My Father, who turned 90 years old, is the one in the cap 

 

A reflection of time.

I was a graduate of the Class of 1990 (Class 90) of the University of Hong Kong’s Dental School. Our class was let out of dental school after we went through thick and thin together for almost five years. Since then we have all gone our separate ways.

A few of my classmates went into teaching, some became specialists, some are working in the government dental system, many are running their private practices, one became the President of the Hong Kong Dental Association for the longest time and some just basically disappeared from the radar screen.

 

University of Hong Kong Dental School – Class of 1990 dinner

 

I was born in the hospital just next to the dental school and that was the beginning of my life. I then went to grade school and high school a few blocks away from there. St Louis School began its life in the late 1920s and has been a rather established name in Hong Kong’s education arena for various reasons. It pioneered the idea of using its under-utilised facilities in the after hours and became a tuition school in the evenings and weekends. That venture certainly made a few people very rich and the school created a name and following.

My father also began his life at around the same time as my school. Stupid me, I only did the mathematics recently and found out they were both the exact same age! Celebrating a birthday for the 90^th time is certainly a once in a life time opportunity. I know, in fact, I shall not miss out celebrating these two occasions for the world even though that may mean I have to travel multiple times to Hong Kong as a result!

I have no complaints travelling to Hong Kong. It is a relatively short flight, which was one of the reasons that we moved to Singapore. It would also give me some personal time and do eating and shopping in Hong Kong. Well, any over indulgence in eating is totally out of the equation as I have been running. Even though gluttony is the only sin among the seven deadly sins that has a low scale of reward and its end results may hurt only oneself, the wrong food in my dietary consumption will damage the hard work in training. My estimation is that a fast food happy meal will at least cancel out one great training session that is sweaty, difficult, heart-breaking, etc. By the way, running 5,000m takes many minutes and it only burns approximately 250-300 calories. Eating a Big Mac, earns me about 257 calories, but is much more pleasurable and it can be achieved anytime any day anywhere on this planet from 36,900 McDonalds and beyond (now they even have McDelivery but that is another article).

 

St Louis School 90th Anniversary Dinner – Class of 1983

 

It turned out that my high school alumni association decided to celebrate St Louis School’s anniversary on April 22, 2018 by hosting a 2000 person banquet. My family confirmed my father’s 90^th birthday celebration dinner for April 21, 2018 and somehow my dental school classmates fixed a Class 90 reunion on April  20, 2018.

In essence, I had three gatherings of ’90, 90, 90’ over the very same weekend of April 20-22, 2018! I could not avoid having three big doses of chit-chatting with old friends and family in a few days but I saved a few dollars in my air travelling. No gluttony though!

I always remind myself I am a lucky boy – this ’90, 90, 90’ proved it once again.