Books I have read in 2004

It seems too early to have a year round-up of anything, but I would like to take a note of what books I've read so far this year. I will update this diary from time to time until year end.

1) Boy meets girl (Meg Cobat)
2) Small Town Girl (Claudine Cullimore)
3) Sex & the City (Candace Bushrell)
4) The Sophie's World - Chinese Version (Jostein Gaarder)
5) Big Fish (Daniel Wallace)
6) Victoria & the Rouge (Meg Cobat)
7) Signals - How to use body language for power, success and love (Allan Pease)
8) How to be a Bobo in 7 days (Forgot the author's name)
9) Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
10) Can you keep a secret? - Chinese Version (Sophie Kinsella)
11) The tipping point - How little thing can make a big difference (Malcom Gladwell)
12) The secret dreamland of a shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
13) The five people you meet in heaven (Mitch Albom)

Please recommend any nice books you know, thanks.

Skin care corner
I had a hot pot dinner with my family tonight. We enjoyed the time so much. Dad drank four bottles of beer and talked a lot. Mom act as our commander to instruct us every appropriate moment to pour certain food into the pot. Meiki, as usual, kept quiet and ate as much as she could. Jeff had lot of fatty meat and fish. Me, ordered my favourite 'drunken chicken' soup base for the hot pot and drank the soup with a raw egg. Delicious.

However, hot pot is not good for skin, infact, I had already had hot pot yesterday night with Jeff and his ex-classmates. It is time to pamper my skin. I have several skin care DIY tips would love to share with you:
1. Firming face mask
Ingredients: an egg (or with honey)
Method: Simply get the egg white for normal to oily skin, or use both eggwhite and egg yolk(mix them by egg-stirrer). Honey could be added if you like. Put the mixture directly onto the face. For eggwhite mask, please leave one minute (not more) and then rinse. This mask could tighten your pores and make your face firmer and cleaner. The eggwhite and yolk mask is perfect for dry skin, please leave it two minutes to nourish your skin, then rinse.
2. Hand scrub
Ingredients: Olive oil (extra virgin) and sugar
Method: Mix the ingredients, then appy the mixture onto your hand by gentle circulating motion. Sugar could effectively remove dead skin while olive oil intensively soften your skin. This scrub is very cheap and good for dry hands or hands with chapped skin. You could use this as body scrub for your arms and legs.
3. Lip therapy
Ingredients: Vaseline (or your favourite lip balm, I suggest to use those lip balm in a pot, not moisturzing lipstick. My favourite brand is Kiehl's and Bloom)
Method: Pick a dab of vaseline or lip balm into a small container and mix it with certain amount of sugar. Use the mixture as lip scrub, apply it onto your lips by gentle circulating motion (remember they are your lips, not the wall, treat them softly or you will be bleeding), then rinse. After this step, re-apply a thick layer of vaseline or lip balm onto your lips again, use a piece of cling wrap to cover them for 15 minutes, and remove the cling wrap and let the excess balm to be absorb. Please do this therapy before sleep, you will find your lips so kissable in the next morning.
4. Cleansing mask
Ingredient: Yogurt (plain flavour, do not choose strawberry or other flavours)
Method: Simply apply the certain amount (depends on how much you need, you know, people do not have same size of face) of yogurt and wait for 10 minutes, then rinse. The yogurt could clean (but not deeply clean) your skin and make your face more radiant. This mask may not be the same effective as those ready-to-use products in the market, but you could still see the effect in long run.
5. Yummy hair moisturizing mask
Ingredients: Olive oil (extra virgin), egg yolk, honey
Method: Mix all ingredients and then apply the mixture into hair (not to your tongue, even though it tastes not bad), massage it through your every strand of hair. Wait for 20 minutes (or longer), then rinse. Shampoo and conditioner afterward as usual. You will find your hair velvetly soft and shiny.

Hope these 5 tips help you to save money and increase your charm. It is wise for every beauty lover to prepare several ingredients at home: Olive oil (extra virgin), sugar and honey. They are not only nourish skin, but also taste great.

Last week was my movie's week, I've seen several movies - '2046', 'The unbearable lightness of being', and a documentary film, 'Secondary School'.

