10 years...

& still going strong!

Last Saturday was our 10-year School Reunion. I went for our 5-year reunion and am totally disappointed that I had to miss out on our 10-year reunion. From the pictures and slide show, it looked absolutely amazing! We even had old teachers there and our old school badge as a door gift! How cool is that?

If you wanna have a peek at what happened (just out of curiosity of course), just click on the link to SMTTDI'96. I especially loved the slideshow.

I love the fact that we still stay in touch and that even though we've all left secondary school, we're still pretty close knit and still make that effort to get together. Life runs away with you sometimes and sacrificing time to be with people you haven't seen in 10 years is something. That's probably what makes our graduating year so special (even the teachers think so...although we had our fair share of making teachers feel like jumping off the school roof!).

But I think we turned out to be a pretty okay bunch of people...not messed up, crazy, ruthless, ambitious wannabes who intend on world domination. Rather, a group of peace loving, down-to-earth, love thy neighbour sort of group that will someday change the world in a more gentle, humane way.

Long live SMTTDI Class of '96.

Not Minor Keys...

But Major Ones

Everyone believes that turning 21 is a big deal. You get a key. Not just any ol' bronze key that your parents decide to make as a duplicate for you so that you can leave or enter the house without getting anyone else to open or close the door for you. No...you get a special, symbolic key (a gold or platinum one if you're a girl and a butter, flour and egg one if you're a guy. I've yet to hear of a guy getting a key to wear around his neck).

This key is supposed to reflect the freedom that one obtains (which is never quite unconditional) and is a mark for coming of age (legal age for alcohol, cigarettes, clubbing, voting, no more P plates etc). It is the age when you are supposed to be, legally, mentally and physically, an adult.

Which is exactly the way I feel right now, since we got our house keys. I've truly crossed miles from the boundaries of the world of an adult, just like millions of other people out there who have their own place. Another major step in the world of adulthood - owning your own place and having the freedom to do anything you want with and in the house. Absolutely ANYTHING.

But this freedom is not without a price. A mortgage, a budget and being perpetually close to being broke. A price that has to be paid for freedom. A price that we will have to pay for the rest of our lives (unless we get lucky and strike big in the lottery!).

Then again, if you think about it, perhaps it is a small price to pay for the experience of owning your own house...and making it into your home. Perhaps you can't put a dollar figure on something so monumental. Perhaps it's like what they say in the MasterCard ads...priceless.

p/s - Will try to remember to take some pics of the empty house and post it.

Boys will be boys...

But girls grow up!

I can't help but complain! I know I shouldn't, but apparently, I'm not the only one!

I got sick over my birthday and infected Jason as well (my mum said not to kiss him, but would I listen? Oh no!!! At least I've learnt my lesson). And so, both of us were sick for my birthday.

Anyway, what I was going to say was that while I was sick, I still did house chores (e.g. laundry, wash the dishes etc). Jason, on the other hand, stayed well away from water or any sort of housework (didn't help one bit that his mom shoo'ed him away from the kitchen!). He didn't even offer to help, he just complained about being sick, plonked his backside onto the couch and watched Futurama.

And so, I went to work to whinge about him being like that and lo behold, all my other work colleagues say the same things about their male partners! The main consensus is that they're big SOOKS (I think that's how its spelt).

Whenever the boys are sick, they turn into big complaining babies who do nothing but say how sick they are (we believe that they really should win an Oscar for their performances). A headache becomes a brain tumour, the sniffles develop into pneumonia and they might as well be coughing their lungs out! The whine and complain and basically want to be mothered. They don't bother to take any medication unless directed (or shoved down their throats) and just lie down and vegitate.

Why? Why on earth would anyone be like that? Is it just a boy thing? Is it just some ruse to get some attention? Or do boys really want to be comforted like a littl' kid? Granted, not all boys are like that (some boys do grow up into men)...but the majority seem to be happy with the way things are. Am I right boys?

Stuff about me that I just found out!

Your Power Color Is Magenta

At Your Highest: You energize yourself and push others to suceed. At Your Lowest: You feel frustrated and totally overwhelmed. In Love: You are suprised by who you attract. You're a love magnet. How You're Attractive: Open and free spirited, people want to explore the world with you. Your Eternal Question: "What is my next source of inspiration?"

