特種新媽媽

2007年香港出現了一股嬰兒潮(Baby Boom)，很多新媽媽出現。
除了經濟好轉、金豬年效應外，就是大肚或當媽媽變成一件很酷的事。孕婦時裝已不是侷限「媽媽世界」格仔背心裙內套Ｔ恤下襯短白襪波鞋，而是挺著大肚子穿可愛連身裙加蕾絲legging，再配銀色珠片球鞋等。

新媽媽除了愛惜BB，也愛惜自己，她們會努力修身，使自己更美麗，因為她們相信，BB及丈夫會喜歡自信及愛自己的媽媽。

我們這一代女性比以前幸福得多，沒有人再要求做女人要含辛茹苦忍辱負重刻苦耐勞。我們有更多選擇，更能掌握自己的命運。

快到母親節，我要向我的媽媽及婆婆致敬。她們是女強人，因為她們勇於接受挑戰，當別人的媽媽。 Salute to the mommies.

氹氹轉

究竟在之前日誌那首「騎呢」英文童謠是出至何處，我想很多讀者也估到(我的翻譯還不錯吧)，對！就是氹氹轉！

氹氹轉
菊花園
炒米餅
糯米糰
阿媽佢叫我去睇龍船
我唔去睇
睇雞仔
雞仔大
我拎去賣
賣得幾多錢
賣得幾多隻呀

老友，好多事物看似老土，其實酷得不得了。如果用饒舌(RAP)方式演譯氹氹轉，就真叫人喝釆！新瓶舊酒，有市場呀！

Bourgeoisie English Freak

Many educated parents, especially those are bourgeoisie concern so much about their kid's English proficiency level. Fluent English is perceived as an essential tool to reach the higher steps in social ladder. For some of them, relatively, Chinese is not important, some of them even pretending they are Eurasians and avoid to speak Cantonese, such as when they want to complain about a waiter or civil service sectors.

To cater their need, I would like to translate a traditional Cantonese lullaby to English, and I would suggest those Kindergartens in Kowloon Tong to involve it in singing lessons. Guess what it is:

Turn, turn around,
Chrysanthemum garden,
Frying rice cake,
Sticky rice dough!
Ah Ma she asks me to see dragon boat,
I don't wanna see,
See chickens,
Chickens grow,
I bring them to sell,
How much I can get,
How many can be sold!!!

Sounds weird?? Yes! My friends, something is worth for us to respect and reserve - I mean our local and Chinese culture. Spending effort on English does not mean we should sarifice Chinese. The worst case is finally in the middle of no where......


P.S. I will show the Chinese version in the next entry.

Three Zero – In office

To all young pretty ladies in your twenty-something, don't worry about reaching three zero, it is not really a critical drastic-changing moment. I do not feel any difference between today and yesterday.

I feel very fine today, because:
1. Today is warm and sunny
2. My skin condition is quite okay today, and I wear make up
3. I can slide myself into the tight jeans as usual, seamlessly.
4. Jeff drove me to work
5. BB is happy this morning
6. Bosses are out of town, plus today is Friday.
7. My RE friends treated me lunch.
8. My DP friends sent me a birthday gift, is a MuDull cushion.
9. Have finished a portion of the report as my planning.
10. Have done another job and sent to client.
11. Don't have to rush on other works.
I will have a dinner with Jeff and Lucas, I am a lucky ... and yummy... mom, I think.

A greener Kwun Tong

The Urban Renewal Authority had submitted a redevelopment plan of Kwun Tong to the Town Planning Board. It claims that the new design meet the mainstream opinion of residents which had been collected in last two years.

The authority presents the new plan can boost green area up to 30%. 70 old trees will be preserved and 500 new trees planted.

I am so familiar with this old satellite town because my secondary school is located there. I have wandered around Kwun Tong for 7 years. The district is old and packed with people and building like can food. If you ask me the represented colour of Kwun Tong, I will say grey.

