Friday, Dec 5, 2008 6:43AM /
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My life's been rather boring lately.
Met groom-to-be in the weekend. Yep, it's crazy, but I've never met her fiance til now! I had one opportunity a while back, but missed it. Nice guy, very nice guy. Plus, he makes her happy, so that's all that matters.
Oh, I forgot to mention in my last blog that on that same Tuesday night, I yet again showed my ignorance for all things rugby. We were discussing the All Blacks vs Munster game, and my sister mentioned how she couldn't believe we'd lost the first game. ***Okay, in order to understand exactly what we were talking about, I just googled the term around which this conversation is based and discovered it's not just rugby, and I am in fact going to have you all laughing at me because it's a term used in sports, not rugby.*** Anyways, having no idea what they were talking about, I asked. My brother's asks me "do you know what a round robin is?" Cue blank face and shake of the head. Rest of the family cracks up laughing and discuss how completely uneducated I am. Still without an answer to my question, I ask "so, what is a robin round?" Cue even bigger laughter. Yes, that's right, I am so uneducated, I even got the term wrong. Brother explains, and I discover I am familiar with the concept, just that it has been such a long time that the term had completely disappeared from my memory.
Anyways, the big deal with the All Blacks vs Munster game (other than the fact that Munster creamed the All Blacks in 1978) is that there were four Kiwis in the Munster team, and they performed the haka to the All Blacks. Very cool idea.
If I remember correctly, we won the game through a last minute try. Revenge, they called it. I think. Something like that. The article (in the paper the next morning, or Monday after, can't remember) mentioned that it wasn't Munster's best team because of injuries or what not. So I asked my brother if it was the All Black's best team (I didn't bother finding out who played that day), and basically all our best players were off in order to prevent injury for whatever game is (or was) coming up. So to make the claim that it wasn't their best team when it wasn't our best team either, wasn't really proving anything.
Anyways, in case you're interested in who the Kiwis were, you can find the current squad
here. See the blue flags next to some of the names (except Paul Warwick, that's the Australian flag)? - that's them. Only Doug Howlett is familiar to me. Ah, good ol' Doug Howlett.
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Thursday, Nov 27, 2008 6:16AM /
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Started writing this yesterday, but never finished.
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I'm knackered. I've just had a non-stop few days, so it's good to finally get a break. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to catch up on all my feeds. Gave up after three pages but I will try to catch up another time. Too tired to read the rest right now.
The Library has been going through a remuneration framework change. I didn't think this would affect me, since I'm finishing up pretty soon, but was told last week that I'd be receiving my letter soon and that the reason mine was later than the others was because I'm a contracter. I was like "oh." I had no idea I was a part of it and was so worried about the result.
This morning, when my boss asked to see me for five minutes, I was a little paranoid that I'd done something wrong. Everytime she calls me in for something, I think I've done something wrong, and she just tells me how great I've done in such and such, but still everytime she calls me in, I panic for a few minutes til she tells me what she called me in for.
Anyways, it was good news. With the new remuneration framework, I got a raise! If I agree to it, and sign it and everything, it's effective from 01 July 2008. Does that mean I get back-paid? Whatever. There's no way I'm not signing it, a raise is a raise!
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Now, back to the present. I caught up on all my feeds, but only did a skim through.
I did a bit of a panic at dinner on Tuesday night. My dad asked me when a friend of a friend was arriving in town (not staying with us, so not important, just curious) and I was like "November". They all just kinda paused and looked at me, and it took me two whole seconds to realise that we were already over halfway through November. Then, I was trying to remember what date my friend mentioned, but I could only think "20th" which it can't have been, cos I'm pretty sure my friend would have told me if that person had already arrived. But then again, she wasn't required to so maybe not. So I emailed her and found out that this person's arriving tomorrow night after a 65 hour journey. What a journey!
Anyways, it's frickin' November! I think I'm gonna start panicking soon. I've still got one more elective to go on my course and I've still got my flights to book and I haven't even begun to think about what stuff to organise! And I've still got to start applying for jobs! I do plan on doing some online applications before I go, but I want to wait until after I've finished my course. I've still got a month before my 100-day deadline for the job guarantee is up, but I was hoping I'd have knuckled down and finished it by now. Looks like I'm gonna have to force myself to get up early for it on Saturday.
