今日の感想

Today was my daughter's first day going to the daycare. It feels very similar to first day of school for both the parents and the kid. We have to prepare her backpack with onesies, diapers & wipes, milk bottles and other necessities. And leaving her in someone else's care, some total strangers, for the first time just felt - VERY STRANGE - !

But the other dominating thought I had all day was:
なぜ保育園の料金や費用はそんなに高いのー？
｛いちばん｝｛ゆうめい｝｛こうこう｝香港で一番有名なアメリカン・スクールよりももっとずっと高いよ!

TypeRacer

I have not done any speed typing to measure wpm for a long, long time. Today I came across this interesting site which allows you to race other people online. Give it a try but don't blame me if you are addicted.

いとこ

Day 1


Two cousins hooked on TV early in morning! :-)


Day 2

Same thing, different positions...

MOS Burger

My brother will be going to Japan soon and of course I get excited whenever I hear someone is going there. It's not that I am very familiar with the place and all, but it's just one of my favorite topics to talk about I guess.

I just found out MOS Burger is in Taiwan as well. Maybe it will be here in US soon, too. I should look up their franchise information.

Updates:
MOS Burger is actually in Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand as well!! Interesting. But the small operation in Hong Kong definitely does not look as good for some reason...

静態

This is a cool illusion. It was said that if you feel this picture is "moving" or shifting left and right a lot, it means you are under a lot of stress and should take a day off. But if you can see it as what it is, a stationary picture, then you are calm and ok to go about your business.

I think most people will inevitably "see" some slight movement.

可哀相な

Captured and harshly trained to perform tricks. What's the point?
Can we truly enjoy the performance seeing how it's on a tight leash?
This picture reminded me a bigger performing monkey inside Sunshine 60 in Ikebukuro wearing a tiny kimono and doing meaningless flips. The monkey was choked by the trainer time and again almost every few seconds during the show without doing anything inappropriate. It was really tough to watch and I had to leave quickly. I wonder why they need to have that inside a shopping mall to begin with? It would be very bad for kids to think that's the right way to treat an animal. I hope kids don't go home and start putting leashes on their cats and force them to do tricks!

親友

Do you have a buddy whom you can talk to about anything for any length of time and at the same time, the conversation is so fun and enjoyable that you keep thinking about it afterwards? If you do, you should feel so LUCKY!

I came across 4 or 5 such people in my life but unfortunately as we entered different stages in life, or move on to different things and places I just lost touch with them. (Of course I am talking about back then when there were no virtual email addresses like yahoo/hotmail/gmail and no one keeps the same cell phone number as they upgrade their phones.)

Yesterday, while I was frantically working on the tax stuff, I suddenly saw an email to my work email from a long lost best friend of mine. I think tears almost came to my eyes when I saw her email! She is only a few years older than me but she is so wildly funny, fun, sensible and smart. I still don't understand why we are such good friends when I am the one receiving all the pampering and attention from her and with nothing to offer back in return. But I guess it's not important to solve this mystery but rather how to not lost touch again.

1st Day at Work

Like many new grads in Japan, April 1st happened to be my first day at work for the year after a long 5 months off. Even though I am a 10 year veteran at my company, I felt like a newbie who just joined a big company. I did not really know what I should be working on so I went around talking to different people whom I was working with before I went on leave to get all the latest. I could have also just start reading all those old email to see what transpired but of course a lot of time will be wasted on reading words that no longer matter. Anyway, luckily my first day went by pretty fast.

Some of the things that went through my head during my first day:

1. People I like - I still like them upon seeing them.
2. People I dislike - I was quickly reminded why. Stupid jokes, fake smile, arrogant looks...
3. A total of 4 babies were born during my leave - Wow! And they were all girls!
4. News of divorce - Shocking! Absolutely stunned as I thought they were the perfect couple of over 25 years!! Wanted to do anything to help as I really like them both!
5. Observations of budget "tightening" - breakroom and office supplies, project news, people disappeared...
6. Rumors of reorg - oh well. And guess what, it's no longer a rumor!
7. Boring meetings - same old.
8. Allegeries and funny odors - Sneezing, sneezing, coughing, nose blowing, funny smell from from the lunch boxes in microwaves and from the lab.
9. Password, password, password - way too many different passwords. I have to reset and renew a few.
10. Demos, presentations, trainings, etc. - I can't start counting how many I missed or have fallen behind. Not sure if I should I be glad or worried?
11 People talking about lottery, stocks, stock options, retirement - same old.
12. Some new and silly processes and councils in place - The result of people, politics & power games.
13. We are not really properly challenged. Some of these people I work with ... they could definitely be stars in other fields - photography, stocks...etc.
14. I miss not working!!