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01/19/2008: "Christmas 2007 celebrations!"
mood: Have a sore throat that's making my ears itchy. :(
This is an extremely backlogged entry, since it's been sitting on my harddrive since a few days after Christmas. XD People adverse to walls of text *looks pointedly at Dee Mok and Ga Mok*, please avoid at all costs. :p
I had a great Christmas this year! It was probably the first time I ever had a real proper present-swapping thing with my friends, where we all got each other a gift. (Though we did end up pooling our resources on some gifts for each other) A Mok also came down from London to join us, so it was the first full Mok Mok gathering we've had since school started. We had so much fun, in fact, that we ended up having a three night sleepover at La Mok's room - I think that's the longest sleepover I've ever had. :p Not to mention we all totally wrecked our sleeping schedules since we slept at around 7am the first day, around the same time on the second, and for the third we just stayed up all the way until it was time to send A Mok off at the train station for her 12.40pm train. :p
We also had a semi-proper Christmas dinner, since we actually bought a whole chicken to roast - and of course Ga Mok (the best cook amongst us all) was the one who prepared the chicken, even though she'd never done it before and had just looked up for instructions on how to do so online. :) I made some tofu cheesecake for dessert, though it ended up a bit TOO tofu-y since we didn't have a weighing scale and so it wasn't as nice as I wanted it to be. (Even though I've made this recipe quite a few times, the past three times I've made it it hasn't turned out as well as I wanted it to - the past two times it was kind of grainy because the gelatin didn't melt properly. *sniffles*) There was also a bit of miscommunication between me and Ga Mok while we were in the kitchen (it was getting a bit hectic since EVERYONE was crammed into our tiny kitchen and there were... *counts* seven of us in a kitchen that's really meant for two) and I ended up accidentally throwing the side dish of mushrooms and carrots into the bin thinking it was trash, but thankfully since it was securely wrapped in aluminium foil, we managed to fish it out and rescue it... and yes, it tasted fine. :p
The REAL reason behind this post, though, is because I want to be ego and show off all the lovely presents I got for Christmas. XD
First off, La Mok bought me Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP! I actually already have FFT for the Playstation, but never got around to finishing it due to (a) lack of time, (b) the fact that I had other games that took priority, and (c) because I have no head for strategy at all and thus I generally suck at tactical RPGs. ^_^;; (When I played the PSone version, I was quite a few hours into the game before I realised that you could actually switch between "pages" in the abilities menu and let your characters learn abilities other than the ones on JUST THE FIRST PAGE. -_- Yes, very dumb of me - that's probably one of my stupidest moments in gaming. But in my [weak] defense, that was in my early game playing days and I'd never played an SRPG before.) However, since this game pretty much has rave reviews from almost everyone who's played it AND it's got an amazing storyline (I'm a sucker for great stories in games, which is why my favourite genre of games is RPGs in the first place), when I heard they were porting it to the PSP and adding extra animated cutscenes, as well as various other features like allowing multi-player mode, I knew this was one of the games I definitely wanted to get. And luckily, AmazonUK was having an offer for it so I knew it wouldn't be too expensive a game to get as a Christmas present. :p
Dee Mok and Ga Mok combined together to get me the biggest present surprise this Christmas - it came in two parts, with a set of really adorable Final Fantasy Trading Arts Mini figurines featuring Cloud (FFVII version), Rinoa (I don't remember her showing as much cleavage in the game as her figurine does. 0_o), Yuna (FFX-2 version) and Vaan. (I was boliao and also took a picture of the empty box since it reminded me of those chocolate moulds I used to have when I was a kid. :p Wouldn't it be cool if I could make Final Fanatasy Chocolate? *laughs*) And then came the really surprising bit - they actually got me Yesasia.com vouchers! (Well, technically I don't really "have" them yet, but I've been assured I will get them soon. :p) The reason why I was resigned that I'll never get any vouchers was because pretty much all my friends have mentioned that they never ever want to give me vouchers as presents since they're not a very imaginative or exciting gift to give. But since I'm the kind of person who usually can't bear to spend on things I don't really need but just want, I could never go through with getting any of the things from Yesasia which I wanted. So I was really thrilled to get this from them since I now have an excuse to buy stuff from there. :p
A Mok gave me a cute yellow floral-patterned stuffed elephant (more soft toys is always good! *thumbs up*) and one of the most adorable keychains I have ever owned, Manjuu-kun - I didn't know such a mascot existed, but seeing as how mine is a "ladybird" version, I'm guessing that there must be quite a few other versions. I shall keep an eye out for them in the future. :)
Speaking of elephants, (for some reason I keep capitalising the E. 0_o), Nani gave me a Heffalump mug that matches my Heffalump stuffed toy a friend gave me a while back. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to use it to drink or just to display, since it's pretty big.
And finally we come to the piece de resistance... if anyone noticed it odd that I mentioned getting a PSP game for Christmas, and yet happened to remember that I don't actually own a PSP, (and after reading this bit you've probably put two and two togther and guessed it) yes, that's right! I got a PSP! And not just an ordinary PSP (sheesh I sound like some lame sell-a-vision commercial), but the Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core Limited Edition PSP Slim and Lite! *dances*
I know I've never mentioned it on this blog before, but I'm sure most of my friends would know about it since I was simply agonising over whether or not to get it for ages, and then after thinking it over a lot, I ended up caving in. I'm a sucker for limited editions (yes, I'm a slave to marketing ploys. -_-), and at first I pretty much resigned myself to not getting it since it pretty much cost a bomb. But when I considered the fact that I would be getting paid for helping out with my University's International Welcome Programme, and that it was enough to cover the cost, I decided to ignore all sensibilities and took the plunge.
In the end, though, my parents decided to treat it as a 21st birthday present for me, which I was surprised about since my family generally doesn't give each other birthday or Christmas presents. (Although my sis and I do make the effort to give each other something.) As my mom likes to say, "You don't need Christmas presents since in this family, every day is Christmas." Aka if you just want something, you can ask for it. XD Though of course this doesn't work particularly well in an Asian family where the kids never want to ask for anything since they feel bad for making parents spend money on them. (Which is also why I can never get over the fact how it's considered normal for American parents to buy their kids expensive stuff like PS3s or Wiis for Christmas. 0_o)
I suppose I shouldn't have been TOO surprised because my mom did hint that she wanted to get me something for my birthday - in fact, previously she made me and my sis go kind of 0_o when she suddenly told us, "You know what? I realised I've never really given you birthday presents all these years. How about I get a watch or something for your birthday?" Of course we politely declined, but I think she was probably still thinking about that and so she decided to treat my PSP as a gift. I tried arguing with her about it but had to give in because my mom is VERY tetchy about taking repayment back from her kids. (She was all "Argh, why are you doing this?" when I paid her back for some stuff I used her credit card to buy, though at least she grudgingly accepted it.) And well, I decided that I could consider her present as a sort of a "DO OR DIE" incentive to do well for my degree - aka blackmail my guilty conscience into doing well for exams. :p
So anyway, the reason why I include this under "Christmas presents" although it's a birthday one is because although I initially had it shipped back home since I knew I would be too distracted with it to properly study, my parents visited me during my winter hols and brought it over for me to take a look at and eventually ended up leaving it behind after a little, erm, coercion on my part. :p I'm glad to say I haven't been TOO obsessed with it, since I don't actually have that many games I can play on it. Hopefully that status keeps up because I really CANNOT afford to screw up this year, it's my last chance at doing well. ^_^;;