And I've still got to organise the music for the wedding! I've been given some good suggestions, and I've thought about a few good stuff for the pre-dancing part. I'm hoping I can keep myself from putting too much of my favourite artists in there, cos I don't think the guests would be too happy with too much Westlife or Leehom.
Right, better go now, hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!
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Monday, Nov 24, 2008 1:31PM /
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Rushed to the shops at lunchtime today.
Rushed straight to the DVD player when I got home. Was literally shaking with excitement (and I have my brother as a witness!).
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Flash ruined the DVD in this pic, but picked this one cos Shane's on the screen. Besides, I'm sure you don't care about that anyway.
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Saturday, Nov 22, 2008 5:42AM /
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My aunty came up to me last night showing off something in a bag. She asked me to guess what it was. Having seen it on tv in all the HK series, I'd guessed what it was, but didn't think she'd be showing such stuff to me, as I don't have an interest in such things. But then she did yell out "bao yu ah!" Dunno why she'd think I'd be interested. They look rather gross to me. Don't think I'd ever eat it. Might try it some day, but don't expect to love it. I'm the pickiest eater I know. It's all about the texture and how it crunches/feels between my teeth, and most foods don't pass.
But ten minutes ago, I went into the kitchen and found something that did interest me regarding the bao yu.
Aren't they gorgeous?
I guess I'm more Kiwi than Chinese when it comes to paua. I've always loved paua shell and never considered eating bao yu (I don't know why Chinese people love it so much, it looks disgusting! But you can correct me if you've tried it and can tell me it's delicious), so it's not exactly a new discovery. I've just never put the two together. And no, that does not mean I never knew they were one, I just never thought of them together. I consider paua shell and bao yu two different things. Which is why I call the shell paua and the meat bao yu. In fact, I've only ever seen them apart. Even watching those shows where they monitor how much seafood is being captured, whenever they show paua, they're always out of their shell. I guess the weight limit must not include the shell.
Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen it eaten here. I think some Chinese restaurants might have it on their menu (under abalone, of course) but I've never seen it being sold. Mind you, I don't exactly go to seafood shops or peer into the seafood section of the supermarket. And when you talk about paua here, no one's talking about the meat (okay, maybe on tv they are, but not when you're just chatting to someone), they're always talking about the shell. I don't know what the regulations are on eating it over here, but I know that people try to catch more than the limit because they can make huge money off it.
Anyways, since I never think of the two together, I was actually surprised to see these in the sink. Now I'm trying to decide what I could to with them. I could break them into little pieces and make jewellery (lots and lots of them!) or maybe we should just keep them as is. Yeah, they're too beautiful to break up. And there are plenty of paua jewellery out there for really good prices (and plenty expensive ones too!).
By the way, thanks to all the crew at AnD for making the site more compatible with Safari. I prefer Safari on my MacBook, so it's nice to see full functionality with the blogs. I remember when I first got my MacBook, I couldn't add photos, but shortly after, I was able to. And I should have thanked you all then, but I keep forgetting, so thanks!
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Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 10:53AM /
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What a day.
This morning, I'm washing the dishes, as I do every morning, and Ms PA comes in and starts talking. She's saying how I won't have to do the dishes very soon. Nothing too major. But then she asks me if I've bought my tickets to HK yet or not. While it's a generally harmless question, constantly being asked it can feel rather pressuring. So, after answering no, I ask "do you mind not asking me that question?" She says "excuse me for [didn't catch the word, sounded like screaming]". She didn't sound too upset, but I did wonder. I'm so used to her grumpiness that I can't really tell. I watched her as she left, but she wasn't acting out of the ordinary, so I couldn't tell if she was upset or not. Then she came back to get some water onto a napkin, cos she'd spilt coffee on herself, I think. Someone else who was making their cup of coffee greets her and must have asked her how she was doing cos she blurted out that it wasn't that great being put in your place first thing in the morning. She disappears and the lady that greeted her is rather stunned so I explain what happened. We start getting into discussions about my leaving to teach English in HK and someone else walks in. I'm more familiar with this person, and I feel the need to get it off my chest, so I explain what happened earlier to her too. I think it was good to do that, cos I was starting to get rather upset about it, and she did a good job of making me feel better.