However, it does not mean I dislike this place. In opposite, I have a strong feeling to it. This little town is not beautiful, but contains tonnes of my memories - my school life, the swimming pool I used to practice swimming and life saving, old ladies who jumped into the line, the two McDonalds... It means a lot to me.

I do wish The Urban Renewal Authority does consider social concern and resident needs in this project. I do wish Kwun Tong will become much greener and nicer.

Shanghai Babe

Thanks my sister for this birthday gift - A qi pao lovely Blythe. She is so gorgeous and sexy.

Shanghai Babe, welcome to my Blythe's family.

Three Zero

I will turn in 30 on this Friday. Frankly speaking, I thought I had reached my thirtieth for quite some time, the birthday reminds me I am still not actually.

I thought I would have a big impact when I reach this 'milestone', you know, 30 is a really sensitive number to women. However, the feeling is not as strong as I expect.

May be I have too good psychological preparation about three zero, or I feel quite satisfied to what I achieve so far - Lucas means so much to me!

Being a blogger for 3 years!!

Happy 3rd anniversary of Manki's Secret Diary!!!

To all my long-term readers, greatly thanks for your support, I will keep writing and hope you do not mind I grumble a lot and talking silly things here!!

I am having tremendous changes in these three years and thanks god that the existence of blogsphere assists me to record down every memorable moment.

Ha!! I am really a blog freak!!

Fancl Washing Powder

Cleansing is the first and the most important step of skin care. An effective cleansing product gets your skin well prepares for moisturizer.

Being an 'addict' of skin care stuff, I tried numbers of cleanser, Fancl Washing Powder is the one I love most so far. It acts as a good start of my everyday beauty ritual.

With just several drops of water, the powder can turn into puffy and creamy foam, it helps you to clean all dirt gently yet effectively. Your skin will be fresh clean, tighten and supple.

From my experience, by simply work well in this first step, it saves you a lot from other products, such as exfoilators or masks, as your skin will become more perfect.

CHANEL - CHANCE SERIES

Good news to my readers: I am going to launch a new category in my blog - 'Shop' with no 'aholic'. Literally, I will share my experience of some BEST and WISE buy (I think). Being a modern woman, we should spend our (or our another half) money smartly, without sacrificing the comprehensive saving or investment plans. (I believe that some of my readers are stylish men and I am sure you will love this column also).

Surely your sharing is more than welcome. I do believe talking about favourite purchases is a fast way to establish some bonding between friends or even strangers.



Alright, the first best buy I wanna tell you is two bottles of luxury fragrance - Chanel Chance and Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche. I am a fan of its first version - Chanel Chance several years ago, I was stunned by its print ad - a sexy young lady hugging a giant size Chanel Chance. I also fell in love with it scent since the first 'smell'. After several 'months' of consideration (I was a poor little girl at that moment), I decided to own one bottle, then it accompanied with me for almost one year.


Different from its original, Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche is in sparkling light green colour, the refreshing and crispy scent matches the coming summer time perfectly , without losing the classic aroma of Chanel Chance. A lucky girl like me have owned one since several weeks ago, is proudly paid by myself.



Just splashing several tiny silver drops of Chance or Chance Eau Fraiche, the indescribable nice scent will stay with you the whole day long.



Chanel Chance series is exclusively for brave, confident and unique young girls. (That means me, hahahah!)

Cubicle

I am going to write a script for a short drama performance.

The story name is 'Cubicle'. It is talking about a typical working man in his early 30's who is stuck in his small cubicle in a giant office from 9am-8pm everyday.

The whole performance requires one setting - the cubicle only. However, many things can happen in his tiny regime. His imagination tries to set him free, even though his boss always spies on him.

This is a story about stress, anger, desperation, aspiration of a down-to-earth white collar.

Jeff said I am crazy because I am trying to drive people crazy.

Hahahah, let see.

