} something to remember

this post is just to help me remember what happened on friday & saturday cos its really worth remembering. haha. so its going to be a boring one cos for those who were involved, you would know it already, and for those who were not... it just might not make sense. haha.

the whole thing started when suhui mysteriously told us to keep the 30th free because she has a 'surprise' for us. apparently it was going to be a sleepover, and since it was a great chance for all 7 of us to get together, the rest of us had a brilliant idea to use this time to FINALLY give suhui her 2-month-late bday celebration. and we wanted it to be a surprise. and then, suhui and i also thought that it would also be a great chance to give denise her 2-month-late bday celebration, since their bdays were quite close. and we also wanted it to be a surprise.

so it was a day of 3 surprises in total, all for different people. and the 5 of us who were left to plan surprises for 2 different people, were thinking 'CRAP HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS'. it was difficult cos we had to include denise in planning suhui's surprise, and include suhui in planning denise's one. and so began our lives of hiding and secret phone calls and smses, and many, many lies.

we had to wait for everyone's papers to be over, as well as for the go-out-everyday-and-slack! rush that everyone has right after their papers. so on monday, 26th nov, 4 of us (den, glor, am & me) went to shop for suhui's presents. luckily we managed to find it pretty quickly, and the rest of the time was spent thinking of sneaky plans to surprise suhui. we finally came up with the plan of going to novita's house on thurs, the day after she came back from taiwan, to do suhui's bday frame, and doing the cake on friday morning, and then having me and novita come 'late' with said items to wherever the rest of us were and SURPRISE suhui.

that was fine and dandy, but what abt denise then? so after that, i smsed and called the rest for some ideas and that night, the very night that novita came back from taiwan (haha so sorry we never gave you any time to rest =P) i called her to think of more sneeaky ideas. after she got over the shock of me saying 'OH BTW WE'RE ALL GOING TO YOUR HOUSE TMR', and some discussion, we decided that since there was only thursday left before the day of the 'surprise sleepover' on friday, we had no choice but to do denise's frame in the morning, and then suhui's frame in the afternoon.

THURSDAY WAS A FUNNY DAY. HAHAHA. the rest weren't free in the morning so it was up to me and novita to do up the design & decor (sounds so pro, woohoo) while leaving space for the rest to write their messages. we did it pretty quickly and soon CLARISSA arrived. she wrote her message, and the rest of the time was just slacking and waiting. by 4+ pm, we were getting tense cos anne marie was late and denise was due to come at any moment, which would be disastrous since we were doing her frame. in our desperation, novita told denise to come later and later with the excuse that there was a technician at her house. and then, the doorbell. we didnt know if it was denise or am, so we panicked a bit and novita went 'OK IF I CLOSE THE DOOR SUDDENLY YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!' (and then me) 'WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO??' (and then clarissa) 'HIDE THE FRAME!!!!!' so we found a good hiding place under the bed and then, lo and behold, it was... ANNE MARIE.

insert sigh of relief here. we unhid the frame and am started writing her message. more slacking and waiting by the rest of us. hahaha. and then, while am was halfway through her message, gloria called! she was opposite the building. came the frenzy of 'QUICK COME COME BEFORE DENISE GETS HERE!!' (ok fine, that was only me). and then, gloria called again, said she was at the lift lobby, and then added oh-so-casually but very hintingly 'BTW, DENISE IS WITH ME..' (tension in the room) so we quickly hid the frame and prepared suhui's one and TRIED to pretend that we only just got there, too.

denise and glory came in, and denise unexpectedly went 'WALAU! CHEAT ME!' insert confusion here.
denise: DIDNT KNOW U ALL WERE UP HERE ALREADY!!
me: (automatically) oh but we only just got here also...
denise: (confused) really? then how come i didnt see you? i was downstairs since 4.45...
Stunned silence. can see everyone's heads going HOW HOW HOW OMG OMG.
glory: (quickly) OH must be novita's BACK DOOR right ahahahaa...
the rest: oh yea back door ahahaha haha... *shifty eyes*

oh and forgot to mention, before denise came we were smsing and she asked me to go west mall with her so i had to say that i had a dental appointment. a long and painful one. and later on the bus ride home i had to reinforce it a bit but thankfully she believed it. but ANYWAY that little STUNNED SILENCE was the only bit where we almost gave the surprise away, i think, and everything else went pretty smoothly.

except that we had to change the plans a bit, because we couldnt let suhui come that day since she would only complicate matters (haha sorry, but its true) so novita had to meet her on friday morning. also, glory came with denise so she had no chance to write denise's message, so she also had to meet novita earlier the next day.. so novita would have to carry denise's frame. but she couldn't have suhui's one. so anne marie had to bring it back instead. and i had to explain the new plan to denise by saying that novita couldnt 'come late' with me and carry out the surprise cos she was REALLY going to be late cos she had to go to school.

we managed to finish suhui's frame so that was a no problemo. we went home thinking of the frantic but very exciting day that lies in store...

