Celebration 2

Cele surprise with colleagues on Nov 29

My colleagues started asking me about my birthday plans 2-3 weeks before the actual day. Simply becos they would never forget that they tried to ask me out for dinner last year, and I told them I couldn't join them cos I'm meeting my frens for my bdae cele... And so, the joke now is my bdae cele is as MAJOR as Chinese New Year, cos I celebrate 15 days... heee...

Anyway, it was supposed to be a catching up session with an ex-colleague. And so, I did not suspect anything, since I thought we agreed to cele my bdae after we all return from Vietnam... The funny thing was - when we were on our way there, my boss carried a big bag (my cake inside).. and I still asked her why she had to choose that day to bring a big bag home and it din seem like her to do such things... I even peeped inside the bag.. but it din looked anything like a cake box to me...

During dinner, one colleague suddenly became flustered and pulled me out, saying she needed to go to toilet cos she suspected she might have stained her skirt and wanted me to go with her... Although I thought the behaviour was not like her at all, I still did not suspect anything... I'm such a goon, right? hahhaa

And so, this birthday cake was a complete surprise! It was good... Not too sweet raspberry chocolate cake! From one of our vendors! heee...



Surprise 2: Another colleague hid a pressie underneath my table on Nov 30...



Surprise 3: Someone said this of me before... that I am easily touched by the little little things people do... Well, what's wrong with that anyway?

My handphone rang whole morning on Dec 1 with all the well-wishes smses - from colleagues, friends and most importantly, my good fren who's now in US... Can't wait for her to come back... And also, some friends with whom I din really stay in touch during the year... Even my ex-tuition kid msg-ed me! (nah... Jo, you have your one-second fame... heee) I'm truly touched....honest...

Some of the little gifts from my pals...





The puffies' celebration







And the puffies are not done with my cele yet... hee...

Celebration 1 - I'm getting fat(ter) from all the cakes!

Which cake is the prettiest? heee

Cake Number 1 (A complete surprise from my colleagues and ex-colleague!)



Cake Number 2 (A very sweet gesture from my baby brother)



Cake Number 3 (Who else but from the puffies whose mission is to save the world before bedtime? - Isn't Bubbles so darn cute?!)

It's mid-November 2007 already...

Lazy evening at Cafe Domus - November 3, 2007

A little cafe tucked along a stretch of "shophouses" in Little India - away from the hustle and bustle of town...

Appetizing nibbles, cool beer, an oriental photo backdrop (which we did not understand what it was doing there; nonetheless, it got the two vainpots happily posing for photos), a romantic courtyard...

Some say we look like real sisters... what do you say?



Mambo@Zouk on November 7

It was disappointing because the music was not retro enough! Defeated my purpose of going there... Plus, I had 2-3 other groups of friends who planned to join me at a later time, but gave up meeting me as they could not get in at all. The irony was - I was not even able to squeeze my way out just to say "Harlow" to them...

Felt so bad having them make the trip. It all started innocently with me telling my frens that I might want to go Mambo... Everyone's instantaneous responses then were along the lines of "Go there to mix with the kids? No way!" or "You are kidding right? We are too old for that!"

But voila!

On that day, everyone "miraculously" contacted me that day and asked me if I was really planning to go... and said that they would go down to join me...

Ahhh... see? Everyone is indulging in reminiscence of the goodie ole days... Those were the days...

Anyway, that night was just madness, madness and more madness! The place was packed like sardines. There was no place to move/dance at all. If you even tried to move an inch, please rub shoulders, bums, chests, etc, etc, with everyone... Gross... The queues were still so long at 1 plus...

但是，那晚至少有一件稍微值得开心的事。我和我的华初姐妹约了另一个我们在读书时期蛮“要好”的朋友。很奇怪- 在见到他的几分钟之前，我们几个其实蛮紧张的。毕竟，我们已有至少五年多没联络了。只是有一天吃饭时，闲聊之中提起他,就心血来潮的发了简讯给他, 问问他近况如何和是否要出来叙叙旧。

其实，我们只是抱着问问看的心情，心想也许他会怀疑我们是否有什么目的；多年来根本丝毫一点联络都没有，莫名其妙地就问人家要不要出来吃饭，不吓坏人才怪！怎料,他豪爽地一口就答应了！

就这样，那晚好像就回到以前读书的时候。话匣子一打开，我们就噼里啪啦地有说有笑。 他说我们一点也没变 – 我还是当中最chee-na 的一个，英文水平在我们当中最差的一个，说英文时有时还因为发音不标准而闹出笑话。美荧还是一样地用某种口吻提起她的妈妈。惠群。。。 啊！好像没说到惠群变了没...

