It Flooded On My Birthday

Because let’s face it, it was probably the most interesting thing to happen before the event in itself had even started.

I sent out invitations to a couple of friends who were still in Alor Setar/back in Alor Setar to come to my house on the Sunday evening at 7PM but 15 minutes past 7, only my uncle had turned up so I began to get quite antsy if anyone would even turn up at all. Literally everything was already almost prepared, but no one had turned up yet. So I started to scroll through Twitter to…calm my nerves or something and saw that Khey Ken had tweeted that it was flooding outside his house and he couldn’t get out. Immediately after that, Ching Ju and Hui Ying called up to tell me that they couldn’t make it because of the flood as well.

I started to feel really dreadful, like of ALL the days it could rain and cause a flash flood, it happened on the night of my birthday. I was sad at first, but then I felt indignant. And then I laughed because it was the greatest story ever. It would be the greatest story I would ever tell. So I went with the next plotline in the story: my dad and I drove around the flooded neighbourhood to pick up my stranded friends from their houses; like a Flood Bus or something. A Flood Party Bus. It felt strangely exhilarating.

We picked up Ching Ju, Hui Ying and Khey Ken and by the time we reached my house, Yi Jing and Peter were already there. Jia Yuan and her sister came later, also braving the floods.

We had a barbecue (graced by the presence of self-anointed Masterchef Mr Teoh aka my dad) and pasta and salad and everyone was talking about everything and it had been so long since I last met up with so many of my old friends so it was pretty rowdy and I yelled my throat sore that night trying to talk to everyone really loudly. We had a cake and everything, and desserts and also Jaffa cakes courtesy of Peter. Needless to say, I was really, really full before the night had even ended. And then it was just a lot of talking and laughing until 11PM, when everyone realised how late it had already gotten. The Flood Party Bus dropped off those who had arrived the same way, and my birthday ended.

It was truly an amazing birthday; the floods somehow made it even funnier (when its nature shouldn’t have been) and the food was really good and the company even better. Reuniting with old friends was lovely, even if it’s just a short time before we leave for college. I’d like to thank everyone who made an effort to turn up and also to everyone for the lovely presents. But more importantly, many special thanks to both my parents, and also my uncle (whose birthday was also the same as mine) and his family for preparing and holding this huge party for me which surely had been pretty stressful. I am really, really thankful.

That night, I fell asleep listening to Dan and Phil’s radio show on BBC Radio 1.

And now for photos!