Esther's 20th. Starbucks. The Prime Society @ Dempsey

Allyna, Daniel, Jeremiah, Jeispreit and myself celebrated Esther's 20th yesterday. Met up at starbucks at PS ard 1400hrs to do assignment (not me of cuz. cuz the rest of them are all from RMIT. i'm just tagging along since i've got nth to do at home and didnt want to stay home alone and i know all of them ANYWAY). Thereafter, at about 19oo hrs, we made our way out of PS and waited for Daniel to come pick us up. When we reached the restaurant (The Prime Society), it is indeed a very classic, roman times, pretty posh place. but of cuz, dress code for the place- smart casual, and no flip flops. Prices are pretty steep. but hey! who cares! this place has got the best service, best food, best ambience, best interior decor amongst all the fine dining places that i've been to (not many thou :P) anyway, throughout the night, you wouldnt believe it but i was thinking hard of when is the next time i can come here again. rather, when's the next best occasion, whom should i come with.. and u know wad? i think i've found my answer. BUT! i'm not gonna mention it here. :P right. according to Mr Chow Jin Cong, he said he doesnt like reading LONG essays (u cant blame me la.. i'm one person who CANNOT summarise passages for NUTS and yea, i talk a lot) so, here i am, uploading the pics which i took with my friends.. so.. enjoy! ANYWAY, as the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words. maybe you're right, Jin Cong.. lol..

Grandma's passing on..

On the 28th Feb 2009  Saturday, it was a normal working day for me. Woke up at 6am as usual to get up and get ready for work. Class was fun as usual, had so much fun with the kids! :) then came 11 plus, i was just doing a random check on my hp when i saw 6 miss calls from my sis (Chui San)! and the latest msg reads "Ting! Where you now?! come now!" even before i could read the the earlier msg which she sent, i kinda knew what happened. my grandma's in the hospital and must be in critical condition. true enough. the 2nd msg i read, "Ting! come to NUH now! ma-ma's (dad's mum- grandma in cantonese) in critical condition! come now!" and that msg was sent at 10am plus. i tell u, my heart froze! thank God patrick was in the class that day, so he helped to cover my class. i immediately grabbed my bag, dial for a cab and called wenyao. my mind went blank and it took me a while to remember wenyao's number! i was that frightened. anyway, thou i've called for cab, but when i was outside, SOMEHOW, there was an empty cab (not on call either) waiting at the gate outside my centre! THANK YOU JESUS!!! it was as though the cab driver knew someone needed a cab super badly at that point of time! so i got into the cab, my colleague helped me call the cab company to cancel my on-call. when i was in the cab, i realised that i didnt even get to change out of my JGC's top and black pants. but it's alright la. at that point of time, my grandma's the most important one. when i reached the hospital, i ran all the way to the ward where my grandma was. when i was there almost the whole family was there. they said the doc injected some morphine into my grandma so as to help ease the discomfort and pain and sooth the breathlessness. but when we were talking to her, she wasnt responding at all! and outside of the ward, mummy was frantically, not just her, other relatives too were all trying to get hold of my dad who was working in Bintan and comes back only once a week, on sunday mornings. we called and text-ed, and called, and text-ed. but just couldnt reach him at all! so i called Liyi and got her to check on the internet for my dad's company number. and thank you Jesus! she managed to find the number and we called to the singapore's company number, and get them to call to bintan for us. anyway, in the end, after numerous phone calls, we managed to get hold of daddy's roomie and he contacted daddy for us. when dad FINALLY called, mum was like almost shouting at him and ask him why he cant be reached. so i told mum, dun ask him anything first, ask him to come back NOW first. the earliest ferry ticket he could get was at 1530. so in the meantime, we were just surrounding my grandma, talking to her, went downstairs for lunch, came back up and talk to her all the way till 4 plus in the afternoon when my aunty saw grandmas breathing was very slow and called the nurse. instead, the nurse just took off all the tubes and needles and drew the curtains by the bed. my mum rushed in was crying and kept telling her to hold on! daddy's coming back! he's on his way! when i saw that, i too rushed in and grab my grandma's hand and spoke to her in cantonese saying, "ma-ma! daddy fan gan lei la! daddy fan gan lei la! nei dang kui la!" (Grandma! daddy's coming back! daddy's coming back! you wait for him!" after saying that, i went out to the corridor to wait for daddy. then not long after, at about 1710, daddy finally reached. but grandma was already certified. but i didnt know that before grandma was certified, they put on loud speaker for my dad to speak to her. then not long after, she passed away. everything happened so quickly that few moments. so ya.. these few days was very tiring for us. we had to stay up and watch the night the whole night. anyway, yesterday, many church friends of ours came down. children's church ministry workers, cell group friends.. and my darling wenyao came down too. uncle paul (my aunt's husband) is a pastor in Covenant Evangelical (Reform) church spoke the most to wenyao. but of cuz, ya now, almost the entire family has seen him already. including my children's pastor, aunty susan and family. and he too met my cousins and other relatives from my mum's side of the family. i am so so glad that my family was so open and friendly to him. kk.. i really gtg.. take care and God bless!