New Year Resolution 2006

Hope it isn’t too late to set the New Year Resolution for 2006:
1. Live up my talents and potentialities.
2. Read more, write more.
3. Be more open-mind.
4. Don’t be bogged into those tiny day-to-day problems or annoyance, focus on the big picture.
5. Be brave when facing difficulties.
6. Spend more time to my family and friends.
7. Strive for the balance between family and career
8. Don’t give up anything easily.
9. Don’t be trapped into any planning fallacy, i.e. being convinced to join any monthly plan but seldom use it.
10. Have confidence, do whatever I believe it is correct.
11. Be a nice girl most of them time, but not all time.
12. Keep learning.
13. Be a great working mother.

My secret Jewelry

Guess that I am not a totally grown up woman. As I still have not developed any obsession to diamonds yet. Rather, I love all those delicate tiny little decoration.

Ear-rings are my most favorite Jewelry. I love silver, pearls and precious stones.

Which pairs in the picture you like most? I like all of them, I can wear different pair everyday in a week!!

Silly rabbit in the greenery

This is the gift Jeff got from the gift exchange event of our New Year's Eve party. We have just planted it for 13 days and now the 'grass' grows more than 5 cm long.

Recently, this kind of 'ready-to-plant' pot is very popular in HK. I have just bought a pot calls 'sprout salad' from City Super, it will grow Sesame, if I am lucky.

TGIF!! TGI(B)F!

Thanks God It’s Friday!! Thanks God It’s Black Friday!!

Am feeling so sleepy, that is why I am writing this new entry during office hour secretly.

Felt so satisfied with the One Martha Gathering last night. One Martha, my Form 1 class name, it was a beautiful room filling with our sentiments of adolescence. 16 years after, several of us gathered in Kwun Tong again – myself, Billie, Grace, Ka Yu, Hiu Wing, Ho Yan and Carmen.

Laughs and sharing occupied our gathering; frankly speaking, I do not think any of them had very great changes. Billie changed most because she wore contact lens instead of spectacles, which made her eyes looked bigger.

And we have quite diversified lives and living style, everyone experienced something. Although we did not afford to have a detail current update of everyone, I can tell that each of us is embracing our adventurous lives.

Grace, you look as cute as you were.

Billie, thanks again for arranging this sweetest gathering!! Do you remember the first person who sits next to you in St. Catharine's was ME!!!!!

An unfortunate loyal customer

I am not a die hard fan of Delifrance, but I buy my take away lunch there about 3 times a week in average, because there are lack of choices for healthy food in North Point.

Unfortunately, today I got a god d$%^&*(*&^am 'rewards' from this French fast food restaurant (but with slow and inefficient service comparing with Cafe de Coral).

I bought a salad lunch set today which cost me HK$45. It is kinda expensive to me. I used to have sandwiches but today my impulse buying was definitely led by the impulse and irrational desire toward vegetable, that's why I spent the dollar stupidly to a pack of pre-made refrigerated vegetables, mayonnaise and cheese mixture.

When I opened the plastic bowl, I discovered that the bottom layer of vegetables were frozen, covered with frost, and a heartless label on the lid told me that the expiry date was today... Technically it was not expired at all, but I could tell this was definitely not fresh.

As I had to rush for a meeting, I had no time to go back to the restaurant to complain. And I also felt very disappointed that I did not even want to spend time to 'offer' a complaint to the restaurant, you know, I only complain to someone/something because I still have hope to it.

And this lesson teaches me, if I want to eat salad, it is better to make the salad by myself, because most restaurants have the same procedure to prepare salad as Delifrance.

Sea gypsies, Moken people

CBS photo

Our planet is consist of millions of different cultures and ethnicities, the world is full of variety.

In the 60 minutes plus program tonight, there was a story covered a minority group living in Andaman sea, which is along Thailand and Burma. This was one of places which faced the most serious attack of the Tsunami on Dec 26, 2005, but they had no casualties at all during this catastrophe.

It is not difficult to understand, because they are sea gypsies, they are the nomads on the sea. Unlike the so-called 'modern civilized culture' of the outside world, they have the strong intimacy to the ocean, which makes them to get familiar with the sea thoroughly, they develop the strong and sensitive sense towards the disaster. An old Moken man asked everyone including some tourists to flee to the high ground when he saw the coastline receded, he saved many lives.

There is another story of Moken which interested me a lot. All Moken people cannot tell you how old they are. According to the French anthropologist Jacques Ivanoff, in Moken language, there is no conception of 'time', they do not have a concept of 'now' and 'then', '2 years ago' or 'yesterday'. No wonder that I can see the special sanctuary on their faces, because they are so moderate and never need to rush for striving everything within any setting time frame. And for them, the question of how long the does the Earth exist in this Universe seems meaningless.

In their language, the concept 'want' is also absent. Moken people only know what is 'give' and 'take', but it seems that, innately, they do not have lush and desire as we are. Probably that they do not fight for anything, because they do not want a lot.

Here, we can see people shape their language, and how the people are shaped by their language and culture.

A great year ahead!

Dear readers, may I wish you have a joyful 2006.

My new year started with a wonderful party with my family.

On Dec 31 evening, we gathered in my parent's home to celebrate the new year and also my mom and dad's birthday. I made an Oreo cake for them. This was the first time we had such a serious birthday party for my parents.

In the party, we also had a gift exchange event. Obviously, my parents, aunt and uncle were the most exciting one during the program. My dad chose the biggest gift literally, he supposed the biggest the best! I bet that he supposed it was a bottle of wine! But turned out, it was a towel and slippers set! His mouth curled downward when he unwrapped the gift.

After that, some of them played Mahjong. And me, my sister, my little cousin and my mom sat together to see all of our 'historical' photos. We kept many albums through out the decades, from my parent's wedding to my wedding. We laughed a lot as we wondered what a big change we had in these years. We passed over various periods, from a delicate little girl, to a 'sturdy' but miserable adolescence, to a normal grown up. This was the best review by the end of the year I ever had.

Then, very old fashioned, we had the counted down in front of the TV during mid-night, and sent bliss and wishes to each others.

Happy new year to you all, wishing for the world peace and no war!

Pic 1: A bunch of gift - this were the gifts we received. I got a DIY calendar, Jeff had a lovely pot

Pic 2: Oreo cake - A birthday cake for my parnets, it didn't look very nice, but it tasted fantastic!