21.3 — Actually 21 Now

October 6th, 2009

so i’m officially 21 and oldddddddd.

it’s been a pretty awesome birthday despite the back pains, joint aches, blurry vision, and grey hair that have been creeping into the edges of my life. :)

my birthday in malaysian time (but still 12pm on the 5th here in the US) began with me falling asleep in my macroeconomics class, while grumpily wondering why no one had called or texted me yet. and then i realized that i forgot to bring my cellphone with me, which meant that i wasnt going to get any birthday love from back home (or the eastern hemisphere) for about 7 hours :((( but i went (skipped like a kid) to the mailroom to collect some gifts that came in the mail for me!

Tall Brother’s gift was the funniest — he sent me a John Grisham book that looks like it came from my dad’s bookshelf. his card came in the form of a piece (strip) of notebook paper taped to the front cover. haha! <3 Short Brother got me a pillow with a sleeping cow on it -- am not too sure if there is an isi tersirat there. and my parents gave me a pendant of a key on a necklace... with the receipt still in the box -_- i called my dad to say thanks, and mentioned that they forgot to remove the receipt, but then he said, ‘aiyah that’s your mother’s doing lah’. WTF. so i called my mom, who got all defensive and said that if she didnt leave the receipt in there, i wouldnt believe that the necklace was real -_- but quite funny also in retrospect. and i also got a vase of roses from Smartypants, and a FlipFlap plant from Kevin! both are soaking up sun on my windowsill now.

and then i ushered in my US-time birthday by storming into a cab after a lot of yelling, and even leaving my birthday cake (and splinters of heart) behind. how typical of me. it was almost 6 in the morning of my 21st birthday, i was feeling completely miserable and didnt want to talk to anyone, so i stopped the cab outside the library and went in alone to attempt some work. and that’s where i saw in my email inbox a username and password to a picasa account.

it was a picasa account filled with videos of birthday messages from my friends. T_____T

a humongous, teary, full-hearted thank you from every inch of my soul to the following loved ones:

voon, who was sporting that Voonish british accent that i find so cute and funny. in his first video, he said, “everyone HATES YOU cos you’re cute, popular and SO PINK”. and then i think he felt bad cos he made another video (from another day, but with the accent intact) saying that he was just kidding. :P still love you, voonie!

tocklet, who made a very emo video and also reminded me of how i once smashed an ice cream cone into his face. HAHA :D

chen chow, who didnt know how to record a video so he sent a powerpoint slide instead, with one of the slides being THAT picture of himself with the purple background. you know lah, that picture. quote: “sorry, no video. i tried, but i dont know how to record video online… so i use 18th century way of wishing you happy birthday!” haha dont bluff lah chen chow as if you dont know how to record video!! funny quote:

my very own elmo backpack ^____^

lali, who LOOKS HOT EVEN WHEN SHE’S SICK!

carol darling whose video was the first one that made me cry :( she spoke over a montage of the many pics that we took together, starting from the first one at MSLS where she was apparently intimidated by me T___T why kehrole why!! i’m so nice…..

dominic, whose black & white video was sooooo WTF. he sat around in a hoodie, stared at the webcam with his big expressive eyes, didnt say anything and shook his head from left to right to a damn ridiculous twangy birthday song with lyrics that said i was fat, among many other things :(

ezra, who played Hey There Delilah on the ukulele and sang the song in an overexaggerated Indian accent :D oooooo is watchu doo to meeehhh! i like anything that ezra sings.

freddy, whose voice couldnt be heard over the wind in chilly chicago, but he looked SO CUTE in the beanie he was wearing. doesn’t he?

audrey and stewie, whose video started with the words “Brace Yourself. Seriously.” this is why –

audrey, at that point in the video, was doing something like a rabbit biting on a carrot. hahaha i laughed SO HARD. funny quote in a second video: “in the haste of doing the first video, in case you cant recognize or dont know who this is, this is audrey and timothy! (insert more rabbit teeth)”

tara, who’s feeling the collegiate workload already, and apparently has no winter clothes. tara, i survived my first NYC winter with no real winter clothes, so if i can do it .. you can do it too!!! /encouraging fistpump!

songjun, whose video also made me cry cos he acted cute and sang a birthday song for me T__T and then to “remind me of home” he showed me packets of prawn mee and curry mee paste -_- he also put in a slideshow some pictures of us … look! we looked so YOUNG!:

vicnan, who was so cute in his video that i felt like reaching into the screen to squeezeeee him. i wish i could post it here so that everyone can listen to his RIDICULOUSLY SNOOTY british accent!! funny quote: “21 is quite an age, you know, you cant play the cute card anymore — no more plunging necklines and all that shit. maybe you need to start having a perm, curly hair, and maybe a girdle to keep that tummy up after all that eating”. and then he also put slow-motion takes of local food (cheong fun being spooned open, close-up of siew mai being dipped into sauce, slow pan of char kway teow………) /wipes drool

sueling and chaoying, whose video was about 35 seconds long, but their message only took up 2 seconds and everything else was silent text with really long intervals. haha too cute!

suet li, who made a really arty montage at the start of her video and then it failed halfway, so she launched into her usual suetliness (sweatiness?) that i’ve missed so much!! a funny and SO SUET LI quote: “i have like a bunch of things i want to talk to you about!! *ruffles sheets of notes around* oh actually all empty wan hehehe. (blablabla insert more talk) okay i dont know what else to say, let me consult my list .. okay the most important thing is.. *ruffles notes again* ya it’s still empty.” WTF!!

john + jet plane, whose perpetual smile has not left him. this is a guy who when angry or insulting someone, does it all with a smile, so you never really know if he’s really angry or insulting you. :D

andrew, who pulled a What Would Pinkpau Do in his video, kidnapped his brother’s soft toys and made them say hi to me, and was sitting on his chair with one leg on the seat like an ah pek. and this one also taunt me with Malaysian food, and also told me to start acting my age :( i miss you androoo <3 why do you still talk like you're public speaking when you make birthday videos!

