A day in the life of

Me, obviously.

Just two things, really, that I wanted to share with the people who read my blog. Or actually, make it 2.5, because something stupid but quite hilarious has happened also, which is worth mentioning.

First thing. I was woken up today by a shrill telephone ring. I picked it up, sounding as awake as I could (it was around 9am), and said hello. A man's voice asked for a Dawei Jiang. I was extremely confused and asked him there is no such person. He said is this the (phone-number-in-question), I said yes. He then said is this unit 312 of (this-certain-address), I said no, this is unit 305. He paused and said, "Can you take a message to unit 312 and get them to contact me? I am working on a file and need to talk to them." I was getting infuriated, but being the nice person I am, I said, "Oh my god... hold on," and went to get pen and paper. I jotted down his number, his name, his company name, and Dawei's name. I hung up the phone, feeling extremely stupid/mad/sleepy, and jotted down another note explaining the first note, got my brother to drop it off at 312 on his way out, and went back to bed. I must say, this David of the auditing department, is quite an idiot. It's one thing to take down message for someone living in the same house but different room, but it's quite another to take a message for a total stranger living many many doors down. My sister said I was stupid and I should have just said no. But the situation was so bizarre I didn't know what to do. Anyhow, I looked up the company on the yellowpages, but I couldn't find the exact name to match, so I picked one that sounded the closest, and wrote an email requesting information on David of the auditing department. We'll see what happens.

Second thing. Someone stole our tip jar this evening at the good ol' Terra Nova Starbucks. I was working, and next thing I know when I tried to drop some change into the jar, was that the entire thing was missing. Not just the money inside, but the entire thing went missing. We had a pretty good idea who it was. These two teenagers kept on coming in asking for the phone, asking for water. I felt so stupid to let the tip jar just vanish under my nose, and so ridiculously hilarious because this is all so surreal. I used to hear about people stealing tip jars when I was working at the mall Starbucks, but it has never actually happened. And now it has. Must say, 10% amusement, 90% annoyance. (By the way, this is the 0.5)

Third thing. I came home, exhausted. Checked my email, and I actually got a reply from the Petro-Canada people. The email thanked me for my input, and said that they will make sure that the branch manager will be notified of this feedback. I feel good. Talk about doing something nice.

This is terrible, I am such a nice person!

VIFF II

Which would make the previous post VIFF I. But I'm not going to change that, because I am not an anal person. I am a slob.

Anyhow, previously I was talking about the films I would miss because they are playing at TIFF and not VIFF. So there is Babel, and All the King's Men (which I heard not-so-good reviews about), and Stranger than Fiction, starring Emma Thompson and Will Ferrell. That's about it. I would really enjoy watching Will Ferrell in a serious role, I think, much akin to Steve Carrell in Little Miss Sunshine, which I am determined to go watch with you, Ellie. My goodness, when did you leave that post?! I haven't been online for ages. Well, only a week. Were you talking about Wednesday the 20th or the 27th? 20th has already past, and 27th I can't cuz I'm closing. Sigh. We'll find a day, we will.

Thursday night I went to see Troilus and Cressida with Anitar. Bard on the Beach. Brrrrr, cold. But rather enjoyable. Apparently, a different on the play than Shakespeare intended. Interesting. And oh, our conversations, I spoke much more than I do in a week. I do enjoy a good conversation. Anyway, Troilus and Cressida is a love story between the two lovers, unfortunately situated in the smack middle of the Trojan war. The last take on the cruelty of war is a bit... superficial in my taste. And if they want to make a statement on the current affairs with this play, then I must say I was disappointed. However, it's the political undertone that I feel distasteful, the play itself was quite interesting. Trage-comedy apparently.

Also, friends from afar visited our household for the last week. Absolutely spiffing, as always. Miss them already (they left on Saturday). Wait... today is Monday. Sigh, whatever the expression is for missing somebody.

In regards to Loulou's comment about my writing. Girl you got it all wrong. My posts here are random meaningless... rant. In terms of online writing, I don't read that much English posts except for Ellie's, and Ellie's are good. I read mostly Chinese ones, and there are many many talented people. I am but a blunt amateur in the world of writing. In fact, I wouldn't really consider my random posts to be "writing" at all.

In response to miss c's comment of my imaginary hermit lifestyle. I guess you are right, the lifestyle depends upon the frame of mind also. I may as well live in a cottage now, the way I live my life. Don't go out except for necessities. Rarely go out for fun. The club/bar scene? Forget it, no such thing. There is just too much necessities I must worry about, which sucks. Thus the PMS-y rant about living away in a mountain somewhere and never see people.

What a random post. Started watching this Korean drama called My Girl. May God have mercy on my soul.

VIFF

This year I plan to go to 9 movies from the Vancouver International Film Festival. Was going to another one of those Alternative Animes, but it's on Sunday and Monday, cannot miss the crap-ass work on those days, so I'm obliged to miss that. Last year I only went to 3 movies: Alternative Anime, this double feature about taxidermy and sex dolls, and that stupid April Snow. God gives me strength if the movies I picked out this year turn out to be terrible mistakes again. I still feel sorry for Connie and me for watching that crap-ass movie in its entirety. If we had any guts we would've walked out of there right away, but we didn't.

