Secondary School Alumni Hi-Tea

Beginning of last year, I came to realize that I must learn to be more sociable. I'm not a very sociable person. I'm selective in whom I consider as a friend, even more a close friend. I keep things mainly to myself ( and now, share it with my husband) but my best friend in this world is Jesus (sounds religious, but honestly it's not, seeing that I'm an introvert and Jesus is one person I can trust to keep secrets). I have a small circle of friends. I don't enjoy talking on the phone. I can be too lazy to go out and yum char or lepak with friends.

Last year, as I looked ahead into my future and what paths should I take, I concluded that I need to be more sociable and learn to interact with people, particularly people that I don't quite know or don't know at all. I have this aversion of making new friends. It's a bit difficult to cross the hurdle and get into the process of discovering someone new. This decision to be more sociable is one of the few main reasons why I made a career switch.

So when I received this email informing that my secondary school alumni is having a hi-tea just to meet up and get to know one another, I sent it out to my schoolmates and made the decision to go. My immediate tendancy would be to ignore, delete and don't go. But i decided to.. I thought - hey, I really do need to learn to meet more people. Since 3 of my schoolmates decided to go, so yeah. I went.

As they say, 'it's hard for a leapord to change its' spots'. What it turned out was a reunion between the 4 of us as we haven't seen each other for a while. It was weird meeting strangers who have only 1 thing in common with you. It's awkward seeing a few of the teachers. I didn't know whether to say hi or not 'cos I really really believe they don't remember who I am. After all, it has been 10 years since I was in form 5. The teachers would have come across 10 x 42 students x 5 classes = 2100 students. (I wasn't an outstanding student in my year).

The best part was meeting with my schoolmates in my year whom I didn't keep in touch with since I left school. I forgot most of their names, barely recognize some. Most awkward.

Sigh. I think the metamorphosis to be a social butterfly is going to be a really slow process - that's ok I guess - as long as it's before I'm 80. Erm-I think I should give myself a closer deadline.

Alrite, I think I'll just start with keeping in touch with old friends first. Yes, in my introvert stage, keeping in touch with friends is a chore as well. I would get too lazy to call or email or sms or even message. Of course, over time, I realize that friendship is of great value and efforts are required to keep valuable things.

Oops, I'd better go drop an email to my cousin in Sydney. Suppose to email her but..