Anyway, the point is after so many years, he seems to be the most financially successful among the few of us... While we are still seemingly struggling to "make ends meet", our dear friend here owns a SLK, a prada phone, amongst others...

AND - as usual, I was the ignorant one and innocently asked what a SLK is... "A SLK can buy me three to four Hondas..." was the answer given to me... Woah - imagine how my jaw dropped...

It became the hottest conversation (**read 'gossip') topic among the three of us the following day... But whatever the case, we are happy for him that he's doing very well now. We also agreed that the three of us seriously needed to review and re-chart our priorities again so that we are able to own/wear all branded stuff from head to toe, from inner to outer wear by the time we hit the big "3"!!! Gosh...

Walking Zombie

Something’s weighing super heavily on my mind… Just can’t seem to shake it off, no matter how…

And this is seriously no good.

I’m like a walking zombie at work. I am just doing my work but not really putting much brain cells into it…

The result? Work performance has been seriously affected.

The number of occasions in which Boss showed me her puzzled face is gravely on the rise. She did not really question me because I guessed she trusted I knew…

I know that if I were to continue behaving like this, I am walking on a mine field and Boss may just erupt anytime. If I were her, my patience with myself would be running super low by now too…

But somehow, unfortunately, I still can’t sort out my thoughts.

Worse, this has to happen when the year-end review is coming… Darn…

Some colleagues also told me that I seemed to be in a world of my own these days. I do not seem to be as bubbly as before and would just walk with a straight face whenever I pass by their work stations.

Even when I’m having casual conversations with my friends, I have become rather absent-minded and I can easily lose the conversation thread… No, I’m not talking about IMs but even face-to-face conversations.

I need a break.

Or rather, I think I need a break – to sort out my thoughts. To get my priorities back on track again. And this needs to happen fast.

Wish me good luck…

My dear cousin's BIG day - October 20-21, 2007

Posing for the camera at 6 am in the morning...



Isn't she just so beautiful?



One of the hurdles at the main door was to have the groom's chest hair waxed - a request from his bride... Poor thing..

Side note: in the end, the OTC wax strips did not work and the 姐妹 had to make do with him just plucking one strand of hair out. But that's "torture" enough for him that he let out a high-pitched scream!



Walking in confidently, not knowing there were another few more hurdles to clear before he could get to his bride!



Waiting in anticipation for the church door to open to receive his bride...



Walking down the aisle...



"You may kiss the bride now"
Side note: My cousin-in-law quickly kissed his bride before the Father told him so... that even the Father teased him... so he got to kiss the bride twice!



The 姐妹



Moi and another cousin dearie



Wishing them everlasting marital bliss!

Updates

Dinner with FY on August 24 to celebrate her birthday

We met at Tatsuya Japanese Restaurant at Park Hotel Orchard, formerly Crown Prince Hotel, for dinner. It was simply lip-smacking! The salmon sashimi was very thick, fresh and juicy. The makimono was also very yummy. FY ordered soba while I ordered udon… and the noodles were in such generous portion that by the time we finished it, we were darn full!

Then came the mini surprise… The boss of the restaurant treated us to free dessert! And because no other tables had it and was just specially for us, we decided to finish the dessert, despite our super full stomachs. Now, talk about the privilege of being pretty girls! (**haha, kidding… dun puke!**)

The little birthday card I got for FY

I finally got hold of the Taipei photos from FY… Four months later!

Me and FY at 淡水

Me munching into the 豪大大鸡排！& Moi at 正至中大

WOMAD – August 25

Somehow, I did not enjoy the performance as much as last year, even though this year was supposed to be one of the best. My company had the same feedback too. And, this year, the crowd seemed to be thinner than last year. On another note, surprisingly, the canned wine that Sam bought tasted well. But think Vern mixed the wine with beer, drank quite a bit and she was slightly high.

