This is literally and in entity, the SWEETEST birthday i have ever had. (i still smell of whipped cream even after showering..hmm)
11th June The peeps: Tingkai, YangEn, Eileen, Jasmine Teo, Xiangle, Eric, Peiyun, Jasmine Chua and me :D Mission: To give Tingkai his happiest birthday :)
We went to Vivocity, Marche. Haha. paiseh i was late after rushing out from college, wearing red polo tee tucked in with jeans, look like i just booked out of camp. HAHA. i was holding the conspicuous looking red bag with tingkai's present in it :D
The food was pricey but nothing is worth more than celebrating his birthday in a comfortable setting. We had rostie, fabulous bowls of cream of pumpkin and cream of mushroom and a few roasted kampong chicken. Eric and Jasmine Teo were experts at picking the meat out for everyone! after that, Dr. Tingkai, Dr. Xiangle and I decided to test our surgical skills on these chicken. Ended up with a bloody mess (okay, it's just chili sauce).
Here comes the surprise, Xiang Le, Yang En and I secretly passed the bag to Sarah, a Marche service staff. She was super spontaneous. Soon, Sarah came from tingkai's back and handed him the red gift bag, proclaiming him the lucky 500th customer of the day. WOOO!!!
Haha, Tingkai looked STUNNED.
YEAH, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU TINGKAI! After the dinner was a series of cam-whoring with the Singa lion. At the sky garden, tingkai tried to be "romantic" by putting my present in my bag secretly. Haha, he failed but he nevr fail to surprise me with the pink Nike bottle :D
we checked out the National Geographical Shop on the way out. It's so cool. Jasmine Chua was on her way to pose for a photo with a giganti wooden horse at the shop front when a super tall man (who would look compatible with the gigantic horse model) walked past and Chua decided to give chase for Eileen to snap some shots of her walking behind him.
Tingkai and Eric decided to try the Climate Control Chamber. temperature could plunge to as low as -15 degree Celcius :S
Haha, tingkai was trying to do his "misty breath" and eric was trying to let the heat-sensitive camera capture his hot legs!
What went on at Bedok hawker centre is not worth being mentioned here. I need to do some self-censorship here!
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12th June I went for lunch with Deborah and Joey!
Yeah, the 2 happy pretty God-given girls on 12th June...haha. well, at least that's what they called themselves on the bookmark they gave me. Never mind, you girls didn't break the " thou shalt not lie" commandment :0 Thanks for meeting up so early to get a gift for me. I really love the strap, book and the bookmark (it's cute!!)
Haha i met lisabelle liang working part time at dhoby-xchange lucky dip booth. We gave the Just Acia receipt and i took a lucky dip. I got what i wanted...Mr. Bean voucher :D Lucky birthday boy! Haha. Lisabelle gave me the voucher...and a "complimentary" cake. haha. Thanks Lisabelle for the p.OSH brownie cake. that was indeed a pleasant surprise!
After the lunch, i went to have my prata gang meeting with my prata gang. It's our fist prata meeting with third generation of Prata Gang. This year, we hvae Yang En, Eileen and Terie. Prata Gang has always been for (derserving) tanbo ppl but this year we decided to take in Terie because of her overwhelming enthu factor (for both prata and people).
Jiayun and Fongsun came all the way from their faraway home for the meeting at Simpang Bedok, i am quite touched. Before the meeting, Jiayun was wearing her "Voted #1 Shopping Queen" shirt going from Bedok to Pasir Ris and Tampines shopping with her mummy! haha.
We ordered our mushroom prata, mushroom and cheese prata, prata bombs and banana and chocolate prata. This time round for our drinks, we had teh ping, Milo Godzilla, Black Spider and White Spider! Shiok man! but there's more to come...
First up, a birthday prata. Terie arranged to have a candle on my mushroom prata. :D Then, here comes...
WC Prata= Whipped cream prata!!! the plain prata was SOAKED in whipped cream but trust me, it tasted super sweet and good!
We played Zhong Ji Mi Ma with the remaining pool of whipped cream and some curry. Jiayun luckily got to drink it not twice, but THRICE!
