Chinese 'Oink' New Year

I'm listening to Vienna Teng, courtesy of Sam. Life has been playing tricks on me for the last few days. CNY used to be a time of joy and unfiltered fun, of family and food and sugar-filled hazes. But this year i feel cheated. No school, no lab going sessions, no homework piles bordering on the edge of mania. No scary competition-chasing teachers breathing down my back. No suffering. Equals:

No breath of fresh air during CNY.

There was a bird. She flew and flew to find a nest. Expecting an egg any day now. A flap of wings, a flurry of grey. Perched on a window sill. Partially sheltered from the rain. A critical scan with a beady eye. She flew off.

1

The first day of CNY i spend with the family. There was a dinner the night before - it was raining and the wind was frightening. But the food was great - smoked duck, prawns covered in cream. Back to the first day. Ahh - it was very enjoyable, being with people who understood most of the facets of your being. I was slightly dazed with all the eating, and managed to go shutter happy everywhere, before settling down to play an uninspiring game of Megaman X. At night it was off to somebody's house - friends of my grandparents and my parents, and it was for a different generation entirely. The old men and women congregated teased, laughed and actually did tricks on one another, mostly concerning them and their spouses. Amazing.

The nest was built of twigs and straw and dried weeds. It looked absolutely pathetic. Heaven, home, in the bird's eyes. She settled down and laid an egg. Two. Pearly white and spotted brown. She place her bottom and stayed. The wait had begun.

2

The second day of CNY was ... muted at first. So many old people i can't keep track of the hello aunty/uncles that i had to spew every few seconds. Food at another uncle's house ... whom i can't remember. BUT at around 1:30 Garrick and Danny came, and things seemed a little brighter. Talked to them, quizzed Danny about his butt ugly hairstyle and NS, and then since we were so damn early played a few rounds of NFSMW. I think Garrick managed to break a total of 10 roadblocks in a chase lasting 7 minutes, before he 'shift breakered' (his words) his way through a spike strip.

Brilliant.

At roughly 3 we moved off to Paul's house, Garrick timing his drive (to Danny and my horror, of course) - and we proceeded to deplete the Lim family's store of chicken wings. And before we knew it it was 4 o'clock, we set off to Samantha's house for another UGS cny gathering (it's apparently tradition). Due to a very dicky sms to guide us, a confidently fast moving driver and a conversation about Utopia at the back, we ended up on the way to Normah. Conversation between me, Sam, Aldrin and Raymond:

Me: Garrick is bringing us to Normah
Sam: What! Okaaay. Urm, do you know stapok badminton court? Or 100% discount store? *mutters in background: they're at @#% Normah!*
Aldrin (comes on phone): Wow. Where are you now?
Me: We're on the way to Normah.
Aldrin: Man! You're on the wrong side of Kuching!
Me: What? Okay, directions, directions.
Raymond (comes on phone): Ha mik ah? Aiyorr! Normah! Okay, do you know where-
Me: Tell you what we go to Jalan Kereta Api and i'll call you from there, kay? Then you give us directions.

When we finally arrived (no thanks to me spotting Chung Hwa No.6, but entirely forgetting the area), we were met with Sam, Sam's mum, Shuzzle, and Nickki wrapped around Shuzzle.

Sheryl was somewhere at the back.

We moved to the den, talking about the impossibilty of locating houses based on dicky SMSes. Sam opened the den. I stepped in, and -

-was met by an assault on the senses with Viv, Erna, Alicia, Sharon, Nickki, an indian girl whose name i didn't catch and a little dude named Ryan running, shouting, laughing, camwhoring, playing tekken 5, pillow fighting, moving about, drinking and generally making a total ruckus the intensity of which was something even Cirque du Soliel would have trouble emulating.

Joshua needed my instructions to find Sam's house. Apparently the sms i forwarded to him was dicky, too.

Then Kenny came. The rest was a slight blur, the highlights of which was 'How Many Sheep' - an annoying game introduced by Nickki, a major pillow fight between me and her, with kicks, pinches and hair messing, a game of Mafia in which there was no Mafia, and then no Medic. Then a game of Choi Tua Ti (no idea how to spell this), followed by dancing on the PS1. For which Garrick duly provided mats.

Sheryl poked me from behind and asked if i wrestled with her last year.

I did not. Tay was the one whom she accused of 'biting her tongue'.

