Alzheimer's?!

I was originally going to write about my customer meeting experience. But a friend sent me something very weird today. He sent me a link to a website which contained a bio of me.

When Vivian is awake she is a Software Developer , surfing the net, playing badminton or trying her hand at squash. When she is not awake, she is asleep. (her words, seriously :)) Viv recently graduated from the Computer Science course at UBC and is working with the Easy Course Team here at WebCT.

While I think it is very funny, I had no idea who wrote this. The description sounded like it dated way back when I first started in WebCT. But I don't know people I worked with that well that they would make fun of me. My friend swore I wrote this myself. Someone in Support or QA compiled a list of bio together and it was definitely written by me. I really don't recall a thing. Must be old age.

Itchy Nose

My nose can tell you that spring has finally arrived cause I have been sneezing alot lately. After moving to Canada for 18 years, I finally got pollen allergy. A lot of people said that you will get pollen allergy after moving to Canada for more than 10 years. I thought I got lucky cause I never had much problem. I got tiny reaction from grass and plant, but that usually is problem when fall comes. And sometimes I sneeze in the morning abit but that is. The worst time was my arm swollen to double its size after camping trip and a week before attending a wedding. That time totally freaked me out and luckily it got back to normal size before my friend's wedding. I guess I finally use up my luck this year. Starting last week, I have been sneezing a lot, days and nights. I guess I still can't complain much since sneezing is the only symptom I got from my allergy. But I sneezed so often that I started to wonder if I got a cold or allergy. If I got a cold, at least I can call in sick. But now I still have to drag my dead body to work. Errrrrr.....stooopid allergy!

Couch Potato

It is very rare that I actually get to stay home on a Thursday cause I usually have fellowship. Since this week's fellowship gathering moved to Friday, I suddenly have a free night. So I decided to stay home and be a couch potato. I finally got a chance to watch the game show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". It is actually not as exciting as I thought. Yes, some of the questions are pretty hard. I have to think twice about east hemisphere and I got the description of density wrong. But some of those questions are just plain easy. I can't believe the questions that both contestants walk out is sooooo dumb. The second lady walked out on the question which continent is also a country. Her answer was going to be "all" but she decided to take the money instead. I was like, you got to be kidding me!! But I guess it could be the pressure under spotlight too. And the host kept asking if you want to walk out with the money you have now would make you think twice if you got it correct. I guess I am a bit disappointed because it wasn't as intense as other game show, says "Who want to be a millionaire". In the end, it wasn't a bad show.

On a side note, I was looking for all the questions asked from previous episode. I run into someone's blog and I can't believe someone actually blog everything he watched. That is a real couch potato!

300

After I bailed out on my friend on Sunday, I decided to watch it with other friends last night. I wasn't totally interested in this movie at first, but enough people hype about it so I figure it doesn't hurt to watch. Turned out it wasn't too bad. Yes there is lots of killing and blood and simple plot. But it entertained me enough that I didn't fall asleep or kept looking at my watch (I think I am going to use this as a standard how entertained a movie is for me from now on). It wasn't as violent as I expected. True there is killing and chopping head and blood flying everywhere. And there is scene I did close my eyes. But I didn't walk out half way to get fresh air like I did for Saving Private Ryan. So to me, this is all good. One thing I would warn people planning to watch it. If you easily get annoyed by people talking beside you in a movie, don't go watch it with girls whose main purpose was watching half naked guys. My friends were giggling beside me the whole time and I knew what they were giggling about. :)

Miss You All

My ex-manager took short term leave last while and came back to work recently. I chatted with him for awhile today. Even though I complained alot when I worked in my old company, I do really like the people I work with. They are all good people. A lot of people said it is hard to make friends at work. I guess I am lucky in that sense. I made lots of good friends. I do miss working with my manager. Partly because we worked together for too long. During those X number of years I worked in WebCT, he was my manager most of the time. He is a very good guy. And a caring boss. We chatted for awhile today to update each other. It was always good to talk to him. Another thing people found they missed after leaving is the process in WebCT. I was quite surprised to hear that. I always thought it was chaotic. May be I was there in the very beginning so I can't see what we add on later is setting up a process. A lot of ex-WebCT people said that. I can't really tell myself cause my current company is mainly made up of my ex-coworkers. So it is more or less the same for me still. I guess we did have a good company. Too bad it is too short.

