PART ONE
"Tomorrow, we go shopping okay?"
Now, how many people can say that their boyfriends will voluntarily bring you out for shopping? Seriously. But this was just the start of many, many surprises.
Thursday morning, I woke up and realised that it was only 8am. As usual, I thought. This is the umpteenth time I've woken up before my alarm and it is pretty tiring to say the least. But today was a special day because it was date day with Marcus!
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All in all, it was an amazing week with the most amazing people I know.
Of course, extra special thanks to the one and only Marcus Leong. You are my constant reminder of God's never ending grace and mercy upon my life. And you have been an absolute blessing since the very first day and I can only pray and hope that I've been the same to you. I know you're bored of me thanking you already so I will stop here. Do know that I love you. A lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot. Never forget.
So thank you again to everyone who has at least shared a moment or two with me in the past seventeen years of my life. I will never be able to thank God enough for blessing me with seventeen good years of life's greatest adventures, unforgettable moments and wonderful memories along with the endless stream of amazing people. Here's to many, many more years to come.
With lots of love.
"Tomorrow, we go shopping okay?"
Now, how many people can say that their boyfriends will voluntarily bring you out for shopping? Seriously. But this was just the start of many, many surprises.
Thursday morning, I woke up and realised that it was only 8am. As usual, I thought. This is the umpteenth time I've woken up before my alarm and it is pretty tiring to say the least. But today was a special day because it was date day with Marcus!
I think it's something special when it's been almost a year since we've started going out and I still get so excited that I lose sleep whenever we're going for a date later in the day. So many times I've woken up few hours before the time that I planned to because in my head I'm thinking, oh gosh I'm going to spend quality time with him and I think of what we're going to do and I get so caught up that I won't be able to go back to sleep. Not complaining though, it's all for a good cause.
Marcus came over to my place in the morning and helped me decide what to wear because I'm a girl and I'm very bad at making that decision on my own. After we were ready, we left to One Utama with my brother. Fun fact: my brother and his friends were watching the same movie as us, at the same time, in the same hall. So weird.
After freezing during Maze Runner, Marcus brought me to get my shoes. Throwback time: the other day when I went over to his place, I wore my new sandals that I just bought a few weeks ago. I really liked them. And I guess Georgia really liked them, too. Because she left her mark on my shoes and made some holes in them. (Georgia is their pet beagle by the way, not a small girl who has a thing for shoes. That would be pretty weird.) But anyway, it wasn't a biggie because as my parents' said, "it's just a pair of shoes", but his family felt really bad and so they decided that they were going to buy me new shoes and that's what happened.
When we went to the shoes section, I was thinking there was no way the same pair of shoes were going to be there because that time when I got it, they said it was the last pair and the one I bought was the one on display. So I didn't expect much when I walked in, but guess what? The same exact shoe was there. Size 5 and all. And it was cheaper, too! What a rip off. I felt a bit cheated la to be honest because I felt like I was lied to but nevertheless we were really happy that we found it and I wore it straight after hehe sorry too excited.
After that, we went to Hokkaido for lunch. Marcus said that he had a stomach ache so he left me alone at the table to go look for the toilet. Horrible. What's worse, when he came back, he said that the table that we had was "too bright" so he wanted to change our seats. In my head I was just thinking, hello Marcus Leong, since when you so mafan one aiyo. Can we just sit and eat some food? I am dying from hunger and if I do end up dying it's your fault! But I got up and followed him anyway, being the extremely patient girlfriend that I am. Little did I know, his intentions were as good as gold when he took us to the back of the restaurant.
Ian, Mark, Ryan, Stephanie and Cherie were sitting at the big table. I was surprised and pretty speechless to say the least. I looked over to Marcus and he had this look of accomplishment washed upon his face along with his cheeky little smile. I was close to tears, really. And then Hannah and Sara popped up halfway during lunch! I had a good time talking and laughing with them. I guess you could say that these are the people who I am closest with - friends from church, CG and school. Lovely bunch of people. Very lovely.
