26 May 2008

Off to Somewhere South

I'm going down to Matamata tomorrow. We will stay there for a night.

This is the first time I have to stay away from home for work reason.

Joe's 60th Birthday

Today is Joe's 60th birthday. We had been secretly prepared a celebration for him. Everyone from Auckland office joined, and people like Stephen and Joy who have already left Olympic came along as well. Robyn brought her baby girl, who had been crying a bit during the speeches.

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Joe were very surprised, proven that we had kept it very quiet. Some of us are invited to make speeches (Terryll nearly forgot me!) before Joe said something about his 60th (he looked a bit shy and embarrassed, haha). Olympic is really like a whanau. We are all workmates, but there's more than that. I am so glad that I've been working here since I graduated from University.

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By the way, I gave Joe a hug and a kiss. smile_regular

22 May 2008

Heartbreaking

I have been reading news about the earthquake nearly everyday.

Wordless as usual, when I see tragedies like this.

Difficulties we face everyday is nothing compare to the pain they are facing now.

Parents saved their kids, teachers saved their students, children saved their parents, friends saved friends, schoolmates saved schoolmates, strangers saved strangers...though, there are still a lot unsaved.

People are brave. People who are saving others are brave, people who are waiting to be saved are brave. If I were there, I would not be able to make it. I would probably give up very early.

I have been protected too well I guess. Too weak.

Full of respect in my heart.

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21 May 2008

親人全遇難 女警堅持救災

2008-05-20

泥石流吞沒200交通人員
【明報專訊】四川大地震災民救援行動中,公務人員付出巨大代價,運輸部公路司長戴東昌昨透露,200多名交通人員在搶救災民時被泥石流吞沒。而彭州市女警蔣敏在北川所有10名親人遇難的巨大悲痛下,仍堅持救災。
「媽媽,我想你!」「瑞瑞乖,等你快快長大點,媽媽把你帶到彭州讀書。」這是民警蔣敏和她在北川縣的女兒的最後一次通話,時間是5月12日上午10時許,母女自此再也無法相見。
蔣敏前晚到北京參加抗震救災大型募捐活動時,回憶起地震發生時的情景仍心有餘悸,「從辦公大樓裏跑出來,我的第一反應就是打電話,給家人報平安」。然而通訊中斷,電話無法接通,蔣敏的家在北川縣城,奶奶、外婆、母親及女兒都在那裏,因為工作繁忙,女兒在5個月大時,蔣敏把她送回老家讓母親帶。在地震之前,蔣敏已有一個月沒與女兒見面了。
地震發生後,蔣敏和同事緊急出動,她按捺不住內心的牽掛,不斷打電話給北川的親人。這一夜,蔣敏沒有睡,一直在執勤。


「回去也沒用 不如做些事」
13日清晨6時許,蔣敏在北川的舅舅打電話給她:她的爺爺、奶奶、母親、女兒全部遇難。在北川的全家10口人已經確認死亡。「道路不通,通訊不通,我回去也沒有用,還不如在這裏做些事,幫幫和家人一樣的災民。」遭受重創的蔣敏此時異乎尋常地選擇了堅強。
看着蔣敏一直憔悴,上級和同事非常擔心,特意把她調到指揮中心,但一天後她又要求到前線。天彭中學安置了4000多名災民,蔣敏一整天都在那裏維持秩序,幫助送水送物資。


特別呵護孩子 抱着不願放
和蔣敏工作多年的彭州市公安局政工監督室主任張燕一直默默地關心着她,張燕說,每次遇到小孩子,蔣敏總是特別細心呵護,幫他們穿衣、蓋被、逗孩子們笑,「每當這種時候,我就特別心酸」。
16日凌晨,幾個剛被救出來的災民來到安置點,當中有一個胖胖的小男孩。蔣敏安置好大人後,緊緊地抱起這個小孩,久久不願放下,看了又看。她問張燕:「你說,這個孩子有兩歲多了吧?」「差不多吧。」張燕的心一酸,她知道,蔣敏又想起女兒了。