Prayer

A friend sent me a blog that is written by his friend. It is a collection of email/prayer requests that he sent during his mother fighting cancer, from she first diagnosed with cancer, till she passed away. My friend bet I would cry reading the blog cause last time when I was watching a video of our old instructor, I cried like crazy. But it was different back then. I know my instructor pretty well and this time I don't know the person or his mom. But the blog does bring back a lot of memory of what happen to my mom. Luckily, my mom won the battle. I am amazed how organized he was on prayer item. I don't even know how to get my fellowship to pray for me back then. I remembered my fellowship had a prayer meeting for me and my pastor asked how to pray for me. I actually wasn't sure what to pray for. I was mad, confused and lost. I totally understood when he mentioned the pain watching his mom suffer and the helplessness he felt. And the confusion with the doctor and surgeon, my family went thru the same thing. Luckily for my family, the battle wasn't long. It was quick and short. Even it was only several weeks, it was very tiring for my mom and my family. I still remember how scary it was to wait for my mom to do her test after a year. I didn't know till last minute that she had a test that day. Since I was unemployed then, I figured I would drive her. I don't know if my mom was scared at all, but I know while I was in the waiting room, it totally freaked me out. I keep praying and shaking. The scary part of cancer is you never know whether it would come back or not. And I was so relieved my mom is clear now. My eyes did fill with tear when I read that he sang "Amazing Grace" while his mom passed away. I am truly touched. I am totally amazed how he can still stay faithful thru all these. After my mom's surgery, my friends ask would I blame God if anything bad happen. I said I have no answer. I really don't know.

Sponsor

Reading from a friend's blog that her husband and her had a discussion about what would happen if their daughter wanted to move out with some guy when she is 18. The funny thing is this "daughter" is currently still in the mommy's stomach (the due date isn't anytime soon :P) This remind me another conversation my friend and I had. There was a sermon that the guest pastor said every couple needs to have 2.5 kids to replace the population. The two is to replace the couple, the 0.5 is for those people not getting married or having kids. Immediately after that sermon, several of us told the married/soon-to-be-married people to have more kids to replace us. One of my friend mentioned about starting a sponsorship program. Since this kid is to replace me, I have to pay for everything. I said only if I can teach the kid in whatever way I want and I would teach the kid to be so rebellious that would stress my friend's fiance out. Since my friend's fiance is actually those "do-gooder" type of guy, I said if it is a daughter, I would train her to go party every night and come home with different guy to piss my friend's fiance off. And if it is a son, then he would bring home different girl every night. My friend's fiance would have to screen all the call, be paranoid about everyone around the kid and stalk him/her. Another friend of mine would teach the kid to only buy brand names. The sponsored kids would become a nightmare for my friend and her fiance. My friend is actually pretty excited about it and said then her fiance would have to beg her to quit the job and stay home to take care of the kids. What kind of mother is that!

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

I am not sure how many of you watched The Lost Tomb of Jesus last night. If not and you are still interested, I know they are playing again this week. I actually find it quite entertaining, at least for the first hour or so. I can't believe someone draw a conclusion based on assumptions. The whole show is not trying to prove this is the tomb of Jesus. It is more like let's assume this is Jesus' tomb, and then see how all the 'facts' come in together and ignore other fact that doesn't fit in the Jesus profile. I actually found the most funny part is from the DNA test. They did a DNA test on bone sample from the tomb of Jesus and Mariamne (whom the director claimed to be Mary Magdalen) The lab concluded that the two sample are not blood related so they probably were married. I was like...hahahahaa..what sort of stupid conclusion is that. You can't use DNA test to prove the marital relationship. So where does that come from?! I actually found this show gave me even less doubt than Da Vinci's code. At least Dan Brown's novel brought out some good point for discussion. Anyway, here are more links on what others said about the show:
Toronto Star
Washington Post

