A Conversation to Remember



Chot: anta balik m'sia bila?
aku: aisey..soalan berat nak jawap ni..hujung tahun ni insya allah ana balik lah
aku: susah sangat buat Ch E ni laa
Chot: ye ke? balik aa cepat sheikh.. hehehe.. leh keluar minum sekali
Chot: tapii
aku: itu la...teringin gak..lame tak jumpa antum semua ni
Chot: actually, duk US lagi best, ye dak!

Hmmmpp...that was the last time I had a conversation with him in March this year.

He is a good friend of mine. A cool guy to hang out with. A great host (I usually stay at his house if I come over to Troy) but a lazy cook. Unfortunately. Heheheheh.

I missed to send him at the airport as the distance between Albany, NY and State College, PA is 600 miles apart, mind you! But I did go to New York just to attend his supposed-to-be commencement day or graduation day as other people might call it. It's just that he wasn't there to attend his own graduation - hiding somewhere in Ithaca for tamrin!

Nevertheless, it was fun to be with him. I recall there was this incident where me, Chot, Erhan and Lan went to a creek near Andirondack Mountains. The creek is hailed as the Grand Canyon of the East - the real motivation for us to go there. Anyhow, after we had a long walk down the creek and a short trip of water rafting, Erhan recklessly lost his rental car key. Oh shit, how are we supposed to get home?

We looked over the trail which we passed before but the laborious search was to no avail. We then cynically teased Erhan for losing the car key although everybody was quite worried about how to get home from there. It took about 2.5 hours of driving from that place to Troy and trust me, this place is one remote place! So, we decided to call Zaid in Troy and asked him to get a replacement key from the rental car office tomorrow morning. Lan needed to go home with his car (he brought a few other passengers as well) and me, Erhan and Chot decided we should stay there. Just to take care of the car.

Hehehehe..with only three of us left there and a motel to stay over...it was one hell of fun. Erhan kept blaming himself for being such a monkey during the walk through the creek (possibly he dropped the key while doing that) while me and Chot were busy taking our picture. Chot kept making joke about the whole incident. Clam chowder and a loaf of bread were our only dinner that night. The very next day we walked about a mile from the motel just to find food and a public phone. Thank God Zaid managed to get the key and drove to the place to send the key. We finally reached Troy by late afternoon. All thanks to our 'ever hyped' Erhan...hehehehe..poor that fella! Next time I need to remind him to zip his pocket if he's trying to do any monkeying business.

Ahhh...I surely miss that kind of moment. And I surely miss my friend, Israr Syahrir Sha'ari aka Chot.