Thursday, 06 November 2008

  • Attempt To Adjust Your Television

    When I enrolled into uni all those years ago, I picked Arts/Commerce for a reason. 

    I picked Commerce because of the prestige, the reputation, and frankly: because it was the quickest and most practical way to make money.  In my mind (and pretty in much everyone else I knew) there was no going wrong with a Commerce degree and especially not one from Melbourne (in retrospect there is.... but that's for another post *cough*marketing*cough*).

    I picked Arts for a totally different reason.  While my reasons for Commerce were superficial to say the least and practical at best,  I did Arts and more specifically, Political Science, because of a higher calling.   From the end of high school to the start of university, I wanted to get 'in' on the political scene... make a change (in a way... be an Asian Obama).. make a difference.

    But what I had imagined it was going to be compared to what it was in reality really killed it for me.  Instead of people coming together to try and develop a new way of governing and justice, it was really just an open forum for people with partisan beliefs to flaunt their own ideals and shout others down.  My idealistic values died at about the same time I heard this student proclaim that he could never bring himself around to accept someone else's belief (and abortion).

    For a while I became pretty disillusioned with the degree and like your parent's in the sixties, I went around and 'experimented'.  Unlike your parents however, i didn't have access to strange mushrooms and other herbs, but i did have access to some pretty 'funky' subjects that the Arts faculty do not offer anymore. 

    Surprisingly enough, I found myself drifting back to Political Science again and now in my fourth year and just a year away from graduating, I find my passion for the subject renewed.  Don't get my wrong, I'm not putting my hand up for a role in politics (the pay is shit) or anything even related to that field (my election catch-phrase would be "Maybe we can") but with four years of experience and the gift of hind-sight, I've seen how much the Major has really given me.

    The problem with a technical subject like Commerce is that it's quite easy to lose sight of the big picture.  Because you're only an undergraduate student, you accept what you're taught, and no one expects you to question the facts and information that have been established by experts that individually, probably have more experience than your entire tutorial put together.  I'd argue that some of us come out of our commerce degrees much like a 'yes-men' with no clear or developed opinions of our own.  

    The good thing about something like a Political Science Major is that, aside for all its 'uselessness' and 'impracticality', it really teaches you to question things around you, to not accept the status quo, and to really view things as part of a bigger picture. 

    The ability to question your surroundings is vital for progress.  If you think about it, every great change in history, every revolution and movement has begun with a question; questioning the very justification of existing conditions.  I'd argue that too many people today too readily accept what they are given. 

    Take news as a small example.  News just happens to be one of those things that can never be totally unbiased.  Just by choosing what segments or topics that will appear in a newspaper or the evening news, an editor or a producer has just chosen for you what he or she has decided that you should see and hear about.  Who they decide to interview, which side they decide to broadcast from, even the commercials and ads they decide to run during the ad break and next to the obituary are all things that will influence the 'purity' of what you read and see.  If you don't belive me YouTube 'Fox News'.

    And while the emergence of the blogosphere provides hope for the masses, I can't help but wonder if this whole financial crisis would have happened if we had a few more Arts students calling the shots.  Someone (or more accurately: a lot of people) dropped the ball there and not enough people questioned the decisions that were being made. 

    What I find funny is that while I do share the occasional joke with my Commerce buddies about the liklely 'burger-flipping' future of my fellow straight-Arts students, many of said student are thoroughly enjoying the current pickle we're in.  One of my Politcs lecturers was talking about the Great Depression when she paused and corrected herself, "Not this one, the other one", which drew a lot of laughter. 

    I'm not saying that you should now all get 'in' on an Arts degree or anything. I guess in a long winded way, what I'm trying to emphasise is the importance of having an opinion and not just the one that the mainstream media says you should have.  By posing questions that defy 'normalcy', you could be building the foundation of a new and brighter future.  I guess from this Major, I learnt one fundamental thing and it was this same thing that brought me back to politics, adn the same thing that was justified by the American election yesterday.  We don't all have to be in positions of power or politics to make a change.  Something good to remember.

Wednesday, 05 November 2008

  • Settle Down Yanks

    I guess my timing wasn't so great after all....

    It's exams time once again and frankly, if I'm not blogging, it usually means I'm actually studying... so it's not exactly a good thing I'm on here right now.

