i love cny eve.
its the day where i catch up with most of my friends and yea have pre cny fun.

ever since sec sch days, my mum got used to me running about before going to ahma's house at boon lay. i can remember rather clearly, sec 1, she was waiting for me to reach home before we set off for ah ma's place together. she waited and waited. think she nearly blew her top when i reached home cuz it was almost 3 plus 4. usually my parents would have to reach boon lay as early as 12 plus cuz my mum would have to help prepare the reunion dinner. we still go for the traditional kind [not the family to go restaurant and settle for outside cooked food. we still have our steamboat and such.] hence i could understand why she blew her top on cny eve 1998.

the next year, i asked if i could go have lunch with my friends in town before coming home. that was sec two. she told me straight in the face, get my ass to ah ma's place by 4. and that "tradition" of mine continued ever then till today. i have the freedom to roam about anywhere i like, so long as i reach boon lay by 4 plus. and i never breached that promise to her. rg times, i went for reunion in sch uniform. same goes for hwachong days. we always went to town to
walk about and have lunch, catch a movie or two, chitter chatter our way through before parting for our own dinners. last year was no different. i rushed back to hc to meet them at around 10 plus after clerking at hillgrove.

this year. me had no school! heh cuz i have no classes on tuesday mah. grin. ramnik ponned her lectures [tsktsk naughty girl, but i half convinced her as well. lalala. ] and friends returned, slowly in dribs and drabs, but they came ultimately. yanlian was in school even earlier, cuz she reached at 8. we met at 830 [kinda funny sia, j4s returning at such a early time..] watched the performance and stoned for a while cuz there wasnt much to see. except for the fact that the wushu performance was darn funny! think kungfu hustle and imagine the scenes. muahaha.

waited for street market to start, at the same time yanlian joined us (: always as lovable as ever *muacks* (: snaked our way through the market and looked at the chao enthu j1s trying to sell their stuff. treated roo and jessie [roo that WAS jessie right?!?] to hotdogs [the taiwan kind] and then we went to look for ms jasmine ng [also known as mrs jasmine yap (: ] talking to her was such a riot, cuz she felt so much more like a friend then a tutor. really. so super nice, so easy
to talk to. must have talked to her for more than half an hour. (: ms debbie teo is no longer teaching at hc! [SHOUTOUT to all 02S3 people: MS DEBBIE TEO IS NO LONGER TEACHING AT HC] she went back to MOE to be some senior executive staff so missed her ): no wonder we dint manage to spot her while watching the performance. she was always easy to spot, and nice to talk to. sighh. then mok arrived! to think i thought he wasnt gonna come cuz he kept saying he wasnt going to. ha. hee. talked to him a little, then he went to look for teachers. then jinyang came along, after his run at ecp. poor thing lei, cny eve morning still got run at ecp. grin. but then again his life is slack as an officer now mah, newly commissioned. grin. then ruoling appeared! lugging da bao xiao bao de. nik had left by then as well. wanted to have lunch around coro area to convenient yanlian cuz she had to go back to nus for tutorial, but prince and ke ai ji and yong chye were either closed or had nothing to eat, so she went back to nus first to find lunch while me and ruoling [the lazy ones] walked over to serene to hail a cab. grin.

wanted to watch a movie, finding neverland or constantine, at that time, but we went to cine and couldnt find any movie and suitable timing [BTW constantine is not showing at cine. or rather, it wasnt showing today, weird huh, but it opens today. hmph.] in the end we settled down at suki and shared ala carte food. jinyang caught up with us for lunch after he looked for people in hc, then zhangqing joined us also. poor girl, she went to lido to look for us, then went to yuki, and finally came to suki. she looked so tired when she finally arrived. but we had a nice time crapping and catching up with each other, especially zq! havent seen her for such a long time le.

isnt it ironic that the friend i see most often is the one thats not in the same uni as me, ruoling (: and its the same for ruoling to. considering that there are many other classmates and friends in nus with her as well. i guess absence makes the heart grow fonder. there are some friendships whereby both parties have put in effort to keep in touch and to meet up, and that makes the friendship grows stronger. on the other hand, there are also friendships where one party tries to hold on to, but the other party doesnt quite make the effort, that friendship slowly fades away. you know what i mean. i found myself getting to know yanlian alot more after uni has started. after ruoling, she's the one i see most often as well. see my point? i guess. im glad to have such close friends. who are usually there when i need them *muacks to all of you*

went off to boon lay after that for reunion dinner.

im glad to see my relationships with my cousins improving. as kids, we were always close, but as we grew up, we slowly grew apart, and yea, we had nothing much to talk to in the end. but slowly, starting last year [dont ask me why] we started talking again, and i found it easy to talk to them. especially this evening, we had so much fun talking and gossipping. maybe we had a common target, thats why it was easy. hahaha. but its definitely improving. which is very good (: we're even talking of going k-boxing together (: and i used to think i'll always be closer to my materal cousins cuz there's eileen and people there. this is a good sign (: we're all growing up.

partly, im thankful as well for the closely knitted family togetherness we have as a group. new year doesnt feel like a bore nor chore to me. there are always people to talk to, people to gossip with [that cant be helped when you put me with eileen (: ], things to eat, games to play and tv to watch. yea it sounds like the normal chinese new year to everyone, but to me, it does feel like chinese new year, with the feeling and all. it just simply feels like chinese new year. people of our age dread cny. alot of them say they have nothing much to do anyways. but i always find myself going from one place to another. spending time at both my grandma's place. going to various auntie's houses on different days [if cny occurs over the period of 3-4 days] and yea, its always packed with action. plus the added benefit of collecting angbows as well. doesnt that feeling overwhelm you? it does that to me sometimes. and maybe thats why i look forward to chinese new year. yeaps i suppose.

i could just say im lucky in a sense. i suppose. (:

anyways.
happy chinese new year to all (: