escapades of the elusive kat

Ah, hahaha. Facebook popped an old photo (the memories function) and that made me think about something.

So in Asia the thing is the "stay white" because if you get too tanned, it means you have been working out in the fields. Ergo, rich people who don't need to work out in the fields are more pale. So, the aim is to stay white.

The other day, some colleagues were commenting on "how white (pale) I am" and that "I won't need to use any whitening products." I said I could get pretty dark if I play out in the sun too much, and nobody believed me.

Now, the conspiracy of our electronics listening in on us aside, this photo came up, so I'm feeling nostalgic.

Look how dark I can get, in comparison to my Austrian cousins! My Sis is the one on the right, 2 cousins on the left and bottom, and I'm in the middle. The painting behind was painted by one of my Onkels and the person painted is my Oma, when she was young. People in the village back then thought I was Thai.

So since I'm feeling nostalgic, here's another old old old photo. I wonder if back then the family thought my Dad weird for bringing an Asian wife. Although Mom is Portuguese, but since she's actually of mixed heritage, when amongst caucasians, she looks more Asian. So, it's Mom and me that look like outcasts.

For those who care more about the dog than the people, his name is Loompi! From Switzerland! Dad got him when he worked in Switzerland, then, when he brought it home, Opa said "a dog is not to live in an apartment" (coz Dad was working in Switzerland, and as chefs go, spent more time at work than at home, and blah blah) and kept the dog LOL. So Loompi got his long walks and freedom every day after.

This photo was at one of my Onkel's garden. It definitely was very, very sunny. I guess I was in my rebellious age and simply bored of life in countryside Austria where nobody but my Dad spoke English with me and my Sis spoke Chinese with me and my Mom spoke Portuguese with me and then I couldn't understand anybody else. Heck, I couldn't even understand the TV. And there was virtually no public transport anywhere so we were stuck in the boring village with nothing to do for 3 weeks.

For the record though, in my 2015 trip to Austria with my friend, we sort of made a circle touring around Austria and it was a lot more fun, more people spoke English, I had started to learn some German properly, and so it was a lot more enjoyable visiting my roots as an adult.

It's time for more Taobao Shopping show-off. New watercolor paint! The 3 smaller boxes on the left were bought a couple months back. It's a very small amount, but I figure it'll actually last me a long, long, time, since I don't really paint much. Which should be a clue for me to quit buying water color paint. And then the shiney and bigger box just arrived today. It's shiney! It's sparkly!

And then I bought another pair of shoes. I was actually surprised with the materials. It looks like leather, but it's not, and it should be those PV or PU fake leather but it doesn't look like that either. It looks very plastic-y. Then the soles, upon closer inspection, is really some kind of soft plastic or hard silicon type of thing. That they designed it like this makes this pair of shoes very good for rainy weather. China shoe sizes tend to be on the smaller size. I'm a 39 or 9 in EU or UK size, but in China I usually buy 40 or even a 41 if they have it. Oh oh, this was a Taobao online shopping thing, so I couldn't try it on first. Overall it fits but only just. I'll need to put on my "toe brace" for my right foot so that the fourth toe (ring finger, so ring toe?) won't get squashed by the middle toe, but I'm not sure if that will push my little toe too far out and cause it to chafe on the side of the shoe. I'll try it out on the weekend.

I was commenting on an LJ-friend's entry and that reminded me of an old workplace drama... which I probably wrote about already, but, I'll write about it again, LOL. I guess the proper category on Reddit would be something like "Karma bites ass" kind of subgroup.

So.... I started my first job in 2003. The casino industry had just been opened up (used to be a monopoly), and the first "foreign-invested" casino company was hiring. I was still in university, doing my final year, and the final year was night school, so I figured I'd go try out for a job.

I got a part-time post. As I was pretty new to the working world, I didn't know about departments and what and whats. But now as i think about it, I was probably under an IT and F&B task group, because my first job ever, part timer, paid by the hour, was a "POS data entry" clerk thingamajig. There were 5 of us. We got stuffed into a tiny room, with 5 sets of PCs, a stack of papers dumped in front of us, and we had to input those into an excel spreadsheet.