    Anyway, I thought I'd going to fire off a quick post since something fairly important did happen today...
    ... and that was America finally got it right.

    Well that's what everyone on the internet would tell you.  Go check your facebook status updates. I can guarantee there will be one along those lines. Go now.  I'll wait.

    And while everyone around the world collectively pats the backs of their American counterparts on a job well done, I'm sorry to say it, but I'm simply not that impressed.

    Sure, Obama seems like a nice guy. And sure he seems like he'll definitely be a million times better President than the monkey they have now in the White House.

    But it wasn't so much that this time round, the Americans made the right choice... but more like they didn't f*ck up yet again.

    Honestly, those guys voted George W. Bush in..... twice.  This was going to be the third strike.

    So to all my fellow non Americans, hold your praise.  Give the Yanks an approving nod but don't go overboard.  First thing is that we don't need them back to their old arrogant days... and the second thing is that it just wasn't that special. 

    You don't congratulate the guy with two broken legs when he refrains from skydiving.... so you really shouldn't here.

    What I'm focused on now is what Obama will do in office.  He made a lot of promises.  Let's hope he's not just another Kevin Rudd.


Sunday, 12 October 2008

  • Bringing Sexy Blogging Back (BSBB)


    Did absence make the heart grow fonder?

    The key to success is timing.  Perfect timing makes good things great and great things awesome.  It also happens to make crap things seem that little bit less crap and thus my blog is back.

    Using the same logic that fat people who surround themselves with ever fatter people deploy, I could have come back in August and get compared to the Olympics or I can come back now and be compared to the global financial crisis.  This blog might suck but does it suck as much as the economy?  I think not.

    The other key to success is passion.  Blogging is a difficult, time consuming, and thankless activity.  If it was a household chore, it would be toilet cleaning in a household of six - the longer you leave it, the harder it gets.  If it was a position on a soccer field, it would be goalkeeper - people are slow to praise you, but quick to criticize.  If it was a medicine, it would be a placebo - makes you feel good, but utterly useless.

    But I like it.  I enjoy my own brand of niche-less, generic, and directionless theme of complaining and commentating about things in life that most people do not have the time to notice, let alone acknowledge.  Blogging keeps things in perspective for me and gives me a wider scope and bigger picture of things that happen in life.

    To sum up, I could now promise you that I will post regularly but promising that would be like me promising I won't crack jokes about your mum... and in the end is that something you really want?  I think not. 

    Hopefully, in the next few posts I can start to form the new structure I want for this blog.  Until then, I'm going back to basics and letting my words decorate my blog. 


  • NEW STUFF
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    OLD STUFF

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

  • Guys Don't Speak French

    ** I've been transferred to another department. My last one had thought i had "done enough...." and so i've been moved to the opposite side of the office. They've given me my own desk, right in the corner.... away from everyone else so i have a lot of private space... and they said i should use my own laptop... and just chill out...

    I don't know about you, but i have a feeling i did a pretty good job.**

    I've been spending my newly earned free time to catch up with people on MSN. It's been fun.

    AND interesting.

    Relationships seems to be a tried and true topic of conversation. Which really shouldn't be surprising. Especially when you consider that 'some' guys (TaiLai) refer to relationships as (and i quote) "... sex on tap".

    And if that holds true AND you believe the statistics, that should mean two out of three men should be thinking about relationships with women, 85% of which will be thinking about it every 52 seconds..... everyday. It makes you wonder how we manage to talk about anything else at all!

    One reason as to why this might be the case is that, for some guys (not just TaiLai), we really have NO idea what we're talking about in the first place. You don't talk about cars if you don't know squat about cars. You don't talk about sport if you don't know squat about sports.

    From a guys perspective, often we really don't know what's going on in the mind of a girl... it's a mystery of sorts... it's like trying to read a book... that's written in hieroglyphics. I mean, sure you know it's a book, you know it'd be good to understand it... and heck, if you're smart, you might even be able to deduce what some of the symbols mean.

    But at the end of the day, no one's gonna understand what a a giant eye over a woman with a dog's head for a face is supposed to mean.

    There's no logic to it. It simply does not make sense. And that's why a lot of guys don't talk about it... and when they do, it's often in the same manner as one would talk about a UFO sighting: confusion, disbelief, denial....

