On 1st September, I would go, “Woohoo, would you just look at the calendar! The birthday month has arrived!!!” And The Boyf, he would check his fingernails for dirt.

But this year is the year that I turn the big 3-0 and needless to say, I was less enthusiastic than normal. I merely announced on Sunday, “Guess what honey, the Birthday Week is here!” And this time, The Boyf threw his head back and laughed.

That was how Birthday Week started. :)

First thing Monday morning, The Boyf, who is slightly taller than I, peered down my black mushroom of a head and said, “Look here, what have we got? A grey hair! And wait, it’s not just one strand, it’s a whole clump! Here, let me help you yank them out.”

So the morning was spent with The Boyf inspecting my head for grey hair. I joked, “Is this what growing old with you will be like?” And he smiled.

Tuesday evening, The Boyf suddenly said, “You know what? Let’s celebrate your birthday on Wednesday because I’ll be really busy the rest of the week!”

And I protested, “Huh? But… I don’t feel 30 yet!” Why would he want to hurry the day along? If I could push the big 3-0 by a whole 365 days, I would. Wouldn’t you?

He said, “I’ll book the restaurant,” and I felt slightly annoyed. He shrugged.

Wednesday afternoon, The Boyf came to pick me up. He said, “We’ll have to pop by the Skype office for a while c’os I left my documents there earlier.

At the front of the Skype office, I said, “Don’t you want me to wait in the car while you pick up your docs?”

He looked shocked. His plan is foiled! It took a while but he came back to his senses and said, “Nah, you should come with me and meet Dan. Besides, the office is formerly the home of Tiger Balm, you’ll love it.”

And when I saw the building, I did love it. I called out to The Boyf, “Hey, help me snap some photos in front of the building!” He looked so delighted at my joy, he probably winked at the sky with the thought, “The battle is half won.”

The building is lovely, isn’t it? It is one of those rare heritage buildings, built probably 150 years ago during the height of the ancient spice trade between Singapore, India, China and Europe. Tiger Balm is a remedy that every Singaporean and Malaysian knows to help sooth aches and pains. It isn’t made of real tiger, in case you’re wondering.

At the reception, we went crazy with posing for photographs with the Skype, Ebay and Paypal logos. Then, Dan the GM arrived and offered to take us on a tour. I was thrilled but thought, “We’d better not take up too much of his time, I’m sure the man has piles of work on his desk.”

Dan took us to the rooftop where their office parties are often held and told us there is a fridge in the gazebo with lots of ice-cold drinks. I loved the rooftop and the quaint gazebo so again, I unabashedly requested for photos sessions.

Dan led us into the gazebo, seated me on the bench while Nic went ahead to forage in their fridge.

The Boyf pulled out two bottles of cold water, gave them to me, then went back to the fridge to pull out a big bouquet. I was bewildered.

What was he doing with that? He’s ruining Skype’s flowers which I’m sure they’ll need for a corporate event. He ought to put them back!

But he cradled them in his arms like he really didn’t want to put them back. I had never seen him behave like that before, being completely inappropriate with someone else’s flowers.

Little did I know, he was very nervous. He suddenly shoved the flowers into my arms.

I said, “Harr?”

You mean these are for me?

Squeal!! The Geek had hidden flowers in the rooftop of Skype! How sweet! I didn’t even expect more, I was thrilled enough as it is. Dan was quick to snap photos to capture my surprise. Notice in the photo how The Boyf had pursed his lips, his usual look when he’s nervous and thinking hard.

He began a stammer about how I’ve been his best friend, ever patient, and that there’s no other person he would like to spend the rest of his life with… and I went into a daze. I didn’t hear the rest of it, I felt so light-headed and woozy. It was unreal.

I did see how he looked at Dan helplessly, and Dan kindly nodded, so he went down on one knee while I gaped.

For long seconds.
Until, he squealed in this tiny voice, ”Aren’t you going to say YES?”

