when i went to Paris earlier this year, i stayed in a hotel opposite the famed pastry shop, Ladurée, the original home of the double decker macaron. i walked into the confiserie not knowing anything of its fame — just that it was swathed in pretty colors, had a long line of people spilling out the front doors, and that it carried platters and platters of delicate sugared things in its glass bellies. of course i had to go in. i bought a small box of macarons, ate the first vanilla one and decided that it was probably the best macaron i’ve ever had, and that’s saying something, because the ones from IFC mall in Hong Kong are very special to me too. i then walked around the city which was rather warm for the season, and i was quite happy about the comforting weather, but upon arriving at the Jardin du Luxembourg, i discovered with much dismay that all of my macarons had become a mess of colorful mud from the heat and playful jostling.

then some months later, after watching the last episode of Gossip Girl Season 2, i happened to mention to someone that it was so impossibly and otherworldly romantic of Chuck to fly to Germany to buy Blair her favorite Falke stockings, and to Paris to get her a box of her favorite Pierre Herme macarons. how i would swoon if that happened to me! and so that someone, after asking me to close my eyes, presented me with –

i have my very own chuck! :)

(P/S: do people think i’m a pig? :( why do people keep giving me food? maybe i am a pig…)

i turn 21 in two days. some drama happened over the weekend, i canceled my own surprise birthday party, and my birthday in general was poised to look like a very upsetting and depressing affair — not to mention the severe emotional turmoil of realizing i’m actually becoming old — but right now all the rainclouds have been whisked away and i’m feeling very lucky, blessed, and loved. i’m currently somewhere quiet and tranquil and surrounded with much warmth and care, both in proximity and remotely, and i couldnt be happier. well, i could — because i wish my family, friends, and favorite people were here with me, but i’ll see them soon enough. and that’s sufficient sunshine for me :) right now i’m happy.

the gifts have started arriving in the mail. every day something comes, and i run with such anticipation to the mailroom to collect. some of the gifts are funny and made me laugh out loud as i tore through the packaging, like this one:

21 packets of my favorite Nissin XO Seafood instant noodles, which i first discovered in the Asian supermarket at Queensway, London. i brought back to New York almost a dozen of those in cup-form the first time i went to London, and they were pretty much my finals week staple food when i had no time to have proper meals. these ones take a bit more effort to make cos they’re not in a cup and i have to wash utensils and stuff after, but they still taste as yummy. sooooo good for late night munchies! i dont think i could ever get sick of these noodles, and i believe that’s the reason i got these in the mail — because the wonderful person who sent them to me was tired of ferrying cups and cups of noodles whenever he came to New York for a visit :P

am gonna post up pictures of my twenty one gifts (yes, the number was preordained) whenever i can. the cutest stories are behind them!

and nooooo it’s not my birthday yet :((( let me have these last two days of still being YOUNG!

i wish that i’d had the foresight to blow off my calculus midterm on my birthday. as i found out the moment i took the paper in my hands, i’d studied all week long for nothing, because i still couldnt answer more than half the paper. the day would have been spent a lot better out in Soho or Times Square, methinks, with Martian, who came to NY to surprise me for my birthday :)

so here’s the story! two days before my birthday, i got a really weird text from Martian saying, ‘don’t tell su ann i’m going. she doesnt know’. obviously it wasnt meant to be sent to me, but where was he going that he couldnt tell me about? so i texted him to ask what’s up, but i didnt get a reply. half an hour later, i texted again to ask if he was keeping anything from me. still no reply. then i called him, but he didnt answer. by an hour later, i was getting really angry (and paranoid), so i called him again. TO FIND THAT HIS PHONE WAS OFF.

and thus ensued something like four hours of me trying to call him, but to no avail. my thoughts were really all over the place at this point – i was trying to pin down where he was going, if he was going to meet someone (like some other girl grrrrrr), or if he was going to do something that i wouldnt want him doing. sieutheng kept trying to console me by saying he was probably coming to NY to surprise me for my birthday, but i wasnt so sure, because he’d just left NY a month ago.

