After choosing to go with an all-black ensemble for the evening (I realise I should have traded ties with Xin Quan some time during the night, since we were both wearing matching coloured shirts and skinny ties, me in black, him in the most fluorescent orange imaginable), I headed over to Joash's place to drop my barang since we were planning to spend our post-prom hours there. I took a lift with Chun Wui, Elliot and Patrick in the former's car, and that was an adventure all to itself, in the loosest sense of the word. We realized that we wouldn't be able to enthrall anyone with a tale of being stuck in traffic in the CBD, the most exciting bit being using the prohibited bus lane for half a minute. Nevertheless, we arrived at the doorstep of the Fullerton Hotel just in time to join the last batch going into the ballroom. Our class was seated at tables 12, 13 and 14 (I can't remember which one I was at), and the table I was at had me, Patrick, Joash, Elliot, Lex, Gerald, Chun Wui, Mong Nicholas and Jim. For memory's sake, I shall go through the courses. A shrimp samosa served on a bed of lightly-dressed greens and accompanying cold prawns, followed by cream of scallop flavoured with the essence of truffle, fillet of cod served with a mixed vegetable raviolli and asparagus sprouts, finished off with a chocolate and banana tart accompanied with caramelized strawberries and mango syrup. These are by no means the official menu descriptions, just what I remember of the food which I took bites of in between performances, videos and photos.
And speaking of photos, Prom was, for all intents and purposes, the place where photo-crazy people die and go to heaven. I excused myself from my seat just before the first course to say hi to Daryl and Melodie, then paid 2 visits to the adjacent table where my classmates from '06 were conveniently seated. Of all the photos of the night, 3 in particular are my favourite, though I won't post all of them here since they can be viewed on Facebook.
1. During a rather somber performance of Rihanna's Umbrella, the class of 4.11'06 decided to take a photo at the steps directly facing the stage, and as all things to do with this group of people, it was a noisy affair, and I think we managed to embarrass ourselves and distract everyone from the performance at the same time. Hilarious.
2. Clarence, Xinquan and I were attempting to ready ourselves for a photo with Elendrus when he decides to take a self-portrait, capturing our rather unprepared expressions. The story of all our times together.
3. I rushed in just in time to join Elendrus, Yew Jin, Ronald and Xin Quan for a photo of the original 5 who sat at the front of the class back in the day. My choice pick for all profile picture purposes.
The programme officially ended slightly before 11, but the real photo-taking began only after. There were innumerable permutations, and I managed to get a photo with the class of 6.9'02 from JS, probably the largest collection of JS kids from the same class still in the same year. I'm looking forward to see that picture soon.
In the midst of all this, we managed to get the class together to celebrate Chun Wui's birthday.
As the crowd in the ballroom thinned, I decided to head over to Arena where the semi-official after party was being held. After making plans with Joash to join the rest of the sleepover gang later in the morning, I left with Deon, Tricia and Jia Qiang in a cab to Clarke Quay, and in no time we were in the club surrounded by people we knew, sharing a copious amount of alcohol from one table. The rest of the night there was alternately time spent on the dance floor with people from every part of the Year 6 corridor, paying a visit to folks at Clinic, and helping deal with a minor alcohol crisis in the middle of the night. I left just before 3, shortly after the last batch of people (Sam and Paul included) had just arrived, because I feared that staying there any longer would mean my contact lenses permanently adhesing themselves to my retinas. Back at Joash's place, those of us still sober played a few hands of bridge till people started leaving at 5-6, and the rest of us fell asleep. Waking up at 10, Justin, Alvin, Gerald and I had brunch courtesy of Joash's mum (the beehoon was oddly familiar, I think I had it the last time I was at the house, or at some other class gathering involving potlucked food). While the rest were upstairs in front of the computer, I chatted with Gerald about the 2 years past and the days ahead before I left at noon, agreeing that we should make plans soon, both pre- and post-philippines.
The sheer breadth of stuff we talked about would afford me a myriad of topics to blog about. But out of that hour or so, what I think was most significant was the fact that, as I pointed out, we have to make the effort if we are to stay in touch after after this. Gerald has a gut feeling that we won't. i truly hope he's not right, as I could not imagine not keeping in contact with these people whom I've invariably spent almost every day with over the past 2 years.
