4 July: Musings on Weddings #3 and #4

4 July.

Two weddings.

Same day but both held contrasting moods and vibes for me.

One was passionately celebratory, the other was a little more nostalgic.

One was a collective effort which required the Cell's involvement for a somewhat new friend; the other my personal journey to the familiar south for a dear friend on her wedding day--a very dear friend.

Wedding #3: Kington & Jessica

The bride and the groom had asked me two months earlier to see if I was available to lead worship on 4 July for their wedding. I couldn't really give them an answer as I was scheduled to attend Stephanie's wedding (see Wedding #4). However, after making some adjustments, I could accommodate both weddings into my schedule. Best thing was we had Chee Mun back to help us play guitar for the wedding too--two weeks after his own wedding. Poor guy! Great guy nonetheless.

The garden wedding venue before the guests arrived

The wedding was held at Mariott Putrajaya at 5pm. I arrived earlier than I usually do most weddings so that I could recee the place out. The whole venue where the wedding was to be had been dolled up. All it needed was people to fill it up.

Soon people started coming in little by little. When our pianist, Bee King arrived we did a quick rehearsal just to refresh what we did the Sunday before, which was incidentally our first rehearsal. When we were somewhat done with the short and sweet rehearsal, I looked up behind me (I had my back facing the rest of the crowd the whole time) and there were more people seated and waiting than I imagined. Chee Mun and Ruby got lost on the way which worried most of us since he was supporting Bee King on guitars. I think he eventually arrived like 10 minutes before the bride showed up. He quickly got his guitar tuned, did a quick soundcheck and was good to go.

The bridal procession was accompanied by "The Prayer" played by a three piece band consisting of a keyboardist, a flautist and a double bass player.

Jessica and her dad during the bridal procession

Calvin gave the opening prayer. After the opening prayer, the MC who was Jessica's brother introduced yours truly who led in a couple of worship choruses--"I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" and "How Great Thou Art". While I was trying to get the crowd to get off their seats and join me in singing, I forgot the name of those paper documents that the ushers hand out during weddings. That word eluded me right at that moment. So I ended up saying something like, "The lyrics to the songs can be found in your.... (pause).... handouts".

This was the "handout" moment.

So typical lecturer.

By the way, they're called bulletins (the word "bulletin" was in my head and did cross my mind, but I had always associated bulletins with those given out at church on a weekly basis, so I was caught in two minds and hence kept it in).

Otherwise, programmes would have been a suitable word nonetheless.

Handouts. *gasp*

Ps Chandran spoke right after I completed leading the two songs. He had based his sermon "The Love Languages" on the bestselling Dr Gary Chapman's book The Five Love Languages. I thoroughly enjoyed his sermon having read the book and I thought that it was an appropriate sermon and yet a short one. He proceeded to solemnise the wedding which, of course, reached the climax with the "You may kiss the bride" consent which promised to deliver some cheers and whistles from the guests. Ps Chandran then passed the time over to the pastor who is a licensed marriage registrar to do the signing of the marriage certificates. Ps Chandran then led the couple to take the first Holy Communion together as husband and wife. After that the couple lighted the unity candle.

Then it was done.

Mr and Mrs Kington Koh.

The recession march happened and it was done.

However before the wedding ended, I saw from where I was sitting an old friend, Ai Leen, from college. She's not old but our friendship went back many years to my college era (to be specific, the era when I was still a college student!) She went to study in the US after college and married a guy over there and the rest is history. She came back for a holiday which coincided with the wedding. I was supposed to be heading off for the other wedding shortly after but I stayed to catch up with Ai-Leen and the rest of my cell, Absolute Joy, a little. A little took a while and then I went up to change to a different set of shirt and tie combo. The bride in the other wedding insisted that it was a "black tie event".

By the time I left, it was nearly 6:50pm.

I had to be at wedding #4 of the season (wedding #2 of the day) by 7:30pm.

I was going to be late.

Getting to Seremban from Putrajaya was simple and quick enough. Manouvering into and in the town itself was a little trickier with the weekend traffic.

The bride and groom with Absolute Joy Cell Group.

with Ai Leen

Notice the change in the tie and the shirt from the previous photos.

with Mian Loong, Michelle, and Huay Phing

Wedding #4: Stephanie & Alex

I got lost getting to Royale Bintang Seremban. I had followed the map which was printed on the invite most of the way, but I lost my sense of direction when we were passing through the A&W at Seremban town. It has been almost 10 years since the last time I had a proper drive through town. It was already 7:28pm when I arrived at the toll. Another "race against time" situation.

