37 days left!

I realise that a side effect on incipient departure is that I have taken to carrying everywhere with me, in addition to my valuables, my little digital camera. As David puts it, "photo-whoring" has become my hobby of late. As I go through these few days, I realise this pictorial trail helps me find insight and some contentment as I close this chapter in my life, and will hopefully give me comfort as I trudge through the next more or less on my own.

Thus revealing the great mystery of why the alumni are so close. Thats because we hang out together so much! I do admit that as much as I look forward to practice every week, I also look forward to just enjoying their company over a simple (albeit occasionally pricey!) meal. So today, in order to avoid the lure of Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, we avoided Holland Village altogether and made a beeline for town, eventually landing in California Pizza Kitchen in Forum (Toys 'R Us!).

Now due to the relatively low budgets of all the FIFTEEN (read 15!) of us who went for lunch together, we ending up splitting 8 pizza's among all of us. Now at $20 a pizza, it netted us 3 slices of pizza each for $12. Wowch. Lucky McDonald's was next door. Double Cheeseburger to the rescue!

After wandering aimlessly along Orchard Road for awhile working off the pizza, we gradually dwindled and dwindled till we just...dissipated. Acknowledged problems with big groups. But oh well, it was a really great time: talking, laughing, and teasing. Things I know I will miss muchly. Oh yeah...also found out Leb's leaving in a week or so. Bugger. Time really passes very fast.

Was fortunate to be able to join a buncha people to celebrate Wendy's belated birthday! A woman's age is her secret, so I won't be telling! =) But dinner was another great affair. Although pizza again, it was just as fabulous, and I ate so much more for just $15! The dinner was at spizza's in Club Street, and the really strange thing is that all the Pizza's were given female Italian names for every letter of the alphabet.

Hence, in the pictures above are a Large Helena, a large Quinta, and a large Juliana (or something like that =P). The cake is Wendy's birthday cake, and it is called the 'Maharajah'. Heh.

Now the crowning glory of the evening: we retired to the Tea Chapter for drinks! As I remarked to my sis, it's more my style. If I'd gone out with people my age, we'd be at least imbibing alcohol instead of gourmet Chinese Tea. It was a really eye-opening experience, and one I'd readily go for again really.

We had three teas; a white tea (white peony), a green tea (longjing) and a black tea (pu-er) to 'cleanse our palate'. Haha. Don't know if it did that, but it sure did contribute to raised heart rates as we rushed to finished brewing and serving the tea before closing time. As Victor put it, 'competitive tea drinking'. Brilliant =)

37 more days till I turn a new page. Ambivalence.