Sad news............

Before I left for work, my mom called me on my cell phone and told me to let my Uncle S inside our house when he came over. When I asked why.....

.............She told me that my great-grandmother (her grandma) passed away today..............

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Mom said that she wanted to let Uncle S use our house phone to call my grandma (who has been overseas in China staying with my great-grandma for the past couple months) and tell her the news.........I'm guessing she wasn't there when it happened (great-grandma was at the hospital the last time I heard last week) so............

..........I guess one of my relatives called my mom and told her what happened and that's how she knew before my grandma knew..........................

..............I really don't know how I feel...................the last time I actually saw my great-grandma was at least 5-6 years ago when I was coming back from a trip overseas with my dad, step-mom and brother and we stopped by her place when we had to wait 2 days for our next plane.........

.............I really really don't know what to feel...........I guess it just really hasn't sunken in yet.................... I think it was in May when my great-grandma found out that she had a tumor and only had a month or two left.....

............My brother and I were supposed to go visit her since no one else here in the US could b/c of work and my mom thought that the 2 of us should at least see her............we were supposed to go and stay in China for 3 weeks in June.............but unfortunately all the tickets for overseas were booked and so we couldn't go.................

...........................I didn't even get to at least say good-bye or see her one last time............................just like with my grandpas before they passed away........................

If what I heard my mom say on her phone to her fiance earlier at work in the office is correct, then I think that my great-grandma passed away peacefully at least..........

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.....................I'm gonna go now...................................................

.................................Rest in peace great-grandma...................................................

Ugh...been so busy lately that I haven't been on Cyworld since April.....a lot of things happened that I'd like to write about but was too tired to go online.....

Well...hopefully I'll remember to write in my blog from now on...gotta go back and write what I can remember....

I also need to update my profile....

See ya later...

At around 2:45 pm H asked me if I wanted to go out to eat lunch with him and Mom. He said that most likely we'd take 2 cars since I had work at 5:30 pm. When I asked where we were going to eat he said that we should go to this italian restaurant we haven't been to in a while.

Around 3 pm Mom, H and I were discussing our lunch plans. Mom said that I could bring my work clothes w/ me so that after lunch I could just go straight to work and change my clothes there instead of rushing back home to change and go to work.

H also said that he was meeting up w/ his friends at 5:30 at the shopping district on the other side of town and needed one of us to take him there. He still doesn't have his license yet so until then we're stuck driving him around town (mostly me).

At first we all agreed that Mom would take him so that I wouldn't have to rush to get to work on time if I took him, but Mom remembered that she had to meet someone at Hi at 5 pm. She was also feeling very tired since I think she was out since morning doing errands and got back not too long ago (I don't know since I was still asleep at the time).

In the end, we decided not to go out to lunch since we'd end up rushing to get to our individual appointments (me = work, H = friends at shopping district, and mom = meeting at Hi).

Mom had me order pizza (the usual pineapple and bacon on a thin crust) for her and H (we agreed on only 1 pizza since he was planning to eat dinner w/ his friends tonight and I could always grab a snack or two whenever I got a break at work). I ordered a 2 liter of Coke as well, since there was no soda in the house (we really need to go grocery shopping).

After the pizza arrived and everyone ate their fill, I ate the last 4 pieces since I didn't eat all day and I needed to eat something before going to work.

Sure enough, Dad arrived about 40 minutes later.

We went to the graveyard to pay a visit to my grandpa (dad's dad). While we were paying our respects to grandpa (cleaning off any dirt off the gravestone, lightting the 9 incense sticks, bowing our heads w/ our hands together 3 times), I found out from Dad that today, April 5th, was a day to visit/pay respects to the dead, some sort of holiday/tradition and that ppl in Malaysia were doing it.

He also said the best time to do it was before noon, which would explain why he was so early today, and before sunset/sundown.

Afterwards, after driving around town and discovering that some restaurants weren't open until at least 12 or 1, we ate lunch at K&W which opened at 8 am.

Oddly enough, when we entered the restaurant the line was filled w/ a bunch of navy ppl in their uniforms. We wondered if maybe they were in town for the festival.

After we finished our lunch and discovering that the usual camping store we visit after eating at K&W wouldn't be open until 1 pm, Dad took us back home b/c unfortunately he had a ton of things to do in order to prepare for his business trip, which we understood.

I told H about the whole wedding bands thing Dad had joked about getting me for my birthday present and he laughed. He teased me that it was more likely that he'd get married before I did.

Once we were at the house, Dad gave me 2 envelopes and explained about the contents. I was surprised when I heard what was inside them.

The 2 envelopes combined contained $5000!

Dad explained that H and I were to receive $2000 each as our birthday present from him. As for the extra $1000, he said to split it between the two of us and that would be our spending money from him until he came back from his trip. Dad gave the money to me to handle, count/divide and keep safe.

Before he left, he said that hopefully he'd be able to see us next week, but unfortunately not before my birthday but afterwards before he left for his business trip.

H was still in shock later on after Dad left since we've never received that much money from him before (usually the most he's ever given us for gifts/spending money is $300 each). H was glad/actually relieved that Dad had entrusted the money to me, since he (H) knew that he'd probably end up spending it all since he wasn't exactly strict w/ his money.

H said that he had planned to save the spending money Dad had given him last time in order to pay for my birthday present he had reserved for me. Unfortunately, he ended up spending at least 1/2 of it for food and other stuff and didn't have enough to pay for my gift.

We decided that I should hold onto both of our shares of the money since H couldn't trust himself not to spend all of his share.

H asked that after I was done counting/splitting the money if I could give him just $100 of his $500 spending money so that he could pay for my birthday gift, which I did about 20 minutes later once I had counted/recounted the money and split equally between the 2 of us.

I guess maybe Dad thought that our birthdays this year would be different, since I'd be turning 21 this year and H would be 18, and that we should each get something special.

I was almost done w/ this really long entry about something involving my brother H when the browser closed on me AGAIN!!!!!!

This is why I HATE writing my entrys on my laptop since just the smallest wrong movements on the keyboard will close the browser.

AND I WAS ALMOST DONE WITH THE ENTRY WHEN IT HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

HHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!