One left me more than a week ago. One left me last September. One left me on Valentine's day a year ago and will leave me again on wednesday. Two left me today. One is leaving me a week after I return to Kedah. One left me with her boyfriend a few days ago. One will leave me tomorrow.

Shit man, this is damn depressing.

It is silly, but some 5 or 6 years ago, a very juvenile Amanda called the 10-11 of us The Dahlings and she drew a sketch of us in one of the CrapBooks(TM) and of course she added obvious trademarks to the individual dahlings (ie. a cleavage to the caricature which is supposedly me). As corny as giving names to a clique is, the name has stuck ever since. So the Dahlings we are. I don't care what you guys think. :)

I know a few of you will protest loudly that I still have you guys, but it's not the same without THE GIRLFRIENDS. A girl needs her girlfriends for emotional, physical and moral support on very special circumstances. You, yes, you there. You don't expect me to call you and cry and say things like, "OH XYZ IS BEING A FUCKTARD AGAIN.". You won't understand. Because you didn't even know that XYZ was being a fucktard to begin with. You get my gist.

Sigh.

But another bad thing about having 6 friends flying off at once is the huge strain on my pockets. A decent present usually needs about RM20..RM20 times 6.... *clutches ang pow packets tightly*. :(

Hence, this calls for mass production of farewell gifts. Out comes the Dahlings In A Bottle idea. The idea was from my idea which was the successful Message In A Bottle Valentine's Day Project of the Interact Club in my school in year 2001 and 2003. (And I strongly suspect that one of the communities in Taylor's Business School adopted the idea for their own Valentine's Day project this year. I choose to feel flattered, even if I'm just perasan-ing. But how coincidental can it be when the coloured water is in the exact same dark blue shade?)

Let me explain to you how I went about my idea..

My cost price is only about RM1.80.
Bottle = free
Ribbon ~ RM0.50
Glitter ~ RM0.10
Sparkly material ~ RM0.40
Laminated photos ~ RM0.30

I went around to the classier cafe joints to ask for empty Esprit bottles. It's free because it is trash to them.

I printed mini photos of the Dahlings and a couple of group photos and cut it into individual pieces. I had it laminated and did somemore cutting and there you have it, mini laminated photos. All ready to be dunked into a bottle of water with glitter and other shiny materials.


I love the colours. Somehow they remind me of stickers. So nice.. a sticker sheet of my bestest best friends in the whole wide world.



The bottles are to be soaked in a bucket of water. A technique we established back in the days of mass producing them Interact bottles.


So that the label will be easier to peel. My thumbnails are a little sore now though. Still suffering from all the scraping and scratching.;(


The fun part is pouring my favourite thing in the whole wide world in: Glitter!! And twisting and forcing the laminated photos into the bottle. Your heart beats in anticipation as you bring the bottle to the basin to be filled with water.


*holds breath*


TA-DA!!!


One of the fun bit about the bottle is to twist and turn to find for your own face.


Add a satin ribbon to complete the look.


And of course I'll have to remind them that Jolene made it in February 2006 just in case they pick the bottle up when their old and senile in their later years.


I scribbled the words, "A Bottle Of Dahlings" along the sides of the bottle.




Can't really see...nevermind.


I love glitter so much.


I think I love glitter too much. But just look at that. Tell me you're not enthralled by the way the glitter particles catch light.


With purple glitter.




All 10 ready to be delivered to the doorsteps of Dahlings the following day!


I finished at about 3am(started at about 11pm). I saw my bubble thingie on the floor and could not resist squeezing a generous helping to camwhore with a big ass bubble.

Woke up in the morning to shake the bottle a bit more before setting off to drop the bottles off.

Can't stop shaking it la. :)

Photographing the settled glitter while waiting for Abby outside her house. First stop was Puchong. After I dropped her off at Pyramid, I went to Damansara to give Liss' her bottle. Then back to SS17 to give Esther her's and to bring her along to deliver the rest.

Abby said I was like Santa Claus.

After going to Wangsa Baiduri, USJ18, USJ 4 and Glenmarie, we decided to do something really silly while we're at SS19. We decided to place the bottle in Hsien's room.

I know it's not a big deal. But......Hsien's not home. No, she's not. She's, well, she's half way across the world in UK. Hahahha. What great fun. Just imagine the surprise the silly woman would get when she photos of her room on my blog!


Hsien's bottle with a message from us.




Esther and I posing with Hsien's unhealthy fetish: Orlando Bloom.

After kau tim-ing SS19 and SS18, I finally finished sending my love to all my dear girls. :) I will miss them so much. I've got two more left in Malaysia..Mun Teng and She Dee. But it's not the same you know. I need to have the complete set.:) I make them sound like collectibles. Hahahahaha.

