Time to pay the due - income tax

IRS finally realize that I haven't paid tax since I arrived HK. Yesterday I got the income tax return form, and it's time for me to work on this funky assigment.

I got the following two links which seems to have me go thru the from-filling process:

- Guide to fill income tax : Flash video
- Instruction: How to fill up a form.

Sometimes, my own strangeness frustrates even myself.

I was sort of in depression mode after the dance practice this afternoon. Partly it was because my teacher pointed out quite a lot of things I did wrong while I was practicing a dance which I did last Sunday. The shamefulness sort of overshadowed me because I knew that if I did it wrong today, I must had been done very uglily on last Sunday. Being a perfectionist, it was painful to know that you done something low quality in public.

But that's not all.

I was depressed because someone didn't talk to me, someone who I assumpted to be my good friend.

Now, this really shows how childish I am, because others don't have obligation to come and cheer you up just because you are sick. Besides, I did have that "I-am-so-painful-so-leave-me-along" kind of look.

Still I was depressed because she didn't come by and talk to me.

Ain't I strange or what.

Learn something

It's would be a terrible waste if I didn't something after I went through obstacle without learning anything. And indeed I thought of something after yesterday's “nightmare performance”.

I need to dance my best whenever I can, knowing that there will times when you cannot preform your best even if you want to. I guess I always take my health for granted. But yesterday's situation tells me that there are time when I don't have strength to do my best even when I wanted to. And it's getting to be more true that past time goes by, my strength will only go downhill.

Be thankful. I have to give thanks to Kitty and Wincy for getting that bag of bread, or otherwise I wouldn't even survive the performance. I was almost out of strength to move on until after I sucked in that 4 pieces of bread at 1:45 pm. Come to think of it, those bread really went life saver.

Sick on performance day

What is the possibility of your mobile phone, your computer and yourself all got sick on the same day? Judging from what I am facing now, it seems to me like this is not that impossible.

I was sick starting yesterday morning. This is one of the most terrifying sickness to me, mainly because of the horrible timing, and also because of how fast the virus infected and affected my whole body. To be fair, I sensed to indication of a flu coming on Saturday when I had to finish and make some last minutes changes on the PowerPoint slide for the dance drama, and thus stayed up very late (like 3 a.m.). I started to feel my throat not feeling too well, and responded by drinking a lot of water. I woke up on Sunday morning feeling not too bad. So I thought it was under control. I was wrong.

I started to feel my throat setting slightly itchy substantially after I loaded my stuff in the dressing home. So again I started to drink a lot of water, and causing me to go to the restroom a lot. That's a very bad bad thing if you realize that I have a dance performance in the afternoon morning and I had to have final rehearsal in the morning.

While I was warming up, I sensed that my leg was pretty weak. It's not like my leg was any particularly strong, but it was like shaking while me and all dancer do the warming together. I knew that the virus already took over me.

Things started going downhill from there. I started to feel headache and have fever. My legs were getting weaker and weaker, and I lacked strength to even staying awake. And so I rested a lot, sit down quietly like a sixty-something, and eventually fell into sleep twice.

I was very scared, feeling hopeless, knowing that my body situation may not survive me through the dance performance. Throughout my life I constantly have an urge to runaway from obstacle. Sometime I did when I submit myself to my emotional burst, and sometime I didn't because my stubbornness and Christian moral value.

This time I couldn't quit because of the situation. I am one of the main dancer in the finale dance drama, and having me missing would caused a chaotic effect, like my instructor has to take up my part, and then a lot of last minute changes. I couldn't let that happening.

So there I went, which a painful headache and a pair of shaking legs, I finished the dance drama. All the technique part was barely slides by, but at least they were not that seriously deviate from the original choreography (at least that's what I thought).

I rushed and wanted to get home as soon as possible as I knew that my body couldn't take it any more. So I basically ignored everyone walked by and just ran ran ran.

I was finally home. I had my dinner, some medicine, briefly unpacked my stuff, and then I went to sleep. It was 8:30 pm. I felt like my body was freeze. But then, it's flu. I've been in this routines thousands of time.

So I woke up this morning, still feeling miserable. I followed my daily routine walking to my computer thinking of checking email. I had my computer set to on all of time in order to run some Bit torrent download of US TV shows I enjoy by couldn't access since I am physically in Hong Kong. I expected the screen be turned on when I slightly moved my mouse, sort of like Harry Potter waves his magic wand.

The screen was not on. Latter I found that the power supply doesn't seem to be running. So here it is: a broken computer. Hopefully it's just the power supply.

Then I tried to check some voice mail message, and this time the phone told me that "Please Insert SIM". Great, the mobile phone also got funky.