I told her that Paul was Paul. She asked me who i was. For kicks, i said Paula Abdul.

She and Nickki ganged up on me with pillows for the next 30 minutes or so.

Dang.

We left after 7, for which i must apologize to Sam. Overstayed. There was fireworks, a very amusing display of Father Daughter bonding, and magic ("Can you conjure a handphone for me?"). Paul apparently bamboozled the sense out of Sheryl. Poor Sam.

The eggs had hatched. Featherless and bald, naked to the wind. Hungry, ever so hungry. Necks stretching for food. And then feathers growing like grey down. Beady eyes opened, just like their mothers'.

3

This was marathon day. I woke up at 7, went to Uncle Voon's house, and promptly collapsed on the couch. Paul, Daniel and i were the first, and soon the others arrived.

• Max and Jason
• Jason John
• Daphne and friend
  
• John Chok
• Elaine, and a girl called Francoise (this Max had problems pronouncing - Daniel was suggesting 'Franchise' until i muttered 'Fwansua', still half asleep)
• Ashley
• Three girls whose names i can't seem to remember - older youth, probably one of them Daphne's sister
• Lavine
• John Mark
• Daphne
  
• Bernard
• Godric
• Julian
• Joanna
  
• Darryl
  
• and of course Vyner and Kevin, who were Uncle Voon's sons

Later on several more youth joined in:

• Godwinna
• Ian, Sean and Maryann
• Eddie
• a Josephian named John (from aunt Jennifer's house)
  
• Genevieve
• Aileen (lodgian, surprised to see her there)
• Goldon
  

We set off in a convoy of about 7 cars (count em!) and we visited about 14 houses (17 was planned, but with unrealistic times). Lemme count 'em ...

• Uncle Voon's house
• Father John Sim's house
• Uncle Chris's house
• Uncle Ivor's house
• Deaconess Elanor's house
• Ian, Sean and Maryann's house
• Julian's house
• Aunty Jennifer's house (saw Erna looking bored)
• Uncle Dennis Wee's house
• Eric's house
• Uncle Jeffrey's house
• Bernard's house
• Elaine's house
  
• Ashley's house

At the end i was seriously at threat of diabetes. Sprite coke root beer shandy pepsi orange juice. *shudders* I could possibly give a narration of every single freaking house, only my fingers would probably drop off at all the typing. Add that to the fact that i still have a few more sidebar elements to tweak in Wordpress (code code code!), i'd think i'd just stick to highlights.

1. For some elaborate reason probably tied to a painted pinky and Maryann's handbag, i was called gay innumerable times. I was very ... annoyed, for want of an understatement. It was fun for awhile, but after that it became tiresome, seeing as i have never doubted my sexual preferences in my entire life. *glowers at Francoise, especially*

2. Father John Sim gave a very relevant message during our visit to his house. He told us about one of the current problems of the Malaysian church, that our Government actually has every right to shut down religious organizations operating out of a commercial area, since those organizations are not built on predetermined land. Plus he pointed out a lot of happenings in the Western world (secular policies, probably?) such as occurences of young people boldly challenging the Clergy in church to prove that God exists.

3. There was prayers at every house we visited, for the family, and for safe jouney to the next destination. I prayed at Deaconess Eleanor Goh's house, and i was nervous for the most part - what to pray for what to say what if i freeze up and pause and make mistakes and forgot that this is about God and not public speaking and -

But i did it. And i realized then how many generations of youth both Aunty Eleanor and Aunty Mag have seen grown up, moved off, marry and/or never come back.

Aunty Mag was crying as she said goodbye. We were, afterall, another generation of youth, another generation to be leaders, another generation that can so easily be led astray.

The nest was empty. Off to the skies, blue arms welcoming them, they were free. Little birdies were no more.

Valentines

This MSN conversation just happened a few minutes ago. It's ... interesting, if you'd see for yourself.

Fren says:
Any admirer?

Dienasty says:
haha
i wish
but i wouldn't know

Fren says:
Haha
Who knows? You might got
You're better looking than me
N i could get dates

Dienasty says:
lol
i don't think so
for one

Fren says:
You can do better

Dienasty says:
i'm in an all boys school
that means i have significantly less experience than you
plus limited contact with the opposite sex

Fren says:
Look for girls in an all girls skool then
Dude, you're gonna be 18

Dienasty says:
lol

Fren says:
Go clubbing

Dienasty says:
i've no problems talking and mixing around with girls

Fren says:
Pick up girls there

Dienasty says:
hah
no a club kind of guy

Fren says:
You're in kuching for goodness sake

Dienasty says:
the problem is i never take a relationship further than frenship
don't dare

Fren says:
Shy guy
Haven even got your first kiss eh?