Yang En mixed some curry, whipped cream (again) and ice and tried to coax me into feeling the endothermic (not exothermic, this is special) reaction. With my liuqin Jennifer-ish speed and prata power, i evaded his attacks, not twice but THRICE. Yang En's EPIC FAIL caused him to get his hands dirty with the "reaction mixture". See..I am not called Prata Gang Leader fore nothing okay? try again next year k? :) ZHUAI AH..ZHEN YANG! haha.only liuqin dudes will understand this.
Back at home, my mummy cooked a light (delicious still) dinner, to make space for the CAKE! My daddy bought me a strawberry cake (because i told him not to buy the chocolate cake since there's a brownie from lisabelle) It feels good to listen to my father, mother and sister sing the birthday song for me! :D the sweetest moment of my birthday on 12th June! Haha. i made a wish and blew the candles so hard that the knife dropped from the table!
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13th June Time: 1.30pm-5.30pm Venue: Shodoku, The Heeren Peeps present: Hao Ming, Kuan Git, Yang En, Eileen, Terie, Peiyun, Jasmine Chua, Eric, Xiang Le, Michael, Jessica, Enzon and me
First surprise of the day: I got to wear a Cinderella Happy Birthday balloon around Orchard for the entire day. Okay, I shall not elaborate on how i felt...
The food at Shodoku is awesome! I like the mushroom, the Jap curry rice and the omelette rice specially!
After lunch, don't know why yang en and eric disappear for so long. haha. they came back with a chocolate birthday cake. It looked glamorous with the lighted candles. They added up Kuang Git's, Hao Ming's and my age for the birthday candles. so cool right? haha. after staring at the cake for quite some time, we finally blew the candles. Kuan Git managed to blow them off before we had the chance to. Guan Yue ppl like that mah..haha. During the cake-eating session, Xiang Le became the love guru and tried to encourage git to feed yun (just nice, they only have one plate and a fork!)
Time to give the presents. Yang En mischievously gave Hao Ming and Kuan Git newspapers wrapped in wrapping paper and an Adidas bag respectively! haha. Finally, the real deal. Hao Ming received a box stuffed with lotsa candies. Beneath the candies, there're Garfield and a footprints key chain :D Oh, did i forget to mention that Hao Ming verbally rejected Michael? Aww...
Kuan Git receive a red Adidas jersey. Red FTW!
Finally my turn to receive my gift... . . . Okay, i kinda feel quite bad to have actually told Yang En that i hope someone could give me a watch when the liuqin dudes were talking about birthday wishlist. my gifts cost a lot and yet...how sweet these people are. Especially Yang En, despite having to go for family dinners and CLIC camp, he still went to such length to organise and attend all 3 gatherings--the Vivocity gathering for tingkai, prata meeting (he rushed from NUS ater breaking camp directly to meet us at Bedok) and Shodoku lunch gathering (after VJCO DSA audition). And Eileen, Jasmine Chua and Peiyun who co-organised these gatherings and Terie, Eric, Xiang Le, Michael, Jessica, Enzon...and perhaps some other people who i didn't know were involved.
People often say, "Love is blind" or "Love is irrational". Often quoted in romance drama serials, they are most of the time, referring to BGR kinda love. Over these 3 days, i have experienced how much more irrational friendship can get.I only knew these people this year, for less than half a year and in the name of friendship, these people happily sacrificed their time and money, so that they can make some of their friends happy on their birthday.. I can't help but to feel undeserving of such great acts of love and friendship...
I am really touched by everything you guys have done for me. Thank you! I won't forget.
Finally, my final concert with VJCO is over. My 4th year in VJCO. Vhapsody 2009.
Once again, after the concert, the whole group of us wearing full black walked down the lane to ECP Macs from school, just like how i walked down the same path in white shirts with Xiangle's batch. We sang fei tian, feng nian ji and many songs we played along the way, just like how the 05 batch sang yue er gao 3 years ago too.
I will certainly miss the days i have spent with VJCO. Daily hard-core practices in CO room and the Performance Theatre, the Sentosa and ECP outings, the frisbee games we played, the banmian dinners, illegal overnight stayover in school.
I find it hard to believe that all these have come to an end.
I thank God for the interesting and exciting first episodes and beautiful final episodes of my 4 years in VJCO. this story has definitely included some painful parts but without them, the beautiful episodes won't be possible.
