Tick Tock

First thing I am not used staying over at my parents' is my brother's stupid clock. I forgot that I am not used to having a clock besides me. So the whole night I could hear its 'tick tock'-ing besides me. It drove me mad! To make it worse, my mom gave me another one because the one my brother had doesn't ring anymore. So I have two alarm clock and they don't even 'tick tock' simultaneously. So I don't even have a pattern to get used to sleep. I was so mad that the whole night I kept reminding myself I have to bring my radio clock over. I don't think I have much sleep last night. So I brought my radio clock and my parents' has the weirdest radio reception. If I put the radio clock higher, it receives a different station than if I put it lower. Sort of like how those old cell phone, you have to jump up and down, bend your knee, hide in a corner to get good reception. I finally find a spot that it received the station I am used to wake up from. It is sort of hanging over the bedframe. That is the only spot that I can find close enough to the bed and have reception. Now I feel more settle down.

Moved (again)

Moved back to my parents' today. That is right. I am needed at my parents' so I moved back temporarily, probably for a month or so. I actually end up packing more stuff than I expected. I have a duffel bag, two backpacks and some paper bags. I didn't bring that much clothes. I just had lots of junks with me, my laptop, my cleansing products, my books, my DVD's, my climbing gears (hehe...you have to be prepared for everything), my gym clothes, my cooking class material, etc. After I packed and moved everything out of my place, I started doing some major cleaning (partly because I was making tart yesterday and made a mess of my place). I wasn't sure if I should do the cleaning when I get back, or clean now and gets dusty again in a month. But I really can't stand the stickiness on the floor and the buttery smell in the air. After I finished cleaning, all I really want to sit and enjoy. But I have to move my stuff now. I felt so sad leaving my place I almost cried when I left. I know my house must feel lonely by itself. Now moving back to parents is definitely interesting. I haven't lived with my parents for two years now. It would definitely need some adjusting. One thing I notice right away it is definitely colder than my place. I was hiding under my blanket the whole night while playing my laptop. And the drive to work, that is going to suck! Definitely a lot of adjustment.

SENT!

Sometimes the 'recall' function could be useful, if it works. On Friday I got an email from random customer asking about some testing tool that my company used. I was quite surprised to get that email at first cause I don't usually get external email from customer. As I scroll down the email, I saw he originally sent to my manager who is in the office this week and has my email address in his away message. I don't know how to deal this so I asked another friend. He told me to try to get a hold of my manager first (who does check email occasionally). So I forward that email and add a comment saying "What the hell you want me to do with this" and some swearing for putting my name in his away message (You can't really blame me to be rude to my manager, for all this week, he kept telling me how much fun he is having and how much beer/whisky he has been drinking while I was working like crazy!) But then I change my mind and just write "What should I do with this?" and send the email. The moment I clicked 'sent', I realized that I didn't forward the email. I REPLIED! I was in so much shock that I did that! After sooo many years working in technology industry and I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON FOR EMAIL!!!! Now I am so glad that I didn't write the rude version of the email. And it was too late to recall the email. I immediately write an email to the customer to apologize, trying to explain that I wasn't being rude. I just hit the wrong button. It is good that he understands. I felt so dumb and embarrassed now. There is a good reason that I don't deal with customers. I almost want to call it a day cause I figure I must be too tired to make such a stupid mistake. I want to cry!!!

Helpless

I have been hearing a lot of sad news from my friends lately. I kept hearing news about death and sickness. When I heard that, I felt very helpless. I don't know what I could do to help. Of course I would try to comfort my friends. Except those words, I really don't know what else to do. The first thing came to mind that I could offer to help is to pray for them and their family. I would usually keep that in my mind so I would remember to pray next time. But I rarely mention to my friends that I am doing so. I felt a bit awkward to mention it, especially to my non-Christian friends. Sound like I was doing them a favor. And I don't want them to feel that I am imposing my religion to them. But something happen recently and I asked my friends to pray for my family. And I found that knowing my friends are praying for me gave me a sense of comfort. Even my friend who no longer goes to church said would pray for me. I was touched to know that there are people who care about my family even though they never met them. People are willing to pray for people that they don't even know. They gave me strength to stay strong. So I think telling my friends that I would pray for them during their devastated period, though they may not believe God, would show them that I do care too. And hopefully could still give them a sense of comfort.

Weather Forecast Power

I think I had one of those magical ankles that can forecast the weather. Today after lunch, my ankle felt so sore that I thought I injured it again somehow. But since I have been a pig lately, there is no way I could have injured it from walking. Then I started thinking may be I ate too many shrimp in dim sum today and my ankle having a bad reaction. But I can't be having shrimp overdose. Cause if there is such a thing, one of my friends would probably die from it first. Whenever we went for dim sum, all he can think of is shrimp, shrimp and shrimp. My only conclusion is my ankle saying that it would be raining soon. But it was nice and sunny this morning and I almost thought spring is here (though it is still a bit chilly outside) My friends always said I have to take good care of my injured ankle or it would be sore whenever weather changed. I know from yoga that my ankle wasn't 100% still even though it has been almost a year now. But seem like it develops this weather forecast power. I don't know if I like it or not. Cause if I felt my ankle that sore yesterday, I wouldn't have washed my car. The forecasting power seem a bit slow in that sense. And the ankle isn't very painful, but sore inside that makes it a bit annoying. Hopefully by ultimate season started, it will be all fine.

