It’s time to put one of the special events that happened last month into this blog!

My first month of 2009 has just passed.

And the passing of January 2009 is nothing ordinary.

It marks the incredible milestone of me stepping into the glorious age of 21, baby!

Now, how glorious, exactly, is 21 - it’s the age that you are, finally and completely, on your own.

No more age restrictions, no more consent forms, no more nothing!

More practically, no more thoughts of smuggling into clubs and casinos, no more – NOT – being able to do anything just because of your age!

You’ve complete broken out of the last of any age restrictions or supervisions – you can even get married without your parent’s consent! (Not that I condone it )

Now, of course, we all know that these age restrictions were there to protect you. And activities with an age restriction (well, except marriage and arguably, sex) are generally ‘unhealthy’ activities – smoking, drinking, gambling etc.

And at age 21 you’re expected to be mature enough to judge for yourself what is good and what is bad business.

So yes, you’re free to do anything you want at age 21, but if you do screw up, you also lose all the protection afforded to juveniles and face the consequences straight and hard. No chances, no mercy! Bad huh?

Why? Because you’re already a grown-up; no longer an innocent kid or a wild teenager. You’re an adult… A man.

So, moral of the story – try all the crimes you want before you come of legal consent age. That way at least you won’t go to jail!

No, just kidding!

So, back to myself – if 21 is such a great milestone age, and the next milestone age, 55 (the retirement age), is just so far away, I had expected to celebrate my birthday this year, like – very, VERY EXTRAVAGANTLY.

But alas! Check your desktop calendar and you’ll find that January 25th – my birthday, was on, of all days, Chinese New Year’s Eve this year!

What does that mean?

It means I didn’t get to celebrate my precious 21st birthday the way I wanted! Because no one was going to stay back that day! Everyone had to go back to their hometowns to have their reunion dinner! And that includes me, too!

Note: No, this isn’t a photo of my reunion dinner.

And typically, you don’t just leave the house anytime  soon ‘before’  or  ‘after’ the reunion dinner. You gotta stay back and sit in the house for “reunion’s” sake. So there went my long-awaited 21st birthday party, at least that was what I had thought.

Luckily, I can still write right now, that I still had a very, very memorable 21st birthday.

Still having a small number of charming, special friends (and one particularly) putting in a wonderful amount of effort, surprise after surprise, to prevent my 21st birthday from sliding into the list of my most terrible birthdays ever…

I am so, very wonderfully blessed…

…

… but one of the birthday cakes was definitely not!

It was terrifyingly destroyed by our special, barbaric eating method!

The beautiful ice-cream cake, at first:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5:

There were no plates involved.

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