que pasa

You know, when I said “…it doesn’t even matter how Beijing turns out,” in my previous post, I didn’t quite realize what it would entail.

First, I had to wait 6 hours in the airport and 1 hour on the plane before I could take off from here. There was a really bad fog and the airport control refused to let any planes take off. I have to say it really sucked to have to wait that long, especially since I had to wake up so early to get to the airport. But I should have known since it was a rather precarious taxi ride to the airport – even the taxi driver had severe visibility problems.

But then as I sat waiting in between bouts of consciousness (I was napping at the airport to catch some sleep), I realized that I’d rather be waiting at the airport with the hope of taking off that day, than to be back at my apartment doing anything else. Finally they allowed us to board but we were informed we had to wait for our turn to take off, so there was more waiting. Anyway, I had a pretty good book with me (“Odalisque” by Fiona McIntyre) so that wasn’t a problem either.

Finally, I landed in Beijing and when I arrived at my friends’ place, I realized that I had left their gifts at home. In my excitement to leave, I actually forgot to take their presents out of the cabinet. I was so embarrassed; I know I’ll never live it down. Sigh. The upside of this though means I have another excuse to visit them randomly. Then again, they are such good people, and I’m also such a pleasant person, they’d never say no to me. LOL. But seriously, they are such good people.

Christmas eve we went to a buffet dinner thingy organized by the church my friends’ are part of, and we got to sing carols that night. It’s been so long since I’ve sung them in such a fun way and with people who also want to sing them, it reminded me when I was still a kid and every year in middle school, my church friends and I would go caroling at public venues. I don’t think we were really that good, but it was the experience was enjoyable. I was surprised I still remembered the words to the songs.

We went skiing on Christmas day. I know realize that if I had started my skiing experience here, I would not be rolling down the slope the past 2 times I went skiing. Meet the queen of the bunny slopes, people, watch me go! :p

However (there is always a “however” with me), the most ridiculous part about bunny slopes for me was how often I fell off the devices that were supposed to bring you up to the top of the slope. No, not the chair lifts that bring you up the proper slopes. For the bunny slopes, they had everything but the chair. I don’t know if this is what bunny slopes are like anywhere else in the world, but I’ve never used this before, so…

I suppose you didn’t need a chair since the slope is so gentle. So on one of them, it’s like this pole you grab on to (with a rubber/metal plate thingy at the end) with your legs. You don’t sit on it because there’s spring thing inside that extends with the moving cable as and when necessary so it can’t hold your weight. You’re just supposed to grab onto it and let it pull you along and then you kinda ski upslope. Guess who lost her grip and fell off twice (out of the 7 times) before she even reached halfway.

Oh and when you reach the top, you’re supposed to let go of that thing and ski around the bend away from the cable as it turns. At the end of the “ride”, thereis a little mound that you have to ski over so that you have some momentum to move forward. No points for guess who had problems letting go of that thing and crashed a couple of times into the snow stack beyond mound.

On another bunny slope, it was this stiff rubber thingy that stuck out of the cable that was supposed to bring you upslope. So, with the lack of instructions, and to the ordinary eye (i.e. mine), it looked like you grab onto it in front of you, and then you let it drag you up. Let me tell you know, that is very wrong and tiring. Because it will also involve you losing grip and falling off the thing. You are supposed to lean on that stiff bar thingy (like somewhere at your lower back) and let it push you up the slope.

My only saving grace was that I wasn’t the only moron who used that thing the wrong way. And I don’t think I was the only one who fell off with such embarrassing consistency either. But I tell you, once I was on the top and set off, I totally ruled the slope. Along with the other little kids and beginners. Lol.

(I moved on to the intermediate slope and that had a chair lift so no more embarrassment going up thereafter.)

Anyway, these were the main highlights of my trip. We did other stuff too, like had meals, a little shopping, etc but all that’s not as fun as what I just told you. I hope you had a good Christmas, if not at least a good rest.

I’m aching from my skiing now but it was all worth it. Queen of the bunny slopes, people. QUEEN. 

I’m in a really good mood now. I’m going to fly off to Beijing in 8 hours and I’ll be on my Christmas vacation.

I was supposed to be in Tokyo with my bro and Jukebox to visit Joy and Seng but because of work I couldn’t go. Then I was hoping to go to Singapore but because of work I couldn’t go either.

Then I was hoping to go to Shenzhen but that didn’t work out. Then Beijing finally looked good and I was all mentally set to leave Thursday (yesterday night) but work didn’t let me go. So I bought a ticket to fly Sunday instead.

This has been an awful week and I was quite upset that I had to delay my break. But now I’m cleared to go off tomorrow so I’ve changed my flight and am all packed. I had to pay quite a bit to get into tomorrow’s flight but this is one thing that I’m willing to pay for right now.

I think it doesn’t even matter how Beijing turns out. I just need to get away and relax. It’s Christmas, and I should be happy during Christmas.

Sing it with me people, HO-LI-DA-AY, CE-LE-BRA-ATE!

The website crashed because too many people logged onto it (read article here). That says something, doesn’t it?

