Teddy Bears' Picnic / Kainan 0-2

Haven't blogged for sooo long, mainly because I've been out and about a lot.

Last Friday (not yesterday) I was supposed to meet up with Roy for some computer games, but I made up an excuse about being sick and called it off. Instead, I met up with Ele and we walked down the main street together.

As I was walking up the stairs to my place, I felt like I had made the right decision.

Then on Saturday, I went into the office to do a bit of work. I was considering punting or watching a movie afterwards, but in reality, I knew I was leaning very much towards punting. There was a shop I heard of which I wanted to try out, and I even got as close as to checking out the map for it, but alas, I was saved by a message from Malay suggesting lunch.

I went to pick him and Brain up and then we went to the shopping centre near me for lunch, and we all had KFC. It was good to catch up again, but we were so close that it felt like there really wasn't any catching up to do, it was kinda like we picked up where we left off.

I asked Brain about the gym, and he annoyed me by saying he doesn't go as much anymore because the people at work he used to go with no longer work there. Like, seriously, is it really that hard to do something by yourself??

After we ate we went to JB Hi-fi and had a browse. Malay was interested in a cover for his upcoming iPhone 4S, Brain wanted a new phone (but obviously never made a decision) and I wanted to get a new hard drive to have movies copied onto. I did end up getting it and paying with my credit card, despite not really budgeting for it, but I figured that $70 would cover more than the cost of movies I'd get in return.

After that we went to Thai's place for him to copy me some movies. He was very generous in doing so, and I had to return my car to my dad so I drove off and came back while the movies were copying. I felt like a freeloader so I bought six Cherry Ripes on the way back, and coincidentally bumped into Malay and Brain who were at a convenience store also buying stuff. I remember thinking "damn, these are good friends". It was like we had all been thinking of the same thing. I could just picture if we were with G, he'd be the one holding back.

So we went back to Thai's place with a bunch of food, and watched some Youtube videos while the movies were still being copied. I remember seeing his wife come and go with the baby, and I thought to myself how I didn't want a life like his (without any diisrespect) where I'd live in the back of my parents' house with my wife and child. I wanted a better life, and the thing was, it was easily achievable IF I didn't gamble and punt.

We all left in the afternoon, and I went home to change and went out to the city to meet Roy (yes, I did end up meeting with him after all, he had suggested meeting by ourselves, instead of with his friends like before, which I didn't feel comfortable with).

We went to a Vietnamese restaurant, where I had a drink and watched him eat his food like a slob. He was a nice guy, but like G, he could use a few lessons in table manners.

I must admit, my ulterior motive in coming out was to see if I'd have any chance of seeing Tin Tin again. So I asked if he had seen Joyce lately, and he said no but he would be seeing her next Saturday with Tin Tin as they were going to Jambaroo. I waited for him to invite me but it never came, and for the rest of the meal I was bored out of my mind talking about computer games with him while thinking of a way to get to see Tin Tin.

We went to a nearby internet cafe afterwards and played Command and Conquer for nearly three hours. I was quite into it, although I think he got bored after the second hour as he suggested another game, but we couldn't find anything suitable so we returned to Command and Conquer.

We walked to our usual bus stop after that, and on the way I brought it up again. He had said earlier that he might need to rent a car for the trip, so I said if he needed a driver then I could be it. He didn't say anything, and so I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get an invite. Bastard.

Anyway, I've now decided that it was probably a stupid idea to meet up with him in the first place, as he is the sole link which identifies me as the user on the forum. So I'm gonna try to avoid him from now on.

Sunday
I was about 15 minutes late in picking up Ele for the Teddy Bears' Picnic. I drove to her place and parked downstairs while I texted her. Gosh, I felt so...I don't know, but here I was, picking up a girl I still liked, who was married.

We drove to Bill's place, and had some on and off chat during the drive. She remembered that I hadn't eaten breakfast, and was mindful of it and suggested stopping at Macca's, but I figured we were making good progress so I could eat later.

Bill's place was kinda nice. It was situated far off the main road, but the block of apartments there were really new and I could picture that place as one of my dream places to live in as a bachelor. He had a car accident the day before, hence why he couldn't drive.

We drove to the race course, which wasn't that far away. We parked next to this lady who parked way too close to the line and didn't bother moving her car, so it was a bit of a squeeze for Ele to get out. I thought "damn, if this was the type of people volunteering, then it wasn't going to be a pretty day".

