complicated simplicity

After the July 7 incident in London, the international communities of students in London have found ways to keep in touch and check up on each other in an event of another incident. This incident happened last Tuesday, and well, it was an eye opener..

Alwyn, Alvin and Mel were out after dinner, so E-Pien invited me upstairs to the Malaysian household in flat 3 to play DOTA. At about 11, someone received a text (here in UK, SMS = text) saying that they will be home late due to a delay caused by a “bombing”. Whoever sent this text said that the top of a bus was blown off and that London Yard had cordoned off the area. Obviously this sparked a panic in the house.

“WTF?!”
“Bomb? where where?”
“Eh, someone hit CNN or BBC!”
“There’s nothing on the networks, zilch!”

There were some other Singaporeans in the house as well, gaming with me. On hearing the news, immediately out came 3 mobiles, each calling their designated buddies/housemates calmly, to ensure that they are ok and spread the news of a possible bomb attack at Hammersmith. Within the hour, every Singaporean studying in Imperial was accounted for and checked. Not many of them were told about the incident, maybe because they didn’t want to scare people. All we wanted was to account for everyone.

And well, luckily it was just a scare. A bus did have its roof ripped off… by a tree. It wasn’t the Scotland Yard there, but the MetPolice…

Singaporeans back home would never understand how much the things we take for granted at home are so much more valued elsewhere…

Tags: Personal

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