Holy columns of crabsticks!
To me, birthday is like a normal day, you will still have to get through it with or without celebration. If you live your life to the fullest everyday, there is basically not much difference. I can only say that I am living my life quite fully at this stage of my youthful years. Though I am lazy at times, so, this explains why I am not really living life to the fullest every single day. I should though.
Celebration with no surprise element
You would expect to know what exactly is going to happen, and you are sure that is it going to be a feast, it's going to be fun and it is something that you like, you definitely like it. I had a special dinner with my family on the 6th. There was a long queue even for people who have booked a table. The dishes were like those from a Chinese style wedding dinner. Cold dish, Shark's fin, (thai-styled fried) fish, chicken (herbal stew with mushroom), (oatmeal) prawns, sea-cucumber, San Lao He Fen (literally 3 toss hor fun; 3 items are fish slices sprouts and the hor fun), and dessert (canned longan, lychee, rambutan). Like I've said, it was a feast, we did not eat the San Lao He Fen there and we asked the staff to pack it up as we predicted that there was too much food on the table. The last dish before the dessert was the famous herbal + wine steamboat. It is the shop's recommended item. The taste was not bad, as you can really taste the herbs and also the Chinese wine, it tasted even better with all the ingredients added into it.
Celebration with family members is simple, without mess and fast. They get down to do the 'job' and leaves as soon as the 'job' is done. Not an extravaganza, just straight to the point. It was a very cosy experience. They will not go to the expense to make things extra extra special, but they make it a point to make it important. And you know it.
Basically there was nothing much to write about because all was openly said and done.
Celebration with surprise element
There is another method of celebrating birthdays, and I got this one too this year. In a surprise celebration, people around you would start to act weird, they would not behave not like they are usual. They get uneasy around you, and you do not know what they are up to until that thing happen. Hao Jie acted weird, he is very insistent, unlike the usual guy that everybody knows. We all know that he is very easy-going and would often go with the suggested opinion. But not this time, he insist that I go to Vivo city to meet with Jason and maybe have dinner with him. Not very him. I said that I felt uneasy spending the time to celebrate the occasion with someone I do not really know. I would rather spend the time with someone I really know if that someone really want to celebrate the birthday for me. Otherwise it is fine that I stay at home and spend time with my family. Next, it was strange that Min Hui did not send a second message to ask more questions after telling her (on sms text) that I am not free on Wednesday when she texted me on Tuesday. The usual her would ask when would be a better day, then what time could I make it, what I was doing that I could not come out on Wednesday etc. These are the questions I hypothesized that she would come up with. None, none of that, so I knew that something was amiss. The next next was this: none of those present at the surprise treat sent me sms birthday messages or called me to wished me. Forgotten? Too busy? Sinply do not care? Okay, I accept these reasons. Haha. On sunday, at church, so many of them disappear after Bible study, which is out of the usual practise, as they would hang around church until at least 4 pm before leaving.
I have observed some of these phenomenon (1, 2) when that happened and realised that there is something cooking. I only realised (3, 4) after the thing had happened.
What happened was, they got me to go to Vivocity and gave me a treat at Terra Cafe. Hao Jie and Min Hui are responsible to get me there and keep me under the blanket all these while to let me not make silly suggestions and make them deviate from their original plan. I have suggested to go crystal jade and Esther's reaction was (i should say) normal, as she is usually the one who rejects impromptu ideas of going somewhere else for diner. Nice one, just the right person for the right show. The rest of them just gets to the place earlier to snatch up the table and await our arrival.
3 more events that raised my suspicion was how nervously Min Hui appeared in church on Sunday. Here's the 3. When I enter mission room and she was hiding behind the stairway door preparing something (which i say and happened to be a notice board meant to be my birthday gift). Jia Hui was there too. She then pushed the both of us out of the stairway door and locked herself inside there. Next was that she tried to ordered me not to walk around in church. Lastly, the most unnatural one and the funniest one is this. I approached Pastor Ruth for help in the BS topic, she was also there, apparently asking Pastor Ruth to write something. Then she went panicky and reached for any Bible that was on the table and started flipping to a random page. I did what I wanted to do so I asked Pastor Ruth about the topic. Then out of the corner of my eye, although I was concentrating on what Pastor Ruth was telling me, I can make out that Min Hui is very uneasy as she wandered about the room and flipping random pages on the Bible and try to do nothing.
Min Hui was there, Sherman was there, Constance was there, Qin Yi was there, Jian Wen was there, Daryl was there, I was there, Hao Jie was there, Esther was there. Addison came the latest, he had choir practice. Maybe you all did not took part in the underground project, but you all took part in the fun, that was great.
Although I sort of guessed that something was happening, it was still fun. I am happy that I can bring excitement and laughter to my friends around me even though the surprise was not a very shocking one as I kept them on their toes. Are you all happy? I is not the success of the surprising element that make a good celebration. I am happy that I can bring them good memories, laughing times together.
