The RISIS Orchid

Here's the RISIS orchid I said I would post.

River Valley Road was very far from my home. At that time I lived in a kampong house somewhere in the east bounded by Bartley Road and Upper Paya Lebar Road.

There was no direct bus to River Valley Road. To save on bus fares, I walked all the way to Serangoon Road from where I took a direct bus to River Valley. It was quite a distance. But when you are young, you are energetic. No distance is too great to walk.

I did crazy things like that with my friend anyway when I was in secondary school. We walked all the way back home from school because the buses were always crowded after school. My friend's father was shocked when he discovered this and forbade her to do that again. Haha And that put an end to our walking.

The shophouse was directly opposite the bus stop where I would alight. I would be early and would wait at the bus stop for my boss and his wife to arrive to open the shutter to the shop. My boss drove a Volkswagen.

Lunch every day was noodle from the coffee shop next door. My boss' wife asked if I didn't get sick of eating the same food every day. I said no which was true because I wasn't particularly fussy about food. But the reasons why I had practically the same food every lunch was because I had no colleagues (boss' wife did not count as colleague) and I didn't know River Valley other than the shophouse where I worked and I was too timid to try to venture around on my own. Also, it saved money.

A few times I wanted to throw the testimonial away because it is now a useless piece of paper but then I didn't because it represented a piece of history. Once I thought of giving the RISIS Orchid to my helper who was going back for good because I have no use for it but then, being a sentimental kind of person, I changed my mind.