今日はもう大晦日

大晦日
おおみそか
New Year's Eve.

It's a good time to summarize the personal highlights of the year.

January
Started blogging!..
Got the engagement ring!

February
Nothing special happened except doing work on the house...

March
Short Trip to Japan!

April
Wi-Fi Certification Month ...
Finally went snowboarding!

May
Found ichiro chan in the backyard!
My brother came in for interview with my team!
Angel's graduation!

June
2-Year Project FCS'ed!

July
Pre-wedding pictures in San Francisco!
Finally moved into the new place!

August
The wedding related shopping ...
Became part of the mixi community!

September
The Wedding!

October
Short trip to Los Angeles.!.
Short trip to Vancouver!

November
New management at work...
Got a new bed!

December
The week I became famous at work*.!
Forgot to pay property tax and paid the $400 penalty...
Got a new projector!

*.!(stood up against management's decision on the building move at All Hands Meeting, designed the posters for Christmas party, planned the Amazing Race for the party, got the utlimate gift at the party out of 1000+ raffle tickets)

Reading a lot (of Japanese) helps. There is so much to read about everyday on the web that not only do I learn alot about Japanese, I actually have learned a lot about a lot of things. A few handy plug-ins are essential to keeping up with the reading. My favorite ones are the Moji side bar (moji.mozdev.org) and the WordTranslator option from the Google Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/index.html).

*I should blog about these 2 tools here because I will be getting my laptop refreshed in a month and I might forget what I need to install.

And by being a part of the mixi community is really one of the best ways to keep up with the Japanese language itself.

*Have you heard about the Grand Canyon Skywalk? That will sure make it more interesting to visit!

御宅

In Asia (outside of Japan) these days, after watching 日本の人気ドラマ「電車男」, people enjoy being viewed by others as part of the「御宅族」just because they use a computer at work or blog at home or own more than 1 computer.

But here is how an ordinary household looks like at where I live (;-p)


*現在聞いている曲:
Vanessa Paradis - Chat Ananas
(彼女が Johnny Depp の子供の母であることを知っているんでしょうか?)

Reminder to myself:
Never say "Huh?" at a work meeting when you meant "excuse me?". Someone did that today and it sounded really unprofessional and dumb.

知ってた？

Did you know you can check for disk error and do defrag on your iPod?

Here is how to do it:

When the Apple logo appears, release the buttons and press "rewind", "fast forward", "menu" and "action" (the center button) simultaneously. It can be tricky to press all these buttons at the same time. You may find it helpful to place the iPod on a desk or other flat surface and use both hands to press the required buttons.

When the correct combination of buttons is depressed, the iPod will scan the disk for errors. If the iPod displays a checkmark, then the test passed and no errors were found. If the iPod displays an icon of an iPod with a "frowning face", then the test failed and repairs are needed.

That's another reason why I think the application for iPod is weak!!

早くも終わってしまった．．．

How come Christmas is not as fun anymore? Is it because we are not in school anymore, or is it because we are in some places we did not grow up in?

Christmas used to be one of my favorite holidays many many years ago. There will be a whole week of fun leading to the actual Christmas day and then another week afterwards. Everyday of the last half of December used to fill with so much things to do and people to be with. Now in California, besides the gift shopping for others (which I don't even do, because I believe in people shopping for their own gifts hence to minimize the need to return) before Christmas, the actual Christmas day is so uneventful. Turkey dinner with other good stuff, meeting with people you see often already. The street is pretty dead if you go out... That makes me decided that starting next year, I want to spend Christmas in Asia where I can go out and everywhere is open till late. I want to see the all commercialized, fake Christmas spirit created by the decorative lights and ornaments in downtown and the shopping areas. I want to go to a late night movie and then a fancy coffee shop afterwards. I want to be outside with lots of people doing various things. If I want peace and quiet, I can always get that upon coming home.

Today, I came in to work where the office is pretty dead. I think I can sleep at my cube and no one will even notice. And what is with those boxes of See's? Is that the default office gift for Christmas? Can they come up with something creative? I wouldn't mind a Christmas (tree) ornament even if I don't have a Christmas tree yet. Oh, I used to decorate a Christmas tree every year growing up. I think I miss that.

My Christmas gift this year is my 5G iPod (an upgrade from the nano I got from work). I like it at first but it has proven to be a pain to use with iTunes on Windows. It's so (cursing) slow and with so limited functions. But the iPod packaging is nice. It feels like a real gift when I received it. (Oh, the wait for it to arrive was unbearable. I found myself checking the shipping status a few times a day for 3-4 days). Had spent so much precious time loading pictures and songs on it and it won't display Chinese or French characters correctly. I have to change my Windows Region to Hong Kong in order to have the Chinese characters to show correctly on the iPod. It's a pain because now my fonts are all funny looking and the date-time format is like this 26-Dec-05 0:08 instead of December 26, 2005 12:08am.

