19...

no longer 18... hmmm...

it was my first birthday away from home but thankfully not a lonely one.. but it was one with surprises i must admit :)

on the night of the 2nd we ordered pizza from domino's and had a good dinner... there wasn't much to do though.. just watched TV together then watched movies on the laptop..a slow peaceful night, just the 3 of us.. (May Ling, Chinli, me) .. and knowing Chinli, she checked the time so that when it was midnight she could wish me XD .. i've been saying at appropriate times throughout the trip that i know her so well and it's been 5 years (in 2010, on new year's day i told her it's been 6 years!!! XD ) and she denied it and said i don't know her at all every single time XD..

And maybe she was right..coz no matter how much i knew her, i sure didn't know she'd be doing so much for me for my 19th birthday!

she went to the kitchen and came in after a few minutes later with a raspberry cheesecake and an unlighted candle coz..there was no source of fire..haha... she even tried to light it buy putting oil on the hotplate and trying to ignite it..

i had no idea she bought a cake but when i thought about it i KNEW there was something fishy going on!!

she slept in my room on new year's day and got up around 12pm on the 2nd.. i assumed she went back to her room and i got up a few minutes after she left.. i thought i'd let her sleep somemore coz she didn't call me.. but around 3pm i thought maybe i should call her..

so i called the room extension and nobody picked up...hmm..maybe she's in the kitchen.. so i called her handphone, she picked up and i asked "not awake yet?" and i was sure her voice didn't sound like she had just woken up and i was sure i could hear some background noise but she told me she wasn't really awake yet and wanted to take a shower first...
but i didn't think too much about it, just felt it was a little weird...

so as usual "after her shower" she called me and i went over .. lazed around watching tv, using the laptop... then i was looking about the drawers and when i opened the one on top of the wardrobe i saw a box and said "ooooh..what's this??" then she quickly said "No!!!! that's my christmas present" then i quickly shut the drawer...but in my mind i was thinking..."when did she get that?? i sure didn't see her getting it :/ .. " but again, i let it slide...

so back to the cake!

while we ate i asked her where she got it and kept thanking her for it.. and i was quite shocked that she'd take the bus out on her own like that...
after the cake and a movie May Ling and i walked back to our halls....

by then my sleeping pattern was actually pretty messed up..haha... i woke up at around 12pm but just rolled around in bed, too lazy to get up... then chinli called me around 1pm and told me to on skype coz she was trying to see if she could go online with wifi on her phone...

when i turned on skype, nobody was online -.- .. then suddenly mum was online and she called me...

i just thought, in passing, something like this might happen but didn't really expect it to happen..hahha..ok, here's what happened..

my "just-woke-up" messy state was witnessed by the whole family -.- .. (including cousins, aunts, uncle, nieces..) turns out aunt made another ice cream cake and there were red eggs.. they lighted up the candles, sang me the birthday song, asked me to make a wish and asked me to blow out the candles..hahahah.... and yes, i blew...i blew at my laptop screen while on the other side Rachel blew out the candles for me XD .. and then i watched them eat -.- ...

then when i told mum about chinli asking me to on skype but she still wasn't on skype yet..

mum: oh..maybe she wanted to.......
dad : wanted to what? what?
mum: oh..mm..nothing lah... you go and cook with her lah, have to eat something..

and i still didn't think something was up!!! hahaha...

but when i went over to chinli's...

chinli: did you skype with your mum?
me : yea.. eh, how you know??
chinli: she told me to tell you to on skype today from last year...
me: huh? ...wahhhh...and i thought it was a coincidence you asked me to on and after that she was on...

and now i know what mum is capable of!!! hahaha...

the next day was chinli's departure from Edinburgh.... with my whacked out sleeping pattern..i think i was too tired to feel anything but tiredness.. it didn't exactly hit me that she was really leaving until she'd got on the train and i went to get groceries, alone...

thing about being lonely is that..it's fine once you get used to it.. you can go days without much interaction and it wouldn't feel so weird.. but when you've got a buddy with you all the time for about 2 weeks and suddenly you're back to being alone again it feels really weird.... suddenly, there's nobody beside you on the bus.. nobody to talk with..nobody to watch TV with..nobody to laugh with.. *sigh*

then chinli texted me when she was back in durham and then her 2nd text was that she'd left something under the bed and she asked me to go check for her..

in my mind i was thinking...oh noooooo... i'll have to courier it to her.. have to look for dhl office...

but when i pulled out the box from under the bed...it was a present for me... :')

i did mention the thought of getting a pair of fluffy slippers to keep my feet warm in the room but i was never able to find one that i liked enough to get so i decided not to get any and stick to my slippers...

and my present was a very very fluffy pair of slippers... and very comfy too! the pattern (leopard print) wasn't something i'd get for myself coz..i'm just not used to overly patterny stuff..hehe.. in other words, i'm not quite brave enough and i usually stick to plain stuff..call my fashion sense boring if you like (coz even i think it's kinda true...)
but it's different when someone gets it for me and i somehow don't think it's so bad after all..

and when i put on the slippers it just felt so soft and fluffy that i liked it a lot, leopard print and all..

and it turns out my birthday present was chinli's so-called "christmas present" that she hid in the drawer above the wardrobe :)

so, my first birthday away from home was actually pretty good after all :) ..
i dunno what i did to deserve a friend like Chinli and a family like mine and all the friends who wished me through facebook and sms but i'm truly grateful <3 ..

-llen-