Another Reason to Celebrate on Waitangi Day

I've been meaning to post this a whole lot earlier but my laptop has been spontaneously freezing and restarting on me! I've only had this laptop for a year, and may need to get another one along with another cellphone if I can't get it to stop! Ho hum, I guess that's what you get with an HP...

Anyway it may have been Waitangi Day on Saturday, but I had another reason to celebrate. On that night I had my belated 21st birthday dinner over at the cousins'. Of course I would've had it at my house but our house is so messy it'd be too shameful to invite anyone. My mum didn't trust security with hiring a hall (otherwise I would've invited everyone!), so instead we had it at our cousins' house. Hamish had his 21st birthday dinner there too, so I guess in a way it was continuing a tradition.

Leading up to the dinner, I was really apprehensive and anxious about the evening, mainly on who to invite, inviting them, and then who would show up. First of all, there were so many people I wanted to invite, but because it was my aunty's house, I had to limit it to a few people. My family and relatives took up over a third of the people I could invite, followed by family friends (and a few teachers), some church leaders and family friends at church, and then I was only able to invite a few old high school friends! All-in-all it added up to 60 people already! 

For those people I couldn't invite, hopefully they won't take it too personally, as I feel bad about it already! There were a few close friends I couldn't/didn't invite because I wasn't sure if they'd feel comfortable (complicated stuff...), so I will catch up with them sometime later and do something special with them then!

So prior to the birthday I had to make a birthday invitation...correction Aonghas made an invitation for me and I gave them to a few people, while I texted those I didn't have addresses for. I visited Rangeview Intermediate on Friday the day before to visit Ms Rai, the music teacher there to have a little catch-up with her as well as invite her. It was a bit of a short notice! I can't believe it's been almost ten years since I left Rangeview though!

My violin teacher also finally replied to my email the day before, letting me know she could make it too which was cool.

During the week my mum had been stocking up on food at home, so it was very difficult telling what we were allowed to eat, and what was for the dinner! My mum was also eagerly talking about birthday cakes and finding out costs, but after discovering some cakes cost over $100, she decided she'd bake her own. It was just by luck that a lady at our church offered to bake a cake for me too!

The night before the birthday dinner Aonghas was working on a video for church while I was looking for photos for the photo board. He finally finished that video at about 4am and got started on my birthday video then, and only finished that video not too long before the birthday dinner started! We only decided on a song for the video a day before as well! We were searching all over the net for a good one, and the one we ended up with, 100 Years by Five for Fighting was one sitting right under our noses!

In the morning while Aonghas was working on the video and my mum was furiously cooking away in the kitchen, I finished off my speech and printed off my dad's speech. We tried getting him to write a speech but he wasn't too keen/interested, and only made a few notes. My mum made us add a few bullet points to his notes too, and he said he would ab lib, so I just had to trust him!

Hamish and I went ahead to our cousin's house ahead of everyone else to work on the photo board, which was a large board which we stuck all these photos of me throughout my life on for others to have a look at. It took us well over two hours to complete it! I was trying to make all the photos overlap but to ensure that while all the board got covered, nothing important in the photos got covered!

We finished about half an hour before the dinner started. By the time 6pm came, Chen and his cousin Diane were the first people to arrive. It was so typical of them to arrive on time! They just helped blow a few 10" balloons that I had completely forgotten while we waited for the others to arrive. 

Not too long after, my Rangeview music teacher arrived. She told me she'd only be able to stay a while. Not too long after that more people started trickling in! While the food was still being prepared and my mum was still at home cooking, the people just hung around in the lounge talking. Most of the church people hung out together, while my Rutherford friends a year below me hung out together. Not too many of my Rutherford friends from my year arrived till just before dinner! My Rangeview music teacher and my violin teacher unsurprisingly got along well together and went outside and had a chat for a long time! Two of my church elders had to leave early though as they had double-booked themselves but at least they came by which was nice of them.

My mum eventually arrived with my neighbour who had helped with baking the food, and finally dinner was on! Aunty Grace said grace and then we started eating! It was mainly a barbecue so there were a lot of sausages and chicken, and salad for the vegetarians and Muslims.

After dinner, my music teacher asked me how long away speeches were as she had to go quite soon. My violin teacher also had to go soon, so we decided to have the speeches before dessert while everyone was still there.

I feel a little awkward talking about the contents of her and the others' speeches, but I'll try to summarise them without sounding too...proud of myself? 

Everyone gathered in the lounge as Gabrielle, my youth group leader was the first to give a speech about me. She talked of me being really good with kids, especially younger girls under the age of 12! She also spoke of my willingness to help out whenever possible (my neighbour asked if that also applied whenever my mum needed help!). She talked of me always being willing to make new people feel welcome and included at church/our youth group and wished me all the best and that I'd find a girl who's my age!

Next, it was my Rutherford friend Shen. Now I felt a little bad for Shen and Gabrielle, as I had only asked them if they could give a speech the night before, so they didn't exactly have much time to prepare! Shen just talked about how I apparently put him and the guys to shame because I was always a gentleman, opening doors for others and letting them go in/out first. He also laid the blame on me for getting him hooked on the video game NBA Live!

