September was a really bad month for me. The only highlight was the Party. I’m 30! I’m a real adult now! WOOHOO!

Reference to a newspaper article published the week after the party, I would like to clarify that my salary isn’t the amount they speculated. More or less, I’m not saying of course.

Like I said, I wanted the WOOHOO! factor. And tiny tiny details go into that. They couldn’t accommodate my request for a champagne glass tower, because they only had flutes. I thought this was impressive as well. I would like to thank Yvonne, and Singapore Turf Club for moving me into the most exclusive Box in the Club, and for humouring all my last minute demands.

My EXCO did everything they could to remind people that they were at Cruz Teng’s party. My initials were all over the place. A little over the top, I thought. Haha.

Door gifts: Home baked cookies in glass jars. I didn’t want flimsy wrappers, or containers that looked cheap. I totally regretted that decision while lugging 60 glass jars and 700 pieces of cookies that evening. I had asked my mum to teach me make these the weekend before the Party. Before I arrived at her place, she had completed the whole batch. Hohoho.

I didn’t have a long winded rundown for the night. It was simply “Doors open, Buffet Dinner, Cake Cutting”

The horse racing would keep people occupied, I thought. True to expectations, 90% of my guests who were at the races for the first time, had a great time shouting themselves hoarse. I had a photo booth with polaroids and photo printer for those who weren’t interested in the horses, but the booth was left neglected most of the night.

And I didn’t allow my guests in bring in alcohol- I wasn’t going to pay for corkage charges and have them make me drunk! They’ll have to learn to survive on soft drinks, and tea or coffee. Hahha.

I didn’t have time to queue at the betting booth myself, and depended on my friends to choose the winning horse. “Here’s $20. Just tell me which horse to cheer for.” Some of them won quite a bit. Not me, though.

“No. 7! No. 7! No. 7! Where the hell is my No. 7?!” It turned out that the poor horse injured itself during the race! OMG! The legendary Clumsy King jinxed a horse!

I had asked my guests not to get me any presents. Some stubborn ones ignored the instructions on my invitation anyway. (Note to my friends: I was busy the whole night, and couldn’t keep track of who gave me what. It’ll be great if you could give me a buzz, because there are some gifts without a tag. Thanks!)

I had a donation box instead. Thanks to my generous friends, I collected a tidy sum that night. And I’m matching the amount dollar for dollar, so the Down Syndrome Association will receive a nice cheque really soon.

My sincere thanks and appreciation to my Chapter 3 EXCO, and my family and friends. Thank you for your love. I hope you guys enjoyed the party as much as I did. For those of you who weren’t there, there’re more pictures here.

The next bash will be for Chapter 3.5 on 18.09.2014.

Food & Beverage: $_____

Having a great time with friends and family: Priceless.

Chapter Three: The Party was the biggest birthday bash I’ve hosted so far. Home parties, chalet parties, hotel room parties, impromptu parties- been there, done that. I wanted something out of the box for my 30th.

Behind the scenes | Chapter Three EXCO

As mentioned previously, the booking was done three months ago. The actual preparation, however, began only a few weeks before. My closest group of friends were made EXCO members by default. From Décor IC of the past parties, Jan was promoted to chair the committee.

She gave me the shock of my life when she announced that she had a last-minute job assignment on 18.09.09. “Oh no! YOU are in charge! How now?” At the site recce two week ago, I didn’t pay much attention while she was speaking to the nice lady from Turf Club. I could totally count on her to allocate tasks and run the event, I thought. (I would be entertaining, and not be able to do anything, anyway.)

This led to a mad flurry of SOS calls. “Hey, can you help me to xxx xxx? My EXCO Chairman is arriving later than I am, so…” All of them laughed as hard as they could, and agreed immediately. Some of them took leave from work. Just for me.

That Afternoon. Drama As Usual

I was on the phone with Jan most of Friday.

Cruz:
Eh, eh, eh! I just remembered something! Who’s supposed to get the candles huh?

Jan:
Oh ya!