Death of a Sandwich

This is a very sad story. So sad that every time I told it, I almost had tear in my eyes. It happen during lunch time today. Since my afternoon was packed with meeting, we decided to go for a quick lunch. As usual, quick lunch mean sandwich from the sub. As I was happily walking back to work, the paper bag holding my sandwich decided to split into two. And my sandwich DROPPED!!!! It was not even on the ground but on the mud!! And it is an avocado shrimp sandwich. So there is mayo and all sort of messiness. And now they are all lying on the ground sadly. I was so shocked that I was technically screaming "my sandwich, my sandwich". Of course there were people walking around us but I ignored them cause I was traumatized. To emphasize the seriousness of the situation, an avocado shrimp sandwich from deli is not a regular sandwich. It is a freshly made sandwich. So you actually have to line up in a separate line and take extra effort for it. And now it is GONE! And I can't even apply the 3 second rule cause it is in the mud not ground. I don't like dirt in my food. Eating dirt was never my thing, not even when I was a kid. I now can only mourn about my sandwich and then walked back to the office and eat my instant noodle. I was so upset that for a second I was planning to make my afternoon interview with the coop so miserable that he would run out here with tear.

Food from Class

This is the salmon rillette that I made on the weekend to practice what I learn in last week's class so I won't forget. There should have another layer of sour cream on top, but I was being cheap and don't want waste money on something I don't eat. The taste wasn't too bad (My dad who doesn't eat fish finish the whole thing so I assume it taste fine). For this week, we made focaccia bread, chicken under a brick, goat cheese salad and basmati rice pilaf. It was pretty interesting. I never made a bread dough before so it was kind of scary that it got stickier and stickier when you knead the dough. Fortunately one of the girls in my group is actually a pastry student. So she knew all the trick to work with dough. The chicken is pretty tasty too. But I don't think I would do that dish in my house. When we pan fried the chicken, there was a lot of fire coming from the stove that I was kind of freaking out. That happened to me one time at my parents' old house. I tried to heat the oil and eventually it became so hot that it turn into big fire. I dropped the wok on the floor and screamed so my brother came into rescue. Ever since that, my mom's kitchen floor had a burnt mark to remind her of my crime. If I were to do this dish at home, may be I would just throw the whole chicken in the oven. So no fire can come out anywhere and burn down my place.

Interview

My evil manager decided to delegate more work to me and made me and another friend to go thru the whole process of hiring the new coop. At first we thought he meant we would assist him. So we skim thru the pile of resume and make comment on each of them. But he wanted us to pick some to come interview. So two of us sat down and read each resume more seriously and discussed our view on the person. After 1.5 hour later (we were very serious about this!), we picked our candidates (of course we complained there is no picture attached or the process will go faster :P). We thought that was the end of our involvement in the hiring process. Now my manager wanted us to do the interview too. Either of us has done an interview before. And my manager ain't going to even meet the person. He will just based the hiring on our comment. Now we are both a bit nervous. We are getting a list of questions that HR has so we can prepare more what to do. Apparently the other development team has a standard assessment test that we could use too. The embarrassing thing is that when I skim thru it, my first reaction is that I wonder I could get an answer key too cause I don't know some of the answers. I don't know if it is fair to give a test that I can't even do it off my head. We decided to meet up next week before the interview process started to discuss how we are going to do the interview. It would be funny if we are more nervous than the interviewer.

Why?

Why does God let bad things happen? This was the topic of my last week Sunday school. I know there is no answer to this. Not that we know of at least. We can always explain that God must have a plan and just that we didn't know. But I always think that was because it didn't involve people we know. Now we can sit around the TV on our couch and comment because we were not personally involved. If it was my parents or my friends over in Asia when the tsunami happened, I don't think any explanation will stop me from blaming God. I can't see why I won't be angry with Him. I know when we said we have to have faith doesn't mean we don't care. But for the people whose family or friends were lost, no word can comfort them. I can imagine if that happen to my family, I would be so mad at God that I think I will walk away. What is the point to be faithful if He took away the people I love the most. I know being a Christian doesn't mean my life would be trouble-free. I will live happily ever after. But if He knows those are the people that I love so much and still take them away, I don't think I could forgive God. How could I even tell myself that He has a plan and his plan is good and that involve taking away people I loved. My pastor said God would never put burden on us that we can't carry thru. When we were in trouble, God knows that we can get thru it. He will not give me more than I could handle. I will have strength and ability to handle the situation if that happen. I only hope my pastor is right about that.