Exhale

Something strange just happened. A group of people just burst into my room and stood behind me as I chatted online. And they never said a word to me! And a very weird bunch of people too - my younger brother, his genius/child prodigy math tutor, the latter's father who is from China and speaks with a strong Shangainese accent and my own dad who doesn't speak a word of Chinese but gets by with lots of guesswork. So the tutor's father started a conversation in Chinese and my dad just listened and somehow managed to reply in English. Meanwhile, my brother and his tutor hogged my bed and started talking about Final Fantasy and flipping through my FFX2 guidebook. And I'm just sitting there, like, part of the wall! Geez. I mean if you're going to invade my room, at least say hi.

Had a steamboat dinner at Gwen's house yesterday. Met up with Pea and Steph at Gwen's place and went up to help Gwen prepare all the food, though I think the 3 of us were more a hindrance than a help. Gwen found a huge bag of ice and told us to break it, and Steph just pounded it really hard with her hand and started swearing. So Gwen found this nasty looking meat pounder and started smashing the ice with it. Then she and Pea got into this rather inane argument.

Pea: Its a meat pounder.
Gwen: No. Its a crab pounder.
Pea: How do you know?
Gwen: Because it is la! Haiyo! *smashes a whole block of ice*
Pea: Hey its not my fault your family bought a meat pounder and used to kill crabs.
Gwen: Tsk...whatever. *smashes more ice*
Pea: Sheesh. *stalks into kitchen* And Steph! Keep fanning the coal!
Steph: *doing her maid impersonation* Yes Mam.

And the two of them just went at each other the whole night. It was pretty hilarious. I got quite a lot of it on film while I was slacking around, video-ing them.

Me: Hey steph! Say something for the camera!
Steph: Hi...*waves*
Pea and Gwen are visible in the background, in the kitchen cooking. They are also very audible*
Pea: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?? GWEN GET HERE NOW...OY! *orange flames shoot up from the stove*
Gwen: TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!
Steph: *in undertones* Ok they were just on the verge of killing us.
Pea: *from the kitchen* ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!
Gwen: PEA STOP IT ...!
Me: *heading toward the kitchen with camera* Hello! What's going on?
Pea: JEANNE YOU BETTER GET THAT CAMERA OUT OF MY FACE BEFORE I KNOCK IT OUT -
Me: I'm not taking any pictures! Its only a video...erm...a preparation video.
Gwen: *bent over the stove* A video of what? Cinderella?
Pea: *snorts* What preparation.
Gwen: *peering into the pot* ...Give it more time.
Pea: *harrassed* Don't! Leave it already...It smells la!
Gwen: Yaar...but unfortunately the fire outside is damn weak la...
Pea: No! I see steam coming out already! Just leave it!
Steph: *doing her maid impersonation again* M'am stop fighting with sir!
Gwen: *glares at Pea* Why am I sir? I'm the one who's cooking and cleaning and you're the one who's doing nothing and eating the food I cook!

Meanwhile Steph and I just sat around the steamboat fanning the coal very vigorously. I swear I saw sparks! And I kept saying so, but Steph and Pea told me I was hallucinating. Hm. In the end we just took all the raw food and boiled it seperately over the stove because we couldn't get the steamboat hot enough. Spent the rest of the night at the table gossiping and talking rubbish.

Then came cleaning up. God, what a nightmare. Took about over an hour, and I accidently tipped over the steamboat so all the ash spilled out onto the kitchen floor. Gwen and I used excessive amounts of paper towels to clear up the mess before switching to toilet paper.

Pea: *staring* Why are you using toilet paper?
Gwen: Because we're dealing with shit.

Stayed until a little over 10pm cleaning up. Hah. But it was really fun. Pea tried taking a video with my camera and she got a good shot of what Gwen called 'The Nightmare' in the sink. It was also then that Pea went 'Sheesh, we should've just gone to Seoul Gardens' and went off to scrub the dishes. Sigh. Oh well.

posted by Jeanne @ 1:16 AM

Went out with Joel in the afternoon and spied this cuddly, fluffy handphone holder thing in the shape of a cow. Bought it on impulse after I realized that it actually starts mooing whenever you receive smses or calls. I think the radiation activates the mooing or something. So me and Joel were just standing in the middle of the store looking really excited, calling each other just to hear the cow moo.

Me: Omg! Message me again!
Joel: *msging furiously* Incoming!
Mooooo...mooo....mooo...
Me: *jibbering* Its so cute!!! How much??

So the cow thing is sitting on my bed now smiling up at me. I'm kind of regretting my impulse purchase though, because for some reason the cow keeps mooing randomly even though my phone's not receiving any messages or anything. And its getting noisy and irritating too! Going to lock it away tonight in the closet lest it start mooing in the middle of the night and wake everyone up.

