Reckless

So my trip is coming up soon, real soon. Like this Sunday :) I am actually pretty excited about the whole trip. I have it all planned out (first time ever I am sooo organized before the trip!) Even when I talked to my friend on Saturday, I am very looking forward to my trip. There are so many things I want to see and China is always the place I really want to go and just wander around in all the historical places. Even my parents are super worried about me travelling by myself, they actually are the one who nag me the least. Some of my friends keep telling me horrid stories about robbery. When they found out I am planning to stay in a hostel in Beijing, they totally freak out (and the funny thing is my parents actually didn't :P) They keep saying why I am staying in hostel (cause it is cheaper :P) and why sharing room with people (cause it is cheaper and it is just another girl) They go on and on about hostel in China isn't like Europe. Though I understand they only care about my safety, I think I know what I am doing. When I travel by myself, I usually play it more safe too. So it is not like I would recklessly go around the cities to the unsafe area. And when I compared to my other friends, I am totally the safe traveller and can well take care of myself :) Tonight make me kind of miss my friends who I travelled with cause they would understand and just get excited for my trip :(

Purpose of Life

I finished watching a Japanese drama called "One Litre of Tears" last night in one go (which by the way is bad idea if you need to go to work the next day). The story is based on a real life story. A 15 years old girl was diagnosed spinocerebellar ataxia, a disease that the patient slowly lose the ability to move and talk and there is still no known cure. The drama basically showed the girl's life starting when she got diagnosed with the disease till she died. It is a very sad story cause her body started to deteriorate but yet she stayed conscious the whole thing. It is a very brutal disease. And then she started to wonder the purpose for her life. For us, it may be friends or family. But for her, her only focus is to stay alive. She questioned what is the point for staying alive when you can see your body slowly dying. What should be the purpose then? It is not even an easy life to live. Every movement you rely on someone to help you. Any moment now you can die from the smallest thing like eating or drinking. You lost control on everything that you take for granted. It is almost easier to die than live. Never give up, it is easier said than done. But yet she did. She found the purpose for her live and she tried her best to keep on living. Her courage really astounded me. I don't know if I am her, I would be to live like that. Now I am interested to read the original book which is the diary that the girl wrote during her years of sickness.

Super Fun Trip Planning

So I actually started planning my trip. Given that I am leaving in 3 weeks, it is "normal" for everyone to plan their trip, book the hotel, etc, etc. But not me. I usually do the planning on the plane :) What else can you do on the 8 hour flight? :) But this time, I actually started planning. Partly because my parents decide to tag on part of my trip. And I also want to take a look what I can do in China. Then I realize how big China really is!!! I mean I always know it is big, but every place I want to go take 6 hours train! :( I was searching online and reading people recommendation on places. And then I started to feel exhausted reading how long each places takes and 6 hours is already the short trip :( Now I realize I am really old! When I backpacked in Europe back then, overnight train is nothing! But now....Anyway I got more excited to read about all the places I haven't heard of. I started to re plan my whole trip. Now I regretted getting my Shanghai to HK flight ticket so early because I want to go to Xian instead. Oh well, I guess I will have to do another trip again :)

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. :)