The script of '2046' is fair and I love the meaning behind this magic year (everything will keep unchanged because it is the 50th years since Hong Kong sovereignty returned to China). 'The unbearable lightness of being' is too 'heavy' for me, it is full of sorrow, it narrates how Czech was condemned by the political instability. The surface of the story is simply about the relationship between a womanizing surgeon, his wife and his lover, but it is also symbolised how Czech people suffering in the old days. While 'Secondary School' closly shot about two so-called Band 1 schools, one is my school St. Catharine's, another one is Ying Wah. The film brings out a lot of queries about the problematic education system in Hong Kong for audience to think about . It was funny that I saw lot of teachers whom I was familiar with in the movie.

All of these three films are in diversified categories but also reflected the weekness of human being or our system. I like all of them, but if I made a choice again, I would pick a comedy to enjoy during weekend.

Unproductive day
My boss Jelly invited me, Candy, Jim (his name is Ralph today) to Yacht Club for lunch, YACHT CLUB!!! People always point their nose to sky when they tell others they go to YACHT CLUB. Jelly wanted to thank me and Candy for the expensive lunch in Japanese restaurant we treated him in his birthday. See? We guys practiced ‘reciprocity’ to maintain the good relationship.

Yesterday I felt quite pissed off because my client caught me making mistake in some charts. I hated myself a lot because I was angry about my carelessness. But it was a little bit surprise that the client tried to talk with me in his cigarette break to soothe my tension. He asked whether I was busy and how the time was when all guys in my company was having a 5 days incentive oversea trip and left me and other new hirers in office.

I will try to be more careful and alert in the next time.

This morning I didn’t feel quite well, some butterflies in my stomach. When I opened the files, I just wanted to vomit, I wanted to slip away or hide in the toilet. I did not know why, just felt stressful. My productivity gets improved this afternoon, but as some data have problem in the program, I need to wait until the program resume, it explains why I am now pretending busy and type diary on the word document.

Ah, I’ve finished the book ‘The secret dreamland of a shopaholic’ yesterday. I will start another book tomorrow. Tonight I will see the movie 2046.

Let’s check whether I could get back to my work now.

Oh today I got a comment from my lovely Grace, my 'daughter-in-law' when we were Form 2. She requested if Oey Wai and I could mention how we drew 'graffiti' on Ms. Mo's note. Ms. Mo was a new teacher that year and she was the sternest one at that moment, people just believed that we had some mental illness because we had challenged her. Actually Ms. Mo is a cheerful girl, she also studied St. Catharines before and she is typically 100% St. Cat old girl, - smart and crazy. In her second year as a teacher, Ms. Mo totally changed her teaching style and simply reflected her own self. I asked why she act remotely in the first year, she said because she thought it was 'cool'....

Okay let's talk about the legend we made. When we were form 4, Oeywai and I were form captains and PE captains, and Ms. Mo was quite familiar with us. At that time, all PE team members should participate the before-class workout once a week to maintain their level and strength, and we were one of them. One day, Ms. Mo sticked a note on PE board to tell everyone that the training would be terminated as the exam was approaching, and a smile face was drawn on that note. Then Ms. Oey and I came out a silly idea and added several lines at that lovely smile face, it was eventually transformed as to little evil with fierce teeth, a big 'fork' on the right hand and 2 spots of fire surrounded it.
When Ms. Mo discovered it, she felt so angry, but ridiculously asked two of us to investigate who did it. When we went back to our class, we laughed ecstatically, it was indifference to the situation that a police asked the thieves to catch thieves, right?
The truth was covered until I was in Form 6, that is, two years later, when I became a type of friend with Ms. Mo, I told her in Cafe de Coral. She was shocked and pretended that she knew it a long time ago, but what the truth is she also thought it was funny!, and the story was spreading from mouth to mouth!!

當我發現中學儍乎乎好朋友Oeywai在我"謬論篇"文章中留言時，煞事開心。Oeywai中學時柬著短髮，人很鬼靈精，非常爽朗，言行舉止流露著不言而諭的男兒氣概。此種女子，在我們女校特別吃得開。可能她的"啪"手指絕技真的令人覺得她很型(詳情請查閱她的留言)。我跟她玩時，有時也害怕別人會視我為情敵。

Oeywai是我中學時期最好的朋友。我們闊別多年，再見她已是大家出來工作了。還記得我在官塘"舊麥記"等她，搜尋一個"男人"的物體縱影時，一個長直髮，樣子很古惑的女子古古怪怪的對住我笑。"What!!!?"她竟然進化成女子???