So here I am here. 8:56 am. Morning morning. Body felt sick. Desktop computer broke. Mobile phone was semi-malfunction. And if I didn't have my laptop computer, I couldn't write down all these train of thoughts. It's good that I always try to have a backup plan in my life.

My belt which I used for 15 years was just broken.

RIP. Another piece of my history is dead. (Am I over sentimental?)

A broken belt

A waist belt which I used for almost 15 years was broken 2 days ago. I was trying to fix it tonight but found it unfixable.

Another piece of my piece is now in the trash bin. RIP.

Here a little gift I brought for my wife Alice

Here a little gift I brought for my wife Alice :

Pushing up - the 4th day

It's a little late, but better late than sorry: I started doing pushup every morning since a week ago. This is mainly for preparing my body for the Dance performance on Oct 23 (Sunday afternoon). For detail about the performance, check here.

My egg plant was dead, and the traffic light

My egg plant was dead the day when we moved my office from 19th floor to the 21st floor. It was about mid September. So that means my egg plant was happy living for about a month before it died. Actually the photos you see in this blog are taken when the plant was in best shape. Long live egg plant.

Yesterday my working colleges and I went to North Point to have lunch. We came across an interesting traffic light which I didn't think was being implemented across Hong Kong. The light has a digital counter which started ticking when the light turns to green. It gives you the count of how much second left before the light turns to red. I think this is a very neat idea and really should be installed across the Hong Kong city.

Feeling of sorrow

I woke up with overwhelming feeling of sorrow this morning. Some sort of depression maybe. Maybe it's the ex-performance syndrome again.

Sadness for no good reason

I woke up at 3:30 am this morning. Something bothered me, but I didn't know exactly what it was. It's been a while since I was overwhelmed by such kind of sadness. Maybe it was a news that I heard from a friend. Maybe it's a imperfect performance that caused my depression. Maybe it's a rude awakening of the fact that I really is way too old to do what I was frequently doing these days (and it made things worse when I saw it from what the others does). Maybe it was the girl that I met 10 years too late. Maybe it was a realization that I was far less talented than what I wish I could be. Or maybe it's all of the above.

No matter what the reason was (or were), I am pretty sure that I will forget about the whole mess and start getting busy on whatever I am going to busily work on, and it helps when I have such a short concern span and short memory.

My terribly short memory, what a beautiful double edge sword of my life, causing me so much pain and yet giving me so good a way out from desperate pain and sorrow.

More Egg Plant photos ...

My little egg plant

Here's a photo of the plant that I received as a gift from a friend.

My US Immigration Status

For those who are interest in my US Immigration Status, let me answer it here once in for all so that I don’t have to repeat the same thing hundreds of times. Besides, it’s kind of cool to simply reference to a web address for any complex issues, such as “‘Mr. Daniel Kwan, do you have a solution to the problem of global warming?’ ‘Well, http://danielkwan.blogspot.com/ “.

As some of you may have already known, Alice achieved Green Card status last month (Dec 2004). Because of that, my application of immigration, which sort of piggyback with Alice’s Green Card status, was submitted late last month (Dec 2004). Based on the estimation by our immigration lawyer, it will take around 9 months to 1.5 year to complete the process.

By the way, we have our college friend handling my case this time, so unlike the previous cases which I still have hard time to hunt down the previous lawyers who screwed up my case, this time I know where to find the one who’s in charge and execute my fist of death. Seriously, I realize that the real bottom neck is at the US Immigration department. But hell, it’s fun to imagine. Besides I need some excuse to perfect my fist of death.

So there you have it. Now get back to www.eBay.com that you were at a while ago.

(2005-01-07) Here's a dance performance for a cross cultural activity day thing. The photo shows once again that my eyes really cannot stand direct sunlight. (See how tiny my eyes were?)  

(2005-01-05) That's me as a representative handing over a birthday gift to our ballet teacher madam Choi. I am pretty sure that she got a lot of winkle because of me since ultra slow learner on dance. Yet she¡¦s patient to me ¡K to a point :-P, and then it was usually a 5 minutes lecture addressing me :-E ¡K. Creppy.
 

(2005-01-02) Another pose of our dance. It's called "Old Partner", but a title "Lady and a Weirdo" seems to be more appropriate based on this photo.
 

Here's me and my partner at a dance competition on Jan 2 2005. We got a minor prize which made sense to me since I don't think I was doing too well that day. My partner Wincy was doing pretty fine though. 

Taken at Asia Game Show 2004. A nerd with a camera. Dangerous combination that is. 

That's me at Asia Game Show 2004 again. This time I was knocked by that fat mascot ....... (of course it's fake since that red cloth dude wouldn't survive my martial art if it's real) 

It's Dec 2004. Here I am at the Asia Game Show 2004 in Hong Kong, being a moron looking at a slim Playstation 2. Of course that was just acting, because the real me looks even more stupid.