A Birthday Week Part II

So continuing my previous post where we left off.

So the night of the 26th the college buddies counted down to Beh Jian Fung's birthday together in our Whatsapp group very aptly named 'We Hate UTAR'. We had a little Whatsapp emoticon celebration at midnight. It was horrendously lame but oh well we all thought it was the height of fun at the time :) 

The next day I met BJF at Mid Valley for a birthday buddies lunch. To our delight there was an Antipodean there. The last time we had gone to Antipodean at Bangsar together we really enjoyed ourselves and thought the service was great. To top it off, we saw our favourite waiter there and he was as affable and pleasant as ever. So of course, in response to all these good things, we stayed all afternoon drinking delicious coffee and talking away. And not one of the waiters gave us bitchy, judgey stares. It was very, very nice and we had a great time and even left before the 5pm KL deadlock traffic jams.

Always an honour to share an adjacent birthday with you, Beh Jian Fung :)

And that night it was a Middle Eastern dinner with the Rushworths and one of their longtime friends who was down from Langkawi for a visit. It was a lot of fun looking through the menu and not understanding what everything was. We all relied on Charles to not Punk us into having goat entrails for dinner. But thankfully his sense of humour was not that twisted and dinner was delicious. So it was another dinner with great company and conversation that I really enjoyed.

Then on Friday it was dinner with the mom and the sister and Manny. Manny was hilarious, saying it seemed like days ago that we were celebrating my birthday. We went to Nando's as usual and god my mouth is watering thinking of that extra hot peri peri chicken. Mom was telling us about her presentation that day that she had, as usual, done exceptionally well. She went on to win third place for Best Speaker. Couldn't public speaking be hereditary?? Damn. Well I did get my public speaking skills from both her and dad I'm sure, but it sure as hell was watered down lol.

The grand finale of all the celebrations was the young people party at Solaris. Mine and Lisa's fun started in the car on the way there, of course. Yes, we decided to carpool to save the environment. Or...because we wanted to get a head start on catching up and I didn't want to drive in case anyone got the bright idea of getting the birthday girl to drink shots or something :D 

Dinner was hilarious. Everyone, being Malaysian, was either late or lost or looking for parking or lost looking for parking. And all these clowns, being Malaysian, refused to wait for everyone to get there before ordering their food. Eventually Charles and I were the only decent people who hadn't eaten yet, sitting there and judging everyone who had given in to their growling stomachs because KEVIN LEE NATHANIEL WAS SO LATE WE COULD ALL HAVE HAD TWO MEALS. In fact BJF did have two meals. I'm sorry, Beh Jian Fung, the lie had to end lol. He had one meal with all the other indecent people who couldn't wait. Then when Kevin finally got there he ordered again, saying he hadn't eaten yet lol. 

Another hilarious thing that happened was when Kevin and Amir had disappeared somewhere and suddenly everyone at the table asked if they were together LOL. I had to calm down long enough to explain that no, Kevin was quite definitely straight and so was Amir, even though the perfection of his hair could have implied otherwise. 

And my goodness. My food. I ordered whitebait fish, expecting a nice healthy meal. And what arrived was this thing that looked like french fries and tasted like fishy french fries. I stared at it for a long time before eating it, sobbing on the inside. I scolded Joash later for not warning me. At least Charles took pity on me and gave me some of his OH MY GOD SO DELICIOUS pork. By the time Beh Jian Fung offered me some of his pork burger I was thankfully full and no longer sobbing on the inside. 

Then Bryan and Leanne arrive and Bryan of course decides to embarrass the bejeezus out of me, walking in and screaming HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLANA. He kissed the back of my head repeatedly while I tried to crawl under the table to dig myself a hole to China. But my birthday brownie that later arrived made up for the embarrassment because it was so gooooood.

Sad part is everyone suddenly became camera shy and we somehow only took this one photo which didn't even include everyone :( Lisa does look like she's about to eat the table though so I suppose that makes up for it :)

All in all, even though everyone mysteriously quieted down when we got to Barfly after dinner, it was a good night and a great end to a great birthday week. The highlight had to be Charles and Larry's conversation pretty much the entire walk to the car plus the ride home which I should probably keep to myself so they don't both get killed with hate lol.

So I'd like to thank everyone who wished me and anyone who was involved in the great birthday week one way or another. To all those poor souls who couldn't make it, there'll always be next year. Love all you guys!!

A Birthday Week Part I

It's been a gooooood week :D

Well last week was. Why, you ask? Well who doesn't have a fantastically awesome time when they have a week's worth of celebrations for their birthday?? That's right. This old girl's finally 24. It sounds like a good age, I'll admit. And it is. I can say with full confidence that this has been one hell of a year. The sister got married, I graduated *cough cough made my escape cough cough* from the university they still tell me is my choice, got my first job which I ended up loving way more than I expected...the list goes on, I assure you.

