Homecoming Kings (and Queens).

Let me just start off by saying that I've just finished watching the North London derby, and it was amazing. After Walcott had scored Arsenal's fifth goal, I could have cried. Yes, it felt that good.

Anyway, now to the main point of the post. A few weeks ago a friend invited me to spend the night at Semesra, my former school, on the 25th (i.e. last Saturday). Eventually, I got my parents' permission to do so, and this got me counting down the passing days, such was my excitement.

And the day finally came. My step-dad drove me to the Ampang LRT station, where I began the long journey to Rembau.

After almost two hours, I got off the train in Seremban before making my way to the Terminal 1 bus station, which was within walking distance. It was there where I had planned to meet up with a friend who was travelling all the way from Johor. The only problem was, we had planned to meet at noon - I had arrived at 9.30.

He eventually arrived around half an hour late. So then we boarded a bus with two other friends (who had also planned on travelling with us) and set off for Rembau.

Along the way, the areas we traveled through got increasingly less developed, and we knew we were close. The signboards that had the name 'Rembau' on them helped to inform us of that as well.

The four of us then got off at a taxi station, where we (obviously) hired a cab to take us to our final destination. As the roads and the surroundings got more familiar, we could feel the excitement building up from within. And when the taxi turned that final corner, thus bringing the school into sight, we knew - we had reached the Promised Land.

Photo courtesy of Semesra official blog.

Old memories flooded back as we looked around the place we had left three months ago.. It hadn't changed a whole lot, but enough to significantly alter the lives of the students there. The boys' hostel now more closely resembled a prison from the outside, what with all the new grilles installed. My old classroom now housed 1 Einstein instead of 5 Einstein. And we also found that the two water coolers that had previously been conveniently placed next to the toilets near our old classrooms were now situated in the canteen.

But it was good to see that  even though the Valedictorians had gone, we had not been forgotten.

Photo courtesy of Mia Nasir.

Of course, the juniors still remembered us.

Anyway, what had actually triggered this sudden gathering of Valedudes and Valedivas was a series of rugby matches between the alumni Lycans and three teams of current Lycans. That afternoon, the grandstands overlooking the school field were practically filled with cheering fans.

Photo courtesy of Amirul Faris Abdul Halim.

Despite a huge lack of match fitness and game time for the majority of the alumni, they still managed to pull off two wins out of three. The one they actually lost was only by two points, so I'm thinking that it was either:

• the Old Boys were brilliant, or 
• the school's current team sucks. Real bad.

And of course, the adventure didn't end there. That night we had dinner at a humble cafe within walking distance of  the school. We were there for a pretty long time, eating and talking and who knows what else.

Most of the girls had already left by then, and now some of the guys had to leave as well. But there were still around 20 of us left.

We were spending the night at the teachers' quarters, where one of the school's counselors had (bravely) offered his place to be used as our room in his absence. While some of us hit the hay early, the rest of us simply weren't ready to go to sleep just yet, including myself. Some of us went for a walk, some just stayed in the room and chatted or did stuff on laptops. At one point I went off with a friend on a motorcycle and we did a few laps on the school's tar-based roads.

Our lodgings. Photo courtesy of Semesra official blog.

The next day, we had breakfast in the school canteen. Then, we said our goodbyes as the time to go had finally come. We now had to go our separate ways, and in my case it was in an eight-seater car with nine other guys. But let's not get into that.

It was a great weekend, and truly a highlight of an otherwise mostly mundane month for myself. As I watched the juniors go about their schooling lives, I looked back on the old days when so many things seemed to matter a huge deal - they all appear so trivial now that I'll soon be in the real world. But that time has passed now, and it's not coming back.

Well, I'll be going back next month. Let's hope that that visit will be even better than this one.