This year was really one of the most surprising birthdays I’ve had. Also one of the most touching. Felt so incredibly loved by my friends and family and lucky that I’ve such an awesome bunch behind me. 27 Sept 2013 is gna be one of the days I look back on when I’m having a tough time 🙂
This year I honestly wasn’t really looking forward to my birthday that much. I chalked it up to getting older and more mature LOL. I know this is despite the fact that I kept reminding my friends that my birthday was coming teehee oops. Sorry, bad habits are a bit hard to break. I was actually more excited about Big Bang’s concert the week before than my own birthday.
So my plan was.. to study in the morning then head out to meet Melissa the birthday girl for Max Brenner’s, study UTU a bit then have dinner w my family. I know it sounds not v exciting but I was really quite satisfied w it. I knew my friends were busy w school, plus I wanted to celebrate w Melissa because it’s both our birthdays and how cool is that right! 😀 Birthday Max Brenner’s is gna be our yearly thing hahaha wheeeee.
Gna do a very detailed post because ST requested and he’s eagerly anticipating this hahaha. Plus I think my birthday deserves a nice, detailed post 😀
Received a number of lovely midnight/near-midnight messages from different people. ST had duty so he sent me a message earlier haha I suppose it counts to because I’m sure he’d have been one of the firsts if he could have been! Two messages that rly made me smile, one from Susu and one from Choonz.
Susu sent me this:
Really appreciated her efforts in sourcing for the pictures and putting it together. Anddd a bit thick skinned I know but, q happy when people associate me w being sunny also. Cheesy I know but I like knowing that I made people happy also! Because my friends are really one of the brightest parts of my life 🙂
Choonz FB message was…
Noticing a pattern? Hahaha 😉 I was really like omg aww aww at these two messages 🙂
Of course I had some other really sweet birthday messages wheee thanks so much for showering me w birthday messages love. It’s one of the things I like best about birthdays!
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So I went to sleep after that, woke up and had a very productive morning! Revised a bit of UTU, did what I had to do for NM Soc, replied birthday messages intermittently as well. I was so happy with my productive morning haha. Arranged to meet Melissa earlier because I realised she didn’t have anything on before meeting me anyway. I forgot our new meeting time already 😦 Suffice to say, it was one of those odd timings I have come to prefer. Hahaha yay to weird meeting times 😀
Wore my pretty, (not so) new dress w zebra prints again because I wanted to at least dress differently for my birthday. Packed my UTU notes in my bag, the camera and my instax and set off ~ Was late in meeting Melissa D: Gah so sorry to make you wait during your birthday. In the train there I was totally judging this queer couple engaging in PDA. Really… a bit too much. BUT ENTERTAINING. I made sure to file away the information in my head so that I could report it to Melissa when I met her hahaha.
Was texting ST about them also and…
Clue #1: He said that there was a tall lady in front of him as well. I was thinking like eh? Since when his camp got girl. But I didn’t dwell too deeply on it.
Met Melissa who was lounging around on the sofas at the basement of Esplanade. Almost missed her, luckily she heard the bell on my anklet, if not it’d be like some Korean drama hoho. Exciting stuff, filming Korean dramas on my birthday.
Went up to Max Brenner and HAPPY STUFF BECAUSE GOT 1-FOR-1 DEAL HAHAHA. So happyyy whee whee. Cheapos even on our birthdays.
Was all not bad! But got a bit too sweet for us after awhile. Melissa also gave me a nice birthday card omg I feel so bad. Thanks so much for such a sweet, mushy message teehee. So out-of-character for you!! So I really appreciate it ♥
Oh yeah. Midway through the meal, I received a birthday text from Benedict Chan being all cryptic and like ‘i foresee many surprises coming your way’. Melissa was like ‘Who is Benedict Chan. Damien Chan’s brother ah’ then we went on to discuss what he could be referring to. But I sorta concluded that he was being weird and talking rubbish hahaha.
After that Melissa seemed really eager to leave and check out the Merlion. She said she saw it on TV while watching F1 and thought it was really cute, like she never really appreciated it enough in her 20 years in Singapore (okay that’s just my interpretation hahaha). I thought she was being really cute and didn’t think too much about it because sometimes Melissa does strange, incomprehensible, q cute things like that. It’s one of the v endearing things about her to me – like she seems so fierce but actually she’s v funny hahaha. But fierce. I WILL BE FIERCE TOOOOO. One day.
So we went out and took many pictures. I was a bit bemused actually.
