Together again…

Gee! How time flies! Last year around this time, I attended the annual dinner of my school, SMK Sacred Heart here in Sibu, during which I was a guest-of-honour as I was retiring. In a blink of an eye, a year has come and gone so fast.

I am indeed glad that though I have left the school for a year, I have not been forgotten. They have graciously invited me to this year’s event which was a grand affair as it was a combined effort with the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association), with around 40 tables (including the invited guests, parents and students) compared to the usual 10 tables  or so (guests and staff only). The function was held at the Phoenix Court at the Paramount Hotel here…

Here, you can see a section of the crowd…

which included my two godsons, Elias (also my ex-student) and his brother, Kevin…

Those days, I often had students asking me to be their godfather for their sacrament of Confirmation though personally, I would think I make a rather poor spiritual role model. LOL!!! The food was quite nice, starting with the assorted dish – the Four Seasons…

followed by the soup dish…

Hold your horses, Daniel Thong! It looked like sharks’ fins soup, it tasted like sharks’ fins soup but it wasn’t sharks’ fins soup! LOL!!! They had fish maw in the soup instead. Then there was the fish head curry…

It was quite well done compared to the time when I was here with Huai Bin. The gravy was very nice but I did not like the strong fishy smell of the fish. I guess they used a better type of fish the other day when I had it at Sheraton. Next came the honey fried chicken…

…and the vegetable/mushroom dish…

After that, I had to go off somewhere (Again…ask no questions and I’ll tell no lies!) and in the meantime, they served this black pepper lamb dish…

Nobody waited for me to come back to take the photo; they just dug in! Anyway, I do not quite care for black pepper, so I just had a bit of that. It wasn’t that great but then I might be biased! The sweet yam dessert followed…

and along with it came the agar-agar (jelly) and fruits…

Come to think of it, I don’t know why they call it an 8-course dinner when the last two dishes should be counted as one – dessert! On the whole, it was pretty nice…not great, just pretty nice. I did not find out how much it was per table but considering the rising prices of things, that should be around RM300-350. We used to have something like that for RM250…but those were the days.

There were speeches and lots and lots of lucky draws – table and individual. For the table draws, they would pull out a number and everybody at that table would get a prize. I was asked to sit at the SHOSA (Sacred Heart Old Students’ Association, Sibu) table but I went and sat with my ex-colleagues instead…and the SHOSA table won! What rotten luck! LOL!!!

I did not get the individual prizes either. My number was 4343 and they drew 4342 instead. Drats! LOL!!! Neither did I get to sing as there wasn’t much time left for that but I would say that was a blessing in disguise especially with Allan around, an ex-student who was formerly attached to a publishing firm and now to a bookstore here. He had won a number of singing competitions even at state-level and those at the Malay kampung here. He did Search’s “Isabella” flawlessly, hitting all the high notes with perfect pitching…

I remember my karaoke days at the Spice Bazaar here when this song was a hit and how I suffered, with all the agonising screeching like dicekik hantu (strangled by a ghost) by all the Amy-wannabes. With singing like Allan’s, my half-past-six effort would surely pale in comparison. Whew!

Then, to keep to the mood of the recent festive season, they ended the evening with a Hari Raya song by a group of sweet and young Malay lady-teachers who invited the very dynamic, very sporting and very handsome principal, Mr. Vincent Liong to join them…

Ok, Mr. Liong, since I did not get the chance to sing this year, you will have to invite me again next year. LOL!!!

And just when I thought that would be the last of the dinners for the year, I received this…

Jude (blogger Clement’s brother) passed me an invitation to his wedding next month, so it certainly looks like “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings” or in this case, the fat guy! ROTFLMAO!!!

P.S.
Happy Deepavali to anyone celebrating the Festival of Lights today.