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1) Mom's birthday today! Got up at 5 to make the cake (chocolate sponge) because I had to leave home by like 740ish for uni. I usually make two identical halves of the same cake cause slicing it in half is too much hassle and it ends up too flat anyway, but I must have added too much flour to the first half because it didn't rise nicely hence looked kind of flat and silly, but the other half came out great cause I was a lot more careful. I ended up adding different amounts of cocoa, so when stacked one on top of the other they actually looked pretty intentional and professional and all :D. And it was tasty. I'm a failure at decorating cakes, so I had to get mom to do that part herself. Haha. But yes! The early morning start etc was well worth it.
2) I love family birthdays, the cake making and the scheming-with-everyone-else to find presents and cards and make cake etcetc, makes me veryvery happy!! My own birthday was wonderful too. The day in itself wasn't really spectacular since I had make up classes and had to teach and had to work on my assignment in the train since I had a pile of looming work AND it was raining and freaking cold, but at night we had the traditional noodles I've had every year since I was like, 1. I got an iPhone for my birthday, though I knew this already. It's not working at the moment, so there isn't much I can comment about it. I also got electronic kitchen scales from brother (he'd told me he wanted to get me SIMS3 so we could play it together, though evidently mom stopped him) and an absolutely amazing card that he spent the whole afternoon making. It is really cool. I think I should upload a picture of it.
Ok here we go! It is a THREE PAGE POP UP.
The last page says SIS. hahah. I don't know how he did it, but damn, this is so cool!!
3) Ever since I was.. I don't know, 17? I've been becoming increasingly less enthusiastic about my birthday. I guess you could say that being excited as I was before that was unnecessary, and also that since a birthday is just any other day it's better to be unenthusiastic so that you don't suffer from birthday withdrawal or anything. But I have to say, getting smses from morning until night and that random call from Aditi in the UK (though i am now dreading the phone bill...) and swapping presents with Lola and having Rebecca and David meet me after class and Rachel's card in the mail and wubby's BFG card and Ryota's ecard and then logging into facebook and seeing over a hundred messages on my wall made me feel rather warm and fuzzy. Apparently the unijap gang was going to get together on Tuesday, but I ended up with French makeup class so that didn't work out but I was still really happy. I know it might be rather superficial and all, but I feel loved and it's a nice feeling :)
4) Also, it often feels like birthdays come and go in the blink of an eye but when I stop and think about it it is also true that so much has happened between every birthday, and each birthday seems fixed and special in its own distinct point in time (well duh. Doesn't seem as...point-ful the way I've phrased it but whatever). Like last year, I remember the messages stuffed ingenuously in bottle, the rain after school, the sparkling strawberry wine and the slight tipsiness that followed, Y calling and me feeling giddy and giggly (perhaps because of the wine) and spending most of the evening trying hard to finish my unijap essay. It feels so recent, but also so incredibly far away. I mean, high school?! How many centuries ago was that?! And wubby brought it up the other day that it has been 5 years since SYF with that gold with honours and screaming my head off with crazed jubilation and the party at KAP (?) with the chocolate birthday cake miss janice bought and everyone just being so so so ecstatic, and then heading home with vooj who had a mini cake for me and two scrolls (inc the 'most important award that is still hung up in my wardrobe), and sitting on my bed dazed with joy while vooj... patiently waited for me to come out of my excited stupor. Hehe. And that year two seniors whose names I have forgotten gave me a card that said 'Just two more years till you can watch NC 16 films!!' and when I think of that I feel pretty ancient.
5) MY BOOKS ARE ARRIVING HOHOHOOHO. I got two parcels yesterday, one small flat one which was LE PETIT PRINCE, yes in French!! now I have the same book in english, japanese and french. When I go to china I'm going to get myself the chinese as well, heheh. And I only found out after whining at mum about my stuff being potentially lost in the mail that there was a big box on the doorstep and I opened that and discovered more books ordered from America yayyy! Credit cards are handy, heh heh. Though it's been more than two weeks and my Eating Animals has yet to arrive, which is a little dodgy...
6) I went to see Maryse yesterday and am feeling happy because after receiving my very bad grade on that PPE essay I was feeling rather disheartened and stupid etc but when i actually went to talk with her it really came home to me that just because I do crap on the first essay doesn't mean that I am now a failure or hated by my tutor; as long as I review my mistakes and seek improvement she is right there to help and encourage etc, so I am determined that the next assignment I hand in will not be a disappointment. Though I guess it's good I did pretty badly on the first essay, because sometimes I feel that without the occasional knock I tend to develop this weird loserish bubble mentality where, as I experienced last week, doing relatively unwell makes a sizeable dent in my ego. When really it's no big deal and I should really really learn to live with the fact that however much I want to write good and solid and insightful essays etc, it is still possible I churn out complete crap. In other words, the dent has disappeared and I am currently a happy, determined person. I hope I finish the essay before my enthusiasm wears out. Which brings me to:
7) Hello! I am Marxist till mid may.
8) Bro is going to take part in some clarinet competition and I'm accompanying him for his little concerto and I must say getting back onto the piano AND playing music WITH someone with all the eye contact and crescendos together and the counter harmonies etc is just an awesome feeling. Still feeling sucky about having no time for viola, but hopefully after I quit that job I'll have extra time, but in the mean time this is pretty awesome. And I'm really enjoying MUCS even though Rebecca and Mia both gave me yeaargh faces when I told them we were doing Baroque choral music and refused to come. But I actually really like it, despite my rather strong aversion to playing Baroque music on the piano. And there's this super cool guy at the back who has this amazingggg bass voice and I have to admit I'm a sucker for the bass section and even more so a sucker because he reminds me of Y when he sings and I think that's one of the things I quite miss about him.
9) Yay for Fridays!