Clue #2: In the many times that I’ve gone out w Melissa, I’ve never seen her take so many pictures before. Okay no, I guess we took a lot of pictures last year during our birthday. But I’ve never seen her want to take so many pictures before. IT WAS LIKE THIS OTHER SIDE OF MELISSA THAT I’VE NEVER SEEN. Can’t believe she asked me several times if I wanted to take a photo. But I chalked it up to her liking the camera.
Saw a hopscotch drawn on the floor for a Children’s day event. So I took advantage of her sudden interest in taking photos and we took this:
I was a bit like OH NO the hopscotch didn’t have 9. BUT genius birthday girl (not me) said we could take a photo w no.9 with an upside down no.6 omg. SO SMART THIS GIRL. Hahahaha.
Then we slowly strolled along Singapore river (I had to Google to make sure my blogpost is factually accurate. So much effort I put in right). Took many pictures of the skyline and tried to take selcas and panorama photos. A bit fail on my end HAHA. But I think hers not bad.
So we trekked slowly to the Merlion to see it close up. So many tourists!! We had a good time um, checking out the tourists’ interesting poses. I wonder if Italians look at tourists in the same way when they do all the strange poses near the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Probably right! Hahaha. So we also took a few photos at the Merlion. But really superrr crowded and it was q difficult to get someone to take the photo for us D: Taking solo shots not as fun! Asking people to help us take pictures is so troublesome gah.
After taking several pictures and two instax photos, Melissa asked me where I wanted to go next. I was like uhh. I had the time to spare since it was still q early. But I didn’t really know where to go D: It seemed to be a choice between going to Gardens by the Bay to take more photos and going to MBS. Both seemed really far to me but I was just like um do you wna go to Gardens by the Bay? But she was lazy (or so I thought) and politely rejected my suggestion. I was slightly relieved tho haha because GTBB really looked super far away. So as per her suggestion, we decided to walk back to Esplanade and go to the rooftop and take pictures from there becos ‘also can see MBS / GTBB’. Hahaha I was like okay sure.
We ambled to the souvenir shop where we spent some time being appalled at the hiked up prices. Tourist spots really /shakes head. Then we walked back to Esplanade. Midway through the bridge, she started walking at a pace much faster than our slow ambling pace throughout the day. She said she needed to use the washroom rly badly so I was like okay sure let’s hurry back then. Suddenly…
Clue #3: She answered a call. I didn’t really pay attention to the details but I overheard her saying something like “Yeah in 5 minutes”. So obviously I asked what was happening. She mumbled something about how it was some coordinator from her school and her friend, being a bit strange, wanted to text back the coordinator at the same time – which was in 5 minutes time.
Quite weird but okay. I found it a bit fishy but I couldn’t really catch what she was saying (because she was walking so fast!) and didn’t want to annoy her so I didn’t ask more questions. Besides, it was some school thing so I figured that she probably would explain to me later after she was a bit uh, more relieved.
<edit> According to Melissa after I asked her, what she told me to explain in 5 minutes’ was “… it was something I coordinated w one friend to msg another friend w my friends from school”. Her “hurried and worried” explanation hahaha </edit>
So we hurried back to Esplanade and headed to the rooftop. On the way up she was going “oh gosh has it been five minutes already. I need to call my friend” And she was like frantically dialing which was honestly a bit strange but I was thinking okay she has some strange friends hahaha. Saw the sign for the Esplanade library and she was like oh didn’t know there was a library here. I then asked if she wanted to go check it out since yknw, I thought we had all the time in the world, don’t need to rush anywhere what. The view at the rooftop isn’t going anywhere. But she smoothly rejected my suggestion. On hindsight, she must have been quite panicked when I suggested it LOL.
By the time we got to the rooftop, she did actually show signs of being a bit flustered. Like she really kept on calling ‘Sally’ and even said really loudly “Why isn’t Sally answering my call?!!”
SOOOOOOOOO obviously I’m not that stupid la and started suspecting something already.
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Once we got to the rooftop, out from the bushes popped A BUNCH OF MY FRIENDS SINGING HAPPY BIRTHDAY O M G.
I WAS REALLY LIKE WTHOMGWHATISHAPPENINGWHOARETHESEPEOPLEWHATWHAT OMG MELISSA?!!! WHATISTHIS hahahaha.
I don’t exactly remember what I was saying, probably just a lot of omg omg omg and squeals. Like really, my friends from the different sections of my life eh!!!
Here is when it gets a little bit messy so I’m just gna type the thoughts that ran through my head when it happened:
- omgomgomg
- ST YOU DID THIS OMG YOU BEST FRIEND FOREVER
- i can’t believe i told melissa that ST wouldn’t ever do this.
- IS THAT ISAAC?! AND BRIAN?!
