Even heroes have the right to bleed

It was great while it lasted.

The Boardgame Clique held our boardgames-cum-trick-or-treat session yesterday at our Paya Lebar hideout. Boy, did we have a great time with the seemingly-dumb game of Balderdash, during which everyone was making up looney answers from acronyms, names, movies, dates and words we didn't know existed.

Like 3 June 1965.

Like Tuttles of Tahiti. (of which fyi, was not about a group of Tuttles lying around doing nothing.)

Like ICA. (Which could have meant anything from International Chiropractors Association to International Compliance Association.)

Like the bladderpipe.

And if you're even wondering what Balderbash means, here you go:

"Nonsense."

- Free Marriam-Webster Dictionary

And we played our usual share of Acquire, Money, Vegas Showdown and No Thanks, and had a calorie-laden dinner at Suki Sushi. Then the problem started when I was on the MRT home. Apart from feeling wozzy, I was getting a nagging migraine to the side of my head, like someone was rapping on it with a cane. Then the nausea. And the feverish sensation coursing through my veins down to my feet. And the tingling sensation in my fingers and toes. And I told myself I had to get off before I collapsed on the train (like a near-death experience I had couple of years back). Then on the bus home, red splotches started appearing my my forearms and palms. Crap, I heard myself curse silently. The worst part of it all? Arriving at home with a really bad stomachache, only to find out that both bathrooms have been occupied by women who take pride in bathing for the longest time. I wanted to just head out of the kitchen window and end my misery. The splotches had reached my calves, and I was seeing double by the end of my bath.

Goddammit.

And I fell asleep uncomfortably, praying that my immune system would goddammit kill every single horrid thing that's causing this within my body. What else?

Superman saves whoever's in need. But who will save Superman when he's in need?

Jobless.

I've gotten so used to rising at 7am, bathing, getting out of the house by 8am, and being with Jack from 9am to 9pm, so the past few days have been a torment. And I thought I would be popping champagne at the end of the exams. Living like this sucks, especially when I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow. Have applied for temp jobs, but as usual I'm not expecting too much out of this job hunt since I can only work for a month.


Boardgaming with the Gordon and Gerlyn yesterday was fun as usual, and for the first time in so many sessions they didn't bicker. Did they? Anyway the next boardgaming session will only be in a month's time, when the couple returns from their month-long holiday around Central Asia. When will it be my turn? But then again, with no financial backing, no one bothers about holidays.

Dinner at Saizeriya was a pretty affair, although Gerlyn and I still weren't impressed with the guys' eating habits. Lesson of the day: I need to stop watching them wolf down escargots in order to keep the bile in my stomach from rising to my throat. Spicy tuna spagetti + loads of Tobasco sauce is lurv. :)

BBQ + Boardgames

I hate Hearts. And I wanna play it over and over and over again. That's the consequence of boardgaming too much; you acquire such a competitive mindset that you just wanna thrash every single opponent you have out there, include the poor fella (in this case, Gordon) who taught you the game. The adage will have to be amended to "bite the hand that feeds you", in this case. Anyway, while I'm still suffering the emotional imbalance from losing to Gordon and Jack by 3 points in Puerto Rico (I was on a damn winning streak! Until Jack bought those dreaded buildings), we did a BBQ at Gordon's condo with some of the finest ingredients on Earth.

Shark steak, leatherjacket, streaky bacon, pineapple, portobello mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, corn cobs, prawns, asparagus.

And yes, we ate ourselves silly, and were especially generous with the sambal chilli (1 bottle, to be exact). Although the booking of the pit ran into some walls (some family claimed they booked the pit for the entire day, but they shared 1 of the 2 pits with us), we had great food, great company and a great stomachache (in my case).

Best thing of all? I robbed Jack of his entire day. Haha.

Lack of caffeine

I traced my extreme lethargy to the lack of caffeine. Yes, I skipped my usual dose of coffee and went for low fat milk instead, which gave me a bad stomachache and nausea after lunch and during boardgames. What a stupid thing to do, I thought to myself, even more so when we headed to SMU Settlers' Cafe for boardgames. And I lost in my favourite games, Alhambra and Caylus. I'm not supposed to lose, especially when it came to Caylus. It was all a matter of bad calculations and hypotheses. Modern Art was still bad, and I crashed out of the game. Oh well. And the Wasabi game's full of loopholes. At the end of our session (which lasted from 2.30 to 8), Jack and I were dizzy from hunger and lethargy.

And the 4 of us popped by an Italian eatery at Liang Court, and the food there was surprisingly good for that kind of price.I had a relatively harmless Mushroom and Cream Pasta, which smelt strangely like Settlers' version, but much more palatable. We talked alot over dinner, probably much more than our usual conversations, and making plans for an overseas vacation. But the first thing I'll have to set out to do is to convince my mum that I, at 20 years old, will not get lost or get abducted or get cheated or robbed or anything else like that. Which is alot of work to do. Oh well.




I better go crash. Vacation tomorrow!

Subtle happiness

I realised the progress of time only allowed me to learn even more from things around me, including myself. And the past few days have etched a deep impression in me.



Sometimes, when you try really hard to be someone everyone likes, it turns out really horridly. And that was what happened. I'm just glad that I've found the ONE PERSON who has the ability to knock some sense into me whenever I utter something really insane, even when it means crazy phonecalls at unearthly hours. The remorse hit in the late morning, coupled with sore and puffy eyes and a congested throat. I paid the price, learnt the lesson. I promise, I'll never say those hurtful things again. It's only when you reflect upon what you've just said that you realise that you haven't been kind with your words. And I learnt it the hard way.



But you know I still love and treasure you all the same.

Lunch steaming with love from Jack's kitchen

Catching up done with the double G's - I got thrashed. Real bad.

Primary school gathering made me laugh. ALOT. As much as I hated my schooling days before JC, taking a peek back at the silly moments in Primary School was fun. We had so much sharing and catching up done over the 9 hours we had (with boardgames at Settlers' and dinner at The Coffee Club), and we've even set the tentative date for the next gathering.



Juliet, one of my best friends in Primary School. We were snail-mailing each other up to Sec. 4.



Two of the three guys who attended.
From left: Jeremy and Hao Yi. I remembered having a crush on Jeremy. Haha. And we were talking about how Jeremy and Haoyi not having much change (lookswise) from Primary school days. And while Jeremy was furiously pushing HaoYi to Charmaine (in hope of rekindling their Primary school 'romance'), the rest of us were shoving Matthew to her as well. I swear she got really pissed.



Lay Yoong. One of the many many prefects on our class. And while I was always bumping into her in NUS, she never did once recognise me. Lol. She's in Mec. Engine! We promised to keep in touch.



Games at Settlers'. We initially wanted to meet at Cineleisure, but some stalker of Juliet's found out, and we decided to change the venue. Haha. And we were saying that Charmaine was the PI (since she knew what was happening with the other people from our class) and Hao Yi was the stalker (since he knew much more about SOME people). Perfect match. And They're still the two brainy ones, no doubt about it.

Thanks to all who attended yesterday's gathering - Juliet, Lay Yoong, Charmaine, Lishi, Karryn, Hao Yi, Jeremy, Hua Xiong.

More photos coming up, after Lishi uploads them on FB.