Last week, my lovely team at 24seven had our first team retreat at Aloha Loyang. The 3 days spent together was a fruitful and rejuvenating experience. We’ve got quite a lot of stuff ironed out and planned. 2010 is looking very exciting!

We’ve also invited fellow bloggers and friends for a BBQ on Wednesday night. It was a simple affair and everyone had fun (right?). I love gatherings like this. Fuss-free and casual.

As the team was occupied with “tasks” on hand that night – Kris and me at the BBQ pits, Eevon the bartender and Diana ensuring everyone gets food to eat, we didn’t have extra pair of hands for photo taking. Thanks to those who came and brought home happy photos from that night!

My best shot from that night thanks Chin for this!

More of his photos can be found on flickr.

It’s the first day of Christmas and also the start of my week long of reflection and resolution. This is a good chance for me to look back to the past year and see what I’ve done, failed to do and what I should do for the year ahead.

This one week of reflection and resolution will end on 31 December 2008, just in time to welcome the new year.

For a start, here’s a reflection of (some) events and gatherings for the people by the people.

(Did a calendar for myself with the collection of photos over the year. Looks pretty nice so I’m using them here in my first post…)

Being a Chinese, it has not been easy for me when I’m out with friends, relatives and at social events. When I am served food, and when I see meat in there, I will always ask if there’s any pork in it. Sometimes I get funny stares from the server or they’ll give me a shrug and say they’ll go check with the kitchen. When this happen, I feel bad for causing the extra work that the server has to do.

And ever since my family learned and acceptable that I’ve stopped consuming pork, I feel guilty when we gather for family dinner. Being a Chinese, pork is an essential dish on the dining table especially during Chinese New Year. I’m not asking everyone to stop serving or having this meat because of me. I just don’t touch them and eat all other dishes that have no pork in them.

I grew up living with my grandma. My favorite food prepared by her are ngioh hiang, a peranakan dish that has pork, onions, chestnut and some other stuff wrapped in a dried beancurd skin, and rice dumplings. Because of me, she started preparing these two food with chicken meat instead so that I can still enjoy them. I love grandma very much! She’s always loving and caring and never complain about the trouble she’d to go through to prepare two versions of rice dumplings with the chicken one specially for me and the pork meat one for everyone else in the family.

I’ve stopped consuming pork for more than 5 years now. And many have been asking me if I’d gone halal. My answer is no. I still drink, gamble and eat non-halal food. I’m a Chinese and no I’m not a Muslim. Whether or not I will eventually become one, is still unknown. And I hope people will understand that this is a choice that I’ve to make on my own. If I’m not ready to convert, no one should force me to just because I’m going to marry a Muslim. I respect all religion and I do believe that there’s god. And I also believe that god will never force anyone into devoting oneself to them if the person isn’t ready to. So I hope everyone around me and my Abang will understand this. And I really hope to get everyone’s blessing when the time is here, no matter if I’m one of them or not. Abang and I have come a long way together, going through much obstacles and adventures together. No matter what we decide to do, I sincerely hope everyone will understand and respect our decision.

Together always…

(And she’ll cry if she wants to…) Yes! Claud almost cried! Cos of the love and fun she had that night!

Claud loves throwing party! If she had a huge house with unlimited dollars to spend, she’ll throw one every Saturday! But in reality, Claud cannot afford to do that. But she did throw one last weekend! And it was a blast!