- Omg this Zhi’An damn good at keeping secrets
- AGNES CORRINE SAMUEL ZHIQI?!
- I can’t believe they did this for me
- FOR ME omg
- And Melissa helped SHE IS SO GOOD AT LYING
- Gosh but it’s Melissa’s birthday also omg WHY SHE SO NICE T.T
- It’s only my 20th birthday WHY THEY SO NICE TO ME
- I have the best friends ever
- DIDN’T HAZEL JUST HAVE HER EXAMS
- THIS.
- TEO.
- PUAY.
- JOO.
- MADE ME SAD FOR THE WHOLE DAY BUT NOW OMG.
- ST is my best friend. FOREVER.
- What did I do to deserve such awesome friends omg I DON’T DESERVE THEM.
… As you can tell it was a very dramatic moment for me.
EVEN SHERLYN CAME with her boyfriend whom I was very happy to meet and talk to for the first time in their what, 2 years together? I don’t even know. So tough to meet Sherlyn nowadays hahaha so glad she managed to come super grateful omg. And speaking of her boyfriend, I was really like omg they are SO COMPATIBLE. I’ve never met him before that day. After meeting him I could finally honestly say that I was happy for her. They’re so cute together gosh. If only her parents could see that meh.
I was talking to Isaac and Brian most I think. They were filling me in on all the gossip I missed from not meeting up w them LOL. OH BUT of all people.. they were the people I expected to see least because they really have little to no connection to my groups of friends. ST YOU CAN WORK MAGIC. So touched that all the three guys managed to come. So lucky also!! Happy to be able to catch up w them and I RESOLVED ONCE AGAIN TO TRY HARDER TO KEEP IN TOUCH W THEM LOL. Let’s see how long it lasts la. Oh Xun Yi came also, but he came immediately after he booked out (omg damn sweeet) so was a bit late. BUT IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS. :’) And the three of them gave me a craftaholic-like bunny. According to Brian, they didn’t intend to get me the bunny at first! They were tryna win a soft toy from a claw machine (I Googled the name. It’s those you put in money and try to grab a soft toy kinda thing) but realised that they were q bad at it. So instead of spending more on that, they decided to get me Stripey. Hahaha it’s rly q sweet of them 😀
I didn’t talk much to my uni friends (feels a bit weird grouping them like that haha). D: Felt quite bad about it oops. But they gave me this really really pretty pop-up card that Sam made and popcorn which is damn nice so yummy. Food gifts are of course good gifts.
So grateful to this group of friends really. Idk how I’d have survived a year in Uni w/o their support and study tips and all that 😀 I’ve said it like a million times but… I’m so glad I went for NM camp last year and got sorted into the blue group ❤ Oh and my new friends from exco aww THANKS ALSO FOR COMING. :D:D:D
Melissa had to leave rly soon tho because she was gna have dinner at Table Manners (what a name) w family. Omg thanks so so so much for helping and planning the surprise for me. LOVE YOU LOTS MELISSA.
AND MY MEI MEI HAHAHAHA. I BET YOU WERE THINKING (if you remembered to read la) WHY THIS JIEJIE NEVER TALK ABOUT ME HAHAHA. BEST SISTER AWARD GOES TO YOU. EVERY. YEAR. Every year I think my birthday gna be nothing much, somehow you’ve a role to play in making my birthday far more than I expected. IDK how you managed to keep such a huge secret from me, YOU MUST HAVE BEEN BURSTING HAHA. Thank you so much for being such a cool sis, I really enjoy listening to your stories. And now you’re sleeping so I must go wake you up.
And to Hazel, ST and PJ…
Thank you so so so freaking much for planning this for me. I don’t even know how to articulate how grateful I am to you for not only planning such a wonderful surprise for me but also for being some of the best friends a girl will ever have. Thanks for always being there for me, for being my pillars of support and security blanket. For always supporting me in whatever I do, even for laughing at my mistakes so that I can learn to laugh at them too. I don’t know what I’d do w/o y’all. And and I know Hazel and PJ y’all not close I bet my birthday was the first time y’all talked so much to each other HAHA.
I really omg /cries (which I did later in the day).
LUCKY
is the only word I can think of to describe myself. I must have like saved the planet or something in my past life.
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Uni friends and Sherlyn had to leave q soon. And before long mei and I had to leave to meet my family for dinner.
Which will come in part two teehee.
I know there were so many details that I missed out but really, HOW TO DETAIL EVERYTHING IN WORDS. The entire day was so incredibly spectacular.
Yup so I’m done for now. Part 2 will come… hopefully by the end of the coming week lol. SEE HOW.
CHIALALALA 