Suck It Up?!

When you play on a sport team and you got pissed off by your captain, what would you do? Would you just suck it up? Or you would voice your objection and just leave the team after? Here is the story. So my captain decided to add another girl to the team and asked our opinion. At first I said whatever, but then after more discussion, I said that we do have sub if needed and there is no reason to add an extra permanent girl. I thought he heard me, but apparently not. So next week I found out that he did add the girl anyway. I was going to just leave the issue since I played on another team. But my friend said I should at least voice my opinion again and I did. But I got no response from that email. Later, my captain emailed the whole team and said he decided to add another girl. I was kind of annoyed because he should have at least replied my email about my opinion. I think it is politeness, but whatever. And then last night he totally pissed me off. My friend sent him an email to voice her opinion. My captain replied and cc'd me in there. What frustrated me the most is that his whole email keep saying "some people should have mentioned it earlier" and "some people should have done that" when it is obvious that "some people" is referring to ME! Cause I was the only one added to the email and apparently I am the one causing trouble. I was pissed after reading that. I was like dude, if you have problem with me, say it in my face. What sort of freaking email is that! Are we a bunch of high school girls? I was sooo mad last night that I draft up a less sugar coated email and my conclusion was basically if you think I am causing problem, I could leave the team, screw you. But I also know I was really mad last night so I decided to sit on the email for a bit. I don't want to just suck it up. I want to at least say if you have a problem with me, talk to me in my face. Not that BS reference! So I am wondering, should I send the email? talk to him in person? just leave the team?!

A Big Milestone!!!

I really should mark down today's date. It is so important. Today is THE DAY that my boss' boss didn't change a single thing on my email!!! Seriously, it is that important! Ever since I started on this position, one of my main responsibilities is to write email, to coworker, to offshore team, to customers. Given that English isn't my first language and my email usually was to my friends, I used to be more sloppy on my grammar/typo. My boss' boss already gave me a "talk" on that. And basically any of my coworkers whose first language is English is allowed to "fix" my grammar if they feel like it (and some of them I actually disagree but I feel lazy to argue). And from time to time, I would need to send my email to the people above for proof-reading. It is very rare that my boss' boss did not rewrite my whole email. But yesterday, he only fixed two tiny grammar on my email. And today, nothing! zero! I thought I was dreaming when I saw that. My conclusion is either I am getting VERY good at it. :P Or he is tooooo busy to care. :P

Sneaky Sneaky

I found that my ability to write sneaky email has been "improved" ever since I became project manager. Don't laugh you people! I don't mean improving grammar. (My boss still likes to pick on that from time to time :() I mean to tone down and sugar coated an email. I seriously found myself able to do that faster and faster. And not bad too. I am not sure it is good thing. It became a bit too natural to me now that I even use it on personal email. That is no good. Today I was writing a whining email to my captain "expressing my opinion". I try to tone it down so I don't sound too aggressive. I sent to my friend to review and she was quite surprised I sugar coated it that much. I was pretty surprised too. I didn't even realize I was doing that myself. No good. Another bad thing is I found myself a bit numb when I need to lie in my email. The first time that I did that, I feel so bad about it. But today, when someone suggest we should "hide" that by lying. I actually feel a bit relieved than having to explain to people. That is even worse. I feel bad for not feeling bad now. I missed those days I just write bluntly to my friends at work and yelled at my boss in email. :(

Growing Pain

Everybody has been telling me to grow up these days. I have not been exactly happy with work lately. I don't really know what I want anymore. All my friends told me that is part of life. So just deal with it. My old company is just a special case. So welcome to the real world. And time to grow up. I seriously don't know how to answer. It is just part of life because work is part of life. If work is just part of life, why does it bother me so much then? Am I just being childish here and want to run away? Why do I have to grow up? Is that really about being grow up? Just to learn all those tricks? Do I really need to grow up? Am I still me then? Am I just being naive here? Not happy.

"Wild" Camp

My friend said I should just reuse my blog entry from the mission trip planning and replaced the title with church camp planning because I am on edge of beating up people again. That is totally not true. I believe I am pretty calm even though my fellowship has low response rate....until people start asking stupid questions. And I hate stupid questions. People start off doing that because they think it is funny to annoy me. It was okay in the beginning. But it gets less and less funny and more and more annoying when a lot of people doing that. Especially we are already stressed out by the low response rate. It all started with my church decide to have a summer camp this year. Real tent camping. Not cabin "camping". While it is no big deal for a lot of people, it is a pain for the people in my fellowship group cause they hate tent camping. The no shower, sleeping on the ground, staying overnight in the wild does not sound appealing to my fellowship. Pathetic as I usually am, I got sucked into the planning committee. Well, I volunteered myself because I felt bad for my friend when she tried to find volunteer from my fellowship and no one responded. I really should stop feeling bad for people. Anyway, as you can imagine, camping is too "wild" for my fellowship so not a lot of people are planning to come. Since my fellowship is the older group in the English congregation, we really hope more people would go to set an example for the teens. Today, I started approaching some of the people and hoped to force their commitment. And here is the conversation.

