Wow! I was trying to find the will to get up today when I heard a metallic noise in the lounge. I sprung out of bed (the last time I heard a noise in the lounge it was the kitchen sink spurting water everywhere in a bid to become a fountain) to find, just outside the window, a huge WHITE PARROT with an amazing yellow crown!! It was bouncing around, chirping away. Flew off before I could get a picture though...
The ancient romans used to look to the birds for predictions, so I wonder what this means...
29 May 2008
27 May 2008
I forgot to mention
Not only is my office not so pleased with me leaving, but the whole of Hong Kong is calling me crazy for leaving the job that EVERYONE wants.
I am such a spoilt brat.
I am such a spoilt brat.
Freedom
Yesterday morning, in a blind fit of frustrated spontaneity, I invited my boss out for lunch and announced that I wanted to resign. My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my throat, but as soon as it was said, I knew it was the right thing to do.
He was really great about, not at all launching into the shocked and angry tirade that I was expecting, so it was actually quite relaxing and I felt at ease to tell him everything that was on my mind. In retrospect, this might not have been such a great idea.
He went through the lunch asking me to reconsider my position, demonstrating why he thought I was great and had so much potential etc, and I got back to the office thinking, 'he's right, I can do this, and I am so amazing that if I can't do it, well nobody can.'
In other words I got trapped into staying.
As soon as I sat down to work again I felt conned, as if resigning were just one more thing to add to the list of things I wasn't allowed to do at work. But I just had to look up at his puppy eyes across from me to think that maybe I was wrong.
Of course it was then impossible for me to sleep last night, and this morning I formally handed in my resignation, sending him a letter saying that in effect I was firing myself so that he didn't have to, and that really I was doing him a favour. No one wants an unhappy member on their team.
This did NOT go down well. He told me that he was very disappointed, that I had let him down, and that because it was so unfair of me to leave so soon, I would have to work out one month's notice instead of the one week in my probation period. I accepted with my tail between my legs.
The silence in the office was already quite hard to live with, but now the silence is so much heavier, full of accusatory looks and tense sighs. If you think about it, resigning is SO much harder than breaking up with a boyfriend. At least in the latter case you get to leave straight away and feel bad alone, but when you resign, you have to hang around feeling guilty and being punished every day for a month. And you have to keep doing a job that you actually don't want to do. And I still want to do the best job I can. I'm not just going to give up being me because I am leaving. I'll take breaking up over quitting my job any day.
But it's done, at least. And I'm glad that I didn't regret it the second I had sent the letter. My reaction is telling me that this is what I needed to do, and that we will all be much happier when it is over. And they will find the perfect candidate and everyone will live happily ever after.
So I guess life lesson number one from the Hong Kong experience so far - when someone offers you the job you really want and have been chasing for months but every instinct still tells you to say no, don't accept! Sometimes your body can say more than your heart in those situations. I wanted to throw up when he offered me the job, and I thought it was from excitement, but now I think it might have been from fear and forewarning...
Well, next stage (trying to be the freelance writer I always wanted to be!) coming soon hopefully, as soon as I have worked through my month's notice. And then I'll just be complaining about not finding any good writing jobs. They don't call me moany for nothing!
He was really great about, not at all launching into the shocked and angry tirade that I was expecting, so it was actually quite relaxing and I felt at ease to tell him everything that was on my mind. In retrospect, this might not have been such a great idea.
He went through the lunch asking me to reconsider my position, demonstrating why he thought I was great and had so much potential etc, and I got back to the office thinking, 'he's right, I can do this, and I am so amazing that if I can't do it, well nobody can.'
In other words I got trapped into staying.
As soon as I sat down to work again I felt conned, as if resigning were just one more thing to add to the list of things I wasn't allowed to do at work. But I just had to look up at his puppy eyes across from me to think that maybe I was wrong.
Of course it was then impossible for me to sleep last night, and this morning I formally handed in my resignation, sending him a letter saying that in effect I was firing myself so that he didn't have to, and that really I was doing him a favour. No one wants an unhappy member on their team.
This did NOT go down well. He told me that he was very disappointed, that I had let him down, and that because it was so unfair of me to leave so soon, I would have to work out one month's notice instead of the one week in my probation period. I accepted with my tail between my legs.
The silence in the office was already quite hard to live with, but now the silence is so much heavier, full of accusatory looks and tense sighs. If you think about it, resigning is SO much harder than breaking up with a boyfriend. At least in the latter case you get to leave straight away and feel bad alone, but when you resign, you have to hang around feeling guilty and being punished every day for a month. And you have to keep doing a job that you actually don't want to do. And I still want to do the best job I can. I'm not just going to give up being me because I am leaving. I'll take breaking up over quitting my job any day.
