陳培勇的世界

Shocked

She said yes... I'm shocked to say the least. I wasn't expecting that answer.

posted by John @ 9:47 PM Comments: 0

Proposition

Absolutely the worst solicitation ever. I have no idea what it says.

Hello.
We've found your resume on careerbuilder.com and offer you the financial operations department
employee vacancy.
In attachment to this email you will find the contract. It should be mentioned that contract is
relatively flexible as some points can be discussed on your purpose. If you have any questions
according to the contract or you would like to correct it do not hesitate to send an email or call
(512) 879-1645 (9 AM - 7 PM EST, Monday - Friday).

If you  agree with the contract fill it in and send to our email to us
julia.polgar.mm.inc.support@gmail.com or fax (646) 478-9758. We look forward to your reply.

Also we would like to emphasize on our new action which is held by our company: after the first
transfer (it is in 3-4 days usually after the contract is signed) you will get a present - iPhone
which will become yours even  after you finish working with us, to get in touch with you all the
time plus to have your email near by you.
We would like to draw your attention that this job is a perfeńt additional job, our position will
not distract you from your main job and will not take much time, for this you will get iPhone and
you will get all the info about transfers on it and after that at home you will do what you need
to.
How do you like this proposition?

Julia Polgar, MM Inc.
phone:(512) 879-1645 (9 AM - 7 PM EST, Monday - Friday)
fax:(646) 478-9758

And all they want is your birthday. Actually, you know, of all these scams, I have yet to find one that is written grammatically correct. Too many commas in that sentence, but too lazy to fix.

posted by John @ 5:17 PM Comments: 2

I am not mechanical

Work has not been what I expected. Many moons ago wanted to be an astronomer. Astronomy would be the obvious choice for a major. None existed at my school, So I chose Physics which is a closely related subject. A lot of astronomers have a Physics backgrounds. After graduation, I went to interview for an optical engineer position. A lot of fundamentals in optics is learned in physics. I wouldn't be totally out of my league. I was promptly offered the position of project engineer. Since this is an optics company, I would be actively involved in projects that includes optics. Alright, I can handle this, I thought. It won't be easy but I love a challenge. Brush up on some geometric optics and speak up a lot and I will do well. My boss read from my resume that I knew Solidworks. So I was tasked to do some basic modeling work. This was fine at the beginning but they recently gave me a more demanding task. I actually didn't think I could do it. But I took it on because, heck, what is there to lose. I had to ask a lot of questions about tolerances, datums, and geometric dimensioning. Today, one of the engineers I sought, responded to my questions in codes of "pressed fits," "diamond turning," and precision processes. I returned a look of exasperation. To which he open wide-eyed and said, "Aren't you a mechanical engineer?" Hmmm... it looks like I've gotten pretty far away from astronomy. But hey, no worries. I sure do love a challenge.

posted by John @ 9:58 PM Comments: 0

Love's Whisper

God has answered one of my final prayers. In steps anyway. I don't know how to handle it if it came in a wave. Anyway, I went to a church welcoming dinner tonight. I was still feeling fatigue from lack of sleep. I didn't want to go. But since I had RSVP'd that I would go. I couldn't go back on my word. And she was there in a bright pink sweater. Did I ever tell you about what a pink sweater means to me? Well, when I was in second grade, the first girl I ever crushed after always wore a bright pink sweater. Today, a bright pink sweater reminds me of that first crush. It's my valentine symbol in other words.