FRIDAY WAS A HILARIOUS DAY. well the first part wasnt that amusing to me, cos i had to go back and forth to 3 places in the first half of the day alone (not to mention i walked from the bus stop to the main gate 4 TIMES unnecessarily wtheck) and that sucked, but oh well. anyway. i met denise in cold storage to get the brownie cake mix and icing sugar. denise already had a cake box for suhui. no time to get another cake box for denise, so i had to ask am...

the plan for the day was that denise and i would have a quick lunch, start the cake, and then denise would have to leave to meet suhui and the rest at suhui's planned meeting time of 3pm for her own surprise. as in, the original surprise that she wanted to give us, not the one we were planning for her. while denise thought that i would continue the cake alone, in fact am and novita would come after that and we would come 'late' together to do the surprise.

while we were at my house and waiting for the cupbrownies (that is, brownie mix baked in cupcake shapes) to bake, we had to improvise more plans on our own a bit, had to keep telling glory and clarissa to keep shopping with denise & suhui FAR FAR AWAY from the place of the surprise, which turned out to be MARRIOTT HOTEL. (insert gasp here). in fact it was a continuous improvisation on our part and i must say that if there is a nobel prize for carrying out surprises, we deserve to win it for sure.

there was a slight problem here: i had to tell suhui that i was going to be late cos i had to take my bro to his piano exam (which was partly true, since i did in the morning) and create the impression that i wasnt in the surprise plan and i was just coming alone. BUT novita had told suhui that she was coming to my house with anne marie to bake denise's cake. but thankfully we had a chance to explain the discrepancy later on.

once the cakes were ready, we packed everything (i had to quickly pack my personal things for the sleepover) and we went off to cold storage to get a lighter. novita made me go back halfway through cos i forgot to bring DVDs. =( anyway, after that we got into a taxi and we were off to orchard.

SECOND problem here: while we were in the taxi, novita kept in contact with clarissa to know how the situation was like. at one time novita was calling clarissa, and then a call came in. she naturally thought it was from clarissa, and didnt check the name, and started talking as if it was her... 'yea we got a LOT of things' etc etc plus me and am talking in the background. and then she realised she wasnt talking to clarissa, she was talking to SUHUI!!! sudden panic to try to remember what we said and worrying if she would suspect anything... (but in the end, she didnt. thank goodness. turned out we didnt really say anything revealing, PHEW)

the next part of the plan was for clarissa to go back to the hotel room and meet us ('OH NO I HAVE TO GET MY CREDIT CARD!') so that we could set up the cakes, frames, surprise, etc in the room. to make it more convincing, clarissa (very cleverly) hinted to suhui that she was in fact getting the cake for denise, and hinted to denise that she was in fact getting the cake for suhui. i duno how she managed it but thank goodness she did. meanwhile, suhui had told novita to call her when she arrived at marriott, although obviously we didnt say anything yet until we planned what to happen next.

the taxi arrived in front of marriott, and we met clarissa at the hotel lobby. we experienced our surprise for ourselves when we went up and saw that suhui's surprise for us was a STAY AT A POOL TERRACE. INSERT MANY WOWS AND GASPS AT THE BEAUTIFUL POOL AND NOT TO MENTION THE GORGEOUS HOTEL ROOM WITH A BATHROOM AS HUGE AS THE BEDROOM ITSELF. (sorry had to emphasise that cos it was really very nice.) the bathroom was actually opened to the bedroom, and novita went 'HOW ARE WE GOING TO BATHE???' and then we discovered AUTOMATIC BLINDS. oh my goodness. that was coolios.

ok so we had our own little surprise and then it was time to set up everything, and plan HOW TO GET DENISE, GLORIA AND SUHUI TO COME BACK TO THE ROOM?? (btw here i must say we felt VERY VERY SORRY for gloria who we left alone to deal with the 2 bday people, and in her own words later, 'denise's cursing'. we applaud you glory.) we thought for a while, during which suhui called clarissa (omg omg omg... and then we decided to pretend to ignore the call) and suhui smsed novita asking if i was with her and am. here we managed to rectify an earlier prob and novita explained that i 'left halfway to take her brother to piano exam' and so i wasnt with them.

and that inspired the next, and final, part of the plan. i had to go down to the hotel lobby, and call suhui, saying that i had found out from novita that i had to go to marriott hotel, and from there get the 3 of them to fetch me and bring me to the room/surprise (when in fact i was really bringing them to the room and the surprise... ach too confusing). BUT THINGS DID NOT WORK OUT AS PLANNED. the next part will be told in play-style.

(in my call to suhui)
me: hey suhui, novita told me that i had to go to marriott so im here.. so... what now?
suhui: ok, where are you now?
me: outside the hotel.
suhui: OK, i'll come and get you.
me: eh, is the rest with y--
-call ends.
I don't care if im exaggerating but at this point, i felt that DISASTER HAD STRUCK. because we couldnt possibly do the surprise if denise and glory didnt come along, too!

thought of different ways to make it still work and then decided the only way was to call denise too, and tell her that we were doing suhui's surprise, so that they would catch up with suhui.