    Trying to understand the female thought process, from a guys perspective, is daunting.

    It's like the first time you get handed a French menu and told to order. You don't know how to speak French... you know how you would LIKE to pronounce those words in the privacy of your own home... but you also know the french aren't that savvy. You have a rough idea of what you're supposed to say... like there are silent 't's and silent 's's... but then you freak out and wonder if it's silent 'j's. The problem here is that you know what's the menu for but you don't know what to do.

    And then you start to panic and do something stupid. Like stab the waiter in the chest with your fork.

    A thing to note here girls, is that guys are aware they're not getting it... that we don't get the full picture... that we are not in 'the loop'. We don't kid ourselves. We try to get it. But we know we won't.

    Guys are aware that they're supposed to pick up something from that subtle remark, that she didn't just shrug for no reason... that she's not crying because she just got hit in the balls. It doesn't make sense to us but we try. We know its there, we just don't know what it is.

    It freaks us out. We start to OVER analyse everything. [thinking] "She just touched her nose while talking to me... i know that means something.... what did that mean last time...?? Is she angry?? Is she sad? What did she just say?? Oh crap she's staring at me now.... she's gonna ask me what i'm thinking... but i'm NOT thinking of anything... QUICK think of something to THINK damn you!!!!........ Nope. Nothing. She's not going to believe me!! Oh crap - i'm screwed" [faints]

    And so, like the menu, we only have four basic options.

    The first one is to just wing it and hope for the best. Yes, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. Yes, you've just ordered a bottle of 'Bordux' (Bordeaux) and everyone, including the waiter, thinks you're a prat. But you'll learn (hopefully) for next time and (hopefully) you won't make the same mistake. The only problem here to remember is that as soon as you think you've mastered every word on the menu; they'll bring out a new more extensive menu or one day your friends will decide that they'd rather eat at the new Spanish restaurant down the block and you're back to fingering you're forks.

    The second option is to lean over to a friend and ask them. You're not sure whether they know either... they might, they might not... they might not even tell you they DON'T know and still offer you a suggestion and assure you it's right (when it's not).... BUT you know for sure, if you pronounce it wrong, and everyone starts to stare at you.... they're not going to be there to claim responsibility. You're best option here is to find someone who speaks French but they're not always available and no German, is not always close enough.

    Neither of the last two options are good but i'm disappointed to say that i know a lot of guys that take one of the two... or both.

    The first is to say "I'm not hungry." and never go back to a restaurant that is related to another culture again. You're not solving the problem - you're avoiding it.

    The other one is to just point and grunt. You don't care what the hell they call it in France and you don't care if you never learn to pronounce it properly. You're there to eat and leave.


    I guess as a current singleton (get it? word play from 'simpleton'... i'm so bored.) it's easier to take a step back and analyse this issue without the swinging emotions that are usually involved in relationships. At the end of the day, it's obviously not as simple as my french menu analogy above (for instance, you'll never learn it all... ), but the main thing i want guys to take away from what i'm trying to say is that you just have to try. There's really not that much to lose. Sure you might make a mistake while ordering your main and call the waiter's mother a whore... but the worst they can do is kick you out and ban you for life. There are other French restaurants out there... with more hospitable waiters.

    And really that's probably the worst case scenario. If you really try your best to understand a girl and it still doesn't work out - at least you can keep you head up high. You can only try your best but you just have to keep trying.

    And for girls: Give the guys in your life a break sometimes.... acknowledge the effort and move on.... you don't need to call an 'appetiser' a 'hors d'oeuvre'.... i know ALL your friends know what it means, and they NEVER get confused... but you're over-complicating the matter... and it's a bitch to pronounce.

Wednesday, 16 January 2008

  • Bad Luck, Bad Post

    ** OKAY. So i haven't had the best luck as of late. 

    Actually lately, every time something good happens to me, i can pretty much expect something bad to follow directly after, often due to the good thing happening in the first place.

    AND whenever something bad happens, i can expect something even worse to happen after that.... like falling down a flight of stairs.... into a vat of burning oil.

