seehwei-in-twentyone*

technically, it’s not my birthday yet here over in the uk (it’s 2300 here, 15 mar) but i’ve already received birthday wishes from singapore and have had friends here who have celebrated my 21st with me. am truly blessed – thank you everybody! thank God for the opportunity to be here in the uk having a different sort of birthday this milestone year. (i remember at first i was quite upset by the fact that i would not be able to celebrate my 21st on the day itself in singapore but i see now that celebrating it here is even more exciting in a way haha.) had my early birthday parties in singapore and so i dont feel so bad about spending it here.

will be at pemberley tomorrow for my birthday - am quite excited! i’m taking a road trip this weekend with my friend and her friends (a family with a really cute girl) and we’re driving up tomorrow to lyme park, cheshire which is where the bbc filmed the external scenes of pemberley in pride and prejudice. i think i will go a bit crazy tomorrow - ill probably pretend to be elizabeth bennett and take lots of pictures haha. so exciting spending my 21st at pemberley! will let you all know how that goes.

know that i am thinking of you all. i may not be doing so everyday but things here will just remind me of people back home and make me miss them (: if you do want anything from here, please do drop me a note yah? ill try my best to get it!

alrightey, gotta go and prepare for tomorrow. i thank You God for blessing me with this opportunity this birthday (: 

first of all, i apologize for not doing this sooner! think i’ve forgotten some of the details but that doesn’t make the experience less meaningful – i still had a wonderful time with my wonderful friends! (:

 i remember i wasn’t sure how tired i would be, having one party after another. after my church friends had left from my house, i remember taking a quick shower, changing into my 21 party outfit and putting things (partyware, leftover food, drinks) into the car. pa then drove the family and i to yenchin’s place; i took a quick nap.

thankfully, yihui, weijun, xiaohui and alista came early to help yenchin decorate and set up things in the function room (thanks guys!). so, when we came, we didn’t need to do that much preparations. i set up my slideshow powerpoint, played my party mp3 playlist and decorated a bit. shirin also came earlier with the cake she baked me – i asked her to do it again for my party as it was so yummy! 

things took a while to start up as people took a while to arrive but in the end they were all there: yihui, weijun, alista, xiaohui, nadia; shirin, nadia, elaine, shiwei, ethel, robin, derek, justus, yenchin. we had dinner (thanks dear for taking care of the catering!) and then it was time for games. i played the same games as we did in the afternoon but this time round, the guys were more competitive haha. in the end they won overall. hope everybody still had fun though! 

these were the miss twenty-ones for the ”costume contest” - congratulations nadia, xiaohui and shiwei!

we took other group photos as well. the PL girls (plus weijun!):

the A51 – the one and only (: in solemn and candid moments:

girlfriends (:

so, once again, thank you everybody for coming! i treasure your friendship (: thanks for making my 20th-going-to-21st-year-period truly memorable. i printed this picture and put it in my photo rack on my desk over here in loughborough which means you all won’t be forgotten! *hugs*

PS it’s not very clear here but the actual photo i printed is clear so i’ll be able to see all your cheery faces and think of you all while i’m here! 

my early 21st birthday cum farewell gatherings were held on 20th Jan (Sun) at 130pm at my house and 7pm at evergreen park condo function room. the first was for church friends and the one in the evening was for PL and VJ friends. lots of preparations were done beforehand – the buying/making of food, the cleaning of the house, the decorations. in the end, the house (without the people yet) looked like this:

meanwhile, my church friends were busy themselves *sneaky sneaky*. i knew they were up to something but i didn’t know what. i had told jia i wanted a digital camera but i didn’t really think that they would really get me one – it was more like just wishful thinking. 

after all the planning (on both sides on hindsight), 20th Jan came. some of us (amanda, claire, nicky, janice t, sarah, me) took bus while matt and bern ferried the others to my place. it was drizzling but the walk-and-take-bus gang had enough umbrellas to go round so we weren’t wet when we got to my house. 

after most people had arrived, everything was well on its way. mummy and godma had taken care of the food and drinks; matt, papa and i got the slideshow of my pictures up and my birthday song playlist playing. i was glad that everybody seemed to be making themselves comfortable and felt at home:

for lunch, mum and i had planned a pizza, pasta, and potato salad lunch with green salad and seafood fritters. (i think canadian pizza 2 for 1 was very happy with our big order haha.) we also had bought potato chips and cookies for appetisers/dessert. i had felt it was too much food but mum kept repeating that there was going to be 30 people and that most of them would be food-loving bcyouths  on the day itself, this is what happened: the potato chips went really fast – i think 3 packs were walloped at the start. the main courses went too but in the end, we had quite a lot of leftover pizza and potato salad. no matter - we have pizza and potato salad to eat for the next few days which is fine by us!

after the food, i made everybody sit down in a circle and explain why they “were twenty-one”.  some had twenty-one hair clips on (janice t had 21 on her own hair whereas others collectively had 21) and some use cards (bryan, fifi and ethan each had a polka card with 7 shapes and cher pasted a ‘2′ and ’1′ uno card on her shirt). nicky had a twenty-one themed shirt (thanks nicky!), alice had a really nice hat with the numbers 21 on it and janice y had 21 “appendages”, which i thought was really cool. check it out:

after this, we played games related to the theme: the +-x/ to get 21 card game, the getting crushed paper balls from different distances into my dustbin in 21 tries, 21 square twister and hulahooping 21 times. elaine was really quick solving the +-x/ thing, amazing all of us, especially godma. for the hulahooping, some people found their hidden talents even though they thought they could not do it while others were good sports (= 

it was then time for cake. amanda had baked me 2 trays of brownies with icing sugar which looked (and tasted!) really delish and we had them with vanilla ice cream. YUMM-MYY! :

to top it all off, guess what? all of them plus papa and mummy actually gave me a digital camera for my adventures in UK! i admit i was a little hysterical – hysterically happy haha.

(my many reactions while everybody around me was smiling away.) thank you thank you! i will think of all of you when i take pictures with it in the future :) thank you for being a part of my life and thank you for making this day truly a milestone… THANK YOU EVERYBODY!

PS: i apologize that the photos are not very clear! i’m not sure why but hopefully you’ll be able to tell who’s who (: