Accomplishment?

I have been thinking alot lately and I also got asked alot lately: how does I like being project manager compared to developer. I seriously don't know. I like the coordination work and feel that I am on top of things. But then I also miss the coding part. I feel that I don't use my brain anymore. I guess I am using more soft skill with people now instead. But then you don't feel a sense of accomplishment. When you finish working on a piece of code, you see that piece of code. But now when I finish replying email, I....replied the email. It just feel so lame on the accomplishment. The reason I keep thinking about this is that my customer requested that I quantify my work. I was like, how do you put "I reply email and handle whatever crap my architect doesn't feel like doing" in a nicer way. The more I think about it, I really don't know what I do. I go to meeting. I write meeting minute. I keep track of task and ask "nicely" if there is a delay. Now come to think about it, I feel I didn't really achieve anything.

PS. I found this link online while trying to quantify my work. I find that kind of funny. http://decker.typepad.com/welcome/2005/05/what_a_project_.html

Another Year Wiser :)

I think time flies by quicker than I ever remember. Before I realized, summer is already over and I am another year older. Wait. This year I decided I will stop aging. Actually I decide I will stay at certain age and just won't grow old. May be wiser every year, but not older! :) One of my friends refuse to grow older after 13. So compared to him, I think I am doing pretty good. There is nothing really exciting this year. Just hanging out with friends. Don't get me wrong. I had fun. Just lately I have been so stressed and tired so it is nice to have a break. And didn't get drunk this year. That is good too. And on my birthday I just ate with my parents. The most exciting part probably is I had been having a fight with them on various things. So the dinner was just "excellent" :) I guess you can never get parents to see you point of personal space and they can never get you to see their point of your lack of availability. So our conversation goes from how I am always busy to how uneager I was with them coming with me on my Beijing trip. Anyway, I still have some good chat with my friends. And my friend made me a Totoro cake. :) And I got some funky toys. :) It is all good :)

Friend Forever?

Ever regretted that you shut a friend out of your life? I never thought I would, but I do now. There was a friend that I was very closed to but we had a big fight way back then. Even though we reconcile after, but we lost our closeness. Every time we saw each other and we would nod and chat about random stuff, but we don't let each other into our lives anymore. I never thought I would regret that. Friends come and go. I lost this friend, but I made some other new friends. Who care about one? So some of us are trying to schedule dinner next week since we haven't seen each other for awhile. And today when I am chatting with my friend to check if my friend going. Then I realized a lot of thing happened lately and I really regretted that we didn't talk at all last while. Some kind of friend I am! We shared so much with each other before, about our goal, our view in life, our plan. And nowadays we just don't do that anymore. So today I just found out that my friend has been struggling alot with work, family and relationship lately and I really regretted that we never truly reconcile after the fight. I never stand on the side to support my friend when needed. I am glad I had this chance to chat today and hopefully our friendship changed again.

Tough Luck?

I had the worst luck as a project manager ever. Within a month, I have one developer's wife who needed to go to hospital because of stomach problem, one tester who needed immediate operation, one developer who had lung problem and waiting for operation, another developer who had diagnosed with virus. I mean how many project manager had to deal with that many people got sick in a month and all of them are serious sickness. :( Problem is I can't just replace them because developers need time to ramp up. Last project, both my tester and developer left the company. I have only one conclusion. The problem is me.

倒米

I don't know how to explain the term I used in the title in English but that is the best title I came up with for what happened to me today. So I decided to grab a copy of Harry Potter book 7. I didn't plan to do so this early cause I don't have time to read at all. But I am getting more and more scared that I would find out the ending unexpectedly from random people I talked to. So I decided I have to read it before someone ruined it for me again. So I went to a bookstore and grabbed a copy. When I was about to pay, the girl at cashier asked if I went to the supermarket next door. I was like, errr..nope. Then she whispered to me and said that it is way cheaper over there. I hesitated a bit because I was lazy and I didn't know how much cheaper. Since it is only next door, I probably should see if I can save a few bucks. Turned out it actually is way cheaper, almost like $10! I am pretty happy about saving money and I am glad that girl did me a favor, but her company probably wasn't too happy about that. :P

Expired Password

Even though it is for security reason, I really don't like that you need to change your password every couple months. I have two set of passwords so I used to switch back and forth between them. The problem is with my new company, they force us to change every few months and the worst part is you are not allowed to reuse the last 10 passwords! I have been trying to make up random passwords that hopefully I won't forget. Today was especially bad. I have been getting warning about my password about to expire. But I figure I still have few more days before I really have to do anything about it. So today I was at customer's office and I can't login at all! No VPN, no email, no nothing! I was like am I fired?! If I am, I am going back to sleep. I send an IM to my boss and apparently our company's stooopid system won't let people log in remotely if their password expired. I was like, WHAT! But I will be in customer's office for meeting and I can do nothing if I can't login to our system! That is stooopid! So when I went back to my office, I really can't think of new password anymore. But I came up with new way to generate password. Since my password contain number, I would just keep incrementing till I can recycle again. :)

The First Emergency Experience

The most exciting part of the night isn't playing ultimate. It is my first time going to emergency room! :D That is right. I was at UBC emergency room after my ultimate game :P I got hit in my left eye when I played the last game. I tried to catch a disc and the next thing I know is that I could hear a 'thud' noise and I can't see a thing. I was really scared it would bleed but turn out it is okay. Just everything is kind of blurry. After lying down awhile, I feel I am fine. But everyone insisted that i need to go check it out. My friend basically force me to go to the hospital just in case I was crying in pain later tonight. (I actually wasn't in pain at all, but a bit uncomfortable) So we went to the UBC emergency room. The funniest thing is that at the registration desk, the guy in front of me actually has eye injury too :P So we wait for 30 min or so before they take me into the waiting room. The nurse wanted to test my eye sight and asked me to read. Given that I am technically blind w/o my glasses (they made me take out my contact lens), I can't read a thing on the paper. I can only see a piece of white paper :P So I waited a bit longer and finally see the doctor. Luckily, it was only a scratch and it will heal in a few days. I am going to go back and check again on Thursday though :(. At least it is a minor cut, the guy in front of me apparently need to go to VGH right away to get operated on. Scary stuff!!

The Afterstory of the Nasty Email.....

So after that nasty email that my captain sent me, he sent me another one the day after personally. Explaining he didn't mean to be rude to add me in that email and he was just trying to explain things. I do feel better after seeing that email. Even though I guess it was probably my co-captain knock some senses to him, but at least it is "better" in a way. But I still want to tell him I was pretty upset about last email. So I draft up another one to him. This one more nicely written saying I am glad he emailed me again and I was pretty upset about last email but we are cool now. So whatever. But I wasn't sure if I should send it. Or I should talk to him in person. I mean the email tone is nice and sweet, a bit too diplomacy. After some struggling, I decided to talk to him in person instead. So today start off a bit awkward. I arrived but kind of late. So I quickly get into my cleats to play. Since the new girl showed up, he was teaching the girl on the play too. Eventually he came over and talked to him. So we had a quick chat on things. He said he know his tone may be a bit strong and he was a bit frustrated when writing that email. But he never meant to be rude. I was like alright. So we are kind of cool now. At least till end of season. I guess. :)

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."

Nemesis

My Tuesday ultimate team finally lost every single game this trimester. We will get to move down a division next month. Woohoo! (I am seriously happy about it. We have a bunch of new people and it would be good if we move down so we can work on playing as a team) However, yesterday’s last game was definitely interesting because we were facing our former team. When I first started playing ultimate, I was playing with this team called M. I played may be two years with that team and then my friend decided to start another team. Mostly because some of the guys on M were way too competitive. And that year, the captain left the team and the only one who would step up is one of the super competitive guys. Since both teams played on the same night, I picked to leave for the new team that my friend starting. And I know the new team would be more laid back and focus on having fun instead of just winning the games. In the end, we split into two teams and things got a bit nasty after that. The captains never talk to each other after. In fact, the captain from M pretended not knowing my new team captains. So you can understand why last night was definitely interesting. I almost expected there would be a lot of screaming and yelling. To my surprise, nothing happened at all. There is no screaming or calling names. I wish I could say that we beat the other team and got our revenge. It was in fact the other way around. But it was still a pretty fun game.

People Come, People Go

I had this topic in my mind for quite awhile. I kind of want to write about it but I don't know how to approach it. We always say friends come and go. But if you know you are drifting away from your friends, what would you do? Would you try to make extra effort to reconcile the friendship? Or would you just let it die off slowly? I think I have been doing later one. I would still go to the gathering. But I would just sit there and eat. I don’t care what is going on with people’s lives. And I won’t say what is going on with mine either unless being asked. I would then give a generic answer: alright, good, busy. I do feel bad every time I showed up at the gathering at that mentality, especially once in awhile, my friends like to say "we have been close friends for such a long time" I feel very guilty about it because I can’t say that out loud from my heart. I always wonder if they notice I have been just physically presence. One of the girls got engaged last year and apparently another girl was so happy that she cried when she heard the news. Another friend technically jumped up and down. I just say "congrats" politely. I was just not that excited. I didn't even cry when I heard my best friends got engaged. I was very happy for them. But crying seemed a bit overboard for me. Anyway, the other night one of my friends suggested we should do a speech on the wedding. My immediate reaction was to object. I seriously have nothing to say at all. I seriously drew blank when I tried to think of something to say at all. I mean I could BS if I have to. But I know it won't be from the bottom of my heart. I know it is my problem. And I have been distancing myself. May be I should just stop showing up.

Overly Excited?

My brother is in town this week because of his girlfriend's convocation. Yup, because of the girlfriend, not me. :P I asked him last year would he come back during Easter because I was trying to decide if I should postpone to get baptized till he is back. His answer was he is planning to come back in May and highly impossible to come in April. So I gave up and went ahead with my plan to get baptized in December. Frankly, I am a bit disappointed he can't come, but I guess when it is girlfriend versus sister, the outcome would be very obvious. Despite all the whining, I am glad to see him even though I just went back to HK in November. What I didn't expect is how excited my parents are. First my mom insisted our whole family go to pick him up. The whole time I keep thinking I could just go pick them up easily by myself. But I am not going to argue with my mom on that especially she insisted to go to the airport too. So my brother's flight is supposed to arrive around noon. My parents said they would call me before leaving their house. But I didn't expect they would call me exactly 12:00pm. Keep in mind they live in Richmond and it would take them at most 10 minutes to get to the airport. And they didn't even check if the flight was delayed. My parents were just anxious to go see my brother. I was being the lazy one and sat at home till I saw online that his flight actually arrived. I then left my house to go to airport. I wasn't particular thrilled that I had to park my car to pick him up. I much preferred that he called me after he got his luggage. But oh well. After another hour waiting in the airport, watching my mom walking up and down the hall anxiously to try to find my brother, he finally walked out. My dad then took his camera out. I was like, you got to be kidding me. It wasn't the first time he flew or first time he came to Vancouver. Why are we taking pictures! My friend jokingly suggested that my parents should bring a banner to say "welcome home" to the airport. Now come to think about it, my parents may seriously consider that if they thought of it earlier. I guess that is something I would never understand. :P

Only Girl

I start to think I am not a girl. Or I should say not girlie. I was talking to one of the teens the other night and she was trying to decide to go to a Christian concert or not. One of her concern is no girls are going. It is not the first time I heard girls saying that. Another girl from my fellowship used to ask if I would join for some activity cause she doesn't like to be the only girl. Somehow I never think it is a problem for me. May be I will try to see if my friends are going. But I never really concerned that I am the only girl in the group. May be if I go camping or hiking, usually I would go with my male friends. So I am kind of used to the fact that I may be the only girl. Even at my previous company, I was the token girl in development for the longest time. Not to mention that all my lunch buddies are guys only. I wonder what my friends' reaction would be if I asked that question next time. :P

Coffee House

I just came back from the coffee house hosted by the teen group from my church. I am simply amazed how they pull everything together. When I talked to their leaders on Thursday, it sounded like there is still tons to be done. But when I walked in today, I was so impressed. The decoration, the sound set up, the food. Of course all of it was nothing fancy. But they are all done by the teen. The leaders didn't help at all. They sat back and let them organized it. I did hear there was a lot thing done last minute but I think the turnout was awesome. And a lot of people showed up too. I got to say I am very impressed with tonight. When I drove home tonight, I reflected back the outreach event that we organized. May be we adult plan it more nicely and executed it better, but how come we can never get people to come? Isn't that the whole point? Are we just not comfortable inviting our friends? Are we all just too focus of making food or decorating but forgot the main point of these events? My fellowship did a coffee house two years ago. We did have great food and good decoration. But we only have two new people show up. I wonder if we can accomplish something like what the teen had today.

A Good Citizen

So I decided to call in ICBC today to report the accident that I saw last night. I am not sure it would help, but at least I did my part. One thing I don't like calling in ICBC is their phone menu. They should have a witness option. I don't even know what I should choose. (Pick 1 to file a claim...errr..not my claim..2 if you are from a repair shop..errr) After randomly picking the "Other" option and on hold for 15 minutes, I finally talk to a real person. The first thing I said is, I am not sure this is the right number to call, but I witnessed an accident last night and this was what happen. Here is our conversation:

ICBC: So do you have the license plate down?
Good Citizen: Err...I took a picture but the resolution was so bad that I can't tell the license plate now
ICBC: Do you know the make or brand of the car?
Good Citizen: Errr....does it help if I say the black car hit the white car?
ICBC: (damn this stoopid girl) Do you remember what part of the car contact the other car?
Good Citizen: (looking at the picture taken by the phone and VERY clearly described the contact point between two cars)
ICBC: (still shocked that there is actually some details to this incident) So here is what you said happen... (and repeat what I told him earlier)

So the ICBC personnel said they will put me on file as witness. But since I don't have more detail on the accident, they can't tell if someone has reported this or not (apparently there is no such thing as listed by location and time) And next time it is probably a good idea to put my contact on the car in case they do want a witness.

