birthday details + first day of internship.
written: 9:36 p.m. on Monday, Jul. 16, 2007

So basically the birthday went down like this:

1. Woke up early (for me anyway) to have lunch with Chloe at Wine Company where we caught up and laughed about Attica's bandana-themed party. I wanted to hold post-dinner at Attica when I was told that birthday people get complimentary entries for their guests plus a bottle of free champagne, but it turned out that we all had to wear bandanas. Like, shit, I don't even OWN a bandana and I wasn't about to fork out money to buy everyone a bandana, so in the end I decided to go elsewhere.

1a. Using the last sentence as a point of digression, I actually looked up bars online, shortlisted some, copied down their numbers, and sat down at Starbucks Marina Square and called them up. But because I'm me, I forgot to take down the number of the place that I most wanted to go to, which I did go to in the end. So it was a couple of SOS phone calls to a few of my friends to ask if they were home and in the end I was rescued by a very special person who gave me two Yellow Pages-like numbers. Phew, and all.

2. Anyway, back to Chloe. So we caught up and laughed and had spinach pizza, after which we cabbed down to West Mall because I needed to print some more photos for the guestbook and I needed to buy glitter pens for the guestbook. I was annoyed at West Mall. Let's just leave it at that.

3. Went home at 3-plus and did up the guestbook. Showered, changed, etc.

4. Left house at 6. Was caught in traffic jam. Panicked when Alan called me a little before 6.30, thinking that he was there already. Thankfully, he wasn't; he just wanted to confirm it was the Carlton hotel and not the Ritz Carlton (dude, I ain't that rich! Haha).

5. Freaked out for real when Tris messaged me a little before 6.45, the time I told everyone to show up, and asked if I was around the hotel. I CAN'T BELIEVE HE WAS EARLY LAH. So Tris had the honour of the being the very first person to arrive, even before the person who threw the function. Haha.

6. People started arriving, I didn't know where to sit so I dumped my stuff with my folks + brother, I stole food off my mom's plate and rushed around welcoming people and trying to make sure that everyone had someone to talk to. It was tiring, to say the least, and I can't exactly say I didn't feel a bit hollow here and there. It was the novelty of the situation, being in the centre of attention, celebrating my own birthday, combined with the concoction of all my friends from different periods of my life, such that I didn't know who to sit with, how long I should sit with them, stupid things like that which a more socially well-oiled person would get just like that. A bit weird, it certainly was, but trust me when I say that I'll look back on July 14, 2007, and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Definitely a hell of a memorable birthday, right next to my 18th one. Thank you all, once again.

7. Pei made me open her present in front of her. She's just so...Pei! I love her to bits.

8. And Khai showed up which meant more to me than anything else she could ever do. I love her to bits too.

9. The Bitch Club (sans Baoyue, sadly) and Justin were awesome. Angela's waffles - will always remember Angela's waffles. Too bad I forgot to take a picture of it.

10. I think I've said most that needed to be said in the note I wrote so I'll just leave it.

11. Went to No. 5 after dinner. Was horribly late to meet Chloe (so sorry dear). Rui and Mag left after a while 'cause they weren't feeling well, poor them, and so it was me, Baoyue, Yuenmei and Tingren. JJ KEMAMA! Hahahahahaha. Had a wonderful chat with them, in spite of my half drunkenness.

11a. Sidenote: I drank a palm beach martini, a salty dog which I liked a lot, and an earl grey martini which Rui and Mag ordered and hated. I hated it too. I hated the palm beach martini too. Both tasted like pure alcohol - yuck. So unlike the lychee martini I had somewhere else. No wonder the martinis were one for one! I only went there because of the one for one deal. I'm such a cheapo! And...oh, Baoyue ordered a fucking nu ren hong! It was a very interesting drink. Tasted salty; definitely an acquired taste. I may actually grow to like it 'cause I kinda miss the taste.

12. I was quite surprised that I ended up spending the rest of the night with the three of them, but I was very glad at the end of it that it happened. I think we don't talk enough and that night we talked so easily and freely, it was like we did it every other day. Amazing, you know? So yes, Mambo so on lorz. Like, totally.

13. Before my parents left for home, at around 10-plus p.m., my dad was all, "I'm waiting up for you!" In front of everyone I shouted back, "No need lah! I'm 21 already!" And guess what? My mom texted me at 2-something a.m., asking me if I brought my keys. AND I DIDN'T. I completely forgot my keys! I'm such a douchebag, am I not? I'm totally amazing.

14. Reached home at 3-plus a.m., spent the entire night opening my presents and reading my guestbook messages and reading my cards. Ahh, that was my absolute favourite part. So warm and fuzzy, the whole thing was.

14 is my favourite number (1 is second) so it's apt that the list ends there. I think Desperate Housewives is on now. Will be back in a bit to write about first day of internship.

Okay some Parliament highlights thing which I don't care about. (There's like, Lawnet? So yeah.)

So. First day of internship. In brief, I sat in the library the entire day and read the dictionary.

There was this huge Webster dictionary in the library that I couldn't resist browsing through. And I did. And I pretty much did that for the whole day. I was interrupted here and there by this admin uncle who told me his entire life story while I sat there and smiled and nodded, but basically I sat and waited the whole day.

I learnt new words. Abas, for one. Complaisance, for another. Nothing useful, just random things. Do you know I used to read the dictionary, way before Googling define:[insert word] took over my life?

After a while I moved on to reading the Constitution of the United States of America, which was at the back of the dictionary. I also skimmed through the chronology of important dates in history (99% Western - go figure), scrutinised the map of Great Britain, and read up on punctuation. How fun and exciting!

Well, the good news is, at the end of the day I was told that I will be helping them prepare for a trial on Monday. Which is good, 'cause I was absolutely going nuts with nothing to do. I EVEN WROTE IN MY DIARY.

So far, the firm seems nice. And there is a very cute legal associate who was supposed to look for me to, like, give me things to do, but he was too busy to. How sad, right? He looks a little bit like a Chinese version of Goran Visnjic (can't spell), who's this HOT Croatian actor who played Luka on ER. I used to have a huge crush on him.

Okay, enough rubbish. Watching Desperate Housewives now. It's nonsensical.

I'm sleepy. Lunch with Mag today was great!

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010