by the fifth hour of incommunicado, i was already contemplating calling his mother, but i decided to call one of his best friends first. so i called tattiong (aka justin but tattiong is a lot nicer to say), all panicky and worried, and asked him if he knew where Martian was. he said no, but they were supposed to meet for dinner that night, so if i didnt get to talk to Martian by then, tattiong would make him call me. so since they had dinner plans, i was ruling out the possibility of a surprise visit, which made me even more worried. but actually tattiong is just a very good liar because i found out later that he knew Martian was coming -_- wtf…

dissatisfied, i called Martian’s mother. and omg she just kept changing the subject. i asked her if she knew where Martian was and she kept asking me things like how was i doing, if i was coping well with school, if it was cold, if i was eating properly etc etc etc. when i couldnt stand it anymore and insisted that she tell me where he was, you know what she told me?

‘he’s actually in the hospital for surgery.’

?!?!?!

and i was like FOR WHAT!!! but she wouldnt tell me! she just went on changing the subject and saying that the surgery wasnt serious, that i shouldnt worry, that this was no big deal… which was really strange because she’s like this really kind and concerned mom who would take it quite seriously if Martian was in the hospital for surgery. then i asked her why didnt Martian tell me that he was going for surgery, and she goes “oh.. sorry, i didnt know that you two weren’t speaking!” haih everyone’s a good liar these days. then she told me she would put Martian on the phone when she goes to visit him at the hospital.

haih. okay lor. so clearly i wasnt going to get any information out of her. we hung up, and i called tattiong again to tell him about the hospital news. again, he was sooooo indifferent about the hospital thing, and said that Martian probably didnt tell me about it because he didnt want me to worry, which is so not a real-life situation because Martian and i just dont have that kind of relationship. we would probably ham up a papercut just to get more attention from the other.

an hour later, i finally got my answers. i received something like 10 texts from Martian in one go explaining what was going on. he actually sent all of the texts before he boarded the plane, but as fate would have it (and of course it always does), the texts didnt get to me until 6 hours later. in the first few texts, he went with the appendicitis story, saying that he was going in for surgery now, didnt want me to worry, and that he would call me 12 hours later hahahha what is this?! think i stupid ah! appendicitis surgery doesnt take 12 hours! then somewhere in the middle, presumably because i wasnt replying him, he asked, ‘baby arent you worried about me?’ hahahahaha see, see what did i say. then in the later texts, he explained that he was actually coming to see me, and that he would be stopping over in London, but that he would be here in New York in 24 hours :))

:))

:)))))))))

so this is him napping in my room after he arrived, using Ham as a neck rest:

oh wait cerita belum habis. Martian apparently had this grand plan that he wanted to put in action, which was to get one of my friends to meet up with me, and instead of that friend turning up, he would show up with flowers instead and surprise me. so guess who he contacted to be his partner-in-crime?

LIEW SUET LI.

hahahahaha aiyooooo let me tell you why she is the worst partner in crime, EVER. to cut short a really long pinging and ponging back and forth between me and suet, she basically told me that she wanted to meet up with me (she’s studying in Massachusetts) cos she would be in New York over the weekend. BUT, she’s actually already coming here next week, so i asked her why would she make double trips? she then said that she wanted to spend time with me for my birthday hahahahahaha which is like ludicrous because it is SO TOTALLY NOT something she would do. so i didnt believe her. and then she started changing her story, saying that she had to come to NY to meet someone, and that i couldnt tell Barry (her boyfriend) or anyone else about it, and that she really needed me to be there for her before she met this person. so i started getting worried. i’m like who’s this person you have to meet? what’s going on? what are you doing?? are you cheating on barry????

and she tells me:

she’s coming to NY to get an abortion.

an ABORTION.

“it’s barry’s baby! i cant tell barry because he will freak out!”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WTFFFFF WHAT KIND OF STORY IS THIS

you know what’s even funnier?

i actually believed it.

and agonized over it for a couple of days, wondering like crazy if i should convince her to keep the baby. sigh.

