O.M.G. my mom just managed to pull off a sorta surprise birthday dinner for me! my sis and i were supposed to be picked up by our dad at the station so that we could have dinner with our grandma, but as it turned out, we ended up waiting for half an hour and arriving late at the restaurant, where of course everybody was already waiting for me. i was HORRIFIED! thankfully it was only the lees (although 8 kids minus 1 should really count as more than one family) and audrey, whom i noticed immediately from her back view. it was a bit surreal- NOBODY gets to punk me! plus i was in a bit of a grouchy mood because i was not feeling well from eating a rotten mango in the morning, so i was already annoyed with having to eat out. and to make things worse there was a cake which meant candles and singing and i swear i wanted to just die and sink into a little puddle and seep through the floor tiles where nobody would be able to see me flavr savr*. i suppose this is payback for all the pranks i've pulled in the past. well, we all have to learn from the masters, and it's clear now where exactly i inherited my practical joke genes. the mother may have won this round, but she should be warned: there WILL be hell to pay!

*flavr savr = genetically modified tomato known for ripening to an extremely radiant red

anyway apart from the excitement of the dinner, today has actually been a very productive shopping day. i think me and my sis are forever 21's Customers of The Day. i managed to get 2 very pretty tops and a gorgeous sweater. the tops weren't for me but the sweater definitely was! it's like black and the most comfy zip-up thingy ever with cute little flower motifs embroidered along the sides. in fact i just laid it on my bed and stood back admiring it for a while. nowadays it's not often that i find stuff which i really really want to buy, but when i do, i hold on till i get what i want. and ahhhhh, the satisfaction!

apart from buying the sweater, my other big purchase this week has been my brand spanking new fujitsu lifebook! i got it at the PC show where they were giving out all kinds of freebies like free RAM upgrades and mice and like 50 lucky draw tickets which needless to say were hell to fill up. most importantly, i have met the new love of my life. it's black and 13.3 inches and 1.6kg and very very very cool indeed. plus, i paid for it with my own money so it's like the most precious thing ever. except maybe my debit card, because from that i can accrue more Precious Things. but we all know that is a different story. so far, the lifebook seems to be living up to its specs, which is good because i've always been a bit skeptical about AMD processors. apparently the only problem is the power usage, which i can't really comment on yet, but otherwise they're supposed to be comparable to intel but since they're underrated their systems are also a whole lot cheaper for a whole lot more. maybe i'll find some huge shittifying system flaw in a few weeks, but for now, i'm quite very happy!

in other news, my debaters were at pre-U sem for the past week so it has been a rather slack one indeed. which means that i've had lots of time to cook! so far i have conquered lasagne, barbequed pork ribs, grilled chicken, roast vegetables, watercress and mushroom soup. out of them all the lasagne was the most disgusting to prepare, because it involved like 2 hours of chopping vegetables for the meat sauce and then making the cream cheese sauce which kept annoyingly coagulating the moment i stopped stirring the pan. but eventually everything turned out pretty well, so it was worth the effort. i love cooking so much that i could definitely do it for a living! it's like the perfect way to channel my OCD tendencies because everybody knows that food that's been fussed over to the tiniest detail is very well cooked food indeed :D

oh! and i guess i should strike Comfy Sweater off my birthday list, yes :)