Thinking back to those times, I'm now really amazed at the lack of planning. Those stacks of papers had lines and lines of food items. Now that I know what those really are, those are purchasable items to be inputted into the POS (point-of-sales) system or the cost control system to calculate food items, or some sort of thing related to that. So, there are items like Pork Loin sliced frozen 300gr and we had to type that into an excel sheet. There was 1, ONE single row of example. Apparently, I've been a stickler to formats since then, as I followed that first sample line and typed everything on my stack according to that sample. FRZN SLICED PORK LOIN IBÉRICO 300GR. The others just typed what the paper had.

Around 3 days later, this lady (let's call her Anna) comes in says "Only 1 person is doing this correctly", and that was me. Later on I find out she's the executive assistant to the.... president or Vice President of the F&B department.

Soon, this assignment is over, and the part time team gets reassigned. Before the reassignment, we were sent to do a training for a scheduling and attendance system. So from our original part time group, there were 2 guys, and 3 girls. The guys got reassigned to work on the MICROS system (the POS) and the girls got reassigned to F&B. This scheduling system was a test though, and since I did pretty well, I got reassigned as the "scheduling" system specialist, and the other 2 girls as F&B reservations.

However, we were seated in the same room, so while I had the "title" of the non-gaming scheduling system operator, I had to help out with the reservations, and the girls also had to help me with the scheduling.

The lady, Anna, was still lording over us. The team was getting the contracts changed to full time, but since I still hadn't graduated, and I needed to finish my work day 1 hour earlier than the others because I needed travel time to get to school, I asked to continue to be part time until I'm done with school. The guys soon moved to another office room, so it was just the 3 of us.

So, this Anna lady one time was getting really dissatisfied with the other 2 girls. I don't remember what they did that made her don't like them, but she was really rude and callous. I think I had just graduated, and so decided to take a 2-week holiday to Austria, and this happened. When I came back, the 2 girls were crying saying they were going to quit. This Anna lady had verbally abused them, screaming at them to "come back to work" when the work day was over, or something like that. We decided to collectively resign. But sh*t, those girls didn't know what they were doing. They just said "I want to resign", whereas I had a resignation letter typed and signed and all that.

What happened next, was we got called to the office of a manager. He has since passed, so I'll just come right out and say his name. Joey spoke to us together, then asked to speak one by one. When it was my turn, he asked me "how's your dad?" And I was like "huh?" And he said "oh we were colleagues back in Hyatt". Okay... my Dad's a chef, so okay. Old colleagues.

He asked me what was going on, and so I explained. Overt favoritism. Rude. Screaming at staff for nothing? He then imparted his words of wisdom to me. There will always be b*tches and f*ckers in a workplace. He said I'm free to quit if I want, as long as I can guarantee to myself that, in my next job, there are no such b*tches. If I am to change jobs, it should be because of better opportunities, new fields to explore, and not because of people. So, with that, I thought for a bit, and decided to stay. Oh, and that we report to him, and no one else. "Forget the barking dogs" he said.

This Anna lady, then, maybe annoyed, took us aside again, and showed us an O-chart, and said "according to this chart, you report to me". She got me alone and also told me "favoritism is not a bad thing. It means you are capable. They just said they wanted to resign, but you prepared the proper paperwork. Even in resigning, they don't know what to do." Huh. Touché, lady, touché. However, we never really put her in the "our supervisor" mantle anymore. It was Joey from now on.

Later on, another 2 new colleagues came in, to assist me with the "attendance". While the scheduling part of the job was simple (just set up the shifts, make sure they don't go against the local labor law, then it was just generating the staff schedules every 2 weeks), the daily attendance was brutal. We had to cross check each and every signed attendance against the clocked times. There must have been upwards of 1000 staff to go through... daily..... but it was really just a matter of it being a monotonous job, it wasn't particularly difficult.