我們見面雖不多，但每次我都有很多事告訴她，她是很好的聆聽者，很會體諒人。後來我結婚找她作姊妹，她二話不說應承了。結婚當天，她幫了我打點很多，我真的覺得自已很幸運。

好了，我不再說，她會囂張。

現在工作上，我很幸運地遇到另一個好朋友SamSam,我們有說不完的話題，互相支持。有她在身邊，人也開心點。

希望所有朋友們也愉快地體驗著生活，演活自己的故事。

I had a great Friday night and Saturday. It reminds me having 5-day work is a god blessing thing.

In this quiet season, I could waltz away from office with Sam at 6:15pm. Then we went to a small cafe called 'You & me' at the opposite of our building. We had an hour long chat. I ordered Horlick and Sam asked for a cup of coffee to boost herself up. Then the waiter brought me the coffee and Sam the Holick. I joked that I was elder than Sam and deserved coffee, a drink for adulthood.

This was the great beginning of my weekend life.

Today I had a facial treatment at Clarins, and supposed to have a hair straightening treatment in Espirit, but I cancelled the appointment in the very last moment. The reasons were, 1.I still had not made up my mind if I wanted to have it, 2. it is very expensive, and I should spend money wisely, and 3. need to stay more than five hours in the same place to see how the hair stylist 'iron' bring pain to my ass, and 4. I might not be look great in straight hair. After the cancellation, I felt wonderful and believed myself was a wise girl.

The happiest thing I encountered today was getting a 3D Levis jeans. It is difficult for me to have a suitable jeans because I do not have chopstick-like legs, rather, I have a pair of round thighs. (If you know who Betty Boop is, you could image how my legs look like... but surely Betty Boop pretty exaggerates my case) But guess what? When I got in a causal wear shop and flipped through the racks of jeans column, I found a 3D cutting jeans and loved it in the first sight, then I asked a sales assitant if I could try it on. In the changing room, I pulled the jeans up to my waist, the action was unbelievely seamless and without any inches of fat hindered the way. Oh it perfectly fits! You know what? This was really the first time experience since my adolence period (I got round thighs because I swam a lot in that period, you could see lot of swimmers in Olympic also had this physical characteristic). My heart beated so fast and then rushed out to mirror, and in the reflection, oh my god, the jeans perfectly matched with me, I am a girl-of-3D-jeans.

Now it rest in my wardrobe peacefully, I don't wanna admit it but I just feel so satisfactory. However, on the other hands, I felt boring to shop shop shop and spend spend spend, I mean, I want to spend my time on somethings with is more meaningful. I start to attached negative feeling to shopping after reading the hilarious novel 'The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic', which talked about how Rebecca Bloomwood bought lot of things to made her looked fad but actually she could not afford, and then she faced great problem of bank overdraft, she felt stressful but tried to relief it by - shopping, and then made the financial problem more serious, until....'

Jeff and I then decided to go library tomorrow, a place where I visited every weekend with I was very young. Let see if we could wake up early and be good kids tomorrow.

September 28, 2004 is my first wedding anniversary. When I turned my head and had a review of this year, I just discovered that I had left my parental family and got involved in my husband’s family for a whole year.

At the very beginning, I did not get use to my new status, it seemed that everyone treated me differently, and I missed my mom and dad badly. During the Honeymoon in Banyan Tree, one night I cried heavily because I wanted to go back to my parents. I just wonder if the lavender and sandal scent at the room drove me to release all my emotion.

Then I worked painfully in my previous job, as my ex-boss superstitiously believed married women would never devote in their jobs. It would be alright if I was really what he supposed, but it was so pathetic I was totally in another way. To gain his trust, I worked even harder, but I couldn’t gain the respect I deserved. It was 3 months after I got married.

That’s why I made one of my wisest decisions in my life; I quitted that sick place and stepped on my new career path. In between the jobs Jeff and I went to Japan. It was my first time to Disneyland, we spent great time there.

Gradually, I could not even sense that I have got used to my new life. Now I am also having a new job, when some moment I felt extremely exhausted, I found that my own little family is an anchor for me.