I guess since I didn't have a good start in New Year, I was doomed to have a bad start in Chinese New Year as well. So I was supposed to meet up with my parents for lunch today. Since it is first day of Chinese New Year, all the vegetarian restaurant for sure would be full (It is tradition that we eat vegetarian dishes on the first day of New Year). And we once again forgot to make reservation so we changed to go to Yaohan food court instead. We must be mad to decide to go to Chinese mall on Chinese New Year. Cause it was packed! And holiday always brings out the worst of people. When I was waiting for a parking spot, somebody pissed me off so badly that I almost went to beat him up. So I was waiting in a lane for an open spot. A couple walked by and I signaled immediately. Unfortunately, a van on the other side signaled the same time as me. I figured since they have kids and whole family, I would be nice and gave up the spot. And then another lady walk to the spot behind me. So I signaled again. Another car behind me wanted to signal but saw me and left, but the stupid car behind him signaled for the same spot. I was so mad. I was trying to back up more for the car to pull out. Now he stupidly parked behind me so I couldn't move. I figured I can't sit there forever and make that lady sit with us. I would move my car forward and still signal. If he took my spot, I am going out to beat him out. When he saw me move my car, he immediately move his car right behind me. I have no way to take that spot now. What the!!! NOW I AM FURIOUS! I was swearing furiously in my car. I decided I will wait till he park and go out to yell at him. Then I saw a car in front of me pulling out and no one waiting. I took that spot and don't feel like yelling at him again. When I sat down for lunch, I was still shaking from being pissed at that stupid driver! I was never so upset about parking. But I guess losing spot twice make me lost control.PS. On a side note, I got a very nice backpack today and very good deal. It has some hidden feature that I didn't notice when I bought it. So I am very happy now.
PS. Oh, and Happy Chinese New Year to you all!
I would never ever list my expenses again. Not only now I felt depress about paying all those bills, I now also feel stress about how to save money. With all my utility and mortgage, I don't have much left. Even if I want to save a tiny amount, I have to really control my spending. I got so stressful even just thinking about it. I am thinking about area that I want to cut. One person doesn't really need to watch that many channels. And since I only watch couple hours a day anyway, I really should consider cutting it down and just have basic cable. It would save me tons there. And my coffee and lunch money. I am not sure I am ready to give it all up entirely. But may be I could limit myself on each day spending. I am also very tempted to give up my tithing. That is a fair amount that I could put good use to. I know it is like stealing from God, but that amount really makes such a difference. I don't know if that mean I am lack of faith. I should just take that step of faith and give and trust that God will provide enough for me. And I know it is not a life-and-death situation that I need those money for, but I really want some liquidity asset. I know that is not a good reason to stop tithing. And I know tithing should be from the heart and not an obligation. How come I still feel bad about cutting that then?!
My BC Hydro bill last night arrived last night and shocked me quite a bit. I thought I opened up my neighbor's mail or something. It was double of what I usually pay. I thought may be this time they charge for longer period. But it is the usual two months. Then I tried to remember did I actually pay more in the winter last year cause you usually would turn on the heat. But I turned off my heat ever since I moved in. I don't even know if it worked at all. And a good thing about the BC Hydro bill is that they have a little chart on the side compared your current bill with last several period. And it showed that my usage was TRIPLE than what I usually use. I can't imagine how that happen. If I live in a house, may be someone is stealing my electricity. But I live in an apartment. How the heck is that possible?! The only thing I could think of is I baked more during that two months period. But it was only 3-4 days and it can't triple of what I usually use. So I called today to understand what happen. The lady answering the phone was extremely helpful. I explained my situation and she agreed that this is weird. So she just reverted back my bill to the usual usage without further question. This is the least hassle phone call I ever made to get my money back. Now if stupid Fido understand what I meant by canceling my brother's cell phone and giving me back my $2, I would be so much happier.
I went to my first cooking class tonight. It went pretty well. I was a bit scared at first cause I don't really like cooking with strangers. I was a bit stress out about people looking over my shoulder and I don't know if I am doing thing right. It is like my manager looking over my shoulder the other day and I totally couldn't do any work. But seem like not everybody know what they are doing too. So it was not too bad. The best part is I learn some knife skill. Chopping was usually the part that I don't like doing. I cut very slow. And I usually do big chunk. It would get bigger and bigger too cause I got bored in the end. And today, I learnt how to prepare some vegetable, how to pick them, and how to cut it. I am actually pretty happy that I didn't cut my finger again. Today's dish is very simple. Just a vegetable soup to get us practicing cutting up vegetable. And also teach us how to make stock/broth. Another good thing about the class is that I don't need to do my dishes. We have assistants who are taking the full time chef course helping us. They will come around to teach us, do dishes, even sharpen our knifes. I wish I have one of those at home when I cooked. I am looking forward that the next class when we actually do a complete 3 course meal.