But it's done, at least. And I'm glad that I didn't regret it the second I had sent the letter. My reaction is telling me that this is what I needed to do, and that we will all be much happier when it is over. And they will find the perfect candidate and everyone will live happily ever after.
So I guess life lesson number one from the Hong Kong experience so far - when someone offers you the job you really want and have been chasing for months but every instinct still tells you to say no, don't accept! Sometimes your body can say more than your heart in those situations. I wanted to throw up when he offered me the job, and I thought it was from excitement, but now I think it might have been from fear and forewarning...
Well, next stage (trying to be the freelance writer I always wanted to be!) coming soon hopefully, as soon as I have worked through my month's notice. And then I'll just be complaining about not finding any good writing jobs. They don't call me moany for nothing!
24 May 2008
This content has been removed
I have had to censor myself and remove the last 6 entries, because although I might just get fired soon, I don't want it to be because of my blog. Oh no, does that sentence need censoring too...?
So I am going to go back to telling you about my life here, or what little there is left of it. Like, for example, the fact that I managed to open a bank account today! I have tried four times already, and each time there has been some sort of a problem.
The first time, I didn't have a HKID card. So I went to Wan Chai, to the Immigration Tower, and got in line. Lots of people were complaining about the process while I was there, but they should have tried to get the same card 10 years ago! It used to be a stuffy room with no air con and a series of booths to visit without ever really knowing when it was your turn, how long it would take, and where you needed to be. Now the air is climatised, there is a digital board showing you when your number is up and only two booths to visit, where they take your digital fingerprint so that you can fast track through immigration at airports. Can't wait to try that out.
Only problem was that I hadn't realised that you only ever get one ID card in your life. I had assumed mine had expired, so I ticked the 'First time application' box, theory being that it was the first time on this visa. Big mistake. I was called a liar, literally, by the officer who told me that I had 'lost' my card and would therefore have to pay a fine. I didn't have time to argue, so I went along with him until he pulled up my old card and realised that it had been registered to my French passport, not the British one I had just presented him with, and that on my British passport I had a middle name that hadn't appeared on my first card. He then informs me that I have 'changed my name' and that I will have to pay an extra fine. Of course I was getting a little agitated by then, so perhaps I wasn't the image of calm that would have convinced him that I had not in fact changed my name, and that he could ignore my middle name if it made him happier. Besides, if I had wanted to change my name, surely I would have gone for something a little different from my exact same name with just an extra bit in the middle...
So I agree to pay the fine and sign on the dotted line. But wait! It seems that in the last 10 years my signature has changed too! Alright, how much is this actually going to cost?!
I left feeling like a criminal, and although it did look suspicious, it seems that a few dollars were all that was needed to be considered legitimate again. Hmmm...
Back at the bank, I am told that I need proof of address, and that a business card just won't hack it. But I kind of thought as much. So I ask for a debit note from my landlord, he emails it over, I go back to the bank (queuing for another 45 mins, as for each other visit) and am told that it doesn't have an official 'chop' so it cannot be accepted as proof of address. Hong Kong is very big on these chops, there are whole streets of little guys cutting them for businesses across town. It's their signature I suppose, and it does make it hard to forge a document probably, but how annoying for me, who very rarely sees my landlord and doesn't want to disturb him.
Anyway, my office finally gives me a contract document, with a chop, so I just took that to the bank, was told that my receipt for the ID was not valid, but that I could use my passport instead. Why didn't they tell me that in the first place?!
Never mind, I am now capable of being paid in Hong Kong, and that is a great thing. Now I just have to go and collect my ID and hope that I don't get arrested while I'm there...
So I am going to go back to telling you about my life here, or what little there is left of it. Like, for example, the fact that I managed to open a bank account today! I have tried four times already, and each time there has been some sort of a problem.
The first time, I didn't have a HKID card. So I went to Wan Chai, to the Immigration Tower, and got in line. Lots of people were complaining about the process while I was there, but they should have tried to get the same card 10 years ago! It used to be a stuffy room with no air con and a series of booths to visit without ever really knowing when it was your turn, how long it would take, and where you needed to be. Now the air is climatised, there is a digital board showing you when your number is up and only two booths to visit, where they take your digital fingerprint so that you can fast track through immigration at airports. Can't wait to try that out.
Only problem was that I hadn't realised that you only ever get one ID card in your life. I had assumed mine had expired, so I ticked the 'First time application' box, theory being that it was the first time on this visa. Big mistake. I was called a liar, literally, by the officer who told me that I had 'lost' my card and would therefore have to pay a fine. I didn't have time to argue, so I went along with him until he pulled up my old card and realised that it had been registered to my French passport, not the British one I had just presented him with, and that on my British passport I had a middle name that hadn't appeared on my first card. He then informs me that I have 'changed my name' and that I will have to pay an extra fine. Of course I was getting a little agitated by then, so perhaps I wasn't the image of calm that would have convinced him that I had not in fact changed my name, and that he could ignore my middle name if it made him happier. Besides, if I had wanted to change my name, surely I would have gone for something a little different from my exact same name with just an extra bit in the middle...