Accident

This is not a random picture of a car accident. This is something I saw in Canadian Tire's parking lots today. So I was about to back out from my parking spot. When I checked my back mirror, I suddenly saw a car backing out to an electric pole. I saw the car hit the pole and bounced back. I quickly turned my head and tried to figure out what is with the driver. And there is NO ONE in driver seat! I was like..what the hell! (It was broad day light! So it is not ghost story!) And then that car bounced and hit the white car parked in front. I was shocked to see the whole thing. Another guy saw the whole thing too and we can't believe our eyes. We waited for awhile to see who the car owners are but no one showed up. So I took a picture and left. Now the question is, should I call ICBC and say I saw the whole thing just in case? But I don't remember the license plate now. This is one weird accident!!!

Early for Church....Almost.....

I "almost" arrived at church early today. I am usually pretty bad about being on time on Sunday. I think I had only been on time less than 10 times last year. But today, today I almost arrived early. Almost. So this morning, I was still dreaming and turning side on my bed. For no reason, I opened up my eyes and saw my alarm clock said 8:47am. Since the Sunday service starts at 9:15am, I am pretty much screwed. So I quickly rolled out of my bed and rushed to the shower. By the time I was done and checked the time again, it was 7:00am!!! I was like WHAT THE!!! Then I realized that it must be just 6:47am when I checked my alarm clock. Since I am pretty much blind without my glasses, it is totally possible I mis-read my clock. Now I have 2 hours to get ready, eat breakfast, and go to church and would still be earlier than the worship team. Since I have so much time now, I figure I would do my devotion in the morning and watched a bit of TV before getting out the door. But do I underestimate my sleepiness?! I quickly passed out on my couch again (and without setting an alarm!!!) The next time I opened my eyes, it was already 9:00am. And I end up being 10 minute late again. :(

Mother's Day Dinner

This is what I made for mommy tonight for mother's day. It wasn't bad except not enough sauce and not enough shell fish.

Cornered

If someone ask you, do you think I am so-and-so kind of people, how would you answer? Or they ask you "people think I am so-and-so, what do you think?" The way that person phase the question is expecting you to agree. If you actually don't think so, would you speak your opinion? I actually lied when I got asked last time. Someone asked if I think he is a trustworthy person and my immediate reaction is "No, I don't trust you" but that would require some confrontation/explanation, and I am not ready to do so with someone I don't know well enough. So I decided to lie. I felt bad but then I really don't know how to answer. If the question is from a friend, I probably would give an honest answer. What would you do?

Ulti Season!

I can't believe I didn't post for a week. I have been crazily busy at work. But last two days, I didn't bother to stay overtime cause it is ulti-season! Somehow I feel very devoted to ultimate this year and signed on for two teams. The worst part is back to back, Monday AND Tuesday. I really don't know what I was thinking when I signed up for the team. Monday team is a new team I started playing with. I played with them in the fall, but that is only half the regular team. I was kind of nervous cause I haven't played and I haven't exercised for so long. I almost passed out during prat ice the week before. It actually wasn't too bad. When I woke up today, my body wasn't super sored. I was quite happy about it. But man, am I wrong! I played again tonight and my whole body was super tired after the first game. My right arm is tired and sored. I can't really lift my arm now. I am not looking forward waking up tomorrow. But I am sure glad both of my teams are pretty fun people. Especially my Tuesday team. This is the team I have been playing ever since I started playing ultimate. But this year half the girls are new. I was kind of anxious about the team dynamics. But the turnout is actually pretty good. I am looking forward to this summer. :)

TGIF!

I am glad this week is finally over. It was very stressful at work. I finally realize how service company is different than product company. In a product company, when we are behind schedule, we can easily decide what feature to remove to meet the schedule or push the schedule within the company. But with service company, it is not that easy. Customers always want everything to be completed perfectly and on time. And with software, it is almost never the case. So this week, we finally behind schedule and I have to update the customer on the progress. Since the project is very short duration, losing a day mean a lot. And for one component we are a week behind already and the second component we are at least 3 days and counting. You can imagine how tense I am every time going into the meeting with the customers. I am totally freaking out that my head will get chopped off right there and then. And I was relieved every time I walk out alive. Last two days was especially bad cause we are closed to a delivery date but from what we see on the test server, it doesn't seem working at all. That part was done by the Russian team and since we haven't worked together before, we haven't developed trust yet. I don't want to overreact without really understand how much work has done. So last two days I set up a server and test it myself. And I felt so much relieved after seeing most of the stuff are really working. Hopefully next week will get better. This is indeed more stressful than I expected.

