My Own Rachel & Ross

I was back in my hometown over the weekend and only returned to KL last night. I haven't been back since last October, and I can see the evidence of how long I've been away - new buildings have sprung up from nowhere!

Anyway, being back in Kota Bharu reminded me how I don't really have any friends there. I mean childhood friends. Pre high school, I've always been moving about. My first school was SK Pulai Chondong 2 (which has been renamed to SK Pangkal Gong I think), where my mom was teaching back then. Then I switched to SK Labok when dad was posted to teach at SMS Machang, which is adjacent to the school. Schooled there until we all packed up and moved to London while dad was doing his Masters at University of London. Kensington Primary School was my next port of call, followed by Langdon School. Came back and I was enrolled in SRK Sultan Ismail II and took UPSR there before sent away to MCKK.

It was only in MCKK where I first had a stable environment to make friends. I used to be in touch with a handful of various primary school friends, but most have drifted away with time and distance. In uni, I made more friends and some of them are still close friends until now. Now at work, I've made some good friends as well.

So my friends' list (so to quote social networking sites) only consists of people I know 1996 onwards. My friends back in Kelantan are almost exclusively guys I know back in MCKK (we had quite a number, 11 i think) actually. I think only one of them is working in Kota Bharu while the rest are scattered throughout Malaysia and beyond (one of us just got an offer to practice medicine in Aussie, congrats!). It's hard for us to find time and hangout like the old days, when school/uni hols mean nightly sessions of lepaking over teh tarik/milo ais and just chat the night away.

I'm thankful that since I started working, I am drawn back to the MCKK crowd since quite a few of us stays in Cheras/Ampang/Wangsa Maju area thus facilitating frequent lepak sessions. Of course people do get on with their lives and many a session have been cancelled due to those reasons. As more and more of us get married and have kids, will we still be able to do this? When we climb up the corporate ladder further, will we still have this much time to spend with friends? I am enjoying this time as much as I can because we'll never know when it'll be taken away in one way or the other. Overseas work posting, outright emmigration, QC (queen control =P) at home etc, all these might and will contribute.

Though I might lack actual childhood friends, the ones that I have are excellent enough that I don't really lament that lackness (eh, is this even an actual word?). Be it from high school, uni or work, I think I have a great set of friends. I'm sure you do too.