What's Your Power Color?

You Are Chinese Food

Exotic yet ordinary. People think they've had enough of you, but they're back for more in an hour.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Your Theme Song is Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf

"I like smoke and lightning Heavy metal thunder Racin' with the wind And the feelin' that I'm under" A total independent spirit, you can't be held down or fenced in. You crave the feeling of wind on your face... and totally freedom.

What's Your Theme Song?

You Are a Glazed Donut

Okay, you know that you're plain - and you're cool with that. You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness. Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone dig you. And in a pinch, you'll probably get eaten.

What Donut Are You?

Of Love & Memories

Three Roses

by Garth Nix

I just felt compelled to share this story I read yesterday. I thought it was so beautiful and that it needed to be shared, told and re-told, over and over again...A story about true love. Enjoy...

This is the story of a gardener who grew the most beautiful single rose the world had ever seen. It was a black rose, which was unlikely, and it bloomed the whole year round, which was impossible.

Hearing of this rose, the King decided to see it for himself. With his entourage, he rode for seven days to the gardener's simple cottage. On the morning of the seventh day, he arrived and saw the rose. It was even more beautiful than the King hand imagined, and he wanted it.

"How did you come to grow such a beautiful rose?" the King asked the gardener, who was standing silently by.

"I planted that rose on the day my wife died," replied the gardener, looking only at the flower. "It is a true, deep black, the very colour of her hair. The rose grew from my love for her."

The King turned to his servants and said "Uproot this rosebush and take it to the palace. It is too beuatiful for anyone but me."

But when the rosebush was transplanted to the palace, it lasted only a year before it withered and died. The King, who gazed upon it everyday, angrily decided that it was the gardener's fault, and he set out at once to punish him.

But when he arrived at the gardener's cottage, he was amazed to see a new rosebush growing there, with a single rose. But this rose was green, and even more beautiful than the black rose.

The King once again asked the gardener how he came to grow such a beautiful rose.

"I planted this rose on the anniversary of my wife's death," said the gardener, his eyes only on the rose. "It is the colour of her eyes, which I looked into every morning. The rose grew from my love of her."

"Take it!" commanded the King, and he turned away to ride the seven days back to his palace. Such a beautiful flower was not fit for a common man.

The green rose bloomed for two years, and the King looked upon it every day, for it brought him great contentment. Then, one morning, it was dead, the bush withered, the petals fallen to the ground. The King picked up the petals and spoke to no one for two days. Then he said, as if to convince himself, "The gardener will have another rose."

So once again he rode off with his entourage. This time, they took a spade and the palace jardinier.

Such was the King's impatience that they rode for half the nights as well as days, but there were wrong turns and flooded bridges, and it still took seven days before he once again rode to the gardener's cottage. And there was a new rosebush, with a single rose. A red rose, so beautiful that the King's men were struck silent and the King himself could only stare and gesture to the palace jardinier to take it away.

Even though the King didn't ask, the gardener spoke before the spade broke the earth around the bush.

"I planted this rose three years after the death of my wife," he said. "It is the colour of her lips, which I first kissed under a harvest moon on the hottest of summer nights. This rose grew from my love of her."

The King seemed not to hear but kept staring at the rose. Finally, he tore his gaze away and turned his horse for home.

The jardinier watched him go and stopped digging for a moment.

"Your roses are the most beautiful I have ever seen," he said. "They could only grow from a great love. But why grow them only to have these memories taken from you?"

The gardener smiled and said, "I need nothing to remind me of my wife. When I walk alone under the night sky, I see the blackness of her hair. When the light catches the green glass of a bottle, I see her eyes. When the sun is setting all red against the hills and the wind touches my cheek, I feel her kiss."

"I grew the first rose because I was afraid I might forget. When it was gone, I knew that I had lost nothing. No one can take the memory of my love."

The jardinier frowned, and he began to cut again with his spade. Then he asked, "But why do you keep growing the roses?"

"I grow them for the King," said the gardener. "He has no memories of his own, no love. And after all, they are only flowers."