Wanted: A Humanoid Punch Bag

I somehow really miss one of my friends from previous company today. Not that I am all emotional all a sudden. But because I really want to beat up someone today and he isn't around. I tried to use the alternative method which is to yell at him online but he isn't online this morning, which made me extra mad. When we worked together, I usually would stomp into his office if I am upset or anything. So I could rant, whine, complain, and sometimes (actually most of the time) use my plastic hammer just madly beat him up. That is part of my stress relieve. But we don't work together now. Who should I run to instead? :(

PS. My friend later got online and we chatted for a bit so I can get my frustration out. I nicely asked him to drive over so I could beat him up but he refused. How rude!

Всё о Google

It sure was extremely annoying that the network connection at work was extremely flaky last few days and the Internet connection was slow because of the proxy server in Russia and the connection was down at least once each day and I can't use MSN anymore and have to switch to web MSN (this probably annoyed me the most! but not just to talk with friends but I talk to customers too :P) But one interesting discovery though, which is I never know Google would redirect you to the local mirror site. And even blogger does that! I was completely amazed by it (I know I know, probably most people out there know but I didn't!) I guess Google detect the Russian proxy server and assume I am from Russian site. Even though that mildly amused me, I really hope our network problem will be fixed soon cause I basically have nothing to do if the network is down!!!!!

Happy Day

I am so happy today. Finally a friendly face at work. One of my friends started in my company today. (Though it is sad how happy I am for that loser to join, but still it is a friendly face) Even I know most of my coworker, I don't know them too well. I finally have friend at work :) I finally have someone I can go to lunch with. I do sometimes eat with my coworkers, but mostly I am a loner. But now I finally can bug someone when I am bored at work. So happy :)

And a perfect way to end my day is the email from my brother. He said he probably coming to visit in May. I am soooo happy now! Even I just saw him in November, I miss him already :D

What To Do? What To Do?

Somehow I think God keep teasing me today, or last few days. As I mentioned before, I am helping my church to organize a team to go to Peru. Though even from the beginning that I doubt we can find a team of 15 people, I am still highly disappointed that only 4 people can commit so far. Originally I have about 10-11 people said they are interested, but then they start dropping out either because of vacation or money issue. While I can understand that, I am still abit upset. My original thought was to still go but joining with other people no matter what. But some guys think it already defeat the purpose if we only have 4 people to go as a church team. So I was going to email the team and see what they think tonight. While I was sitting on my couch procrastinating on writing the email, 3 more people told me that they can join but depends on the date. I can't help to think, seriously God, do You want me to go this trip or not. If this whole process is just to teach me to be patient, it isn't working well cause I am getting more impatient. If You want to tell me that You are in control, then at least tell me what You want me to do! I want to get this trip going and it doesn't seem like so. And when I was going to cancel it, then more people said they can. I am really not sure what I should do now. I feel like having an anxiety attack. :(

Night Owl No More

One of the hardest thing with my new job is the early meeting. Ever since I started this project, I have to meet with my Russian team every two days at 8am. For other people, it may be nothing. For me, it is killing every single cell of mine. I was never an early person. When I first started in my previous company, I did go to work pretty early. I usually went in around 7-8am. But then I found out that I didn't really get to leave early anyway and I usually stayed pretty late. I may as well just go in late. Since then, I start going to work later and later. My usual time to work would be 10am. That way I won't stuck in traffic. I even refuse to attend meeting earlier than 10am. However, ever since starting this project, I have to get in earlier. I don't have an excuse to not go in anymore, especially I am the project manager. I tried suggesting to the Russian team to meet at 11pm instead, but people seem to more willing to meet at 8am instead. Aiii, I wonder how long my body can keep up.

A Letter

I got a letter from my second sponsored kid today. I start child sponsoring thru World Vision several years ago. My first kid is from South America but I never bother writing to him. Ever since I came back from Cambodia, I really want to do something so I decided to sponsor a second child from Cambodia. When I first got his picture, I was a bit disappointed because he wasn't very cute looking (I know I know, I am shallow). But I was sad after I read his description. His parents both passed away and he stayed with his relatives now. As people already struggle with daily necessity, taking care of another child add extra burden to the family. I felt so sad for such a young kid to go thru that (He is only Grade 1) but yet I know it is very common in third world country. Anyway, when I got his letter today, I am pretty happy. I never got a letter from my sponsored kids. He didn't say much except to thank me. But somehow that make the whole thing more personal. He isn't just a picture that I sent my money for. May be I will be less lazy and write him and my other sponsored kid back.

