So several weeks ago, I celebrated my 30th birthday by watching “Rent” with my dear boyfriend. 
It was a show that we got tickets for last December. It was an interesting musical with the topic of friendship, AIDS, homosexuality and living a bohemian life. There were quite a number of songs that I loved from it and I am glad to have bought a soundtrack from the booth outside of the theater. I cried when Angel died, and I felt the frustrations Mark felt as a person who wants to express himself as an artist. It was really great! However, I didn’t like the acting of the guy who was playing Roger. I thought he was terrible in terms of acting.
Earlier that day, my friends at work surprised me with greetings and presents that I really loved. Some of them were really sweet in their messages in the mail. And one of my co-workers texted me because he was on site (client’s office) that day. Gosh, such awesome messages that warmed the heart. Rjene even made me cry that morning because she gave me a teru teru bozu! And her message in the card made me cry too.
The big white and pink teru teru bozu from Rjene, the white shell charm from Ence (way back when she went on a trip) and Martin’s gift to me was a Haruhi charm. Hehe. 
My fellow PM/BAs and friends at work also gave me a lovely gift: a tea tumbler from Starbucks. I know my hint was blatant because I posted it on Plurk but I am just so thankful for this gift because it does keep my tea warm. Now that I have a tea ball, looks like that tumbler and tea ball plus the darjeeling tea that Dai gave me last November will all be my friends if and when I get deployed on site.
Carl was thoughtful too. I saw a package wrapped in old forms haha. But guess what’s inside? It was a DVD copy of Infernal Affairs! OMG. The Andy Lau fangirl in me just squeed so much 
It was the gestures of these people that made the day extra special because of the talks I’ve had with my friends, the moments I got to spend with them. Thanks to everyone who had dinner with me before I ran off to meet JM for the musical. It was so hilarious, the things that happened over dinner in Giligan’s in Greenbelt 1. We even practically filled up one section of the place.
The following day was Eda’s birthday and I visited her at home. Some of our co-workers were there too and there was just so much food! I envy Eda that she could eat so much yet not gain weight ~_~ In any case, I am touched that she invited me over as well. I hardly have friends in the area. And we also played Zombie Fluxx that day. Hahaha. And when I went home, my sister surprised me by bringing sans rival. She told me to get sylvanas so we could stuff it in the sans rival. It was awesome! Hahaha.
See? Isn’t so glorious? Sans rival with sylvanas!!!!! *NOM!*
Then last week, it turns out one of my friends from Asia Source 3 is in the country. Mifan Careem (Sahana Project). It was a pleasant surprise. Too bad I wasn’t able to join them during the first week he was here. JM and I met up with Mifan and Bobby. It was great catching up with them and sharing stories of how we have all been doing these days. It made me miss camp a whole lot more and just last night, I ended up brainstorming with Shane about what we could do this summer.
My 30th birthday was mainly spent with my colleagues and friends this year. It feels like I am approaching something like my teen age years again in terms of certain changes in the way I think and feel about things. Career-wise, I am looking for other challenges to come. I know it’s a dangerous thing to ask for but I’d like to grow so it’s a risk I have to take. Sacha asked me what I am looking forward to this year. I guess it’s more of changes in different aspects of my life. Like I should be taking better care of my health and then there is also that desire to grow more as a crafter and also that desire to be more active in the free and open source community. But we’ll see how things will go, shall we?
The Hobby Horse