To God, my spiritual family and friends who have been faithfully attending all my performances, liuqin dudes, prata gang, heibee royal family, my '09 juniors, Guo Lao Shi, Mdm Wee and all other VJCO folks, thanks for being part of my beautiful VJCO story.
Ren An, Xiang Le and Perret catching Mas XiaoQiang for the security of VJCO practice.
WARNING: Jonathan's and Weiliang's hysterical laughter but pls turn on your speakers.
Jonathan posted at 11:56 PM
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
Now as you can see, i rarely post during school term. And if you ever see me post like this, it must be something that means a lot to me, something i wanna express to whoever that reads this. This post is dedicated to VJCO.
Dear VJCO,
I know some of you guys may feel disappointed with the results and that we deserve better. Few of you may feel some form of regrets...
BUT one thing is for sure, we know that we have given our best on the stage and we enjoyed ourselves. We were even touched by our own music, especially xingyun, so touched that we even teared. And this is definitely not made up by us..you can hear it from the audience's response after our last note of xingyun. Spontaneous clapping (even by the green shirts, they must be wowed :D) and some were even murmuring that it was very good (i heard this from our friends in the audience crowd)
This is NOT a consolation, we left the stage smiling, with no regrets. We have played music that no other CO can ever play because they won't get to experience wad we have been through. Sitting at the field looking at clouds, inviting Jennifer andd Yvonne to be our guest players, confessing our love for curry puffs, pears, apples, bananas and watermelons.
Our GOLD medal..do not ever look down on it. Why? because i dare to say and i have said to some of you, our Gold medal is something more than just a medal. Our GOLD medal is what we have earned with our hard work and not by fluke. No one can take it from us because we will protect it with all our might. Our medal, is like no other medal and in fact deep in my heart, i believe that VJCO's medal may worth more than the GWH medals that some others may have been awarded. Why? Because it is the fruit of not only our labour, but our friendship as well. Where else can you find the friends you made here through this 5 months? The medal not only shows how well we played. In fact, it is IRRATIONAL to take it this way because we believe that our music is worth more than just a medal. Our medal also carries the weight of friendships forged, going through this entire journey together, straining forward towards the goal we were called to achieve. Remember the times we have been through together?
I can feel it...feel that our medal feels heavier than its look... because my Gold with Honours does not lie in its physical appearance. My Gold with Honours is somewhere else...place your palm on the left chest, yes there it is! You are my Gold with Honours, VJCO.
Jonathan Ng Prata gang leader love prata gang Dude 2 loves all dudes Jennifer loves...VJCO :)
Glory to God. Thank God for VJCO :)
Jonathan posted at 1:09 AM
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Friday, March 13, 2009
YEAH! Common test 1 is finally OVERRRR!!!
...well, and here's an opportunity to catch just one more breath before i continue to jump over the many hurdles ahead of me.
Ubin Adventure Race, CIC, SYF, Vhapsody, more tests and A levels...
I will be firm and not lose heart, I will set out to complete the race that God has laid ahead of me.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Jonathan posted at 12:30 AM
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Friday, January 16, 2009
I went to Bedok library to study with Deborah today and it became a study session like none others... Just as we were studying, a primary 6 Chinese girl came and asked us to help her in her math homework. We agreed to help her.
Frankly speaking, i didn't expect her... to actually sit with us till about 8pm, for around 1 hour i think. She was feeling helpless with her math exercise, which is on addition and subtraction of fractions (this will involve knowing how to get lowest common multiple as the common denominator) Apparently, she can't even add, subtract, multiply and divide properly. So most of the time in the beginning, she was just guessing answers. She would always want to use her calculator, (which Deborah confiscated in the process) and refer to her time-tables. She didn't really understand the mathematics behind it. All she has as a guide for the entire exercise, is a completed example of the first question, copied from the teacher.
When i was teaching her, i was feeling exasperated inside. yes, inside, because i dun wanna scare her. However, the both of us decided to put down our studies and take turns to just try to help her pick up the techniques required. And so, there we are, teaching mathematics in Chinese (because she can't really catch us speaking English quick enough) in the quiet programme space of the library.
The sense of satisfaction from seeing her solve some problems on her own was DEEPLY REWARDING.
Love is patient, love is kind. Indeed, if i can actually be this patient with this child, i can practise the same thing for others as well. This girl is God-sent :) Praise God!