 Comments:
I like this post. It's really a cool thing about friendship. :)
thanks.. it brought smiles as I was typing the post.. damned hell tho that I lost some paras from the original post when I was trying to fiddle with including pics..
isnt it amazing that we write mostly abt r/s-es and other stuff which upset / excite us, but omit to write abt the stuff / people who make us happy on a day-to-day basis..
yes, I think its human nature to complain as first reaction. So cynical.. geez... I guess striking a balance between complaining and reliving good memories on blogs will make it a lovely read. Who doesnt love bitchin'? so we cannot totally remove all negative, complainin' stuff *lol*
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