It was at this time that I got to see the joys of foreign names. And it was times like these that I understood how lonely it can get when others don't really speak your language. The other colleagues weren't really fluent in English, so, they found no joy when there was an Indian staff with the name (forgot first name), KITTIPORN. You see, almost 20 years later, this name is still stuck in my head LOL LOL.

Anyway, anyway. Before I get away from this. I need to explain something more. So here we speak Cantonese. And the way we transliterate Chinese names is by phonetic sounds, so. In Macau, we use the Portuguese phonetic system, in Hong Kong the English (obviously)... so, say for example, someone surnamed 李, the transliteration can be (Macau/Portuguese) Lei, or (Hong Kong/English) Lee... But then maybe the person is from Mainland China, so they will use the Chinese/Mandarin way of Li. So these "Lei, Lee, Li" actually refer to the same surname in Chinese. Some other examples are the surname 張 (Macau) Cheung, (Hong Kong) Cheong, (Mandarin) Zhang... one more surname 金 (Macau) Kam, (Hong Kong) Kam, (Mandarin) Jin. The Macau and Hong Kong ways usually differ in a vowel but no matter how you read it, it's similar, because that's based on the Cantonese way of reading. When it's Mandarin, then it's the Mandarin way of reading. Sometimes we can make educated guesses of where a person is from based on how their surname is transliterated.

Anyway, so this Anna lady, her full name (again just made up here) is Cheung. So we know her as Anna Cheung. As you have read (if you went through that thesis above), I hated her guts.

Fast forward some 15 years later. I've since switched companies once, and been reassigned at least 3 times. Have also gained some work experience.

Apart from my main job role, I also help my Boss out on his own side project. Since his side project is more like a "private owned" business (as opposed to corporate), the structure is a little more relaxed as well. I'm pretty much the executive assistant to the owner (I don't put much weight on that, but other people do, so this is relevant, LOL)

So I'm told there's a new executive assistant to some department head... her name is Anna Zhang. I had to skip a beat. Anna Zhang....? That would mean her surname is 張, so is she really Anna Cheung? HR refused to show me her application form, neither her photo (okay, the powers of the owner's assistant only goes so far LOL) so, i could only wait.

I had a private office when that office was in that old address (it's since moved)... it was a glass-walled office so people outside can see inside. I didn't go there everyday either, since it was just a side-project thing. Finally, the day comes when I have to go to that office. I sit inside my office, and look out. I see this Anna Zhang woman, faintly resembling Anna Cheung, but it couldn't be her. Anna Cheung was an executive-woman, dressed to the nines, in power suits and all that. This Anna Zhang was in... sportswear...???? It couldn't be her, so I put my mind off it.

What do you know, half way through approvals, she just barges in, "oh it's you!", and in closer distance, I see that, IT IS HER! Why did she change the way her name is written in English? She starts asking me what I'm doing there, what department I'm in. I think she thought she was pretty big shot, because she was the assistant to the hotel general manager.

Well. This property is not just hotel. So the hotel general manager isn't really the biggest shot in there.

I calmly reply her, "just sorting out the approval stuff for my boss," and turn back to my work. In the next departmental meeting, she struts around like she owns the place, then my boss comes in (he's pretty much a.... if not a celebrity then a well-known figure) and sits next to me and calls the meeting to start. I look back at her and I just winked and started the meeting (the boss "hosts" the meeting, but I'm like the operator that gets the meeting moving along). LOL.

Later on, stuff happened, the GM wasn't performing well so he got sacked. Then she was "soulless" (no boss overhead), and she was given the choice to scram or to try working in another department. She tried another department, but very soon just decided to quit.

What goes around, comes around, baby. It was some 15 years in the making, but my evil little heart was so placated in that moment. Complete with the Naga laugh LOL.

This is the last week of training for the 10km run on Sunday. I feel woefully unprepared because I realized pretty late that, while having to run over the Sai Van Bridge is loads of fun, it's a BRIDGE, meaning, I have to run uphill. So I went to train a bit today. It was brutal.