I got sick of my money kept disappearing on me. Every month when I got my pay check, my account was up for a second and then the money slowly got swollen into some unknown black hole. And whatever little left there, when I saw my credit card bill, it all goes in. I finally decided that I would lay out what I spend each month that I know of regularly and put out a budget so I could save some money. I really want some liquid asset. When I wrote down all my loan and utility bills and stuff, it actually add up to be quite abit. I am actually spending less than I expect. I always know I am a big spender. My friends always said I waste too much money. But not even taking the yearly expenses (house insurance, alarm, property tax, etc) into account, it is way more than I expected. Living by oneself surely is expensive. I know I could start cutting on my expenses, like my coffee or my cable . But I don't know if I want my desperate measure yet. I like my coffee in the morning. Last time cutting it for 3 months was killing me. And my cable. I don't have to have Chinese TV and all those extra channels, but I really like having them. I guess I have to work on my priority and think what I really need if I want to save anything at all.
This is an eventful day so I have to make a third blog entry. So today I finally kicked my lazy ass downstairs to grab my mail tonight. It has been a week now. I figured I don't have too much mail anyway so I could grab it once a week. Bad thing: I found I got a letter from an adjustment company that require my immediate attention. Months ago I got this parking ticket from City of Richmond. I put it aside and then forgot about it. Not until during my Christmas vacation when I cleaned up my left over mail, I found this and paid it right away. And of course I way way passed the deadline that you could pay half price and I had to pay in full. And in case you going to do illegal parking, do it in Richmond. It is cheaper than Vancouver. Anyway, apparently the government doesn't like people owing them money for months. And my record was sent to an adjustment company already. In the letter they said I have to pay it back within 5 days. The letter was written on Jan 6 and for sure I once again missed the deadline. The letter always said to avoid confusion, I should pay to the adjustment company. Here comes the problem. I did pay my fine already before they sent the letter but to City of Richmond directly. I tried calling them but I guess the office was closed already. I wonder how things going to work now. Would proving to them that I did pay my ticket get them off my back? In HK, adjustment company usually own by gangster. So they threaten people to pay up by calling them, painting outside their door (red paint writing pay off the debt), etc. So far there is no red paint outside my house. I guess I am safe, hopefully at least till Monday when I called them to clear things out?!
This is indeed an exciting day at work (except my screw up). Someone broke into our office again! This is like the third time someone came in and stole our computers. We already installed alarm and motion detector after last broke-in. But seem like they can still find their way in. Several days ago someone broke the window beside my friend. We didn't pay much attention to it, probably thinking it was just a prank. He even teased me saying that I must be practicing to assassinating him and aim badly. And last night they threw a rock against the same window and stole a very old Mac. All of us felt almost sorry for the burglar cause it was a waste of effort. I don't know how much money you can make from selling a 10 year old Mac. It is a piece of crap. It was more a hassle for people who sat in that cubicle. They had to move to other desk until they cleaned up the broken glass. My friend still claimed that it was my assassination attempt to kill him. I told him that may be he shouldn't sit next to a window. He had too many enemies and who know when the next attempt would be :P. On the plus side, one of my friends got put in a room for the time being. I told her to slowly put her stuff in there and claimed ownership. 
My friends always tease me about my very flexible working hour. That is, I go to work after 10am. So I made a bet with a friend last night that I would make it to work at 8am. If I won, I got free dinner. No one thought I could do that. I don't even know if I could hear my alarm clock too. But since we never said what he won if I lost (hehehe) I figured it was a win-win situation. And today, despite my half dead body from the OT from last night, I could still get up. I thought I had plenty of time to get a nice breakfast to reward myself too. But as usual, when I had plenty of time, I usually fool around my house and don't get out the door till last minute. After grabbing my coffee, my time became very tight to arrive at 8am. I had to give up my fancy warm breakfast. When I finally parked my car and rushed to my desk, it was 7:58am. I quickly brought up my Outlook and send a message to my friends that I have arrived at the office on time. Then I started working. When my friends got in to work, they were surprised that I actually could get in that early. Then the friend that I am having a bet with said yahoo said the email was received at 8:00:02am. So I was two second late! I was like what!!! I tried so hard to be there and you said what! I am pretty sure I sent the email before 8am. With network latency and stuff, it makes sense the email arrived few seconds later. I was trying to prove that I did send the email before 8am, but stupid Outlook swallowed the header information. I asked my friend at work for help and the procedure he told me sound very complicated, especially when I was lack of sleep. I guess I have to keep whining next time I see him or threaten to drop his girlfriend if she came climbing with me.