Somehow I took a wrong turn and headed on a bridge which led towards Rasah Jaya. Dammit. Wrong way. Luckily for me, I found a U-turn and got my way back on track. Miraculously I found my way on the right track and saw some road signs with the Royale Bintang signage. It pointed here and there and then it didn't point anywhere at all. One wrong turn at the roundabout and I was back to square one. So I took one huge round and by some stroke of chance found myself at the hotel's front entrance. Best of all, parking was free. On the downside it was already 8:01pm when I arrived at the parking. I rushed up to where the ballrooms were and saw the waiters all lining up with their platter and preparing to make their way in to the hall. But they were held up for some reason.

I saw Jennette who was on reception duty getting ready to tutup kedai (close shop) and asked for my table number and handed my angpow over. When I got to my seat, the groom and the bride were still on stage giving their acknowledgement speeches. That's odd, I thought: acknowledgement speeches before dinner. But I wasn't complaining, so I just shrugged my shoulders a little almost like reflex action, adjusted and smoothen the creases on my suit a little and got myself seated... next to my former church's elder and his wife, Uncle Tee Fatt and Aunt Hariett. Min Fook and Ann; Francis, Mabel and their kids, and Gary were seated on the same table. Alright, familiar people. Just as Stephanie had promised me.

Once I was a bit more settled, I looked across the room and saw some familiar faces. Michelle, Uncle Colin, Aunt Mandy, Aunt Anna, Aunt Doris, Uncle Fred etc. Looking at them all did bring back some memories, mostly great ones from 10 years ago. Midway through dinner, Desiree came over to say hi. A while later, Michelle who was seated at the VIP table recognised me and gave a wave. Later, the bride herself paid a visit to our table and she dragged her groom over to introduce me to him--for the first time.

Newlyweds about to cut the cake

Mr and Mrs Wang pouring the champagne

with Aunt Anna and Aunt Majorie

with Michelle and Aunt Anna

with the bride

I believe this was one of those weddings where I stayed till the end to mingle with old friends and just kept myself up to date with what's been happening in their lives. Once the desserts were served, it was already nearly 11pm but I decided to hung on for a while to catch up with Aunts Anna and Marjorie, Michelle, Desiree, and then much later Uncle Colin and Aunt Mandy, who were the parents of the bride themselves congratulating them for the auspicious occasion. I was about to leave but Steph showed up, at that time in a white cheongsam and we stayed to talk for a while. Somewhere along the conversation, I had mentioned that we knew each other for about 10 years and she was surprised and asked if it has been that long.

After some time, I said my goodbyes and promised to not disappear so long without keeping in touch. By the time I left S-town it was already close to 11:30pm. It was some distance to travel back to KL. The other folks from KL had already left. I dragged a deep breath and breathed the cool night air into my lung. The thought did cross my mind though: "How did I managed to be at two weddings on the same day?"

End of Part 1 (2009 edition)

Finally it's all done.

It appears that I had been marking assignments for months (I never noticed until Yee San and Li San brought it up on separate occasions)--it started with the ICC and IMCOMM for the Diploma which semester started in January and then the CCS which started in late February. After completing teaching the Diploma and also with the marking of the two subjects, I dived head in to mark the Assignment 1 for CCS. With no break at all, once Assignment 1 had been completed, I again dived into marking the final report. Thank God there was Yoges to mark Assignment 2. So yes, it's been a long January to early July.

So it's only in the wee hours of this morning that I had completed all 113 (minus a few of the non-submissions) reports worth plus-minus 2,500 words each.

Today at the office, I tabulated the marks for the CCS and, together with Yoges, we selected the assignments to be sent for moderation -- the best, the worst, the middle-of-the-way. Then we packed it, and handed it over to the Sophia.

After hundreds of hours, it's finally done.

There were times during this episode of the "battle" that I had felt extremely weary. The human side of me kept asking how close to the end are we, but the other side of me knew that it was nowhere near yet and that I had to keep going. I needed to put my head down and plough through. I won't comment anymore about it but, yes, it's been months. I don't want to gripe and moan about it (no point!); I don't believe you want to read it here either.

And so the burden is finally lifted.

Now I can go take a vacation...

Reboot: written in stone (2.0)

Time for a little change in the background and the general look of this blog.