It's odd, I've talked to her a few times a couple months ago. I didn't think too much of it then. But tonight it was different. Perhaps Cupid's arrow struck me. Anyway, she has a very soft voice and is always smiling. She appears kind and inviting. She even remembered our last conversation and asked me how my job search went. We didn't have a private conversation this time around because there were a lot of people there. I wish I had mustered up some courage while walking her out the door. But eh... small steps. I've always said it's better to have a crush on unrequited love than no love at all. Having someone to dream about is nice. Having something to look forward to when you wake up in the morning is nice. Now, I have her email and her number. I need to take the next step. I think I will wait and see the next time I see her. I hope it is soon.

posted by John @ 10:02 PM Comments: 2

Piano

Not a good day today. I woke up wanting to skip piano class. Did I tell you I've been going to piano class? Oh? Well, I have. Since I can't go dancing, I decided piano would be a good substitute for Saturday mornings. For the second week in a row, I've felt overburdened. You can call it lazy if you like. I didn't go to class last week and contemplated dropping the class, today. Then I said to myself what Kyle said to himself in South Park. "What would Brian Boitano do?" I raised myself up and came to class. Luckily, I did, we had a midterm today. I muddled through somehow. Didn't know how to do an entire section but the teacher was nice about it. She said I should have emailed her last week for not showing up. Then she could have sent me some materials to study on. I need to practice some more.

posted by John @ 9:56 PM Comments: 0

Thrice

Gosh darnit, I am a softee. That kid has stolen my heart. I can't help it. I had two choices tonight. Go watch a boring movie about extraordinary Christians who became good friends to a tribe of villagers that killed their father. Hard for me to stomach such do-gooding. Or go to a bible study to learn about Nehemiah. Both didn't seem very attractive. But Andrew was staying over tonight. I guess I will play with him. At three and a half he has learned that peeing on his uncle's bed is okay. Damm me. He pees once and I kick him out. He comes back and I can't say no to those eyes. I don't let him on the bed this time around. I apparently didn't yell at him enough, though. And so he proceeds to pee on the floor. Goshdarnit kid, shouldn't you have learned by now? My sister says he's got it mostly but when he's excited he forgets. So being me, I am flattered that he gets excited playing games with me. I slap his hands a few times for being naughty but he just laughs. High five anyone? In the end he comes into my room a third time. I just can't say no. Luckily he's already emptied his bladder.

posted by John @ 9:32 PM Comments: 2

New ESL Teacher

That would be me. And shame on me for last week. I got my just desserts for enjoying the sweat that poured down my fellow newbie teacher last week. The resident Thursday teacher took off for a two week vacation and we were going to each take one class from her to dip our toes in. Boy did I get scalded. I'm not sure what went. Heck, if I did, maybe I could have recovered. But I wasn't able to get anyone to understand anything. Well, the Chinese students understood, as they should. The Vietnamese and Spanish... I don't know. Still it was a good first effort and thank God I had Amy by my side. She was able to pick up the large pieces of confusion I dropped on the classroom floor. Teaching is tough.

One good thing I noticed is that I sweated from people not understanding me. I didn't sweat from all those eyes looking at me. I mean 30 pairs of eyes on me would normally send me into a corner. Shaking and quivering my speech. Maybe even send my brain on standby. But I didn't. I felt wholly comfortable besides not being able to do my job. Shyness, you are history!

posted by John @ 9:25 PM Comments: 0

$10 DSL

Internet is already up and running. Amazing! I ordered it, yesterday. I remember it used to take a month and now one day. Odd though, they said it would turn on Friday when I ordered yesterday. Luckily, I have my old DSL modem to use and the light turned green. I actually got an email today saying it would be be delayed until Monday next week. But whatever. $10 a month for 768/384 DSL is an incredible achievement. I remember when $10 bought you ten hours of AOL dial-up.

If only I had more time to use it

posted by John @ 9:42 PM Comments: 0

Daily blogging

I can't seem to do a daily blogging. Sleeping at 9PM gives me too little time at night to go online. I just upload the whole week's worth on the weekends. Maybe I can do a weekly vblog.... heh, wishful thinking. Anyway until then, you can enjoy these two youtubers I currently visit.

posted by John @ 9:51 PM Comments: 3

Phone etiquette

OK, I am not backing down on this. Think petty of me if you will. Anyway, let's say someone calls you for a conversation. You put down your pen or pencil. Turn down the volume on the TV. Close the door to your room. You drop whatever it is you are doing and you concentrate on the person on the other end of the phone, right? Suddenly, you get call waiting. What would you do?