So lovely that they made me eat a chunk of wasabi just for the fun of it. And then of course I made Mark do it, along with Ian, too. Now that I think about it, mine wasn't that much of wasabi on the squid but I probably put a little bit more on theirs. Okay, not a bit but more like a mountain-size more of wasabi. But Ian didn't even eat his, he just spit it out because he can't take spicy. So I hereby apologize from the bottom of my heart to the two of them because I feel horrible for making them suffer. But hey, all in the name of humor and good laughs, why not?
After not letting me pay for lunch and going to McD to get some ice cream, everyone dispersed and went their separate ways. The car ride home was super funny because my dad and brother just pretended that there wasn't any special occasion going on this week when I told them about the surprise lunch and all. "Huh, today is September 18th ma, what's so special?" That is my dad's acting skills at his best. "You're the only one in this car that loves me," I sighed and looked at Marcus. He just laughed.
We got home and walked up to my room. I saw that the door was closed and I remembered that I didn't close it when we left in the morning but I didn't give it much thought. Maybe someone else closed it after me, I thought. But when I opened the door, I could hardly believe what I saw.
After that, we went to Hokkaido for lunch. Marcus said that he had a stomach ache so he left me alone at the table to go look for the toilet. Horrible. What's worse, when he came back, he said that the table that we had was "too bright" so he wanted to change our seats. In my head I was just thinking, hello Marcus Leong, since when you so mafan one aiyo. Can we just sit and eat some food? I am dying from hunger and if I do end up dying it's your fault! But I got up and followed him anyway, being the extremely patient girlfriend that I am. Little did I know, his intentions were as good as gold when he took us to the back of the restaurant.
Ian, Mark, Ryan, Stephanie and Cherie were sitting at the big table. I was surprised and pretty speechless to say the least. I looked over to Marcus and he had this look of accomplishment washed upon his face along with his cheeky little smile. I was close to tears, really. And then Hannah and Sara popped up halfway during lunch! I had a good time talking and laughing with them. I guess you could say that these are the people who I am closest with - friends from church, CG and school. Lovely bunch of people. Very lovely.
So lovely that they made me eat a chunk of wasabi just for the fun of it. And then of course I made Mark do it, along with Ian, too. Now that I think about it, mine wasn't that much of wasabi on the squid but I probably put a little bit more on theirs. Okay, not a bit but more like a mountain-size more of wasabi. But Ian didn't even eat his, he just spit it out because he can't take spicy. So I hereby apologize from the bottom of my heart to the two of them because I feel horrible for making them suffer. But hey, all in the name of humor and good laughs, why not?
 |
| L-R: Stephanie, Cherie, Sara, Hannah, me, Marcus, Mark, Ian and Ryan. |
After not letting me pay for lunch and going to McD to get some ice cream, everyone dispersed and went their separate ways. The car ride home was super funny because my dad and brother just pretended that there wasn't any special occasion going on this week when I told them about the surprise lunch and all. "Huh, today is September 18th ma, what's so special?" That is my dad's acting skills at his best. "You're the only one in this car that loves me," I sighed and looked at Marcus. He just laughed.
We got home and walked up to my room. I saw that the door was closed and I remembered that I didn't close it when we left in the morning but I didn't give it much thought. Maybe someone else closed it after me, I thought. But when I opened the door, I could hardly believe what I saw.
There were helium balloons with pictures of us tied to it at the end!!! Heart shaped color papers that he cut by hand with the help of his brother!!!! (I am using so many exclamation marks because this is the only way I know how to show you exactly how excited I was when I saw my room!!) You should have seen me jumping around, squealing like a 5-year-old, running around asking everyone to look at my room and yelling to no one in particular about how happy I was. I was so annoying, really. But I was too happy I couldn't contain it.
First instinct of course was to hug Marcus and thank him again and again and again and again and again and I didn't stop saying "thank you" even until the end of the day. With the special help of Sara and Hannah, I felt like I was going to explode with love and happiness. This explains why they were late for lunch because they were in my room, getting this lovely surprise ready.
I spent quite a while just staring in awe and complete joy at my room. I had to tell myself that, yes Yun Qing, this is real and this is happening because I really could hardly believe that all of this was real! I mean, you would see these pictures along with the hashtag relationship goals on the internet and you would rarely expect it to happen to you but it happened to me! It was quite surreal.