But that's all the time I can afford for now. This whole activity of changing the background serves two purposes:

1. to keep myself mentally fresh so that I can continue marking while taking this diversion
2. to keep this blog fresh... it has been six months since the last change.

I know of a lot of people who had changed their blog layout in a much shorter period of time but six months' once works for me.

I decided I wanted to get a little more minimalistic for this season and allow the pictures to come alive instead and hence opted for a more subdued and milder backdrop against the main cast of photographic frames captured in time and space.

Let me know what you think, do you prefer:

• the previous one (the green one) which was also called "observe/preserve"; or
• this one (the ecru one) which is called "written in stone v2.0"?

Another key reasons why I decided to revert to using back the "written in stone" was the result of Michele's remark over dinner last night. She reminded me of the time when I once used this title. She loved it for its subtlety...

Can you figure out the cryptic message behind the title? Not difficult to spot it...

Ok, time for me to get back to work...

Janice's birthday

The party: Joyce, Janice, Des, me, Gladys

Before I shoot off to Putrajaya this evening for wedding #3 and later from there to Seremban for wedding #4 today, let me just quickly put in an update here on what happened last Saturday (yes, I know I'm a week behind and this entry is not much of an update anymore, but still it's noteworthy to deserve a place in this blog).

Already Joyce is asking me enthusiastically for the photos from Janice's birthday last week, so here it is.

Five of us--Janice, Desmond, Gladys, Joyce and I--met at Victoria Station for Janice's birthday dinner. The rest of the cell had one thing or another, but as for me, it was a good diversion from all the marking of the CCS assignments. Naturally, I was more than a willing participant. Plus Janice is a fun person to hang with and a good friend. We wined and dined. Janice and Gladys ordered a Chilean merlot for us all, not too sure what year it was but I think it was 2006. It was a nice and drinkable wine but I reacted a little to the sulfites in the drink. Itched a bit here and there but nothing too big of a concern. I think this is only the first or maybe second time that I am having some minor forms of sulfites sensitivities. (For more info on sulfites, click here and here, here, and here.) For some reason, South American wines seem to have some amount of sulfites. Oh well... Anyway, most of us had a good piece of steak, some of them had surf and turf combo or something like that. Cake followed of course.

After the dinner, we were deciding what to do. Hang out in Kota Damansara area? What about the Curve? How about Solaris Mont'Kiara? SS2? After a while they decided they wanted to go watch Transformers 2. I had already watched it with Felicia, Stefan and his sisters but wouldn't mind watching it again since I was/am a huge Transformers fan since young. We headed to the new Tropicana City Mall to try to get tickets. Needless to say that on a weekend, the cinema was so full most of the cinemas had less than 10 tickets and I was sure they were all those loose seats of ones all over the cinema. So we decided to take time out and go play some arcade games.

Yes, four thirtysomethings (sans Gladys who went home early), went to the centre next to the GSC Tropicana City and spent some time and money tar-kei-ing ("playing machines" as the Cantonese call it). We played the shooting shooting one (I forgot the name but it's the one with the gun and all); the basketball shooting one, the table hockey thing and in Janice's case the drumming drumming one (ok lah, I played it too).

Janice and Desmond engaging in table hockey thing.

I don't even know what's the proper name for this.

Janice the enthusiastic while Joyce and Desmond watches

The video of Janice drumming

We came out from gaming all sweaty at about 11:05pm and to our good fortune, the cinema just released the tickets for the 11:30pm movie. It was selling fast but the queue wasn't that long anyway. To our better fortune, we got good tickets for Transformers!

An impromptu hang out after the dinner turned out quite fun in the end.

Alright gotta go soon. Need to go get a few things done before the two weddings this afternoon/evening.

Reconstructing / Deconstructing Bosco

Hi people. It's me taking a break from all the CCS assignment marking which had kept me from updating the last couple of days.

Here's a little bit of diversion.

The other day, I think last Thursday it was, Yings and I met up for some drinks and some catching up after work. Our rendezvous point this time was at Kimgarry, The Curve.

After some food and drinks and while we were talking, she asked a question out of the blue, noticing earlier that my hand had reached out and grabbed the pencil which was used for ordering the food that we so fondly mark on the order sheets in the said restaurant:

"Are you the kind that used to draw when you were a kid?"

"Yeah, how you know ah?", I replied.