    SO if you're the person that's holding the voodoo doll of me with pins in my head and groin, i would gladly appreciate it if you take them out, don't light me on fire, and put me somewhere safe.  Seriously.**

    I got a Macbook last week.  That was pretty sweet.  Within the first five minutes of turning my laptop on for the first time nad i plug my ipod into it: it freezes my ipod and then wipes it clean.  Over 7000 songs down the drain in about 5 seconds. 

    I don't even think i could have done that quicker if i had wanted to do it on purpose.

    Luckily for me, i still have my 'lil bastard' which has once again shown that being old, ugly and outdated - does not mean you're completely useless and washed up. (Has anyone seen 'Rambo' yet?)

     

    My resolutions have not really kicked in yet.  I have some plans, but they have to wait till when i come back to Melbourne.  One resolution that i have been working on however is to get in shape.  And when i mean, "get in shape", i don't mean "woo - look at me, i can run 15km"... i mean, "woo - look at me, i'm sexy"  (i lack conviction).   

    The problem with me is that i don't put on weight easily.  I tried taking protein powder last year but all it did was make me crap more.  I bought a whole tub and i finished it in about six months.  After six months, my weight increased about 2kg..... the exact same weight of the powder in the first place.

    The other problem with me is that i really want nice abs but ultimately, I am unwilling to work for it.  I just find ab exercises so excruciatingly boring and awkward.  My end goal would probably be something close to a six pack.  I'm nearly there.... i just need to divide the packs i have.... by six.

    The problem with pot bellies is that you can't get rid of them with just exercise.  Diet is also a large factor when it comes to pot bellies.  The number one culprit: beer.

    Over the past year, i really got into my beer.  I never used to like beer beforehand, but as many people will tell you, the love of beer is an acquired taste.  And acquired i did.  Too much so, if anything. 

    So the conclusion that i've come to is that i need to give up beer.... which is really a very heart wrenching conclusion.  I guess instead of chilling out with a bottle of beer... i could... i don't know... snort cocaine... or something..... something probably less extreme..... and illegal.

    I made a quiz on facebook today.  It's called 'What Would Tim Do.... In This Scenario?'

    If you know me well, you know that i LOVE (with a capital heart!) asking "what would you do.." questions on crazy scenarios and stuff.... that's where i get my kicks..... and if you hadn't noticed yet.... today is a very VERY.slow.work.day.

    Let me know if you like it, coz i want to start a friend quiz with pop trivia questions on all our friends.

    Can i actually just apologise for this post in advance.  It's pathetic but i'm already pot committed so i may as well publish it.  This post is what i like to call an "obligation post".... it's when i feel obligated to write a post after a week of no posts. 

    For some reason i like to fantasize that out there, there is a little child (okay, wait... this is not coming out the way i intended).... who has a terminal illness.... and the only thing that keeps that little guy going is this blog.  Everyday his parents go up to his room, expecting to find a little lifeless body but instead they find him there sitting in front of his computer with a weak smile on his face because, once again, i have updated and this will keep him alive for another two weeks or so.  Then his mum will walk slowly up to the little boy and put her hands on his little shoulder blades.... and then start to shake violently "WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE????...   YOU'VE BEEN NEARLY DEAD FOR LIKE... A YEAR NOW...  HOW CAN THIS CRAP KEEP YOU ALIVE.... HIS WRITING IS MEDIOCRE AT BEST!!  JUST DIE YOU LITTLE SHIT!!"  And then i'd laugh and shake my head.

    If you're wondering "where the hell did that come from?" - don't ask me... i'm wondering too... it just popped out of nowhere... like that piece of poo i stood in on the way to work, and which is making everyone in the office avoid me because the bottom of my shoe smells like poo.  I don't think i can put it past people to put it past me to think i shat myself. 

    And the really bad thing is: when you step in poo in China, you actually hope it's dog shit... and not another variety.

Friday, 04 January 2008

  • Potty Mouth

    ** Guangzhou people are famous in China for two things:

    1.  If you've ever seen the movie 'Predator', you'll probably remember the quote, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."  The Guangzhou variation of this line is: "if it bleeds, we can eat it".  

    And you know that song that goes like, "All things bright and beautiful, all creature great and small"?
    The next line in the Guangzhou version is "All things wise and wonderful, we like to eat them all."

    But i've already talked about this in one of my earliest posts.

