Back in action

for the time being.

Work:
I was extremely busy at work after taking on a new client in mid December last year. We had to put in a lot of time working with the new shareholder and director who had just taken over the company and was trying to weed out previous ties.

Chinese New Year
fell on 7 February this year. Tomorrow is the 15th day:

"Yuan Xiao - The Chinese Valentine's Day The 15th day is also being referred to as the Chinese Valentine's day. On this day, many single girls will gather at the riverside upstream to toss mandarin oranges into the river, with the hope that the right single men who await downstream, will pick up the oranges. It is believed that this act will bring the person to his/her right match. So it's no surprise the mandarin oranges will sell really well on that day.

Of course, Chinese who originated from different area of China might have different New Year tradition and practices. For instance, in Hong Kong, people believe that the first person who puts a joss stick into the temple's offering altar, will be having good luck for the rest of the year. You can imagine the crowd outside the temple at the dawn of the Lunar New Year. " (taken from here http://www.knowingfood.com/story/lunar_new_year.html)

In case anyone wants to know, we don't "seriously" throw oranges anymore.

American Idol Season 7-Men:
I think David Archuleta is just so good. Like what Simon said, "When you've got it, you've got it." He's so natural on stage and he's so young. He has a natural good singing voice but needs to work on his range. His low notes were a bit wobbly.

In the earlier round, I also liked David Cook and Michael Johns. I think Michael is pretty consistent but is feeling the pressure more now. He needs to have more confidence in himself to perform well. He can turn out to be very professional. I like David Cook's rocker voice and although he still sang well, he was not standing out much tonight.

I didn't manage to watch Jason Carlos in the preliminary but he sounds good in this round. We'll see how he goes from here.

Meme:
David M has tagged me for a game "Plans for 2008" http://dmascellani.livejournal.com/65391.html, which I shall be posting soon. Stay tune.

Busying Here and There

Gosh, I've been absent from this blog for one month. How time flies!

I've been extremely busy, adjusting to the new job environment and to my "boss" management style. Umm, I've lots to say about this aspect but maybe later.

I'm afraid my dream (before starting this job) of having more time for my writing did not turn out too well. I'm struggling to make time to fit all my commitments into this fixed time vacuum the world allows us.

I try to sleep by 12 midnight every night but sometimes I stay up later than that to catch up on my writing. However, after a couple of such nights, I'll be zombieing my way every where so in the end I give up these late nights. Well, at least until a few days later and my brain wants to zombie again.

Okay, I know I'm babbling, so no more. Good night.

My Almost-Clergy Friend

When I was in secondary school, I was the leader of a Christian society for one year and it was at this time I met this guy during an inter-school Christian fellowship. He was the leader of another school's Christian group.

He was a very charismatic person and left a very good impression on me. By the time the fellowship which lasted three days ended, we had became good friends. He talked to me about his plans to leave town to undergo a course to become a priest. A few days later, we met again when I attended his farewell tea-party at his house.

Later that night, he came to my house on his motorbike. Riding pillion was a girl I was slightly acquainted with. He gave me a bunch of flowers. It was the first time I received flowers from a guy, from anyone for that matter.

But I'd never had thought this would be the type of situation when I'd first receive flowers from a guy. You see, the girl was his girlfriend and they were having their last night out together before he left town. He gave me the flowers to thank me for being such a good friend, listening to his "problems". I guessed he brought his girlfriend along to show her that our relationship was "clean".

Later, when he was at the seminary we corresponded by mail and he told me of the hardships he had to endure. I could see that his strength to continue his training was wavering. I tried to encourage him to continue. After a while, the letters got fewer as I got busier with work, having graduated from school. I was not sure what the reason was at his end.

But soon, I lost touch with him as I went on with my life, with work and another man. Later in life, I feel bad that during that period, I had "neglected" him, not that I could do much though.

Years later, I found out that he had came home, having left the seminary without completing the course. However, he had stayed active in his religious calling by giving Christian seminars. I also heard he's now married, with kids. I'm very sure the wife's the girl on his motorbike that night he came to give me the flowers.

I've never met him again since that night and I've never attended the seminars he conducted so I have no idea how he looks like now. I do wonder though whether he would be able to recognise me after all these years since I'm no longer the wide-eyed bespectacled pony tail school girl he once knew.

