today was a very nice day-after-my-birthday. i kind of had this sweet aftertaste from yesterday, and life is just so much easier to live when you're happy. :) normally going down to the china square central area on saturdays, going there today was rather shocking at first. on saturdays that place is like a ghost town, hardly anyone around. but today, i felt rather self-conscious - a young t-shirt and capris clad girl amidst a sea of officewear-ed 20 and 30 somethings. it didn't help that i chose to go down at lunch time of all times. but anyway, the soothing jazz music at the huge open area outside china square central was still there. lovely. i spent the afternoon at o'briens irish sandwich bar, with a turkey & cranberry sandwich (which was extremely satisfying), iced irish cream coffee, and my book. happiness. plus the service was really good. imagine my initial embarrassment when the guy finished making my sandwich and we went to the counter and i didn't have enough cash to pay for my sandwich and drink! but he was really nice abt it, and gave me directions for the nearest atm. so, i finally finished my book. it was really..interesting. in a different way. not the stuff that i usually read. very..(can't find the word).

i think i've changed quite alot. i used to dread the very thought of having to be alone. i would NEVER go into a shop/eating place/whatever if i didn't have someone with me. i would either try to find friends to accompany me, or else just not go at all. but these days, i actually want to spend time alone, deliberately turning down offers of company. i'm quite amazed with myself. i don't really understand why though. but i wouldn't say it's a bad thing at all. while at o'brien's i overheard some working pple talking, i think it was an investment banker type person meeting some clients. and i realised that i wanted a taste of this kinda lifestyle. so, lost in my thoughts as i wandered through the central banking district of singapore, i decided that i wouldn't mind giving up days of sleep for an internship at goldman sachs.

tonight, ying and joycelin are coming over to the east for tong xiao mahjong at kerk's place. i'm really excited! it was such a last minute arrangement, i'm still quite surprised it was arranged with such ease. hehe. wheeeee gonna be a funfunfun night! =]

***

so back to my birthday.
after seeker service, berwyn came to wish me happy birthday, which was such a sweet surprise. that's probably the first thing he's said to me. in fact, i'm quite sure it is. i really hope to see him coming for cell grp more regularly now. we were all in the social hall for the free buffet lunch and my cell grp, a b i d e ., was gonna surprise me by coming in with a cake and singing the birthday song in front of everyone. except that they didn't realise i had left the social hall, and when i saw them crowding ard the kitchen, i went and tried to find out what was going on. hahahaha. that was quite funny. sam tried to block me from looking in, except that he's tall, not fat. so i could still more or less see what was going on. i went back to the social hall anyway, and pretended to be surprised when they came in with the cake. hehe. it was so exciting! then they present me with my present...A CRUMPLER BAG!!!!!!!!!! i was beside myself with happiness and just screamed and grinned. in the first place, i wasn't even expecting a cake. let alone a present!!! and such an expensive one too!!!! and i had only mentioned wanting a crumpler bag, like, once or something. i was so happy, but felt really bad at the same time. i just didn't think they should've gotten me such an expensive present! thanks so much guys.. :)

i found out later that stef, albert, and barney had gone to great lengths to plan a surprise party for me, and to keep it from me. but cos i was such a lousy sport, and i had misunderstood their actions and got pissed with stef and albert last wk, i ruined everything by refusing to turn up for the party. sigh, i felt so awful when i found out. awful that all their efforts and preparation had been wasted, and that there i was feeling pissed and unloved when actually they had been planning a surprise for me! i guess it just never occurred to me that this might be happening.. cos all along i've always been the one planning surprises for other pple. no one's ever planned a surprise for me before.

so in the end, there were no plans. so they decided that they'd just do whatever i wanted to do. aww. haha. and guess what i chose to do? play CS!!! hahaha. haven't played in so long. so we went to katong to play. i had great great fun. hee =] later, we went to parkway to play pool too. rae-style pool. ;) big thanks to ezra, damien, jeremy, jon tang, albert, stef and barney for spending the day with me!! =] also, jon that darling boy called me all the way from the US of A while i was on my way to play CS to sing me a birthday song!!! so sweet! ahhh. thanks lots dear.