Cruz:
Huh? No fancy candles? Ok lor. Use the boring candles from the cakeshop la.

Jan:
Don’t worry! I’ll call Don to get the candles I promised you!”

Several phone calls later,

Cruz:
I promise this is the last call from me for the day, and this is the last thing I’m asking you to do.

Jan:
Yes?

Cruz:
I’m rushing to Orchard to do my hair and get my altered pants. I don’t have time to queue for 4D!

Jan:
Alamak! Don’t waste the birthday luck! I go!

Birthday Luck?

If there was such a thing as birthday luck, it certainly didn’t come to me.

Three hours to set up, I realised that I had left about half the admission passes (required for entry to Bukit Box, Turf Club) in the office. Thirty minutes after I made a hasty plan to return to the office, I discovered that my security pass was at home. ARGH!

Kitty was then asked to retrieve the passes, which meant Don, who was to fetch her, had to make a major detour.

The big fat joke of it all was that my VIP parking label was in the envelope they were collecting. So while they (and a bunch of guests who got the passes from me earlier) entered for free and parked at designated lots, Cruz Teng, the party host had to pay five bucks and park a hill away. I wouldn’t mind walking on a normal day, but not when I was lugging a suitcase filled with 60 jars of homemade cookies, a photo printer, multiple jazz CDs, and miscellaneous party items.

And with a couple of incidents (not related to the party) that occurred in the morning, I was ready to tear my hair out.

Cruz:
Super bad day so far. Hope yours is good.

Derrick:
Oh no. You should throw salt over your shoulder for good luck! By the way, I’m in bed cos I’m sick again. Bleah.

There you go. Two poor birthday boys (or man/boy if you insist) frowning on their big day.

Cruz:
EXCO! I’ll be late! It’s raining cats and dogs in Orchard! Haiyah! Ok, please look for Jan or Huiyi when you get there.

Don then solemnly told me to cut down on the vulgarities. “It’s your birthday, for goodness sake. The more you cuss, the worse it’s going to get.” Oh really?

Arrival at Bukit Box

I finally entered the party venue at 6pm, an hour after the scheduled set up time. I was pleasantly surprised and mostly relieved that Jan had managed to complete her work, and was the first to arrive. “OMG. I’ve never been happier to see you!”

In case you misunderstand, I wasn’t being hiao.
We were testing the equipment for the Photo Booth.

The rest of my EXCO was nowhere to be seen. They were all travelling on different expressways, and there was a jam on each and every single route leading to the Turf Club. Excellent.

Every cloud has a silver lining though. Mine came in the form of Gillian. She had innocently asked for a ride to the place, and then found herself recruited into the EXCO at the 11th hour. It was very reassuring to have her around. She have years of experience in the entertainment industry; my humble bash was nothing compared to the mega events she did.

‘Doors open at 7pm’

6.30pm, and there were still only the three of us. “Haiyah, don’t worry. If the EXCO is late, it means that everyone else will be late too! And when I say ‘doors open at 7pm’, I assume people are going to show up after 7.30pm.”

I was wrong. By 6.45pm, I began to receive SMSes from my friends, “Sorry, I/we’ll be late. There’s a jam at xxx xxx.” I considered briefly if I should forward the reply to everyone on the guest list, “Take your time! Or take a longer route! Set up not complete! I haven’t changed!”

San Chin, who was away for work, did a remote countdown. “15 minutes to your bash! You must be all dressed up in your new suit! Have fun!” She was horrified to find out what was going on.

Just then, my EXCO appeared. All at once. Yeah!

Shortly after 7pm, How Han was the first guest to arrive. “Uncle ah, you take a seat first hor. I’m not ready! I’ll go get changed now.”

“Where’s my belt?”

Ok! Cruz Teng is ready to parrrrrttttyyyyyyy!

to be continued… …

I asked, but it seems that there’s no way I can reject membership to the 30s club. Auto inclusion, they said.

Cruz Teng is 30!

I’ll have to repeat that 30 times before the reality of it all really sinks in.