Well, unless I was waiting for a phone call or it's from my parents, I normally just ignore it and return the call later when my conversation is over. Maybe if the same number keeps calling then, I know it's an emergency and I tell the person I am conversing with to hold for a moment. It's really hard to get back into a conversation after an interruption after all. I'm sure we've all uttered or heard the phrase, "Now what was I talking about...?" We want to avoid that if we can help it.

Anyway, I have a friend who keeps putting me on hold. So I told that person, cell phone minutes cost money, just call me back later. So the person did. One day, after many interrupted phone calls, I asked my friend who is on the other line all the time. The response I was given led me to believe that it wasn't always an important call. And here I was thinking it was about work or my friend had made plans with someone else to meet up later. Fine, I thought, if my friend was so freaking popular, I'll just find another time to talk. It's freaking annoying to be interrupted especially when you are getting to a good part of a story. Maybe, I'll just schedule a more quieter time at night. Maybe my friend won't get so many calls later at night. This didn't work out too well because it appeared I was ignoring my friends calls during the day. So I told my friend, it's really annoying to talk to you over the phone. So my ever accommodating friend said, "OK, I'll try not to do that to you anymore." Sounds good. It worked for about six months.

Then last week, my friend calls me at work. My friend was driving at the moment and complaining about traffic. I put down my pen and shutdown my computer. It was about ten minutes before I was going to go home. I figured I could leave a little early and join my friend on the highway. We could keep each other company. I kid you not. Less than one minute into the conversation, my friend gets an incoming call and tells me they will call me back. Son of a!!!!! I booted up my computer and went back to work. My phone rang again after a couple of minutes but I didn't pick it up.

Now, normally, I would leave it alone like that. I wouldn't bother with a blog. See, I have these pet peeves that I deem as petty and I'd just look stupid if I write about it. But the message my friend left was what pissed me off:

"You know, I don't know why some people can pick up the phone one minute but not pick it up a couple minutes later. Call me back."

Grrrrrr!!!!!!

posted by John @ 8:10 PM Comments: 3

Coffee

Woke up with latent headaches the past couple of days. With unsubstantiated reasoning, I have come to the conclusion that I am approaching caffeine addiction status. I have been drinking three sometimes four cups of coffee at work in failed attempts at staying awake. I don't drink coffee normally. I actually don't like the taste of it. Well except for cafe su da. Spelled it wrong probably. Vietnamese coffee. I remember it took me about three months to adapt to waking at 8 o'clock for my driving job. I've got a long way to go.

posted by John @ 8:06 PM Comments: 2

A plea for Irregardless

I had more than a few conversations with a friend about the existence of such a word. It comes back every once in awhile. He's a stickler for officialness. I am also lean towards it but I also believe that language evolves through time. For example, we use to pronounce the "H" in hour and herb. So language is not static. There is no "right or wrong." Sorta. Anyway, I like this writer's defense of the word. Irregardless is bad ass because it means the same irregardless of the "ir" in front.

posted by John @ 7:23 PM Comments: 2

Sleep and song

Why won't my mind listen to my body? I stayed up last night iming Kenna. She saids she'd come up and visit me Thanksgiving or Christmas. How awesome is that? I'm gonna take her up to Lake Tahoe and show her some skiing fun. There's nothing quite like seeing someone's eyes light up as they see snow for the first time.

Came to my carpool meet up four minutes late this morning. Guilt didn't let me sleep in the car today. We had an all hands meeting today and it's awesome that it happened today. It gives me a good picture of the future of this company. We also had some cake and cupcakes to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays. This company really wants people to mingle and communicate. There's something going on every week. My first week, we had a manager's cookout where the managers cook for you. The tag line was "When was the last time your manager cooked for you?" Last week, we had a golf tournament. On December 8th we will have a mandatory* company Christmas party. I don't know what the star means. I hope it's a joke. Anyone want to be my guest? I heard they gave out laptops, ipods and other such gear for the raffle last year. Lots of good stuff. I hope they have a plasma TV this year.