While running I put on a podcast for a change and was listening to The ChickPeeps Vegan Podcast, cute thing with Evanna Lynch, the actress who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies (honestly I think the best best best casted character IMHO). Anyway, they were chitchatting and somehow somewhere the thing about choosing their catholic name when going through Confirmation, and Evanna chose the name of patron saint St. Anastasia and that's her catholic name (or something along the line of that)

That got me to thinking: IT WASN'T THAT WAY WITH ME!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I get cheated out of the chance of choosing a name?

I know those who get baptized by choice (i.e. later in life) get to choose a catholic name. I didn't know we can choose another upon Confirmation. Huh. In fact, what we were told to choose was just our patron saint. So my name is Katherina, and I was told to choose between 2 St. Catherines. I forgot the other, but I chose St. Catherine of Laboure because I was told that was the patron saint of another Nun at school and she was Sister Catherine, and I was a dumb kid back then and didn't really know what was going on around me so I just said "ugh.. so I'll follow" and... that's how I chose my patron saint. Huh. I feel cheated out of a choice now.

I don't know, if given the full range of choices, I don't know if I'd have gone through whole research to find a cool saint, or just be lazy, as anyway, the catholic name will not be the legal name (I think?) and my name is long enough as it is (short by regular Portuguese people standards)... my name has 4 sets of words: Katherina xx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx. I had asked my Mom once why I only had one name while my cousins (Portuguese nationality) had long ass first second and third names and Mom was flippant, "it's long enough" and ended the topic LOL. BUT I'm sure there's loads other St. Catherines (or a variant of the name Catherine) and it wouldn't be dwindled to a choice of either one or the other *sniff*

Anyway... jumping topics, I was trying a new running app and this one is scary and tracks the actual location against the map! There's another version of the video where there is an avatar (supposed to be the runner, so, me) running along the route too. It's cool in a way, but you have to think about this constant tracking. Am I being paranoid? Maybe. I like tracking the routes well enough, when superimposed on a google graphic map, but when superimposed on an actual map, it just makes it feel a lot more scarier, huh...

I just heard today about the passing of my second Japanese Lecturer.

The first one passed a couple years ago. He made the language so easy to learn. He was the one to build my strong base. Even after so many years out of practice, I can still remember sentence structures and verb forms (despite needing A LOT of brushing up on vocabulary and fluency and more complicated grammar).

This second one made classes a bit harder, but he was more into immersive teaching and cultural exchange. I didn't really like his style (as compared to the first lecturer) but I had heard that by Year 3, everyone gets the second guy.

A couple years after I graduated from Uni, a group of friends/classmates decided to meet up with him, so we did. So after some chit chat, he said that he had plans to ask me out back when I was still a student, but his colleagues said I was too young (heck, he must have been in his 70s and I was just fresh 20s) and dissuaded him.

Of course, he could have just spun that story for shits and giggles but I sort of respected him a little more after hearing that. I may have mentioned some time before that I tend to attract the attention of older men despite actively not trying to. So, my respect for him grew since he said he had wanted to, but heeded the advise of his colleagues not to.

I guess the sad thing is that since graduation, we have fallen into the cliche habit of, when meeting each other by chance somewhere, we'll say "hey! Let's meet up!" Or "Hey! Let's have lunch some time!" And that coffee date or lunch date just never happened.

Oh, and back in my Uni time, when it was still the Nokia phones, I had keyed a ringtone for myself (I used game music "Closed Garden" from Seiken Densetsu 3) and he loved the trilling part (around 00:14) and asked me to key it in for him. He wasn't using a Nokia phone so I had to study his phone system (I think he used a Japanese phone). Let's say in the end I did manage to key that in and he was delighted. I remember when I met him by accident at my company restaurant maybe 3 years ago he said he's since changed his phone a few times, and managed to transfer that ringtone, until the newest phone when I guess it didn't support the old midi style tone and instead needed mp3s to work.

Story learnt here is: if you bump into an old friend and decide to "let's have lunch some time!" don't just walk away. Set that lunch date on spot right there, then the lunch date will happen, and you will have the chance to catch up. Life is short.