"Can see one la... the way you hold you pencil and draw as you talk... it's different. It's comes so natural and so fluid the strokes, and when you do one thing, go on to another and come back to it later, you look like you know what you are doing one la".

Apparently, she was taking note of my work of art while I was talking to her about anything and everything.

I paused for a while, thought about it, and took it all in.

After a few seconds had lapsed, I asked her if she was a drawer.

She said no, she was not a drawer, but an artist.

For a moment I forgot what drawer meant and then it dawned upon me.

Anyway, here's my work of art. My "modifications" to the Kimgarry table liners.

Note: If you're a Bosco Wong fan, the following pictures may offend, so please proceed no further. I am neither a fan nor anti-Bosco, this is just an artistic (mis)expression.

From this (I had to put this here as the control just so you know how the original looked like)...

To this...

Well, it's nothing great... just a few sketches, but I liked the fact that I touched up Bosco's face with: a bit of guyliner (which looked one part Egyptian and three parts Prince or the artist formerly known as Prince or whatever he calls himself these days) and made him look more real with eyebags (what Photoshop takes away, Wins give back); two hoops -- one on each ear (could have done a few more, but I thought it would had stood out more if there were only one on each); that designer stubble (in the mould of George Michael, Danny Gokey or even Joel Houston) that so many Chinese would probably longed for; thicker and fuller eyebrows--well groomed and all; a more 80's-type fringe ala Duran Duran to go with the whole look. Oh, I also gave his jacket some creases and made it look more military with some special French-type cuffs with buttons and all, aviation wings on his right arm, and three stars to give him that general status.

Actually, it all started with the stubble just to see if Chinese men looked any good with a full pricky follicular growth on the southern region of the face.

Anyway, the point of this entry is just to highlight that some people do grow up learning through drawing, sketching or even just doodling.

And when trusted with a pencil, some times the unconscious slips through and some glimpse of the past is revisited.

Tribute to the "jantan tulen" (Part 2) (aka Musings on Wedding #2)

A group photo with the groom

(l-r): CM, Ian (head obscured), me, George, Janice, Joyce, Michelle, HP, Pauline, Mi Me.

Woke up extra early last Saturday. Not extra as in extra early, but early by weekend standards.

It was the jantan tulen's wedding day!

Chee Mun weds Ruby.

The first Absolute Joy (AJ) Cell Group wedding since I had became a member of that cell.

I was, however, excused from hengtai "duties"... this is due to my role as a musician in the church wedding ceremony. If I were a hengtai, I would have to wake up perhaps two hours earlier than the time I woke up which was way, way too early for me. So I could still wake up at a decent hour and made my way straight to church. Just as well: later that night when I looked at the Powerpoint presentation during the wedding dinner, I thought I saw a pic of Ian "kissing" CM! Made me cringe a little.

Ok, a lot.

(Sorry, I'm not homophobic but I still need a little getting used to to visuals like these)

9am: arrived at KL Gospel Hall to tune up and set up the guitar, amps, and ran through the songs couple of times to familiarise our parts.

It must have seemed like we took a while to practice but before we knew it, the groom's party had already arrived while the bridal party is somewhere also in the church grounds getting touched up or just chilling out.

Chee Hong (best man and brother to the groom) with Chee Mun

Huay Phing and Pauline

with them both

Pauline and Huay Phing were already well positioned at the doorpost as ushers while Joyce and Janice were handling the corsages. Wilson was doing the audio sound systems; Desmond, George and Ian were working on the traffic control, while Calvin was one of the photographers. Mi Me was the person in charge of everything and coordinating all activities at the church wedding while Jasmine and myself represented the musicians from our cell. The Cell and some of his close friends really came out in full force for the wedding.

HP, Pauline and Jasmine

I liked the wedding though: it was quick and went straight to the point, no BS. I think the entire wedding took like less than 75 minutes which is considerably a short duration for a wedding. As soon as the bride came in and the procession had ended, Chee Mun gave a surprise performance and sang a song to Ruby, right at the altar. I thought that was a sweet gesture from a sweet guy. I guess it was not surprising from a guy like CM but no one thought that it was going to happen nonetheless. Fair play to the groom. Pas Chee Wai gave a very quick and effective sermon and did the solemnization, the couple lighted the unity candle and then had their first Holy Communion as husband and wife, Pas Lee Choo gave the prayer of blessing and introduced the couple and it was all a done deal.

Oh yes, we had the tea reception thereafter.