I tried asking in the nicest way. And I tried to sound as polite as possible.
I've done something similar once before, but I don't think I upset them. Two of the ladies in Finance (not sure if it's coincidence that they're Chinese) keep yelling "Smile!" whenever they walk past me. I have the unfortunate feature of looking grumpy when I relax my face, so people think I'm unhappy if I don't smile. Anyways, one day I couldn't take it anymore, and asked one of them (after they said "smile, Sarah") to stop saying that. She didn't take offense. Instead, she must have told the other lady not to do it too, cos the other lady stopped doing it. Yeah, they probably talked behind my back about it, but at least I don't have to sit next to them. Then again, one of those ladies still considers me her "sister", so I don't think there can have been too much backstabbing, if there had been any in the first place.
Anyways, the real disaster of the day is that my phone extension somehow managed to get switched last night or this morning. I was sitting at my desk, waiting patiently for a call from reception to tell me that my boss' visitor had arrived. The visitor was an applicant for my current job, which they're interviewing for. Anyways, around 11:10am, one of the ladies at reception comes up the lift and asks me if I just got back to my desk. It turns out the applicant had arrived around 10:45, and they'd been ringing me since then, with no answer. So we grab Ms PA's phone and call my phone. It's ringing on the line, but my phone's still silent. After picking up the applicant and taking her to the interview room (15 minutes late), I call reception, as requested by the lady from reception. They've got caller ID, so they can see the extension number of the phone calling them. She tells me the extension showing up is the one for one of the faxes. Say what?! But it's all good, and I've got my extension back. The technician thinks that when another technician was working with the cables yesterday, he might have bumped one loose and put it in the wrong place.
We had to push back all the other interviews because of it.
And I've been overloaded with work because one of the other PAs had to get her tooth extracted yesterday because she was experiencing a huge headache because of it. So she'd passed on some work to me. Right before I was to go to lunch (already late due to the interviews being pushed back) I got asked to print 60 copies of a document. I opted to just grab a sandwich from the cafe downstairs and skip lunch. My boss did tell me to go to lunch, but I still skipped it. I just decided to pop on here after finishing one of the tasks, so I should get back to work now.
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Aren't they gorgeous?I guess I'm more Kiwi than Chinese when it comes to paua. I've always loved paua shell and never considered eating bao yu (I don't know why Chinese people love it so much, it looks disgusting! But you can correct me if you've tried it and can tell me it's delicious), so it's not exactly a new discovery. I've just never put the two together. And no, that does not mean I never knew they were one, I just never thought of them together. I consider paua shell and bao yu two different things. Which is why I call the shell paua and the meat bao yu. In fact, I've only ever seen them apart. Even watching those shows where they monitor how much seafood is being captured, whenever they show paua, they're always out of their shell. I guess the weight limit must not include the shell.Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen it eaten here. I think some Chinese restaurants might have it on their menu (under abalone, of course) but I've never seen it being sold. Mind you, I don't exactly go to seafood shops or peer into the seafood section of the supermarket. And when you talk about paua here, no one's talking about the meat (okay, maybe on tv they are, but not when you're just chatting to someone), they're always talking about the shell. I don't know what the regulations are on eating it over here, but I know that people try to catch more than the limit because they can make huge money off it.Anyways, since I never think of the two together, I was actually surprised to see these in the sink. Now I'm trying to decide what I could to with them. I could break them into little pieces and make jewellery (lots and lots of them!) or maybe we should just keep them as is. Yeah, they're too beautiful to break up. And there are plenty of paua jewellery out there for really good prices (and plenty expensive ones too!).By the way, thanks to all the crew at AnD for making the site more compatible with Safari. I prefer Safari on my MacBook, so it's nice to see full functionality with the blogs. I remember when I first got my MacBook, I couldn't add photos, but shortly after, I was able to. And I should have thanked you all then, but I keep forgetting, so thanks!
March 28, 2008
March 28, 2008
March 28, 2008
