So the big 2-1 hits me, bringing in a lifetime of freedom (like watching educational movies that are somehow rated R21!) and a full weight of responsibilities, ranging from personal ones like paying for tax/rent to political ones like taking my oath of allegiance or voting in elections.
One of the first questions I was asked was how I felt being 21. The truth? Not much different from 20, but I guess the changes within myself are still surfacing. I suppose change never actually sinks in until the contrast shows up a few years later.
Thinking about growing up always brings me back to what one of my friends once said, “You don’t know how satisfying it is to be able to pay rent.” Somehow I never thought that paying rent and satisfaction would ever go together, but I guess he’s right in that we find our independence in little ‘joys’ like receiving bills addressed to ourselves instead of our parents, or entering into legal contracts in our own name. Paying my own rent out of my own money hammers in the last nail – I am actually exiting my childhood.
My life now is a mishmash of different compartments – my life in Brunei, my life in Singapore, my life in Coventry and my future life in London.
Within each compartment, I have been so fortunate to have met people I love, people I am inspired to know, people I am honoured to have met before, and a whole variety of other colourful or gray people.
My birthday celebration was pulled together by YH and involved three diverse circles in Warwick: my housemates from last year and my law clasmates, my Singsoc friends, and my law juniors.
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Some of my gifts – I forgot to put a few of them in the photo!
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Time for Tea
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unpacked gifts because I was so busy!
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One of my gifts – so cute!
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My booking at Le Bistrot Pierre
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Topping it all off
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The flash from the car we put the camera on
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21 people for my 21st birthday!
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at Le Bistrot Pierre
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I did it!
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He’s oblivious as to what is going to befall him
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In my specially requested flavour: habana
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Where I first met him <3
Thanks for the celebration! It’s a 21st I’m happy to claim as my own!
The entire day didn’t start off too well… I had lunch at Cannon Cafe - really if you are ever hungry in Cannon Park, please have a meal bought from Tesco’s or Boots. The food at Cannon Cafe is horrible! My sausage roll was soggy and contained the weirdest sausage I’ve ever had the misfortune to put in my mouth. It was all mushy and disgusting. The worst thing of all was that I almost had to pay for ketchup and mayonnaise when I was at the counter. Luckily the lady did not charge me for anything other than the sausage roll – she must have known that I’d have needed it to mask the taste.
It was raining, so I fell into YH’s trap of waiting in the library while he went for his meeting. So began the entire afternoon of treasure hunting!
He left me at a computer terminal and 5 minutes later, I got a message with a link to a website. I opened up the website and discovered to my horror that I had to go on a treasure hunt in the rain!!! With my painful shoes!!!
Clue #1 was pretty easy – it had a link to a book, The Economics of Law or something of the sort. I was obviously meant to take the book from the library. I went up to the 4th floor of the law school, found the book and inside it was a note to the next clue. Next to the book, was The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook - YH knows how much I love the cupcakes from there! 
Clue #2 was slightly harder and really put my skills as a student ambassador to the test. It depicted Federer on a table with a tennis racket. On hindsight, it seems obvious that it means table-tennis. The problem was that when I first saw it, I didn’t notice the table and just thought it was going to be at Westwood Tennis Centre (for non-Warwickians, Westwood is almost like a different town and is a long walk away from central campus!).
When I figured out it was the Sports Centre, I was instructed by Keith and Wen Jie to start bouncing a table tennis ball on a really tiny table tennis bat. 
It was so difficult!! I had to do it 21 times – seems easy… until I started getting only TWO consecutive bounces before the ball would roll off. The most frustrating thing happened when I did it for 20 times only – just 1 short!!!! When I finally got it, Keith rewarded me with gifts, luckily he did – otherwise I’d have had his head. 
Clue #3 was a photo of Singsoc exco right after Oliver and Louisa’s election – my first thought was the Students’ Union, or the Science building where we had our election and I was led instead to roam around campus looking for the right location. It took leading questions from Keith before I figured out that it was the Arts Centre, where we had our weekly meetings!
The entire exco just killed me by giving me two eggs. I was supposed to juggle them 21 times (seriously I wished I was turning five at this point!) If I failed at any point and the eggs broke, I’d have to go into the Arts Centre and get everyone to sing the birthday song! Obviously the eggs broke. Luckily I wormed my way out of doing anything and postponed my forfeit. Again, I got gifts from the exec.
Clue #4 had a judge’s hammer – I thought of the School of Law and the moot court and was going to go there. While making my way there, I looked across the Social Studies courtyard and saw a troop of my law juniors following YH suspiciously… The giveaway was Jerrick’s height!
I was hastily stopped by two of my law juniors (yes, Samantha, you!) who told me to get everyone to sing me a birthday song. Seriously, people should think up better forfeits! Clue #5 directed me to”where we first met“, i.e. at S0.18, where people were waiting for me with a humongous cake and balloons and decorative banners!
The cake was awesome (you can see it in the photos) with the huge Habana cake from Druckers. I had to do a weird forfeit though, and I’ve got photos from before and after the forfeit to show for it.
Dinner at night was a very nice affair at Le Bistrot Pierre. Happily, I had 21 people at my 21st birthday dinner, although that was a nice coincidence and not intentional in any way. <3 Thanks to everyone for making my 21st birthday so memorable, and thank you.
P.S. Time for tea happened that weekend with Jasmine coming up to Warwick!
