Little girl

Not a few minutes ago a pair of charity fund raisers for the British Red Cross came knocking at our door..

"Hi! Is Mommy or Daddy at home?"

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr???

I stood there a little stunned.. Bunny was barking her head off and Bronx was trying to poke his head in every gap to see what was going on.

"Sorry.. erm.. I'm 25, I don't live with my parents anymore. I'm actually married"

I added a few month to my age and told them I am married because I didn't think they would actually believe me.

"Oh..." Everybody laughed..

This is rather funny.. It happened before 2 years ago while we were living in Richmond.

Surely I have aged, no?

How to be a good project manager

I've just realised that being a project manager is a thankless job..

You have to manage your resources, employees and clients, deal with all the problems that crop up with every sector, try to represent one side to the other in a positive manner even after you have taken a load of shit from them and after everything, get judged for the job you've done (often not in a good way) and the best thing is,

Nobody says THANK YOU!

I have had the opportunity to work briefly with a very good project manager and cannot be grateful enough for the experience that he gave me.

It has mellowed me out, so much so my lecturer made me group leader for a consulting project we are doing at the moment because I'm 'solid and calm'....

Hmm..

Not words you hear about me very often.

Strangely, that is true in my current situation, I am indeed the calmest in the group.

If there is one thing I have very little tolerance for, is people not being punctual.

I understand that there are many mitigating circumstances that can make you late even when you didn't plan to be but at least call me? text me? let me know you're going to be late???

I had a group member stroll come in 20 minutes late for a group meeting yesterday. I was already simmering as she had missed the last meeting and did not care to call me to catch up on it (probably relying on me to go to her instead).

To add to that she did not reply any of my emails to the group asking to meet, resulting in me having to call her the night before to ask if her royal highness was coming.

All that got me angry and frustrated but I kept it as low as I could.

Confronted her about her lateness and she came out with a load of excuses, one of them about trains being 20 minutes apart (duh? why didn't you check the train schedule then??)

Nevermind that, she then questioned me about something I had asked her to do in my email on Friday that was supposed to be delivered and up for discussion yesterday.

.............................................

Sigh.. if you had a problem with what I was asking you to do shouldn't you have brought it up on FRIDAY instead?????

No.. apparently, she does not see the difference..

And she went on and accused me for being nervous about something else and taking it out on her.

Perfect! By then I was ready to eat her, but of course the Project Manager never loses her cool..

At the end of the day, I am the one who have to think out and type emails to the client and send it to my 'group members' for their comments. The comments always come, but the thank yous never arrives.

Anyhow, I am sure I will learn loads through this experience and the cheeky lecturer who made me group leader......... is very cheeky indeed!

And the cherry on top of the cake - one of my group members still refuses to acknowledge that there is a group leader within the group. He thinks there should be none..

As such, I am the unacknowledged group leader who have to do all the donkey work of a group leader.

Wonderful.

I begin to understand why the great Project Manager I worked with previously always says thank you to all his team members after a hard day's work. It is difficult to get people who will work for you and respond to you accordingly even though you have the title 'Manager'.

So, a good project manager remembers to say thank you.

That said, one day I will get there.

money money money

A classmate (who I dislike, and then again, how many people do I actually like?) made a comment in class last week about money being the most important element driving consultants to produce good work.

Poor thing..

To think that I already dislike him - he smokes, doesn't attend class, is late when he attends class, has an annoying loud voice, has an ego as big Jupiter and treats women like they only have a place in the kitchen (he kind of told me off for challenging his view (which was incorrect!) during a class debate because he elected himself group leader and apparently I shouldn't have disagreed with what he said because we were in the same group HEH!)

Honestly.. I can't stand the sight of him and I think he knows.

What an arsehole.

Anyway..

I still don't understand why some people still think that money should be the greatest motivation for work and life.

I'm not denying that we all need money, you do, but do you need to be greedy and have loads of it?

It makes live boring (the simple things in life won't make you happy anymore), it makes a person greedy, it promotes selfish behaviour and it allows doubt to creep into your head. Before long you'll start thinking that the whole world is after your stupid pot of money!

I know a man who loves money, wants money but somehow never had the luck to have much money. I wouldn't say he's a miserable man but he's certainly not satisfied, and he always thinks he'll be happier when he has money.

