An Ode to Friendship!

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends - John Churton Collins

I cant help but to agree with John. A short but profound statement of his. Reading this statement makes me think of all the friends I've made along this journey of life, and how different situations my friends showed who they really are.

And to those who have been with me through every seasons in my life (especially the season where everyone seems to be walking away), I want to thank you. I want to thank you for sticking with me through it all. I want to thank you to standing up for me. And I want to thank you for the love and care you showered on me. You know who you are. And yes, THANK YOU.

I Need You

Lord, I need you. Be with me and never let me go.

Your child,
Wilson

Fifth Day of Chinese New Year, Monday, 11th February 2008

Today, a bunch of us decided to go for a day trip to Yit Kuan's house in Taiping. We met up in church at about 7.30am and left 15 minutes later. Our first stop was at Maxwell Hill. We reached there around 9.30am and had a quick breakfast at the foothill. The jeep picked us up at 10am and off we went up to Maxwell Hill. The weather was very cooling and we spent some time walking around, admiring the beautiful scenery.

Yit Kuan brought us to try Taiping's famous Poh Piah somewhere around the town area. After that we had lunch at one of the restaurant in town. After lunch, we went to Yit Kuan's house to visit her parents.

I really like the place. There is a small river beside her house. The water was so nice and cooling. The water was so cold! There is a medium sized vegetables plantation just in front of her house and Yit Kuan became our guide, explaining all the different types and usage of the plants and vegetables.

After that, they went to Larut Matang to try the famous ice kacang there. I didn't go with them but went to visit some of my ex Genting colleagues, Por, Kathy and Christine. It was very nice catching up with them after so many years. Tat Shuen and Pui See couldn't make it. They were both down with fever.

Jess drove to pick me up at Kathy's house about an hour later and headed back to Penang. It was quite tiring but absolutely an eventful day. I enjoyed myself.

Little did I realized that Chinese New Year has already come to an end. At least for me. Work starts tomorrow and everything will resume as normal. Anyway, I had a good break. Tiring but a very enjoyable week.

Now, I fully understand the real meaning of Chinese New Year. REUNION. A time together with friends and families. I am glad I was able to do that. I enjoyed meeting up with a lot of friends and relatives and had a really good time catching up with one another.

Who knows this could be the last time we see each other?

Happy Chinese New Year to all of you!

Fourth Day of Chinese New Year, Sunday, 10th February 2008

Went for Sunday Service this morning. Was glad to see so many friends who were back to Penang during this time. Had a good time catching up with Serene, Leslie, Xe Hui, Michael, Jocelyn, Alvin and many others over lunch at the Nyonya Restaurant in New World Park.

After lunch, I followed Oliver and John to attend the funeral service at Batu Gantong. It was a sad farewell for many lives that have been greatly touched by Aunty Irene's life. Till we meet again, Aunty Irene!

Chern followed me to Gurney Plaza to buy a birthday present. I promised Asher one but totally forgotten about it until today when he approached me this morning. Felt very bad. Anyway, Happy Birthday to you, Asher! Hope you like the present!

I went home to prepare for tonight's steamboat. Yea. We are having steamboat again for tonight. I have invited some of my friends over to my house for dinner. Actually, would like to invite more but my small kampung house cannot fit too many people. Haha.

Joshua and Leonard arrived first, followed by Oon Peng, Oon Feng and Marcus Pan. I thank God for Leonard who was so willingly to ride the bike to road junction to guide the rest in. (he wasn't of age to be legally riding a bike). Haha. Jonathan and Sarah came and Javern joined in a while later. Only halfway trough the dinner that Samuel came to join us. We had a great time of fellowship over the table.

For many people, Chinese New Year wouldn't be complete without poker. Yay! Poker! All of us quickly sat down and Oon Peng, the grandmaster gave everyone a brief instruction of the game. Hmmn. Everyone was so excited. Don't worry, we didn't gamble. We are good people. Haha. Everyone was given RM2 as float which later had to be returned after the game. It was a good game. We had lots of fun. It's very funny to see people like Jonathan, Marcus and Joshua (supposedly good people) shouting and yelling as they played. Marcus tried to cheat and got caught red handed in that game. Haha.