The celebrations started on Tuesday at work. I was teaching a Science class when suddenly one of the teachers opened the door to my classroom and sent Kabir, this little boy (well not so little, he's 10) in to disturb his brother who I was teaching. I was kinda surprised at her encouraging this kind of behaviour and was about to protest when lo and behold, in walks Sudhan with a birthday cake. All together now, awwwwwwwww.

Needless to say, I was delighted and the cake was delicious and my student was elated that his one and a half hour long class got slashed to an hour because we were all (and by we all I of course mean me and Sudhan aka Larry) enjoying the cake waaaay too much. It was seriously delicious orange cake though. And several slices of carrot cake. Moist and delicious. Yum yum :)

Me: You wanna take photos, fine. Nothing's gonna interrupt me and this gorgeous carrot cake.
Larry: Mmmmmmmmm, preach it sista!

Me: What do you mean, half the cake is yours? It's MY birthday!
Larry: Here's a detailed mathematically proven dissertation on why I deserve not only half, but the WHOLE CAKE.

Can I just say how well this one picture depicts our entire friendship? There's Larry, holding MY birthday cake while I hold up a tiny little slice of carrot cake. This describes almost every meal we've ever had in the duration of our friendship lol. And well, there's also the fact that we have so much cake and we're the two idiots trying to keep it all to ourselves :D

Oh well, whatever it is, you're the best Larry. Like you said, here's to 50 more years. Of friendship. Just in case all the shippers read too much into that lol.

I should also mention that I'm so horribly dressed because I was so sick that day. I tried to look like I cared about how I looked when I got dressed, I swear. I put earrings on at least! Anyway, I really thought I was going to be stuck in bed on my birthday. I thought cake had irrevocably lifted my spirits but then Mr. Fever made an appearance and Mistress Ginormous Headache soon followed. I had several 'you look terrible's and ' you look really sick's and even one 'you look like a goldfish' before I finally relented and sought out some Panadol.

I was supposed to pack and move out of the Rushworths (I was house sitting for them but they had come back from their holiday the day before) that night but as soon as I reached their place after a drive home fraught with headaching, I collapsed onto the sofa and kinda did not get back up. And I had a sick companion in Charles so yeah, so much for going home. Poor auntie Fabienne had to take care of me. My body was just in one of its moods where it was intent on being sick, the meds be damned. 

Then my birthday came and hello birthday miracle, I felt so much better. I then proceeded to laze the morning away with auntie Fabienne on the balcony admiring the weather and the birds and talking away. It was a great start to a great birthday :)

So my actual birthday naturally meant a family dinner. Dad was here for the occasion and of course the sister and Manny joined us as well. It was a good dinner with great food and good company and lots of laughs. I had a great time and as usual WE NEVER TOOK PHOTOS. But that's okay, we're a camera shy family I suppose. I think the moment of the night was when Joash told us all about this new ad he had come up with for an assignment. It was so good that we all just stared at him, partly in awe and partly in disbelief that he was capable of coming up with something so profound. I absolutely loved it and I'm so posting it if he actually does it and if he'll let me :D

And seeing as this post has somehow gotten way longer than I expected, I'll be writing the rest in a Part 2 post that I hope will be just as interesting as this one :)

Finally, A Birthday Celebration

So here is it. D-Day. The rockin' and rollin' birthday party is upon us.

It's been a long, busy, stressful week. Filled with to-do lists and 'have I done this yet's and of course the occasional 'damn, what am I gonna do now?' But the planning and worrying part is over, now for the executing and worrying part.

I'm just glad things seem to be falling in place. I'm doing the fun part right now, I'll blog about the stresses of helping to plan your brother's 21st birthday some other time. As I was saying, the fun part. I'm getting my hair done at Wangsa Walk with mom and the birthday boy himself, who has given up hope on his dream of growing his hair out again. Against my strong and continuous protests of course. Mine could rival the Blackout Rally today. Oh well...

Anyway can't wait for tonight. It's gonna be a good night :)

A Great Weekend

I know I said it was great, but boy am I tired. Yes, still.

So Friday night it was back to KLPAC for another one of Larry's plays. This time it was 'In A Nutty Shell', this play about prejudices towards the different races in Malaysia. I remember everything else better than I remember the play lol. I remember that I needed almost 40 minutes to get to KLPAC, which is like 10 minutes away from my house. I remember that my poor Max was majorly overheating when I was already running so late. I remember that while I was watching the play (I was 20 minutes late so since I couldn't find anyone in the dark I sat by myself) I managed to locate the general area in which Joanna and Beh Jian Fung were sitting just listening for their laughs. And of course I remember keeping Nat up half the night with our girl talk, practically a must for any girly sleepover. Needless to say, it was a fun night :)

