Cherries In Hong Kong: April 2011

I went to Ocean Park again (for like the 4th time)... photos:

I love this snack... they are extremely thin and brittle biscuits with a hollow interior. it's somehow a source of calcium (for just 160 cals, the whole box... you get 15.1% of the daily intake), very crunchy, slightly salty, and 'light'. And very cheap! $10HKD for two boxes!

It was a pretty productive day. I was just gearing up to start working through a new assignment when I get an email asking if I would be available to take a call. Of course I was, I say to the person stationed halfway across the world. It takes a few calls on her end to get rid of a buzzing noise that we're both hearing, but eventually, everything is clear!

This conversation is super super important because we rarely get calls from them and I think they gave up trying to use email as there was a lot of back-and-forth with nothing substantial getting done, and I was eager to clear things up as quickly as possible. Another thing was, my reputation was on the line... I really couldn't afford to screw this up.

In the middle of the conversation, the phone behind me rings (1). It's very loud and shrill, and it's a communal phone, which means whoever is nearby and able should answer it. There are two colleagues sitting nearby who are conveniently deaf at this moment. The phone eventually stops. Then my own phone starts beeping and cutting the person on the other line off sporadically because a call was coming in (2). The communal phone behind me starts up again! Then, my cell phone rings (3), and I almost took the thing and threw it at my deaf (and actually kind of mute, since they didn't speak much) colleagues.

After I hung up, I viscously called back all the callers and got rid of them once and for all (cell phone one was a telemarketer) and all became quiet. Except I wasn't completely sure on what I was supposed to do.

That incident, I'm sure can be classified as 'life is throwing lemons at me' except I'm not sure how I can make lemonade.

First of all, a disclaimer: I do not hate this person nor do I bear any ill will towards him just because he is balding and has a uni brow, and once induced a dream where I grew a uni brow and could not wax/pluck at it because I just had eye surgery.

Uni brow is my colleague. He shows up nearly every other morning in the elevator no matter what time I choose to head upstairs from napping on the coffee shop sofa/chatting half-asleep with my boyfriend. Sometimes I see him pop up in the hall after lunch or before I go. I don't understand this uncanny ability of his to be everywhere I go. I don't bump into my other colleagues with such astounding reliability.

If he merely said 'hi' to me, it would not be a problem to see him so often. But English is nowhere near his first language, so when he sees me, his mind goes into "red alert! immediately switch to English mode!" but he can't switch fast enough, so something incoherent like "mghhpghh???" spews from his mouth to which I respond with a curt "and good morning to you too".

In the afternoon, he will ask me one question that I don't think he actually cares about, but for the sake of making conversation, will ask: what are you eating? when it is clear-as-day that I am eating a chicken Caesar salad at my desk.

Very nice guy. Very polite, and a good scientist. Just makes me go -__-'' sometimes.

Life Updates:

- Apparently whales have songs of their own that travel around like a popular pop song. See article here: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/04/15/how-whale-songs-rocket-to-number-one/

Listen to them sing here:

http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/31370.php?from=183196

http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/31371.php?from=183196

- I decided to fast from facebook for Easter.

- I celebrated finishing my dissertation presentation with nights of crocheting, and failed mochi (I was so disappointed that I forgot to take a picture). I was still in the beginning of my "be gentle with it, I didn't use any stitches" lecture when my student squeezed the angry bird after throwing it into the air a few times. I decided to take it back home to make some reinforcements before handing it to this child. I turned a rat into an owl (the ball of yarn was getting bigger than I had expected, and a rat of that size would have been a bit too scary.)

My beautiful hand-drawn cell, used in the presentation.

- A fashion and beauty magazine distributed very very pretty free octopus card holders, which was enough incentive for me to pick it up (also as entertainment during lecture since I forgot to bring my laptop). The very next day, I lost the holder along with the octopus card. I think it was stolen. It must have happened between me finishing lunch and returning within 10 minutes to scour the area around my eating tray (which was not picked up yet), to see a girl sitting directly in front of my tray, responding nervously and quite suspiciously to my inquiries.

- I went to pam's ocean-baptism at the beach. TRES COOL!! ~

- Three weeks in a row with long weekends!

"The fee for sitting in the booth without taking a picture is 100HKD" says the sign.

It's time for indian food again. This is starting to get routine.

The photo type on the far right is only $5 so I opted for that option in the booth (I mean, it was for making the ID of my chinese class pic) and I thought I'll just cut my face out. BUT, the options that were actually there on the screen were all very strange ethnic pictures of real people with their own faces cut out (the point was to put your face where theirs were). I wish I could show you the result of that but I am afraid I already lost the picture. I ended up paying $40 for a row of really really ugly pictures that turned out even uglier (my student card).