Nizam's (Mini) Farewell Dinner @ Italiannies, The Curve
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
I was the first to arrive at Italiannies, at 7.30p.m., for Nizam's (mini) farewell dinner. After waiting for 5 minutes, lo and behold, Shanti walks into the place, with her bunch of friends. Talk about coincidence.
The rest of the group arrived not long after, and we set around to ordering. The 5 of us (the rest couldn't make it) basically sat and reminisced about old college times, for 4 hours. The food was secondary; after all, we were too engrossed with laughing about the days when Kanthan walked into a door, when Ek Ming drew cigarette boxes on the table, when Nizam had lunch at Coffee Cabana, when we all just used to stand at the railing at talk nonsense, and a million other things that made the time spent in Taylors so special.
No, I don't have anything to do with demon-worship. Really.
Nizam and Kohilan.
Kohilan tried to pull off his normal camwhore skills. I look blurry, over on the left.
Sigh.
Still, it was a great meet-up. My observation to Sue Ann was, "...for our PE3 people ah, even though we haven't met in ages, when we do get together, there normally isn't any sense of ackwardness at all..." If we had a longer sitting period, I believe we could have gone on and on, talking happily into the night. On another note though, I realise that I haven't seen some of the PE3 members for years. I wonder where they've all gone to? Facebook should really come in handy, for this sort of problem.
Us. =) Us + Weird-Looking Zhao Heng
Well, to Nizam, if you're reading this, all the best over there, and don't fall into the drain.
We really should have a PE3 gathering, one of these days.
Kohilan celebrated his 21st in rather grand style, this week, and in 2 different locations. As the clock struck midnight, the joker promptly suceeded in losing his handphone while playing DotA with the other uni friends, in Semenyih town. Talk about making your birthday memorable. On the birthday night itself, we smuggled a cake into the New Ibrahim, our dinner venue. Alas, that plan didn't turn out too well, so the cake was brought home, where everyone gathered to wish the man of Ceylonese origin many happy returns of the day. Yenli, not satisfied with eating the cake, took the remnants and smashed it into his face, officially making the night a very interesting one.
Sue Ann likes to play hide and seek at mamak outlets. I like to look blur.
Kohilan wasn't surprised at all.
The creamy goatee.
Zhao Heng doesn't look well here.
Yenli Smashes the Cake into Kohilan's Face..
Neither does he look well here.
And we all posed for the group photo at the end.
The next night, we all gathered at Chilli's Bar and Grill, Midvalley, in an attempt to seat ourselves around a table for 25. Seeing as how Chilli's doesn't take reservations, it wasn't surprising that the attempt failed, and we proceeded to our back-up venue; San Francisco Steakhouse, about 3 minutes down the corridor. It had an extremely pleasant ambience, posh enough that most of us spoke softer than normal at the start of the dinner. That, of course, didn't last too long, and by the end of the dinner, we were our usual TCC selves again.
Kohilan.
The table for 30 was quite long.
Han Yang and Matthew...
...just before they turned rabid.
Some of the ladies, that night.
K.C., looking stunned, and Joey, grinning away.
Weng Hoe and Joey.
Kenneth and a happy-looking Kirsten.
K.C. looking stunned yet again.
Me and Joyce.
They brought a cake for him.
Attempt 1# - 10 people
Attempt 2# - 16 people
Attempt 3# - 17 people
The group photo.
I'm perpetually glad that we never fail to be ourselves.
P.S. - You will notice that the photos don't have their usual watermark. I reformatted my computer, only to find that the Photoshop CD wasn't working, so I'll have to wait for a new copy before I can make watermarks again. Does anyone have Adobe Photoshop CS2 9.0.2, that I can borrow?)
I have managed to find a working copy. Thank you to those who volunteered their cds!
Thaipusam fell on a Wednesday, which gave us Nottingham-ers a chance to take a short break and indulge in a little nonsense. The Malacca trip (which no one really planned) didn't materialize, so a bunch of us decided to follow Yenli's original blueprint, and go down to Subang for some singing and rock climbing. We left rather early in the morning, to meet up with Yenli at Red Box, Sunway Pyramid, and were soon ushered into Room 2, and left to our own wiles. Before long, the 6 of us were crooning and belting out the tunes to our favourite songs (ok, the better way to put it would be that we shouted into the mike at the top of our lungs, which almost caused a speaker to crack). Looking back at the videos, I must say, we do sound like dying cats (or cats that had hot water thrown on them).