Nan was around with her other fren but we kind of missed the chance to meet – with us missing each other’s calls or me reading her smses too late.

The group

The girls

Farewell
My lunch kaki group is getting smaller and smaller, with Jan leaving on Aug 1, followed by Jo leaving on Aug 31.

Jan’s farewell dinner at Rain@Dempsey Road – Jul 31
Because its website looked good and boasted of its food and services, we decided to give it a try.

But alas! We swear we would never return for a second visit. Not only was the food super expensive, it was tasteless! The soup base was bland and the portion of the food was not generous at all. They had this beer soup base which they claimed was their best seller. To have the beer soup base, we had to pay an additional $10. Since we were there, we decided to give it a try. And all we got was having the staff pouring Tiger Beer into our tasteless soup and there! The best seller beer soup base for our hotpot! Bleah! The guys asked the staff if we could bring our own beer to pour in and "no" was the answer... Cheaterbug...

We all agreed that the hotpot at Beach Road would be a much better deal! Oh! And since when do you have hotpot without having the soup boiling?!

Service was a “F” grade too. The staff was blur and slow in taking orders or responding to our requests. We could understand that if the restaurant was full house. But no, the entire restaurant only consisted of us and two more couples. How complicated could that be? The staff even claimed that they had full house every day… Yeah right… who were they trying to kid? Even Ben & Jerry’s opposite the restaurant had more customers than them…

The serving for two. To order more, another $$$ please...

The group

Jo’s farewell dinner at Minori@UE Square – Aug 31

Once bitten, twice shy.

We swore to have a good and satisfying dinner this time round. It was fabulous! We had our privacy in our own little room. Another lip-smacking Jap dinner! Because it was buffet style, we ordered like we had not eaten for days… In just 15 minutes, our table was so full of dishes that we wondered if we had over-ordered. The grilled dishes were great. They were not stingy with the sashimi portions. Everything was superb, except that the customers in the other room were super rowdy... noise pollution...

Look at our table!

Can you guess who's the Associate Vice President, Associate Director, Senior Manager, etc?

After the dinner, some of us went to The Cathay to catch Ratatouille. My boss, SC, Jan and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, though Chris and Jean were obviously bored and could not seem to understand why the four of us were still rattling off about the movie. Think Disney (is it Disney?) is getting better with the graphics and the drawings, whatever you called that… The rats were darn cute, with their little pink noses and gosh… how their fur stood when they were struck by lightning!

Miscellaneous

After much cajoling, coaxing, sweet-talking, etc, I finally relented and agreed to be my lovely cousin’s and Jen’s jie mei. Shan’s wedding is in October. Jen’s in December. I was supposed to be the overall coordinator and in charge for both their weddings. They gave me such “heavy” responsibilities because they trusted that I would do my utmost best to ensure that their wedding would be without glitch – given my work background and my relationship with them. Stressed… Wonder if I can ask them to change my role to be the MC instead – just like what I did for another cousin’ wedding and another friend’s brother’s wedding?

PPG – Butter’s Birthday Celebration – Aug 8-10

The PPG had a BIG birthday bash plan for Butter this year… There was Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3… Her “face” super the big ya! Hor?

Part 1 - Aug 8
Bloss and Butter met for dinner first because I had to go for tuition after work. I travelled from Raffles Place to near home, then after tuition, went home freshen up and then travelled all the way to Vivo at 9 plus… How effort!

Realised only in the cab that I did not have small change with me – made Bloss and Butter welcome me at the taxi stand to pay for my cab fare first. They waited for me until &$%*$&*(%&%$#^, and they agreed that taxi uncle should just dump me somewhere… So “horrible” of them…

Originally planned to go St James since the birthday gal had never been there before, but dunno why, they decided to change plans to go Café Del Mar… and so off we went… sometimes, it’s just fun catching up, laughing at each other, cracking corny and lame jokes and laughing ourselves silly.