These days I really want a magician hat from which I can pull developer out. I have several projects going on and I have no one to assign work to. Two people from my team were borrowed to help on other team's project. I only have 3 people to dump all the work on. Those include all the issues in those projects and all the issues coming from customers. Lately my team has to handle most of investigation on customer issues and try to not disturb main development team as much as possible. That put a lot of our projects behind schedule cause the customer issues come in priority. And today I find that I have more work but no one can really work on those. Everybody is busy. I could do the work the myself but I found I have been keep giving myself work if I can't find people to do. I guess it is bad project management skill cause I keep piling things on my list. But I don't know what else I could to find people. I know I can't do everything myself and I would eventually stress myself out. And attending all those meetings takes up a lot of my time too (good that I don't have to go as many as my manager or I can't do work at all) If only I have a hat to pull developers from, my life would be so much easier.
I bet the most popular New Year resolution is to exercise regularly. That was sort of mine too. Well, I know I would easily give up on it so I didn't make it official, but I do hope that I could get back to a regular exercise habit. Ever since I gave up on kickboxing, I could never get back to a regular work out schedule. I have been trying to go yoga sometimes already, but I kept pushing it off cause I was too tired after work. I don't think I should go back to kickboxing cause I am scared to kick with my ankle still. But I need something that I would be interested and train my cardio. I was looking at Kendo for a bit but everybody kept saying it is not cardio exercise. And the equipment got too expensive if you get serious in it. I could do yoga and climbing for the next while until ultimate started, but I want to have something more regular too. I could go running, but I always complain it is too cold or too wet to run outside. And then it is not good for my knee too. I may go check out the gym too. But I always find going to the gym boring. I did it once and I wasn't very motivated to try hard. I ran for 10 min on the treadmill and I got so bored of it already. I felt that I was wandering in the gym aimlessly. But some of those fitness classes seem interesting. I am always not a good self motivator, so going to class makes me work harder. May be I will look for that this weekend. Aiii...more spending.
I never knew I am a picky shoppers till this weekend. I have been looking for a wok last while, but I never found one that I liked. That's right. I have been surviving on my 3 pots for last two years, even though I hosted numerous dinner parties (pretty cool, huh?) And last week, I finally got annoyed with that fact that I only had one pot for everything, from soup making to stir fry. (Truth is I made soup and it sat in my pot and I couldn't do anything else.) So last weekend, I started to really look for a wok. Originally I was planning to get the regular Chinese one, but then there were some special preparation procedure to be done to a carbon steel one. Then I was struggling to get a stainless steel one or a Telfon one. It is cheaper to get a stainless steel, but then food won't stick on Telfon one. But those non-stick material can easily come off. So I don't want to get a very expensive one. But I don't want to get a super cheap one either cause you never knew what sort of material they really used for it. I am used to my mom's one which is 14" (or even bigger). But 14" one is usually pretty expensive and more than I want to spend. I want to get one with the cover too and preferably glass cover. At last, after driving around Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby for 2 weeks, I finally find one that I could settle for price and size. It is a 12" Telfon. It was smaller than I hoped but when I brought it home, it actually was the right size for me (I can't visualize the size until I saw it sat besides my pot) I am pretty happy about it. Next thing to shop: knife block and utensil holder.
All my knifes seem to like my fingers alot. I got a Santoku recently as a Christmas present from my parents. I know it is pretty sharp and I had been very careful when using it. But somehow when I was chopping an onion, my thumb got in the way and I cut my skin open. It wasn't a deep cut cause I already knew I was clumsy with knife. So I have been going pretty slow. But I still bled a bit. And you never know how often you use your thumb until you cut yourself open. I already tried not to use my thumb to finish up cooking. But the blood just won't stop coming out. Every little motion seemed to pull the skin apart again and it bled more. I used up a lot of bandage to finish up making my soup. (I didn't bleed that much, but my bandages ain't waterproof and they kept coming off) All my other knifes attacked me before too. It was as if a ritual that all my knifes had to go thru before joining the team, the cut the master's finger ritual. I cut myself while washing my bread knife. Don't remember what I was cutting when I cut myself open using the chef knife. Probably cutting something. Even my pairing knife attacked me!!!
I started to wonder if my lack of exercise has anything to do with my constant illness, or just I never really fight off the virus. I used to have headache all the times during my university years. But there were some years that I didn't have any headache at all. Now I think about it, those were the years I exercise the most. I slowly stop exercising and my body felt weaker. Or at least my constant headache seem to come back more often. I used to take pain killer so often that my friends would yell at me. I felt I am back to those days again. And this time the way that the germ worked is definitely weird. I had fever one night and sweating like crazy. And then totally fine for couple days. Having running noses for 2 days and used up all my Kleenex and then stopped all a sudden. I had headache for a day and then disappeared. But it came back when I coughed. And coughing was irregular too. One hour I was coughing like I was going to cough my lung out and then the next hour I was like a normal person. I don't understand the virus. Is it still the same virus or I was sick multiple times already? Does it have totally control over me that it can come out whenever it pleased, tortured me for couple days and then rest for couple days. Errrr, I just want to be healthy again, especially too many people around me were sick already.