Martian, whose video was seriously all of 1.2 seconds long, and consisted of him adjusting his hair. -________-

enghan, who pretended that he was sleeping in the first part of his video cos he was apparently imitating me during my internship!!!! YOUR HEAD LA ENGHAN!!!!! (the worst part was that my bosses were actually included in this video project................. BossGoat, dont believe enghan!!!!)

aira, who played Blink 182's All The Small Things as background music <3 AIRAAAAAAAA did i tell you that i actually did pretty decently on my last calculus midterm!! /cling

kenny, who didnt really do anything funny like he usually does, but i dont know why i laughed super hard during his entire video. and he also gave me an official tshirt from his new gym! via the webcam! and called it the Lim Su Ann Tshirt! but he held it up so low that i couldnt even see my own birthday present!!! hahaha oh kenny. i accept your paw!

valerie, who's still looking and sounding pretty since the last time i saw her, which was almost a year ago. gold mine / four seasons soon! :D

emily, who is down with Dom Flu and apparently sounds shitty, so she held up placards in her video ala Love Actually. funny quote -- “wearing skimpy clothes and being late isn’t as fun when you’re doing it alone.” and wait, what do you mean ‘prop’! the cameraperson? :P if so, his hands are super steady…

sieutheng, who threw me a two-people party via webcam even though we’re far apart :( this video made me cry like a fool :(((((((((( she even made me a party hat :(((((( sieutheng you look like the 1998 Aaron Carter in your video. i miss you :(

mesut, whose video made me smile cos it started out with him showing off his linguistic capabilities as always by wishing me happy birthday in 24938950 different languages :P and then he sang me a songgggg. oh and apparently his video was a whopping 2 gigs when he sent it in. HAHA 2 GIGS! mesoot goooool what did you dooooooo

dom, yihui and wunmin, who made a video that was something like a circus slideshow of them doing stunts and the most adorable things. it was such a precious and creative video :D

amanda, who had the video background music on SO LOUD that i couldnt hear AT ALL what she was saying, but i think she said something like “i hope my hair is straight in the video, i spent almost 40 minutes making my hair straight for the video.” or she could have said ‘hand’ with regards to holding the camera straight, but i think if she’d said ‘hair’, the quote’s so much funnier :D

timtam, who did a slideshow of flipping pages in a notebook with messages written on them (tamtimjak i recognized your writing from the FIRST PAGE how good am i!) funny quote: “Life begins at 30. Not at 21. So doing the math you’re really only 14.” and then at the corner of the page– “not old enough to drive,” with a little doodle of a car. haha tamtim <3 i couldnt drive anyway even if i were old enough -- think of all the road casualties. I MISS YOU :( thanks for taunting me with mooncake in your video. am i still getting a cute birthday present???

wongwenqi and her friends from "a fucked up music school" (eh eh according to her, not me ah), who played the piano and sang an original birthday song for me. HAHA. WENQI YOU HAVE NOT CHANGED AT ALLLL. funny quote: “limsuann, do you know this is actually the 4th take of video that we were doing. first take, my head was chopped off coz I was moving too much apparently, and I also kinda fell down the chair while getting ready to sing to u wtf. this is the end product!” wongwenqi how come i NEVER KNEW you could sing so well!!! and please do tell your friends i said a super big thank you for making a video for someone they dont even know <3

hanson, who had no video, but just a picture of himself in a ridiculous green hat and this message: “Hey Su Ann – here’s the deal. I had prepared an elaborate backdrop with a well-versed script, when my laptop crashed on me. Seriously. FML.” SURE OR NOT HANSON!!! but nvm the photo is very cute :D

benjamin, who made a really cool stop-motion video of Doraemon farting out a birthday message. i swear :P wait, actually, i dont even know if it’s stop motion or some nifty computer effect…

waimin, who made a video of her papier mache frog (whom i named Jean Bob) with a voiceover of her in a very convincing haughty french accent. haha! it’s so funny. LOVE YOU TOO WAIMIN! her video ends with:

sigh. i just rewatched all the videos and now i’m all emo again. i have to run for dinner now, and i think i may just be late — but what else is new, i guess age doesnt really change any habits — sooooo byebye! thank you SO MUCH to everyone who sent me videos, called, texted, emailed, facebook walled, plurked, tweeted, or hugged me a happy birthday, whether you were in the middle of the jungle, were sick, were busy, on campus, in a meeting, fell off a piano stool, near or far. i love you all :””) thank you for making my 21st birthday so special.

and thank you to carol, and the very wonderful roborovski, for getting my friends together for this beautiful video project :))

on a final note, nobody is allowed to say i’m old!!

Entry Filed under: People