In the first place, I hate calling people. The idea of this party was I wanted to get as many classmates to come as I can, cos the general concensus was that too few people turn up for the class outings and I feel quite bad for excluding these people out of this regular clique. I tried to invite the supposed outcasts, the people who don't like me, and even my ex-boyfriend. But was it reciprocated? No. They probably just didn't even like hanging out with me. A few of them said something feeble half-hearted and ambiguous "I'll try to make it", "I'm very tired", "I've got something on" or the now-famous "If I'm there, I'm there. If I'm not there then I cannot come lah!" Some just don't return calls. Sigh...

One of the ideas I had for the party was that the girls would cook dinner, while the guys would wash up after that. Agnes was quite excited by that cos she has quite a few recipes she wanted to try. Actually I only wanted something simple like steak/fish chop with fries, salad. Simple enough. But since she wanted to try something else, well, fine with me. Argh. Big Mistake. The food turned out okay, quite edible. But I really hated all the hassle. I didn't mind going shopping for the ingredients with Agnes, but I resented having to apologise to so many people trying to manipulate my cart through that very crowded supermarket. I didn't mind carrying all the food back home, but I resent finding that the ingredients were in excess. I didn't mind the chopping, cutting and cooking, but I resent being the one to pick up the rubbish, wash the chopboards and clear the sink.

The guys cleaned up quite well after the dinner but I still had to spent one more hour in the kitchen this morning clearing up whatever that they missed. By the way, I still have to mop the floor later on.

I realise that the above paragraphs make me sound like a spoilt brat, petty hostess and that I didn't enjoy the gathering. I shall not deny the first two, but hey, I still enjoyed the party!

It was so fun cooking with the girls, listening to what they talk about, commenting on how each other could have survived Home Economics lessons back in secondary school, observing how gross our food turned out to be blah blah blah...hehe...somehow I was not supposed to have heard all that though, since they accused me of eavesdropping most of the time. =P Hahaha...

Eating was also very fun. It was very funny how Agnes was quite critical of her own cooking. I was actually quite content with the food, except I was feeling very bloated from preparing the vodka-orange juice punch. [It's a long story.] But Agnes was more concerned about what she should have done to make the food taste/look better. A very good attitude, but all of us were pretty amused.

As usual, the conversation we had over the dinner table was full of one-line insults, laughter and amusing observations. One of the dishes was duck. I commented that ducks stink and some people disagreed, cos they didn't think ducks stink anymore than chicken anyway. So Jinghua made a very intelligent comment: "Ducks have a duck-ish smell." Bravo...

Then, Wallace told us that his dog has got 7 puppies, but the father of those puppies was not her boyfriend. Oooh..promiscuous dog indeed. We went on to comment how the other dogs knew that the bitch was in heat. By smell perhaps? Then so do humans send out sexual smells too? Perhaps we do, but we don't smell them anymore? So what happened? Evolution? I forgot how the whole conversation continued, but the final conclusion was that Wallace's future wife has to "love him and smell good." Huh?? Haha...such is our train of thought.

It was a relatively quiet affair, not much of a party actually. There was no dancing, no exciting TV to watch and not even exciting bridge to play, since the guys were very badly distracted by the soccer match on TV. Argh. But I still enjoyed the moment. The fact that my bunch of friends were comfortable enough to have such a boring evening together and still leave my house happy and contented makes me feel more than just happy and contented. Come to think of it, yes, I feel a sense of "job" satisfaction..aaahh....but I still refuse to play hostess for the next 2 years at least. =P

Gotta thank Agnes for planning this whole thing with me, go shopping with me, pay for the unaccounted discrepancies and be a sporting friend despite all my insults. Thanks to Yingxuan for helping me with half the phonecalls and for baking a delicious cheesecake, Fuling for chicken mayonnaise recipe, Wendy for sacrificing her complexion and delicate hands to come help cooking, Peiling for wraping the wantons that she didn't get to eat and the guys (Tee Joo, Wallace and Jinghua) for cleaning up. David for helping me contact the guys and for coming back after his date with his girlfriend only to conk out on my sofa. Mr Ng Pak Tee for gracing the event with his presence and for insulting me in my own house. Haha..

In other words, thanks for being here with me.