Anyways, I watched 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ (the TV drama version) over the holidays. Even though it's pretty sad, I like the performance/acting of the kids and the place the place where the movie was shot. I like the story line and the people much more than the movie version. I don't think I learned anything from it but maybe just a reminder to appreciate being alive and well and do what is important right now than later.

It's really so quiet at work. It's nice yet so weird. Best environment to study Japanese. :-P But I still have that one document that I need to finish up on. It's over 3 weeks due, I think.

* Next movie I want to watch:
メゾン・ド・ヒミコ 《La Maison de Himiko》

Add one more to the list:
Dear Frankie (with Gerard Butler!)

小荷物

こにもつ
Parcel, package

注文品
ちゅうもんひん
Ordered goods

配送
はいそう
delivery

発送
はっそう
send/shipped

ついに、注文品は全部配送してもらった。
Finally, all the ordered goods were delivered and received.

*今聞いている曲: Alanis Morissette - Utopia

隅から隅まで

すみからすみまで
Every nook and cranny, every inch

E.g.
この部屋を隅から隅まで探しました。
I looked every where in this room.

返品

Yesterday afternoon when I stopped by Best Buy, I saw the actual iPod nano for the first time. I have seen my brother's 5G 30GB iPod Video and really like it a lot. I felt the nano might be too small to my liking, despite knowing the benefit of the fact that the nano has no moving internal component. It turns out my hunch was right. I dislike the nano and was very disappointed with its size and look in general. I usually don't buy anything from Best Buy because their prices are never the lowest. Plus, if I want the iPod Video, I want to get it directly from Apple to get the free laser engraving to personalize it. Anyway, it turns out someone in my family can use the store credit from Best Buy, so I decided to return my lucky gift from work and ordered the 5G iPod from Apple with the Belkin Kickstand Case. Unfortunately, looks like it won't arrive until the end of next week.

昨日の午後ベストバイに寄ったときに、実際のiPod nanoを初めて見ました。私の弟の 5G 30GB iPod Videoは見たので、大好きなの。ナノはたぶん小さ過ぎって嫌であると思いました。やっぱり...
通常ベストバイの価格は少し高いので、何も買わない 。それと 、iPod Video 買うなら 、アップルのウェブサイトで直接購入した方が良い。自分で文字指定ができて、無料のレーザ彫刻を提供します。 とにかくさ、家族の誰かベストバイの店用のクレジット 利用できるよ。 最後には仕事から幸運な贈り物を返すと決めていきました。5G iPod とBelkin Kickstand Case を注文しました。残念な、来週後半に到着するそうだよねー 。

I think the above Japanese is a mess. Please don't read it. I will check with Sensei after her vacation.

霹靂

私はいつも難しい漢字を探すのが好きです。今日この単語「霹靂 」を見たので、辞書で調べてみま した。この単語は漢字と中国語の意味と発音もほとんど同じです。

霹靂
へきれき
Thunder

*今聞いている曲: Coldplay - What if

I always like to look for difficult Kanji. Today because I saw (came across) this word 「霹靂 」(which I don't know how to pronounce in Japanese so), I looked it up in the dictionary. This Kanji word is almost the same in meaning and pronounciation as the Chinese word.

Corrected by Mitsue Sensei:
私はいつも難しい漢字を探すのが好きです。この漢字は意味と発音も中国語とほとんど同じです。

ラッキー

昨日、会社の部門のクリスマスパーティーでいろいろな試合とゲームがあった。 私は Bake-off 試合に参加しました。私のAmaretto Banana Cheesecake with Hazelnut Swirls and Shaved White Chocolate は Bake-off 試合のパイのカテゴリで一等賞を勝ち取りました。


他の試合とゲームの勝者は iPod nano を受ける機会を得ました。合計9人の勝者がいました。私は9つに一つ機会から勝ちませんでした。 だけど、他の30個のクリスマスプレゼントと1個の最高のがありました。私は30個のプレゼントから何も得ませんでしたが、最高のを取りました。 (:-D) これは私の人生で初めてです。今まで、信じられない。最高のクリスマスプレゼントは iPod nanoであるけれども、本当にうれしいなと興奮しました。

*私たちの部門は700人があります。

Since I don't really know how to write in Japanese, I probably should rewrite I meant to say in English. :-P

There were various contests and games yesterday at our company department Christmas party. I signed up for the Bake-off contest. My Amaretto Banana Cheesecake with Hazelnut Swirls and Shaved White Chocolate won the First Place in the Pie Category at the Bake-off.
Winners from other contests and games would get a chance to get the iPod nano. There were a total of 9 winners. I did not win from the one out of nine chances. However, there were other 30 Christmas gifts and one grand prize. I did not get anything out of the 30 gifts but I got the grand prize. This is the first time ever in my life. I still can't believe it. Although the top prize is only an iPod nano, I was really happy and excited.