And I went, that’s right, THAT’S THE WORD to say at such times; and strangely, besides the joy, I felt the solemnness and gravity of the moment, the Let-Your-Yes-Be-A-Yes-And-No-Be-No seriousness; and I said, YES! OF COURSE YES!”

YES!

Dan popped a bottle of champagne and the rest of the Skype team wandered onto the rooftop to toast us before The Boyf whisked me off to Halia, a lovely restaurant at the Singapore Botanical Gardens.

When we started long-distance dating 5 years ago, we frequently conversed on MSN Messenger but gradually, we had moved on to using Skype as we scarcely found time for both of us to be logged into MSN Messenger at the same time. Through Skype, we can make unlimited calls to landlines and mobile lines in Singapore for just €4.54 a month (including VAT), or unlimited calls to landlines and some mobile lines of over 40 countries including Malaysia for €10.29 a month.

Getting engaged on the rooftop of Skype is a brilliant idea!

Much thanks to Dan and the Skype team for enabling this experience, and much much more thanks to God for supplying everything + love. :)

Footnote: A lot of people commented that the photos look photoshopped. The only edits I did were crop and sharpen. Perhaps I’ve sharpened too much?

Woohoo! I felt victorious. A 24-hour blogathon, I’m sure it will be exciting and fun. As a former Girl Guide, I’m always prepared!

Later that night, I started wondering,
“Eh, so what is a Blogathon har?”
I nudged Nadnut on MSN. She said,
“It’s a competition among ten bloggers. There will be two winners. One will win by the number of votes. The other will win by the number of comments.”

Uh oh. Votes? Comment count? I began to feel slightly unwell.

I then sought Nic for counsel. He said, “It will be okay lah.”
I said, “But what if NOBODY comments on my posts? Not even one?” That has been known to happen sometimes at http://precious-living.com

I began to get the jitters. Jayden got the jitters too, as seen on YouTube.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeaSc16Sg5A

Since the Blogathon was going to be held in the window display at Singapore’s TANGS Shopping Mall, TANGS (formerly known as C.K. Tang) had to make sure we didn’t turn up in singlets, flip-flops and tattered shorts. We were given a budget of $500 each to pick an outfit from TANGS that we would wear during the Blogathon. At this point, I made such huge shopping mistakes that I should warn all females: do not venture beyond reading this point lest you get a heart attack.

!!Final warning now!!

1. I did not check out the TANGS website before going out to shop.
With the generous budget, we could pick any outfit that we like as long as they are from specific brands including Martina Pink, TokiDoki, Library, Fred Perry and TANG+CO. Having not checked the website, I wrongly assumed that TANG+CO is a brand itself so when I saw clothes labelled “Alannah Hill”, “Paul & Joe”, “Kors”, “Nicola Fenetti”, et cetera, I walked away from those racks. Yes, I deserve a slap. TANG+CO is the location that houses all these fabulous brands.

Back story: When I was a student, there was only one Alannah Hill boutique in all of Melbourne and it was filled with the most beautiful clothes on earth. All I could do was stand outside the shop window and stare longingly as drool collect and dribble out both corners of my mouth. It was only after graduating that I “rewarded” myself with one exquisite Alannah Hill blouse, one Alannah Hill handbag and one Alannah Hill brooch. That was 8-9 years ago.

I have been Alannah Hill-deprived ever since, not knowing that it is available at TANGS. To think I could have picked out one Alannah Hill outfit for the Blogathon and I did not. The tears in my pillow, *weep*.

2. I did not give myself enough time to rummage through the racks
My appointment to pick out the clothes was at 3pm but by the time I got there, it was four. The camera crew had waited so long that I didn’t dare stall any longer. After a brief video interview, I dashed through two floors of TANGS to briefly view all that’s available. Within half an hour later, the crew politely asked if I would be ready to make a decision. I zoomed in at Martina Pink, took three pretty dresses, tried them on in the changing room and made a decision on one. It was zero to $125.30 in 40 minutes flat.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqg_YQXjj4

Now, I really love the red satin dress that I had picked out. The heaviness of the material shows that this is quality stuff and it felt soooo smooth and cool when I brushed my hand at the skirt that a chill ran up my spine. Fabrics that feel good to touch always make me feel weak inside.