    2. The second thing, which i only found out recently, is that the people here have incredibly filthy mouths (which makes you wonder if it's got anything to do with the food).  I mean guys and girls alike just love to swear here.**

    [NOTE: i usually don't like to substitute * for vowels when i swear but i'm using a company computer and i don't feel like getting fired.... like it'd make a difference]

    Even in the trading room, all the traders and secretaries swear when something goes wrong.  I can honestly say i've learnt at least three different new swear words in chinese since i started working here (who said i'm not learning anything important?) and the list is still growing.

    The funny thing is that people here don't just swear in chinese, they swear in english.  And it's not just your garden variety swear words - i'm talking combinations, rhyming and triple word scores here.  Enough for you to cup your ears and go "oww, my fricken ears!"

    I think its funny because i guess they probably don't know what it really means (or i could be wrong and everyone here just has tourettes). Like i mean, i'm sure they know what they're saying... in theory, but i don't think they understand the actual weight of the profanity they're choosing to use. 

    For example, if we make a mistake, as fluent english speakers (i know i'm being generous here) a simple "sh*t" is reasonable... even an occasional "f*ck" may be okay, considering the circumstances and environment (ie. football game - ok, old folks home - not ok).  But a "dirty sl*t m*ther-f*ck*n dog-sh*t" is a little bit over the top when you can just [Ctrl+Y] it.

    Which makes me wonder if we're guilty of this when we use languages such as vietnamese or japanese to swear.  Everyone thinks using "doh-ma" is hilarious, but is it really?

    The answer is yes.

    But it's interesting to note that i don't even know how to say "hello" in vietnamese.  In school, white kids would come up to me wanting to learn some chinese and i'd oblige and teach them a couple of simple words and phrases. A week later and the only phrase they can still remember is to tell someone to "pook gai".      

    If you don't understand the weight of the words you're saying, it doesn't really mean that much to you.

    It's like when i was twelve, and South Park had just started to air.  For an entire year, me and my friends ran around calling people "dildos" without actually stopping to find out what the word actually meant.  While not exactly a swear word it was still a word you didn't exactly want to call your mum when you're angry at her.  Luckily for me, my parents' english vocabulary didn't include this particular word and even if they had known, it was probably best for everyone that the definition was never brought up.  I swear it was nearly 5 years later, before i finally found out what the word actually meant, at which point it dawned on me as to why it was so effective against my older cousins all those years, who used to just stare at me in shock.

    I guess what i'm trying to say is that the morale to this story is that the next time you're about to swear at someone or around someone, maybe you should stop and really think about and try to understand the weight and effect of what you're about to say....

    ... and then decide whether raising a middle finger wouldn't be a better substitue.  I mean - it is universal.

Wednesday, 02 January 2008

  • Shake, Rattle and Roll: New Year's Resolution

    ** FIRST post of 2008 - woot!!!

    AND i'm at work.... not so woot....

    SO after spending the last 4 days binge drinking in Hong Kong, the last place i want to be is sitting here at work, exhausted with a runny nose, pretending to be interested in work while i secretly blog...

    Actually not so secretly actually, the trader i've been assigned is pretty cool with me blogging as long as i get my work done too... in fact, he even lets me use facebook, and he's actually rated some of the girls on my network.... so if you're a girl on my facebook, and you felt an inexplicable shudder last week..... now you know. 

    Happy New Year!!**

    The last couple of days have been therapeutic... not to mention, alcoholic (let's just say i wouldn't want to bleed near an open flame for a couple of days), and i now have a better perspective of the direction i want go towards in relation to 2008 and beyond.

    I've decided that i need to live a more active lifestyle. 

    I've never lived life on the edge... being close enough to see the edge, has always sufficed for me thus far.  And even though i'm not planning to quite literally live on the edge just yet (mainly because i move around a lot when i sleep), i do want to cut the distance between my old self and the edge by say... half.  That way, to people who live further inland, it will seem that i'm living on the edge... but in actual fact, i'll still be safe from sudden coastal erosion.

    You know what sucks?  Stuff that makes sense in your head - but not in writing.