——————-

there, that is the story of the failed Martian surprise. in the end he just came straight to my college after checking into the hotel. then on my birthday, he took me out for dinner at Serafina. he’s also spending a couple more days here before he leaves :) sigh. im just really, really glad he’s here. i’ve been missing him so much. it really was the coolest ’surprise’ ever; i really dont mind that it didnt work out the way it was planned, as long as Martian is here. a big thank you to you, liewsuetli, for being part of the plan and for not actually getting yourself knocked up :P

pictures of some birthday presents!:

these flowers were delivered to my dorm together with a box of chocolates and a big happy yellow helium balloon! :D they were from my lovely aunt, whom you can see leaving comments on my blog every now and then.

Martian got me a gorgeous pair of shoes from Shoes Shoes Shoes! i think it was last Christmas that he was going to get me something gadgety like an MP3 player or a mobile phone, and then his friend who owns Shoes Shoes Shoes scolded him and said that every girl should get girly gifts like shoes. haha. i think he took the advice to heart :P i love the shoes! i always think it’s so cool when a guy knows what kind of shoes or clothes to get his girlfriend :)

and this is the card Martian mailed to me. he’s damn funny wan la, he actually couriered this card to me even though he was coming here. waste money on postage only… but nvm lah the card so cute! when i saw the piggy i was like WTF… what is he trying to say! then when i opened it, the first sentence was “i know what you’re thinking.. it’s not like that”. haha :P

OMG these are from Carol! cupcakes from Magnolia!!! earlier this year when i told the people from Bisou that i was possibly going to New York to study, they insisted that i check out this cupcake place in NY called Magnolia. apparently the cupcakes there are reallyyyyy good, and it’s the store that was featured in Sex and the City? and Carol got some for me <3 omg <3 i nearly fainted from ecstasy when i ate them. it's super sweet, yes, but SO DELICIOUS. these cupcakes redefine sinful. carol, even Martian says they're good. and you know how Mr Carrot Chip hates sinful desserts...

a beanie from Chew Fui! i didnt think of buying hats for the winter, so i’m really going to need this when it gets colder here. the beanie came along with a super cute card that had a masterpiece drawn by Chew Fui’s daughter, Mei. it’s so cool! check out the envelope behind the card :D

and this huge box came for me in the mail last week :) i knew immediately that it was from my family. i opened it to find:

hahaha! i think my family thinks i’m still a kid. and they thought right! the wrinkly bulldog is from my dad and the red elephant is from my mom. the elephant’s name is Dumbo, which is actually what my parents have been calling me since i was a baby. until now. ya. my parents call me Dumbo :\ they duped the 4-year-old me into thinking it was a cute name.. but now that i am 20 and more discerning, i know better :\

the cow is from Tall Brother and he actually referred to it as a ‘pig’ in the card. hello?? it is a cow, not a pig! but haih then again he also thought Pooch (who is a dog) was a sheep. and the long sausage pig is from Short Brother. his name is Ham! the pig, not my brother. Martian thinks Ham is a very good neck rest.

and this is the card that came with the box. sigh. when i opened the card and read it, it really hit me that this was my first birthday away from my home. i guess i hadnt really thought about it until that point in time. i miss my family! :( and it’s my Short Brother’s birthday today. happy birthday Short Brother!!!

i also got a bunch of American snacks from my floormates, but i forgot to take pictures of the snacks! now they’re all in my tummy. i’m having a lot of fun exploring this whole new world of American snacks. pretzels, salted popcorn, pop tarts, reese’s pieces… yumm :)

all in all, i had a wonderful birthday :) if you guys left me comments or facebook mssgs but didnt see the thank you video i left in the comments section of the post below, then let me say thank you again! i know i should be growing out of this phase where i’m really excited to have birthday cards and birthday presents and i’m always looking forward to birthday cake and all the phone calls at midnight… but i cant help myself :))) i just love birthdays. i wonder if i’ll still love them as much when i hit the big 3-0 ten years from now.