We spent the rest of our afternoon playing PES (and I am a total noob at this), Burnout Revenge (we're both pretty good) and Digimon (this he was noob at first, but then he won the last round so I have nothing to say) on PS2. And the PS2 was in my parents' room, so my mum was also in the room listening to these two kids laughing at all the red cards we had for tackling players, exploding our cars with the crashbreaker and digivolve-ing all the time. Also, I left the room to go get water and my mum decided to show him my passport photo when I was 12 years old for my UPSR registration thing. Oh, mum.
After dinner at home, a walk in the park, Star Wars episode 3 and a little bit of a food show on TV, Uncle Steve and Aunty Jamie came to pick him up at about 11pm. Yes, 11pm. So I spent almost the whole day with him (to be honest it isn't enough, it never is) and I had him aaaaall to myself. I am happy. Extremely happy. And silly me being silly, I barely took any photos of us and so here is a Snapchat quality of the extremely handsome mastermind behind the early birthday surprises.
Best boyfriend ever indeed.
**
PART TWO
First instinct of course was to hug Marcus and thank him again and again and again and again and again and I didn't stop saying "thank you" even until the end of the day. With the special help of Sara and Hannah, I felt like I was going to explode with love and happiness. This explains why they were late for lunch because they were in my room, getting this lovely surprise ready.
I spent quite a while just staring in awe and complete joy at my room. I had to tell myself that, yes Yun Qing, this is real and this is happening because I really could hardly believe that all of this was real! I mean, you would see these pictures along with the hashtag relationship goals on the internet and you would rarely expect it to happen to you but it happened to me! It was quite surreal.
We spent the rest of our afternoon playing PES (and I am a total noob at this), Burnout Revenge (we're both pretty good) and Digimon (this he was noob at first, but then he won the last round so I have nothing to say) on PS2. And the PS2 was in my parents' room, so my mum was also in the room listening to these two kids laughing at all the red cards we had for tackling players, exploding our cars with the crashbreaker and digivolve-ing all the time. Also, I left the room to go get water and my mum decided to show him my passport photo when I was 12 years old for my UPSR registration thing. Oh, mum.
After dinner at home, a walk in the park, Star Wars episode 3 and a little bit of a food show on TV, Uncle Steve and Aunty Jamie came to pick him up at about 11pm. Yes, 11pm. So I spent almost the whole day with him (to be honest it isn't enough, it never is) and I had him aaaaall to myself. I am happy. Extremely happy. And silly me being silly, I barely took any photos of us and so here is a Snapchat quality of the extremely handsome mastermind behind the early birthday surprises.
Best boyfriend ever indeed.
**
PART TWO
Saturday night, early wishes that came from people who were way too excited for my birthday started coming in and guess what I was doing? Skyping on my phone with Marcus. What else, right? And then the clock turned 12am. So it begins, I thought as I took a deep breath. (Okay la not so drama la I just thought "oh okay, it's 12am already" and that was it)
My phone started buzzing like crazy from tweets, Whatsapp messages, Facebook posts and all that that flooded my notifications non-stop. Marcus had the honor of singing me the birthday song first, just like how he sent his birthday song to me last year. And then Iza called to wish me, just like how we Skyped last year. I guess some things never really change.
I woke up at 9.21am the next morning (yes exactly at 9.21am! What a coinky doink hehe) to more wishes from the many people I know and love, and also from people who I don't know but still love anyway. I showered and got ready for a visit to see Yeye at the hospital. Looking at how he's recovering made me very happy and he was still his funny self so my morning was already made without him knowing. And then the best thing happened after lunch, you will never guess.
I took a nap.
A birthday nap.
What a way to spend my afternoon. Well, I only took a nap because I felt pretty tired from the Skype call the night before and from waking up so early. And also I needed something to make time pass faster because Marcus was coming over for dinner later. So, nap I did!
And then I got a message from Stephanie to go down and check my mailbox. But I hesitated quite a bit. Reason being some few days ago, she told me that she sent me frozen dimsum in my mailbox. If you know me well, I absolutely love dimsum so this was a big deal for me, like really big. But when I went to check, there was nothing there. I was genuinely quite sad because I really love dimsum so my heart broke into pieces when I went back up empty-handed. This explains why I was hesitant about going down to check my mailbox for something that she sent.
