A call from overseas

In the midst of my futile attempt to write something for my political economy essay, i received a surprised call from K. It's a surprise because this was a long distance call - K had called from Down Under. He's doing a 5 year vet course there and there're two more years to go for him. After that he still has a good 4 months to spend in army when he's back in Singapore. He jokes that by the time he's back in army, the young men in the army are going to be laughing at him, for he would be so much older than most of them. This quickly brings to my mind, that because of national service, most of the male Singaporeans actually end up in the work force at a rather old age - at least old enough for the female counterparts to have already been working for some years. (i say this matter-of-factly, not in any sardonic or angry sense.) For those of us who go to university, it also means that our family would have to shoulder a heavy burden for a couple more years before we can finally take over the burden.

But no, that wasn't what i want to talk about. I spoke to K for almost an hour on the phone, during which my laptop was left unattended on the studying desk in the library (I had to move elsewhere). But i wasn't worried about this of course. Although we haven't been in the closest contact since secondary school days - which by the way were some donkey years ago - we nonetheless had a good chat over the phone. What i want to say is just this: when a good friend calls you up from abroad, you feel a sense of elation that in particular warms your heart and reassures you. I guess it is a small thing but it says something about the friendship. Maybe these days making an overseas call is as good as making a call locally, but i think people who are living abroad don't usually call up their friends here most of the time. I was only glad to find out that K was feeling troubled and decided to call me up, though i probably did not do much to make him feel better. Still, we spoke about other common friends and updated each other on our lives. He's also having his exams in a week's time, but will be back this December. Which reminds me other friends from Australia are also coming back this year end. I am looking forward to meeting all of them soon.