I know this blog probably should be the year end entry, but I was lazy/busy then and my fellowship has a meeting on this today: reflection upon 2005. It brought me back to think about last year. It definitely was an interesting year last year. There were a lot of ups and downs. In the beginning of the year, I accepted Christ while I was having some struggle with my personal life. Had my moment of spiritual high, and then right around summer, I hit the spiritual low. I was so lost that I didn't know what to do anymore. I wasn't sure I am doing the right thing or following the right path. I was thinking in circle that no one can get me thru. I felt suffocated to the whole idea of going to church. Or this church, not sure if that makes any difference. After several months of struggles, I think I slowly clear out my mind again. Something just hit me one day and all the burden seem to be lifted. This year, I hope I could walk more strongly in this faith with God. Personal life, have a lots of ups and downs too. My brother left town was the biggest thing for me and my family. First Christmas without him around. With so many unknowns, he took off and moved to Hong Kong in the hope of finding a future with more prospect. He had his difficulties but now he had a good job and more settled down. Got hurt by people that I thought we were closed friends. Things are not the same anymore, but at least the burden is lifted up somewhat. May be one day it will disappear. Sprained my ankle so badly that made me feel weak and helpless. Found out that I do have a lot of friends who care, that I could borrow shoulders on when I was in need (though next time may be I will stick with local friends cause long distance phone bill hurt after I felt hurt!). Got closer with some friends this year that I know I could count on and share with. Got very bored at my job and then got moved to this position that is very challenging (a bit too challenging that made me want to go back to my bored life sometimes). Started this blog and continuously keeping it still (longest time everin this kind of diary type thingy!). Overall, I don't think it is a bad year. I tripped. I learnt. I cried. I laughed. I cherished every moment in the past year. For the people who helped me in so many different ways that you can't even imagine, thank you.
I felt like I am having jet lag last several days even though I didn't really go anywhere. The last two days at work I did nothing except trying to keep myself awake in front of my computer, which I failed most of the time. Not even coffee can help. Well, it may give me a couple hour of consciousness, but my head hurt so much that I can't really do anything productive. Being a bum can really do some damage. For two weeks, I did nothing except sleep and eat. And I totally mess up my sleeping hour too. I slept "early" in the morning and then got up late in the afternoon, just in time to watch some TV and get ready for dinner. I didn't think I leave my couch much during the day. I got so lazy last two weeks that I kept on procrastinate things I need to do. It took me two weeks to work up the energy to clean my house (and washed all the dishes). And while I was at it, I immediately took down my Christmas tree or I won't know when is the next time I want to clean up my house. The biggest accomplishment during my vacation is to finished watching two TV shows. That is another reason why I stayed up late and didn't leave my couch much. Though I felt bad that I wasted a lot of time to do nothing, I kind of enjoy that in a guilty kind of way. Now that there is so much work to do and back to reality really really sucks! Why didn't I win the lottery!!!!
If how my morning started reflect how my year going to be, it is definitely not looking good. I was supposed to attend my friend's wedding at 8:45am. That's right. 8:45am in the morning on New Year day! I set my alarm clock at 7:30am but by the time I gained my consciousness, it was already 8:00am. So I had to run to the shower and kick myself out the door. I was in the last hope to pick up coffee before heading over. And I can't believe the downstairs Starbucks hasn't opened yet! Anything happen before Starbucks open is just plain wrong! I was so upset to wake up early and go anywhere without my coffee. Since I was running out of time, I started heading over anyway despite my crankiness. I totally forgot about the stupid RAV line development till I was driving along Cambie. They blocked all left and right turns. They only let one right turn between 41st and 25nd Ave. So I was doing Merry-Go-Around along Cambie when I was already late for my friend's wedding. When I finally arrived at the parking lot, I was the only car there. I got suspicious. I was only 10 minute late. They couldn't have left already. Since I already arrived, I may as well walk up to the observatory and see. I saw the wedding car parked at the other parking lot, so I now was sure they were still in the observatory. But the main door was locked. I walked around and couldn't find another door to get in. I started feeling a bit dumb to be the only one wearing high heel in the park. All the people around me were the morning exercise people wearing their runners. I gave up and started walking back to my car. I walked extra slow to make sure I won't land on my face. I don't know how some girls can wear high heel to go hiking. May be my high heel mastering skill is still not good. After I left QE park, I rushed to an opened Starbucks. I don't think I could drive any longer without coffee. On the plus side, I was on time for church. And I got a free gift card from the Starbucks guy (don't know how much yet though) So may be this year isn't a total disaster.