On the other hand, I know a woman who puts priority on money and has the luck to own money but I personally think she's probably more miserable than the man who doesn't have money and I don't think she's happy either.

She is always worried that people are not sincere with her because they're just after her riches and she even tries to buy love with money. It gets so bad, she drives away family.

Either way, it seems like a lose lose situation. So why concentrate so hard on money? Why not concentrate on something else?

cutiepies

Was called for some emergency babysitting today..

Not the best of time unfortunately, I am currently swamped with work..

But all that fades away when you see two beaming tiny cutiepies at the door going 'Ae Mi! Ae Mi! AEEEE MIII!!!'

And then they give you hugs and if you're lucky, kisses and they show you all their toys and all the naughty things they've been doing...

It's all very cute.. and then they go.. 'where's Chieh?' and go on some long explanation about Chieh coming later, ring the bell and we open the door and wa lah! Chieh's here..

Of course, Chieh is in the office.. so they went 'Ohhhhh.. Chieh in the office.. Chieh's working'

It is very cute to meet little people, especially those you love and lucky us, we are blessed with 2 we don't have to take home.

Haha!

The Dream, simplified

After much thought, have simplified the dream:

1) Produce something awesome that people will want to give me lots of money for forever and ever, amen

2) Retire in peace and never work again

That should make it slightly easier

The Dream

In simple, 2-step process:

1) Write awesome programs that people will buy in the millions

2) Retire in peace and never work again

...if only step 1 was a lot easier to achieve

Happy Birthday Pui Ma Ma!

Today.. the grandma turns 73 (shhhhhh....)

She will insist that she is 74 because that's her Chinese age (Chinese babies are born aged 1) and today is actually her Chinese birthday, which is the first day of Chinese New Year.

I don't think she has any idea what her english birth date actually is but anyway.. it makes it easier for us to remember her birthday..

My grandma is special.

She has never been to school, she cannot read and cannot write.

As kids we taught her how to read and recognise numbers.

Often, relatives will write their phone numbers down on her address book but it doesn't help as the poor woman can't recognise all numbers!

Haha...

I don't think many people have grandparents who are illiterate, my other 3 grandparents could read and write.

Yet, this illiterate grandmother is the one person who played the most important role in my cousins' and my life. She became the center of our universe without even realising it.

Today, we have all left her nest but I don't think a day goes by where we don't think of her.

She might not have taught us how to read or write, but she taught us how to love without putting conditions on us to love her back and for that I am forever grateful.

I often sit and wonder how I am going to tell Poppy and Jake about their wonderful great grandparents, how they gave me the best start in life which is so different to the life they are going to have..

I only hope P & J will get to meet them and maybe know them like I got the chance to.

Doggies go night night

Last week we were at Pevensey Bay on holiday with the dogs and rabbits.. yeap.. all 6 of us can actually fit in the car even with the rabbit's hutch.

We rented a nice house close to the beach (literally 1 - 2 minutes walk away) and had a nice week away.

The dogs absolutely loved the beach!

They were chasing each other.. sniffing stones.. annoying the seagulls and Bunny tried to eat a mussel :P

We had a bit of an incident with the husband's thumb.. and also some stomach churning but apparently very fresh oysters (according to the husband as I can't do most seafood) but other than that.. all's good

The dogs were mostly sleeping when we were not at the beach.. there was a particular sofa they had both quite taken to unfortunately.. so.. we had some argumentative whines over whether the OAP or Disabled Dog qualified better for it..

Bunny is extremely good at posing in her sleep.. haha.. she even snores like a human when she had kennel cough..

We also found a good pet shop in Eastbourne and sent the dogs in for a grooming session.. they had a really cute toy rabbit Bunny was rather attracted to so we bought it for her and also a toy fox for Bronx.. unfortunately.. Bronx wasn't too interested with Mr Fox so Bunny adopted him..

 Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox

 Bunny caring for her babies

Grumpy old man

Bunny would make a really good mother.. she cares for Mr Rabbit and Mr Fox.. licking them clean all the time and never bites them.. she carries them around lightly in her mouth and brings one of them wherever she goes (the other is probably sleeping in her mind.. lol!)

Of course this post wouldn't be complete without pictures of the husband being silly.. so.. here goes