And soo... This is what 23 feels like.. Pretty.Darn.Good. :D



I have always loved birthday celebrations because they are a wonderful way to make known to the birthday baby how much we treasure him/her. But my 23rd birthday celebrations made me realise tt i got it wrong. Of course i realised how much i am loved. But in actual fact, looking up from gleefully tearing off the birthday wrappers/ in the midst of everyone singing "Happy Birthday", i felt an overwhelming surge of love for my family and friends. Up to now, I'm struck speechless whenever i think of the thought, effort and sincerity they put into planning my birthday celebrations..

Jie Jie and Audrey kicked off the celebrations with a treasure hunt in which we found out tt my mind thinks very differently from theirs. for eg. the clue read as "I will direct you" and i immediately went to my confused mom and asked for the present. lol! hahaha! turns out the clue was referring to this super ex GPS they bought for me and placed in the car! I'm so conquering the world now! I love love love the wallet, bag, book (which i bought and then ask the staff to gift wrap for me) and most of all, the GPS! :D

Now, i was rather excited about the NUS gang celebration for the August babies. Because for every one of their birthdays, we have managed to put in a surprise factor in their celebrations. It all started with the very memorable incident of giving Alvinna a faux birthday present and watching her cover up any disappointed look. Well.. sometimes the surprise would fail because the birthday baby would cancel out at the last minute *looks pointedly at Claryce* but we succeeded more often than not..

Being 8 working adults + 1 unemployed bum (aka me), we don't really meet up often and hence Asilah and i knew that they would have to celebrate our birthdays during the one meet up in August. Hence, i was wondering how can they ever incorporate a surprise element. Which would lead to our smug confidence that we wouldnt be surprised at all. the feeling was more of a "BRING IT ON!"

Alvinna tried to pretned tt she could not make it for the whole celebration by saying that she had a Teachers' Day dinner then. i was smugly thinking "is this all she can come up with? HA!" I tried catching her out by asking her many questions and even wondering out loud whether we should postpone the dinner which made her go into a tizzy! hahahha! That was fun! And when Jiahui and Sherlin said tt they had to work late, i was happily and graciously accepting their excuses as i thought tt they were all tryingh to deceive me/ needed more time to prepare my present! (Turns out tt while Jiahui was trying to lie, Sherlin really had work to do before joining us!)

Met up with Hidayah, Jing Xian, Sherlin, Asilah first to eat at the Turkish restaurant before proceeding to minds cafe where the others would join us. Throughout the whole time, whenever Sherlin or Hidayah had to talk on the phone, Asilah and i would ask them whether the rest would pop up with the cake then! lol! We then proceeded to freak them out by detailing what we wanted on our cupcakes ("A tiara... perhaps a wand..." LOL! From the Turkish restaurant to Minds cafe, we were asking "is the cake coming now?" or wondering what the surprise element was. But when plans changed with Sherlin running out to make more calls at minds cafe and then dragging us out.. we started asking "is the cake coming out now?" everytime we stopped!

At Raffles city, they asked us to go the loos but we refused and then for a few minutes we stood there "admiring the view" together. lol! Excited by this development, we started keeping a look out for the rest to appear with the cake! At one point, we all cracked up when i suggested that the cake was gonna float down with helium balloons. Sherlin's incredulous expression was to die for! hahahahaha!

So, on the way, Sherlin kept on asking us whether we had a cardigan which made us suspicious ("is she gonna do a magic trick? like hold it up and TA DA! the cake appears??").. Finally at Orchard Mrt station, we stopped and.... sherlin revealed why she needed the cardigan. they were gonna blindfold us! on a busy friday night! at orchard road!! *cue horror music*

After lots of "omigawd! nooooo!"s, we were too weak from laughin so hard and had to surrender peacefully to them.. *thoughtful pause* have you ever tried walkin blindfolded.. in heels?? It beats any camp games. Along the way, i had Hidayah and Jing Xian guiding me while Sherlin guided Asilah. Hidayah kept up a running commentary (HAHAHAHA! this lady just did a double-take when she saw asilah!) while JIng Xian was the trustworthy guide when Hidayah answered her calls.

We walked all the way to ORCHARD TOWERS! tt's one whole stretch of road! we even had to jaywalk across! We whipped off our blindfolds to be greeted by the lovely sight of Alvinna and Jiahui grinning in anticipation! I knew they were bluffing! LOL! Anyhoos.. to cut the long story short, we celebrated at the 3 Monkeys Cafe. where the surprise element was ... to participate in the Kumar Show!

Yes. My heart stopped when i realised that. Yes. My face turned white when i heard that. Yes. I wanted to sink to the floor when Asilah squealed that! And Alvinna turned on her innocent expression and insisted tt it wasn't so! Even under the threat that they would have to go on the reverse bungee jump blindfolded if it was so! (OOOOoooh just you girls wait!)

Anyways it was there where my friends discovered our brillant talents at dancing. What can i say? August Babies just rock. :D It would have been better if the guy was actually cute though! lol!

The cake came out when we least expected it and they gave us so many presents. Through these presents, i discovered the image that i have been projected to my friends.

1. My boobs are equivalent to maternity boobs and i have a huge ass.

HAHAHHAA! and on the bra and the biggest darn undies i have ever seen, they actually wrote stuff all over it. This is what i call a personalised touch!

Anyways, i love the clarins spray and clutch! They wrapped the clutch up in 23 layers and with each layer came a post it note to tell me why they love me. altogether now.. AWWWWWW! It makes me teary just thinking about it!

Turns out that Jiahui and Claryce (QSes who are really really really busy) had to wrap it during their lunch hour. AWWWWW! I'm really touched!

All in all, it was a great birthday celebration and i loved every minute of it! Thank you so much for everything.. can you feel the overwhelming love pouring out of this blog entry??

And i have to come to the end of this post because i am showing emotion and i am chinese. we are stoic people who will not show emotion. but even so.. I LOVE YOU GIRLS!!

So a HUGE THANK YOU to

Jie Jie & Audrey for planning the birthday treasure hunt

Jie Jie & Dan for the awesome present of GPS, wallet and bag i love them!

Audrey for Stone Monkey hahaha!

Hidayah and Alvinna for buying the presents

Jiahui and Claryce for wrapping the presents and coming up with the 23 things we love abt adel during their lunch hour! I get all choked up when i think of how you two managed to squeeze time out of your very very very busy schedule to sacrifice your lunch hour for me! And i'm so very sorry for Claryce's paper cut! They bled for me! How much more can you ask for?? :D

Alvinna for managing to surpass the "surprise" quotient!

Sherlin for planning the whole thing.. down to the blindfold detail (yes i know it was you!). She looked so worried at first!

Jing Xian, Hidayah and Sherlin for patiently enduring our endless teasing (is the cake gonna come out here??) and leading us on a tour ard city hall for an hour!

Jing Xian for not leaving me alone when i was blindfolded!

Hidayah and Jing Xian for accomplishin the task of leading me to jaywalk while i was blindfolded!

Claryce, Huili, Sherlin, Alvinna, Hidayah, Jiahui & Jing Xian for taking time out to meet up, plan and celebrate our birthdays! :D

everyone who played a part in making me deliriously happy with all the birthday smses! :D