Heh last night I responded to an emergency call and went for Vic's Soka Christmas party.

Actually, I'm quite surprised at how it was quite fun both times, despite the fact that I'm the only non-Buddhist (or non-Soka person, for that matter) there. I guess the uncles and aunties and guys there are quite nice.

I arrived around half an hour late for the party, thanks to my Nazi uncle (who is also my tuition teacher, and whom I am actually eternally indebted to for helping me get my first overall 4.0 for Maths) who insisted on my understanding what surds were before leaving. (Surds are apparently root thingys. Fraction indices. Whatever.) And 159 took unnaturally long to arrive.

Vic decided to be nice and told me it was a good opportunity to hide upstairs and avoid the talk going on downstairs. After I reached her house, she gave me the awesomely cute latte she brought back from Japan (squee!) and I gave her the silk wallet I got from Cambodia for all my AVbatchies/yearmates. (Except that I keep forgetting to bring them to school so that I can give them away, sigh.)

The billiards area seemed to be deserted. It turned out everyone was inside the TV room, listening to this guy talk about Buddhism. (Of course, the TV was off.) We hung around outside first and listened to this uncle talk about how you have to be responsible for whatever you do because anything you do generates good or bad karma. Or something. So when Vic's mum asked her to go into the TV room to listen to the guy talk about Buddhism, I asked to go with her. I mean, we were practically stuck between a rock and a hard place anyway.

Guy finished talking just as we went in (I think he was called George. Not sure.) and this 20somethingyearold lady went up to talk. She looks like this Channel 8 actress, but I can't remember her name. Anyway, she talked more about Buddhism and it was pretty interesting. Then this auntie (Woman Division Member, so are men called Man Division Member? Hmm.) started talking about Debts Of Gratitude. I thought that meant telling everyone about the nice things people do for you, but it turned out to be a sharing session for members to talk about how chanting daily improves their lives. It apparently really does help a lot :O Wao.

(Please note that up till then I hadn't actually heard chanting before except from some distance away, and had no idea what would happen next.)

And then the meeting ended, but first everyone clasped their hands together in a prayer position and chanted in a deep voice.

Okay, I admit it. I got scared. I fully went "OH SHIT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO" before Vic quickly turned around and said it was okay and went back to chanting, which was actually very nice of her because I don't think you're supposed to stop chanting in the middle of, um, chanting. That was when I realised that they were just chanting and there wasn't actually anything to be scared of, except perhaps an inferiority complex from not knowing what on earth they were saying. It did sound rather impressive :/

And then everyone got up and went on with their dinner. Lolol. Dinner was good; there was sushi and beehoon and veg and crabclaws. Vic's mum kindly introduced me to everyone else my age, which basically meant Jun Sheng (?), Nigel and The Famous Haoyang. Jun Sheng was busy with his PSP, The Famous Haoyang was, well, omnipresent and Nigel was wearing awesome clothes. :D (Heh I bet nobody knew my idea of nice guy clothes was slightly faded jeans and a collared shirt. But so is Vic's, yay.)

Jun Sheng and Haoyang kept waving Fizz sweet powder in Vic's face and asking her to take it, but she apparently doesn't like fizzy sweets. Then Haoyang proceeded to give out more sweets from a truckload (or possibly the entire stock of Candy Empire) of candy from his bag. Vic, bless the trooper, didn't capitulate at the sight of all the candy. Good for her.

We were watching the apparently very exciting Vietnam vs Singapore football match, which at that point of time was 0-0. (Vietnam later won 0-1.) But Vic and I kept getting pissed because the annoying football players kept spitting on the pitch.l Like, hello, haven't they heard of basic hygiene? Then the guys switched the channel to Curse of the Golden Flower, where we saw the King's former wife-turned-assassin scolding the King, and in the process spewing...you guessed it, MORE spit. Sheesh. Why must people spit so much on TV?!

Lol then throughout the whole thing Vic and I kept arguing about Zhenghao the programming instructor, who is supposedly very smart (okay, fine, informatics.RI says he really IS smart) and wears even cooler clothes than Nigel. Wao. But I refused to believe he was smarter than, say, Zhang Aidi, because even though I don't know her I do know that she was probably too good for Maths RA. Which is ownage, seriously. Then somehow we got to the topic of Sherman Koa and whether or not he was pretty. Nigel happily thought we were talking about him and kept going "Huh? Me? You said I'm pretty?" and grinning away at us. Lolol.

After that I forgot what happened, but we watched random aunties line dance and narrowly escaped a line dancing lesson in the billiards room. Then everyone went home, so Vic's dad kindly drove me back together with Vic's auntie. Yay.