Dienasty says:
nope
heh

Fren says:
I got mine, my first kiss is frenching

Dienasty says:
nice
but then again you're in a co-ed school, right?

Fren says:
Ya
But my gf is in another skool
But broke up already last yr

Dienasty says:
hrmm
who do ppl from diff schools meet i wonder
limited contact = hard to keep up the relationship

Fren says:
Haha..
Its easy really

Dienasty says:
right
handphones?

Fren says:
Ya
Or
Mit up everYDAY after skool

Dienasty says:
how?
unless your schools are nearby
hoi
gfs take up too much of your time

Fren says:
You got car license dude

Dienasty says:
not yet
still learning

Fren says:
Ah.. Ok

Dienasty says:
and i'm talking about you - how did you meet up everyday?
that's super hard
right?

Fren says:
My skool is near....

Dienasty says:
hmm
yeah
well so is st thomas's and st mary's

Fren says:
N there's a flat near there where i make out

Dienasty:
Okaaay

Conversations like this sometimes really make me hate Valentines day. Very, very freaky. For the rest of you not marred by weird convos, Happy Valentines Day, and remember your family as well while you're in that ... flat ... somewhere ...

Kisses and huggies and prezzies abound. Chocolate lovers rejoice, i can't wait for Easter.

Kenny's Birthday Party

All right. I'll admit it. I've been neglecting my personal blog.

A few things have happened over the last few days. Kenny's Birthday was a great UGS meet, i discovered the existence of a programming language called XAML with Tze Lun (some people have been touting it as the replacement to HTML), i finished Halo, AND i"m finally making some headway with my Wordpress theme.

But, as the title of this post suggests, this is about the Fr3ech man himself - Kenny Voon Yung Shen. Let's get down to it.

We've been organizing this one for the good part of two weeks, but by some stupid lack of foresight on my end most of the organization fell on poor Wen Qi's shoulders ... (coughcough i was working on wordpress, okay? ) Anyway, she deserves full credit for being the matriarch and the organizer of what can be called the First Gathering Kenny Enjoyed. No kidding.

The plan was like this: supporting cast enters stage left at 11.00. Female cast members enter at 11:45. Main character walks into coffee bean and supporting cast yell "Happy Birthday Kenny!", taking him by surprise and making him smile with obvious delight at the ingenuity and loyalty of his friends. Spends time eating cake, drinking coffee and talking. Everyone leaves at about 1 pm, with happy memories and fat (what with all the whipped cream and sugar and chocolate, goodness).

Get real.

Here's what actually happened:

I was supposed to reach there at 11, but my sister had school at Kuching High. This complicated matters, a bit. At exactly 12:43 the night before Ben smsed me and we realized there was no cake. Uh-oh. So Ben said he'd buy one at Tun Jugah just before we met up at Coffee Bean.

Stage Hitch #1:
Ben calls supporting cast (read: me).

Ben: I went to the only bakery at Tun Jugah, ah, and they said the cake will only be ready by 3.
Me: Heh? How lerr? Where are you now?
Ben: Tun Jugah. You?
Me: On the way. Tell you what. We meet up at Tun Jugah and then discuss what to do there.

Phone conversations ends. The two supporting characters in the car (me and Paul) start discussing options. In the end we stormed a bakery, got a chocolate cake, and stormed right back out. Crisis solved with quick thinking, wallet emptying and my driving mom.

Paul and i entered Coffee Bean, happily carrying our prize - the cake box. Wen Qi, Ravin and Ben were there. We moved to a comfy corner near stage right (better theatrical ambience) sat down and started stuffing photos into the album. Ravin and Ben left to buy a shirt for Kenny. Nicole, Samantha enter scene.

Stage Hitch #2
Kenny enters. In a textbook case of panic mouth-move-faster-than-brain, we chased him out. "Leave! Go away! You're not supposed to be here!"

He does so and vanishes into the dark bowels of Sarawak Plaza.

Nicole: "Did we just do that?"