After all the playing, we had steamboat again. I think all the yelling made most of us hungry again. We sat down and eat again and by the time we finished, it was already past midnight.

I really had fun. I think this is the day where I enjoyed most throughout my Chinese New Year.

Third day of Chinese New Year, Saturday, 9th February 2008

Some of my mum's friends will come to visit this afternoon so I helped to tidy up the house a bit. Later on, I baked some chocolate muffins. I am quite satisfied with myself this time that the muffins turned out okay. For the last few times, the muffins were such a failure that even my pinscher dog refused to eat it.

Just when I was about to prepare to go to work, I received a call from my step uncles that they will be arriving soon. I helped mum to prepare some food while mum was busy entertaining them in the living room. They left one hour later.

Met up with Gabriel and his better half, Chern and Rachel Yeoh for a game of Taboo in the church office. It was fun. The office was still quite empty as many are still away from home.

Met up with Rachel Lim at Palm Spring and a few other youths who have started coming in for service. Amos also joined us at the service today.

After the church service, I went to Aunty Irene's memorial service. Wayne, Amos, Jason and his siblings followed along. My heart goes out to Uncle Poon , Joni and Joey during this time. I pray that the Lord of Peace, Love and Comfort will be with them throughout ftthese times of adjustment. I had a brief time there then headed home to rest.

Second day of Chinese New Year, Friday, 8th February 2008

Was rudely awakened by the loud music and chattering outside my room.

It was my brother's friends. Four of them and a maid. They came around to visit my parents. I joined them at the table but didn't talk much. I think it's me. I always know I have this peculiar mood every time I wake up in the morning. Just didn't like to talk and feeling grumpy. Funny huh?

In the afternoon, we went to another aunt's house in Lip Sin. Gosh. The apartment was packed with so many people that my brother and I had to resort to stay in one of the rooms. The only place where there is space. Later on, I moved to squeeze with them in with the younger generation to avoid people branding the Ooi brothers for being anti-social. Everyone was watching the Cantonese comedy on TV so nobody was talking. I didn't mind at all. I think I liked it like that.

After half an hour, all of us, literally all of us, around 20 something people, walked over to next door to visit another aunty. We were there for about 10 minutes then left to visit another aunty in Minden Heights. Actually, they were my mum's childhood friends. 8 and 9 altogether. Most of them are married with children and not in Penang, so it was a good time for mum to catch up with them. I went to join the younger generation at the other table. We used to grow up and spend our childhood times together. Those were really happy times. However, it's just so strange that now that we have grown up, we don't talk that much anymore.

We didn't stay for dinner. I am relieved. I heard they were preparing for steamboat. Uncle invited us for dinner at Farlim, so we went to join them. The restaurant was packed with so many people but we didn't have to wait long for the food. We even had discount for our drinks. I later heard that my cousin was a good friend to the owner's son. Not bad huh. Haha.

As I was driving home, I received a message from Wayne. He was in the hospital visiting Aunty Irene. He said that she was in a very critical condition. I msged him back to ask whether is there anything I could help. The reply came and it read "she was called home to be with the Lord". Though, I am not really that close to Aunty Irene, but I can't help to feel very sad.

I can still remember this day last year; she was talking to me in the CNY open house at Jason's house in BM. She prepared a very special dish; baby tomatoes cut to look like a small rabbit and stuffed with a bit of asam to make the whole thing taste unique. I told her it was very nice and she said she would make more next time. It saddens me to know that that there is no more next time.