*Our department has 700 people.

Corrected by Mitsue Sensei:
他の試合とゲームの勝者はiPod nanoを手にする機会が得られます。この時点で、合計９人の勝者がいました。私はこの９つの機会を勝ち取ることができませんでした。だけど、他にもまだ３０個のクリスマスプレゼントと、１個だけ)特別なプレゼントが残っていました。私はその３０個のクリスマスプレゼントからは何も得ませんでしたが、最高のプレゼントを手に入れました。これは私の人生で初めてです。今でも信じられない。その最高のクリスマスプレゼントはiPod nanoだったけど、本当に嬉しいなと興奮しました。

満足感

まんぞくかん
manzokukan
Self-satisfaction

I have 3 specs I need to deliver in December.
I got the first, small one done, reviewed, action items closed and rechecked in to the system way before the beginning of the deadlines.
Today, finally, the second one, which is big and tough, is also done after I worked from 10am-11:50pm with only a 3.5 hour break in between. I am about 12 days late with this spec but I think I did a superb job on it. The review will be tomorrow and I feel it will be one of the more solid specs this team has seen so far! Ha! So the 満足感 was overflowing when I checked in the document for tomorrow's meeting. On the other hand, I have to take out my old Enigma CD and listen to the Electronic-Gregorian-Chant-Mixed-with-Good-Beat to help me unwind from the long hours of intense focus on writing the spec. I could have done a half-hearted job to meet the deadline but it's just not me to do such a thing. :-P But who knows? Few years down the road, I just might consider doing that instead of making myself so stressed out. (I could have actually done it over the weekend, but instead I chose to study Japanese...)
Anyway, I have yet to get started on the third one and so far I only have a skeleton with no meat in it. Luckily, this is another small feature that should not take too long to finish. But I am completely missing the deadline on this one... Sometimes, I feel I overworked. (時々、私は働き過ぎだと感じる)

Oh, time to send out some Christmas cards!! I did not realize it until last year that people at work really care about receiving Christmas cards. Last year I only bought 24 cards and my colleagues who did not receive one from me actually felt insulted or something. But this year, I still only bought 12+16 cards. I only want to give to people I like and I care about... but looks like everyone from work that I worked with is expecting one from me if I am again giving them out. I wonder if I should just go buy more cards...? But writing so many is a lot of hassle. Do you like or care about receiving Christmas card? Actually, come to think of it... I LOVE RECEIVING CHRISTMAS CARDS!! So if you want one, you shall get one! :-)

Studying

I have been studying Japanese since 4pm today after coming back from Kinokuniya. I did not buy any books because they don't have the ones I want to check out. I will have to go to the San Francisco store if I have time. I took the online JLPT Level 4 test this evening and did really well despite being disrupted by phones and visitors and having to break for dinner. I think if Level 4 is really that easy, I can go ahead skip it and try Level 3.

I found some very good sites today and this one is pretty useful:

Quizzes on Commonly Used Japanese Words

I am in big trouble, my team is all geared up to start the project this Monday (today) and I am totally lagging behind.... I am supposed to put studying Japanese aside and finish my work but I did not. It's already 12:19am and I think I want to go to sleep.

Studying Japanese for so many hours is really very exhausting!!!!!!

Saw Thelma and Louise and The Island this weekend. Both were pretty good!! :-)

Is this iPod case very uncool or is it just me? It's selling at Banana Republic...unbelievable!

*The Hakone Open-Air Museum is a place I must go the next time I am in Japan!

**Tonight, this song is playing in endless loop. I had no idea what she was singing until I read the lyrics. It's one of those songs that has the ethereal, angelic, music box feel to it. I have never heard of it before tonight but I like it, a lot!