Person A: It scared me when you highlight shower and electrical outlet
Wiw: Why?
Person A: Cause it is like we are living a bit better than in a stone age that we only have shower and electrical outlet
Wiw: What?! I thought you people freak about not showering and that is why I said there will be shower!!!
Person A: Are we going to light fire with rock too then?
Wiw: (Take a deep breath)

Person B: Would there be Internet access? I think that is essential too. Same as shower and electricity.
Wiw: (TAKE ANOTHER DEEP BREATH)

Person C: I don't know about camping. Camping reminds me of bear, wolves, worm, insects. Oooh, and mosquitoes. Would you protect me if they chase after me?
Wiw: (Let me kill this person!! KILLLLLL)

Person D: Do I need my own tent?
Wiw: We haven't sorted out the equipment part yet because we don't know how many people coming. You don't need to worry about it till later.
Person D: That would be a disaster then!
Wiw: What? Why?
Person D: Cause we are not prepared. What if I need to bring my own tent? I don't own any equipment. I am screwed!
Wiw: (Exploded!)

So yeah, so if any of you are interested coming, let me know.

Wedding on a Rainy Saturday

Sorry guys. I didn't bring my baseball bat along with me today. So there is no unconscious dude lying on the floor of my apartment now. The wedding was okay. Nothing too exciting. The most amazing part is the food. My mouth is still watering looking at the pictures.

The Menu


The Wedding Cake
A very yummy chocolatey chocolate cake from Sweet Obsession


Lobster Bisque
Amazing! The white stuff in the centre was scallop mousse. Extra yummy!


Prawn with Spinach
The red thing on the side was tomato sorbet. Amazingly good! :D


Plum Sorbet


Pheasant Breast
I chose pheasant as my main course. Very juicy and tender. The sauce was pretty good as well.


The Dessert Platter
It had lavender ice cream, ginger creme brulee and chocolate mousse. They were okay but a bit too sweet to my taste.


Overall the food was good. I highly recommend this restaurant except it is in Ladner. :D

Good Job

My boss told me yesterday that my customer really like me from last project so they requested me to be on the next project. That totally cheer me up. I think I did an okay job but you never know what other people think, especially from the customer. I know that could be just my boss trying to give me assurance on the project. Or the customer just said that because they want one person to do technical lead as well as project management and in the previous project, I did demonstrate I could code. So they could just say that to save money. Whatever the reason, I do feel happier about my job. I don't know how this project going to go yet. Or how much suffering I need to go thur for this project. But it is nice to have someone pad you on the shoulder and said you did a good job. I feel retarded that I am happy for such simple reason. But it is nice to be that simple, I guess.

Geez...You are Single?!

I noticed it for awhile and I finally come to a conclusion: Married people hate single people. How else can you explain that they keep on insisting that you should go out and meet people? Either they don't like people to be different than them, or they have nothing better to do after getting married so "caring" their single friends become the next big thing. I start to have a feeling if they can actually physically drag me and another guy together, I bet they would do that. I am saying this because in the last couple days, I got nagged more than once by random married friends about not aggressive enough (rolling my eyes). I keep on insisting if I meet somebody, I meet somebody. It is not like there is a field full of single guys and you just run up and knock down the first one you saw and drag the unconscious dude out the field (hehehe, I do have this barbaric hunting image in my head). Anyway, I was talking to my friend today about getting wedding gift. I was telling him that I got invited to a wedding that I haven't talked to that person for ages. He insisted that I should go anyway....to meet people (rolling my eyes even faster!). May be when I attended my friend's wedding this weekend, I should bring my baseball bat with me and knock unconscious the first single guy I met. :P

Updated: Just after I posted this, some random guy from facebook sent me a message and asked to meet me. And my facebook picture was super weird too! HAHAHA!

Pockets of Joy

Someone once said you have to look for those tiny pocket of joy in life. If you always wait something big to happen, you would never be happy. So today I was happy about able to play ultimate (even though it is gloomy weather and I was lazy). I was happy to get off work early (even though I got in after 10am). I was happy to have time to stop by one of my favorite bakery and picked up some veggie bun (make me looked forward to tomorrow's breakfast). I was happy that my team played well (even though we lost again). I was happy to eat and chat with my team (even though the dip I ordered wasn't very good). I am happy. :)

Rich?

I got an email about this story long time ago and it kept popping into my head lately.

A very successful business man was in Greece for an important business meeting. During the trip he had a couple of days free and he decided to go to one of the islands for some fun.

As he was enjoying a walk on the beach, he notices a Greek fisherman unloading a boatload of huge fish. He decides to approach the fisherman and starts up a conversation. He asks the fisherman what he does with the fish. The fisherman replies that he takes them to the market and sells them. The fisherman explains how he gets up every morning around six and goes fishing 'till noon or so and comes back and sells them.

So the business man asks him what he does with the rest of his day. The fisherman replies that after he sells the fish, he goes home and spends quality time with his kids and then takes a mid-afternoon nap and then at night he goes down to the square and hangs out with his friends.

So the successful business man decides to give the poor old fisherman some "business advice." He explains to the fisherman that if extends his fishing to 5 or 6 at night he could catch more fish.

"Then what?" asks the fisherman. The business man explains that after a year or so of hard work, he could buy more boats, hire more fishermen, and catch even more fish.

"Then what?" asks the fisherman. Feeling a little annoyed, the business man explains that he could then move his whole operation to Athens and corner the whole Greek fishing market.

"Then what?" asks the fisherman. Feeling even more annoyed the business man again explains to the poor old fisherman that after moving to Athens, he can think globally, where he opens offices all over the world, where eventually he would take his company public making millions off the shares he sells and retiring rich.

"Then what?" asks the fisherman. One last time the business man explains to the fisherman that he would be rich and that he could then move back to the island, spend quality time with his kids and take those mid-afternoon naps and at night he could go hang out with his friends.

So the fisherman is sitting there trying to comprehend everything and then he says, "Why would I go through all that trouble? It sounds to me like I'm already rich."