Weddings and their dinners!

Dear Diary,

It is alternating between drizzles and searing sunshine here. Kinda wanted to go for a little jog earlier but … oh well… Spent most of the morning napping before accompanying Dad for lunch and to buy some stuff at the supermarket. I guess I was kinda “burnt out” yesterday. In fact, I slept past 1am. These days, I am hardly “andrella” anymore… always sleeping past 12am midnight! Thankfully for this morning’s nap, I am quite energised to attend tonight’s wedding dinner at the Swissotel. It is my former university laboratory partner who is getting married. Happy for her that she found someone she can spend her next phase of life with.

Yesterday, it was unfortunate (or rather expectedly) that I was activated to work since I was the on-call pharmacist. Went to the airport to work and dropped by another airport pharmacy to say hi to a locum. Frankly, I don’t know how these locums can work without any breaks every week. Maybe it is because they are doing different jobs on weekdays and weekdays so it isn’t that boring since the scopes are different? Worked at airport till 3.30pm before going home. Initially, there was even a possibility of being asked to work more hours in another branch. That is how sad retail pharmacy life is. Or maybe there is no real “life” to speak about.

Back home, I was quite surprised that Mum quietly out-of-the-blue told me that I should not feel any pressure to get a girlfriend. It kinda caught me by surprise but as much as I wish to deny… the pressure is subtly mounting now that both my sisters are attached and may even be planning for marriage in a year or two’s time. I thank her for her reassurance. Knowing that marriage is an important event of one’s life, I will not be hasty and make the wrong choice. Yesterday evening, I attended my college classmate’s wedding dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

It was a grand event and they even had someone playing the grand piano there in the lobby reception. It was a little squeezed though. We then went to our table no. 15 and had a great time talking and catching up. There was only one female college classmate invited with 9 guys at that table, haha… the opposite is going to happen tonight when I go for my pharmacy classmate’s dinner. The girls will outnumber the guys 8 to 2. The bridegroom (my college classmate) sang two songs… the wedding is like a karaoke or an MTV style, haha… However, among the various wedding dinners I went since 2006, I thought this friend was the most hospitable. The food was good and the recount of their love story was good too. He isn’t the most handsome guy you can find but he knew this girl in the university and with sincerity and some wacky jokes, he got his first and only girlfriend, marrying her eventually.

As we filed out of the ballroom when the banquet was over, I shook my friend’s mother’s hand and she remarked, “You seem familiar.” I smiled, “I am Andrew.” And an echoing of “oooohhhhh….” After the college days, I don’t exactly know friends and their families anymore. It could be because we have grown up and no longer see the need? This is quite a sad trend actually. I could still recognise my friend’s mum who usually picked him from school after our guitar ensemble lessons. She smiled… it has been years… a decade… but nevertheless, I feel the warmth and cordiality from the hosts of this wedding dinner. I shook the hands of the thankful bridegroom and bride.

May they have marital bliss till the end of their earthly lives.

God Bless,

Andrew