Life is either a daring adventure or nothing

M.S.N Friends

Over the past weekend, I got to know two youths from Teck Whye Secondary School.. Teow Kim and Shun Li. We met up for dinner on Good Friday together with a couple of my church youths (Jasper, Frans and Joadine). Amazingly, that was the first time that we had all met each other! What happened was almost 6 months ago, Joadine was helping along in a youth program in Teck Whye Secondary School. By the end of the 6 hours long program, there would usually be a grand exchange of MSN contacts with the students so as to keep in touch with one another. And that was how Teow Kim became friends with Joadine, keeping in touch through MSN chats.

And when we met last Friday for dinner, it was really like a blind date… having to identify each other by the color of clothes that we were wearing. The funniest incident was when we were all actually next to each other waiting at the MRT station control, but yet had to call and identify ourselves. Awkward beginning… but we all had a wonderful together over the Pasta Mania dinner.. slurping over pastas and chit chatting away. School, friends, family, hobbies… we just chatted and joked our way through the 2 hours together.

As I took a step back and just watched these five youths chatting away, I was simply amazed how a friendship can easily be formed. We have been hearing many negative examples in the past years on how the internet chatlines (MSN, IRC..etc) has been exploited greatly as channels to attract or lure gullible youths in for ulterior motives. Such reports have constantly been on the rise especially with the Internet becoming such an integral part of our daily lives. Man created the Internet technology, but our invention has in return come back to haunt us and strike fear into hearts of many parents.

But through this dinner, it’s a good healthy example of how the MSN connection can be used to establish good proper friendships! Well, I believe this is something positive in a midst of negative examples, a bright light that shine through the darkness. This inspires me that I can make a difference to the lives around me through the cyberspace!