Tuesday, October 12, 2004

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!!

Sunday, October 10, 2004

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.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

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.

Saturday, September 25, 2004

Last Thursday Sam and I got a 20 minutes tarot reading session. The practitioner, Jeff, is a round face young man. Although it was quite expensive, $190 for a session, we still thought it was worth.

Tarot is a deck of 78 cards originated in Northern Italy 500 years ago. The cards contain various symbols deeply rooted in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, many relate to myths or legends. It is a tool of divination and is believed to reveal the hidden reality or psychological thoughts. People always associate tarot with magic, gypsies, spell or witchcraft. As the idea of 'New Age' is growing rapidly in the recent decades, more and more people believe tarot is a effective tool for guidance.

I always have great interest to study the 'supernatual' stuff. Remember that my most favourite course in Anthopology is 'Magic, Myth and Supernatural'. Divination is one of the topics in this course, anthropologists could not prove whether tarot or other fortune telling are 'true', but we assume that they make sense in cultures and fulfill human's psychological needs.

We were excited while having the tarot reading but kept reminding ourselves with skeptical attitude. You know, being market researchers, we should be rational to everything we see and hear. After we had asked questions, Jeff drew out several cards and made interpretation. His interpretation was greatly influenced by the depth of question we provided. For example, Sam asked him several specific questions, he could guess her current situation accurately and then provided her some guidance. However, the questions I asked were very vague, then his interpretation was not that satisfactory. That is why I commented that tarot reader is like psychiatrist, he/she helps you to unwind your inner struggle, and through rationalising the interpretation, you could find your direction in the cloudly situation.

It was a very amazing experience, and I will encourage my friends to have a shot of it. I do not think people who believe tarot reading is superstitious, as long as they do not totally depend on it to make any single decision.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Yesterday was my direct boss, Jelly's birthday. (Surely Jelly is a nick name). I did not know until 5:15pm, whenI came over his office to discuss about fixing up some charts, he then updated a file name and asked me what the date was.

'um.. 21st.' I replied.
'No.' He said
'No?...' I wondered.
Then he cried out 'Today is my birthday!!!'
'Oh so happy birthday!' It was a conditional response, no need to pass through the brain.
'So you better remember that.' He said in a funny voice.

Then today me and another colleague treated him lunch in a Japanese restaurant downstairs. He looked very cheerful, like a Santa Claus (he has all the features of this fairy tale character - round face, little hair on the crown but lot of hair around the chin, full and rosy cheeks, and blue eyes). He promised he would pay us a lunch next time.

Then today afternoon I don't have much work to do, I could even have a drink with my buddies after work and go for the dinner with my hubby and his friends. This is the life I missed in the last 4 months.