Song: 恐龍學唱歌
Album: 打狗女郎
Artist: 有耳非文
Lyrics:
叮0當叮叮0當 熟悉聲在響
大人霹靂巴啦有說不完道理
滴答滴滴答唷 秒針走累了 我靜靜期盼明天能變成大恐龍
Aiue ㄅㄆㄇㄈOne Two Three Four
有誰能發明杯藥 啊唱下它全學會
怪了怪了怪怪說 文明天堂活像地獄
恐龍怪了怪了怪怪說 怎不能腦袋空空
學會唱歌 啦……

幸福の秘訣

Koufuku no hiketsu
こうふくの ひけつ
The secret/recipe to happiness

Picture this:

It's 4 degree C outside. You came out of a hot shower. You walk to your warm, cozy bedroom with centralized heating. Your MP3 player is hooked up to the amplifer that is connected to the in-ceiling speakers playing the songs according to your customized order. The light is dimmed just right and it's plugged into the X-10. You are now in bed under your soft, puffy king size down comforter fitted into a Queen size duvet cover (for the extra puffiness). You are having your favorite Haagen-Dazs ice-cream in one hand and surfing through your "daily read" bookmarks with the other. You are laughing and enjoying your evening completely with no one to bother you. You forgot what time it is. You have totallly forgotten you have work tomorrow. What a sweet life! You can add your favorite person or ペット to the picture if you like. :-)

This will be just one of the many 幸福の秘訣 I will be posting. It will be nothing fancy but just simple joy in life.

*Recently saw the whole dorama Home & Away with Miho Nakayama in it. It's really hilarious and quite touching at times. I love most of the good old traditional family value dorama, so it does it for me. Lot of people will call it unrealistic and predictable...but I like it!

ボランティア活動

I have a new realization today while doing volunteer work with my team from work at a Food Bank. If any company is to interview a bunch of candidates, the best way is probably take the whole team and the candidates for some 2-hour volunteer work which involves working in some sort of an assembly line. You can see the person's social skill, his work attitude, his ability to be flexible and work with others. I, myself also learned something new about myself today. I found out I can not stand bottlenecks. I left my position to a guy whom I have worked with for the past 2 years (and is very dependable) and relocate myself to where the bottleneck was in the assembly line. I can't stand people working inefficiently. I always have to figure out a better way to do things and improve on the process and spread it to others like it's a competition or something (even when there is only one assembly line with absolutely no competition). And I would like to know the result on how many food baskets we end up packing at the end of the day, so it was a bit disappointing when that information is not available (because the fork lift was too busy taking all the completed food baskets out of the way with us churning one every 5 seconds). While working at the assembly line I saw some people like to take their sweet time, some people will pick and stay with the easiest task, some take 3 bathroom breaks in 2 hours, some are very talkative, some are extremely quiet, some are very selfish and would not help others when the line is not moving, some are day dreaming ... I know it's just volunteer work and you are supposed to take it easy, but how often do we do volunteer work? If we are there for just 2 hours, why not try to do as much as we can and do the best job? Well, at least that was my thinking... People must think I am very bossy or crazy...? Oh, well, that's me. But at least I know who I will pick and and who I will not - clearly. And some people probably will think they will not like to work with me ever. Good! We can try to stay away from each other. :-P

*Today I saw an article on an インタビュー with 吳倩蓮, whom I like a lot in the entertainment industry. I like her because we have a lot in common in terms of thinking, peronsality and some of the previous experiences. She is very cool and love to travel. Anyway, she said:
「原來，人不需要在每處地方留下太多痕跡。」Something to keep in mind.

苛々

いらいら
Irritation

E.g.
なぜそんなに苛々しているの？
Naze sonna ni iraira shite iru no?
Why are you so irritated?

ブロギング風格

Your Blogging Type is Pensive and Philosophical

You blog like no one else is reading... You tend to use your blog to explore ideas - often in long winded prose. Easy going and flexible, you tend to befriend other bloggers easily. But if they disagree with once too much, you'll pull them from your blogroll!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

晴れ

After yesterday's wind and rain, today is surprisingly very sunny with clear blue skies and cool breezes. Another day that should not be spent inside the office.