    I guess what i'm trying to say is that i want to be more productive this year.  Some people are happy to sleep all day, play computer games till they're fat and/or ugly (more often than not it's 'and')  or do the same mundane things day in, day out;

    but not me.... well not me anymore (except maybe sleep in... i looove sleep), from this month on, i'm going to give myself a quota of crap i will achieve before the end of every month. 

    Be it, fix the holes in the dining room ceiling, enrol in a course to learn something new, fix the holes in my lounge room wall, go skiing in the winter, fix the hole in the toilet (the one that's not supposed to be there) or go on a road trip... i'm going to go out and get stuff done....and fix a lot of holes in my life...

    ....symbolic, if you think about it.  And yet.... oddly gross if you think about it too much.

    AND i'm going to put this list up on Xanga every month... so i'll be under pressure to perform (not to mention that you're guaranteed at least one post a month)...

    This way you can witness my transformation from a lazy eating and pooping machine to a....

    well i'm trying to come up with the most kick arse machine that i can think off the top my head and.....

    i guess i'm going to go with Optimus Prime as my final answer.   

    I guess this new found need to change myself is a result of just taking the time to stop and look around.  The fact of the matter is, we are lucky enough to be in that stage in our lives where we're young enough to do pretty much anything we want (not to mention with little time constraints - pfft...uni) and we're old enough to do pretty much anything we want... so to let it slip away so easily, would just be one big regret later in life.

    The thing is, if you wrote up a list of what you regret 'doing' and what you regret 'not doing', i think many of us would find that the list of 'not doing' would far outweigh the other (this is, of course, assuming you don't have items such as rape, murder or pillaging in your 'doing' list) and that alone, was enough motivation for me, personally, to opt for this new year's resolution.

    Now if you're sitting there and you're thinking, "Tim is such an arsehole for trying to make me guilty."

    I'm not.

    Well i'm not trying to make you feel guilty anyway.

    It's really up to you in the end. No one can tell you what to do... and frankly, even though you waste your time reading this blog, i assume you're all pretty smart and savvy (unfounded theory). 

    SO if you want to - you'll make your own resolution... and if you don't - you won't.  It's just something you have to do yourself, its an independent decision.  I think my 2 year old nephew, Justin, sums it up best:

    "Mommy don't do it.  Justin do it."

    Smart kid.... must run in the family.

Wednesday, 26 December 2007

  • Office Part-ay

    ** WELL i'm at work today (Boxing Day), like i was at work yesterday (Christmas), like i was at work the day before (Christmas Eve)..... Merry friggen Christmas. **

    SO yesterday we had a christmas party at work... i was actually pretty psyched for it since it was in the afternoon and i was hungry.

    This was my first "office party" and so i didn't really know what to expect or how to act.

    When i was in boarding school, we used to sneak into people's rooms while they were studying and scream "Party in [insert name here]'s room!!!" and then proceed to create as much damage (knock books off shelves, flip over mattresses and pull clothes off hangers - i know... hardcore) before we were evicted.

    For some reason, i didn't think that would have been the best approach to this event, so when the secretary came in and said there was a party in the conference room, i just stood up calmly and proceeded to power walk to the conference room while elbowing anyone smaller (ie. everyone else in the office) out of my way.

    My first thought, when i was told there was going to be a party this morning, was that a party couldn't be a party unless it had alcohol (this is what university has done to me). But to fair, even family gatherings have alcohol... well mine do anyway.... (one thing to note is where as my grandma used to sneak me alcohol when i was little, i now sneak it to her).

    This thought triggered a whole hour of day dreaming about the upcoming weekend, which freaked out my coworkers when i became unresponsive and started drooling over the keyboard.

    As soon as i walked into the conference room, the first thing i noticed was the beer.... and for the first time in a very long time, i paused and i didn't know what to do.

    Questions shot through my head simultaneously:

    "Are those beers for us (me)?"
    "Are other people going to drink beer?"
    "Am i allowed to drink beer at work?"
    "Is this some sort of cruel test?"
    "Where's the boss?"
    "How many beers can i can fit under my shirt at once?"

    And for the second time that day, my coworkers had to resuscitate me.

    Not knowing what to do, i grabbed some food (four chicken wings and two chocolate cakes) and scampered back to the trading room like Gollum (Lord of the Rings), to eat in private and think about what to do next.