However, after looking at the price tag, I began to feel discouraged. The dress is “only” $179 and is on sale for 30% off which totals $125.30. Does price indicate Wow factor? Had I chosen too little since TANGS had thought we would need clothes worth $500? Thankfully, after the video is out, I was able to review my choice and I do think this is the genuinely gorgeous stuff, the shiny red satin is the kind that’s not just wanted or desired but needed like marrow for your bones.

Who? Me? Prone to exaggeration? I have no idea what you are talking about.

image by Pat Law

Once the shopping was done, I had a Kiehl’s skincare consultation because good skincare is just what you’ll need to prep your skin for 24-hours of sleeplessness. I told the consultant that I have dehydrated combination skin and she agreed. I was given a generous bag of samples to try. To be honest, I haven’t tried them yet. What I can tell you for now is that The Boyf have tried his samples and given his two thumbs up.

The Blogathon day itself.
We arrived at TANGS at 5:30 pm, changed into the brand new clothes, squealed while jogging on the spot at each other’s gorgeousness, unpacked the Lenovo U350 ultra-thin laptops which we would be blogging from, made sure we could connect to Starhub Broadband and stepped inside the window displays.

It was all quiet inside…

image by Victor Tan

At 6:30pm sharp, the shutter slowly started rolling up.

image from TANGS’ Facebook page

It went tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak as The Boyf and I were setting up.

Oooh, I lurrrrve the sheen of the dress.
Can you see how thin the laptop is? I immediately started downloading my favorite softwares including Firefox, Chrome (the kiasuness), MSN Live Messenger and TweetDeck. Unfortunately, after that, the laptop kept crashing and the Lenovo guy had to come click the One-Key-Recovery icon on the desktop. It is a very convenient button to click when you need to fix a laptop’s crash although having a laptop crash is not convenient at all. Always look on the bright side.

In the meantime, we interacted with passers-by. We should have played a game of charade with everyone. The person who guesses correctly gets to take home the shiny black KitchenAid mixer behind my back. *sigh*

Someone said that our window display looks like a scene out of the “I Love Lucy” sitcom. Do I look like a fifties housewife? I published the first blog post, “They made me a housewife at the TANGS Orchard Blogathon” which received 18 comments. Hello? Where are you commenters when I blog at http://precious-living.com?

Next, we were given a task -- to look for one stylish shopper and interview  her about her personal style. I found the uber stylish Adelynn Tan who was exploring a sea of eyeliner colors at Shu Uemura. Adelynn is a theatre actress. <3

At 12am, we had to move out of there to the Kiehl’s New York Loft which we would be sharing with Claudia and Melly. At 3am, we heard a knock at the door of our loft. The door creaked open and a skeletal hand reached in to wave at us.

*SCREAMMMMMMM*

Throughout the night, there was a constant trickle of passers-by outside TANGS. We should have set-up Mr Bones with a Lenovo and get him to sit with us in the window display. Wonder how the passers-by would have reacted to that. But since DK had taken Mr Bones out for a walk, I tried something else.

SCREAMMMMMMMM!

What? What? I was just trying on the Kiehl’s deep pore cleansing facial masque which was freely available in the Kiehl’s New York Loft. The masque gave me an interesting prickly sensation. After cleaning it off, (Girl Guide honor & honesty here), the skin on my face felt like a baby’s bottom -- smooth, gentle and buoyant -- for a full day and a half. Wow!

Did you know: that the area outside TANGS Orchard is a jogging spot? At 5am, regular  joggers were already up and about, hopping on their feet like nimble gazelles. Some were so kind to wave at us as they run.

At slightly after 6am, the first train screeched into the Orchard Road station and a throng of crowd flowed out. Another Wow. This is one road that doesn’t sleep at all.

