all these photos and what do i do with them?

easter, christmas, new year...i love these times of year, discounting all the huff and puff and blow the house off dust and "make sure you wear something proper, go wear that dress!" and ladadeeda! the family gets together and it's nice. and from time to time, there are new additions, and that's also nice. and occasionally, well, there are some subtractions. well, you do the math. we still remember them and they're there with us in our hearts.

easter is the celebration of new life and how apt it is that almost every easter has coincided with the time of 3 of our birthdays (the april babies)! my uncle (joe) on the 8th, mine on the 10th and my grandma (amama) on the 12th (which is today! happy birthday amama! if you happen to be surfing the net and come across this! haha!).



no family gathering is complete without the stereo effect of the twins. of course, we have to brace ourselves for the side-splitting laughter they generate with their crazy sense of humour. kudos to mervin who managed to tahan their teasing!

a burst of sunshine in the shade! seems like all the smile-inducing people (reno included) are decked in similar colour tones today. that's nisha patting reno rally royal.

you see what i mean! that guy with that smile that makes his eyes disappear, that's haresh! nisha was quite thrilled with him. it's always amusing to see little kids charmed by other little kids and suddenly acting like older brothers or sisters. amazing!


these two guys (uncle ishu and joe) are hilarious. they were like best friends the whole time! they claimed they were having "heart to heart talks" and i found that terribly funny! the story behind it is that they've both suffered heart attacks at one point or another and so they were giving each other advice on food the whole time and the funny thing is, they were seeking each other's approval to eat all the unhealthy food! "is it ok?" "yea little bit can lar." "ok!" hahaha.

mervin came over later. he looks a bit duh. i think he's still recovering from the boohoos my cousins gave him haha. poor thing. and maybe cos we overfed him. shrug.

somehow i just really really love this card!!!! not bad ar, praaaaaaaak (everyone call mervin that from now on)!

look at what pravin made for me!! he designed some t-shirts for me using my real photos haha. i was really very touched. thank you again!

and would you believe it? the contractors who are doing up my house now (painting and repairing our ceilings) gave me a present and a cake!! melt! they gave me this thing below. the holy family and crucifix on something that looks like an open bible and the coolest part is when you turn the switch on at the bottom, these techno-looking lights come on! haha. looks like something you'd find on an ah beng's car dashboard!



and of course, though i can't put a picture of them here, i got some beautiful gifts from my long-time "anonymous" friend from a faraway place! thank you again!can't wait to enjoy them properly after the exams! =)

moving on, i was ransacking one of my drawers today to look for those mini post-its to tag my notes (thank goodness the exams are all open-book this time!) and i found a few things of note.

look! a connect 4 pen!! haha. but alas, there are only 3 seeds in it! =\

i also found these notes! look familiar, anyone?

they're from neilly and zee. i still remember that day. it was a tues or weds. the night before, i had gotten my heart broken. we were having our 830am MA(managerial, or management, accounting)class. as all other 830am classes days at that time, i took a lift from jeremy's dad. i remembered how i was tearing in the car all the way to school since no one could see me in the backseat. and when we reached school, i told jeremy to go to class first and i ran off to the toilet to cry it all out for a while. when i came out, jeremy was still there and he saw my eyes (they get really red when i cry). and he stayed with me and we talked and i cried some more and he ran to the toilet to get a whole bunch of toilet paper so i could wipe my tears away. we were of course really late but i just didn't give a damn that morning.

i thought the tsunami of tears was over. or so i thought. but in class, they were there alright, threatening to spill over ever so often. i can't remember whether i was crying in class while the lecture was going on. i don't know. but i knew i had to get out of there because the tears were stinging hot in my eyes. i just couldn't see how i was ever going to be happy again. i finally left the class and walked to a bench in a quiet corner and called sheryl and told her the same thing i had told jeremy earlier and then cried a whole lot more. ya lar, i'm a cry baby what!

i can't remember exactly when they gave me those notes. neilly and zee wrote these little notes to me and i was touched. those were the times of the teacuppers. haha. well, those times are now floating somewhere in time, but they're there alright. 2 years have passed since then and things aren't really the same anymore. still, it's nice to remember. somehow, in these painful moments of gut-wrenching heartbreak and heartbreaking loneliness, someone out there is still looking out for you to make sure you have all you need to get through. no, you won't get what you want (hey, that's really a good thing sometimes), but you'll get what you need to get through it all.

ooops, i went on and on. but here are those notes!


and then, i found this notebook! i had it from way back in 2003.

i remember it was 2003 because i saw the plans sheryl and i wrote out during our Club Med Bintan trip after the prelims. everyone was stressing about the 'A's but sheryl and i were flying on trapezes and lying on deckchairs along the white sandy beaches of bintan. haha. this only happens with sheryl i tell you! wait till you hear about her plans for the coming year! well, here are the plans. we did most or all of it!


there were lots of other things in that notebook. job interview appointments, telephone numbers, letters to god, ambitions, things to do, books to read, movies to watch. that's what happens when you give me pen and some paper. i just have to write something down all the time! and well, there were also quotations in that book and i'll just end off with the one below (i have no idea where i got it from!). with love!