Pop philosophy
The thing is, I sit behind a piano. Years ago, I hated it. I wanted to leap around and be a singer and I was stuck behind a piece of wood. That's why I used to jump up and down on it; I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix. Nowadays, I'm 47, I'm glad I'm stuck behind a piano.
-The pre-knighthood Elton John on growing old gracefully from an interview in the week that he was honoured by the BRITS in 1995.

That's a nice quote, isn't it? People tend to think piano as an classical instrument, but he actually made it sound like something more than a classical instrument. He gave it a soul, and it's not the kind of soul that Beethoven or Mozart gave to their pieces, it's the soul of pop...

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about piano (I am not an advent music student in the first place :P ). I am going to talk about Deepavali- the festival of light.

This year, I attended my first Deepavali celebration. My father's staff invited us to his house, and I thought it was only a visit with cookies and fizzy drinks. It was only moments later than I realize that we are also having dinner there, and I've my dinner at home! Being too polite to refuse the offer, I forced down the rice and the dishes. (I'm sure I'm gonna gain extra weight... I'm fat enough already. T_T )

Ok... despite all the grumbles about gaining weight, I must admit their cookies are rather special, especailly a wierd cookie (or cake?) which is round and orange in colour... Me and my younger brother find it interesting, we each ate one; but my two younger sisters find it too sweet, and were giving me hints and signals that they can't force it down their throat. When the host is out of sight, I took that orange cookie from them and gave it to my brother (he still wants it).

And the homes of Indians have a rather particular flower smell... The smell is very strong and I'm not very used to it... Thank god that the mechanisms of our senses works in such a way that after smelling something for a long time, the smell will go off.(To put it precisely, our receptors stop sending messages to our brain, but I'm not going to talk about Biology...)

And few days after Deepavali, my father's staff gave lots of Indian cookies, so I'm pretty much eating them during tea time every afternoon.

Man... I'm going to get really fat...

Another festival I would like to touch about is Christmas.

No kidding, it's Christmas. 3rd of November, our school (a convent school) held the annual Christmas concert. The reason for holding it so early: the whole of December is our school holidays.

Watching people I know acting on stage, I couldn't help but to feel amused about it. J, who is a girl of fickle temper and silly, hilarious antic is actually acting as an angel! An angel is always someone who is patient and gentle, but she, she as an angel!?

The scene below would give whoever that is reading this a better idea of how that 'angel' turned out...

The girl pinched the angel to ascertain that she is real, and the angel replied: "Ow, that's pain! Your are so dead, man!"

All of us anonymously agreed that J should act as the devil instead...

And Crapy was santa claus! A girl, acting as santa claus, and she is not wearing that cute red skirt where girls normally wear! She is wearing the white beard and pop belly! It was hilarious! She would no doubt stay in my memories for the next 10,20 years to come. Hahahaha!

That day, when I'm in the car with my younger brother with his friend, I asked: "Do you all believe in Santa Claus?"

My brother initially answered no, because it's actually a man wearing costume. His friend answered yes, cause Santa visited her to give her presents, and he entered her house by using magic. (That's a no wonder... Santa couldn't possibly use the chimney cause we don't have one, and Santa couldn't possibly enter through the door cause the burglar alarm will go off.)

And I start asking the small girl, what she did to make Santa come to her house. This is the list of things:

1. A glass of milk
2. A plate of oreo cookies/chocolate
3. Socks
4. Be a good boy/ girl
5. Do not shout
6. Do not cry

Than finally I asked my brother once again: "Do you believe in Santa Claus?" And this time, he answered yes. We gleefully wrote down all the requirements to attract Santa to our house this Christmas, and of course, this means that I would have to play Santa this year... No problem, it's a small effort to ignite the proper childhood imagination in my brother... ^0^

'I die your death, you live my life...' quoted by the priest/father that preached about Christmas on our Christmas concert.