Went to my Cantonese home group after work. Someone again asked me if I understood Cantonese. Gosh darnit, Stop IT! You've all seen me for over three months. Does it really make sense for me to hang around that long and not understand what's going on? There is a perfectly good English congregation right next door. Grrr...! I couldn't get rid of my cynicism this time around and replied,"Yes, I don't understand Cantonese" in Cantonese. Which is basically a slap in the face of the person asking the question. I'm sorry. I'm trying. My friend helped ease the tension a little and said, "Don't listen to him, he's silly." No one has ever asked me if I understood English. I guess to avoid this problem of mine, I just have to speak up and speak often.

Went over to Lee's for some more karaoke action. The girl is amazing. I thought I had already heard her entire repertoire of songs and styles. But apparently, she's only been singing songs that I enjoy. When I came in tonight, she was singing songs that the other people enjoy. Gosh, if only we weren't so busy and could get a a more regular karaoke schedule. I also need to brush up on my Chinese.

posted by John @ 7:58 PM Comments: 0

Carpool heaven

I'm feeling much better today. I'm getting an extra hour or so of sleep in the car to and from work. So refreshing. Work is less tiring too because I am literally working two less hours a day. Unfortunately, the people I am carpooling go from 7:00 AM - 3:30 PM. I prefer to stay longer at work. Weird huh? Even I think it's weird to spend more time than necessary at work. But really, there is so much to learn and see at work. I want to get on board as as soon as possible. Only one of them is a stickler about the time though. We stayed an extra 30 minutes at work today and he complained. I had some stuff to take care of so it didn't matter.

At ESL today, one of the female students was very entertaining. She started off by telling me that I am a good "thay." Ummm... good "thay" to you too ma'am. She explains later that "thay" means teacher in Vietnamese. Then, she asks me for my phone number. As we had studied numbers the previous week, I thought it would make good practice for her. She then used today's lesson in a .... come to think of it now... very convenient way. We were studying how to describe yourself when you meet someone. Single, married, age, job, blah blah. So she asks if I am single and how old I am. Very convenient huh? Then near the end of class, I get a call from someone on my phone and it is her. She says that I am cute. Thanks, lady. I'll take the compliment.

So today, I get some good rest and a compliment. Not bad, God. Now if only I can come to work an extra hour and half and the chick be closer to my age. That would be awesome. But I am not complaining, just enjoying.

posted by John @ 7:48 PM Comments: 0

Traffic

Crud. Two hours to get to work today. I was an hour late. Not good for my 3rd week. Crazy 880. You win this round. I will carpool tomorrow. But it's no big deal I guess. I've been leaving an hour late everyday to avoid the traffic. I'm still ahead. I hate admitting defeat. I also hate going to work when this is what I see. It's seems abnormal to go to work in pitch black.

posted by John @ 7:29 PM Comments: 0

English as a Second Language

Been teaching ESL at my church every Tuesday. Our class comprises of 80% Vietnamese, 15% Spanish, and maybe one or two Chinese speakers. I'm going to spend more time with the Chinese students. Hear me out. With so many Vietnamese and Spanish students, they are bound to find someone who understands. Then they can ask questions in their native tongue and spread it around. The one or two Chinese people have no one to explain to them except me. Sadly for them, I am the best Chinese speaker in class. 要努力!

posted by John @ 7:35 PM Comments: 2

Six hours too little

Oh boy was I tired today. Six hours is just not enough sleep. I'm so old. I will only six hours again tonight because I had Bible Study Fellowship. Just got home a few minutes ago and I haven't had dinner yet. Tomorrow is going to get ugly. More coffee please!

