#2.3 Moonlight Saving

"The first song was "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and I was so embarrassed that I could only remember part of its lyrics."

*Title quoted from Eugenie (To all ass friends: Daylight saving has started and although the time difference between us has changed, our friendship hasn't, and won't.)

The annual Mid-Autumn Festival was here again and 10M10 had unanimously agreed to celebrate it at the park near the girls' hostel and thank God it was a blast. After I showered and changed, I went to SinHui and Tiong's room, and was surprised that they had prepared the Chinese Herbal Soup. I had to admit that it had been a long time since I had tasted it. It tasted great but it made me feel a little homesick. Although we had some minor problem with the taxi, we managed to reach Section 18 at about 7p.m. We shopped for paper lanterns, candles, drinks, ice, snacks and some chopsticks before we had our dinner together in one of the bistros nearby.

At first, some of us felt that the park was too dark as it literally scared the hell out of us but our fears were gone the minute our lanterns were lit. After everyone had arrived, we chose a nice spot and started to light up our lanterns. It was indeed many Malays' first time to play with lanterns and all of them were so excited once they had done fixing their lanterns with the candles. "It was so beautiful!" Many of them were screaming and we were filled with joy when we saw our lanterns illuminating the dark park and some of us took a walk around the park. We chatted while enjoying the moon cakes, snacks and drinks with the light of the lanterns around us flickering like fireflies flying in the mellow moonlight.

Later, we carried the brightly lit lanterns and sat in a big circle under the bright moon (I could hardly remember seeing it but I was sure that it was round that night) and someone suggested that we could sing some songs that everyone knew. The first song was "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and I was so embarrassed that I could only remember part of its lyrics. We clapped our hands in sync and continued to sing songs like "Rasa Sayang", "Barney' s theme song", "Rat Loves Rice" and many more. Then, we took turns to talk about things that people did not know about us. We had a good laugh at one another's answers and we were taken by surprise that there were quite many that were from other classes and we got to know more about one another.

Due to the damn (and unnecessary too, at least to me it was) curfew, we were forced to end that wonderful night. We closed our eyes for 10 seconds to think about all the great and funny stuff that had happened that night. Ily played some songs of Taylor Swift with her guitar and we sang along with her. After that, we took the cab back to our hostel and it was already past curfew and that meant the gate would have been closed. I kept on praying in the cab and luckily the gate was not closed yet when we arrived and it was a miracle that that night's curfew had been extended to 12a.m or we would have to camp outside under the moon . We sighed with relief and went back to our rooms and chatted a while before we went to sleep.

I received calls from Grandpa and Mummy that night and although I didn't get to gather and celebrate this festival with my family, all my friends still made that night so much fun and memorable. Thanks everyone. Praying hard also for those who were trapped under the rubble in the recent quake to be rescued and those who suffered from droughts in Africa.

We did totally forget about Chang'e, didn't we? Oops.

Currently

listening to: Good Girls Go Bad (feat. Leighton Meester) by Cobra Starship

watching: Desperate Housewives season 6

reading: About A Boy by Nick Hornby