it's the year of the ox again and that means my bro is gonna be 24 this year. and for me, i'm gonna be an adult soon...=( omg time really flies!
reunion dinner has and prob always will be a tiring affair for my family. it's the only occasion my extended family actually meet up. and so, hosting the dinner makes you the busiest person. at least my relatives are appreciative and they help to clear up after the dinner. i'm actually quite amazed at how my mum can whip up such a sumptuous meal for everyone every year. MAYBE i should start learning how to cook from my mum ah...heh.
the star of the day was kalani (i dunno the spelling!). i think she's my only niece from my paternal side. the rest of my cousins are old and unmarried.=X she's such a cute little girl, filled with energy and no show of shyness. she kept jumping around and bringing everyone to look at the rabbits. everyone was so amused by her actions. children really bring joy to the family i guess.=)
and because we only see everyone once a year, the signs of old age somehow are much more obvious. sometimes i feel really sad for them since so many of them are unmarried. and then they also have walking difficulties, hearing difficulties, or whatever problems related to old age.
somehow i got reminded of my trip to khao lak close to two years ago before uni started. dug up some of my old photos, and here are two of them:
myself with part of the class that we taught! they are a REALLY lovely bunch of thai kids, so hospitable, so sweet (they gave us SOO many souvenirs when we went back!), and i can still remember how i was crying so hard when we had to leave after a week. this was despite all the language barriers, the cultural differences, and even the age differences. it's like, they would fight to hold your hands when we were walking them back to their homes. and it's so saddening to see their homes being so small and minimalistic, and yet on the way back, they knew they can't give you anything to bring home, and so they pluck all sorts of flowers along the way and pass to you. and they even helped to lug our luggage up the bus as we left. and these were the kids whose homes were destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. it's a pity we couldn't speak thai properly so we could at least communicate with them.
some of life4 people at the phuket airport before we left.
thank goodness for that experience to teach me to be appreciative of my own life.
anw, my bro reformatted his old comp for me so i'll be switching laptop soon i suppose. i actually feel quite reluctant to move everything in here to that one, but it'll prob drive me crazy soon if i dun with the frequent crashes. ah well. i need to embrace change! and what's more it's the new year.=)