It has been ages since I have ever gone for a physical meetup. Work, university and COVID-19 simply made it impossible for me to attend one. My mind was cluttered with how much I hate university and many more. The memories of meeting new people, talking about tech topics we had in common, passion and many more; all of them faded off my mind.
I was doing some PHP slide deck for Ngee Ann’s World Skills Singapore training and suddenly recalled about our small PHP community in Singapore. I even wrote a few blog posts about the PHP community in the past. I looked back at the photos in these blog posts and was reminded of the fond memories I had.
My eyes were a bit teary as I recalled the times and memories I had shared during the conferences. There were some painful moments but many beautiful and fun ones. I even recalled dozing off whilst recording the conference talks in 2018! Ha, I hope no one took photo of that!
I used my precious NS leave to help out with the conference, and so did many others take precious time off their work hours just to help out with the conference. But I enjoyed it so much so that it was worth more than that.
And all these memories made me remember that I could not be who I am without this local PHP community, especially without Zion and Michael. This serves as an important reminder to myself – the reasons as to why I was an active member of the local tech community and why I should continue to be one.
