Wednesday, December 27, 2006
ahh Christmas, the traditional season of watching Home Alone, engaging in sticky brawls with rolls of scotch tape and wrapping paper, and stuffing your face. i've always thought of christmas as a time when turkeys scuttle under haystacks for cover and pigs tremble at the thought of being caught, skinned and stuck full of cloves to make a tasty main course. with the introduction of the turducken (someone evidently ran out of breadcrumbs to fill the turkey with, and decided to stuff a chicken into a duck and stuff the duck into a turkey), even more helpless farmyard birds cower in fear when december rolls around. this year, we took part in the usual farmyard carnage, with my mom cooking up a delicious feast of roast leg of lamb, and roast turkey stuffed with sausage.



taking a break from the meats, mom spent a large part of the christmas season creating a gorgeous array of christmas cakes to take to people's houses. she really outdid herself this year. her cakes were topped with a whole parade of santas, holly sprigs, and little plastic deer. we almost decorated a chocolate cheesecake with a little church and a hulking plastic reindeer that looked like it was about to gobble the church whole, and the church's resident santa along with it. the little plastic beings atop the cakes provided people with a lot of opportunities to ask "this one can eat or not ah?" and provided me with a lot of opportunities to reply "yah, can. but you may see it again tomorrow coming out quite a different orifice."

this christmas was a really lovely one. our family had a big dinner with my grandparents, and after dinner, my granddad taught me how to do taichi in the garden. my granddad is possibly the cutest, sweetest, and most gentle old person i know. as he patiently taught me how not to swing my hands as if i was a psychotic windmill, he shared his ponderings on taichi. "you know, for an old man like me, sometimes i find it hard to go to the toilet. but over the years, i've found that taichi really helps to keep your bowels moving!" i love that my granddad tells me things that will actually be useful in future, instead of telling me about how to calculate my income tax. that said, i had a really lovely time bonding with him.

between my mom's christmas feast, ian's mom's christmas feast, and the mcf christmas party christmas feast, i may now be able to challenge santy claus himself in the annual big belly bounceoff.

i leave for bangkok in an hour, away from the tropical snow of singapore! i can't wait to get my hands on some cheap clothes, bags, and perhaps an illegal pet hedgehog! merry christmas and happy new year, everybody!


| mando | 6:00 PM

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Monday, December 18, 2006
The mother of all battles descended upon us.

There was good.

There was evil.

There were even giant lizards.

And most importantly, there was a healthy dose of tie-chewing.

And that is how i turned 21.

And now i will cut out the dramatics and say a huge, ginormous, humungous, THANK YOU to all my friends and relatives who helped me fulfil my life's dream : turning 21 while dressed as a street fighter!



you guys just amaze me. being the complete planning klutz that i am, i chose to celebrate my birthday on the weekend of everyone's end of posting tests. you guys had writeups to do, OSCEs to study for, dogs to resuscitate, holidays to frantically pack for, unwritten christmas lists to send off to santa, and still you guys took the time and the effort to make yourselves look completely kickass in your wonderful costumes. seeing all of you strutting your stuff as elle driver / dannibal lecter / fred flintstone / faith and vamp / ryu / superboy and supergirl / o-ren-ishii / corpse bride / touristman / big giant lizard / random thief (just to name a few), was the best birthday present a girl could ask for. i'm totally touched, you guys. you all are sweeties, do you hear me? sweeties!

that said, i had the best time turning 21. surrounded by people that i adore dressed in kooky, creative costumes. stuffed with great food cooked by the master chefs that are my wonderful marvellous much loved mom, aunt, cousin, and the chefs at Gayatri's. swaddled in a cheongsam with two char siew baos attached to my head. i couldn't ask for more, really.

i wanted to make a really meaningful speech, but words really don't translate that well from my brain to my mouth, so all i could get out on the day itself were some stammered words of thanks that don't even begin to describe how grateful i felt. so now i will give my speech again, in a medium that i feel much more comfortable with.

a million thank yous, from the bottom of my grateful heart to :

my mom and pa, the people who spawned me, for being the most wonderful parents in the world, for slaving away in the supermarket and over the stove to give me my dream birthday. and for borrowing mountains of books from the library and reading to me every night when i was small enough to sit on your laps, for all the miles we travelled together in the car, for all the laughs and hugs and words of encouragement, and for all the love you so unselfishly showered on me since the day i was born. i thank God every day that i'm your kid.

my brother, auntie, cousins, and grandma, for giving me 21 years of amazing memories, for all your and love and support, and all the birthdays you've helped to orchestrate besides this one.

my judo girls, for turning what could have been the most painful two years of my life into two of the best. through all the prawn crawls and skinned elbows and laughter and tears and unending yells of encouragement and black and blue bodies, i discovered some of the most fun, most caring, and most loyal friends i will ever have. i love you guys. even though all of you have at one point or another given me a real ass-whupping.

the meddies, who are always so much fun to be around. whether i met you while picking at decomposing bodies, dressing up as eunuchs and pirates and mermaids and octopi, wandering the wards terrorizing innocent patients in our white coats of doom, or freezing our extremities off in a lecture theatre, i count myself as lucky as twenty thousand leprechauns to be your friend.

lynnypoops, lianakoekoe, zhongyang the sheep, zakkyseow, caro siew siew, and wannywayne. the past 3 years in medicine have been (in the wise words of lynn), absolutely scrrumptious because of you guys. together we've thrown zhongyang into the singapore river, completely befuddled caroline with a balloon-bedecked car, played ten million games of asshole daidee, sat around laughing over countless bowls of restaurant banmian, annihilated the peace and quiet of the library, completely destroyed our fingers playing armadillo racing and time crisis 2, danced to abba, and so much more. and i had a blast doing all of it. thank you guys for the rockin' memories. i will tell my grandchildren all about the things we have done. they probably will not get bored until about the 254600th time i tell them about how we locked zhongyang in the boot of a car.

and of course, to ian the grumpy owl, for more things than i can ever say :)

now that i have made this utterly meaningful and mature speech most befitting of an adult, i think it is time for some photowhoring.

with my favourite fred, looking resplendent in neon orange 100% authentic milk-fed sabre tooth tiger skin.

my judogirls! we have celebrated our birthdays together every year for the past 5 years!

chun-li vs chun-li, with xinyi the prettiest pirate to ever sail the carribean!

carol the vampire slayer engaged in a spot of staking with randal the vampy, before randal gave carol a good one with his pointy teeth. carol was later seen walking around my house with a new set of ferocious looking dentures, while avoiding bright light and garlic naan.

P1 please select characters : 1v1 between classic heroes Chun-li and Ryu, and introducing new Capcom hero Big Giant Lizard Man.

lookie lookie, mucho presento!
thank you everyone for such lovely presents!

and that is all that my time and sanity permits me to upload on flickr. people with more photos from the party, please to send them to me!


| mando | 5:00 AM

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