    Returning to the conference room, i noticed that some of the guys from the sales department had opened up a couple of bottles and they waved me over to join them.

    That beer was one of the most uncomfortable beers i've ever had because the beer was warm and because i swear i felt all my coworkers were staring at me and so were the little kids they brought to work to get christmas presents. 

    That beer was as awkward as the time me and a friend snuck into a pub underage and freaked out when the bartender asked us what beer we'd like, at which point my friend (with a nonchalant smile on his face) said the "yellow one". Mind you, we were 14 AND this was in China, where the laws were (and are) well.... lax (you could get a bartender to fill a baby bottle with vodka).

    ANYWAY, i finished the day on a sugar high now since not only should i not have finished ONE rich chocolate cake by myself, i shouldn't have finished TWO, which i did anyway.


    ON a totally unrelated topic, i have received a request to write about the "Shittest Christmas Presents "... and since she's one of my only readers that actually comments (hint hint - spread the xmas cheer or i'll spread the xmas pain), i'm happy to oblige.

    EXCEPT, my parents stopped giving me presents at the same time they told me that santa didn't exist.... which was traumatizingly young.

    SO as an alternative, i'll leave you with a story about another kind of present.

    I used to work at a supermarket and there was this one time when i was working the late shift when this guy with bad hair and even worse body odour came up to my counter and put three items on the bench in this exact order:
    A pack of condoms, a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers.

    I looked up at him and he gave me this grin that looked exactly like the one George Clooney had on in at the end of 'Oceans Eleven', after he had pulled off that amazing heist and was standing in front of the fountain.

    What i should have done, was tell him that not only should he not, no matter what in hell happens, give his girlfriend those items in that order, i should have also suggested that he hit the liquor section and find anything dark enough to conceal ground up panadol in it without it being conspicuous.

    Instead i just nodded and gave him a look as if to say 'You're a bloody genius - why didn't i think of that?'

    He smiled wider

    'I wouldn't bet on it.' I thought.

    Call me Judas.

Monday, 24 December 2007

  • Wrong Profession

    ** SO as many of you know, I'm in China and I'm working in the foreign currency trading room of the Bank of Montreal.  I don't really want to detail my work here because... well, i'm AT work (and i don't need my coworkers to know how little I know) and the fact that said coworkers are reading my screen with dictionaries in hand while trying to keep up (therefore the need for speed).  But just to give you a rough idea of what work here is like, any time we see a figure flash up on one of the many screens we have here that has LESS than 5 zero's attached to back of it - we're pretty much obligated to point and laugh at in disdain.**

    After being worked like a pack animal the last week, this week the market has virtually fallen asleep with so many foreign countries going on holidays or opening half days.  Therefore i virtually have nothing to do and they're pretty much paying me to come to work, sit down and read news articles with titles such as 'Police Taser Urinating Man'. 

    And while things might not be looking good for me these next couple of days, with me working today on Christmas Eve, and again tomorrow on Christmas Day and also the day after on Boxing Day (the closest thing to *Christmas Cheer* in China, is the fact that santa and the Chinese flag share the same red), I wouldn't be laughing too heartily at my misfortune, especially if you're thinking of getting into the finance industry as i know many of you are...

    As some of you might know, I am majoring in accounting for my commerce degree, for which i get a lot of crap for... especially from people majoring in finance.  For some reason, many of these people seem to think accounting is the boring version of finance... or finance, the cooler version of accounting....

    Well just to confirm things: they're both equally boring as hell.

    And just to "mythbust" another common assumption that you can't get anymore uncool than an accountant.  The *financial* analysts here have about as much personality as one of those novelty mugs your dad buys when on holiday that have those catchphrases that after you read once, makes you swear on your own grave that that mug will never see the light of day again.

    So, my finance studying friends, the next time you remember what i major in and give me that same look that people give to shark attack victims that have lost both arms and a leg, just remember that i pity you as much as you pity I.

     

    ON another note, after a week here, i noticed that there were a lot of above average girls getting off on my floor but walking off into the opposite direction.

    Curiosity getting the better of me so one lunch break, i took the time to casually stroll down to the other office and poked my head in to have a look.

    Turns out the office next to ours is the Hennessy HQ for Guangzhou.

    Girls and Alcohol.  I'm in the wrong profession.