公益金百萬行2007

能夠參與在西部通道舉行的公益金百萬行都算有意義，但不是太好受，因為盡入眼簾同肺部，多是懸浮粒子。

Mr. Bean's Holiday

I saw the poster Mr. Bean's Holiday in last London Trip, me and Sam became exciting instantly and desperately wanted to mimick the poster.

Rowan Atkinson (the real name of Mr. Bean) is always my favourite. Like Charlie Chaplin, Atkinson is an extraordinary comedian who is the icon of an era. When I knew that he was suffering from depression couple of years ago, I feel bad for him. After Johnny English, thanks heaven that he is willing to take another challenge and act in this new movie, the feeling is like my close friend coming back and I will not hesitate to visit and support him at cinema.

Mr. Bean's Holiday, the warmest Bean's movie I had ever seen. Mr. Bean, keep it up, you are doing great job!!!

Miss Potter

I have not read a good book like this for quite a long time.

The own story of Beatrix Potter is more captivating than the tales she wrote.

A spinster who had extraordinary talent and imagination, who had courage to walk another path that away from the one her parents tried to force her to, Beatrix started to publish story books when she was 36, being encouraged by one of her father's friend. Her first step to encounter the real world had altered her life, utterly and completely, she was no longer sharing time only with her drawings and animal characters, she received an unexpected love from Norman Warne, the youngest son of the family of the publisher, then the tragic loss, then an independent life....

This is more than a love story, every page is just enchanting. I am laughing and weeping with characters.

Now, the story is made into the motion picture, I would love to see, but I should prepare several packs of tissue.

Female-dominant industry

I believe that Market Research is a female-dominant industry.

Let's take our company as a benchmark, the gender-split of each department is shown as below:

Administrative Department: Male 11%/ Female 89%
Research Department: Male 19%/ Female 81%
DP/IT Department: Male 27%/ Female 73%
Operation Department: Male 33%/ Female 67%
Company/ Group directors: Male 75%/ Female 25%
Total: Male 27%/ Female 73%

It demonstrates girl power surpasses man's, if it is calculated by quantity. Even for those work which male is excelled in typically, such as DP/IT, is still crowded with girls.

The only exception is the company/group director segment, but I can tell you the power of that single woman, our highness, is having stronger impact than the those gentlemen.

Female is also gaining higher proportion among the positions of director grades or above recently. We have 50% of department directors are women.

Who say female are vulnerable, emotional and irrational? We can also pick up jobs need strong analytical and rational thinking in work place, and remain sensitive and sentimental during our daily life.

Wow, we girls can shoulder half of the sky.

Surrender

When that old gentleman was sneezing next to us, when the 4 creepy kidults was imagining how exotic Hong Kong is in front of us, when I was sitting in my chair with limited space to even merely straighten my leg, I knew that I would catch the flu from that gentleman in the flight.

Maybe this is another apparent example of self-fulfilling prophecy. I got sore throat since I had came back to Hong Kong. I strongly believed that my psychic energy and determination could heal the sickness, but I was wrong.

Finally it developed as a flu with itchy throat and running nose, I should consult doctor and take medicine two days ago.

I want to wipe away the yellowish from my face by facial scrub and deep cleansing mask, but lack of effectiveness is shown. Yellow is still Yellow.

Hope I can get well soon.

Learning from Jelly - variable

X-axis should be independent variable and dependent variable always locate at Y-axis.

@#$%^&*&()_)**&!!! How can I forget this simple basic rule which I have learnt from Mathmatics classes in secondary school???!!!

Learning from Jelly - Chi Square

Q: Why and when should we use Chi Square in analysis?

A: We use Chi Square if no known distribution in the data. Generally, in the nature arena, such as height and weight of people, length of rabbit ear can form a perfect bell-shape graph. However, data we get from research will hardly fall into any normal distribution. For example, distribution of income level in the population usually skews towards lower the tier. Since we cannot expect a normal distribution, we can use Chi-Square to check the pattern.

