Coming of Age

8 August was a birthday blast! In the morning was our school's National Celebration, and in the evening my friends came over to my place for my 18th birthday bbq!

This is a really long post, so I'll start right from the top. More photos and fun below the cut! hehe

National Day Celebration
As usual I was homesick for the singing of community songs and the traditional party train and Cedar NDC mosh-pit. We spent the first half of the morning drawing and writing wishes on balloons:

But after a while we got bored so everyone went out and ran around

Love this photo!!

Who came up with this strange idea to take a photo with our principal and operations manager on the road ah??

i love u alrissa and charis

We went back inside for the mass photo and they were playing the community songs heh.

valerie the cutie

I released two frickin balloons man both of them weren't mine what a piece of shit

Later, we walked down to Marina Parade for the second part of our celebration: distribution of goodie bags! Along the way Ashley and Hubert and I randomly burst into song, rock and punk songs mind you. We went about annoying Vincent even though he tried hard to escape. He even pleaded with me to "control ash leh" lmao sorry vince

Too bad I can't upload videos easily (they take forever only to fail in upload), but we spent some time hanging around at the void deck sucking helium hehehe. We all ate a lil bit but the funniest was Ashley because of her already high voice ٩(●˙▿˙●)۶…⋆ฺ

Stupid bbobbstar thanks for our shared bus rides and impromptu dessert talks ya

Look at that top right picture omg whose arm is that???! 

And me with the two most annoying banes of my existence @ right bottom

After that we went for lunch at mos and then hung around parkway hehe. We hadn't gone for lunch in a large group for a real long time, so that was swell!! Glad I joined the class instead even if it meant weaseling out from my party prep responsibilities. Besides, Yaoch who said he was gonna follow me home to help wasn't even eating by the time we left parkway, so I just went home first because THAT NIGHT WAS PARTAY NIGHT!! and I felt real bad

Shu's 18th Birthday BBQ Bash @ MBS with alC0HoL!!1!!!

This is me drunk at MBS. Love this picture because you kinda see me dying inside but I'm like still happy on the outside. And I also look really squishable. And also it's not MBS it's just the bbq pit @ my house.

Chin and I haha we actually look really alike here

The bbq was to celebrate our birthdays and also kinda like a treat for mom's committee members, but I was really shocked when she first brought it up. I remember asking her "ma how many people can I invite??" And she said I could bring as many as I wanted. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity and invited a grand total of uh 37 people. Amazing huh! I actually have that many friends!

Yufeng and Julian came early and they were hanging as I was changing and getting ready and dolling up ya. Then Julian and John so so so very kindly picked up the cake together even though they both didn't know each other. Yes Yufeng and I left them to pick up the cake while went to fetch the girls (and the boys).

Early birds from when it was still day!! A12 ♥

Thanks for putting up with my shit on a regular basis ♥

Pei Ling dropped by much earlier than the rest but by the time she arrived the prep was done! 

Princess Zeqi got all the boys riled up. 

Zeqi fills in this important sibling role of being the whack-head dirty minded bro with which I can go filthy-mouthed with without batting an eyelid, and amazingly the gorgeous princess I can talk honestly to about emotional and spiritual things sigh bless u child. 

Goodness it was so annoying because in the days leading up to the bbq, Vince and John kept pestering me about the chio buses that were gonna be there. PLEASE do you really need anybody else when you have me???? They were even gossiping about "black or white" because yufeng was in black and zeqi was in white PLEASE pLEASE bubble gum bitch shu yu in pink and blue here?? no??????
okay

Welp, I couldn't blame the boys I guess, not with all of the cedar cuties that came down! Super important Cedar friends that made studying for Os so much easier and fun with library times, and ELDDS people that inspired me beyond belief with their passion and confidence wowow.

Audrey surprised me after she told me that she wasn't gonna make it. I'm so glad she did come for a while because would have been such a big part missing! 

Super glad Julian had pestered me about my performances (since last year in fact wth) because he's come back as a kinda sorta important presence. Some of the best laughs I've had this year were with Yufeng and him. Can't believe we've known each other for so long, nine years going on ten! He's always been some comforting figure I guess, taking all my bullshit and horrible attitude and even matching my nonsense sometimes, and even though we did lose contact for a few years, I'm glad he's back now :")

As for Yufeng, even though we didn't talk to each other in primary school and that was like 3 years slower friendship development than with Julian, I think we made up for it with all the time we spent together in Cedar. We've come really far since then; all the drama, all the times at Bloomsbury, the tau huay dates, our runs and river-side talks have made me treasure her so much more than I ever thought I would have in bps. I think I say these things forever that she's heard it till her ears are gonna rot off but who absofrickinglutely would have thought that for somebody I thought I could never connect with, she has been such an important part?? NO ONE

It's been a super friendship with the both of them, pretty much constants in my life from a very early, important stage. There was even a big saga that had unraveled in 2009 because of my goody-two-shuness, but I recently learnt that they don't blame lil' ol' me for it even though I had been blaming myself for the past five? Six years? The point is that what you think may happen may never really be. And sometimes the stars line up fine to bless me with the long-time affinity that the three of us share. What a beautiful friendship!!! As beautiful as bob. 

