Utility = {Globalization, Socializing, Homelessness}

Today’s post is a three-in-one post tied together with a theme of utility. There are three stories, and all of it happened today. Anyone familiar with the notations of set theory will understand the title – that Globalization, Socializing and Homelessness are part of the set of post called Utility. Continue reading Utility = {Globalization, Socializing, Homelessness}

Tea Bone Steak

Most people who know me knows I love tea. Now you know too. I appreciate tea not the way Kevin Rose imbibes his tea (feel free to read his tea resources though). The San Fransciscan way simply isn’t for me. No, me, I prefer something more traditional, and way less of the American bastardization of what tea is (case in point: Starbucks chai…most wtf drink ever). I list among my favorites, longjing (龙井), puer (普洱), and when available, piluochun (碧螺春) rather than just generic “green tea”.

Now, amongst the three of those, I have most plentiful stock in longjing, and I drink it every day. Longjing is also very versatile. Asides from plain drinking, I once accidentally discovered it to be awesome to be used in cooking (I accidentally dropped some loose leaves into a salmon steak while marinating it once – putting it into the oven was awesome).

So, this morning, I took out a T-bone steak to defrost. It was a rather old meat. Not old in that it has past its use-by date, but old in the sense that the fridge doesn’t do a good job freezing the meat. As such, the meat looked stale. It probably wouldn’t taste good if I just cooked it thus. The solution is simple – marinate the meat! Continue reading Tea Bone Steak

Brainpower

This post was called Twitter-like Blogging. The original contents are quoted below

1.18 a.m – I’m tired as fuck and I can’t sleep. I just wanna lie down and close my eyes and sleep 50 hours. But I can’t. What the fuck.

1.33 a.m – meh. I can literally see everything flickering. Cubing’s slowed down to 12 minutes. Mind can’t calm down.

1.47 a.m – the human brain is awesome. My room wall just changed colors from grey to purple. And silkrose and another girl is in my room. And I’m blogging. wtf

1.55 a.m – omfg. i hink i lost depth perspedctive. typing is slow as fuck.

The original contents of the blog is quoted above. What’s to follow is written now. Continue reading Brainpower

Malaysia Trip #1, 2009 Highlights

So, I went back to Malaysia for nary a month (props to my dad for bailing me out from a financial crisis1). Surprisingly, my holidays wasn’t as I expected. I expected lots of sleep and personal time, and it ends up, I sleep as much as I do in Australia (or as little), and I get whisked from place to place – nope, no personal time at all.

And so, instead of boringly recounting what I did in Malaysia (you know, in hopes of sounding like a bimbotic female blogger who’d only take pictures of herself only from an elevated angle), I shall only post the highlights of my Malaysia trip + my holidays in general (in a mostly chronological order): Continue reading Malaysia Trip #1, 2009 Highlights

  1. as for why this happened, I changed my name to General Motors for a short period of time []

Drama From Work

It seems, every 2 years or so, drama kicks into my life. In 2005, I got kicked out of my scholarship to UK because I simply didn’t do well for my A Levels. In 2007, there was this whole fiasco with Pretty Swallow, and as much as I love her, I have long accepted she’s gone from my life.. at least for now. And now, it’s 2009. I was thinking to myself on New Year’s day, that another drama was bound to happen, and what do you know? It did.

I quit my job (or was terminated, according to whom you ask), and am left with $12.05 in my bank account. Besides my boss not paying me, I also quit/got terminated due to some other reason, that being “attitude”.

Continue reading Drama From Work

But You Don’t Celebrate New Year‽

Yes yes I know, its 2009. In fact, its 2 days into 2009. And I’m late in blogging these things. The title is actually courtesy of a client I visited (and collected data from) prior to 1st Jan.

She didn’t qualify demographically, so I cheerfully said “Happy New Year” and was about to leave, when she said “but you don’t celebrate New Year‽” I could feel the interrobang piercing my skin. I turned around and asked her what she meant. Our conversation went something like this: Continue reading But You Don’t Celebrate New Year‽

Accents; and Buying for Christmas

Today’s blog post is a 2-in-1! Wow, you readers are getting more value! Aaaaanyhooow, I work with a lot of people from different nationalities, but mostly, I have 4 British work buddies (one who looks uncannily like Zac Efron, for you interested ladies), a few Aussies, and one Indian. Oh, and my boss’ partner is Scottish.

And to those who don’t already know, I speak English with a relatively flat accent. And also, my English accents tend to change depending on whom I speak to (wow, does this mean I have Peter Petrelli’s emphatic mimickry?). In the morning, I see my workmates and chat with them, typically my English accent for the day would be formed. Then in the afternoon, when I go to see the clients, I would carry this weird pastiche of accents with me and confuse the hell out of my clients.

Accents I am typically exposed to in a day:

  • Mid-west American (from my housemate)
  • Scottish (from my boss’ partner – it doesn’t really shound like Sean Connery spheaking)
  • Manchester (from my British colleague – feels really rough and tumble)
  • North London (from another of my British colleagues)
  • Received Pronounciation (from yet another British colleague from the same uni as me. You really feel like he’s Royalty or something when he speaks)
  • Queenslander (you can hear a drawl towards the end of sentences)
  • General Australian (most of my colleagues speak with general aussie)
  • Adelaidian (my housemate… dammit)
  • Indian/Sri Lankan (my workmate – he speaks general australian, but lapses sometimes)
  • Hongkie (from my immediate supervisor)
  • Malaysian (my own… it only exists in the timing of words, not the pronounciation)

As a result of this messed up nonsense, sometimes my clients get extremely confused. There was once I met with an Irish lady, and after an hour of discussion, I ‘inherited’ the accent, and my next client had to endure me saying something like “to-die is tius-die, we’ll shet it up within 21 dies”, with every 2nd or so syllable ending on an upward accent.

It’s irritating me as well. And I have to spend a considerable amount of brainpower to keep it within one accent (and no, I do not have a “natural accent” to fall back to).

And then.. today I knocked my head while getting out of the car. It was a big bump on the head and for nearly 2 whole minutes my vision was noisy. Then when I was talking to my customers, I found it very difficult to control the mix of accents.

Bah. Continue reading Accents; and Buying for Christmas