Dinner Ceremony (Spring Garden, Tropicana):

Absolute Joy

The usual dilemma: didn't know what to wear for the wedding. A whole closet full of clothes but nothing to wear to suit the occasion. A tie would be too formal, a suit would be nice but can get a bit too warm. What about the shirt to wear? Any other accessories to give it that tszuj it up a little? Perhaps just to give it that va-va-vroom factor?

HP and me with the next in line:

Jessica and Kington (Wedding #3 -- 4 July)

Another Absolute Joy cell wedding

The next one after the next in line (but not one of the four this season):

Michelle and Mian Loong (Nov/Dec 2009)

The would-be third AJ wedding of the year

Suit was good but the air-conditioning there was left wanting. Somehow, it wasn't cool enough. I wasn't the only one complaining about the air-cond though. A few people kept asking me if I was warm and I said yes but I couldn't remove the blazer. It would've looked ugly with all the sweaty bits and patches on my shirt. So what to do? Kept it on, looked smug, but was dying inside. "Mati tak apa, gaya mesti ada!" Guess the suit suited the occasion but the air-conditioning didn't. Well, it was out of our control so had to live with it.

The guys in table 5 (Calvin giving Wilson the Statue of Liberty look)

(l-r, standing): me, Calvin, Andrew

(l-r, seated): Mian Loong, Wilson, Ian

Anyway, Calvin and Ian did the MC-ing for the night but by the time they took the stage I think they had a little too much to drink. Ian, Calvin and I (all seated on Table 5) had some Johnny Walker a little earlier. I could tell by the way they were improvising their scripts on stage, (either that or they were ill-prepared; but I'd like to believe it was the former). But you can always count on Ian and Cal to charm their way through with the audience. Michelle and Pauline thought it was pretty humourous too after I had pointed it out to them. No major hiccups, just the expression on Cal and Ian's faces and their improvisation.

Yum seng!

Paul, Apple, Michelle, Joyce

I was seated on Table 5 along with Ian, Calvin, Mi Me, Little Isaac, Andrew (who performed a song item, N'Sync's This I Promise You), Wilson, Mian Loong, Michelle, Apple, and Pauline. The other half of AJ were way back at table 26 where Jasmine, Kian, Little Nathaniel, Janice, Desmond, Huay Phing, Priscilla, Kington, Jessica were seated.

Three kids: Desmond with Nat, Pris with Josiah, and Ian with Isaac

(none of the kids are any of theirs!)

with Pauline

with Priscilla

with Paul and Pris

The boys "molesting" Ian: check out Desmond's hand and it looks as if Calvin is reaching for something real low

with Andrew, HP, Paul and birthday girl Janice

This looks like a family photo. I like.

As you can see, we took lots of photos.

We were talking and wondering whether or not we should go partying thereafter since we were all so dressed up and it was also Janice's birthday. No follow up on it and everyone decided to go home.

So once again, congrats to Chee Mun and Ruby and happy honeymooning.

God bless you on your wedding and also best wishes for a long and fruitful marriage.

(For more photos, you can go check out FB but the ones here had been touched up a little to give it better "lighting".)

Tribute to the "jantan tulen" (Part 1)

This entry is a blog post on a jantan tulen ("real man" in Malay).

This post is about what happened last Wednesday which started from Chili's at Midvalley and concluded at The Tasting Room, Bangsar.

This post is on Chee Mun's stag night aka bachelor's party.

To those select few who had the opportunity to watch the video that I had edited and put up on FB, I believe you came close to recapturing the moments when Chee Mun decidedly took the step of faith (and of love!) to become "da man" by completing all the tasks that were set before him with flying colours.

On that Wednesday night, the guys (final count: 13 of us including Chee Mun) under the leadership (or rather mischief) of Calvin had Chee Mun's stag night, while the girls had Ruby's hen's night... with less than 5 kms separating the two locations. It was our own public holiday from Cell Group meetings that night. So it was compulsory for everyone in our cell to attend.

The guys congregated at Chili's, MVM, from 7:00pm with the groom-to-be. I can bet the groom-to-be was a little stressed on what was going to happen that night. With all his heng-tais (Chinese term for the close male friends or "brothers" of the groom which would stick by him through thick, thin and the wedding day; this is part of Chinese wedding customs) slowly assembling one by one, the tension was built up slowly but surely. When I arrived, there was a pair of boxers on the table which was passed around. The boxers was ecru in colour and had some scribblings on them. They were messages the heng-tais wrote. There was one which read across his butt, loud and clear, "Getting Married, Free Smell" while another was the traditional "CM ♥ Ruby". There was one which mimicked the Intel logo which read "Hairy Inside" while another with the Nike "Just Do It". So I put my corporate branding in as well. I added a Maxis logo with the word reading "maxxed out" in the maxis font with an arrow pointing towards the crotch area.

