Tuesday, April 20, 2004
So, it was my birthday today. Thanks to all who remembered; no worries to those who didn't (i'm awful at remembering birthdays myself). I didn't really want to do anything, but quite a lot ended up happening.
Firstly, I was dragged out to lunch. I'm not a huge lunch fan because although I start work at 3pm, I like sleeping in as much as possible... like, past lunch if possible. And since it's my birthday, I figured I should do things as I enjoy them most, right? Wrong. So we went off to a Japanese restaurant in the Island Shangri-La for lunch. I'd give you more details (like the NAME of the restaurant) but to be honest I was feeling so sick before lunch that everyone actually left without me, leaving me to come 45 minutes later. On the bright side, the tonkatsu was REALLY good and I felt a lot better during lunch, if not after lunch -- though the chocolate birthday cake that they shoved my way the second I finished my tonkatsu (seriously) migh thave something to do with it. Soy sauce and chocolate don't taste too good together, you know.
So then I get to work. I didn't tell anyone there it was my birthday, which may seem odd to some but generally it's because I like to keep a low profile (which is ironic, really). I don't really like being the centre of attention or anything. Praise is always good, but too much makes me feel weird. Anyway, someone obviously told them because word of my birthday got out... and then the penny dropped when I was tricked to go outside a bit later only to see a cake and a massive platter of food waiting for me. It seems my mom called the Holiday Inn and ordered a veritable feast of cold cuts, pate, cheese and salmon for everyone to snack on, while the office chipped in for a cake for me. It was both cool and awkward at the same time: Though it was good to make everyone happy with a ton of free food, I felt somewhat uncomfortable that such a big fuss was being made over my birthday (when others seem to pass by fairly quietly). I just don't feel like I deserve it. Still, everyone was happy, so that's a good thing.
Throughout the whole day, one thing I stuck to was the fact that I did NOT want to go out. No way. I just wanted to go home and sleep. Or watch 24 and sleep. Either way... I did NOT want to go out. My family is rather more forceful though, and Rina got my cousins Hersha and Laku to drag me out for a few drinks... that turned out to be a bit more than a few drinks, firstly at Chapter 3 and then at Dragon-i with my parents. I was already a bit gone by the time I hit Dragon-i. So, just the one bottle of champagne we figured... which quickly became two... and suddenly a third just magically appeared (for free, apparently). Which is normally a good thing, but we were already well past drinking. Why doesn't free champagne appear when you want it to?!
Last but certainly not least... presents. I had a rather good selection. My sister got me a Snoopy DVD; my next sister down got me a Snoopy picture frame with a cool picture inside; my NEXT sister down got me an awesome little sign that says SILENCE when you light it up and thus has INFINITE uses around the house. My cousin got me cash money and another cool picture from a party we went to a few years ago. The big present though is coming this weekend: DVD player and surround-sound system, for home theatre audio. Awesome.
Oh, one moe birthday note: Today's actually a cool sort of day. See, I was born on April 20th, right? And this year is 2004, right? So the date is... 20/04/2004. Which is cool! Really, it is!
Posted at 11:08 PM