An Interesting Bubble Tea Experience

I went to a bubble tea place on the weekend which turn out to be quite interesting experience. You are thinking, "How interesting can a bubble tea place be? You almost can find 5 bubble tea places in every block in Richmond." Here is how it all started. So I was meeting up with my friends on Sunday for bubble tea. We walked in and the lady in the front desk asked if we have made a reservation. I thought "That is weird. Never heard that you need to make reservation for bubble tea before." So we said no and she said it would be 20 minute wait. Since we were still waiting for our friends, we figured it was fine. And then a waitress walked by. My friend immediately said, "We are staying and wait for a table. We are not changing places." Why? Cause that waitress was wearing a french maid uniform. We were all surprised to see that. So after we sat down, we were all very busy looking around. Except the front desk lady, all the watiresses dressed like a french maid. And the dress isn't very long so they can't really run or bend down. And half an hour later, one of the waitresses changed uniform. She now wore a traditional Japanese dress but then the dress was a miniskirt. So all of us were like "Wow, do they change uniform every hour? Should we order more food so we can stay longer and see how many uniform are there?" We are in this big dilemma how long we should stay. Later we found out from the newspaper posting at the front door that this place is actually a cos play cafe. They only have 3 uniform so far: a school uniform, a french maid and Japanese skirt. The owner was hoping to get more uniform later, like sailor moon ones. Definitely interesting experience, but I am not sure I would go back though.

If you don't know what cos play is, here is the definition from wiki:a contraction of the English words "costume" and "play", is a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, tokusatsu, and video games.

And the History Repeat Itself :'(

I can't believe history would realy repeat itself. How many times can a person scratch her car against a parking column? For me, at least twice. Yup, in order to end the long weekend with a bang, when I drove home today after having dinner at my parents', I decided to drive my car against the parking column and see who is made of harder material. Conclusion: the column won! Lucky this time I didn't make a huge dent like last time (I was pretty sure I posted it in my blog before but I can't find it now) But the paint still got off and the scratch was kind of deep that I have to fix it or my car will rot :( May be it is time to think about getting a smaller car :(

Ready! Set! and Go?

I finally finalize most of the detail for this year mission trip from my church. That's right. I took on this role to organize mission trip for my church. I have been working with Samaritan's Purse last month to get all the detail finalized and now most of the thing is set. Now come to first of the hard part, to form the team. Every step into organizing the trip, I got more and more scared. First, I have to form a team of 15 people. My congregation has around 60 people and half of them are students. So 15 people is alot. I don't have the confidence that I am able to form a team. Second thing is we have to raise money for the project we are working on. For this particular project which is helping an orphanage to build a bakery, it is around $7000. I did gasp when I heard that number. Though it is not a lot to share among 15 people. It is still quite a bit of money. I don't know if people would be more hesitate about going. There are alot of times I keep thinking that it is so much easier if I just go by myself with any organization out there and why do I take on such a not easy role. It is hard to please everyone and people may not even be interested. There is very high possibility that the plan will fall through. Then all the work will become trash. Even like today, I prepare for awhile to do the presentation this week and since the sermon run over time, I didn't get a chance to do that. And next week is Easter special worship mean that I may even have less time to do that. And losing two weeks to recruit people mean alot cause the trip is supposed to be in July. I sent an email to all fellowships instead but I know how much attention people pay to email too. That basically mean nothing can be done much for two weeks. I know in the end it is all up to God cause I am only doing His work, but I have to admit that I am really worried how this will turn out.

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.

A Week of Unfortunate Events

I can't believe I haven't posted for almost half year. I have been lazy, very lazy. A lot of things happened lately and last week was all about sad news one after another. Someone I worked with passed away last week. I thought it was a joke when I first heard that. Asking everybody that may know to confirm and eventually someone did. His dad tried to wake him up and found him dead. Probably having some heart defect that not know of. Even to this day, I still find the whole news unreal. How could a person my age that just passed away like this? I just got his Linkin request last week. He just started a job. What sadden me the most is his dad was the person who discovered his body. I can't imagine how it feel for a parent. It must feel devastated. And it seemed like bad things all come together. My friend's grandma passed away the day before my coworker. I don't know her personally so I don't have much to say. But it makes me think back to my grandma's funeral. That little lady who took care of us, who constant nagged us, who got sick for so long finally left us. I never saw my dad cried before till at her funeral. Now come to think about, I don't know if he cried when we found out about my mom got cancer last year. He looked very calm the whole time. I was so scared when I went with my mom to do a follow up check this year. I have to keep praying while waiting for her and felt so relieved when she told me she was fine. Cause you never know what could happen. My friend's mom's cancer came back again and this time it is aggressive. I knew how helpless my friend would feel. How you see your mom going thru some very painful procedure and you can do nothing. Nothing but pray. Even praying was scary too, cause you don't know what God's plan is and you just have to trust Him. Trust that His plan is good.