At 10am, the voting booth at the entrance of TANGS was reopened so friends and family could come vote for us.

At 12pm, we moved to a new window display. I was too sleepy to look around. It was probably a sportswear-themed one.

1pm was Feed the Bloggers’ time. Family and friends were allowed to enter the window to provide us with lunch. Thankfully, Brokenshardz showed up with ginseng chicken + rice or I would have eaten the wooden hand on display, next to the sports clothes. Interesting combination.

In this window, The Boyf finally had the chance to switch on his television set (white screen on the right). He was so proud to be able to geek out.

Notice also our puffy eyes. I was and still am very proud of that. It’s a sign that we’ve been in battle, a war wound that has healed over time. By the end of the Blog-a-Ton at 6pm, I had published a total of 14 posts. The Blogathon really made me discover how much I love to blog. It is such a joy to have done something that I enjoy doing, with people whom I enjoy being with, for 24-hours non-stop.

So, Pat, when’s the next one? ;)

Postscript: The Boyf won the Blogathon with most comments while Nadnut won with most votes. Congratulations to both!

Post-Postscript: I took The Boyf’s prize-winning TANGS voucher worth $300 but am having thoughts of returning it to him, seeing how scrumptious he looks in clothes from TANGS.

What do you think? Should I? Should I? It’s so tempting, help!

On the other hand, The Boyf was nicknamed “Gadget Boy” since he was a teen on account of all the gadgets he owns. Can you imagine how that makes me feel every minute that we are together? Like walking on eggshells.

Earlier today, I was carefree-ly humming a tune as I enjoyed the Boyf’s Desktop. As soon as I was done, I thought, “Eh, better log out of my account so that the PC will perform better when he use,” and clicked.

Guess what? The system “hanged” and would not revive. I think I may have clicked something else instead of Log Out.

Meanwhile, the Boyf who was hovering like a spy helicopter immediately said, “I have 3 days worth of unsaved work!” The Evil System may as well have spewed a noose from its CD slot. I braved myself not to throw a towel over my face and get on hands and knees to crawl out.

Image credit: Commitment poster from AllPosters.com

Confessions of a Shopaholic is a beautiful show with beautiful clothes, beautiful women, beautiful set-ups and happy music. It is perfectly paced – it does not move too fast that you are unable to empathize with Rebecca and it does not to move too slowly that you will look around the room for distractions. There are no big words and complicated characters. Like a diamond, there are many facets to the beautiful Rebecca, but in this movie, you will only see a small part of her – there is just a girl who loves shopping and feels sad when her friends are disappointed.

Now, onto the guy Rebecca’s dating. The guy is obviously very smart and good-looking but how do you tell if he is worth dating or not? In my opinion, choosing who to date is as important as choosing who to marry so this question is worth a thought.

Before watching this movie, I watched CSI which featured a guy who works in a lab who really likes his colleague. A few times, we see that he fantasizes her acting alluring towards him in barely-there clothes. In one of these fantasies, he looked at her meaningfully and confessed that he wants to be free to love. So this is his definition of love.

In Confessions of a Shopaholic, Rebecca’s editor really likes her. A few times, we see him protecting her, standing up for her, watching out for her and encouraging her to do better. So this is his definition of love.

What a huge difference between these two males in their approach to dating. Although there is very little information available, I think I can tell which guy is in lust and which is in love. And every smart girl needs to be able to distinct if a guy’s affections are genuine and sincere. *wink*

Here’s Mom preparing for our family’s singing.

We sang and the boyf sliced it down.

Hurrah! Now we can enjoy the creamy crepe cake.

According to my brother and sis-in-law, they’ve had Crepe Cake in Rum & Raisin flavor before. This should be in Tiramisu flavor without the Kahlua. That night, the boyf had very little sleep as he had to prepare for work the next day. At 5 am, the handsome man woke up. He dressed for work.

Packed his bags.

And my kind brother drove him to up to KL.

That ended the wonderful His Birthday Weekend.