17 May 2008

週末的下午

算是悠閒的一天,只不過是要大掃除而已。小王子的媽媽走後,還未有時間清潔,兩位小姐就到訪,終於今天可以大執拾一下,現在只差我們的房間和剛洗好的被舖。讓我休息一會再繼續完成我的工作。

星期一小王子便開始新的工作,希望他能適應呢。臨行前,舊的公司也如他所願,送了他一部iPod touch,和我一樣是8GB的。夠用的了,我到現在還用不了多少。

剛喝完我的西茶,可惜沒有西式蛋糕和餅乾。有點想睡覺呢。。。好一個下午。

15 May 2008

論戀愛

女孩坐在一起總會說到愛情。一個單身,一個蜜運,一個已婚。持著完全不同的愛情觀,說起來更是天南地北。單身好,還是戀愛好;找愛自己的人好,還是找自己愛的人好;穩定於一段感情好,還是變化多些以尋找適合的好;結婚好,還是不結婚好。。。無論哪一項,都似是說不完的話題。

這麼多年會悶嗎?沒有哦。也不是沒有我覺得不錯的人,只是沒有叫我心動得愛上的人而已。平淡也不錯,沒有差池,好過無風也起浪。我可受不了離奇的打擊,愛上了別人的話也不知要怎算好。幸而我的心簡樸,無須煩惱。只是少了點經驗,沒資格說人家這個那個,哈哈。

Travel Journals

I have been reading travel journals these days. André is in Sri Lanka now and he keeps updating his blog about what he's experiencing over there. It's very interesting to see foreigner in Sri Lanka, experiencing a completely different culture. Still have six blog entries to read, including the very important one about Sasanka's wedding (and calculation of Buddhist horoscope?) . Yesterday I was finishing my essay, so I left the good stuff for tonight. JD went to Bangkok several weeks ago. He posted a very interesting photo. I like it. Now I am waiting for Ning to post about her trip here in NZ, although I travelled together with her most of the time, it's still something to look for.When I read this sort of stuff I always leave a comment on every single journal entry. Well, apparently not everyone likes it, but who cares.

I don't travel, so I don't write travelling journals. If I'm going to travel and write journal, I think I will bring a pen and a diary like journal book instead of a laptop. To me, travel journal has to be written, can't be typed up initially. Computer is too farfetched from romanticism, lacking aesthetic value. Having said that, I typed up my Rotorua trip record. However I don't count it as a travel journal. It's just a record of leading tourists to some tourist attractions! :D

P.S. If you have discovered that I am typing English blogs a little bit too often recently, well, bear with me, my brain is stuck. I promise I will return to Chinese mode soon, very soon, maybe next blog post. 

14 May 2008

Girls' Trip Day 3 12052008

Another nice weather day, which is really good because I had to drive back to Auckland from Rotorua. We had our pancake breakfast again before we left the holiday house. Rosemary and John, the owners of the house, came back the night before. We packed up our stuff, took everything down to my car, checked to make sure we didn't leave anything there, and ready to go. I went down to the lower level to pay Rosemary. She's a very friendly lady and John's a big guy with a nice smile. Their kids' graduation photos were on the wall. I paid Rosemary $230 for three people staying for two nights, which is a reasonably cheap price for such a  nice holiday house.

Then we drove to the Rotorua city centre. Ning and Ada didn't realise that they had not seen the city centre yet. I always drove on the same road, which was not exactly the city centre. The only place we visited was Pak N' Save, which was not inside the city centre as well. This time we parked the car and walked around a little bit.

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Remember I said we had checked to make sure we didn't leave anything behind? Yes, we didn't, but I took something with me: the KEY! Rosemary didn't ask me for the key, and I forgot to return it. So it was in the back pocket of my jeans. We planned to drive back to return the key. Before that I made a call to Rosemary, and she told me not to return but post to her by mail instead. I don't like the idea of posting a key by mail, but she said it's ok, so I followed her instruction, posted the key out.

