so happy chinese new year to all my chinese friends out there!!

so i guess it's a bit belated but chinese new year seems to go on for days anyway. singapore practically shuts down! serangoon gardens and many other parts of singapore turn into ghost towns and it's just a sprinkling of cars on the road. it's just...so strange. but cool, somehow.

chinese new year was fantastic for me this year (though i'm not chinese haha but what the heck, just another excuse to celebrate. that's the great thing about singapore!). while everyone was having their reunion dinners, my family decided we would have our own too and so i drove them down to holland village where we had some italian food. i had a chillian cod which was supposed to be chef's recommendations but it tasted like it wasn't cooked! and to think we paid a bomb for it! probably paid for the nice arrangements of the beans and carrots surrounding it. pffft! but the white wine was good. i gulped it down too fast cos they wanted to leave and was a bit woozy while walking out. haha.

after that, we decided to go to tcc for some desert and i had an oreo cheese cake. we shared quite a few laughs and it was nice considering it's been a while my family and i have really hung out since the india trip. i can't remember what we laughed about but it was all good and it's good to have my dad back after he was away working hard in australia for so long. seems people keep leaving out of the blue. you just never know. aunty (my maid) just suddenly left on sunday for india because her mom had a heart-attack and she'll be gone for 2 weeks at least, i think. i miss her already though it's been only one day. i think reno (my dog) really misses her too. so i try to shower as much love as i can on him. pravin will be leaving for the states this weekend too. he's going for a holiday there (good riddance!). hey, just kidding bro!

well, after desert, pravin decided he wanted to go to novena church for mass at 1030 (we were still at holland village at 1025). i aleady went for mass that evening but i chose to go again with him. i never knew they had such a mass at such a time on chinese new year. and i can say it was one of the most joyful masses i've ever been to! from start to end. the church was full so we sat outside under the stars and the night sky. for some reason, everything was sung out of tune and though it was supposed to be a holy and sacred one hour, pravin and i spent alot of it trying to stifle our laughter or stop it. and during the our father, pravin was just uncontrollable and probably giving the guy next to him a fright. he was shaking madly trying to stop his laughter and decided to pretend he was high on the holy spirit so that the guy whose hand he was holding wouldn't think he was mad and unruly. but pravin, you ARE mad! towards the end of mass, it was time for blessing of oranges. pravin and i didn't have oranges. then, they announced that they would be giving out free oranges before the blessing. so pravin and i, the only two non-chinese, walked up to the front to get our share. we didn't want to be left out! haha. somehow, everything about that mass was beautiful, because so many of us gathered there together, chinese or not, with good singing voices or none, with new clothes or old, with oranges or none..and we came together in one communion of love for...love!

and after mass, there was a lion dance in the church compound and it was the most elaborate and longest lion dance performance i've ever seen. but really interesting. pravin and i climbed up on to a platform so we could see the whole thing. and as we watched the lion, we kept cooing at it as we talked about how it reminded us of reno. it seems every animal reminds us of reno. even when we were in india, we would play with and pat stray dogs and coo at cows and goats and horses we saw on the roadside because they all reminded us of reno! i love reno! do you?

the lion dance was really interesting. and at one point, a really fat guy wearing a safron or yellow robe with a really funny-looking mask and holding a fan came out and started throwing oranges at people. we wanted one and were just waving for fun when he threw one towards us but the people infront were all stretching out for it so we didn't bother to catch it. and it landed with a splat right infront of us! and while we were laughing, some of the people infront rushed to get it.

after that, we met pravin's friends, and adjourned to liquid kitchen in serangoon gardens, where i hung out with them. and it didn't seem weird until i realised i was OLD! they were all about 17 or 18..and me, i won't be a teen anymore this year!! but it was alright. they're quite fun and funny people and i had a pretty nice time. =)

next day, we had lunch with some of my relatives. and as usual, alot of laughs were shared. that's what happens when you are with the pillais, especially in the company of the infamous twins! the sunday afternoon was spent lazing. and at night, jeevan and i went for dinner and decided to catch up on our bowling after dinner. i was doing great in the first round. but slacked in the second as jeevan caught up. sucky for me but i'm glad jeevan did well.

well, amidst all the hong bao giving and stuffing our faces silly, we should remember that ultimately it's a celebration of life and love and the people in it, a chance and a reminder to be thankful for all that we've been given and to give just as we have been, to love just as we have been loved...

very relaxed and joyful chinese new year for me (and i got my bak gwa!) but now, i am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work waiting for me to do!! there are just tooo many distractions all around me. songs! library books! vcds! bed! guitar! keyboard! internet! emails! my window! people! oh, who is in the mood for textbooks and homework??