For some reason, the password protection on the post, so I’ve put the password-protected article in My 2 Cents instead.

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Part 5

I haven’t had time to update my blog, and I won’t have time this weekend, so I gotta get this up by tonight

Monday morning, I was greeted with a Happy Birthday song by 5A That was kinda cool.

Matthew Pang refused to get his pencil case during class though, and insisted he will let me know at 10am (breaktime) which was right after class. And what happened was, he waited for Genna to appear before he went to his bookbag and unveiled a present for me – which was why, he said, he couldn’t get his pencil case because it would show the present too early.

I opened the card first:

It says: Ms Hoo, Happy Birthday! Though this wasn’t (entirely) on your wishlist, you can always pretend it’s a plasma tv or HDD camcorder. Remember the important message behind this gift: It is like us, not as bad as we may first appear to be Have fun. Love from, Genna Gan & Matthew Pang

Then when I opened the top of the wrapping and peered inside, I absolutely refused to take the present out!!!

Of course they insisted, and I had to show the whole class this:

That’s exactly what it looks like, folks. A TOILET SEAT!!!

Then I had to open up the toilet seat, and here was my REAL present…

Oooh!!! It’s like looking for hidden treasure

And I got what I wanted. Book vouchers! And it’s a pretty generous stash of vouchers, too.

Genna & Matt – the people behind this prank

They’re so naughty and creative, I can’t help but to love them. As in the two brats, not the toilet seat, which is as we speak, is still sitting on my desk because there’s no way I’m going to carry it in full view of the whole school to my car, only to bring it home to show my family.

Later that day, Gerald gave me an incredibly cute toy dog which now has priority seating in my car. Well, more like priority hanging.

Aww…	Seat with a view

Oh, and during lunchtime, 5A threw a cake party for Ms Anjali (birthday 10th July) and me. Mr Selvam (3rd July) was supposed to be there too, but he didn’t come down. I don’t have the pictures though – Yisan took them. All I managed to get was the cakes…

Cakes. Yum yum

Part 6

Part 6 was thrown by my staffroom today. Led by Chandini our staffroom monitor, they organised a “surprise” party for the July babies but I inadvertently found out because… they forgot I was a July baby and included me in their mailing list.

Still, they got my name on the cake, at least. Hehe.

Hew, Chew, Hoo, Minder, Prema, Bala. But Prema didn’t come

July babies: me, Minder, Chew, Hew, Bala	Blow them candles out!!!
Kong Wai & Chandini	Mr Hew
I asked Mr Hew to take a picture of me cutting the cake but he forgot the ‘cutting cake’ bit	Food galore!

Part 2: Jazz Class

Guess how I spent my birthday – training for next week’s competition I still went for my Sunday morning jazz class. But after that, we had a bit of a cake celebration, thanks to Andrea who brought the delicious chocolate mousse cake… Mmmm.

The chocolate mousse cake. Those three little chocolate hearts are MINE!!!

Bronya, Andrea and me

Group photo! Clockwise from right: Me, Nicole, Kit (the little one in front), Andrea, Pei Ru, Nadhira, Bronya, Daphne & Kobee

It’s chocolicious!

I told you those chocolate hearts were mine!! )

Oh, and I got the present from Bronya today!

New flowy pants!

Part 3: Tony Roma’s

My darling took me out for dinner tonight. He didn’t know where to bring me so I suggested Tony Roma’s at Cathay Cineleisure. I heard about it but hadn’t tried it.

Food was great, ambience was OK. Ooh, and I met a bunch of students there…

I bumped into Pui Yi from 4A in the washroom after we had left a name and phone number on their waiting list, and went to walk around. She commented that I looked so different, and I told her it was my birthday.

So when we were buzzed into the restaurant, I decided to make my way over to the girls’ table and were met by screams instead. They were secretly planning to send me something and I kind of walked into their preparations…

Right across from them were Zhen Chien and Chang Lin with their parents and youngest bro =)

Anyway I went back to my table, and a short while later they sent via a waiter a balloon and a delicious dessert (ice-cream + brownie)…

Happy Birthday, Ms Hoo!!! From Aleena, Melissa, Pui Yi, Weng Yee and Trixie

Didn’t get to take pictures with them though I forgot I brought my camera with me.