And for the record, John and Ian, the two of you are damn lame! *grumbles* Shall expose you next time.

posted by Jeanne @ 10:56 PM

Haha really love going out with Gwen. We always do really stupid things when we're outside and have a good time laughing the whole day about it.

So after doing some stuff for drama a couple of days ago, went with her to orchard to go shopping (more like window shopping as it later turned out). Then we met Kohshay in Far east who told us that she had seen Pea loitering around Orchard with her own friends. After exchanging significant looks with Gwen, immediately rang Pea up.

Me: Ey where are you?
Pea: *suspicious* Why?
Me: I'm just asking...where are you...?
Pea: *suspicious* Why? In Wheelock. Why? Are you in the area?
Me: Maybe.
Pea: *stroke of brilliance* Are you with Gwen?
Me: Maybe.
Pea: *another stroke of brilliance* Are you going to come to look for me?
Me: Maybe.
Pea: *dead serious* If I see either one of you...I'm going to kill you.

Geez! What happened to best friends who act all excited when they bump into you in town? Sigh.

So anyway.

Me: *stroke of brilliance* Are you with a guy or something?
Pea: Yea I'm with like 10 guys. I'm serious. I'm going to kill you if you 2 show up.

We're all best friends and we respect each other and everything. And so we did what we usually do when Pea issues us the ultimatum - ignore it. Headed over to Wheelock after we completed our window shopping in Far East. Searched all over for her till we spied her in Sakae Sushi...with a few girlfriends and not with any 10 guys. Gwen thinks she was probably refering to all the guys who were sitting at the tables around hers.

Me: Pea you lied! I don't see any guys.
Gwen: *grabbing the phone* Liars burn in hell you know.
Pea: *cranky* Go to hell. And tell Jeanne I was being sarcastic duh.
Me: Anyway how come you don't want us to meet you?
Pea: *answering with Pea logic* Ey you know I've seriously seen lots of your school people today la.
Me: ...Um so if you see us would that be one too many? Aiya we saw tons of your school people in town too anyway.

So crashed her gathering where she gave us this very typical grouchy Pea Look and promptly started calling us stalkers while gesticulating wildly.

Haha I love Pea so much. Even though we tease her a lot :P

posted by Jeanne @ 11:25 PM

OMG I can't believe I got ripped off again. And at a Japanese restaurant again. What is wrong with me???

Went to Cine for sushi buffet with John and Joanne today. I wanted ala carte but according to some silly rule everyone at a table has to either order ala carte or buffet - no exceptions. Ok so fine I go with the flow. (why?????) Its $16.90 for all you can eat but I can't eat, partly because John and I had a huge slab of chocolate cake when we popped over to Jo's house earlier and also because all that rice in the sushi actually is filling. So ended up just eating under $10 worth of food; was struggling to finish my egg roll toward the end. Jo ordered this huge bowl of raw salmon and managed to coerce John into eating about half. I dunno how he did it because apparently he really hates raw fish; he insisted on putting the menu between him and the bowl throughout the entire meal until the last piece of salmon was gone so he wouldn't have to see it. And when Jo managed to convince him to help her eat some, he actually did the whole Fear Factor thing, pinching his nose and chewing the salmon very vigorously before sticking out his tongue for inspection. A little later on, the chicken came and we all tried to force it down but couldn't really finish it all. Then the waitress toddled over and reminded us that wastages were charged. I was reminded suddenly of Amanda who once made Gary stuff all the leftovers from sushi buffet in his mouth so they wouldn't be charged extra. They left the restaurant whereupon Gary promptly deposited all the food in his mouth in the nearest dustbin. Ew.

Jo suggested leaving the leftover food on the floor which is apparently what she did last time. In the end after lots of deliberation, I took one of the wet napkins and hid some chicken inside and gave it to John. Jo dumped the remaining chicken into her empty soup bowl and put the lid on. Made a hasty getaway after that. So. Paid about $17 for less than $10 worth of food...and then they added on service charge so it came out to about $20. How could I have forgotten that? Service charge always kills you. Sigh. So left very full and very broke. *sob* I messaged my dad to complain.

Me: I got ripped off again with my friends!
Dad: U must get revenge.
Me: How?
Dad: Duno. Aiya. Be more thick skinned next time. Declare you're broke before going out to eat! Then your friends will take pity on you. Btw, whose winning arh? Bush or Kerry?