But I saw that it didn't affect Ele, as she happily strolled through the entrance as we were trying to find our way to the registration place. When we found it, we lined up with other volunteers to sign up. Ele was pretty excited when it came to picking up our pink shirts and red caps. She suggested we swap phones for the day and take photos of eachother, so we took a few photos of eachother with our new shirts on.

Bill wasn't in our group, so we looked for our own face painting group, and found them with relative ease. I was expecting everyone to be "YAY! WELCOME!!" but they sorta just stayed within their own groups while Ele and I stood around. Finally the lady in charge of our group came around and led us to our spot where we'd set up the stall.

From there it was a bit easier to talk to some of the other people as we talked about how to set the place up and what we would do. We had met this guy earlier who seemed to be standing around awkwardly, called Ben. So Ele and I welcomed him into our mini group. I was surprised at how many girls there were there, and not just 'females' but girls who would fall into the 'dateable' range. It was like I had hit the jackpot, and couldn't decide which girl to 'target' because there were so many.

Ben and I had silently taken the role as queue marshalls, with me being a little more active in recruiting and welcoming customers at the front. It started off just a tad slow but things picked up rather fast. There was this one girl who was quite cute, who hadn't had a chance to paint a kid's face yet, and who I was always trying to get a kid to her but somehow the kid would always detour or get cut off by another volunteer. So I thought we may have had a thing going there, but I found it hard to approach cause she was within a group.

I could see Ele was having a tonne of fun, even though her first kid was crying, lol. There was a 'couple' there by the name of Elaine and Tim, who I thought were just really close friends, cause he acted kinda gay and she was always touching him, but Ele said they were a couple. If I was a bit younger, I would've thought she'd be almost my perfect type - not too attractive, but pretty, and very very outgoingly friendly.

It was kinda hard work to stand and walk around in the sun marshalling the kids, but it was good to see everyone having fun, especially Ele. I even bumped into Eliza from work, and I was hoping she wouldn't have that suspicious mind of me being at an event like this and working in the areaa which I work in.

After a long long time, Ele, Ben and I went for lunch. It was a late lunch, since others had already gone, and Bill couldn't wait for us. I was hoping for some hot food, but had to settle for a sandwich and drink. Elaine and Tim later joined us, and I found myself being a little shy around Elaine. After lunch Elaine suggested walking around the stadium, but Ele got stopped by some friends/colleagues when we started, so Ben and I just tagged behind Elaine and Tim. It was kinda fun to see everything, and I definitely had no regrets going even though at first I was a bit reluctant.

When we got back to our stall, there wasn't too much to do so I finally got a chance to sit down and rest my knee. I realised that by now my knee was aching with that 'tired' feeling.

Earlier I got to paint Ele like a cat with pink paint, and she looked really cute. She had also painted a star on me. Now I was painting a smiley face on her wrist. I also got a girl to paint a bee on my arm, hehe. That was when I got to flirt a bit with one of the girls, who was playfully teasing me about painting. All day I had thought she was a bit stand-offish, but here she was teasing me - it fed a little to my confidence that girls were most of the time defensive rather than stand-offish.

At the end of the day we all packed up rather quickly, then Ele and I went inside to wait for Bill. We drove back to Bill's place and Ele wanted to go in and have a look around, and they were talking about financing the property and all that. I admired his place and kept telling myself that this was what I should save up for, not stupid gambling and punting. However, I was quite surprised when Bill said that his interest payments alone were $2,500 - I thought there was no way I could afford that.

The drive back with Ele was interesting, as we talked about my finances. She really wanted to know what my money went to - if only she knew. I knew I was getting close to fire so kept quiet and tried to change topics. But I could tell she was pretty intent on helping me, which I appreciated and knew she was a good friend.

I dropped her off at home and then went to pick Bo up. I felt a bit weird, it was like I had to shift modes from Ele to Bo. I was tired, but excited at the same time from the earlier festivities.

Although I had brought my uniform and shoes, I knew I wasn't in physical form to play, as my knee was still hurting. It was a little painful to watch from the sidelines as we were beaten by a team I was sure we could beat. Having War on our team made a huge difference as he adds a lot of size. One thing that annoyed me, and I saw this coming, was Jim. The other team would cherry pick, so I asked him to drop back to cover it, and he didn't like it because it took him out of the offense. Like I said to Bo before, Jim is not a team player.

I wanted to stay and do duty but Bo said he had to go because of his assignment so we left and I drove him back home.