Cruz Teng is 30!

WOOHOO!

I tweeted last night that I miss my clubbing stamina and drinking ability. Lost it all when I started to do way too many mahjong marathons. While my drinking ability was mediocre to begin with, I used to bounce up and down non-stop like that bunny in the battery commercial. A sign of aging? I’ll interpret it as a lack of practise. Hohoho.

After throwing up the flaming lamborghini, and other assorted drinks, I was in bed by 3am. I expected myself to wake up for dinner, but I found myself opening my eyes at 6am. Just enough time to wash up for work, if I wanted to cancel my leave. Aging people require less sleep? I’ll take that as a commitment to my morning show. Hahaha.

Fortunately, 18.09 lands on a Friday this year. Mambo on Wednesday and Recovery on Thursday. Perfect.

I’ll be working tomorrow. Since my intrusion on the airwaves when I was 16, I’ve almost never held a microphone on a birthday. But I can’t give up the chance to shout “It’s FRIDAY!”, can I? I’m going to do “It’s FRIDAY, and it’s my BIRTHDAY!” every three minutes. *evil grin

This comes from my classmate, who hails from Malaysia. I’ve been picking up simple Melayu phrases from her. It was necessary if I wanted to penetrate the JB market, she insisted.

For a good part of the second semester, I’ve been saying I wanted to quit school. Or berhenti sekolah. Fearing the loss of such a nice classmate (haha!), she and the others have been cajoling me not to quit. I like this Berhenti sign.

和媽媽不在同一個屋簷下，所以特別期待她每一次做的菜。

以後和我在一起的人無需很會煮飯。但每年的農曆七月廿七，一定要捧上一碗豬腰豬肝雞蛋麵線……呵呵。

Initially, I thought the shopkeeper was joking when she asked me to “stop touching” the Happy 30th stuff and look at Happy 21st party accessories instead.

The clarification was repeated at least five times, but she insisted I was kidding.

I don’t understand. Unless I was trying to sneak into a club or a casino (as a teenager), why would I lie about my age? And add nine years?!

She suggested I take balloons in all shades and colours. It’d be great for an outdoor carnival or a kid’s party, but not for a classy 30th birthday bash. As I flipped the album for samples and asked for quotations, she avoided the questions each time and came up with cheaper alternatives.

And because she assumed I was 21, she kept telling me to get the cheap(er) balloons and rent a helium kit, instead of having their staff to do up the party venue. “It can be done. But it will cost more.” She seemed convinced that I didn’t have a budget that was big enough.

I didn’t feel the least flattered for being treated like a 21 year old. It was more of an insult.

I can’t wait to turn 30.

Most of my closest friends were born in 1978 and 1979. They’ve all made the transition to the new club, and received their new identity cards along the way. I assume it’ll be safe for me to do the same thing.

Apart from Mambo Jambo on the 16th, which I’ve gleefully announced on air, I have a birthday bash coming up on the 18th. The venue was confirmed three months ago, but I had been sitting on it. Because I’ve not done something like that since the Birthday-cum-Mid-Autumn-Party in 2005, I’ve almost forgotten how tiring the party planning process can be.

Seriously, it’s not easy to throw a party when you’re a Virgo. The challenge elevates when you’re a Virgo turning 30. All the minute details are making me crazy in a wildly exhilarating manner, yet exhausting as well. When people tell you Virgos are irritatingly meticulous, you had better believe them.

Example: I decided I wasn’t going to use a cheap and ugly knife to cut my cake two weeks later. And so, we went shopping for a knife to replace the complimentary one the bakery will be providing. Hahaha. Then I wasn’t happy with the handle. J had to get a black cord (complete with bling bling gold strands) to wrap it up.

There you go. Folks who remain friends with Cruz Teng have a big price to pay.

There would be more of such instances if not for the fact that I had been kept busy with work and school in the last couple of weeks. No wonder everyone has been telling me not to quit my studies.

Anticipating madness ahead,

Cruz, still 29.