Anyway had a lovely dinner. And I didn’t realise that my darling had attached my birthday present onto my bag which I left with him when I went to see the girls until we were leaving the restaurant… *blush*. He teased me, saying I was too taken with the balloon.

Here’s the pretty bracelet he bought me:

Part 4: Home

After dinner, we went home and I cut the cake my mom baked:

It’s a fruitcake. I hope she doesn’t think I’m one :þ

I’m with cake

With the bouquet of flowers I received at school on Friday

With my mom, sister and dad

And with the stroke of midnight… ends my birthday.

Now, if only stupid Maxis wasn’t screwing up, I’d be able to post it right away.

It was a wonderful coincidence this year that 07.07.07 was on Saturday – right before my birthday! I had initially thought of throwing myself a big birthday bash and calling all my close friends over to celebrate my birthday with me. But then my finances handed me a reality check, and it wasn’t very much.

So in the end I decided to have a simple dinner gathering with a few of my closest friends from my dance team. I booked Italiannies at the Curve for 7.30pm – Bronya did ’scold’ me though, saying I should have had it at 7pm. Now I’ve spoilt the 07.07.07 Good thing there were seven (7) of us though…

Andrea was supposed to be here too but her boyfriend had arranged for a ’surprise dinner’ – her birthday is one day after mine! And guess what, she did join us for a while, because he took her to Tony Roma’s at Cathay Cineleisure, and then they came over to Laundry @ Italiannies for drinks.

Unfortunately I only remembered I brought a camera after she left us… so the group photo does not have her in it

Bronya, me, Catherine, Hui Koon, Helen, Mei Ling and Kobee

And because all the food was already eaten by the time we took the photo, I could only take snaps of what was left over…

What’s left of the calamari	The remains of the pizza
The little left of the bread	No, he’s not food… I just happened to catch him fiddling with his phone

Then, someone snitched to Italiannies that it was my birthday, so they came over with not a cake, but bread pudding with a candle in it…

The bread pudding with a candle

Of course I had to give a ’speech’ and I got my round of ‘Happy Birthday‘ =)

Lighting up the candle	Bread pudding as a birthday cake
That clamper thing? That’s supposed to be a microphone	Speech! Speech!
“Happy Birthday to you… Happy Birthday to you…”	“Thar she blows!”

And here’s the bread pudding before we split it up and ate it.

And now, for my pressies…

Kobee gave me this lovely teddy bear:

Catherine gave me this pretty pair of photo frames. I don’t even need to put any photos in it, actually – the pics are quite cute

I got this pretty funky necklace from Hui Koon:

Helen bought me a top!

And… (drumroll) Mei Ling gave me a chocolate fondue set. With dark chocolate! Yum yum yum!!!!

Bronya left her present in the car. I’ll post a blog once I receive it.

All in all – good food, great company, lovely gifts!!!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

It’s not my birthday yet and I’m already getting presents! I love receiving presents!

I had an unexpected surprise at school today. I received a beautiful bouquet of a dozen roses which was sent to the school by the florist. Guess who it was from. )) It totally light up my day, considering I’ve had a hectic week where I was running around like a mad chicken.

In my staffroom with my lovely bouquet. Photo taken by Chandini

12 red roses

Also, I went to see one of my website clients today. They had been in JB recently, and they said when they saw this, they couldn’t help but to pick it up for me. It was so thoughtful of them! They didn’t even know it was my birthday. It’s such a wonderful coincidence that my birthday’s this weekend. And it’s so cool to have a watch with my name on it!!! Well, not really my name. But with such an unusual nickname, it’s so cool to have something close to my name.

It’s not very clear, but the name zyenn is also on the face of the watch.
IT’S SO COOL TO HAVE MY NAME ON A WATCH!!!

Then just now I went out for dinner with my best friend who got me a pretty cool keychain. Do take note of the insane card that came with it.

The card and the keychain. Look at the card – I wonder if that’s what he thinks I should do… hehehe.

Close-up shot of the keychain

I’m getting a pretty good feeling about my birthday this year, and it’s not even here yet! =)