Questions (not job related)

Why do people have mental problems and yet don't want to seek help?

Why can't people see for themselves what is happening and why it's happening?

Why won't people listen even for a moment what others are trying to tell them?

Why don't people appreciate the things others do for them rather than look for those things that they do not do?

Why do people get worked-up and pick on others for things they could not do but which those others are doing?

Farewell 2

On the last day of my work in the office, the office tea lady said to me "chun hai ng sei tak nei chow" (Cantonese pinyin). It means something like "hate to see you go and will miss you".

Although she's one "dragon lady" in her field but she and I got along really well. I would always throw my waste paper into a special box for her to collect for recycling (she gets paid when she sells the paper) and gave her lai see (red packet) every Chinese New Year as a personal thank you for all the times she made drinks for me. But I can see that it's not because of these that she said those parting words to me. I know, from those times when we talk at the pantry, she has a certain respect for me and I really appreciate that.

There were two office boys whom I also gave lai see. One came to shake my hand and said he only just knew I was leaving that day so he was unprepared with any parting gift. I wished him well and said I did not expect any which was why I only told him I was leaving on my last day of work. The other office boy was working late and helped me cart my five years of "rubbish" to my car. They, understanding the office environment, had always provided me with prompt service whenever I wanted my documents despatched and they know I appreciate them.

Note: A lai see can be given by an elder to a youngster and from a superior to a subordinate. I'm still trying to search for a better link on this custom.

Freedom

After mopping around the house and running some errands for two days, I am feeling better today. Maybe because my brother came over and took us out for lunch and dinner so it was sort of a holiday for me. I was surprised to find myself singing in the shower again and thinking I want to get an MP3 to enjoy more songs. I want to take up arts lessons and music lessons. I also want to complete the novel I am working on. There seem to be so many things I want to do.

Hmmm. I'm not retired yet. I only have two weeks off work. What am I thinking? I am just imagining I will have more time to do my stuff even when I am working full time again. Maybe it's just a dream. And freedom is valid for a limited time period only.

But the good thing is, I've started to seriously read a book again. I mean, word by word, page by page, from beginning to end, not speed-reading, skimming or skipping any words or pages at all. I take a book with me when I go out and read a page or two whenever I have the chance. I'm now starting on my second 200-pages book. Let's hope this good stuff is going to be a permanent part of my life.

New Job

I've been absent from the blog for longer than I expected. I had been ill (down with flu, fever and cough) for two weeks. I had also been busy with some online workshop stuff and trying to clear up outstanding projects before my last day at work.

I managed to sneak in some time to attend interviews for a new job and I got the job. The environment/situation would be slightly different from my present job though the basic work is still the same. Since it's a management/consultancy firm, I'll also need to meet clients from the portfolio of companies I'll be handling and do some products/business development stuff to expand the company's business/revenue. I'm a little apprehensive since I'm almost anti-social and hate pretentiousness. Let's see if I'll last. The important thing is that this job should leave me enough time to look into some of my real interests.

Bad Day

Today I had such a bad day in the office that I felt like crying and cursing people who had made my life more difficult than it should be. Yeah, it's bad of me but I am so "tired" of the situation and some people there. People are just so unfeeling.

I can't go into details right now but if I do, the tale would really be so unbelievable. Maybe one day, all these will be in a book (probably self-published, who would want to publish my pathetic life story, huh?).

I think today, my brain won't even allow me to rant properly so I'll shut up now.

Nonsense babbles

Since handling in my resignation and feeling like a complete failure for having come to this, and like always in this type of situation, I ask myself where have I gone wrong, plus many other questions which of course there are no correct answers. I'm really a rabbit in the corporate world and that's not where I belong.

I also used to think that for every thing that happened in my life there must be a reason and I always searched for that reason. Sometimes I can find one, most times I cannot. I also hate it when people get away with bad behaviour or bad things they did. But by now, I am disillusioned enough not to seek reasons because there are none and that evil people can get away with evil deeds. Everything is subjective, even justice.

Okay, I'm starting to babble nonsense. Let's move on to something more interesting.

