Chinese New Year this year has been great.

Tuesday
It started with an off in lieu, of which the previous night I was doing duty along with some of my platoon mates. Then when I finally reached home, I had to work on my university applications. For now, I've applied for NTU's Art, Design & Media, which was troublesome like hell because they required a lot of stuff on top of portfolio, and I've also applied for NIE, bachelor in education. The idea of being a teacher is quite exciting, so I figured - why not give it a shot? Just like that, the entire of my Tuesday was gone.

Wednesday
I've been wasting time in the morning because I haven't had the luxury to that for a long time. Then in the evening, my family went to Grassroots Club for reunion dinner with my extended family. It was decent food, but honestly, it was more of a physical reunion for some of us, not a mental/emotional one. Headed to grandma's house after that and chatted with my cousin and brother about the dreaded national service, university, and ridiculously successful teenagers. That night, when we returned home, my brother, father, and I just sat down and had some wine and chatted.

Thursday
This day was Chu 1, meaning the first day of the lunar new year. In the morning, my paternal uncle came to visit. He also read our fortunes for us. Went to my grandma's house again after that, where all my maternal relatives gathered. Taught my brother and cousins how to play mahjong and played with them. It was quite fun.

Friday
On this day, Guang Yi and I visited Ru Wen's house. Naturally, played mahjong, but this is the first time I tried 3-people mahjong, so it was quite interesting. Ru Wen's mum cooked, made dessert, and brewed tea for us. It was quite awesome. Over lunch, talked about Ru Wen's birthday party plans, and chatted in general with her mum as well.

After completing mahjong, just chilled for awhile before Guang Yi and I went off as Ru Wen would have to work soon (yes, during CNY).  The two of us chilled and chatted in Bishan for awhile. Then, walked around a little bit and then headed off.

Saturday
I invited Guang Yi, Ru Wen, Jt, Wei Jian, Jessica, Joshua, and Zi Xing over to my house to visit as well as throw Zi Xing a surprise birthday celebration in advance, since his birthday would be on next Tuesday. Met up 2.5 hours in advance (of which most of them were late by an hour) to prepare a stack of cards for him. Ru Wen went to get the cake, and when Zi Xing came, we just executed the usual 'a cake appears' drill (argh, how I hate this word). I guess he was a little surprised. Maybe.

I enjoyed the visit because these are my close friends and we chatted over pizza and cake and snacks that my mum made and sweet drinks. It's kind of a simple pleasure, although things like this hasn't been simple nowadays. It's quite depressing to think that.

Proceeded to Wei Jian's house for visit straight after, but Ru Wen had to leave for work again. Wei Jian's house is a tradition; We would visit his house every year to have steamboat and mahjong and the typical CNY stuff, regardless of where he lived.

Half-cooked salmon was awesome. The typical CNY stuffs were good. Finally learned to play poker. Just chilling and spending time like that was the best.

Sunday
So I don't think I can handle leaving these days behind and going back to camp. I still feel really trapped here and I hope that life gets better and that this struggle ends somehow. Sigh.

Hope you guys had a great CNY!

Labels: family, mehmeh, things that happened