03S10A's BBQ

And it finally happened! After a month of dreaming, hoping, wishing, organising, headaching over people coming the BBQ was - I declare - a success!

Right. After getting a replacement for my POSB card, I head on home to work on the picture that eventually became the cover of the card. Then I met Wee Lee and we went to Causeway Point for a little last minute shopping for food and construction paper. Angeline and TWJ came early and we met at CWP and then headed to the Pasar Malam to take a quick bite. Well, at least Angeline was the hungry one taking the biggest bites off a Ramly burger and we were looking at this machine which was picking up Winnie the Poohs. Angeline actually wanted us to try it, and we witnessed a girl finally getting her Pooh bear after like 5 tries.

Reached my house and got comfortable while waiting. There was quite some preparation to do, but it became less of a surprise as more people knew about it. Angeline thinking about how to decorate the cups that I bought from Ikea and Wee Lee cut up watermelon and also prepared a bit of the cards. And TWJ was flipping through the Ikea catalogue. That catalogue's really cool. And we got my brother to take a photo for us. It didn't turn out well but still...



Obviously the colour and the lighting was heavily editted. Tan Wei Jie came early and we asked him to help us buy the glitter to decorate the cups with. I was tearing up some tissue (serviette) to be stuffed into the cups. Bah. The 4 of us guys started ranting about our army stuff while Angeline concentrated on doing the cups. They turned out pretty cool so... yeah. I knew I called the right person to help out!

After that I received a couple of calls and David, Pek Har, Kherray and Yvonne came together. They found the way rather easily. I think my house is super accessible (aside from the fact that most of them live quite out of the way ie Punggol, Serangoon), but from the MRT station there isn't any winding path whatsoever. We sat around and chatted a bit more before the guys went down with the stuff and started the fire first.

The next person to arrive was Debbie and the girls waited for Angeline to finish decorating the cups. Well, the surprise was spoilt, but still, it's the thought that counts! They were watching Britney Live in Las Vegas on TV (which is one helluva concert) and singing along. Sigh... it's rare that people can APPRECIATE something that I like. Or have in common. Hmph.

I went around to the mart a couple of times to buy the stuff that I missed out (which was quite a lot), including ice, butter, tongs, spoons and forks and other stuff. I became totally broke with not a penny left on me. TWJ accompanied me once, David accompanied me to buy also, and TanWJ accompanied me to get the satay. We then went with Sabrina to the BBQ pit.



The guys did a bloody good job of setting up the fire. It wasn't a huge one but it was good enough to cook all the food. And the cooking was good to. I must say I was superbly impressed. And there was no need to skewer the chicken, which I think was a real hassle. Angeline was entertaining everyone with her songs that she learnt from being a camp instructor! The guys continued talking about army (I mean, it's not like you'd talk about school when you're in school because you still have a life, but once you're in army... you're in the army!). Me and Wee Lee also went crazy taking photos for everyone since we had cameras and his camera is like a billion times better than MINE! I want to get one for myself by the end of this year! *wishes hard*



Okay, so I did go a bit crazy with the photo taking despite having a lousy camera. Ming Boon was sick so she was actually contemplating whether she'd come or not (Si Zhen, Connie and Geraldine confirmed earlier that they weren't coming). It was when I took Debbie to my place to take her cup as she had to leave early that she came! Irony! Debbie had another gathering to attend.

When I came down.... ARH! They had a cake for me.



In the midst of rushing here and there and worrying about this and that, I was totally shocked when there was a cake. They sang the birthday song for me and Yvonne, and Angeline was saying sing louder. So embarrassed (in a good way). Haha, we cut the cake and all... was really very touched. I didn't expected it (although I know I did set the date for the BBQ close to my birthday, I'll explain that later), and... *lost for words*. Yeah... my class rocks.



Me and Yvonne got to have the first cut of the cake and then JY and Kherray helped us cut. The cake tasted really good, with the peppermint topping. I quite like peppermint. Yum! Got to thank my Ming Boon who brought it when she came (I think). I'm not too sure how they got the cake, who paid for it and all but... THANK YOU GUYS!

After that I went upstairs with Sabrina, David, Wee Lee and Angeline. Angeline made a good point that since we were having our BBQ downstairs, we should have the finale there as well. We took the cups, cards and 2 bottles of sparkling juice. Well, they meant to visit the toilet actually... Anyway!

We bestowed the honour of opening the first bottle of sparkling juice to Ming Boon! Who came late, who was sick, but was my co-organiser! Haha...



I anticipated her reaction to it... And I found we all found it quite hilarious. She was kind of scared that it would burst open and all, but after much difficulty, there wasn't much of a sound, nor an explosion! Haha. But we all shared the drink and it tasted real good. I opened the other bottle (obviously no photos because WL and Sabrina were taking for me and they both haven't sent me any) and there this time there was a measly pop sound, but the juice managed to gush out a bit! I need more practice at this!

After that was it was almost like prize presentation. Angeline gave everyone instructions on signing the card. When she says OK?, we've got to reply ALRIGHT. It's another one of her camp thingies. I can tell that she's pretty used to working with P5 kids and giving instructions. It was hilariously lame. She gave each of the cups that she made for us and Sabrina took a photo of every single one! Oh man. Really like prize presentation!

After we finished cooking the last batch of chicken wings, we packed up everything and headed back to my house. The card thing took hell long to write. I took out the speakers and attached my mp3 player to it. I actually planned to bring it down with the real sh!t speakers but it required electricity. Earlier in the day I actually made a playlist specially to play at the BBQ even. Bah. The first song I played was Do As Infinity's Faraway. And of course... the four of us couldn't help but remember the days of our band practises inside the band room.

IT WAS SO FUCKING COOL. (listens to the song again!)

We all pretended we were jamming again, singing out our different parts on the guitar, keyboard, vocals... It really rocked. I thought we were pretty good really. After that it was Yesterday and Today, the song that we performed for Talentime. Oh man, and we were so *duh* as we remembered the girl who won the top prize by performing Chinese Opera. Okay, so she was pretty talented but still... we didn't even get top 3! And we SHOULD HAVE! I was also going to play Summer Days, the song that I sort of got drunk to for the first time but moved on to Jay's Qing Tian, another song which evoked many memories. It was our class song for 2003 where we'd sing along the corridors, during Chinese lessons and all! Basically after that Dav and I was listening to I Just Wanna Live but then JY put his mp3 player instead.

Erm, what else. It took a pretty long time for us to get the cards done, because we had to write and sign for each other and there were 12 of us around. We were at the same time watching Initial D, commenting on whether the girl was pretty and whether the liquid in Jay's car's cup was water, soya milk or... something else! It was kinda cool! And raving over Jay and Edison. Coolness.



We took one last photo before we left and by that time it was really 1115PM! I was thinking we'd finish all our stuff by 10PM really, and everyone had to rush back home. Ming Boon stayed behind because she had to wait for her parents to come fetch her and we had a long chat.



We talked about a lot of Uni stuff, talked about Jay, talked about life and used her camera phone to photo-whore. I must admit that not having a camera phone made really really deprived. Hmmm, it was kind of cool to have a nice chat. By 12, her parents came and she left!

It was really cool that we had things to remind us of this class gathering and I couldn't stop looking at my card really.



Although it wasn't very happening nor exciting, I could feel the bonds of friendship still there. Although we aren't like fantastically close to each other or share our deepest secrets but still, we celebrate the fact that we've been through 2 years in JC together, and that appreicate the fact that we meet up, still miss those times... and that we valued those times together.

Thanks guys! For everything.