After waking up yesterday morning, seeing that my younger brother was out and my elder brother was still asleep, I tried to continue burning the CD for Guoxin even though I had many other things to do. It didn’t work like in the past even though I was doing all the correct steps.

Soon, it got my blood boiling. It was doing fine when Guoxin came to my house during the Chinese New Year Eve to do it himself and I was by his side to teach him though I didn’t succeed before. How could it work that night and suddenly everything went berserk? It wasn’t as if I had done anything step wrongly, because I did succeed when I was in camp.

That morning I almost went crazy. It took too much effort to troubleshoot but came to no avail. That was just one of the reasons why I didn’t want to help anyone to burn things – the CD writer sucked, I didn’t buy the empty CDs and there wasn’t any empty casing to keep the burned CD unscratched.

My brother woke up and told me he hadn’t tried burning CD for a long time and he did experience it before, wasting so many CDs. I just didn’t understand why it was alright when Guoxin came; perhaps, he was lucky.

My brother asked me to join him at Peiying’s house and since it was near Jurong Point, where I was supposed to be at, to meet up with Mingfa and the rest. I accompanied him so that I wouldn’t be travelling alone.

It was a safe but torturing journey. It didn’t seem like Chinese New Year at all with the small ratio of Chinese to others, which was quite a good sign for a racial harmony country except that the kids weren’t taught properly. One of my entertainments was to play with kids but that morning when I was still sleepy, the high pinch of the unknown language was bursting my head.

Yangkang drove us over with Eng Thai and Xinying. I was glad Peiying had two dogs at home named Willy (sounds like this) and baby. Willy quite liked my companion for I petted him well and he reminded me so much of Jack, except that he didn’t understand commands like “sit”, “down”, “hand” and “BANG”. He was much smaller size, much more sociable and most of all, toilet trained.

Peiying’s mum cook fried prawn mee for us and the standard was as good as those selling at hawker centres. However, I was too lazy to wash my hands after playing with Willy that I didn’t squeeze the lime. Xinying pushed all the prawns to me and I had a very hard time taking my brunch. I hated to eat food with bones and shells, and that afternoon I managed to finish everything with only fork and spoon that I was so trained in handling prawns already.

I felt awkward since I didn’t know all the people well. They were from GESS and were of my brother’s batch, one year older than me, and I hadn’t seen them for long time. I couldn’t recognise Peiying as well even though she was the hostess but her name was so familiar. Her mum was very friendly as well that she talked to my brother and I about the two dogs and two cats.

I left, joining Mingfa and the rest downstairs near 4pm, after which we went to Mingfa’s new house. It was amazingly and beautifully done and most of the stuffs were designed and done by his dad. I took many photos but wasn’t that confident of the lightings. I hoped they would do good enough to help him recap in future if his house ever turned upside down (LOL).

Mingfa finally had his own room and it looked so cosy that I got so envious of; I didn’t even have a proper sleeping area. However, for this new flat, his sister had spent her money that she couldn’t start a business for him to handle. Hopefully he could make a good mark by coaching volleyball for schools.

I left with Guoxin after 6pm to attend Jasmin’s 21st birthday party. He was going to Bishan to watch movie with his friend and I bid him goodbye at Jurong East, where I started to stroll towards Chevrons. It was my first time entering the place.

I called Jasmin and pretended I was lost at Bishan until I walked near the pool and she saw me from far. I knew none of her friends there and it was disappointing to realise none of the people I knew, previously from GESS and excluding some special ones, was attending. It was already after 7pm and the buffet was available and I was glad I didn’t go earlier else I would have to long even longer. She asked if I wanted to join in the mahjong game but I rejected, and she had forgotten that I knew how to play.

Being invaded by boredom, I SMSed Weitat and bluffed him that there were very few guests (true enough but many were coming soon) and Jasmin was very disappointed.
Mingfa called and told me they were coming soon to surprise Jasmin, else I would most probably be leaving for home. I told him I was joking with Weitat but they were already prepared to go down.

Bihong came but she didn’t seem to recognise me anymore; I was too lazy to approach her also. Then, Charis and her gang came and I didn’t even look at them such that I didn’t even know what she was wearing. We stopped talking years back and it was quite awkward to face each other, I supposed.

I went off to stroll around and realised it was actually quite a small place. Then, I went into the arcade centre and started playing a shooting game and lost all my four credits after killing so many hostages when I was too tired to differentiate before triggering.

Mingfa and the rest arrived soon. I was glad they really came as it would certainly make Jasmin happier with more friends, although she already had enough guests. At least, Weitat was closer to her and the more he should be there; they became so close years back after I got Jasmin to join in our outings.

However, they seemed shy like me with all the strangers around; at least the birthday girl spent more time with us than when I was alone. It was weird that they didn’t really want to stay longer after taking cabs down. Jasmin didn’t drag them into the chalet during the cutting cake session as well and then we “flee” to the arcade centre.

I was amazed that Tze Khit was quite good in the Time Crisis 2 game; Mingen was expertise in the games too but he didn’t display his skill; even the secondary two Davin was quite good and I was actually quite ashamed of myself. Our special guest-of-honour, the long missing Jingkun, left the earliest, and then followed by Mingfa, Meijun and Mingen.

The rest of us decided to go back to fulfil Jasmin’s dream of taking photos but only Ah Bee, Weitat, Tze Khit and I went over. She entertained other friends instead and left us the last group behind to take photos. She walked us to the lobby very soon and we took the shuttle bus to Jurong East MRT.

That was the first time I talked to Tze Khit about Anqi – on the journey after Ah Bee alighted at Clementi, we finally got to chat again after so long. I really hoped they would get back together because both of them were my good friends and special people.