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.

恭喜發財

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!

Saving

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?!

Electricity Disappeared

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.

Chopping

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.

Budget

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.

Debt

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?!

Break-In

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.

PS. Apparently those burglars have been attacking all the buildings on campus. So you guys may want to be more careful when you stayed late at work.

Good Morning Sunshine

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.

PS. Note to self: I should never do this kind of bet ever. It is bad for my body. I was soooo tired the whole day. When my manager told me to prepare emergency hotfixes once I walked into the office, I misunderstood his instruction and screwed things up. Good thing is it wasn't too bad. I hate when I was dumb like that.

Pulling Rabbit from Hat

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.

Exercise

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.

Shopping

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.