But apart from that episode it was quite a fun day. Came to school in the morning rather reluctantly because apparently there was some chinese lesson. Met John and spied our chinese teacher in the carpark whereupon we instinctively took 10 steps back in an attempt to "blend" in. Then we found out that it was a consultation session and not a lesson so we left shortly after because of a lack of any good questions to ask.

John: *once outside the school gate* Ahhhh....the sweet smell of freedom. *blissful look*

Being the bored people we are we decided to pay Joanne a house visit - all the way in Ang Mo Kio. Took a train there and wandered around for about half an hour before we got proper directions from a nice lady in a Christian bookstore. So toddled along trying to look out for the right street which we finally found after much sweatbloodandtears! Joanne came down to meet us in her PJs looking very sleepy and yelling 'The two of you are mad! Mad! Its like 6am! You're all mad! And don't you have chinese anyway?' before going back upstairs along with the air-con service men. (who had disturbed her after John had woken her up first by calling for directions) So we just hung around her living room watching BBC [John: 'that's such a dweeby AH thing to do'], following the going-ons of the US presidental election and commenting on how some of the presentors seemed to share the same wig. Then Jo came down and we walked out along the stretch of road, passing by some of the other houses in her estate. Then this puny, irritating dog belonging to one of her neighbours flung itself against the gate and started yelping at us as we continued walking.

Jo: *yelling at the dog* WHY DON'T YOU JUST GROW BIGGER SO YOU CAN JUMP OVER THE FENCE AND GET US HUH??

Then we linked arms and skipped along the road to the bus stop before John disentangled himself and said that we were acting gay. Ah happy times.

posted by Jeanne @ 11:39 PM

I got ripped off again. At a sushi place. As Anjali put it so well on her blog, I paid $5 for 'two pieces of prawn'.
-_-
It was partly my fault because I just grabbed the first dish which looked nice off the conveyor belt - but you wouldn't think 2 pieces of prawn would cost 5 bucks now would you??. Then after I had scoffed down everything, I searched for the pricing - which we finally found at the back of the menu - and that was when I started hyperventilating all over Gwen and Anjali.

I'm either cursed or just incapable of looking for the price lists.

Must learn from self confessed cheapo Gwen, who, apart from ordering a bowl of rice which had practically everything in it (including PRAWNS) for the low, low, low price of $6, she just ate ginger slices from the bottle which they always have at the tables of every Japanese restaurant.

Gwen: *eating ginger staright from the bottle* Ginger's good for you, you know.
Me: *just stares*
Gwen: Once I finished an entire bottle of ginger in a Jap restaurant and had to ask them for a refill. The best part is you don't pay for it -
Me: Arrrgh GWEN....

Was supposed to watch The Grudge with Guangzhao today...but he had to work till 4 so decided to go another day instead. I dunno if I still wanna watch it because apparently it scared Ian real bad and he's not usually one to be scared. And me on the other hand -

[while watching a pirated VCD of The Eye in broad daylight and after Ian's described all the scary bits to me in great detail]

Me: *cowering behind the cushions* Is it the scary part yet??
Ian: No.
Me: *hysterical* Then why is there freaky music??
Ian: No.
Me: There is!
Ian: No.
Me: *covers eyes*
Ian: *annoyed* Look. I told you the only scary parts are in the hospital corridor, in a caligraphy class and in a lift.
Me: *from behind my fingers* There can't only be 3 scary parts in a horror show.
Ian: I mean, really scary parts. Unless you just consider a glimpse of a ghost standing on a highway scary. *looks at me* Sheesh. Fine. 4 then.
Me: And anyway she's in the hospital now! You just said a scary scene takes place here!
Ian: In the corridor. Shes only in her room now.
Me: *not listening* Is that doctor a ghost?
Ian: No.
Me: Is that little girl a ghost?
Ian: No.
Me: Well someone's gotta be a ghost right? That's always the case.
Ian: Ok fine but the little girl only becomes a ghost later. Oh...hey scary part coming up in about 2 minutes.
Me: Whaaaaaatttt....*grabs more cushions*
Ian: Its not even really scary you know, its just....loud. And a bit shocking. And no one dies.
Me: *squeaks* Turn down the volume!
Ian: Why? I already warned you so it shouldn't be scary at all.
Me: *insistent squeak*
Ian: *explodes* Oh fine. *mutes the TV* And I'm trying to train your mind, you know? How are you going to watch The Ring on HBO with me like this? We're going to borrow all three Ju On movies next time we go to the shop and I'm going to force you to watch.

I already warned GZ that I would probably die in the theatre while watching the Grudge, if its as scary as my brother says it is.

What a boring day. Its raining again as usual. Going off to play Warcraft with my brother. Toodles.

posted by Jeanne @ 7:08 PM