(in my call to denise)
me: hey denise, are you with suhui?
denise: no, she left to go find you!
me: (WHAT???!!) ok no no you & glory have to go with her! we're doing her surprise NOW!
denise: (obviously pissed) WHAT?? why you guys-- ok--
insert some flurry of conversation which i cant remember now, and then the call ends.

i waited in tension, hoping the plan would still work, and then suddenly, i saw denise and glory RUNNING towards marriott. i waved to them.

me: where's suhui? (cos i thought they would catch up to her, not run ahead of her...)
denise: we were sitting at coffee bean and she left to go find you! we had to go ahead of her..
etc etc etc.

denise rushed us to the hotel lobby, with me saying in vain 'MAYBE we should wait for suhui'... at the lift lobby, it was the scariest not only because denise was being very pissed and scary (sorry but its true, and i really felt for gloria at that time) but also because if we went up without suhui, that would spoil the surprise and everyone else would be pissed at me. so to try to escape everyone's wrath, i had to think quickly...

denise: we have to go up now!
me: what about suhui??
denise: she cant meet US, she thinks we are still at coffee bean!!
me: (thinking) (thought of doing SIGN LANGUAGE to glory but it was futile since she looked just as confused) ...erm then what? we go up and she would be alone?
denise: NO, YOU go and meet her! we go up!
me: (thinking: OH NO SHIT THAT MAKES MUCH MORE SENSE BUT I CANT LET DENISE GO UP FIRST) (playing dumb while trying to delay time) eh...what?
denise: SHE cant see US cos she thinks we are at coffee bean... (explains the situation, from her POV)
me: (still acting dumb while praying for suhui to PLEASE COME SOON) ..but wait shouldnt we wait for suhui?
(after a short while)
denise: (very very pissed) AIYAH NVM JUST GO AND MEET HER!! GO!!
me: but--

and at this point, i have to say that what happened next is just... GODSENT. so thank you God, because if what happened next did not happen i might have been killed by denise simply out of anger, or by the rest for spoiling all our hardwork (and plans, and lies..) anyway, what happened next was that I TURNED AROUND AND SUHUI WAS THERE.

waved to her to make sure it was too late for denise to escape/hide. short moment of confusion where suhui said 'eh? how come the 2 of you..?' i tried to distract her by saying 'oh yea i met them here...' then talking about other things. ('whats the surprise? WAIT... are we staying in the hotel???') have to add in at this part that i had to keep reminding myself that i wasnt supposed to know about the hotel surprise and had to act shocked. anyway i was too scared to talk to the very-pissed denise because she thought that i had spoiled the plan for suhui. sigh. felt so misunderstood. =( HAHA.

so suhui brought us to the pool terrace (with me remembering just a little too late to WOW and GASP at the pool) and came the moment of truth...

when suhui opened the door what followed was just an ABSOLUTE FRENZY of 'SURPRISE!!!' and the birthday song and denise being LAGGY (hahaha) and realising only after a while that the surprise was FOR HER, TOO (later on she said she wondered for a while why there were TWO frames??) and blowing of candles and looking at the frames and EXPLANATIONS of everything that had happened (after keeping secrets for so long it felt very good to let it all out) and me collapsing on the floor (brain exhaustion!!) and reading the messages on the frame and opening of presents...... had only one thing in my mind, which was, 'IT WORKED.'

the rest of the hotel stay can only be described as a pleasant feeling of relaxation (except when we were walking on orchard road at 4+ am, and we met a number of suspicious people) .. just EATING AND BUMMING AROUND (both activities which really sum up our lives as brudders) and taking photos... it was really nice, i enjoyed myself. i got to try bathing in a bath tub, and i have to say that it is OVERRATED. its not really that relaxing and i prefer a shower still. plus, i dont understand HOW people can be clean by bathing in a tub, cos after i did i just felt dirtier than before...

all in all, it was a great sleepover and am thankful for each and everyone of my brudders.. and also God, cos i think without Him things wouldnt have worked out at all.

btw, if you think things sounded confusing when you read this entry (congrats for reaching the end btw! unless you cheated and skipped) it is really nothing compared to trying to WRITE it and certainly not at all comparable to all the confusion that we experienced... cos i think during the whole process NOT ONE OF US had a clear bird's eye view of EVERYTHING that was going on.. and if there HAD been someone taping everything, it would make a very entertaining reality tv show. HAHA.

ok. thats all for now.
(btw, to denise, novita & am, who helped to make the cupbrownies, my bro says they are REALLY REALLY GOOD and so give yourselves a pat on the back for our FIRST SUCCESSFUL BDAY CAKE!!! haha.)

2007-12-02, 10:39 a.m..
before } after