forever 21

Part One:  The day before my birthday:

The view from a surprised birthday girl

When I got out of my photography class at 9 P.M., I went to Josh's place to work on homework.  He asked me to help him write a summary for his lab report that night, and I agreed to lend him my writing skills as much as I could.  Meanwhile, I fell asleep in the middle of writing my English midterm paper oh Josh's couch as he played computer games.  I remember waking up at one point when Josh told me that he had to stop by his workplace.  He works with fruit flies in a lab on campus.  I was so sleepy that I instantly fell back asleep until I woke up to a phone call at around 11:50 P.M.  Josh's voice sounded panicked on the other end, and he told me that he needed my help right away.  Before I knew it, he came to pick me up.

Worried, frustrated, and angry, Josh told me that all his fruit flies had died at work because he didn't take care of them over spring break.  I was felt guilty and shocked because I had spent a large portion of my spring break with Josh, taking away his time from work.  I offered a few hugs, the least I could do to comfort him as I was recovering from my sleepiness, but Josh was so upset that he didn't hug me back.

I followed him to his car and thought about how I could help him.  For a moment, I honestly imagined us pulling an all-nighter to catch new fruit flies and repopulate his experiment.  He continued to scowl in the car, and before I knew it, I found myself in tears and crying because I didn't know how to help Josh.  Then he said, "You're right.  Bad things do happen on your birthday" (because I had told him a while back about how I tend to get sick on my birthdays).  I started crying even more because I felt so bad for bringing bad luck into Josh's life, and I didn't want to spend my birthday feeling poopy (it was 12:03 A.M. by then).  I wiped away my tears and Josh helped me calm down a little.

As we walked to Josh's workplace, we heard a weird high-pitched scream but I didn't think much of it.  We went up the elevator and when Josh opened the door, I saw my friend Daniel sitting in a chair in the dark and staring back at me.  Then Gavin and Jason popped their heads out from the kitchen area.  And then it occurred to me that Josh's story was all fake because he was throwing me a surprise!!!  He turned the lights on, and more and more of my friends emerged from their surprise hiding spots!

The view from the surprised birthday girl's boyfriend
At around 4 P.M., Josh told me that he was going to take a nap because he had a fever.  Yes, he had a fever; no, he did not take a nap.  Instead he drove to Porto's Bakery to buy me not one, but TWO birthday cakes  He wanted the message (Happy 21st Birthday, Beefcake!) to appear on both of the cakes like the following:  

source for clipart 

But that confused the Porto's people and they ended up writing Happy 21st Beef!  Birthday Cake!

Hahahahahahaha!  So he just had them write the message on one cake.

 

During that time, Josh messaged my friends Andi and Jessie and asked them to invite as many people for the big surprise.  When Josh got back that night, he took some juice and pink lemonade out of the fridge in case I wanted any and hid the cakes in the fridge (smart move because I was so close to reaching into the fridge myself, and then the surprise would've been ruined).  

As he played his computer game, he contemplated how he would sneak the cakes and stuff out of his room without me noticing.  But when he turned around to see what I was doing, he fortunately saw that I had fallen asleep!  He packed away the cakes, cups, plates, drinks, and speakers for music into a duffel bag and left to "go to work."  He swiped my friends into the common area at his workplace, set up a little, and gave dry-erase markers to my friends so they could decorate the whiteboards in the room.  

Then he called me, fabricated a tragic story (because Andi was so sure that I had a hunch about what was happening), and picked me up.  He told me he was "texting his boss" to let him know about the situation (as I was internally freaking out that Josh would lose his job because his freaking flies died), but he was actually texting Andi to let them all know that we were leaving his place.  As I cried in the car, Josh remained silent and looked away from me, causing me to cry even more, but he was actually holding back laughter and smiling in the other direction.  Half of him wanted to keep me crying so that I'd be really surprised, but he didn't want to seem like a complete monster so he tried to cheer me up first.  However, since he was calming me down, he didn't have time to send a text in the elevator to let my friends know that we were almost there, hence the awkwardness when we opened the door because my friends weren't exactly sure when to expect our entrance (but I think Renee and Jenn saw us approaching because they emitted that weird high-pitched scream we had heard).

In conclusion

My friends threw me an amazing and awesome surprise birthday party.  Even though we were all swamped with work (it was the first week back from spring break), they found the time to make my day so special, and I am thankful beyond words for their thoughtfulness.

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell!  They know us so well!  (confession: I had mistaken Peter Pan for Legolas at first.  I can't suppress the 10 year old Orlando Bloom lover in me).

"Happy birthday" in French and Chinese....

Hawaiian...

AND Japanese!

Hello Kitty's galore!!!

Once again to everyone involved, THANK YOU!  Josh, Andi, Jason, Andrea, Gavin, Lauren, Daniel, Brandon, Renee, Jenn, and everyone who tried to make it but couldn't (Jessie, Amara, etc.): I loved the drawings, your company, the cakes- THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!  Best birthday gift ever!

Part 2: The Day Of

 I received a very sweet birthday card from my mommy, and a really touching Facebook status shout-out from Leslie.  Luckily, my WRIT340 paper was postponed so I only had to go to one class that day (my writing class that I love!).

At night, I went to dinner at Boiling Crab with Josh, his sister Jueun, and her boyfriend Henry.

And of course, I had to buy my first bottle of alcohol- sangria!  Too bad the cashier wasn't as excited as I was. 

Part 3: The Saturday After

Although our schedules are super busy, I try to find as much time to hang out with Leslie and Matt as possible.  On Saturday, we spent the night playing games at Dave and Buster's!  Considering their love for stuffed animals and our competitiveness, we had six hours of fun!  

I had to start the night off with a drink, so Josh bought me my very first one!  It was called Walk the Plank (Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum, Malibu Coconut rum, peach schnapps, Bacardi 151, pineapple juice, orange juice and pomegranate syrup).

Sweet and pretty!

Our favorite D&B games: Monopoly, basketball, Deal or No Deal (even though we're not very good at it), and this random spinny wheel game thing.  I don't know how to describe it, but it had a lot of lights and I won the jackpot on it!!

Drink #2: Long Island Peach Tea.  Soooo good!  By then, I was embracing the glory of Asian glow.  I started hiccuping too, but after I got over the hiccups, I was sober again.  Heehee!

Thank you for the awesome gifts, Leslie and Matt!  I don't have many pictures, but I really appreciate them!

Matt and Leslie's D&B prize: a giraffe stuffed animal that's taller than me!

 We kind of gave the guy a hard time though because he had to climb a ladder to get the giraffe.  Haha whoops!

Josh's prize for me: a Hello Kitty backpack and Hello Kitty headband!!  He has a bunch of points saved up but I didn't want anything big.