Washington, DC

I gave my official no about relocating to Washington, DC today. If you haven't heard about it yet, my company decided to close down Vancouver office, or at least shrink it to a size of ~30 people. Most people are given the chance to relocate to Washington, DC where our head office is or become jobless after certain date. Before we need to make the decision, my company flew us all over for a scouting trip. Hence two weeks ago, I was in Washington DC. I got to see the head office and meet my new teammates and new manager. I wasn't really planning to move before I went on the trip. But after the talk with the manager, it sound like very exciting opportunity. My responsibility will be much bigger and I may even have a chance to go to Beijing. So I was all exciting and ready to move there. Of course there is concern about my friends and family, but the opportunity sound too good to pass. After I gave more thought to it, I finally decide to stay in Vancouver and look for another job instead. I know this is a good career advancement, but then I don't want work to take part more in my life than it already has. With this new job, I can foresee that I would spend even more time working than I already am. It would be very stressful and time-consuming. I remember sitting in for my manager while he is on vacation almost kill me. I am not sure I am ready to handle that with no foreseeable end date. And all my friends and family are here. I know I could always make new friends. But do I really want to work all day and go home with no one I can talk to and hang out with. I feel so sad just imagining that. I may end up crying every night. And my parents will be all alone in Vancouver. We have no relatives and my brother is in Hong Kong. Even though I don't live with them, I feel more comfortable just be in Vancouver in case they need me. Moreover, I am more involved with my church next year. I am helping out in the teen fellowship next year. Also, during the Panama trip, my pastor talked about his vision on our church and the English ministry. There is a lot of exciting changes and I know I want to be part of it. So, I decided Vancouver is where I want to be at this moment. So, sorry people if you have been waiting for me to leave. May be some other times. :P

Panama

Due to a lot hatred comment on my blog for absent of posting, I figure I should write something about my first missionary trip. Looking from the pictures, we looked like we are staying in luxury hotel and just having fun and we were. It is not the usual mission trip that people have in mind, like going into remote places and helping them to improve living environment. It is none of that. This trip is to help out in an English camp and most of the kids who came are sort of well off cause the camp is kind of expensive to their living standard. But we didn't get to just sit around and have fun. In fact, the camp is so unorganized that makes a lot of us very frustrated and stressed. Things keep changing last minute. And it was very draining mentally too cause we have to be with our kids 24/7. And yet, I think the experience touched each and every one of us in different way. I never experience lives or see lives this way before. May be some of the kids' families are pretty well off, but it is not like they got spoiled and just sat around do nothing. I am the spoiled one. A lot of them have to help in family business when they get off school. One of my girls spent all her free time working. She doesn't get to hang out with friends at all. The camp is her only social life. A lot of them have more burden than I ever see. Broken relationship, death, threat. One of the girl's bf die when she was in the camp. And a lot of the kids actually know him too. Another girl got stalked by her gangster ex-bf in the camp and he threaten to kill one of the girl in my class. Some of them got mislead to work in Panama and thinking that they are going to the state. Now they have to work to pay off the debt for sponsoring them over. To them, coming to Canada/US is a paradise. A lot of them are just looking for love and friendship in the camp which they don't find in their own home. They experienced way more than I ever when I was 16. It is not something we watch from TV. It is life that I never see before. They sadden me. At first I was very nervous to meet them cause I never work with kids before. And the fact that you have to bond with them and get them open up seem like an impossible job. I am very glad things work out. I met a lot of friends, though they are way way younger than me. I enjoyed their company a lot and they would really open up to you. I also met good friends from the short mission members too, despite they keep picking on me. I also get to know people from my church better. I never hang out with the younger group. Through this trip, I am glad I get to know more of them. Last but not least, I have never been this focus on God before. This trip really help me focus and experience His presence. I know I always say serving Him, but I know deep down I basically take up the job because nobody feel like doing it. It is a job focus, not God focus. But this trip, really help me to put the perspective on Him and see how His work is done. I know He touched each and every one of us in different way. There was a calling during the call for full time ministry. I did sign for that. I didn't know it was full time ministry till later. I was a bit scared of what I got myself into. But now I know if that is what my calling for and thru me, God can do His work. I am willing to take up the work. This was a very meaningful trip for me and I sure hope someday I could be back.

