Sudha, good to see you!

Met up with one of my close friends, whom i knew from A levels last time.

He is the only Indian in the class. To extract it further, he is also the only vegetarian.

Never in my thoughts that I would see him again after 7 years and I am glad to be able to catch up with him this time before he heads back to London.

I remember every time when we organised party or went out for meal, he would look for the nearest Mc Donald's for his Mc Egg value meal (vegetarian). After he packed his food, then he will follow us to the designated location. I really feel bad for him sometimes as we were happily feasting, he could only chew on Mc Egg.

That's even more challenging when he first started his degree in Surrey. Under a strict and typical Indian upbringing, his parents didn't really allow him to eat out that often when he was young until he left senior high school. To make it worse, Surrey doens't really have much of the Indian vegetarian food for his diet. So i guess he is finding it even more difficult to cope with this eating habit in foreign country like this. Resultantly, he has grown thinner. Actually, it comes with work pressure to be more precise.

I learned that he doesn't like the life in UK as he finds the people there hard to get along with. I bet it is his eating habits that is drawing him from the social groups. Poor thing. He has this plan to return to Malaysia after he finishes his 5 year work there. I am not surprised that he thinks that way. Work is not everything. You still need your family and friends to colour up your life. To not communicate with other people makes us feel dull as if life is just about achieving your goals and not relating yourself to others. Looking at the problem in the Biblical way, if Adam can survive on his own, what did GOD create Eve for?

Changes that i can spot in him that's telling me that behind his silence, it actually comes with a terrible ordeal. He used to be very talkative in class and nobody seemed to have the ability to succumb him in debates. But he talks less after his mother passed away in his midst of pursuing his engineering degree in London. Now he doesn't feel like talking to other people as he sense the hostility of the people around him.

Would really like to take this opportunity to pray for this friend of mine. Hope to see him with a breakthrough in his social circle. I believe if he wants, he can make good friends in the UK. He need to be ready to face challenges even bigger than to repress the feelings of the loss of his love one. He needs to leave the past and move on. May GOD have mercy on him.

It is easy to make friends. Long term problem will be how to cherish the relationship. We should care for those who we seldom see because we might not know when we will be seeing them again.

That wraps up pretty much of what I have been doing today - chilling out with friends and recalling the wonderful moment of our A levels time...