The celebration started on the 6th June. At 1:30pm, I picked the V.I.P. up from the Mandarin Oriental in KLCC after he’d had coffee with a friend. We drove to Starhill Gallery just 15 minutes away and took the elevator to the Relish floor where Jogoya, a Japanese Buffet Restaurant is. This is an eatery that everyone in the whole of Malaysia have been to before. After making the booking, I discovered that my Mom have been here with her friends, my brother and sis-in-law have been here on a date, and so have many of my relatives and friends. Well, we’re late to the party and have got to try this out!

If you would like to see photographic evidence of real food, check out this photo-heavy post by a fellow Bukit Beruangite. The buffet spread is extensive and stretched as far and wide as your eyes can see. But the way it is systemized can also be considered crass. For example, before we were served with any food, we were served with the bill. This felt rather odd as we haven’t even been seated yet, we had only gotten to the entrance of the restaurant. At 4:00pm, an announcement came on in multiple languages to remind us that we must exit the restaurant by 4:30pm. The lengthy announcement was repeated at 4:15pm. I suppose it is a system that have made it possible to run a buffet restaurant that’s profitable for both diners and business owners.

The type of food served reminded me of a similar Japanese buffet restaurant that I had visited in Seoul, South Korea. The one in Seoul serves a lot of fresh and succulent seafood and Japanese food while Jogoya serves a lot of local food and Japanese food.

The boyf was most pleased that the dessert buffet includes Haagen Daz ice-cream. I was impressed with the attentiveness of the amusingly glum waitresses. Nearing 4:30pm, a manager came to our table and courteously asked if we would mind filling up a feedback form. We didn’t mind at all.

We enjoyed each other’s company and steered the conversation off the normal track of work to more fun stuff like spirituality, purpose, et cetera.

At 4:30pm, with light hearts, we walked out to the Pavillion Shopping Mall. After that, I helmed the wheel of the car again and drove to two different locations to hunt for the perfect birthday gift – a luggage bag that’s gigantic enough to place the boyf’s piano keyboard. Then, we picked up a crepe cake recommended by my food connoisseur aunts.

The next way was the real birthday day. As a first-time visitor to my church, the boyf had to fill up a card. He was taken aback that he now have to tick a higher age bracket.

It made him feel as ancient as Methuselah. It’s a wonder that he didn’t start imagining aches and pains in his joints.

(To be continued).

But today, I found my chance. She was playing with a shape-sorter on the floor. I walked to about a metre in front of her and sat down. I then started singing a few songs. Her maid told me that her favorite is the Barney song so I sang that cheerfully as well. The little girl’s nervousness broke and out of her little heart emerged warm smiles. I can vouch that she has the kind of genuinely happy smile that breaks every heart.

I moved a little closer to her and taught her how to use her shape-sorter properly. Then I beat-boxed and she shook the shape-sorter to the rhythm of the beat. She was having the time of her life!

But whenever I whip out my phone to photograph her with her cheerful smiles, she will look at the camera in bewilderment. So no sweet smiles caught on camera, yet.

Just a drooly, “What in the world?!” expression from the precious little girl.

What? What??

A few months ago, a married woman gave me relationship advice. She said, “No matter what he talks about, be interested.”

My jaw dropped. I said, “but what if he talks about exciting xml-rpc standards?”

She looked at me with the narrow eye. She said, “My husband works for the army, he takes care of army trucks. Do you think that the mechanical components of trucks have always fascinated me? No! But I learned. I learned about army trucks. That is how you will have good communication with your man.”

My jaw dropped further and my eyes turned googly. I need to sniff Minyak Angin Cap Kapak. I looked at the boyf who was innocently chewing on a chicken-wing while chatting with her husband, probably about xml-rpc or trucks. I looked at her again and took a deep breath. I gave her a brave nod.

I said, “I will learn about xml-rpc standards.”

“Good.” She smiled.

Update: Right after writing this post, I received an email linking to a page about improving your listening skills. I especially like Tip #2 and #3.