After that we started our way back towards north. The first stop on our way back was Cambridge. Cambridge is a beautiful town (town of trees). The most interesting thing we found was the 20 cents superloo. I gave everyone a 20 cents coin and all of us were so excited to see what so special about this public toilet - turn out it's a clean toilet, as expected, but not something extraordinary in New Zealand.

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We hopped back into my car and continued our way. Next stop was Hamilton, where we had sushi for late lunch. We spent the rest of our time in Hamilton Gardens before I drove back to Auckland. Ning and Ada had the same conclusion about New Zealand's gardens: simply showing off beautiful grassland.

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Thanks God for no rain at all for the whole day. I drove home safely even though the girls stopped talking to me and fell asleep on way back from Hamilton. That night we had pizza at mum's home together because Ning wanted to try triple cheese pizzas from Domino. After dinner we returned home. Ada and I was watching Bones and Dexter, while Ning's examining and organizing her photos. I went to sleep straight after Dexter. Man, I was so tired.

Such a happy girls trip. :)

Girls' Trip Day 2 11052008

Day 2 started off with rain in the midnight, and sunny sky with fewer and fewer clouds from the morning. The weather was great. Actually it was still cloudy at around 7:00am. I looked out and saw the cloudy sky, then prayed for a good weather because the girls would love to see the sun. You know, leading tourists on a rainy day is quite discouraging. Then, God cleared the cloud for me. See the sky at 7:51am and 8:43am:

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Ning went for kayaking  at around 7:45am. She is a pro in kayaking (well she taught kayaking). Ada and I made our own breakfast and watched her kayaking on the lake from the balcony. We had pancakes with banana and a cup of coffee. Lovely morning indeed. Ning came back from kayaking at around 8:30am. She also had pancakes for breakfast before we left the holiday house (By the way, this is the place we stayed).

Our first destination was Government Gardens. I kept thinking the Rotorua museum building we saw was not what I visited previously. I thought it's too small and the garden was much smaller than what in my mind. Anyway, turned out it was the one. My memory is not very good I guess. Then we drove pass flee market and stopped for shopping. Ning and Ada had bought quite a few things. All I got was a $2 necklace. I have to introduce Ning's panda dressed Monchichi here, which was the main model for most photos.

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After shopping we drove to Tai-O-Wapu Thermal park. The guide suggested normally people would finish the walk in about 75 mins. We had spent more than 120 mins to complete it. I had been carrying the heavy tripod all the way. Poor me. We saw some interesting orange and red mushrooms on our way. The red one looked so similar to Mario's mushroom. They were very cute, but probably poison.

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Well, our day wasn't finished after this. Next we went to Rainbow Springs Nature Park. Ning love big fish, that's the biggest reason why we went there. Besides fish (personally not very interested to) we saw some cute animals including two fat pigs. Hmm, I missed my little prince and hoped he slept well at night.

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We were all so tired. Still, we went to Pak N' Save again to buy some more food and went back to the holiday house to cook. We thought of spa after dinner again, but Ada was too lazy to move her ass out of the sofa. Ning tried to capture good starry sky photo but she failed. I drove out for about 10 mins to call my little prince and my mum to say "Happy Mother's Day" (yes, no vodafone mobile coverage). I fell asleep at around 10:00pm after praying for sun again on the next day.

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13 May 2008

Girls' Trip Day 1 10052008

Yesterday we came back from Rotorua. That's a must-go place for tourists, and I was with two. I didn't write down what we have done over these three days. It's because I was too tire every night, and Ning took around 2000 pictures anyway, including what we ate, what we saw and what we did.

The weather on the first day wasn't really nice, but it didn't rain. I drove all the way down from my home to Hamilton. On the way I saw signs showing me way out to Drury. At that moment I thought it is really quite far from Manukau city, but after three days of driving, yesterday on my way back I felt I was near home finally.  We had a nice breakfast in Hamilton. Since the breakfasts are too large (as usual) for three girls, we had ordered two (an Egg Benedict and a Big Breakfast) and three cup of beverages (Latte for me, skimmed milk Cappuccino for Ada, and Moccaccino for Ning). They were nice, but I think the bread I had in The Coffee Cup for my Egg Benedict was better than this.

