FIRE!

Interesting night and day today.... Came back from supper with the aikido guys yesterday night at around 1130. Came back and met some old family friends, Ramesh uncle and Ratna auntie... . Took a bath and by the time I slept, it was 1.10 am. I had lecture at 10am and I wanted to go.

Was woken up at 3.10am by my dad telling me that people are shouting "FIRE!" At first, I was like..." Huh?, What?" and I thought I was in the army again and kenna turned-out. But then it hit me and as I shot out of bed to go to his room to look out, I could already smell the smoke.

On the 7th floor of my block(one storey above mine), in an apartment some way to the right, flames were shooting out of the window. By the looks of it, the whole apartment was gone.

We got my sister into her wheelchair and were ready to leave in minutes. We got the wheelchair to the stairwell and, with the aid of one Martin Ng, proceeded to carry my sis the whole of 6 storeys down the staircase. Some of my neighbours offered to help but we declined... too many people would just hinder us. Both my dad and I had asthma attacks the past week and half way down, my dad was wheezing his lungs out with the exertion. He stuck it out, and we finally reached the void deck tired, but at least safe.

The time was 325am.

We waited for more than an hour before the fire was put out. It was apparently caused by an electrical short-circuit. But thankfully, the family in the aprtment had discovered the fire in time and had left the apartment, so no one was hurt.

This made me think about certain things. I couldn't care less about me dying but I was soo worried for my family. If that civil defence guy wasn't there, it would have been very difficult, almost impossible to get my sis down safely. And when my dad got that asthma attack, I felt so helpless.

But it also warmed my heart that we had such caring neighbours who were so willing to help us at our time of need. There has been so much in the papers of unruly, bickering neighbours, but I wonder if it'll be in the papers tomorrow about the gracious Singaporeans... those people who stopped to help a paraphlegic neighbours down the stairs, during a fire, of their own volition.

I guess not.

On a lighter note... went to the gym today(skipped lecture though). Trained with Bert, before going with him to have lunch at Lot 1 at 4pm. Went to meet eepin and Lelian at paragorn. Eventhough eeps only told me at 550pm, and I had to take a taxi down, it was money well spent... listening to 'pin's dramatic tales, and it was good to see lelian after so long. She's turned into a beautiful and sophisticated lady, exuding poise, charm and class. Truly my pleasure.

Also paid a surprise a visit to wen, who was at paragorn promoting perfumes. It was soo good to see the two "sisters" from primary school together. They were inseparable back then, and they have so much in common! For some reason, it gave me great pleasure to see the two of them talking and sharing old stories, no matter for how short a time, and I felt like an interloper... in hindsight, I should probably have gone to the toilet and left those two alone.

We left after that, going our separate ways. Left wen at paragorn to do her work, Eeps went to plaza sing to catch "lost in translation", Lil to heeren for dinner with some friends, and me back home.

Hope we can meet up again soon, for to stay in this company is akin to being in the mythical fountain of youth, losing ourselves in time for those few hours and becoming children in beige and green uniforms again...

Well, almost.

Jin Shan Primary 6E- Miss Evelyn Tan


Huiwen, Eepin, Julian, Lelian, Shalina, Stella, Jianfeng, Zainol, Zulkifli, Rozanaliza, Guoyi, Jiahui, Dawei, Yili, Adeline, Wenqi, Arpan, Chun Ho, Fauzi, Qianhui, Shujuan, Gilbert, Yap Quan ...

To those above, and those whose name doesn't come to immediately to mind. Good luck and all the Best,
Wherever you are, and whatever you do...
May all your hopes and dreams
come true.