Jeremy's 21st birthday

Happy 21st Birthday, Jeremy!

You're a great friend to have,
a great musician to play with,
and a budding artist.
It is a pleasure to have known you,
played and studied with you.
Ok, maybe not the study part. =P
In any case, here's wishing you good health
and, cliche as it sounds,
May your dreams come true.

Adult already, remember don't procrastinate too much hor!

It was Jeremy's 21st birthday party today. His birthday really is on Monday. Met YZ at her house, which was the block right beside his, first before going over together. We were trying to decide what to write on the nice perfumed-and-spotted-with-little-hearts-here-and-there bear card. By the way, I bought the card from shop "Specky 'n' Frenz". Cards have horrible english, but design was too interesting to resist. YZ said later that I was screaming in her room. I refuse to admit to that. I just happen to have a loud voice. Feel embarrassed for the possibility of having shocked YZ's grandmother and aunt by being very loud in her room. I hope they don't ban her from meeting me in the future.

One other thing to mention before moving on to the birthday party. YZ speaks to her grandmother entirely in Chinese while her grandmother speaks to YZ entirely in hokkein. I found it immensely amusing and was grinning all the way. I spoke to her grandmother in halting hokkein. Been a long time since I used a dialect properly. There's something special about speaking in a dialect that I really like. Maybe it's because a lot of young people have since lost the knowledge of a dialect, or maybe it is just me being nostalgic.

50 minutes of excruciating pain, caused by deciding what to write on the card and conversing with Pearlin on the phone, later, we finally headed to Jeremy's block. His party covered 3 levels - the void deck where the food is, and the other 2 levels of his house. I saw AJ band people there but didn't opt to join them partly because I didn't want YZ to feel left out and also partly because I don't mix quite well with them. Instead, I waved a brief hi to them, got our food, very accidentally found my class people at a table behind a pillar and joined them. Am glad that YZ wasn't bored by our incessant chatter. She said that she was entertained by them, which I could understand because they were really very funny.

Ping Yong: Actually I once tried to read the dictionary.
us: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.................
Ping Yong: But I gave up in the middle of "A".
Cheston: You actually read till the middle of "A"! You say "Z", I still can accept, but section "A" is quite big leh!
us: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.................
Ping Yong: But after I read, I've forgotten everything.
Cheston: hahaha, yar, I can tell, because you haven't used more "A" words when talking to me.

Jie Qi, Jiemin and Pearlin finally arrived and I hung around with them.

JQ: ok, we give this (at this point she indicates the number $28 with her fingers, one hand 2 fingers, the other 3)
Pearlin: this lah (indicates some number with her fingers)
YZ: like that ah? (indicates more numbers with her fingers)
me: (Blinking rapidly) oi, can you all slower or not? I need to count the fingers leh.
JQ: ...
JQ: Wah lao, you speak a different language lah! You're not supposed to count! (shows me the fingers again)
me: (Looks blankly for a bit) Oh, 28 ah? Haha, I thought is 5...

Jeremy finally herded us up to his place. We first headed up to his room to place Pearlin's stuff and was greeted by a whole sea of AJ band faces in his very tiny room.

Individually, the people in this group are mostly nice people, but as a group, they are really quite intimidating. Group cognition. Sometimes I am very irritated by them because they have the habit of excluding people who are not with them. I think I simply don't fit in, not only with them but also with AJ band as a whole.

Anyway, I very quickly entered and exited the room a couple of times to put and retrieve some stuff (including the large card) without making eye contact with anybody except for Jocelyn who was helping me. Then the 4 of us settled down on the stairs and assured Jeremy that we were very comfortable where we were, as long as nobody goes down and nobody goes up. Only problem now is that we became our own obstacles when wanting to walk down the stairs. Ok, only I was walking around, so they were my obstacles. Settled some gift stuff with Jiaxing and Elim who were both not present at the party and then spent most of the time watching Campus Superstar. There was a lot of dissatisfaction about the young boy winning.

Finally it was time to take pictures with the birthday boy. Weird thing was that we took pictures before we sang the birthday song. Anyway the cake was awesome. It was not just one cake, it was many cakes...

... many cup-cakes.

FYI, all of them were made by his mother and decorated by his sister. Awesome creativity in the family. His mother do sells cakes too, so if you would like to have those cupcakes for some event or a cake for a birthday, you might want to consider contacting them. Heh, but I'm afraid you would have to go through me first. Not that I'm earning fees but because I have no idea how to contact the mother directly or what is the usual route of communication. I'll simply tell Jeremy, who will then ask his mother. So, email me!

I am in 3 of the pictures they took - SPU, class and band.

Then we sang him his birthday song. The particular group of AJ band people were all stuck upstairs and didn't come down to sing. Instead, they sang upstairs and Kailin took a video of them that way. I thought it was really quite rude of them and who knows it might have hurt Jeremy in a way, but that's not for me to say because if he think that it's fine then so be it. It is his house, his room and his party.

It was 11pm when we decided to leave. Had a great time there with Pearl, YZ, Jie Qi and Jiemin. Best thing is we didn't take a single picture together using our phones. Great. I'll only meet Pearl and YZ again only don't know how long later.

Kailin, Jeremy's girlfriend, was exhausted. It was all over her face. It was so sweet of her to help out. When I left, I told her to take care and rest well, then told Jeremy that he had better repay her. He replied yes of course, will do it now and then proceeded to hug her =D

Gosh, I'm so envious of them! Yet as I look at them, I realize that I am unable to envision myself in that kind of scenario, as part of a normal couple. It seems so natural to be the way I am now that once again, the idea of being in a relationship thrills yet scares me immensely. Yes there is the yearning to have somebody special at last, somebody I can depend on (does it actually even exist?) but I am also oddly glad that I am single, free of the need to deal with the complicatedness of the dynamics between a couple. Maybe, just maybe, I'm meant to be like this.

Now I'm home and blogging and it's 2.30am. Sigh. I sleep later and later every weekend.