“The bureau has been entrusted to collect and analyze information from the banking, land use, medicine and telecommunications sectors, among others, and to share it with prosecuting organs, courts and the police.

It is not, however, involved in the investigation of individual cases.”

Now I just hope that this bureau chief isn’t susceptible to table grease.

Read this article.

I’m in that 20% I guess. I’ve never really thought hard about how much I need to retire. But somehow that 1 million figure seems about right. Yet that doesn’t make sense because it really depends on when I’m gonna retire.

I guess I don’t really want to retire in the sense that I stop working. I want to retire in the sense that I can do whatever work I want and not worry about the bills and taking care of my folks.

I don’t want to be scrimping and saving. But I doubt I’m going to live in the lap of luxury either.

It would be great if I could help some aspiring GP to break his bond and help him set up his/her private practice too. I need a new family doctor because our’s has retired…

Oh and I think if I have the resources I should help my friends break their bonds too. They say it’s an investment in their freedom and their future.

But I’ll figure out all that when I’m retired. Got to get to that point first.

This little girl in India was born with 8 limbs, had surgery to remove 4 of them, and now she’s doing better. Here’s an excerpt from the full article.

'"Lakshmi, who never turned (over) earlier, started turning after the surgery. She was even able to stand for 10 minutes on the bed holding the window grill, which is remarkable," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Patil as saying.

'Lakshmi's parents said they were taking her back to their rural village in eastern Bihar state where she had been revered by some as an incarnation of the four-armed Hindu goddess she was named after.'

The kid is now normal by social standards, and technically, has better quality of life because she can move around now. Yet, by doing so, her parents had effectively brought her “down from grace” (i.e. no longer Hindu goddess reincarnate) by humanizing her (4 limbed-being).

How will the believers react? Will they be upset that the parents had gone against nature? Or will they be happy that a little girl gets to be exactly that, a little girl who now has the chance to play and run with all the other kids?

I’ve not read the book but this is not the type of movie that requires pre-reading to appreciate it more either I think. I liked the movie, and there was lotsa eye candy (Scarlett Johannson, the cute little boy Nicholas Art and "Harvard Hottie" Chris Evans) too.

Just like The Devil Wears Prada (which incidentally also has lotsa eye candy but in the form of nice clothes), I like this movie because it’s about stepping into another world completely different from where you came from, not knowing really who you are or what you want, and then finally coming out from it better and happier.

Movies like this make me think that it’s really ok to make detours in life. That while the stuff you do may not be what you really thought it out to be, or what people expect of you, it will all work out. That there will be people around to help you find your way, that events will play out to get you where you should be.

These movies give me hope.  Ahh.

I’m not gonna comment on the validity of this woman’s statistics in this article because I think her sample size might have been a bit small.  But the fact that there were enough people who didn’t wash their hands after going to the loo to be noticed was rather disappointing.  What happened to all that social education about personal hygiene?

Here I must confess that sometimes I forget too.  GROSS, you say.  Yeah, I think so too.  Most times I realize after a while and I just try not to touch anybody or anything else until I get to the next toilet.  The times that I don’t though… all I can say is that I’m sorry.

Anyway, I made sure that I washed my hands extra clean each time I went to the washroom today.  I’ll try and keep that up.  The “extra clean” part I mean.

Last week was spent pretty much just working on this investor proposal for one of our projects. Generating slides is exhausting, especially when you have to prepare something from nothing and make sure your message comes across the way you mean. I went through 9 versions.

And that was excluding the financials. Oh boy, that’s another headache. We’re at the rapid growth stage now which also means corresponding expenses. The thing with doing projections is that as an investor, you always question whether the figures are realistic and logical. There’s a lot of tweaking and changes, and it’s not something that comes together in one sitting.

Worked through Saturday and Sunday too. No rest. No recreation. Total brain burn. But by last night (Sunday), we were pretty much done. More fine-tunings this morning. And it’s done.

Looking ahead, I can’t help but think that we’ve only done the easiest part. The next step is to look for investors and pitch to them. And even to do that, I need to plan before doing anything. Oh boy.

So, how many of you tried talking to the Santa bot on MSN messenger? I did, but never got as far as him bringing up oral sex. Somebody else did though (read this).

As you know, I’ve tried the Muse bot, much to my distress, and Santa didn’t last very long either. He talked about playing an online game to which I said yes, but then there were no instructions on how to load the game. So I called him stupid and gave up.

I think the idea of having bots to talk to is cool though. Well not so much that they understand but they serve the purpose of being a listener, albeit with limited abilities. And sometimes we need that. I’m hoping that better ones come up soon.

Read this.

Apparently the picture of the moon’s surface that China released recently looks pretty similar to the one released by NASA in 2005. So says a Chinese internet user.

But the Chinese authorities say that it’s a different picture because of 2 additional small craters. Rebuttal from that internet user suggests skepticism. I’m inclined to think that he’s thisfar from saying “photoshop!”

Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, the meanie in me can’t help but think that something really bad is going to happen to him.