Wine Tasting

I can't believe last time I updated my blog was a month ago. Anyway, I went to a wine release party with my friends tonight. It is hosted by the Naramata Bench. My friends and I went to Naramata last year and we had lots of fun. When we heard about the wineries are hosting a party, we decided to get ticket together. It was a party with food, wine and fashion show. Some of the very famous restaurants have a booth there. Eg. C, Lumiere, Cin Cin. It is not a full course meal though. Each of them served a dish of hors d'overs. There is lamb, foie gras brulée, cheese, duck pate, duck breast and even suckling pig. It is pretty yummy. And there sure is a lot of wines for tasting. I tried couple of them but didn't try it all cause I need to drive home still. I had a good pear wine from Spiller Estate. I even like it better than the Elephant Island (a winery I spent a lot of money on last year). I don't really like the red that I tried though. Usually the BC red wine has a very young red taste that I don't like. I didn't pay much attention to the fashion show. I was too busy lining up for the suckling pig then :P. We end the evening with fries and frosty from Wendy's. It was a pretty fun evening though the food went out too soon. Next time, I am definitely eating all the food before any tasting.

Cherry Blossoms

When I was leaving work today, I saw the cherry blossoms bloomed along Marine Drive. I was so excited. I am not a huge fan of cherry blossoms, but it sure is beautiful. And it also meant spring will be coming soon (and I am a big fan of warm weather!) despite the horrible weather last two days (snowing in March! If it is in June, Chinese would say there must be an innocent person put on trial.) Then I remember I didn't see it on my way driving to work this morning. Do they just bloom all a sudden in an afternoon? I don't remember what I saw at all this morning. It was snowing heavily. And cherry blossoms are supposed to bloom in warm weather. So it was weird that they bloomed after a morning of snow and just an afternoon of sunshine. But I don't like the idea of me driving and not remember a thing along the way more. So I stick with the idea that it just happen secretly while I worked hard at work. On a side note, my friend is going to take her pre-wedding photo while cherry blossoms bloomed. (Chinese would go to a studio to take posed photo, indoor and outdoor, wearing wedding gowns before the actual wedding and show the pictures during wedding banquet.) I was very happy when I remembered that today. She really really hate being cold. And cherry blossoms bloomed while it is still snowing mean that she will be taking photo (hehehe..those wedding gowns are not particular warm) in extremely cold weather. Boy, I can see her smiling happily in those photo. Wahahaha!

Deep Thinking

I should stop skipping work, I think. Seem like everytime I took days off, I came back with a 2 hour meeting waiting. That happen last Friday and today. They even make the meeting more "exciting" by scheduling it during lunch time. And no one knows if we are getting fed or not. I think people don't remember if you try to lure people into meeting, especial during lunch time, you have to prepare food. I was planning to order pizza anyway if we don't get fed in the meeting. I don't want to walk out to grab lunch in this crappy weather. Anyway, as much "fun" as the meeting is, I actually surprisingly didn't fall asleep. I felt sorry for napping last Friday cause it was vaguely interesting meeting, but you can't escape food coma. But today, I was pretty impressed with myself. May be I was too concentrated on the thought that when would I get fed. Of course I got bored. I was a bit upset that I don't have any document to read or I would have make the time more useful. Without anything to do, I start turning around and looking at people. It entertained me quite a bit. A friend who I know always fell asleep in meeting actually pretty awake, though looked bored. But I saw another friend closed his eyes (though he claimed later that he was just closing the eyes and resting). A lot of people in the 'deep thinking' mode. Another friend actually stood up and then sat down again in the middle of meeting and we all thought he made an effort to leave but failed. Turned out he wanted to ask questions. I was so mad he asked question (cause he lengthened the meeting) and actually yelled his name out quietly (hopefully not much people can hear that :P). I spent most of the second half meeting stared at people and I ended up pretty awake when it ended. Next time at company meeting, I am definitely doing the same thing!

Operation

I don't remember when is the last time I went to a hospital, probably when my grandma did her heart surgery, which was long time ago. We went to the hospital today because my mom is having an operation. All I have to say is that TV deceived us all. I didn't even get to see the surgeon today. Well, we met her and talked to her several times before in her office. But today, no sign of her. Well, at least down in the waiting area. My mom did see her when she went to the operation room. But in TV show, you always see the relatives waiting outside the operation room, waiting for that "operation in progress" light to turn off, then they run up to the surgeon and ask. The surgeon will say 'congratulation, the surgery went well' or 'sorry, we try our best', saying of that sort. But nothing today! My dad and I sat in the waiting room the whole times, just waiting. Only people we saw today were nurses. They told us when the surgery starts and around when my mom would come back. And if we want to leave, they can call my cell phone when she is back. That is. No staring at the light anxiously. No doctor coming right out from the operation room saying anything. When they pushed my mom back to the ward, the nurse just told us how to take care of her wound next while. So when people asked me how it goes, I can only say, "I think it went well, I think." Never trust TV! They lie!

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.