But I'm glad that I got over that and went to check my mailbox because I got a CD that holds a, quote unquote, "video of gratitude" from her. Just so you know, it made me cry because it was that sweet of her. And she is amazing. Steph is amazingly amazing. Enough said. So if you're reading this Steph, I can barely trust you anymore and you still owe me dimsum. Just kidding, I love you still. Thank you for everything. Oh, but I'm not kidding about dimsum, you'll still owe me that.
But I'm glad that I got over that and went to check my mailbox because I got a CD that holds a, quote unquote, "video of gratitude" from her. Just so you know, it made me cry because it was that sweet of her. And she is amazing. Steph is amazingly amazing. Enough said. So if you're reading this Steph, I can barely trust you anymore and you still owe me dimsum. Just kidding, I love you still. Thank you for everything. Oh, but I'm not kidding about dimsum, you'll still owe me that.
And after what felt like forever, Marcus arrived, looking extremely good looking as usual in his maroon shirt and grey shorts. Hehe. Hemsem. And then after everyone else finished getting ready as well, we left to Italiannies at the Curve!
Dinner was good food with good company, and not forgetting the wine. I only had one glass of wine but a third of the full glass was enough to make me go red all over, giggling at nothing and feeling super sleepy and drowsy in no time. As you can see, my tolerance for alcohol is close to negative. I was literally laughing at nothing and everything at the same time, mumbling words and phrases that didn't make much sense, which was pretty hilarious for everyone else to see, and also Bel, the waiter serving us. "Are you okay," he asked, "you barely had one glass of wine!" I just laughed. Just like I did at anything anyone said after that.
Look at how red my face was! Almost as red as Marcus' shirt, which I find super amusing still. But hey, getting that bit of tipsy wasn't all that bad. At least it tells them that I cannot go out drinking anymore, not unless I'm with people I can trust. Oh well. But Papa said he's going to slowly train me to be able to handle a slight bit more of alcohol. So, yay I think? Oh and guess who had free bread pudding because of her super mother who can get her way with a lot of things?
And so the night ended with final rounds of laughter, testing whether I could walk straight without having to hold on to Marcus, small talks about random things, sending Marcus home, a Skype call to say our final 'goodnight's (as if seeing each other 20 minutes ago wasn't enough, so clingy), more replying of people's wishes and then falling asleep immediately after hugging my bolster, tucking myself in my blanket and closing my eyes.
And so the night ended with final rounds of laughter, testing whether I could walk straight without having to hold on to Marcus, small talks about random things, sending Marcus home, a Skype call to say our final 'goodnight's (as if seeing each other 20 minutes ago wasn't enough, so clingy), more replying of people's wishes and then falling asleep immediately after hugging my bolster, tucking myself in my blanket and closing my eyes.
What better way to end the day that marks seventeen years of my existence, than to surround myself with the people who I love the most? The people who have been through my best times and my worst, the people who I know will never ever give up on me no matter what, the people who God has blessed me with tremendously with all the love and care that they have to offer, the people who are the most beautiful inside and out, the people who love me with hearts of gold that are bigger than anyone can ever imagine, the people who have watched me grow through out these years, the people who are always behind the scenes to making who I am today, the people who have stood by me through the toughest times, the people who have been the ones I turn to when I feel that the whole world is against me, the people who have seen my ugliest sides, the people who have been an amazing blessing to me and everyone around them, the people with the most genuine words of advice, the people that will always be there for a good laugh, a night of tears, for long, tight hugs, for good food and great adventures, the people who I look up to, the people who have loved me through and through since day one.
All in all, it was an amazing week with the most amazing people I know.
I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who was part of any of the surprises, and even to those who couldn't make it, and also even to those who just wished me in the smallest or the biggest way possible. I feel incredibly loved and blessed from the top of my head to the end of my tippy toes. I thank God for placing people in my life that show me what true love and friendship is. So if you're reading this, thank you for being a part of my life and do know that you play an important part, whether big or small, you are no less significant. And thank you for having me be a part of yours as well!
So thank you again to everyone who has at least shared a moment or two with me in the past seventeen years of my life. I will never be able to thank God enough for blessing me with seventeen good years of life's greatest adventures, unforgettable moments and wonderful memories along with the endless stream of amazing people. Here's to many, many more years to come.
With lots of love.