Sigh, I miss Connie.

So I'm going to be super nerdy and become this silly art-house film nerd for about four days. Because that's what VIFF is, artsy-fartsy films. Nothing like its other Canadian counterpart, the Toronto International Film Festival, which is going on right now. It's got Brad Pitt, JLo, Robin Williams, Will Ferrell, all kinds of stars. I really don't mind the stars really, it's the films that I'm going to miss. I really would like to see Babel, All the King's Men, and something else I can't remember.

To be continued...

Hello? This is PMS speaking

Of course, despite being very masculine in terms of emotions and such (ie. not having any), I can still sense things like PMS. So the following rant is purely PMS speaking, not me. The sensible, calm, undisturbed, me.

Oh who am I kidding?

First off I'd just like to give a shoutout to the most anal person I've ever met. Your breath stinks and you are so ANAL. Forgive me for not elaborating, really not in the mood to.

I hate people. I hate people I hate. If living like a hermit is an option in my current situation, I'd be happy to adopt a hermit lifestyle. By hermit I mean, living off in a cottage by myself and survive on mineral water I haul up the mountain every first day of the month, vegetables that I grow (hopefully they'll grow), and instant noodles of various flavours, which I also haul up the mountain every second day of the month. Just be away. Leave me alone.

Someone once told me, that they think I'd be capable of not speaking all day. To which I agreed. Speaking is overrated. Most of the time I really don't say anything.

Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters, to me.

Dream a little dream

This always happens to me. When I least expect it, I get a long-winded, weird dream out of nowhere. For example, I've once dreamt that my left arm was cut off but still attached to my body somehow, I pulled it away for a little bit, and stared in fascination of the skin, muscle, bone in my arm. I walked around in a school-like building looking for the nurse's room. I found it, but it was protected by a security system. I found some bandages and taped my arm to my body. The end.

Stuff like that. One time I was trapped in a hotel room and there were fire outside. I was with another person and we couldn't get out. Finally this rescue chopper showed up outside our window and I thought we were going to be rescued. Then the scene suddenly changed to this huge train station with injured people lying everywhere, but I wasn't in that scene. Probably died.

So last night, I dreamed that I was in a downtown high school. I was there for a either a Chinese recital thing or KFed's concert. I went to a little store attached to the school to buy food. It was set up like Tim Horton's but it was selling Starbucks food. I talked to the guy at the register for a bit, and confirmed that there was a Subway nearby. So I went outside to look for the Subway. I found it, went in, and I thought it was empty until a Korean girl came out from under the counter. I wanted a meatball sandwich. She took out this huge poster paper with these circles drawn on them. She put the ingredients in each of the circle, smeared some sauce on them, and took them out to the back. I waited for a while, wanting to eat my sandwich, so I went to the back. Only to find she was sleeping by the wall in the alleyway, and my sandwich/poster was gone.

Then it suddenly changes. I was out with a guy and he said let's go get ice cream. I said sure. We got to this jewllery store-like ice cream shop, and started choosing. He said he wanted something vegetarian, and I wanted something chocolate. I saw one flavour called "black cherry chocolate konnyaku" and said to this haughty girl with the name tag "151912" that I wanted that flavour. She looked at me and asked if I was sure. I said of course. She said no. I said what do you mean? And she just waved her hand at me and totally dissed me. I got really mad and raised my voice. I said I cannot stand her attitude, and if I could talk to her manager, please. She just rolled her eyes at me and left. This other girl came out of nowhere, I explained to her what happened, and she took me to this bystanding girl who is super short, and the super short girl apologized to me, saying that 151912 has always been like this. I was confused as to why wasn't 151912 apologizing to me. But I left anyway, with the guy still by my side. As we were leaving, I took out some sandwiches from my backpack and threw them in the garbage, and I turned around and said to the guy, "I'm pregnant, can you tell?"

Then I woke up.

Damn.

Today as I was walking out of the office with a co-worker, he pointed at two kitchen assistants ahead and said, "Those two are really nice people. Kind, innocent-like." I asked, "Are there not so innocent ones?" He said, "Well, yeah, there are those who play with workplace politics and such, but not those two." I was like, "Huh, how about that."

The nice, kind people at workplace. As long as that is not associated with, say, slow, or unskilled, it's all fine by me.

Ever since I started working for the office job, I've learned that it's very different not only working at an office, but an Asian-oriented workplace. Trust me, the bucks is very sheltered. Asian people don't necessarily put emphasis on being nice to their employees. When we have "coaching conversations", they have outbursts of yelling. Personally I don't think that's going to get any results, by yelling. My mother informed me otherwise.

Digression of the day.

I'm too tired to write anything. Wait, there is one more thing. I just wrote an email to customer service of PetroCanada. I wanted to recommend one of their employee at the Granville & No. 3 location. He is so nice and works so hard. I had to do it.

Which reminds of another thing. Today when I was inputting sales data individual stores faxed over to the office, I really wanted to extend my appreciation of clear writing to the good people at the Osaka location. They made my job so much easier. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we focused on the positive rather than the negative?

This entry is not witty at all. Though I had no wit to begin with, this still makes me very depressed, and tired. Must bid you adieu before I take a cord and strangle myself.