i’ve always wanted to blog about the person who sent me Envelope 3, and now opportunity has just presented itself in the form of a bright, smiley, sunny orange card that came in the mail for me all the way from Aarhus, Denmark :) the Danish stamp was a clear indicator of who the sender was, though the totally perasan note on the back of the envelope was a dead giveaway as well. it said, ‘before you open this, remember that Tamtim is awesome!’ -_-

so the card is from Tamtim, formerly known on my blog as Timtam before i realized too many Tims were running around with the same nickname, and formerly formerly known by his real name Jak Tim.. though sometimes i call him Lummy when i feel like irritating him. he’s currently spending a semester studying abroad at Denmark to finish up his degree in Finance, because it is his big goal in life to become a power hungry investment banker. i assure you he will do a very good job at i-banking because he actually likes the culture of staying back late to do work. and he also likes bloomberg and microsoft excel. wtf…

he is one of my favorite-est friends ever, though i would never admit this to him in person. i tell Tamtim all my shit with reckless abandon, even though he’s probably the most judgmental friend i have :P he’d be one of the first people i would talk to if i were facing a problem, and also one of the first i would go to to share good news.

tamtim, crabby as always

Tamtim is one of those people that i got along with grandly even within the first few hours of meeting each other. he’s like one of my best friends now, but we actually only met two years ago, in 2006, through my blog! he’d been reading me since the days of my old blog at pinkskyes and occasionally he would leave me comments under the moniker ArtificiallyVerbose (hahahahaha!), but one day we started talking via email because i wrote on my blog that i desperately wanted to go watch Damien Rice in Singapore, and he offered to help me get the tickets. omg Tamtim why last time you so nice, now not nice anymore T____T anyway i never did get to go watch Damien Rice because the tickets sold out within minutes, but nevermind lah, in the end i still found Tamtim! i think if the Damien Rice thing didnt happen, Tamtim and i wouldnt be friends today. so, all is good :)

we like a lot of the same things, which makes us good kakis for just about anything, be it movies, food or shopping. as is apparent with the Damien Rice thing, Tamtim and i share similar music tastes, which is awesome whenever there are gigs going on in Singapore. so far we’ve gone for The Album Leaf and Death Cab for Cutie. he’s also one of the few guy friends i have who actually LIKES watching musicals :O i usually have to beg Martian or other guy friends to take me to musicals :( oh and get this: Tamtim also watches Grey’s Anatomy and…………. GOSSIP GIRL!!! hahahaha! best. so i get to rant to him about plot twists and stupid characters that should just disappear, cos he watches all the same shows as i do. we watch Heroes too but that information is not as gempak as the fact that he watches Gossip Girl.

to those who have been reading my blog for a while now, remember the supermarket series of photos where i was terrorizing the supermarket aisles from inside a trolley? well, my partner-in-crime on that day was none other than Tamtim :P actually, he’s my favorite camwhore partner because he’s so game to do anything. most people just get tired after awhile or they dont want to cause a scene. haih, but causing a scene is when the photos are best!

there are very few people who know me inside out, and i think even fewer people who know how to handle me when i’m upset or angry. i dont always agree with what Tamtim has to say, but most of the time it’s a case of him saying what i need to hear, and not what i want to, and even though i get a little bit miffed at first, i always feel much better at the end of the day when i realize that what he says is right. this, among many other reasons – like the fact that he watches Gossip Girl and likes musicals :) – is why i’m so glad that Tamtim and i randomly found each other. we dont just get along, but we get each other, and i think everyone needs a friend like that :)

everyone also needs a friend who will help them do their economics homework. hehe! thank you Tamtim! we got the answers back today and you were right about the electronics’ workers wages..

i also found a peer recommendation that he wrote for me for one of the colleges i applied to. i want to share the last line of the letter because i think it’s amazing what foresight Tamtim has and also how well he knows me. in the letter to the college, he says: “Perhaps the only concern I have of her being admitted to your school would be her taking on too many tasks as she has a diverse base of interests and this would put her time management skills to the test”.

