In Continuum.

So over the next week, she devised a plan in tricking April into believing that she has yet to buy her winter coats, and thus the name of this secret operation. This was the plan: Elizabeth is going to Toronto this December, and then en route to Buffalo to check out the campus over there, since she will be going over in August next year as well. Toronto, being freezing coat, requires you to wrap yourself up with obscene amount of clothes, in which she thought it'd be great if April helped her out with the winter coats shopping. So Elizabeth told April that her mother has a bunch of winter coat over at her place, and it'd be nice if April comes over to help her pick out which is nicer - or something like that. This part of the plan was rather blur to me, since she was the one who was planning it all along. In the mean time, however, we'd be buying the ingredients for dinner and then setting up the place for her eventual arrival. That was exactly what we did on Tuesday afternoon, when we met at Great World City to buy the materials for dinner. It was just Shen, Sherry and myself there, with Shen being the big chef as he always is. Grocery shopping is so much fun, by the way, especially when you know what to buy. Just follow the list and pick them off the shelves, it's like a treasure hunt (the Fusilli did take us a while to find)!

So we bought a box of Fusilli, strips of bacon, cheddar, and an entire roast chicken. Everything was done, and we took a cab all the day down to Elizabeth's house down at Tanjong Pagar. I didn't think anybody stayed there, actually, with all the big trucks going in and out of the busy ports, and the giant cranes looming up over the expressway like some prehistoric dinosaurs. Anyway, even the outside of her house looked beautiful, with all the garden decorations and the strange woodpecker as the doorbell of sorts (she has three doorbells). She answered the door, and the time was about twenty pass five (April was supposed to arrive at six). Before I go on to describe how we planned the surprise, let's just say that I am in love with Elizabeth's house. That is the house you get when both your parents are interior designers, and the house seriously didn't look like something that is a part of a HDB flat. It (almost) has everything that I want in a house, from the black curtains to the cushions, from the dimmed lights to the music that fills up the entire house - perfect! I'd like my house to be filled with the kind of music I like, but installing speakers in every room is costly and, let's just say, impractical. Her house is a small house, probably optimal for just one to two people. That was also why sound traveled much easier around the house, which was also what made it so freakin' awesome of a house. I want to do a coup. 

Anyway, the big chef went into the kitchen to do his thing, while the rest of us thought about ways to decorate the house a little bit. There were a few problems we actually encountered, and one of them was the fact that the balloons Sherry brought had inappropriate words on it. By that, I don't mean any sexually suggestive words, but it's because they didn't exactly fit the occasion. They had words like "Happy Birthday!" and other strange cartoon animals printed, though it really didn't make a difference once we manage to blow them up. By the way, I realized that I cannot blow balloons very well, and I have no idea why. I can only get them up to a certain size, and then they just kind of get stuck there no matter how hard I try. I suck at blowing, and I leave it to you to decide how you want to interpret it (Cue on Sarah to laugh out loud here). And more than I sucked at blowing, I sucked at tying up the balloons. I agree with what Liz said, balloon tying really should become a sport of some kind. I was defeated by cheap rubber balloons out there at her place, and I felt weak and ashamed, somewhat. But I had the advantage of my height, which was put into good use when we had to paste the balloons on the beam that stretched from the side of the ceiling to the other. Besides, we got to cut paper, so that's kinda my forte, you know. 

So we printed out the letters that made up her name, cut it out with scissors, stuck them onto balloons with tape because an accident happened when we tried to write it with markers. Liz fished out a marker from the bottom of the table and tried to write the first letter "A" on the balloon. It was our biggest balloon at that time, and apparently it couldn't take the pressure of the tip of the marker. The moment she touched it with the marker, it exploded and Sherry gave a soft squeal of fright. That was also why we gave up on the marker idea and went straight for the paper, which took a lot more time. I pulled out the tape and stuck them to the edge of the table while the others blew even more balloons. We stuck them up towards the ceiling, and I taped two more on the fan and turned it on so that they spun around and around like those games you find in night markets which you have to throw darts at. It was a great set-up, and everything was pretty much done when April called to say that she has arrived. So the plan was to play a song while she is coming in through the front door, and we'd be dancing strangely in the living room when she sees us. Liz, of course, would be bringing her in, and then that'd be the grand surprise that we've been preparing for. 

So, the front door opened, I pressed the play button a tad bit too early, and then we became face to face with our victim as she stood in the doorway, confused and surprised. She didn't show any facial expression at first, just a "what is happening" look, and that was the moment when I thought our cover was blown and she wasn't exactly pleased with everything. Then it sunk in, with the balloons spinning on the fan and her name printed out in big bold letters, that we were there to have a farewell party for her. Then she cried, tears streamed down her cheeks like a leaking pipe, and she couldn't stop from there. It was nice, to make someone happy, even for a little while. I suppose, at that moment, we all knew that Operation Winter Coat was a great success, and even more so when the dinner was ready and Shen dished out the pasta as well as the roasted chicken, all chopped up. It was delicious, though the serving was a little modest in my opinion. Still, I did wolf down a lot of chicken, and also a homemade jelly made by somebody in the house - not Liz, whose pineapple salad I skipped. The dinner was great, and the hanging out afterwards was great too. I kinda really wanted to play board games, but the rest decided on a movie which, as it turned out, wasn't half bad. It was a great night, a great night indeed. Not to mention the fact that Liz and I started throwing forks at the balloons like darts. Childish fun for the win. 

You start to think about things, you know, when you are leaving a country for good. The future is unclear for someone like April, there isn't a certainty that she is ever going to come back. It could be Hong Kong, or she could come back here for the sake of convenience, who knows. Then you start to look at your departure date sometime next year, and you start to wonder if people are going to care about you leaving at all. Some would, of course, while others are probably going to be really glad that you are gone for good. Good riddance for some, I suppose. Their lives are going back to normal afterwards, a whole lot easier for them to move around school without bumping into me, or anybody else who are going to leave as well. It's a scary thought, but at the same time you just have to learn not to care about these things, you know? You have to zone them out, and kind of think about what you have to do, because this is what you have to do. Having these thoughts is not going to get you anywhere, really, though the ones that want you to stay is going to make it hard for you to leave. And as for the rest that cannot care less, I suppose I shouldn't care too much about those either. It's only going to be a semester anyway. And after that, I shall be back to haunt your lives all over again.