The ACS (Independent) Class of 1993 celebrated its 15-year reunion over lunch, albeit a casual and informal one, at the Harvest Thai Restaurant in the Barker Road campus on 15 November 2008. The cohort prides itself as somewhat unique as it was the last cohort under Dr Ong's purview as Vice-Principal, the last cohort to call itself "ACS" without the "(I)", and the only cohort to spend 2 years in the Barker Road campus and 2 years in the Dover Road campus.

They came from all over the island, friends who have not met since half their ages ago, and classmates who may have forgotten one another's names, but remembered all their antics, their mischief, and everything else.

Over a simple but enjoyable catered lunch, everyone reminisced about those good old days, of having cowered in fear in the presence of giants such as Mr Ying Yoke Kong and (the late) Mr Wee Moh Nam, of how they enjoyed an additional week of school holidays just because the Dover Road campus was not yet ready, and of many other countless memories.

Amidst a common refrain of, "You look exactly the same", one might have been tempted to be skeptical, where pot-bellies, receding hairlines and prickly stubbles – physical characteristics that were non-existent in the cohort's "heyday" – seemed more to be the order of the day. Though the numbers in attendance were not ideal, yet considering the rather short notice at which the reunion was convened, the size of the crowd was healthily encouraging.

Indeed, the ties that have been re-kindled and re-discovered can only be the perfect foundation for the continued rejuvenation of the network even as the guys parted – albeit temporarily – by the end of the afternoon. It certainly bodes well for many more reunions for the Class of 1993, each one more emphatic than the last, in the years to come.

Ye Xiang Hui