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.