Unashamed

I was watching a show on TV tonight called "The Collector". It is a show about a soul-collector who works for the devil. But he made a deal with the devil so he can try to help his "clients" to make amends during their last 48 hours on earth. This episode is about the main character trying to save a priest who is a very successful exorcist. He was successful because he made a deal with the devil back then. He sold his soul to the devil so he could preform exorcism successfully. Very ironic, huh? What touched me the most was in the end, when that priest can't perform the exorcism because of his own past. The junior priest ran in to help him. The devil mocked the junior priest for even dare to come over because he was just sexual tempted by a woman. The priest answered that he may be weak and he was not worthy to call for God's help, but as long as he has faith, God would not forsake him. It was from God's grace that He answered. What the junior priest said was so true. I kept sinning against God even I despise myself. But yet He is always here and opened His arm to take me back. How could He do that before even knowing me? I was so touched and started crying. This song lyric suddenly come so clear in my mind.

And I know I'm weak
I know I'm unworthy
To call upon Your name
But because of grace
Because of Your mercy
I stand here unashamed
- Unashamed, Starfield

Type A Personality

I was talking about type A personality with my friend the other day. If there is anything that God wants to teach me from my last job, I think it is patient. My previous job was very stressful and constantly pressure by customer support to give them an answer. Basically, if customer pressured support for an answer, their manager pressure me, and I go to bug developers. But everybody hate being micromanage, especially my team. They hate being asked every hour for an update. And I worked with them for so long that I know I have to stand back and let them do their work or they would be pissed. I thought I learnt enough to be more relaxed and not micromanage and stop being a control freak, but apparently I am not. When there was still no email sent about plan for this Friday fellowship from the teens, I started to get very tense. We wanted to encourage to teens in the fellowship by giving them more responsibility. But when I heard nothing still on Wednesday, I got pretty stressed out. I don't know what is going on. The other organizer sent an email to the teens in my group and cc'd me in and I never saw a reply from them. I don't know if they were actually doing anything. I was very tempted to take things in my own hand but I know I shouldn't. I have forced myself to just sit and wait. Finally an email was sent on Thursday night but didn't give much detail. That is okay. At least it is a start. I found out later today that apparently all the organizers have been talking to each other. It was just me who know nothing about. I felt relieved and glad that the teens were responsible. And I felt upset about my attitude. I was so impatient and quick to judge. I still have so much to learn for being patient and trusting people.

In Remembrance of Ed

I went to my ex-co worker's funeral today. It was okay, a bit shorter than I expected. But it was fine. Someone did a short summary of Ed and that is. From the speech, I found out that I really never knew Ed. I mean I never knew he is so smart. He skipped kindergarten and went to Grade 1 directly. He went to IB course and then got accepted in Harvard and Yale. But he loved his parents so much that he decided to stay in Vancouver instead. I didn't know that his birthday coming up and he is 2 years younger than me. I didn't know he has 2 older sisters. I just found out that I didn't know alot of thing about him from that little short summary of him. I was surprised the funeral is western style. To me, it was kind of relieved. I really don't like Chinese Buddhist style cause I felt that somehow I felt more devastating in that. Everybody cried loudly. It just had a stronger sense of desperation. Western style gave me more sense of peace and quiet. However, it was open casket. I always find it feel more sad when it was open casket. The person you knew who laughed with you and chatted with you before now whose body just lied there. I don't like that feeling. During the whole memorial service, I can't stop thinking what would happen if it was me. My friend once said she wonder how many people would go to her funeral. I don't know how many people would come. But I don't know if it matters when the person left. I like how main character in the book Tuesdays with Morrie narrator had his funeral BEFORE he died. He said why wait until you can't hear the nice thing the other people talk about you. It sound so wise. But in the end, I do want my friends to be there, in remembrance of me. Another friend and I promised will go to each other's funeral if we still alive. I hope we are still friends then.