CNY Week of 2010

Chinese New Year has always been a point of contention for me, not because of the occasional dull booms that linger in the atmosphere from the blasting of illegal fireworks from potentially rich persons, but because I dread having to visit the relatives. But this year’s CNY strikes me with mixed feelings, mostly because my grandpa suffers from a stroke that attacked him a few months ago when I was in Melbourne and he was subsequently left partially paralysed; and the way the people around him, including my grandma, seem to treat him oddly reminds me of that Leonardo DiCaprio movie I watched during my last few days in Christchurch in my guesthouse’s lounge room, The Beach, when a man who was attacked by a shark was eventually ditched by the circle of people around him because they couldn’t stand nor could they bear with that man’s suffering and his pain-reeked groans. That man was eventually dragged to a remote part of a jungle and was left to die, and that circle who was once his friends eventually forgot about that man and his suffering, and normalcy returns.

My grandpa, with mild Alzheimer’s, also expresses his wish of wanting to end his own suffering and die. Anyone who has known my stance with euthanasia would know that I support it, for why should a person who has little chance of recovering fully go through all the unnecessary pain and discomfort? This insensitivity is what I hate about my relatives sometimes, and my desire to visit them diminish with each passing day.

But my birthday this year falls on the 2nd day of CNY, and thus there wasn’t any celebration but gambling at Shawn’s house at night instead, after which we went to play Left 4 Dead 2 at FTZ SS15 (which was thankfully open even though it was CNY) that saw me, Shawn, Wai Hong, Ding, and Alvin (who left earlier than us) playing till ungodly hours of 3-4am. We proceeded to walk to McDonald’s SS15 and had an… early breakfast (while overseeing Shawn’s crazy antics of pouring a pile of sauces on our table), by when I reached home at nearly 5am. The start of a crazy sleeping routine, ah.

The following day, I was at Heng’s new house at USJ 11 gambling away with blackjack too (while avoiding the pizzas as I had forgotten to bring my Lactaid pills with me), and then we were at Sunway Pyramid looking for food, and ended up at Pasta Zanmai, as Shawn’s former workplace (Zanmai) was quite full and had a pretty long queue.

Laughing over some joke.

Me and Andy.

Me on the phone wtf, and Andy.

Gambling with Blackjack at Shawn’s.

Nearly everyone from our u8 gang was there.

Ding ketawa terbahak-bahak wtf.

Ding, Sarah (who didn’t gamble), Wai Hong.

Wai Hong, me, Esther.

Playing cards.

Taking cards.

Laughing at an outcome wtf.

Another look of our table.

On Wednesday night after my French class (which my classmates had initially agreed that the class should be held but in the end only three of us were there, and consequently my teacher didn’t want to teach passe compose (past tense) which was what I’ve been looking forward to for weeks wtf, and we ended up revising our stuff), I zoomed straight to Autosurf SS15 to meet up with Heng, and Alvin with his two other friends, Aizyl and Hoy Keat for more L4D2 session which lasted from about 10.45pm+ (Alvin was there since 10pm) till about 12.40am. Mad fun, even though only Heng and me were teamed up, but eventually some other random people joined our team and Alvin’s.

We had wanted to eat steamboat at Jia Meei on Friday night (supposedly heaps better than Yuen Fatt) but it was sadly still closed, so we ended up at Chong Qing, at our connoisseur of food’s (ie: Shawn) 2nd choice. Love the tomyam soup, but for some reason I wasn’t that full at all.

Then we dropped by at Jess’ place with Joe already there munching on satay with dozens of relatives and Justine’s friends there. Haven’t seen Joe for ages till then, and he actually would be leaving to NZ the next day. :/

Preparing to play cards, except for Joe who didn’t play.

Mini group pic.

I was laughing at Auntie Loi’s off-hand remarks about the Mickey Mouse gloves I was donning.

More gambling.

Wai Hong attempting to rock on with Uncle Loi’s guitar with Mickey Mouse’s gloves.

Taking a break from gambling.

Jess and Heng.

Watching the first three episodes of Glee Season 1, from like 2am till 4.30am wtf.

Even yesterday when I had anticipated to return home early, we ended up gambling at Shawn’s till 4.45am wtf. @___@ Ryui Bynn was there too, along with his Singaporean cousin, Yong Ling.

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With most of us in our u8 gang graduating in the middle of this year, and would most likely start looking for a job after that, I can only wonder if this would see us drifting away. I had similar fears once all those years ago before we took on our SPM and those fears were proven to be clearly unfounded as we were still meeting each other on a somewhat regular basis, so forgive me if I’m feeling all too jaded—or perhaps it’s that post-holiday blues again.

But I can see how each of us has slowly rescinded to the realities of the real world—all the responsibilities and workload we have to carry on our shoulders. I dislike the thought of having to deal with the dreary 9 to 5 life, and we’d soon surrender our soul to the rat race of making more and more money at the expense of the simple pleasures in life—like the rabid conversations over mamak with a bunch of close friends, or watching movies together in the cinema. But that’s the paradox isn’t it? We need some money to enjoy these little pleasures of ours, and so we take off and join the workforce, as our more adult counterparts are doing.

Maybe soon we need a coffin each to bury our young selves, as the age of innocence and youth dies as we start to grow up and old.