Dear

You must be thinking I am referring to my better half. Or who else will I be addressing "Dear" to? For those who have worked closely with me at work or have seen the more 'agressive' side of me at work, you would have realised that if I start addressing a particular colleague as "Dear", the person is going to be 'in' for big time. It is almost like a precursor to my tirades of scolding. *Sheepish Grin*

The "Dear" I am referring to here is definitely not the sarcastic "Dear" reserved for the more upsetting moments. The "Dear" here is one of my best friend. We always address each other as "Dear", so the next time you hear me speaking to my "Dear" on the phone, you would know who I am talking to. *Wink*

We first met when we were in Secondary One. We always sat quite near each other during exams as her class number was often slightly before mine (because of the alphabets of our surnames). She was once my guardian angel who would shower me with frequent notes and encouragements. She was also one of my "granddaughters" as we liked to play "family" in our secondary school days.

We became closer when we went to JC since we ended up in the same class again. Moreover, we were one of the earlier arrivals everyday, so we would chit chat outside the classroom. I guess that was when we started to become closer. She used to live very near school and we often had our class barbecues at her house. Sometimes, I even dropped by her house in the afternoon after school.

Soon after graduation from JC, she went to UK for her tertiary studies while I stayed in Singapore. I cannot recall in details how we kept in contact during the period, guess it was mostly via ICQ (MSN and Yahoo messenger were not popular then).

We "rekindled" frequent contact when she came back to Singapore. We met almost weekly and often over sushi, porridge or la mian to complain about work and to shop. Sometimes, "Big Apple" (her younger brother) would gate-crash our outings. Actually, it was more like "Dear" had to bring along "Big Apple" under my incessant pleading (I always have a soft spot for "Big Apple" and somehow seeing "Big Apple" was one of the happiest moment of the week). He was quite good at cheering the 2 long-faced adults, even though it could be troublesome at times as we usually would need to make a detour to the Toys Department.

When work began to pile up for both of us, it became increasingly difficult to keep to the "once-a-week" meeting. Although we did not meet as frequently, we would still catch up via short SMS or over MSN. Through these years, she has always stands by me when I go through my ups and downs.

Soon, she will be moving to another phase in her life and I hope we can still keep our friendship (and also our shopping and eating) going strong thereafter.