Exception Analysis (Tukey) is calculated by Chi Square.

??? Correct me if I am wrong.

Hiking

Today Jeff and me went hiking, we walked from Fo Tan to Tsuen Wan in 3 hours, had climbed over two hills.

London Day 6

The places we have been on Day 6:

British Museum
Border bookstore
Chaotic Heathrow Airport, a place with no rubbish bin, and people are pushing and yelling to each others.
A CX flight with 4 European young men laughing and yelling like kids are sitting in front of us. One of their strange habits is switching on the reading lights even they are finally willing to calm down and sleep...

After all, it is still a funny trip.

London Day 5

I want to shake the jet lag from my head in last few days, but I am still in the day dreaming mode in today afternoon.....

That explains why I still could not finish my diary of the London trip in the past 48 hours. Anyway, let try my best to do part of it now.

On the fifth day -

It is my lamest day on this England Island. We made a mistake that the park in the neighborhood is Hyde Park but actually it is Green Park. Anyway, we can reach the real Hyde Park this morning.

Elegant white geese greet us in the fresh early morning air, it is blissful to just sit along the lake side and looking at them playing and mating. Many local residents spend this fair morning to jog with their pets of babies. What a harmonic and beautiful picture. Parks in Hong Kong are nice also, but they are nothing when comparing with this backyard of Buckingham Palace.

Why I say I am so lame today, because in the next station, the National Portrait Gallery, I allow myself to fall asleep in the reading area!!! What can I blame the Gallery? They provide me such a Velvet-like soft one-seat genuine leather sofa in black colour, I do not want to move even my toes once I fall into it. I try to block people viewing me by holding a magazine in front of my face. However, thanks to my team-mate Sam, she video-recorded my sound sleep for 1 minute.

I can't believe I can do this in such a historical and sophisticated place. I guess the video is already in you tube...

Thanks Sam that she makes a wonderful plan for the remaining time of today - We go back to Covent Garden to shop for souvenir and then back to the hotel. I have a strong feeling that Park Lane Mews Hotel is my most favorite place when we arrive there at 5 something. We 'hea' in our room until 7 something and go to the Strait Restaurant again for the dinner.

What a lovely day. I just realize that I am so obsessed in sleeping.

London Day 4

Right, I have already finished my amazing London trip. Poor that our IP had been blocked (maybe) in Park Lane Mews and I could not connect to internet in the last few days during the travel...

Anyway, it gave me more time to sleep, and it is not too late to do the record now.

On the fourth day in London, I wake up early as usual. The weather is extremely lovely, the only unlucky thing is our camera is out of power, anyway, the phone camera is also a good and handy substitute.

The first place we go is the National Gallery. This is the third time I had been there but every visit will still bring you various surprise and impression.

The next stations are Soho, China Town and Leicester Square. All these famous places are just within the walkable distance.

In the evening, we went to The History Musuem in South Kensington. It is not a very popular tourist spot but our aim is to meet my friend Paula. She is working there. The building looks so historical and lovely. If you have seen the movie 'Night at the Musuem', you will be amused by the British humour there... The subway connects between the tube and this musuem is covered with numbers of posters of 'Night at the Musuem'. You could not help but laugh aloud when you see that dinosaur's skeleton model in the middle of the hall.

With Paula's recommendation, we go to Sangria, a Spanish Restaurant in Angel, that is the most decent dinner we had in these 5 1/2 days. We enjoy fine food and and also having girl talks through the night. It is around 9 something when we go back to Green Park. We guess that will be a football match on TV, all puds are getting crowded and we can see many werid yet typical football manic people with unusual hairstyle and make-up all over the tube and the street, not to mention bunches of drunken messy guys fooling around. I think this is the most interesting and exciting thing I see in London. It is really a flip from the morning to the night.

A good news that I have uploaded all London Trip photos, please feel free to visit the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com.hk/chiyuen/LondonTrip

ENJOY!!