November 15, 2005
Updatey
If there’s ever a documentary made about my generation, I’d like the music to be the Zerowing Theme tune (All Your Base Are Belong to Us). What better synergy of the 8-bit video gaming of our youth and the internet can there be?
Anyhow.
Went to a dinner on Friday to meet up with as many Shatin College students from our year as possible. The collection was pretty impressive: Shaun, Helen, Richard, Kevin (who I hadn’t seen in ages), Jen, Hei (I think he went to SC but it was before my time there), Janaken, Tiff, Natalie, Elaine and Charlotte (who said “… Didn’t you used to be in my form class?” when she saw me).
Then again, I have no right to complain about people forgetting names. Arriving at Heathrow back from Hong Kong I ran into Jen Hancock and completely forgot her name. In fact it took me 20 minutes with my year 13 Yearbook in front of me (before I resorted to the Year 12 book) to remember Charlotte’s name.
“So, what have you been up to” is a question that I wish I could answer a lot faster.
The meal was excellent and later we toasted Caleb. The mood was, on the whole jovial, almost wake-like. I loved it.
Still, for those who weren’t there and who found this site when searching for Caleb Jordan (This site is still the 2nd rated Google search result when Calebjordan.org is a more deserving of that place) I’d like to share one of my fondest memories of Caleb.
It’s traditional to have a selection of awards given out during the Leaver’s formal and as all the awards were voted for by the yeargroup, the whole of year 13 was gathered into the SSC to mark off their ballots.
They range from the usual “Most likely to succeed” fare to the bizarre categories like “Most likely to become a cantopop star”. Caleb was nominated for the latter award.
Everyone who was nominated had to get up and give a short demonstration of why they deserved the award. I’d been nominated for (and subsequently won, complete with vaguely ridiculous ‘victory feather boa’) “First millionaire” because people had tagged onto the whole John Swaine = Rich meme (it’s my family, not me guys, family - I’m not earning yet) so I pretended to sneeze and wiped my nose with a 50 dollar bill.
When it came to the Cantopop Star award, the two girls who went ahead of Caleb refused to sing (this was after all extremely short notice). When Caleb was asked to show some Cantopop characteristics he stepped forward. Tilted his head and threw up the Peace Sign with an airy grin thusly:
100% Cantopop star, except 7 foot tall, with blond hair. The whole room cracked up - it was awesome.
Best to all the Shatin College guys.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at November 15, 2005 03:45 PM