So I agree to pay the fine and sign on the dotted line. But wait! It seems that in the last 10 years my signature has changed too! Alright, how much is this actually going to cost?!
I left feeling like a criminal, and although it did look suspicious, it seems that a few dollars were all that was needed to be considered legitimate again. Hmmm...
Back at the bank, I am told that I need proof of address, and that a business card just won't hack it. But I kind of thought as much. So I ask for a debit note from my landlord, he emails it over, I go back to the bank (queuing for another 45 mins, as for each other visit) and am told that it doesn't have an official 'chop' so it cannot be accepted as proof of address. Hong Kong is very big on these chops, there are whole streets of little guys cutting them for businesses across town. It's their signature I suppose, and it does make it hard to forge a document probably, but how annoying for me, who very rarely sees my landlord and doesn't want to disturb him.
Anyway, my office finally gives me a contract document, with a chop, so I just took that to the bank, was told that my receipt for the ID was not valid, but that I could use my passport instead. Why didn't they tell me that in the first place?!
Never mind, I am now capable of being paid in Hong Kong, and that is a great thing. Now I just have to go and collect my ID and hope that I don't get arrested while I'm there...
12 May 2008
Happy birthday Buddha
We had a million and one plans today, like going to Lantau to see the giant Buddha on his birthday or going to Cheung Chau to witness the strange and silly Bun Festival. Instead, we went up to the roof and enjoyed our terrace.
We are so not used to having any outdoor space that we keep forgetting that we have a great space upstairs to just relax in. It was great for once not to run around town. First we did a little weeding, removing some absolutely GIANT, mutant clovers, and then we decided to have a little ritual of our own, since it was a spiritual day for the rest of the country.
We decided to honour Grandpa Knipe, revered dramaturge and avid pipe smoker, by offering him something to enjoy in his afterlife. In Hong Kong, when you want to offer something to the dead, you buy its paper version in one of the many shops on Queen's Road West offering everything from paper Louis Vuitton handbags to paper mobile phones and their paper chargers and, luckily for Grandpa, pipes and tobacco.
So we sat and thought of him as the paper offerings burned, reflecting on life and where it has brought us so far. Where to after this, I wonder... What will we be burning next!
We are so not used to having any outdoor space that we keep forgetting that we have a great space upstairs to just relax in. It was great for once not to run around town. First we did a little weeding, removing some absolutely GIANT, mutant clovers, and then we decided to have a little ritual of our own, since it was a spiritual day for the rest of the country.
We decided to honour Grandpa Knipe, revered dramaturge and avid pipe smoker, by offering him something to enjoy in his afterlife. In Hong Kong, when you want to offer something to the dead, you buy its paper version in one of the many shops on Queen's Road West offering everything from paper Louis Vuitton handbags to paper mobile phones and their paper chargers and, luckily for Grandpa, pipes and tobacco.
So we sat and thought of him as the paper offerings burned, reflecting on life and where it has brought us so far. Where to after this, I wonder... What will we be burning next!
04 May 2008
It's raining men!
Well, if only to make sure that the first line on my blog is not 'I pooed myself' anymore, I thought I should introduce you to the new kids on the block. For some reason, everyone seems to be popping out little boys at the moment!
First came Gabriel, who I think I have introduced already. He is the half Italian half French lucky boy who was born in Peru in January, watch out girls...
Then came baby Felix, the little guy who managed to out-cute his sister Jasmine. How did he do it?!
Jayden followed, although he shouldn't have. We think he was in a hurry to check the world out...
And the most recent addition to the future boy band is Victor, who is already proving to be a thinker.
Hopefully they'll be able to wait for the fifth member before they go on the road, but I don't know whether that will happen any time soon... I mean, look at the potential father... If you look closely in his right eye, I think you can see our baby waiting in the rafters... Shush raging hormones, shush!
First came Gabriel, who I think I have introduced already. He is the half Italian half French lucky boy who was born in Peru in January, watch out girls...
Then came baby Felix, the little guy who managed to out-cute his sister Jasmine. How did he do it?!
Jayden followed, although he shouldn't have. We think he was in a hurry to check the world out...
And the most recent addition to the future boy band is Victor, who is already proving to be a thinker.
Hopefully they'll be able to wait for the fifth member before they go on the road, but I don't know whether that will happen any time soon... I mean, look at the potential father... If you look closely in his right eye, I think you can see our baby waiting in the rafters... Shush raging hormones, shush!
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