Here's a little something for my best friends of 6,7 and 8 years..(size of photos does not measure the amount of my love)


Bye Abby Heng Yee Chin!! It's funny that we're still so close or perhaps even closer for the entire time that you were back. I hope you will continue to fend guys off left, right, front and center and only grace them with your attention to those who are worth your time. Your bunny, Pixie, will be big and not so cute anymore if you do not come home often enough to see it. At the same time can come and see me also yeah! Later I also become big and not so cute anymore. (dah lah big and not so cute anymore. So bigger and not so cuter anymore lor. :)) Remember to continue to make me jealous with all the fun events and places in Melbourne.


Bye Amanda Hon Pei Lin!! If I were you, I will never forgive a best friend for being stuck in Kuala Lumpur who promised to send you off to Melbourne with only half an hour to get to KLIA. I will miss your randomness. I know you will still entertain me about how absolutely adorable that SpongeBob Square Pants soft toy is and how you need to eat maggi mee, "Like, Now.". I will miss trying to say something in vain when you're on a verbal diarrhoea about something that displeases you. You have a blog for that now, dahling. Use it wisely. Left Boob loves Numb Boob always.


Bye Ang Su-Chien!! Without you there won't be anymore big ass gatherings for the time being so remember to come home and call the entire world out for some makan session. But you've thought me well because my calling-the-whole-gang-out-to-makan skills are improving. Though we're not as close as we used to be back in college when I would scare you with my white head pressing party trick, you're still the lovely Su-Chien who would ensure that I'm happy all the time. You just have this strange way of taking care of me. Don't know how I'll survive while you're in Sydney. For 6 years somemore. Die lah me.


Bye Esther Phan Liling!!! Shit man, what am I going to do without you? No more Saturday breakfasts at the drop of a hat(or more like at the press of an MSN nudge button). No more Aunty Agnes/Aunty Phan to stand behind your computer screen while you're chatting with me to give me advice about my 'private dilemmas'. I can't believe I'll be driving past your house every now and then without an Esther to visit. Sigh. But yes dear, if you believe that it is your calling to go all the way to Brisbane to do designing, your great love, then YOU GO GIRL!!


Bye what Bye lah Lim Su-Hsien, sudah Bye berbanyak kali dah. But since I'm saying my goodbyes to the Dahlings, how can it be complete without a mention of you? I see that you've been enjoying yourself SOOOOO much in Warwick. I love love the video of you girls singing to that Spice Girls song. Reminds me of the times that we've NEVER gone to Redbox. :) Your obsessive compulsiveness is still madly missed as much as I make fun of it, but without it, there seems to be something missing to the days that I spend back home in Subang Jaya. Come back and direct my driving please? I'm getting lousier and lousier on the roads without you. I promise not to shout at you when you yell at me that I'm on the wrong toll lane more than 100m away from the tollhouse.


Bye Melissa Lam Yung Qing! Tell me, who will we(...ok, fine, who will I, since everyone's gone already) be able to laugh about when you're so far away in Melbourne, not creating situations for us to laugh at you about? Remember to email us about your latest mishaps and your sweet Melissa-esque observations about life in Melbourne! By the way, there's something called a blog for that sort of thing! You promised me you'll make one there, yaa? I'll miss having a level headed Dahling to have around when the rest of the Dahlings go haywire. But what am I saying, there are not many Dahlings left in Malaysia..at least not enough to go haywire. To the Dahling that I've never ever fallen out with before, cheers babes. I love you! *hic*. OH YEA YOU ALCOHOLIC BABE! How can I forget that. Will miss your Vodka Lime. Don't really drink em, but you know, the ones you make are special. :)


Bye Melody Song Faye-Lynn!! My bestest best best best best cow monkey donkey chicken rabbit bear elephant best friend in the entire universe!! From the day you told me that magazines like Bliss are not meant for 'kids'(one year younger than you somemore) like me because they contained sex advice(to quote you: "Small girl cannot read magazines like this one!"- Melody Song, 1999), I knew that you would be the woman who would open my eyes to the world of fantastic sex...... EDUCATION. :) Hahaha. But I think I'm more verbal about it now hor? Jolene the Ham Sap Por. i will miss all our no holds-no barriers heart to hearts and silly fantasies over cups and cups of teh ais and teh o ais limaus. You better lug your ass back to Malaysia in November. Please don't stay another year in Melbourne okay! One year enough already! We're supposed to go to Bangkok together!(if we can find a baby sitter for our kids...right?)


Bye Lee Min Dee!! Even though after form5, we hardly get to meet up(YOU LA, SO BUSY), but do enjoy your time in Sydney okay? We really need you to come home to cheer up the gatherings with your loudness and we need someone to insult and bang Kay Hong nicely. Without you, I don't know if I can handle him lah! Eh, scratch that. Without you, I got no show to see when Kay Hong's around. :) Even though you're always away doing your own things with your own life, I just want you to know that you're always a Dahling over and over. *puts on Mafia voice* The moment your pen ink spilled upon the CrapBook(TM), you have become one of us. There's no other way about it. Remember to update us about your life. Back in Malaysia, you're not doing too well with this whole updating us thing, so hope you do better in Sydney!