posted by John @ 10:31 PM Comments: 2

Cantonese curiosity

I still have that problem when people ask me if I understand what was said. It's my soft spot. I know I am not perfect in Cantonese. So I get very touchy when people point that out. It's a Catch-22. I don't want people to know I am not good so I don't speak it much. But if I am hesitant to speak it, how will I learn? So hopefully, by writing this out in the open it will be a positive step toward fixing the problem. I've been hanging out with the Cantonese congregation at my church lately. They just had an influx of like 15-20 Hong Kong transfer students. So I've been integrated into their group. It's a little easier talking to them. Sure their Cantonese is better but they are students. and I am working. So we meet somewhere in the middle. Which brings up another soft spot. Why can't I be more humble? Why do I have to feel superior or equal to the person I am talking to? But that's for another blog. For now, I've been getting in a lot of practice. My response time is getting better. I do less English translations in my head to understand now. I can listen fairly well with little problems. Speaking is the major obstacle as I don't make the sounds that often. So my speech is a little slower than optimal.

posted by John @ 11:00 PM Comments: 0

Meringue

Last month, I started taking ballroom dance class with Kim. It was fun. I enjoyed the exercise. I enjoyed chatting with Kim. Reminded me of when we used to have monthly theater tickets. Unfortunately, I didn't take care of registration and couldn't get added into the class. Bummer. I was beginning to loosen up and move my hips. Kim makes a good model to study for hip movements. She can move it like the teacher. Everyone is crowding around the teacher to follow her movements, so I can't get a good look. OK, before you think anything, I am trying to learn here. I have very stiff hips. In fact, they hurt and the end of class after all the movement. I've always liked dancing and wanted to do more of it. I dance by myself in the mirror in my room a lot. But outside, I feel very self conscious. That's why a dance class is attractive. I would be doing the same thing as everyone else. No one would be looking at me and everyone would look ridiculous like me. Anyway, I was feeling really good about but I started work already and couldn't find time to go during weekdays to register. Oh well, the teacher said, "ummm..." to start every sentence. Very annoying. And she wanted us to write 2 papers for the midterm and final. I tell myself this to avoid feeling like I missed out on something fun.

posted by John @ 10:32 PM Comments: 0

The Hitchhiker

My sister wrote me an email the other day about a hitchhiker on the southbound lanes of hwy 880. He apparently climbed onto the back of a semi without the driver's knowledge. He couldn't hang and fell off onto the highway. He was hit nearly 20 times. Because it was 4 or 5 in the morning people could not see and thought it was a big animal, not a person. It was not until I passed by in the morning that there was enough light that people could see what they were hitting. Traffic was completely stopped but luckily I was traveling the northbound lanes. I remembered there was half a bloody dog in my lane as I passed the scene of where all the cars were stopped on the opposite side of the freeway. At least that's what I thought I saw. So my sister wrote, "Did you hear about that hitchhiker?" Hear about him? There might be pieces of him stuck to my tire. I sure hope that was half a dog I saw and not something that might have bounce from the other lanes.

posted by John @ 10:17 PM Comments: 0

40.7 mpg

I don't like you Honda Civic. You give one bone-jarring ride to my tired muscles. Your daring futuristic wedge shape is quite the ugly duckling. Your digital speedometer annoys me to no end. Your spirited engine and fine road-handling feel doesn't make up for your impossible-to-see-front bumper in the driver seat. But my my, your fuel economy is commendable. This was achieved with a max top speed of 65 mph and long following distances. I'm sure I ticked off more than a few people on Hwy 880 the past couple of weeks.

Averaging 2.5 hours to work and back everyday. Not bad at all.

posted by John @ 6:46 PM Comments: 0

You have 4 missed calls

I've come to the conclusion that it is inevitable. That is, I will not be able to pick up my phone. Try as I might it just won't ring. I sit there at home hoping and wishing it would ring. Please! Somebody call me to go out! Nope. Nothing. Then the instant I lock the door of the bathroom it goes off. Someone wants to talk to me as I apply shampoo to my hair. As soon as I go to the kitchen to make some food, someone calls me for lunch. I can't! I made food already. And of course, it goes silent the whole weekend. But the next weekend when I am busy at church and at school, it rings off the hook. Oh, you're free this afternoon? Unfortunately, I am not. Why is this? Why? Why do I have such bad phone kharma? Maybe I've been praying to the computer god too long. The phone god now shuns me.

posted by John @ 10:00 PM Comments: 1