Challenge #1 for Chee Mun: He had to wear the boxers the entire night, regardless of where he will go.

He took a look at it, stretched the elastic band a little bit, and proudly put his legs through them and wore it over his jeans ala Superman.

Challenge #1 completed like a true man!

We then placed orders for our dinners with the waiter and then we proceeded to Challenge #2. Again, we looked to our event organiser, Calvin, for the next game. Calvin's the experienced and seasoned professional in stag night parties having organised plenty of testosterone-fueled nights for lots of men at the church.

Challenge #2 for Chee Mun: Chee Mun had to walk around and asked 10 different people (all of which must be people he has never met or known before) to tell them that he was getting married over the weekend and ask for advice on the right type of lingerie to buy for his soon-to-be-missus. Being the shy and decent guy that CM is, he blushed but sportingly did the task before him anyways. He started with the immediate table which were quite decent people as well and understood that this was part of a bachelor's party. After giving him the advice, they were to sign on his boxers to verify that they had approached them on this. Then he went further from the table where the hengtais were seated. More eyes were glaring at his unorthodox attire. As he approached table by table, more and more people began to realise what was going on, especially with the entourage of two camera guys (Ian and me!); a few close friends who decidedly gave him their support by casually willing him on; and Calvin, who monitored that he wasn't taking any shortcuts. CM was collecting signatures faster than we had envisioned. Smart of him to target tables with couples. Luckily for him, the people he had approached were quite kind and gave him some advice and willingly signed the boxers... either that or they were too embarrassed to be seen with him hanging around their table with the entourage crowding in.

Before long, CM had all ten signatures all over his boxers (one gentleman even requested to willingly sign on his quote "nut sack" unquote but couldn't do so without first giving advice on lingerie which his girlfriend/wife had to do so before he could put pen on the penis).

Findings on his "research" gave him such answers as below:

• Black (a few respondents said this was preferable);
• Red (one respondent said that if recipient likes black, must buy the total opposite and put a dash of colour into it)
• Skin-coloured
• Lacey (I think there was one I heard who said this)
• The more transparent the better (this is self-explanatory!)

Challenge #2... DONE!

We stopped all games to enjoy our dinner.

Suddenly everything went quiet for a while.

The calm before the storm.

After everyone had their fill and just when you thought everyone was satisfied, one of us (Calvin!) apparently was not done yet. Being the mastermind behind the whole bachelor's party, he concocted another one just before dinner and intended to see it through.

Challenge #3 for Chee Mun: Based on his "research" just before dinner, he had to do lingerie shopping to get Ruby the right bra: size, colour, texture, material and all.

The shopping challenge came with its own Terms & Conditions. Hahahaha...

Condition in the shopping: He must never mention her size (regardless of whether he knew or not) to the salesperson but must demonstrate with hand actions. If he were to say the size (eg. 32B, C, or D or whatever... or S, M, L) it would be forfeited and he will have to do this challenge again in another lingerie shop.

#@$%@#$%#^$&$&&^%*&*&*$#@^%&... I bet this must have went through the mind of CM.

With his own boxers ablazing, CM together with his entourage stormed MVM to the first lingerie shop, Minoshe.

First attempt.

While explaining to the salesgirl there, he accidentally said something pertaining to size. Challenge terminated!

He had a second attempt: this time it was at Xixili, near the Centre Court.

He walked in, the salespeople (two of them!) glared at him, and he was not even walking straight anymore... I think CM was nervous judging by the way the two ladies were glaring at him. The second lady noticed his boxers and knew this was a prank or a jantan party of some sort and eased up immediately. This time when the lady asked him what size it was, he nervously laughed and put his both hands up and cupped them like he was fondling a pair of boobs.

DING!!! DING!!! DING!!! DONE!!!! JANTAN IN THE HOUSE!!!!

HE THE MAN!!!

He didn't buy the lingerie in the end, preferring to be conservative to wait for her to accompany him before buying. But he sure had an experience learning more about women's underwear and we sure had a lot of fun watching a man come of age.