April Chin Mun Teng! We'll try not to miss them so much and try to meet up as much as possible okay! At least you're still around so that I have a kaki to go to A Cut and Above Academy with. As long as you don't ffk me, I'll still have an emergency shopping trip partner! We'll have fun discussing the news about the other Dahlings that we've gathered from our reliable sources.*wah ha. wah ha. wah ha* Good ol' gossips have always been our cuppa tea eh, Mun Teng?


Tan She Dee!! I believe I only have until August to have you around right? Then you're leaving me too!!;( But don't worry girl, I'll try my best to meet up with you as often as I can when I am back from no man's land before you head off to become a world class nutritionist in the US of A! Us stuck-in-Malaysia dahlings must stick together so that the overseas-Dahlings got people to hang with when they're back.


Bye Alicia Chew Li Peng.. my classmate of four years and class partner as well! I can still remember the hollow feeling I had during my first week of college without you sitting next  to me. But that's a good two years ago. Can't believe I've known you for nearly 10 years now. We're almost family, what with Oreo(my dogs' puppy) coming to stay with you. Pity about her running away. I know we should've done more catching up...but promise me you'll come home from Sydney and remember you have a friend called Jolene!

Lastly, Jolene Lai Pei Shan is somewhat sorrowful but a wee bit relieved that she did not have to go to KLIA to send each and everyone of you off. I'll be like the one crying alone like dungu like that. Since everyone's going off, I'll be the only one sending you guys off. Such a reverse scenario wei. Usually it's one whole gang sending one friend off. Where got one friend send one whole gang off one? Of course I would have done so if I was able to.. but blame Kedah yeah! and blame bad timing!


Eve Of SPM, November 2003.
top l-r: Li Peng, Su-Chien, Min Dee, Abby, Melody, Jolene, V-ng Yan(another best friend of mine whom I will definitely meet up with alot more)
bottom l-r: Mun Teng, Melissa, Amanda, Esther.
Where's She Dee and Su-Hsien in the photo?

By the way, these are all the photos that I've put in the bottle. I hope you girls will give the Bottle Of Dahlings a good shake whenever you miss home, and a vigorous shake when you miss the Dahlings badly, okay?

With her orange chocolate cake!


A clearer view.


This is her Valentine's Day Collection. Loads of efforts have gone into these.


Some new designs that she's trying out.


Chocolates! And a bitten one.


Another cupcake. She said this was from Baskin Robbin's.


Looks like a fruitcake.


An 8 ball and a keyboard.


Damn cute hamster!


An embedded rose.


Her earring tower. Damn impressive right?


The hamster loves tomatos.

Get in touch with her and buy a conversation piece:)

Here's a video of one of the displays! Enjoy!

Esther and I went to get a haircut at A Cut Above Academy. Another RM10 VERY well spent. Yay:) I love good bargains.


On Monday night, I had dinner with Abby, Dennis, Chee Seng, Joshua, She Dee and Mun Teng at Kim Gary's!
L-r: Dennis, Chee Seng


Me and Josh


L-r: Abby, She Dee, Mun Teng, Me and Joshua


Since Mel could not come out, we popped over to her place to lepak!
L-r: Mun teng, Mel, She Dee


l-r: Abby, Dennis


L-r: Dennis, Joshua


Josh was telling a story about a friend of his who was involved in a gangfight.
And no. The fight did not get to happen. Press play to find out why.


On Tuesday, I HAD to meet up with Li Peng and Edison before they left for Australia. Can you imagine, the love birds coloured their hairs the exact same shade. LOL. Even their gadgets are similiar. Whatever Edison buys, Li Peng buys the mini version. :) So cute right!


See the cool ginger-red tones of Li Peng's hair!


On Wednesday, CK and I hit Midvalley for some good ol' necessary shopping. This is him in Topman trying on this shirt that he's had his sights on for ages. I think it looks really nice!:) He needed some new shirts since IMU has this strict rule about no jeans, no t-shirts etc. Wish him luck as he starts his first year in Master of Pharmacy!


This is me in The Next Shop/Tiramisu. The clothes in this shop are reasonably priced and most importantly, they are of the slinky kind. I like slinky clothes..:)
This was the first dress I tried on. I needed a dress for my cousin's wedding dinner!


The top part of this one is corset-ish. And it's got abit of lace lining with a ribbon at the cleavage and an asymmetrical skirt. I bought this one. RM133!


The top part of the this dress is really nice but the skirt's just abit too plain, don't you think? This one was RM108.

Other miscealleanous buys between my dear bf and I: He bought three pairs of socks, two ties and I bought a necklace, a pair of earrings for Lie Yuen(Yes Lie Yuen, you'll see it soon;)) and a GORGEOUS pair of Peacock earrings!!


Later at night, I met up with Calvin because we've wanted to exchange year books(form1-form5) for quite a while now. Since he knows a couple of us from Subang Utama and I wanted to see how the Damansara Jaya peeps grew up.
Oh! And that's one of those blow blow bubbles thingie that you can squeeze out onto a stick and blow a big balloon! Hehehe. I was blowing bubbles alone while waiting for him to show up. So what if people were staring at me?:D