Peiting's Birthday Party and New Year with the CDS Girls

I like small crowds and hate big crowds so this New Year Celebration cum Peiting's birthday celebration is actually perfect for me.

Before I start on Peiting's birthday, I need to get something off my chest. I just read xiaxue's blog and I'm utterly disguested by something she blogged about. I seldom give links to blog, but this time I must give her due credit. She blogged about this and this. Yanwei, now can you understand when I had this debate with you?

Back on track to Peiting's birthday. Peiting's birthday is not until 2 weeks later, but she celebrated it yesterday because she's leaving for Hong Kong on exchange programme this Wednesday. Chronogically, I should start my story with me receiving her SMS. I was psyched. Peiting was one of my best friends in secondary school. Although we have drifted apart i JC and in uni because of the lack of chance we get to meet up, she remains as one of my confidants and I can say she now seems to know to most of my story of Mr Swirl. Then She sent out an email inviting me to her party at her Grandma's house.

I met up with Yanling before we proceeded to Peiting's party, partly because I wanted to catch up with Yanling, and we had some good chat. And had some dianxin in Harbourfront Mall, and by the way the food from Noodle Hut sucks. I was also finally introduced to her boyfriend, now that he's out of the bag. Well, I shall reserve my comments about him just that as long as he treats Yanling well, I guess he should be okay. En route to Peiting's party we met her course mate along the way and we chatted. It's amazing how well the Communication Studies people can communicate, and how not awkward was it for him to slip into our private conversation.

At Peiting's party, I finally got to meet her boyfriend. Being brutally frank, I had not had a good impression of him when Peiting related their story to me back in those days, and I've always reserved my comments for him, now, being a lot older and experiencing a lot more, I shall say, whatever it takes for them. I might not agree that on off relationships can work, but if it works for them then so be it. Anything's better than being in my present position, so complicated.

Seeing how Andy helped out in Peiting's party, and even her sister's boyfriend, this tinge of sadness hit me. I thought of my own upcoming party, who will be there to help me out? I don't even think that who I want to be at my party would even be at my party, as i've said before, "maybe"="no" and "I'll try"="cmi". Really, what's the use of me holding a party now to think of it? I must well just screw the whole thing up and coop up in my bed and do a Shakespeare. Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf.

One thing I didn't like about Peiting's party was that there were three obvious groups of people segregated, the CDS girls, the 30/02 people, and her uni course mates. Not to mention her family. It feels a bit weird to see different groups so segregated like that and I worry that my party would be somewhat the same, and my individual friends would be left out if they came to my party. I think I better think of something. I had actually wanted to book a function room in Chinese Swimming Club but plans fell through cos CSC will be undergoing renovations and the function room is not open for booking, so there goes my pool party. Sad...

Another thing is that there is only one Peiting, among her dozens of guests and she cannot entertain everyone personally. Guests can entertain themselves pretty well, but what is the point of flitting around the guest and be so superficial on your birthday? I'm not saying that Peiting's superfical, but I'm thinking that that will be what I'd be in my party, and I don't like that. Maybe I'm thinking too much, but well...

The party started with Lihui, Yanling, me and Peiting's coursemate whom me and Yanling met en route to the party playing bridge. Yes, that was our entertainment. Some time between Lihui went to eat and another of Peiting's coursemates took over. The CDS girls caught up with each other, especially me, since I haven't seen them for like the longest time already.

Yanling left the party early with her boyfriend, I recounted ruefully to the girls that once I spent New Year Countdown with Yanling, and sadly now times have changed. hahahaha... We all do age. Cuihua left the party early too. She went countdown with her family. And I was surprised to find that she now calls her "sister's boyfriend" "jiefu", meaning brother-in-law. Time indeed has changes and time waits for no one. Except me, I got left behind some where some time.

Later in the night, I left the party with Xintian, Xinen and Lihui, just nice there were four of us and since the four of us did not want to go anywhere crowded, read my second paragraph above. With four of us making good for a table, we retreated to Xintian's house and had a good game of mahjong. We played from 1030pm, about the started of the Jackie Chan's film on TV and played through the countdown seeing fat Tanya Chua and skinny Fann Wong on TV, and through an old old movie starring Tony Leung, Jordan Chan, Bowie Lam, and Karen Mok. We played two full rounds before Lihui felt tired and wanted to sleep leaving Xintian, Xinen and me playing three people mahjong for one full round before ending the game at 630am.

We played with chips but didn't play money, so there's the thrill but not the pain. We tried making nice nice tiles but ending up doing lots of one tai hu. I even coined a term for the normal hu, "luan luan hu", so throughout I was like saying... "this round I shall play luan luan hu" just like normal people would say "this round I make ping hu" or "pong pong hu" or "chou ping hu" or "shi san yao" or "qing yi se".

It interesting that I haven't seen Xinen and Xintian for like so long and we can just sit and talk and play mahjong the whole night like old friends, okay we are old friends, but it seems like in this context, time cannot fade a relationship. Or should I say, time cannot fade a friendship, or sisterhood... hahaha~