Then Saturday it was off to Melaka for the Father's Day weekend. We had a great dinner at the Portuguese settlement, yum yum. Unfortunately I took no photos. It was very entertaining cause one of dad's former lecturers, known to us as Uncle Michael (actually Prof Michael Northcott) was there with us. He's absolutely hilarious and is a source of unending and unexpected wisdom and humour. It's always great to have him around :)

Sunday was one hell of a long day. The sudden appearance of a terrible haze in Melaka didn't help. It was really bad. I could feel the thing going into my eyes and my nostrils and it was just really, really bad. Anyway, I went to church in the morning, of course. Then had a great Chinese lunch. It helped that Dad kept pouring me beer saying that it was the best drink for the haze lol. Then went home to get my stuff and get on the bus so that I could make it for Larry's surprise birthday dinner at Fridays. So I got to TBS all bleary eyed and sleepy despite my nap on the bus. Speaking of the bus. The Melaka Sentral end of Metrobus is so damn disorganised! They had two different labels for all the seat numbers on the bus. It had all the passengers arguing with each other and eventually I got shooed to another seat by the driver as though it was my fault -_-' So irritating.

Anyway Larry's birthday dinner was a lot of fun. I got to catch up with Ishyshy who I hadn't seen in so long. So adorable la that boy, I missed him :) Then I got to meet a few new people and put a lot of faces to a lot of names.

And of course where there is a celebration, there is camwhoring :D

This has got to be my favourite photo of Joanna, Larry and me :)

And this is another favourite because I look oddly nice despite the look on my face.

Go get 'im Jordi. Rawr.

The noticeably muhibbah Nana gang. Goodness knows how we came to be called that.

Joanna's photobombing skills in action.

Joanna showing off how pretty she looked.

I like this group shot. We look so happy :D

Oh but my favourite of the night has to be this one. Let me be clear here. This was JORDI'S IDEA.

Well fine it wasn't his idea per se. I asked if he could take my weight if I jumped on his back and he wanted to try it :| I did insist that I would break his back but oh well, he got good cardio that night. He almost made it to the escalator near Robinsons from the one near Fridays! Well he probably would have made it if Joanna hadn't stopped him to take this photo commemorating the moment lol.

So anyway yesterday was the brother's 21st birthday. He's officially a man. Well only where age is concerned that is. Headed to Restoran Stadium Negara for an eventful birthday dinner that included calling dog rescuers to help a very adorable and lost-looking dog that was wandering about and worrying us all.

And today is Larry's actual birthday. During which he had to call me so I could wish him lol. That was funny. Sent Max to be serviced in the morning. I spent the evening with Hannah. And now Valentine's here with my sister making the backdrop for the brother's birthday bash this weekend. Shitload of work to do but still can't wait :)

Now I'm going to sit and do my Insurance Practice tutorial.

*sigh* Such an anticlimax. 

A Birthday Lunch

First of all, Happy Birthday Jordi Bordi!!!

Today was of course Jordi's birthday. So naturally we felt the need to surprise him for lunch :) 

Headed for One U to this place called Dave's Deli that came recommended by Joanna (do not try the paninis, trust me). When we got there Larry (the distraction) had Jordi pinned by the shoulders so he wouldn't suddenly turn around and see us coming using our stealth approach. In other words Joanna spotted a wide eyed and terrified face staring at her right before we ran straight into Larry and Jordi LOL. It was a hilarious sight. Poor Jordi must have wondered what was up with his weird friend. 

So we had a nice lunch at Dave's Deli. At least Joanna, Jordi and I, otherwise known as the wise people who didn't fall for Dave's tagline of 'best sandwiches in the world', had a nice lunch. Larry and Beh Jian Fung, the suckers who fell for the tagline had themselves a challenge finishing their food. 

Then of course since it was a birthday we headed to Secret Recipe to get us some slices of cake. Then Joanna remembered that Chillis had this awesome chocolate molten lave cake...or something like that. So to Chillis we we proceeded to embarrass the crap out of poor Jordi by making the waitress put a candle on the cake and singing Happy Birthday as loudly as we could. Hence the look on his face :)

This is Jordi's excited face lol.

And look, I have proof of what animals we are when it comes to dessert. The beautiful cake in the photos went from THIS mutilated mess

to THIS plate practically licked clean

in less than FIVE mad minutes of 'Oh my God this is so good' and 'The chocolate fudge hardened!'. I kid you not. And we all had just had a nice filling lunch. See. We're complete animals. Well to be fair we drew the line at licking the plate. We can be almost civilized. Only in public that is ;)

And then we, tried and tested PJ and KL-ians noobed ourselves into getting caught in our respective traffic jams heading home. Which self-respecting, well informed Klang Valley person leaves One U at 6 when the jam is at its worst? Animals enjoying their molten chocolate cake, that's who. 

Oh well we had fun, BJF, Joanna and I, sitting in the car and lamenting the state of the music industry and catching up on gossip while we stoically suffered our traffic jam. 

All in all, an excellent day :)

I was laughing at something Larry said -_-'