Uhhuh. Right. :S

Zhe Rong, Vivian and Garrick enters scene. Girls buy drinks. We scribble as fast as we can on his present. Sam makes a comment on how thrigger happy we all are. The cameras are flashing everywhere. The tension builds up ....

Minor Stage Hiccup #3
Ben and Ravin rush onto the stage in an extremely flustered mood!

"QUICK QUICK! HE'S COMING! I SAW HIM OUTSIDE!"

We stared at them blankly. "I know. He came in just now and we chased him out."

"Oh." Then - "Quick! SIGN SIGN SIGN SIGN!"

I call Kenny to enter stage right.

He enters. After a whole lot of "Hello"s and "Happy Birthday!"s the boys buy drinks. We chat, we snapped pictures. I tested a little of Sam's drink and a little of Nickki's drink (sorry girls!). A moment of "Err - what do we do now arr?".

"Eat the cake!" I said, and we opened the box.

Minor Stage Hiccup #4
No lighter. This seemed relatively small, since candles were not a must for birthdays ... i think. Hey, coming of age ceremonies in certain parts of the Savannah required the birthday boy or girl to fast for a day and then sit still as ants are poured over them! And they had to be dressed in a loincloth! Okay, so that was how i remembered it, in a encyclopedia ... somewhere. And even if we had a matchbox, this leads us to ...

Minor Stage Hiccup #5
Smoke alarms. Apparently Coffee Bean doesn't encourage customers to roast their own beans. Hmmph.

Nicole poked the candles into the cake, and i stopped her, since she was destroying it. I licked the biggest one for jest. Then as Kenny was camwhoring with the cake knife, Nicole came up with the brilliant idea of sticking a candle into the cake and forcing Kenny to pull it out with his teeth (Kuching Birthday rituals are more exotic than African ones, apparently). And, this led to ...

Stage Hitch #6
That candle was the exact same one i had licked.

Uh-oh.

We solved it by giving that part of the cake to me, which incidentally was the part of the cake with the MOST icing. You know, sometimes i swear Kenny and gang want to give me pulmonary heart disease. Hmmph.

We sang the Big Man a happy birthday song, and he cut the cake. The cake immediately looked like how one of those Klang Valley cliffs looked like after a particularly nasty rainfall (read: landslide). We all ate dreamily, enjoying chocolate-induced happiness.

Then we started playing "Honey I Love You". This was where things started getting weird.

Kenny apparently wanted to marry me, thus raising questions about what gender was i underneath my jeans. I proposed to Wen Qi, and Wen Qi propose to Ravin.

Both were blushing so hard it was difficult to know who was proposing to who.

Ravin proposed to Samantha, and Samantha proposed to Garrick.

Garrick did a marvellous speech on Nicole. So it came to be that Nicole had to propose to Ben.

Poor Ben.

After which we come to the cutest picture of the entire gathering:

Ben proposing to Vivian.

In the end Nicole tried proposing to Paul, but she failed miserably. Paul was absolutely brilliant. In the end the only person who didn't kena was Zhe Rong, but only because Vivian was too shy to do anything about that.

The girls left for Girls Brigade shortly after, and we went to Tun Jugah for a little saliavating at all the Macs. I saw these books:

And then we departed. You know, looking back, it's a wonder we can have so many gatherings together. We won't exactly win a Tony award for all the Hiccups.

But, as they say - the show must go on! Happy Birthday to the BiG MaN Kenny Voon, and may the new year bring plenty of opportunities and prosperity to his home, his car, and his love life!

*gee that sounds corny*

Dramatization brought to you by Eli James and his terlalu- free time. Someone remind him of the real world, please. He hopes you have enjoyed yourselves. Now go join UGS immediately!

This is So Darned True

Watch it. Think. I love this video. And whoever typed it must be a pretty amazing person.

Broken Kode

I've spent the last few days totally hooked on Halo. And i think it's time for me to stop and get back to redesigning this blog, as well as a Wordpress blog i've set up somewhere else.

Falling Angels has been my mouthpiece for 4 years. It has been green, than plain white, then now plain white with a blue header. I didn't have the time to create a nice looking theme back then, but working on BUGS has made me realize what an easy platform Blogger is to work on. Unlike Wordpress, where the php confuses me and makes me wish browsers can understand plain english for once. Sigh.

Expect this blog to look weird for the next few days, as i work out the kinks and code needed to make everything un-minima. As Wen Qi pointed out to me one fine day - "Your blog is too white."

Ahh yes. It needs more green.