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We continued our trip after the breakfast. It was not boring (like usually when Dad's driving) because three girls have more than enough to talk about, especially three girls who know each other for one-fifth of a century but haven't met for several years. We have been talking about all sorts of things in this trip: old school mates, guys, love life, interests, places around the world, fruits, living cost, milk, parents, siblings, job, study, McDonald, sunglasses, driving, sceneries, friends, marriage, animals, babies, art, ed cetera. Basically everything you can think of, or maybe a bit more than that.

Our holiday house has an amazing scenery. Although first day weather was a bit crap, we were still very excited when we look out the windows. Let me cheat a little bit here, post a scenery photo of the second day, which had a nice weather.

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I had chosen to sleep on the bed in the living room, facing the lake and all these beautiful trees. Ning and Ada each occupied one room. They slept on a Queen size bed, which I wasn't keen at all. I love sleeping on small bed, and I love sleeping on one side of the bed anyway.

The house owners have a lot of books, including a set of Britannica and World of Science. They also have some wooden toys for kids. Ada wondered whether kids would like this kind of toys, well, I found them very attractive.

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We went to Agrodome for farm show. Yes, tourist attraction. This is probably my third visits to Agrodome. Although the weather wasn't nice, I hope those two girls like it. We had joined the farm tour as well. It was quite windy and cold when we were at the top of the hill. I should had taken a jacket with me.

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After the tour we went to Pak N' Save for food. Yes! We had cooked our dinner for both nights! And Yes! I was the one cooking most of the time! I was the only one not drink any wine, so I got my aloe juice, which looked pretty much like white wine with some unknown stuff in it. We got steak, chicken kebab, pasta and some vegetable. We weren't able to finish the food and left some pasta for the next night.

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We went for spa after dinner (I know, I know, not very healthy!). It was a relaxing night and I slept very well after spa. We wanted to take some photos during spa time (yeah, bikini girls photos!) but it was too dark and waterproof camera didn't have flash light. So unfortunately (or fortunately!), no bikini photos for anyone. Let's just keep that in our memory.

Good day. Good night.

08 May 2008

Alchemy

I had a dream last night, it's about alchemist. Honestly I can hardly remember the dream now. I am a bit disappointed, I should have note down the dream before a busy working day. The only thing I remember is I was explaining why transmutation metal to gold usually starts with mercury.

Then I thought of the book I picked up in Borders (but end up putting back on the shelf): The Alchemist. It's a really small book (that's probably one of the reasons why I picked it up in the first place) and easy to read. The reasons that I put it back... I don't have a good discount coupon and have a lot of unread stuff (that have to be read) at home. Oh, and I like hardback and bigger fonts for English books (small fonts for magazines are okay). The only small font paperback English book I have finished without skipping any pages is Dawn by V.C. Andrew (VC Andrew died before the book is completed and Andrew Neiderman completed this novel).

Actually, I am writing my essay, better get back to it... (can I transmutate Microsoft Word, Lemos' book and some New Scientists into an essay?)

Finally

Yeah, finally I have moved Archangel to 5x:2x. Still haven't abandon my ORB. Will do once I got all the resources to Archangel and when Archangel grows bigger. Also have joined the alliance. It seems to be an alliance between Olympic and Datacom people, haha. By the way I am the only player using real name as player name in the alliance, it must be something very unusual for online gamer, anyway. I also got my museum.

07 May 2008

振衣聊敵涼風過

昨天到機場接了Ning,在我凌亂的家睡了一晚,今晨我出City見客時載她去搭旅遊車到Paihia了。老實說,我的性格不太適合接待客旅,偶一為之,間中有朋友來還可,多則應接不暇。

Essay大概寫了一半,還好。明天寫另一半吧。今天我很累,現在八時十五分已想睡覺,實在沒有寫下去的心情和精神。現在去睡好像太早,唯有再挨多一會兒,九時左右才躺上床吧。話是這樣說,手已經拿著布仔了。明天要接見來見工的男孩子,樣子總不能比對方殘,看上去我們很忙很不人道般。(笑)

伏在電腦桌上一會,真的會睡著。

Battle of The Sexes

I went to a client last Friday therefore I missed out the lunch bunch. I asked Fi on Monday what is she going to write for our ASD Quarterly article, and she told me that during lunch bunch they talked about differences between guys and girls, so she decided to write something about it. I guess it's going to be interesting, can't wait to see.