and to make my 19th birthday the most memorable and perfect day, joy took me out to dinner. that girl just got her driving licence last wk. and she drove down to parkway to pick me up for dinner!!!! haha. i was so silly-little-girl-excited about it. really felt like the princess of the day. in the end, due to my light-headedness and sudden inability to give proper directions, we took a whole HOUR to get back on the ecp. hahaha!!! too sian to find a way of getting to the intended dinner place, we ended up at indochine. it was so perfect. the place, the company, the food, everything. i couldn't stop smiling and smiling. i'm doing a great injustice to the whole thing cos i can't seem to describe it properly. here, surprise number 2 was pulled on me. joy said she needed to go to the restroom, and i believed her! so i pulled out my handphone to try to create space for smses (my inbox was flooded). at the end of our meal, i suddenly realised we had not ordered dessert. how could me and joy not have dessert! that was like the sun shining at night and the moon in the day. hahaha. so i said "hey just now the menu didn't have desserts..they don't serve desserts here?!" to which joy replied "errr there's a separate desserts menu.." haha yes i am a country bumpkin to fine dining, go ahead and laugh. but joy was very unenthusiastic about dessert, which i found really ODD. but i thought, oh well, doesn't really matter. then suddenly she smiles at something behind me. i turn around. a waitress/waiter (i couldn't tell which, HAHAHA) came towards us, with a square of chocolate fudge cake with a candle stuck in it, and the words "happy 19th birthday rae" fudged across the plate. i was speechless. :)

justin met us after dinner and acted as photographer while me and joy took some shots along the singapore river. heh. i forgot to mention that joy treated me to dinner! i thought that would be my present, but on top of that, she gave me a super sweet baby blue fila top! i love it lots! but the real present was the card.. joy and i are such card pple. haha. when i read what she wrote...i couldn't hold back the tears. i thought of quoting some of what she wrote here, but somehow it seems sacrilegious to do so, so i won't.

back home, pa had bought THREE deliciously yummy slices of cake from cedele! chocolate&pistachio, apricot, and blueberry cheesecake. mm mmmmmm.

presents: thanks to a b i d e . for the crumpler bag, stef and albert for..err...underwear, sam and peiyun for the home-made card and book (i can use the bookmark they gave me for christmas with that book! haha), cindy my dearest cousin for the puma bag, joy for the fila top and dinner treat... have i left anyone out?

and thanks to everyone who remembered and bothered to sms to wish me happy birthday and make my day special in one way or another: joel, dennis, vivien (who composed a poem just for me! =]), anthony, ying!!!, melissa (who always remembers), mich, darren, kerk, dalglish (my fellow birthday-er), desmond :), guofeng!!, cedric (sorry i always don't seem to be free on saturdays..but really do wanna meet up soon), t jian, li-ou (my fuzzball!!! =]), damien, christelle, zhu, timo, pakwing, cheng, jac (babe!!! coffee one day?), nathan, eikfeng (heyhey lemme know when you're free to catch up! =]), joy, albert, zachary (who called to sing me a song), kevin ws (who also always remembers), jon, kor (who didn't call from US, but did say some nice stuff to me over icq), jon tang, jon cheong, jon gan, weian!!! (all the way from down under), berwyn, andy, jeremy tang, jeremy gan :), amanda (who just came back from a cruise!), adrian, joyce, barney, gerald wu, elissa, stef (i'm so glad we cleared things up!), eunice (thanks dear, for being so sensitive), georgie... i haven't felt so loved in a long time, and as stef said.. "do u know that u are very blessed?.. 4 pple received Christ on ur bday... and u played a huge part in it.. one of them is ur cell member... ur cell celebrated ur bday for u and u got to go out with ur best friend too! wow! u are one blessed child of God!" amen!

so as i mentioned in the sneak preview, only thing missing was ogre. i miss ogre. i miss going home together; i miss smiles and knowing looks; i miss talking till sunrise; i miss talking at the top of the staircase, talking in the middle of the hill. sometimes when i'm taking the long walk in to my house, i think abt how i used to take that walk with ogre. ok this sounds...hmm. haha. ogre's a good friend who used to stay very near me and who'd always listen and who has a more caring heart that he'd like to admit. haha!

***

so that wraps up my super long entry. took me 2hrs to write this. goodness. *waves to balotaaaa* heyheyhey!! just in case you didn't read the reply to your comment...yeah i'm really free now cos i'm not working anymore so let's meet up! this wk or next.. contact me on icq and i'll give you my hp no. there. #: 127562675

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