I love reorganizing my stuff

The fact is that I love reorganizing myself very once in a while. It serves multiple purpose which has more implication than just having a tidy room.

- It helps me to realize how much stuff I have, and inspires me to rethink about the priorities of my life.
- It lowers my incentive to by more stuff. The more stuff I have, the more I need to organize.
- It brings back some sweet old memory.

The hardest part is to figure out what to throw away.

LEQF

I recently found out that there's a common trace of behavior in our family members, or at least within us bothers: we don't have patient, very stubborn, kind of bad tempter.

I found out this today because I was kind of impatient when I explained a computer problem with my brother, and he kept asking for absolute answer for a relative problem. And then when I walked to the living I saw my younger brother being equally impatient when he tried to explain his dog breeding business mess.

I will start to call our family LEQF (Low EQ Family).

I see a storm waiting to happen in my family

Something is not right with my family recently. I observed some trail of conflict and tension building up among people here, and it seems like this was not going to be pretty.

I started sensing that something was wrong a week ago when my sister-in-law and my nephew started going to bed pretty early, sometime around 10:00 p.m. . At first I thought this was just an act of trying to make sure that my nephew woke up on time to school.

But a day later, when I went home at about 10:30 pm, turned on the light of my room and started a bit online radio, I heard a loud door slamming sound. The door of my sister-in-law's room, which was opened a few seconds ago, was shunted. I asked my mom what was going on, and my mom explained it with a murmuring voice, “... well, guess your sister-in-law was a bit unconscious with her sleepy head, and tried to close to door without thinking too much ...”

I didn't buy that explanation, and very conscious about making sure that my door light wouldn't turn on until I shunted the door.

I also sensed something strange: my nephew was not as bouncy and joyful as he used to be since a week ago. When I left home last Sunday morning, I saw my nephew starring at the television, so I said Hi to him. Usually he would greet back enthusiastically. Well, he didn't this time. He saw of looked at me and then looked at the television again, as if something was bothering him.

Keep in mind that my nephew is just a 3 years 8 months old kid.

And then today I went home at 9:30 pm. The sister-in-law's room was closed, which I assumed that she went to sleep, and I saw my nephew laid next to mother. I heard him vaguely murmuring something like “... I don't want grandma cries, and I don't want mom cries ...”. When I saw my nephew, I asked “hey, still not sleep yet”. And again, he looked at me, with a face of mindful of stuff, didn't say a word, and walked away, went back to his mom, my sister-in-law's room.

But the most worrisome thing occurred after my nephew walked away. My mom slowly walked next to me, and said with a whispering voice, “Your sister-in-law got really moody. I kept trying to accommodate but ....”. So that confirm something I suspected a while ago.

To be fair, my sister-in-law doesn't seem to have much friend in Hong Kong (my brother married her a few years ago in mainland China), and it seems like my brother and was too close her ever since she arrived Hong Kong 3 years old. I was a bit worry about their relationship since the beginning as I didn't see much communication between them.

And people within our family don't communicate much with each other, which I think should be the biggest problem.

Plus I have to admit that I may probably be part of the problem since I got moody myself very once in a while, which I usually take a passive solution by closing the door and mind my own business. I also don't stay home too often, which worsen the lack of communication problem.

So here's the mess of my family as of now.

My friends photo exhitbition

I went to my friend's photo exhitbition. Cool stuff.

What my schedule in 2006

Many of my friends asked what is my immigration situation, with some said "why the hell you are still in Hong Kong." I guess I am answer this question here once in for all ... at least for the time being until the situation changes ago.

I will stay in Hong Kong at least until sometime Spet this year 2006. My immigration process got another set back for the reason the have completely no control and have nothing to me at all. Basically so law passed in America that gives other minority groups the privilege to have their immigration application processed in higher priority. That pushed my application further backward even when I already had my body checked and result committed. It was estimated that there will be a 6 month set back.

So I went ahead a sign another 6 month work contract up to mid-June 2006.

Yes, I am still working in a government project. Seeing people making a lot of money without doing stuff besides breathing is just an amazing experience. Makes my tax money worth while.

And yeah I still taking dance class.

everything same old.

There you have it.

Dinner with friends who worked together back in 2003

Me like old dude.

more old and sadness.





OK, we are tired of you. Go away.

My old work colleague in sadist PVC suit

I was having a reunion dinner with my old work colleague yesterday. The dining place was OK, and my colleague were mostly fine, but I found that one of the colleague became an irritated person. I was not sure if he was an irritated person in the first and that I just didn't realized it, or the job turned him into a big time asshole. If it's the later reason, then it's very sad.

He is now making good money being a direct contractor of a government IT department with job duty mainly handling development of government project. I started to feel pissed when I mentioned that my project is pretty well managed that I can leave office at about 7:30 pm most of the time (which from IT industry standard means good), and he said, "well, in that case I think I would cut people from your team if I were your supervisor."

So instantly I realized that:

(1)His had his mindset thinking from a nasty supervisor point of view.
(2)He probably used the same technique to manage his subordinate and the contract developer in charged of, which is ironic consider he was a contract developer a year or so ago.
(3)He kept mentioned that his boss would slap on me if I did this or so that, as if his boss was his slave owner. (I can't help imagining him wearing some sadist PVC suit walking around in his office.)

To put a long story short, he became the evil persons who once managed him. I know, this is common, as history always repeats itself. Still I found it sad when I saw it.

So once again, for us lower middle class workers, the rule is always like this: the more money we earn, the more humanity we give up. It's like in the animation Full Metal Alchemist, alchemist use equal amount of particles to transfer one object to another. In real life, people use humanity to transform into money and job security.

But then, to remain question to me is: how much do I willing to give up to contain moving upward. Do I remain happy for my current situation which I remain my dignity and freedom and happiness but taking a low salary, or taking the road by kissing ass, torturing other people for the gain my supervisor?

I've seen the Jim Carry movie "Fun with Dick and Jane", which is about a family loss everything one night (job, house and self-esteem) because some rich people makes money by scam. Think Enron. The movie is not that good, but a fine psychology revenge for regular working folks who were screwed by the big corporate. The movie also presented the little dark side of little guys who envy how the others have bigger car and better life than him. Sigh. How fragile a man's heart is with little envy here and little envy there.

Bad HK Disneyland photo

Well, I am not photographer, and, well, the following batch is particularly terrible. I took them at the entrance of Hong Kong Disney Land.

More terrible Disney Land photos

My only batch of Christmas photo

You know how much I hate the crowd. Thus I didn't take much photo during this Christmas. The following is one of the very few.






A scene on the street. Nothing special at all.







A friend, the one who took the first photo for me.