Tomorrow: My 21st birthday present(s).

After much nagging and complaining, I'm giving in. I mean, I'm sorry lah. Facebook (which many of you contributed to creating for me) just seems more interesting as I don't have to crack my head up to think of catchy phrases and try to make myself sound more interesting than I am.

Excuses? Or maybe I'm just losing my mojo? Or maybe it's the high def in me. Ya whatever.

So right.

It started about a week after my birthday, at a dinner in Dumpling Inn. CP said, okay, this Friday and Saturday, cancel all your plans. Then I was like, huh? How to just cancel la? Cause I have classes on Friday and I have netball practice on Saturday ma.

She's like, cancel only, don't care. So, I was like...ermmmmm....owhkaaaayy...

So a week passed and she still wouldn't let me know, except she said we're doing something lah. So I'm like...okay...

Friday came and I was over at Fenner, waiting to celebrate Swee Loke's birthday and then CP and SW decided to let me in a bit on the thing.

CP: Okay what to bring tomorrow. Bring a set of formal wear, a set of swimwear, a set of casual wear, a set of pajamas, you can bring pillow also if you want. Got anything to ask me? You ask la, then I say need to bring or not.

Xin: Huh? Why do I need so much clothes for one day?

CP: Just bring one suitcase. You can bring one suitcase and put whatever you want to bring inside. Anything you want, so long as it fits in one suitcase. But you need lots of sleep, cause you need a lot of energy tomorrow.

Xin: (getting agitated) Wah lao. You want me to bring so much stuff how come never tell me earlier?? I have to do laundry wan you know! Now you tell me at 11pm, I have to do at least 3 loads of laundry, then you want me to sleep? Impossible lah. Why couldn't you tell me this earlier? Ishh...

CP: Don't care. You just bring all those. Quickly do your laundry then sleep la.

Xin: My laundry cannot quickly do wan lah! Grrr....

So anyway, the outcome was that I slept at 6am, managing to finish up 2 loads of laundry, ironing, digging out luggages of clothes to find those sets of formal wear, swimwear and so on. I even woke Miss Tan up countless of times while trying to pack.

I tell you, boy, was I pissed off that morning. I wouldn't talk to CP, nor to SW (for being an accomplice in not giving me a reason as to why I needed to bring so much). I still mildly acknowledged CY though, cause he wasn't too happy with their leading me on aimlessly either.

When they reached to pick us up from Academie, I was the only one with a suitcase (very expected I must say), and I headed into the Tarago and just sat and kept quiet. And then KH was asking, why she bring suitcase wan? CP answered "Oh cause I ask her to bring a lot of sets of clothes." And he laughed. Very loudly and evilly. And at that point, I wanted to get off the car and slap him across the face. I mean, dah lah I was mad, didn't have enough sleep, and put on such humiliating grounds, he had the nerve to laugh.

But yes, I was pissy and sleepy and tired. Miss Tan tried to ask if I was okay, and started apologising because she didn't know that it would cause me to have to stay up all night to do laundry. She said they figured a surprise would be good. I told her, "It's okay. I just need some sleep and some sugar, and I'll be nice the rest of the day."

So, I slept pretty much two-thirds of the drive to Sydney.

When I woke up, I actually contemplated in my head whether to stop being pissy or that it'll be better to indulge in my emoness and be pissy all day. Then it occurred to me that they all definitely put a lot of effort into planning everything and to keep it mum, so I decided to forgive. (And as you can tell so far, it's not forgotten.)

So I downed some sugar (yes yes I do carry some around wherever I go for times I need a boost) and then I started joining in the conversations and the singing and looked around outside. And by the time we reached Sydney, I'm pretty much my normal sot pot self. (Miss Tan recently mentioned something about me having to keep up my sot pot self as my normal self, and how I feel whether it's an obligation to stay sot, but that's an entirely different topic altogether.)

First on the agenda : Taronga Zoo.

Apparently someone thought I really wanted to go there and therefore planned for everyone to visit there for my birthday. (I am not crazily enthused about zoos, nor have I expressed crazy interest in going, though I did mildly mention that one day I want to go around Sydney's tourist attractions which do include that zoo.)

So in we went, and I went into crazy poser mode. Anytime I sense a camera aiming at me, I'd pose for it. Wah, we took gila berbanyak pictures lo that day.