Recall Martian John Gray's book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I have to admit that I did not read the book although my dad has the book and it is sitting on our bookshelf for years. My reasons for not reading this book are 1) It is an English book. 2) It is a psychology type of book. 3) same reason as the Filipino attorney in Cryptonomicon:

"You know what this is? It's one of those men-are-from-Mars, women-are-from-Venus things."

"I have not heard of this phrase but I understand immediately what you are saying."

"It's one of those American books where once you're heard the title you don't even need to read it."

"Then I won't."

Anyway. Eventually everyone in the world is different, and all pretty scary if you don't know them - guys especially.

06 May 2008

Blah Blah Blah

Today was Hugh's first day in Olympic, but it was an extremely busy day for me so I didn't have much time hang out with him. Still, we went out to get kebabs for lunch at around 2 o'clock. Yeah, a late lunch as usual. I didn't have a chance sitting at my own desk for more than 10 minutes.

We called to Sasanka (who's in Sri Lanka for his wedding this Wednesday) together at 4:00pm NZ time. It's 9:30am in Sri Lanka. Nearly everyone of us said something to Sasanka on phone (except Helen, who's too shy!). It's Andre's idea and everyone likes it. Andre himself is in Sri Lanka now. Being the tallest man and the whitest guy among Sasanka's friends and families, it must be a strange but funny experience. We are waiting for the photos and an article about Sasanka's wedding for our ASD quarterly magazine.

Recently I am into Ikariam - thanks to Joseph, Tahseen and Harshal. Andre has an account too. Apparently Phoebe and Robert also have towns in Kappa. Today I introduce this to Fiora as well. Now Kappa is probably full of Olympic and Datacom people. I am now moving towards Joseph to get some cover (and resources!) from him. He's one of the top guy in the Kappa server, I better get some protection from big towns and make alliance with him, ha ha ha... in exchange, maybe I should protect his coke wall on his work desk. :D

Tomorrow Ning arrives Auckland at around 11:55am. I will be picking her up from the airport and she will be off to Paihia for three days from Wednesday. On the other hand, Nick's mum is leaving Auckland tomorrow afternoon. I hope she had a good time here in Auckland staying with us. Well, have to admit that living with me for days is usually not an extremely pleasant experience. I am untidy, impatient and always need quite a lot of private thinking time. Anyway. By the way I still need to plan for our (Ning, Ada and I) trip to Rotorua. The only thing I have now is a place to stay for two nights, guess it's better than nothing, ha ha. Hope the weather is going to be fine.

I still have an essay to finish off. A 3000 words one and I have only written 401 non-structured words yesterday. Before Ning comes back from Paihia and Ada's arrival, I have to finish at least 2000 words in structured paragraph, which means I have three nights from tomorrow. Skepticism is what should be filling my mind now, although it's not yet doing so. Recall my first skeptical thought started around 11 years olds, sparked by whole bunch of Sci-Fi novels. From then, I am always a little bit more skeptical than normal people should. I mean philosophically skepticism, not common sense skepticism.

Anyway, time to sleep. It's 12:07am already.

05 May 2008

Dexter 1-2

Well, of course I am not going to write one for every episode of Dexter I have watched, but the beginning of this one was too amazing, irresistibly need to be blogged.

It's all about Dexter daily routine: wake up, shave, prepare and eat breakfast (including an egg and an orange), wear a tight T-shirt. The whole extraordinary bloody killer theme built up from these ordinary things in this one starting scene. It was creepy. I felt the force and the tension from watching him doing all these normal daily activities. It was creepy, and creepy was the only word I had for it.

Really want to watch this part again. Unfortunately I didn't record it.