A♥1♥2

Like I said, bunch of sweeties that keep my head in the game but also drive me up the wall, or at the start of last year, inward. goddamn duality of things and stupid cute people

Two super level-headed, self assured and genuine classmates

The boys that I hardly interacted with last year: Vincent's a real doll though, with more than just his boyish charms, but his super hardy attitude and determination even though times may be hard. And Brenana whom I absolutely cannot stand when he's talking about bloody men's rights but tells us the most incredible salt-filled tales.

Tommy who is a nice boy but has a lot to learn about being less offensive. And Hub who is a nice boy through and through, with whom I can verbally vomit all of my existential worries and bad puns and blasphemous remarks (you're still a piece of shit btw)

The two people with whom I laugh and cry, at whom I yell and hit and threaten to not talk to, but will suddenly try to hold my hand and in sickeningly syrupy voices, tell me I am pretty or repeatedly call me by a pet name until my own lips betray me and I crack into a smile and they get away with it. (╯︵╰;) 

I'm working on being more angry and getting them to take me more seriously ):-(

Pei Ling and Jolyn, two very strong girls that give their best in TSD and as a friend :")

Soon after, the second batch of Cedarians came down yay!!! 

Sarah and Sharifah came after jalan raya aw and they were so dolled up!!

Okay my cedarian pals are awesome sauce gorgeous, but when I found these photos in my phone I just couldn't stop laughing! oh my they make me so happy

Like I said, they took my phone and definitely had their way with it HAHA

And yES! It's Mavis the Princess whom I haven't seen in a loOOOoOng time!

A couple of my favourite moments of the night were the very uniquely Cedar things we did, like suddenly forming a train and running around, for a little while only, but still of great significance :"). The one that took the literal cake was a loud and fast cedar style birthday song the girls sang for me after the regular one eheheh. So immensely proud of the spirit of togetherness :")))

Strangely enough, all the cedarians that stayed till the end were the 4N girls!! 

4N + ELDDS girls and then Anisa and Valerie ♥♥

So happy to see them all, especially those I don't see in VJ or haven't seen in a while, like Zhen Hui, Mavis, Zeqi, Anisa and Yi Chen. ( ˘ ³˘)❤ Even though I didn't get to spend a lot of time with them because I had been careening between various groups of people, I was glad that there were so many of them anyway that it seemed like a Cedar gathering. The strongest, hardiest girls I have ever met! My dearest friends who have made me who I am today, taught me so much about the world, about loving, about dreams and about friendship. I've learnt from these girls how to hold my own, and to not give a hoot what other people think (most of the time, when I want to). So much girl power, so much love!! There is literally nothing better than seeing happy Cedarians back together again, oh my god I love them so much (✿ ♥‿♥)

Raithoros pals!! They stayed right till the end, playing cards and guzzling juice. I think things got a little bit tipsy at the end when I got a bit high on eating and feeding chocolate cake and people were getting a little bit sugar-high from the apple cranberry juice and there were weird things were said and done HAHA. As close as I can get to alcohol high?? I guess!

Soon, everyone was gone except for Julian and Yufeng, who stayed past midnight. Thankful to them for being such rebels and helping me season chicken wings the previous night. We ended up chatting outside until they watched me close to dozing off. Then I remembered I had a hugeeee yield of presents from my friends!!!

Received lots of cards! I LOVE CARDS

Dearest Debs painted this omg! 

ELDDS and Val shared gifts and they handed it to me and told me they wanted to see my reaction. So when I flipped open their card and saw Sméagol I literally YELPED because it was so life-like! Damned art students. Their present was a huge box of Daim candy and a frICKIN MIRKWOOD LEGO SET (see next picture)!!!! They used a pen and changed the names of the characters to their names HAHAHA

Mirkwood Elf Army set, 4D dinosaur puzzle from Sarah and Sharifah and a huge plush duckie from raithoros!! Apparently JJ suggested on the group to buy a huge duck and Brian read it as "let's buy her a huge dick". I'm glad they chose the cuter and more family friendly option.