Zhao Heng at his best
Johnson, also at his best
The karaoke videos sure were weird
The bunch of us.
Can't Live by The Dying Cats
Tong Hua by Kohilan
Tong Hua by The Dying Cats
If You Wanna Be My Lover by The Dying Cats
Spice Up Your Life by The Dying Cats
Its My Life by The Dying Cats and The Enthusiastic Yenli
Having completed the throat-busting session, we adjourned to The Summit, for a spot of rock-climbing. After fooling about with the asset-enhancing harness, and making sure we knew enough not to drop people to their deaths, we began the crawling about in earnest.
Studying beforehand
Preparing for climbing
Yenli the Climber
Me and Joyce
Kohilan the Indian Spiderman
Johnson in the Sixth Sense
Zhao Heng looks strangely funny here
Kwo Kuang belaying Yenli
The Group Photo
Since we were planning to head over to KLCC to celebrate Siok Kin and KC's birthday, proper showers were in order. It was at this point that Yenli, during an early dinner at Shakeys, kindly offered her house as a shower stop. We gladly accepted her offer, and trundled over to USJ. Soon, we were all ready to go, and drove over to The Apartment, in KLCC, where we met up with the rest of Siok Kin and KC's friends, who had turned up for exactly the same reasons that we did.
After all the excitement and fun, we headed back home, bones aching, muscles groaning, and hair drooping, to plop into our respective beds, and crash out for the next 10 hours.
At last, the exams have ended, and the good people of Nottingham can delight in the sheer freedom of not having to worry about the next paper for the whole of our semester break! - all 2 days of them.
Yes, we ended our exams on Friday the 18th, and we resume the 2nd semester on the 21st. I believe that the term 'semester break' is only a veneer for the less grand but more common name of 'weekend'.
Nonetheless, when I finally came back home, after 2 weeks of being in Semenyih, I found something waiting for me.
If you're reading this, a million thanks, Lynn. =) Its a wonderful thing to come home to.
Before the last day of the exam, Lauren, Joyce and I made a surprise visit to Quek's place to celebrate his birthday. It was all cloak and dagger stuff, as Lauren (and me an Joyce) attempted to sneak the cake into the house without alerting Quek (strangely enough, he called her just as she was crawling about the car outside the house.. she ended the call saying that she had to kill some cockroaches).
We bought a duck for the cake.
The birthday boy is 22, this year.
Take #1 : Joyce disappears from the photo
Take #2 : Chun Kit looks away from the camera
Take #3 : Lauren disappears from the photo
Take #4 : Lauren appears, but the some of the guys seem blur
Take 5# : Everyone is there, but Quek's face goes missing
Take 6# : Finally, the group photo.
Its already Sunday, as I type this. Hoorah to short holidays!!!
Its never great fun to celebrate your birthday during exams, a phenomenon that has frequently plagued me, and I'm sure, all the souls born in the early part of January. It is normally this period of time that school, college, university semesters begin, and exams are held. Normally, no one (including the birthday celebrant) will have the time (nor the mood) to do anything, other than wish that the exams were over, or that somebody would invent a time machine, travel back to 7th century China and discourage the brilliant people then from standardizing exams.
Nonetheless, I'm extremely glad to be in the presence of good friends on the day that marks me a year older (exams nonwithstanding). Although I couldn't have the wild partying (Monopoly or Scrabble) and celebrations with a huge bunch of people, and I couldn't revel in the sheer happiness of edging closer to death, it was still a meaningful 22nd. My birthday lunch was with my closest university blokes in Restoran 52 (yes, Semenyih), and as I said during the table speech, "I couldn't have asked for better friends." (and no, Johnson, I wasn't lying).
Receiving the cake...
Making sure it doesn't stay in one piece...
Joyce in one hand, cake in the other...(many thanks for the gift.. =)
With Lauren (thank you, for the balloons, and everything else..haha..=)
With some of the guys...
The Gang @ Restoran 52 (we took this photo 3 times)
Many thanks to everyone, for the wishes (Facebook, sms-es, and in-person), gifts, calls, and cards. =)
Recently, there was some uncertainty as to who came up with the goats being sheep without wool theory (it fluctuated between myself, Lauren, and Yenli).
So as to set the record straight, I hereby lay claim to that theory, aptly named Cheah's Goat-Sheep Conversion Theory ®.
Here is the theory.
I believe that studying for exams are starting to take their toll on me.