For the record, here are a few pics of us with CM to certify his Pass with flying colours.

Chee Mun with us upon his victory outside Xixili

The larger group of us

One with him showing the camera his bum

After the victory at Xixili, some went back home and called it a night.

As for some of us, we found out the location of the girls. Since we know a high percentage of the girls in the hen's party, we might as well go there and meet them. They were at The Tasting Room at Bangsar and we decided we were crashing their party. They finished their dinner and were sitting around having drinks, so we might as well reunite the couple before calling it a night.

The entourage moved to Bangsar and as we came up, we saw Ruby in a tiara given to her by Mi Me, Calvin's missus. Calvin and Mi Me... the twin terror names in the bachelor and bachelorette's party. Their reputation precedes them.

Tasting Room... just as we arrived

Chee Mun & Ruby

So it was, we stayed for about half hour and it was over at the girls' party.

Thursday came and we had the wedding rehearsal at the church...

Friday came and we heard the bride and the groom were a little under the weather and were worried for them....

And then Saturday.... the day they were to tie the knot....

Academic staff day out to Bernama TV

Last Tuesday, a bunch of us academic staff visited Bernama TV. 

Nine in total, I believe.

We originally wanted to take a group of students with us but they only limited this trip to a very small number.

Eventually, the students get to go on a trip to BTV. It's just a matter of when. Talks are in progress and they will need to wait until they have sorted out some logistic matters.

The staff there, however, were kind enough to let us take more than a few photos of their studios and also gave a very informative tour of the facility. In fact, we got more than we bargained for when we also got a look in to the live on-air recording of Bernama's Radio24 (93.9FM) -- the all-news radio station.

Having fun on the newscaster's seat

Usha taking her turn on the hot seat

Karam having fun behind the cameras

There are more photos coming...

There's one of Azmyl and me "mengada-ing" in the main studio, but that is in one of the other cameras.

John's birthday @ TGI Friday's The Curve

Group photo

(l-r: John, DJ, Ka Wah, Natelyn, Wai Kuan, Jess, me and Sen)

TGI Friday must be the epitome of noisy birthday bashes.

On Sunday last (14 June), we celebrated (Small) John's birthday ("Big John" refers to DJ). The "we" refers to Small John, DJ, Sen, Yu-Ann, Ka Wah, Wai Kuan, Natelyn, and me.

They were at The Curve to catch a movie--Blood. I went there right after the worship team's meeting hence I only joined them for dinner.

I think we were Table #4 to have had a birthday party during our time there. First, was this guy quite near our table by the window who looked as if he was wearing a Friday's t-shirt himself. Second, was quite a nice looking young lady (also by the window) with her family. Third, was someone quite far back if I remembered correctly. By the time the Friday's crew came by with the cake (cupcakes courtesy of Sen from Cupcake Chic no less) it was for John. The Friday's crew were loud with a capital L-O-U-D. They sang, they shouted, they whistled, they made helluva lot of noise but they kept the spirits up. Kudos and fair play to them for helping us give Small John a great time out. Here are the pics:

The birthday boy, John "Small John" Loke

Group photo with Sen acting like the "best lobbyist"

He was made to stand on the table and sing.

First it was ABCD... (oh, come on!!!)

Then it was Ba-Ba Black Sheep... (boooo!!!)

Finally he decided on "I could sing of Your love forever"... (applause!!!)

By the time he finished with his song(s), the candles melted away...

Ka Wah putting away his cupcake

All of us were quite stuffed after the dinner but the cupcake was a must

John and the girls

We then proceeded upstairs to Sanctuary for drinks. The boys sans Small John had beer, the girls wine.

An unamused DJ with a focused Sen

The girls -- Natelyn, Jess, WK

Once we had the drink, it was all about rushing home for work the next day.

All good things must come to an end.

But here's to you, Johnny. Happy birthday and may God bless you. Hope you had enjoyed yourself with us.

Musings on wedding #1 (Stevie Wee's) -- Pt. 1

It had happened as expected at the wedding.

Someone asked me that much dreaded question--"when is your turn?"

If you had read the last entry, I had made a mention about this and my very evil answer to give the enquirer (refer to the entry on 11 June 2009).

Fact is this, when the question eventually came and the person asked, I had to revert back to my usual more mundane answer.

I just couldn't get myself to do it.

I didn't have the heart.

The person who asked me that question was my primary school teacher.

Pictures to follow once I get them from Gek Sim.