Pictures of animals:

Pictures of people:

Pictures of people who have been influenced by the animals (note my 'tail') :

Pictures we made for headhunters who are looking for ad models :

Jeans ad

Laptop ad

Ecstasy pills ad

Kung fu ad

You get the gist of it. Poser pictures, with pure pleasure and leisure and zero content.

When we left the zoo, we took one bye bye pose.

Somehow the people on the left seemed as if they can't wait to leave whilst the 3 of us on the right were sad that it was over.

From the zoo, we headed to Bondi for dinner at Hurricane, but we didn't have a table at that time yet, plus we were waiting for Gary, Jeremy and Wan Theng to get there, so we headed to Bondi Beach, had Fried Mars Bar (they do taste as sinful as they sound) and yep guessed it, TOOK MORE PICTURES!

Me and the Mars bar which gave me another boost of sugar :

An actual normal picture where no one did stupid actions (one of the rare few that day) :

CP's idea of an artistic sequencing photo... :

....which turned out not quite as expected (do zoom in to look at the priceless expression on Ah Boy's face) :

After spending bout more than half an hour by the beach, waiting for them to arrive, we headed on to Hurricane for dinner. I broke my vego for them mouthwatering pork ribs and chicken.

Ready for a feast :

The end result of many hungry souls gorging :

Happy Hurricane-d people :

And if you think our day ended there, not nearly.

We split up - Jeremy and Wan Theng headed home whilst Gary went out with us. We headed on to Mamak (where Gary and I had a history there together with this one particular staff there) for dessert.

We had cendol and ais kacang and some drinks. Haha! I haven't forgotten SW's cendol light. =P

And once we were done there, we decided to head to Darling Harbour for a night breeze. And yes, I posed more there. However, by then I think most of them have consumed 97% of their energy levels except me.

While the rest were busy taking the night scene, I was still charged and ready for the camera!

And while I was busy, there were lost souls and lots of criminal activity going on.

There was the "Oh-no-I-don't-know-where-I-am" :

And there were the mugging in the background, while in the front there were two men dealing in some sort of suspicious activity :

The journey home was actually as eventful as the entire trip itself, with the emergence of wallabies on the road and the fog. But I must admit I was asleep for probably 95% of the drive home. I woke up once when the car swerved to avoid the wallaby, asking "Huh? What happened?" and then another time to notice that it was all foggy and that I could see nothing to see, so I continued to sleep.

And that ends my most interesting birthday present that I've ever received in the 21 years of my life.

I would like to thank Kelly, Hong Yin, Ai Lin, Ying, Ter Lee, Chern, Willy, Wai Yee and even more to those who went along with me for the trip - Cheok, Ah Boy, John Faith, Sheng, Alex, Man Yee and Miss Tan. Love you guys loads and I will remember this for as long as my memory serves me.

And, no while this post is exceptionally long already, I'm not quite done.
I did entitle the post my present(s) so I want to take this chance to express my greatest gratitude to the rest of my birthday-present givers as well.

Thank you Leanne, June, Debbie and Lingee for the Krispy Kreme.
Thank you Elaiza, for the chocolates.
Thank you Alex and Man Yee, for the lovely set of moo-moo stuff.
Thank you Brandall, for the very cute photo frame star thing (as you can see, I'm having trouble describing it).
Thank you to the same people mentioned above plus Shawn, Arjun, Regina, Marcus for the lovely dinner you all prepared for me and the awesome surprise that it came with.

And of course while gifts are great, wishes are just as meaningful.

Thank you Mommy.
Thank you Xiang Mei Yi.
Thank you er ge.
Thank you Daddy.
Thank you ta ge.
Thank you Suba.
Thank you Sammy.
Thank you Shin.
Thank you Liangwei.
Thank you Kah Meng.
Thank you Inaz.
Thank you Hana.
Thank you Cindy.
Thank you Mr Miller.
Thank you Corina.
Thank you Wayne.
Thank you Debbie.
Thank you June.
Thank you Leanne.
Thank you Lingee.
Thank you Winnie.
Thank you Edmond.

Thank you to everyone else who wished me, but I have forgotten. I profusely apologise as I lost my piece of paper of which I recorded when what and how I got wished (obviously prepared for blogging).

And these thank yous are in no particular order. I wrote them as I remembered.