All in

First Visitors of 2023

Our first visitors for the year were Teik Sing, Michelle, Ashley, Emma and Ezra. Day One As mentioned before, Teik Sing and I have been best friends since we were 7 years old at ACS Sitiawan. Here we are decades later – with homes timezones apart – still being friends, talking about ideas and stories, old and new. I wish […]

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Purple voting finger

Purplish Finger

According to the online system, Irfan is registered to vote in Pandan Indah, Ain in Pasir Mas and I in Sitiawan. It appears they set our locations to default to the addresses on our identity cars. This is after I have changed my voting location to Perlis over the counter several years ago. In any case, we will need to […]

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See you guys next time

Old School Mates in Lumut

Not only is it Labour Day here in Malaysia, but it’s also Hari Raya Aidilfitri! It is very rare for our old school mates to meet up when we return home for the holidays. So it was a welcome pleasure to have met up with these dudes in Lumut. We talked about the future of the county, old times, lost […]

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Two families

Dinner by the River

It was near lunch time when I received a message from my schoolmate Sam. He was in town on assignment and he brought his family with him. It had been a while since we saw each other, so we made dinner plans. Well, actually, he made dinner plans as I had been busy with work until about 6 p.m. A […]

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Bye Is

An Old School Buddy Visits

Once upon a more innocent time I went to school, the result of which was I met many other school-age little humans many of which became my friend. I was 10 years old when I first met Iskandar. We were in the same class for a couple of years. But after school we rarely see one another until the Age […]

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Iskandar, Gnana, Nazri and I

ACS Sitiawan Hari Raya Meet

Before heading home, word circulated of a pot luck Hari Raya dinner at Iskandar’s house on the first night of Aidilfitri. I had not seen Iskandar since I was in school, so it felt like a great time to meet up with the entire crew, some I’d lost contact with when I transferred away from school when I was 16. […]

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Aeon meetup

Another New Year Reunion

This year we returned to Sitiawan for Chinese New Year because Teik Sing and family are back home from abroad! The last time we met was over two years ago when they visited us at the Tenth Floor, when Ezra was still a baby! We met at the biggest shopping mall in Sitiawan, which in itself still causes cognitive dissonance […]

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Chicken and stuff

Childhood Friends vs Chicken Wings

I called up Nazri to find out if he was in town for Eid and discovered that a bunch of folks from school were. There was a plan to meet up later that night at Aeon, at a chicken wing restaurant that I never went to before. Before long, Shahmar, Nazri, Sam and I had assembled there to talk of […]

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33 years of friendship

Dinner with Tsing and Michelle

Tsing, Michelle and their kids visited us for dinner last night. Having us as one of their regular stops during their vacation never fails to warm my heart. The last time they were back there were two children in two. This time there’s three! Unfortunately I did not take a photo of baby Ezra because he was busy playing the […]

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Hishgraphics H

A Bunch of Boys Bled on Boulders By the Beach

by Khairul Hisham Note: This essay is slightly edited from a 1000 word assignment for Professional Writing 1: Core Competency submitted last Sunday June 30. The story is a composite of several experiences I had as a teenager. Not sure if the right people as mentioned were present for the bulk of this story. If you’re reading this and you […]

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Year Minus one group

Schoolmates From A Thousand Generations Ago

Nowadays when I return to Sitiawan for Chinese New Year, I rarely get to meet old ACS classmates. It’s because either they’re away at the in-laws, or their family has moved elsewhere, or I don’t communicate to anyone my balik kampung. This year I had two meet ups! The first was with Teck Chee and Cheong Lee at the new […]

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Wotsit?

Wotsit?

Back in secondary school, for some reason that I can’t recall anymore we suddenly had this bat as our mascot so to speak. Its name, Wotsit the Confused Bat, also popped up unbidden. It was easy to doodle and we doodled it here and there and everywhere. There was an earlier design where the bat had no moth and bigger […]

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Guess Hoos Coming to Raya?

On the second day of Aidilfitri (September 11th), the Meis and their family came for a visit. By family we mean Mei Lin, Mei Chin, their husbands, their daughters, their parents, and their little brother Colin-boy. Hoo did you expect? 😉 [[image:2010-sept-hoos01.jpg:Me and Yaya, and Mei and Immie:center:0]] Hisham and I had to decide which of us would actually write […]

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Emma at the Restaurant

The Ting Sisters

It’s now 2010, and it’s exactly 30 years since I first met Teik Sing in Standard 1. We were a year younger than Irfan is now. They’re back on vacation from Sydney and we went out to meet them at their old place in Puchong, where we first meet Ashley’s new sister Emma Grace. Both had the sniffles so Ashley […]

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