I've been so busy the past week, I didn't even have time for anything for myself - I apologize. In fact, I have something I want to share from almost 2 weeks ago, but I really didn't have the spare time to write that down...

2 Tuesdays ago, it was a public holiday. My sister was in Japan, so it was just me, and Mom and Dad. We went out for lunch, and then somewhere along the duration of the lunch, Mom made a comment about a cousin going to send his kid to a summer program in the UK.

I commented that "that's something I had always wanted to do, but you always said no."

Mom goes "I'm sorry I wasn't able to afford that." Well, truth betold, I thought that wasn't the issue. We weren't filthy rich, but we were okay financially. The issue was, I was always led to believe, by the time I knew of and asked Mom if I could join the program, the deadline was just a day or 2 away, and she couldn't make the proper arrangements, whatever they were.

Now that she said that, perhaps the arrangements were financial arrangements.

I just said "that's why I'm now always flying here and there, to compensate," and I thought that would end the topic nicely.

Dad laughs and says "haha, you (Mom) always needed to control your kids anyway."

And Mom gets mad and very sternly tells him off. "You don't know your own daughter. There was no need for me to control her. I let her go to her tutors alone at night and all that. She was always a good girl."

Wow. Oh wow. First actual praise from Mom. I'm very much flattered. And in a way, proud too. I never gave my Mom any kind of usual teenage drama trouble (boyfriends, truancy, bad friends, excessive partying, etc...). There was some poor grades in Maths and Religion in Grade 7, but later I got a tutor for Maths and that dealt with my trouble, and later I don't know how I became the Vice-Chairperson of the Religious Affairs Committee of the Student Union (oh, the irony in that), but that was that.

So yeah, I finally hear the affirmation from my Mom that I was a good girl!

There's a new dollar store kind of shop opened in town called Miniso. Everything looks very Japanese-y but I'm convinced it's all Chinese stuff.

They sold some pretty cheap markers.




So I've been mucking around in my sketchbook these few days and ended up with that above and this below...




I saw I didn't get enough colours at first, so two weeks later I went to get all the colours they had.




Yeah, 9 colours don't get you too far. I bought the whole palette they had (something like $2 usd for 3 pens). Sadly there are specific colours they haven't got on their palette, but I improvised.

Behold!




Pig Girl Burin. Don't ask me why I drew this one. I thought I'd draw something Slayers but... Burin came out.

Don't know how long this drawing bug will last, but we'll see if I get to feel artsy again in the near future again.

I'm in danger of sounding extremely nerdy or geeky, but well, I felt pretty excited today.
As a kid, I watched a Japanese Animation called きんぎょ注意報！[kingyo chuuihou!] (Hong Kong: 娛樂金魚眼/Eye of the Golden Fish)


English Wiki / Japanese Wiki / Honobono Site

It's a very stupid cartoon animation* where cows and pigs and chickens talk and attend school with people. It's deadly hilarious, and back then, even with my non-Chinese reading days, I painstakingly found and got the whole set of manga. I had to run to second-hand stores, special order from shops, went to "manga loan-houses" that were closing down to buy off the manga cheap.

* A real otaku would argue that cartoons are American stuff like batman, mickey mouse, etc... and that Animations are the Japanese, erm... cartoons.


Right now, that set of manga is somewhere in that inaccessible bookshelf. I'd like to extricate them one day. So here's a randomly nicked photo from Google Image search.


( More on the Goldfish story )

( This year's Christmas Decorations in Macau )

We've also held a party for my dear Menina (icon!) yesterday, as December 6 is the anniversary of her coming to our home.

Five years ago today, I was innocently walking Peppie (bless him my dear baby!) and I sat on a ledge/rock/fence thing and a small black dachshund jumped on my lap. It was said to be the coldest day to date, and it was very cold that day. Looking into her eyes, I asked her, "where's your owner?"

( The rest of the how-I-met-Menina Story )
So, I have to say, Happy Birthday Menina! May there be many more years to come!