First day of Chinese New Year, Thursday, 7th February 2008

Woke up around 11 something this morning. Seriously, I can't believe its Chinese New Year already. We spent so much time and effort to prepare for this day and when it's finally here, I just can't feel a thing. Had our usual "geng-geng" dessert (it's a traditional belief that one has to start a new year with sweet stuff). So, you can imagine how sweet that dessert was. I also had some sui kows made by dad.Yummy.

Went to bathe and get ready for visitation. Second uncle and family arrived in their new Myvi. At every glimpse of that car, I can't help but to ask myself when I can finally own my first car. Arggh. I don't like that.

They were already waiting for us as we reached my first uncle's house. As usual the adults will start going around giving angpows and brag about their long hours of house chores before the New Year while we the younger generation will just sit there and make a lot of noise. And EAT. And snap pictures.

After that, all three families went to visit a relative staying just five minutes away. I didn't want to go, but the thought of missing all the angpows there made me changed my mind.

All my two uncles and families later joined us at my house for lunch. Again, we had steamboat. I am probably very scared of fish balls nowadays. Just the mention of it already enough to make me feeling nauseous.

We had dinner at my second uncle's place. Good thing it's not steamboat again.This time, we had rice with dishes. The dishes were very nice. Real hainanese Chinese New Year dishes. Haven't had it for a very long time. Cannot deny that aunty is a really good cook. Yummy.

Chinese New Year Eve, Wednesday, 6th February 2008

Frankly, I didn’t feel like Chinese New Year is just one day away. Don’t know why. Maybe this is the way we will feel when age caught up with us. Went to work as usual. Most had taken leave so the church office looked like a ghost town. Brought some cookies I baked to share with those who was still around in the office. Lucky them. Or rather should I say not so lucky. Just hope that they didn’t keep running to the toilet after that.

Oh ya, we were allowed to go home at 1pm today. Yay! I think that’s the only excitement which all of us were anticipating. Somehow wished that the clock would tick faster. Come 12 something, Amos and Wayne came to the office to look for me. I was quite looking forward for that. It was our annual ritual thing. An annual business to meet up and then go lepak in Gurney.

Gurney was super packed by the time we reached and we went to have our so called reunion lunch at Pastamania. Met a few friends here and there. I remember this time last year I met Kuan Nee and her mum outside the handphone shop. It has been a year since I last saw her. Exactly one year. Time flies, huh.

After lunch, we went around Gurney and I bought 2 long sleeve shirts for CNY. It was quite last minute but what the heck, it was on the 50 percent offer bin and it’s reasonably cheap after the discount.

Any of our outings in Gurney wouldn’t be complete if we don’t visit the arcade on the 7th floor. We had fun there.

Ah. It’s getting late and it’s about time to go home to prepare for the reunion dinner.






Went home and took a nap. It was supposedly an hours nap but turned out to be 2 and a half. Haha. Guessed I was too tired then. Woke up just in time for reunion dinner. We had steamboat and this time, dad and mum invited their friends over. Frankly, I felt quite awkward having reunion dinner with them. I always thought that reunion dinner was just for family members.

Went to tidy up my room. My brother helped along too. It was one of the few and rare occasions where we worked together and worked well. Haha. We finished at about midnight then we had this crazy idea of tidying up the whole house. So it was not until 3 am that we finally called it a day.

I still wasn’t able to sleep so decided to bake some more cookies. This year I got a bit lazy so I bought those cookies premix. So it was extremely easy to bake. But because of the amount of cookies I had to bake, I ended up sleeping at 7 am in the morning that day. Was pretty tired and exhausted then.

Lying on the bed. Wasn’t thinking about tomorrow. More looking forward to a good night rest

Oh ya. I remember calling a few close friends who were far from home to wish them a happy CNY. But I couldn’t reach most of them. I reckon they must be very busy or the phone line was probably too busy and congested during that peak hour. I remember one year when I was away from home during Chinese New Year, I was pretty sad and miss my home dearly. I missed my family, my friends, the food and everything about CNY. But I thank God for all the sms-es and calls from friends which brought huge comfort in those lonely times.