IT’S SO TRUE OKAY. there are so many things i want to do here, but i’m spreading myself way too thin, and i’m already feeling the massive physical and emotional drain. and i also find the sentence as a whole kinda amusing. haha. it’s very Tamtim to talk like that. ‘as she has a diverse base of interests’… hahahaha damn serious.

there’s so much more i could tell you guys about Tamtim, like how he has this weird fascination with Cookie Monster, but it’s already 3 a.m here and i still have lots of work left to do. you know lah, my time management skills are being put to the test wat. so i shall end this post with a snapshot of the little note that Tamtim wrote on the front of the envelope for the postman:

shy and anti-social wtf. thank you tamtim for the card! it really did make me smile :)

i have been feeling extremely stressed out in the past week. i guess i dont really want to say why because it’s going to sound like i’m making excuses, but sometimes i wish the people who loved me would be a little bit more understanding. or maybe that is an unfair request. but why am i constantly made to feel like i am not good enough? or like i’m not putting in enough effort into this or that, that i am doing things wrongly, that my priorities are muddled. the past week has been full of such claims, and it’s so draining and discouraging. it’s a small thing to get worked up over, i know, but right now my nerves are so fried that i’m hyper-sensitive to just about anything.

but something happened a couple of days ago that made me smile :) i finally remembered to check my mailbox to see if i had any letters, and amidst some boring letters from the bank, i found that i had two cards sent to me! those cards totally made my day. then the day after, i got a package in the mail. and today i got another!!! :D

so! i’ve decided to start a new blog category titled ‘What I Got In The Mail’ to document the cool things people send me in the mail for as long as i’m here, whether they are postcards, photos, letters, packages or a quick note scribbled on a napkin, haha. it’s going to be my little way of saying an extra thank you to the people who so kindly took the time and effort to send me stuff :)) mail makes me so happy!

the first ever package i got ever since i arrived was the one from Chew Fui, which i blogged about here. and since it’s the first package i got, clearly it must precede all else in my brand new category! so this is Envelope 1. Chew Fui sent me:

1 packet of Keebler’s animal crackers (very good!!) 1 packet of Quaker’s granola bites (which Martian finished off while he was still in NY) 2 Rice Krispies treats 1 pack of Pringles pizza stix 1 pack of Kellogg’s Yogos Bits 2 pads of Post-Its

and also a card + a lovely photo of her family, with a pack of Pop Rocks taped to it. when i peeled off the Pop Rocks, there was a big smiley face there with ‘it’s kiddo, i know’ written on the card. haha! kiddo indeed!!! i havent had pop rocks in ages. nostalgia nostalgia. back in the day (wtf), each pack used to have these yellow lollipops shaped like feet that we could dip into the pop rocks. best!

i met Chew Fui late 2002 when i first started going to church at TMLC. i only went to TMLC for about a year, but made some very good friends there :) we drifted apart after a while though, because i stopped going to TMLC and being the lousy person that i am, didnt keep in touch with most of them except for a few. a few years down the road, one of the TMLC guys, Michael, told me that he shot Chew Fui’s wedding, and he showed me some photos from his camera. i was so surprised to learn that Chew Fui had gotten married!!! and then Michael tells me that she’s moving to America!! this was at a time when i hadn’t even considered going to study in the US.

fast forward some more years later, just a couple of days before i was due to fly off to New York, i get an email from Chew Fui saying hi and that i could come visit her when i arrive at the States. it was such a shock to me because i never knew she knew my blog existed, much less be reading it! super cool. i started jumping up and down excitedly when i saw the email, the kind of jumping up and down one does when meeting an old friend again, or when predicting the victory at a writing competition (Andrew :P).

Chew Fui, i already said this before, but i’m so glad we found each other again. hahaha. during one of my breaks, imma go visit and take lots of pictures with her baby daughter!!! very cute; in the photo CF sent me, her daughter was half-frowning and half-pouting :D it’s all in the pout, i always say.

Envelope 2 didnt really come in an envelope, because it’s a postcard! GUESS WHAT KIND OF POSTCARD!

it’s a postcard of Hong Kong!! with a beautiful sunset picture of the harbour. sigh. there are some days when i miss HK loads and wish that i had made more use of the time i had there. the person who sent me the postcard is Mandy, a Malaysian working in HK. we’ve never met, and i dont think she’s ever left a comment or contacted me in any way, which makes the postcard all the more cooler. she says (in very nice penmanship) that she hopes a postcard of one of my favorite places will make me smile. and it definitely did :) it also made me beg Martian to go back with me to HK some time next year *prays

mandy, if you are reading this, thank you so much. if you dont mind, i’d like to send you a postcard too, so pls pls do email me your mailing addy.

okay that concludes the first ever chapter of What I Got In The Mail :) more soon.