Today, my neighbor cubemate (an older woman with teenager sons) was telling me that she thinks one of our co-workers (a fresh grad.) is starting to look like me in terms of outer appearance. And she was the one who recommended her to do that since this older woman thinks I am cool (and has nothing better to do, obviously) and wants to introduce my best friend at work to her. And she came to ask me what I think. Personally, I am ok with that since my relationship with my best friend/co-worker is purely platonic. But having someone trying to look like me before introducing to my best friend? I think the whole idea is just a bit wacky. It reminds me of the movie Single White Female. Why can't her be herself? While I was thinking about this, I met this other female manager on the same floor and she was telling me, "Hey, you know, I am starting to get confused between you and that fresh grad. girl. You guys look so much alike from the back." So here it goes again. I am feeling annoyed to say the least. I hate being confused with someone else and I don't want 2 me in the building! First, she does not look anything like me at all. Second, she might start wearing similar style of clothing but we are still not the same. We might be of about the same height with almost the same hair style, but please I am the cool one! Ok, she is probably a lot younger than I am so I guess in that sense, it could be a compliment, but that's ok. I am happy with my age and all. My best friend had said "No, thank you." To my cubemate before when heard about the lunch meeting with this frist grad. after checking her out on the company directory. Now I think the strategy she is going to go with is that, she actually looks like me and not like the picture in the directory. I would hate to be used like that!! Sometimes I think there is something wrong with this world when things like these happened. How in the world does my best friend at work get to know her? Well, they both worked for the same company before joining our current company. She has always treated him like a son because of the age difference and the fact that my best friend is always the star of the department he works for. Anyway, I plan to have nothing to do with this and not warn my best friend about the whole thing. I believe things should happen naturally and not through manipulation. Let's see what comes out of it. Oh, by the way, this best friend of mine owes me 10,000 (pearl) milk tea drinks. We had a bet that we were both very sure won't happened, but it did. So he lost the bet and I failed on a task. The only catch to this bet is that I can not cash out the unclaimed milk tea or share the bet winning with anyone. :-) I have been getting milk tea maybe only once every few months. So I should have plenty of free milk tea for the rest of my remaining days to come. *Sometimes I wonder if that's another way of hinting "let's be friends forever". Well, that's just fine by me. :-)

Oh, today's Japanese word is:
Hare
Sunny, clear (weather)
E.g.
今日は晴れ
昨日は雨の降る寒い一日だった

知らせ

Shirase
News

E.g.

いい知らせ, 悪い知らせ, 悲しい知らせ, うれしい知らせ
Good news, bad news, sad news, happy news

Tonight after work, I have 郭富城 - 愛的呼喚 playing in an endless loop. I have not listened to this song for a very long time. This is one of the very few songs I can sing from the beginning to the end. I did not realize this is a song from 1997!! That's the year when Hong Kong became part of China again. That's such a long time ago. I can't help but be amazed how time flies! Anyway, even though this is a love song, my mind actually wandered back to the days in elementary school when Masashi Naito (內藤村治) and Jacinta Fernandez were my good friends. The 3 of us were sitting next to each other and we just would not shut up, especially during art class. So one time, our art assignment in the 2-hour class was to craft something out of a piece of square, translucent piece of soap. We were given tools to cut and engrave the piece of soap. The 3 of us was having so much fun talking and giggling about everything that we totally lost track of the time we had left. So when the teacher walked by to check on us, he got pretty mad at us and we hurriedly do something to our soap. I came up with the idea of taking as much soap out as possible and just engrave some design on the outside. Of course a pot will be difficult so I decided that I will make a bath tub and add some herring bone pattern on the outside. :-P Masashi decided that he wants to do a free artistic form of nothing because to him that's art. Jacinta laughed at us and decided to just take it easy. Before the class was almost over, Masashi suddenly gave a loud cry. We did not know what happened until we saw blood all over!! :-O The ambulance came and rush him to the hospital. Before he went with them, he showed us his deep cut by flipping the big chunk of flesh away from the finger and gave us a wink. I almost fainted while Jacinta was cheering on him. I still vividly remember that day and will still smile and shiver thinking about that moment. Something I can't believe is how cool a kid can be at that age. A wink to the class before being rushed to the hospital for stitches!!? A 10 year old kid!! I think some people are really born to be COOLer and others!! :-) Unfortunately, we all moved on to different places after 6th grade and have not been in touch. :-( Those were really some golden days of my childhood!

So pick a song you love and play it in loops. It's the best way to take you back some good times in your life.

*是最好人生 is another great song on the same CD. 戰鼓 is a song I should remember to take with me to the gym , if I ever find time to go there after work. *sigh*

内緒

ないしょ
Naisho
To keep it a secret, confidential

E.g.
このことはトミーには内緒よ。
Don't tell Tommy about this, ok.

*It's no secret that many people like him. So I will put his picture here as an eye candy for all. :D


I can't wait to see his latest movie 《如果．愛》
Did you know Takeshi Kaneshiro was almost in the movie Mission Impossible II until Tom Cruise did not like the fact that an Asian man is taller than him and cut him from the job? Talk about insecurity...

正しく

まさしく
Masashiku
Surely, definitely, no doubt, accurately describe, correct

正しくない
Incorrect