I watched Transformers on cinema this afternoon. It was awesome. This's one war movie I enjoy watching. There're certain scenes which I think should have been done more spectacularly, such as the moment when Bumble Bee transformed into himself and the moment when Megatron came back to life again. More tension should have been put into the later scene and be more suspenseful instead of the chaotic mess it was.

I noticed an irony in the show; despite all the modern technology, when things went wrong, they had to depend on old fashion walkie talkie (radiowave?).

Later at night, I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD.

I should be critiquing some poems but did nothing today. Oh gosh!

My Job

I've given notice of resignation to my boss and in two months' time I'm free. Of course, meanwhile, I'll be actively looking for another job. Something that won't cause me more time than it should and that would spare me enough time to do some serious writing, and to disentangle my personal stuff from its chaotic mess.

Oh! About my resignation, I hope I won't be called in to the Managing Director's room for interrogation!

About blogspot, I've friends complaining about blogspot recently. For me, the problem starts when I try to change my fonts and colors. Over the past two months, I've attempted this a few times and each time my computer got stalled. So my links remained very light blue and difficult to see with certain computers (depending on settings, I think). Anyway, I tried again just now and the problem persisted.

Snip

Snip.

Wind of Change

I've finally typed out my resignation letter and it's now sleeping in my office desk drawer, waiting to be waken up tomorrow morning to the shocked face of my boss.

I've been thinking about resigning for ages and I'm glad I'm finally taking the final steps to realising this thought. It's sad to leave after putting in five years of hard work but I am going nowhere with the job and things are getting tougher for me to handle in terms of volume of work, staffing problems and management's disregard of the situation. I'm too overstressed not to resign now.

To the company, it's a bad time for me to leave because July, August and September are busy months. In July and August, there'll be directors' meeting to arrange and attend, accounts to audit and annual report to prepare and edit in preparation for the company's annual general meeting in September.

Beside these, I have several other projects on hand to finish. I anticipate an earful from my boss tomorrow. The flu and sinus infection I suffered from last week is making me weak physically and mentally so I must really be strong and not retract my resignation (keeping fingers crossed).

Reading blogs

I've been trying to spend more time reading blogs and leaving my comments when I can.

I came across David's new journal which I gave a quick read of some posts. Very interesting. I tried to leave a comment on his blogspot blog but comments were limited to members only. I'm not sure if I can leave comments in his live journal posts. Maybe if he reads this, he can let me know. Thanks.

My Tee Shirt and American Idol

No, my tee shirt has nothing to do with American Idol. I just wanted to talk about my tee shirt and American Idol today.

Yesterday I had to run some errands at a neighbourhood store and a bank. I was in a bit of a rush so I just grabbed a tee shirt to put on and left the house. I did not realise that I had put on my tee back to front. I only realised that after I came home. How embarrassing. I hope people thought I did it on purpose or better still they did not notice it at all. :-)

Yesterday and today, I watched American Idol - Season 6 and I had a good laugh at some of the contestants. Bad of me eh? Okay, okay, I wasn't laughing at them because they were bad but because they were funny. I was also laughing at the judges' expressions and comments. And I just love Simon Cowell. Should I feel better now? Hmm, :-) I can't wait to hear Memphis.

New Year Resolutions

I can think of only one, which is writing-related. Maybe, more will come to mind later and I'll add to the list.

Add:
2. I may try meter in poetry. (Cue for an emoticon with bulging eyes and stuck-out tongue)

1. To spend more time on my writing, whether poetry or shorts. However, I may be concentrating on writing short fictions the early part of the year as I'm targeting to do some submissions to a local publisher and I'm behind schedule on my short stories for children, which I am supposed to submit to an editor. (Local poetry won't sell well here, children's fiction do.)

The short story I posted on my other blog was actually rejected by this editor who instead took another one which I felt was more ordinary. Well, I guess they know best what sells.

I write under a different name locally. I don't know why. However, this may change later when I am able to identify myself better.

Happy New Year!

Hope each of you will have a great 2007.

I was without internet access for a few days due to travelling during the Christmas holiday and the earthquake in Taiwan which disrupted internet services to Asia. I felt so disconnected with the world. That just shows how important the web is to me. As of now, internet services have been fully restored. Thank goodness.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061229/ts_afp/asiaquakeinternet_061229155301

Merry Christmas!