After that, went to Ridout MacDonald’s and we concluded that Singaporeans dun sleep early… It was still darn crowded at 1-2 am! And people were still strolling in… Continued our corny and lame jokes – and I’m still laughing now when I recalled the “swamp” thing joke… Parted ways at abt 3 am, I think…

PPG

Butter's flower bouquet

Bubbs and Bloss

Butter and Bubbs

Part 2 - Aug 9
Brought my parents for buffet lunch at Royal Plaza on Scotts prior to meeting the gals… Met the gals for Jay Chou movies.. Not a movie on my to-watch list but since the other two gals are so ga-ga over Jay, well, I have to follow the majority’s choice… But hey! My Andy Lau’s movie coming in December and they said they’ll watch it with me then! Haha… We shall see! But well, the Jay’s movie not so bad la…

Part 3 - Aug 10
Got Butter to attend some baking class with me… We made cupcakes and pandan kaya swiss rolls. Think this time round, the cakes tasted much better than my brownies and sweet rolls! Hehe.. I’m planning to do tiramisu at home this coming weekend… Knew Butter enjoyed herself during the baking class – which I was glad… It’s real fun…

My cupcakes - in Bloss' words, they are my little alien babies - so "horrible" of her! hehe!

Afternote
Brought my cupcakes and swiss rolls to office today – my colleagues all loved it! It made you really happy when you know everyone enjoyed the food you prepared…

And to my surprise, some even said why din you do brownies again? Your brownies were nice too! And I still thought my brownies were too sweet… hmmmm..

Screw up @ work

I honestly clean forgot a discussion I had with boss one day and happily gave instructions to the TV crew the next day to film something they should not have.

Imagine the horror look I had on my face when my boss came to question me. The thing was - even when she tried to help me recall what we had discussed, no bells were ringing in my mind that we had had that certain part of the conversation!

This is bad. No excuse.

I admitted my screw up and apologized. My boss had already rectified the issue with the journalist before coming to me. In retrospect, the mistake was really not THAT major. But I was feeling super lousy for two days.

Simply because I actually had my boss rectify the mistake I made, and she settled it before coming to tell me. Plus, she did not blame or scold me. All of which made me feel super duper lousy.

In fact, Boss was more puzzled than anything, and asked me if I’m OK. She told me she can’t figure out why and how I could have made the slip since I seldom make her worry at work.

I couldn’t answer her question but just looked at her apologetically – because I have no answer for her too... Sigh...

Food for thoughts...

"Having a best friend is like having a sister you can't get rid of. You know whatever you do, they'll be there for you."

“Love makes you go against all things rational because falling in love is the most addictive drug in the universe.”

Photo Diary

June 30 (Saturday)

The japanese sweet rolls and brownies that FY and I made!

Some of my poor friends became my guinea piggies... They were very sweet to say that the brownies and sweet rolls looked tempting enough and smell real nice. And of course,they were also kind enough to finish every single bit and crumbs! so 感动！

Comments were they prefer the brownies to the sweet rolls, though one found the brownies a bit too sweet for his liking... Well, my first time baking bread and brownies mah... It's already not bad that the final products are decent-looking and edible, OK? **winkz**

Next on my list include tiramisu and cheesecake - any guinea piggies volunteers?

Thoroughly enjoyed Transformers! Great movie! Optimus Prime and Bumblebee - Way to go! Woohoo!

June 27 (Wednesday)

My company's cocktail function at the Ink Club Bar

These carbaret girl models were a big hit!

June 23 (Saturday)

Bloss' birthday celebration

Had great fun with the girls, laughing, cracking corny jokes, posing for the camera, doing up Bloss' scrapbook... For more details, read Butter's blog.

Butter and Bubbs scribbles in Bloss' photo scrapbook

Bloss and Bubbs

Butter and Bloss

June 2 (Saturday)

Mich's birthday celebration at The Jewel Box

Think our rowdy big group had caused a lot of lovey-dovey couples who would appreciate some private moments shift out of the restaurant area...

May 12 (Saturday)

Vern's birthday celebration at karaoke and Cafe Del Mar

Group shot at the karaoke

The babes & the birthday gal at Cafe Del Mar

The hunks & the birthday gal at Cafe Del Mar

The sweeties trio