simplicity.me

It's Monday, the 2nd day of the lunar new year. I got a sore throat on Chinese New Year eve. Watching people chomp on the Chinese new year goodies is such a gastronomical torture, especially for someone like me, who loves CNY mostly because of the food.

This Chinese New Year is comparatively quiet as compared to what I remembered of the previous years. There were less guests at my house, rather, just my uncles and their nuclear families visited. Our family's pretty close, so it just felt like one of those normal gatherings that we usually have on weekends, not really the Chinese New Year reunion "feel". I played with my little cousin Kit, she's grown up and luckily she has gotten rid of most of her Singlish (I could barely understand her the last time I saw her), thanks to her new caucasian best friend. We played some of the games that I learnt during the NYJC orientation. Haha, I kind of modified the games so it was suitable for a 5-year old and a 16-year old to connect in the same language of Fun. I think i'm really crazy about NYJC. I even wore the Orientation shirts for CNY eve and the first day of the lunar new year. Of course I changed into something un-school related when I went to visit my maternal grandmother, but even there, I couldn't stop talking about how good my school was.

I didn't speak to any of my cousins at my maternal grandparent's place. Like I ever do. I'm mostly stuck with the adults, or with the TV. A few aunts did talk to me, they kind of asked me a lot of questions about NYJC. It just so happened that the children of the 2 aunts that questioned me were in Raffles Institution and ACJC respectively. At times during the conversation, I felt as if they were trying to imply that the 2 elites were better than NYJC. I used the very best of my linguistic ability to defend my school. I bear no grudge towards RI or ACJC, but I dislike it when people tend to place a halo over the elite schools and completely ignore sight of the other schools. But my place is where I am now, without doubt. I spent the rest of the day watching the latest sequel of Universal Soldier (i'm guessing it was a pirated version, because it's showing in cinemas) and some Cantonese Hong Kong drama. Almost everyone at my maternal grandparent's place were speaking teo-chew, which I am totally clueless about. The men were talking in English but about their jobs, a conversation I cannot possibly relate to. So that just left me and the TV, as it was always the case at any family gatherings involving the maternal side of my family.

Today is more of a free day, so it's me and my guitar, and more baking. No wonder Calista bakes as a hobby. It's really addictive.