Hi everyone! *waves*

You can see that this is my first time blogging, so the blog's quite bare. > . < Hope this blog will continue to grow. But anyway, while this is my very first post, I've got loads of things to say. =)

Well see, I made sure the blog was created today for many reasons. First, I wanted to make sure it was after the exams. XD Secondly, I wanted it to have the same birthday as me. Yeps, today's my birthday, and it's been such a wonderful day -- There's so much to talk about! My family and friends have done so much for my birthday that I can't express how I feel in words. (But I'll try. =D) Plus, the school year is coming to an end too, and I dare say, this is the best year and birthday I've ever had.

***

Reflecting on the 2005 school year, I think it's been great. Academically, I'm satisfied, and marks never really did matter so much to me anyway. More importantly, it was the fun I had with everyone! With the teachers, I'll miss them teaching us! (Especially when so many of them are leaving like last year and I won't even get to see them... ) With my friends, it's all the things we did together! The fun we had in class, and even the work too was great! XD I'll really miss this year, it's so sad that we'll have to part. T_T But still, a big 'Thank You!' to all the teachers and my buddies for making my 2005 school year wonderful! *sings*We are Naphtali!*sings*

***

Now on to my birthday -- To put it simply, I think I'm a real lucky guy to have such great friends and family. =)

Last Saturday, I had a birthday party with my family at my gramp's. All my aunts, uncles and cousins were there, and we had dinner, cake, balloons, and presents! I enjoyed myself, like any other birthday, of course! =D

However, what really made this year's birthday special was my friends. Like this blog template! Shaun made this for me as a birthday gift; kudos to him for this great template! *谢谢师父! =P* He helped photoshop this pretty picture you see up there, plus helped me out with all the html whatnots that I get all muddled up over. @_@ Soon he'll help me with the adding of the tagboard and sitemeter, so look out for that!

Herrick too lent me the entire set of Chobits, and helped cure my game deprivation. ;) (Well I don't know if this was done specially for my birthday, but I'm happy anyway. =D) *Thanks Herrick!*

Then on the midnight between 26th/27th October, Kevin helped plan my birthday countdown on MSN. Once it reached zero everyone was giving me my very first birthday wishes! ^-^ First time I ever had a countdown via MSN, eh! XD

The actual day itself (which was today), was filled with many pleasant surprises! First I turned up in school to find a cute drawing of Cinnamoroll and Chococat on my desk! Turned out Kevin drew it for me, and coloured everything in su'more! *Thanks Kevin, I love it!*

Then later Michael popped into class and presented a Carte Blanche birthday card to me! What he wrote inside really touched me! Plus there was this great quote; "Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.". XD *Thanks Michael!*

I also got a cool Cinnamoroll/Mocha cushion from Boey, Jason, and Isaac. It wasn't wrapped very nicely, Boey... =P But I still love it, thanks, you guys! (So that's why Isaac bought it at Takashimaya the other time...!)

Next, the Career Guidance Quiz my class participated in. Don't know if this counts, but I'll include it anyway. XD Well I was part of the 4-man team; along with the other Kevin, Daniel, and Sidhant. We managed to get into the finals, batlling it out against 2.1, 2.5, and 2.14. We tried our bestest, and managed to get in 3rd place! Heh, so I won a cool 10 bucks worth of Popular vouchers. ;)

Then lucky me again, it turned out that the 2005 Class Party was held today! It was supposed to be tomorrow, but 'cos Sidhant won't be in school tomorrow as he's leaving for his vacation early, we had to shift it one day forward; on my birthday! So everyone contributed $5, and thanks to 2-4-1 Canadian Pizza, managed to double our 8 pizzas into 16. XD Not just that, we each brought as much snacks and drinks as possible, it was such a feast! We also invited all the teachers down, and took lotsa' lotsa' pictures. You can go check 'em out on the 2.12 class blog when it's up. =)

And so all that happened in class today, I was really happy after all the surprises and the party. But little did I know that I was about to get an even bigger surprise when I reached home...

***

After school, I went to help Mrs. June Ng with the carrying of her stuff to her car. It was mostly some of her files and stuff, and quite a few of us went down to help. It took a while, and when we finished the task I started to walk with Gideon to the bustop. Halfway, we met a fellow Queenstown-staying friend of mine, Dinesh. We started talking about our classes, CTs, and PCTs for next year, and soon, Gideon had to part with us as he was taking a bus home in the opposite direction. *Not.*

So I took 196 back home with Dinesh, and not before long I was back home. I waved Dinesh goodbye, and started my walk back home...

I climbed up the stairs leading up to my appartment. I opened the door. I said hi to my mum. I put down my stuff. I went to my room. I saw helium balloons in the air. I saw ZQ at my desk.

"Surprise!" Then Boey popped up from behind my door. Jason appeared out of nowhere. (Really, Jason, where were you hiding? I guess I was too surprised to notice. XD) I was so surprised, I started pacing around my house with my eyes wide open! Only after I finally recovered from my shock did I uncover everything behind it...

Well before that... Gideon was lost in Queenstown and I had to search for him. Yes, he was in Queenstown. I found out later that his task was to hold me back as long as possible to buy Boey, ZQ, and Jason some time! This included the whole Mrs. June Ng task. Not only that, I found out that Gideon was actually on the same 196 bus as me -- I was only too occupied with my conversations with Dinesh that I didn't realise!

So while Gideon held me up, ZQ and Boey zoomed to my house in a taxi. Jason didn't follow them, he zipped to Holland Village and back to get the helium balloons. =D And then of course, my mum, dad, and even my brother was in the know! Up to now I still can't quite believe how they pulled the whole thing off. XD (Although you guys can't really keep secrets very well, I kinda' sorta' guessed it. =P)

Well so, that's pretty much what went on behind the big surprise, you can ask me for more details. If I go on, this post will only get even longer. XD

After I recovered from my shock, we went to Anchorpoint for lunch, and walked around a bit. Then, we came back home and played a bit of PS2, the computer, and did some balloon sculpturing. =) We enjoyed ourselves, and time flew past real quick. Before we knew it, my dad was home, and I had to leave for dinner with my family. Thus, sadly all of us had to leave. My dad then sent them to the MRT/their homes, and the day concluded with one last dinner with my family.

So yeps, after all that, I'm finally done with the birthday portion of the post. It's quite a lot, eh? But I daren't complain, it's my fortune to be able to write so much in fact! With this I'd like to thank all my friends and family, each one of you have done so much to make my birthday so perfect. *hugs*

I appreciate every single one of you around me, all my family and all my friends. The year, as well as my birthday, has taught me to treasure every single one of you. It is my fortune to be able to have you. =)