YOoOOoo Stationery from A12 frans and Pei Ling. The latter gave me the 12 pen set and wrote me a card that said "you don't have to look at your sister's pens in envy anymore". She was inspired by a conversation the TSD girls had about our cheapskate stationery behaviour :"))

Jammu and Jolyn bought me a collection of poems! (sorry the focus isn't on the words)

sTICKERS!!! STICKERS I can use in my cards to other people for their birthday now yeaH! (I did use the cake stickers for Ms Sharon's birthday card!)

Audrey and Fifi got me a  turquoise tote of people swimming (bc "it's as quirky as you are") and Mavis got me a bottle of perfume??? I've never owned perfume before!! I'm growing up!!!

My friends know me very well indeed --  chocolates, teas and biscuits and Marks and Spencer treats! also missing would be Vincent's cookies because I ate them before I could take a photo.

Hub got me Restoring Force???!/?! omg

On 19/8, my birthday itself, Lidiya gave me PIZZA after school OMG!!! She even drew a lil legolas and gandalf and wrote a message in elvish: "Good afternoon, lovely one! May the leaves of your life tree never turn brown. Enjoy yourself!"

What's better than pizza is pizza given by friends, and what's best is to share the pizza with more friends! So I called Julian and Yufeng over to share in the delish treat! Then we went down to ntuc for feng to do some shopping, and I tried to find some loom band set for my lil sis for her birthday.

Side-track to something I found out two days ago on 22/8. My lil sis apparently heard that I wanted to get a small stapler, so she secretly went out of school to look for the right kind that I wanted so that she could give it to me for my birthday. Unfortunately, not only did she not find the stapler, she also lost her wallet! When my mum and second sis found out, she was yelled at and didn't have a chance to explain herself. She only managed to tell her side of the story when my oldest sister coaxed it out of her, and she told the latter not to scold me because it was not my fault. 

It was totally my fault lah.

My oldest sis gave me twenty dollars Times voucher and told me to buy something small for the small one and to spend the rest on myself. But being aware that I had been living on shit sister street, I got her a book about a girl saving her community (the rest were about girl hate and bad ex-es and all that jazz) and two pens with the money. I also wrote a letter and I had never ever EVER done so before because ew family affection??? What's that??? Hopefully I've sort of redeemed myself now lmao

--

ANYWAY going back to 19/8, after Julian and Yufeng and I parted ways in the evening, I got a text from Yufeng because I had forgotten to pass her my notes. When I went downstairs to meet her, she was with Julian!?!?!? I was thinking what is this crazy shit are you guys dating or what???/??// i thought we all went to our respective homes why did yall hang out until 11pm is there sOMETHING YOURE NOT TELLING ME.

Yeh, there was. They didn't tell me they were already at her house when I called them for pizza. And of course they didn't tell me that they went back to her house at 7pm after we parted to bake me white chocolate lava cake, and assemble a box of gifts for me. 

So I stood there, half asleep and in my pajamas, only expecting to see Yufeng, when Julian also shows up, and hands me a container with three white chocolate lava cakes in it and says "eat it". Wtf. So as it turned out, we each had a cake, failed lava cakes, as they were but delicious anyway because of the way in which I received them, delivered by my two of my best buds. I also got two boxes of gifts again!

Yufeng wrote me a card so full of puns and the box was filled with corresponding gifts (e.g. "you still have thyme", and there was a bottle of thyme in there). There were boxes of cereal, mints, stickers, cards, 8 badges and even a pair of plastic spectacles because I'm spec-tacular HAHAh

There was even a bag of air inside??? Because I "have flair"

 I could use it to fill the void in my heart. And also, meet Bob.

The funny thing was that when I met them that evening, they were trying so hard not to give anything away! Julian said he had to be careful to say "I" not "we", when discussing something strangely close to their secret haha. I also mentioned I wanted succulents while shopping at ntuc and Yufeng bought a box of Eclipse mints (because I'm "worth a mint") and the thyme right in front of my eyes but I didn't even realise anything!!

Well, I've come to the end now, no more presents to show. But of course, my birthday experience had way more than just presents and gifts. It wasn't about the most well thought-out gift, or the most expensive or the biggest, but the fact that my friends bought me stuff that was relevant to how they see me, or what my passions are (eating is a passion) so that I could pass on the acts of kindness and happiness that they had shown me through the making of more cards, and the sharing of more food and tea. Beyond all of the material gains, the greatest gift was honestly seeing my friends have fun, as cliché and mightily selfless as it may sound. It was like seeing the different phases of my life come together, primary school, secondary school, jc, cedar drama, tsd, og. Granted, I really really love the tangible returns to having a birthday, but more than anything, I got to celebrate it with people that have made my growing up so much fun, without whom I may not have turned out the way I am. 

Happy Birthday Me, 

May the leaves of your life tree never turn brown. Valina.