• BLOG
• ABOUT
• LECTURER
• OLYMPIAD
• S-PAPER
• PURE APPLIED
• MISC.
• CONTACT

Yup, in case you didn't know, 2nd September marks my birthday. I kind of like that date. I turn 22 today and I have to say that this birthday was one of the best, if not the best, for the past 22 years of my life. At Gaussian Math, I’m supposed to keep the blogs as intellectual as possible, but let's make today's one an exception shall we.

In all honestly, I wanted to celebrated this birthday by myself. See, I always expected to be by myself on my 22nd birthday. By myself not in Singapore, but in America. I really wanted to go to Columbia University, but my application did not make the cut for the Ivy league. Thus, it seems appropriate that I head to a cafe with my iBook to build up my Gaussian Math with the hopes to get accepted next year.

3 days prior to today, my good friend Philip kind of hinted to me of a surprise party. The irony is that the only way for him and the crew to surprise me was to tell me in advance of the surprise party because, well, I'm a busy man and it's quite improbable that they surprisingly catch me at the right place at the right time. So the date and time was set, Saturday 7pm at church.

On the day itself, I had a few of my church friends messaging me asking whether I was coming to church. I simply said yes, little did they know that I knew what they know. Here was my plan, I would sneak inside the church, rob the cake from the fridge and surprise them by stealing the cake. The joke would be on them ... or would it?

I did sneak into the church, Solid Snake style, pass the main crowd playing floorball on the first floor and hide at the second floor youth room. I rendezvous with my supposedly Intel source Julian and ask him to check the fridge for the cake. He checked and sent the reply, "There's no cake, no one bothered to follow up."

My state of excitement sunk to depression with a negative exponential gradient. They didn't care about Donny's birthday, I wondered. They are my good friends but to anticipate that they hold a party for me only to turn me down, I was hit with a double dose of no Columbia and no love. There's was nothing left to do but to take out my General Relativity book and study.

Shortly after, the main crew returned from their sports into the youth room where I was cowering in a reclusive position. They then started a round of our popular card game 'Werewolf'. Oh well, perhaps that will cheer me up.

I drew my card, a normal townsman. So it was time that the townsman sleep while the werewolves ravage. I closed my eyes, attempted to hear the wolves, and then opened my eyes to the delight of a cake in front of me with my friends around shouting “Happy Birthday!” Okay, they got me on this one. Here were my next actions. First, I strangled my Intel source for giving me the wrong information. Second, my emotions took a 180 degree turn and now I did feel love. Third, I was looking at the cake getting ready to slice it up.

I really did think that there wasn’t a cake and to find one at the most unexpected time, it was sure a surprise. They sang the usual birthday song with me in the middle. I make a quick wish and blew the candle cause I couldn’t wait to eat. The cake was actually very delicious (good choice Pat), a mixture of chocolate and biscuit. If it wasn’t for the whole group, I would have taken two pieces.

That surprise would have satisfied my expectations, but it didn’t stop there. The party went on but this isn’t the usual party most people know, the kind with the big crowds, bright lights, dancing, music, and big announcements. No, it wasn’t like that. This is MY kind of party – a few group of friends having good fellowship. After the church a selected few, only four of them, decided to follow me and for once in my life, I was treated with a sense of love that was only appropriate on my birthday. I definitely could sense that this love was a return of my friendship founded on kindness with them.

We went to our usual seafood place to have dinner, but for me this wasn’t some ordinary dinner. Most Singaporeans would simply order their food, have the plate of rice in front of them, and pounce onto the meat with their forks and spoons. Well, it turned out that today, my friends were actually serving me the food. I know was I was a good friend to them but I certainly wasn’t that good a friend? What have I done to deserve this I thought to myself. So there I was getting served with prawn, chicken, vegetables, with a healthy dose of kindness. You got to understand, this doesn’t happen on any day for me. What’s more, when it was time to pay the bill, I really wanted to pay for my share, but they strongly refused shunning away my attempts to slide money onto the cashier. This was too good.

After our as sumptuous dinner, we were joined by the ‘mastermind’ of the whole surprise party Philip. Now here was a key moment. You can consider me and Philip, the buddy buddy, you got my back, I got your back, kind of friend. We tight, in the drinking sense and whenever situation calls for a good time of tiger, we tend to be there for each other. So when he suggested, at about 11pm, to go to Ice Cube and chill with a couple of drinks, I thought it was just him and me. The other four would have been tired from entertaining me.

In the contrary, they willingly followed me and Philip and the now six of us had a good time of drinks, ice cream, and waffles at Ice Cube. For Donny, I don’t usually have a group of friends chill together. Most of the time, I’m either with my laptop, with my math textbook, or with Joshua playing ball. Given that it was my birthday, I still thought they would have gone home satisfied with their actions during the dinner. Instead, they took some time of their sleep to send it with Donny. What followed was a time of sharing, talking, taking photos, joking, and just some good slacking.


Thank You Saint Peters Church, in particular, Philip who initiated the whole thing.

For those who are still interested on what went down at Ice Cube, you can check out the video by clicking here.