The last friend to give a speech was Chen. He had actually prepared a speech because, I admit I had asked him a month ago! He talked about how there was the RUTHERFORD Way at Rutherford College, and thought that since I had morals he would talk about the CALUM Way. I can't exactly remember what each letter stood for but as soon as I review the tape I'll update this post! He did talk about my...obsession...with taking photos. He also gave an anecdote about how I once attended the Boobs on Bikes parade, not to take photos of boobs but of the people taking photos of the topless women, and upload them to an album and label them perverts! I completely forgot about that!

While each of them gave their speeches in the lounge in front of the TV, I was just standing in the doorway. I admit I did have a bit of a tear in my eye, as it's not very often you hear nice things being said about you by others! 

I did ask my neighbour Zippo if she wanted to say a few words, as I was sure she'd have something interesting to say about me, but she didn't want to as she preferred to tell me in private.

My dad gave his speech next which I have to admit was a little weird! He ended up reading exactly what was written, and mumbled quickly through a lot of it, skipping to parts he wanted to read! A lot of people were looking at me thinking it must've been an act! My dad's funny like that. He did talk about the time we were in Hong Kong and how they almost lost me! He also talked about the 'incident' one time when I was young, when Hamish and I had a clothes hanger fight and Hamish got a clothes hanger caught in his mouth! He ended his speech by reading out loud,

'Talk about how proud you are of your son'

He wasn't supposed to read that out loud! Everyone thought it was a joke anyway so it was all good.

Aonghas then presented my 21st birthday video he had been working on, which gave quite a few people a different look at what I was like when I was younger! I don't know what it was about the video but I started to get a bit teary just watching how I had grown up throughout the years (and with Five for Fighting that just puts it over the edge!), and I was even surprised when at the end of the video Aonghas was caught off-guard getting a little teary too! I tried to regain my manliness before I had to give my speech!

My speech was pretty much just a thank-you speech, thanking all my family friends, neighbours, school mates, cousins and aunties for everything they have done for me throughout my life and for being there for me at one point or another. I did accidentally call my Uncle Peter Uncle Brens (Brens is his surname) but I'm sure he would have forgiven me by now! 

I was thanking my primary school friends when I realised I only had one there! My other really close primary school friend who I invited never showed up, but it turned out my text messages to him never arrived! I was a little gutted he couldn't come, since we've known each other since we were nine years old and I was one of his first friends in New Zealand, but oh well! It's not too much of a big deal.

I ended by thanking my brothers and my parents, talking about how close my brothers and I have become, thanks mainly to having to (and still continuing to) share a bedroom with each other. Our family has also been quite tight-knit too due to all of us having to spend so much time together in the lounge due to the rest of the house being such a mess! I finally thanked my parents for everything they've done for me and telling them I would never trade them for anyone else! I think I saw my mum wipe an eye afterwards!

After all that, there was a little awkwardness as I had no idea what was coming up next. We didn't know where the cake was, if there was any! I can't remember if someone left it in the fridge, so we were tossing up between me opening everyone's presents or waiting for the cake to be ready, but the cake was ready before I got around to opening the presents so we did that first. Christina, my cousin's girlfriend brought the cake into the lounge as everyone sang 'Happy Birthday'. I blew out the candles very slowly (trying to avoid spreading germs of course!). I was given the honour of cutting the cake, so I made a slight incision (if you can call it that) before I let someone else take over. It was officially dessert time!

My two music teachers had to leave early, so they left as soon as I got photos with them. I then went around getting photos with everyone...hopefully...Thanks Tim (Gabrielle's boyfriend and also from church) for taking all the photos for me!

After dessert was done, I started to open the presents. I got some money, gift vouchers, a metal drink bottle, a book about religion and faith, a really good Bible, a Tweetie bird tie, some chocolate, this puzzle, a computer mouse, some...perfume for men (is that what it's called?), 'late pills' (for people who constantly arrive late...they're just lollies though!), a book - The Survivor's Guide to Dating and Sex, a t-shirt, cuff-links, a CD-rom and book on learning Mandarin, a tissue box cover with a photo of me on the cover and the tissue coming out of my mouth, a muffin, cupcakes, a cross and an alarm clock, and a cushion in the shape of the numerals 21, with my name, birthday, year and all the instruments I play sewn onto it! Diane made that for me as her DIY present. I've still got to return the favour! Thanks everyone for all the presents! I appreciate them all! I've never gotten so many presents before! Actually I hardly get any so I was happy with anything!

After all the presents were opened, I encouraged Diane to get her guitar out (she brought it along to play some music for me!) and she sang a few songs. We actually got on very well that night! We agreed we'd make a fresh start after all the previous awkward meetings, and it did turn out to be a fresh start! She eventually passed the guitar around for others to have a turn. We had Shrikkanth playing Michael Jackson and Jesse McCartney!

It was fast becoming midnight and I really didn't want to keep my aunty and uncle up so people started leaving and we wrapped everything up by just after midnight.

It was a wonderful night after all and one I won't forget anytime soon! I'm just so grateful for having awesome family and friends and hopefully we'll continue being friends for years to come!