If you are about to embark on a journey in the form of vacation, don't read this blog because it might ruin your psycho for it. I'm just saying... Don't say I didn't warn you.
See. I myself have not had a vacation for a while. Maybe I'm just jealous of anyone who is going to have one soon. Be that as it may. I will take a run of the pitfalls of vacations here.
Pitfalls
1. Hyped Expectations. Your vacation comes once in a blue moon. You are hyper excited about the selected vacation dates. Just thinking of it makes you sing. The mundaneness of daily life becomes more interesting. Expectation of your vacation gives you something to look forward to. You think of those selected dates as your time of ultimate freedom. If you have to classify your days in the level of freedom, in terms of freedom, Mondays through Fridays have the lowest level, equivalent to be sent to the capital murder prison; Weekends are better but not quite, equivalent to be transferred to a lesser security prison. Vacation is the time you are set free. But expectation, when hyped, hampers your ability to enjoy your vacation because your vacation is now under pressure of living up to that hyped expectation.
Advice: Remember "Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise". Or expect very little so every little thing on your trip comes as a pleasant surprise to you. Go wild but lay low. Don't expect a good meal when the waitress tells you your ordered food is great. When the food comes, and after you taste it, you will know.
2. Fixed Return Date. Unless you drive, you buy a non-refundable round trip flight ticket ahead of time. You always do. You'd better have a return-ticket. Besides logistic reasons, a one-way ticket might trigger the airport security alert for a suicide bomber. The set return date and pre-paid return flight ticket save you from unforseeable hassles and give you a peace of mind. However, when the return date comes, you are either too eager to leave, or you wish you could have stayed longer.
Advice: When you plan a vacation, prepare for a flexible return date. If it's the same airline and same flight time on a different date, airline companies usually do not charge you anything for changing the ticket.
3. News Broadcasting. "I'm going to Hollywood!". "I'm going to Hollywood!". In the last episode of American Idol where the audition took place in LA, those selected idol candidates were jumping up and down with their yellow sheets - their golden tickets to fame. Don't they know they are already in Hollywood! It's LA for God sake! After you finish planning your vacation, you are like those selected American Idols broadcasting your vacation news "I'm going to Pakistan!" "I'm going to Paskstan!" because you are now holding that yellow sheet - your reserved electronic flight ticket to a vacation destination.
Advice: Hush! Keep your vacation a secret so if you change your mind, you don't have the liability of correcting the news again. Also, when you broadcast your travel news, you are likely to encounter two types of responses: the skepticism and the advice. The skeptics feed you with fear: "Are you sure it's a good time to go next month: swine flu, terrorists, plane crash, earthquake, poor Haiti... Isn't that morally wrong to vacation in Haiti while the people there are suffering? " The advisers feed you with unwanted information you prefer finding out yourself: "Where are you going to stay? I stayed there many times before. They have this coolest waterfall pool and tram ride. Oh you should check such and such..." So don't broadcast your vacation news. After you come back, if they ask you what you did last weekend, you just say with an expressionless face. Not much. Oh. I almost forgot I went to Tuscany. Watch their reaction. They will do the post-trip news broadcasting work for you. "Can you believe so and so went to Tuscany last week?"
4. Pressure of Having Fun. Because of your hyped expectations and your previous news broadcasting, you are now supposed to have fun. You owe it to yourself, and everyone else you broadcasted to because they demand your fun update when you return. You are psychologically pressed to have fun. You've got to tan your face in the sun though you could have done that at home mowing lawn for the same result. You've got to get out doing things. You shall not fail yourself and others by just doing nothing? Act I: Actions. Go!
Advice: You don't need to jump into the go-go mood as soon as you check in the hotel. That's work. Remember: this is your vacation. Sleep in. Hang loose. Disguise yourself as a local, not as a tourist. Only then you will start to relax and enjoy your vacation.
5. Reporting to and Checking in with the Base. Have you ever encountered this situation? Just as you lie down on the beach, enjoying the warm sun and the soothing sound of ocean waves, you hear a guy behind you talking on the phone, reporting every move of his, to someone on the other end of the phone. "I got here last night. I just came to the hotel beach. Man. It's gorgeous! It's sunny, about 80 degree. I have a book with me. I'm laying down my towel on the beach and I will then take a swim. What are you doing?” If he annoys you, don't be like him.
Advice: If you are in an emergency, call 911. If anyone back home is in an emergency, they will call 911. You are thousands of miles away; there is nothing you can do about it. Unless you need bail money because you are thrown in jail, you have large sums of business money at stake, or if you are dying in the hospital, you don't really need to call anyone, reporting what you are doing and where you are. You are on vacation. Get lost. The more you are lost, you more you are able to embrace the new experience as it comes during a vacation. If you want to brag about how much fun you had, wait until you get back. Your phone takes away your precious vacation time, as well as not putting distance from the familarity you are trying to run way from. Usually if you still remember to call, it's a sign that you are not having fun. Not to check in the Base is the kind thing to do for your own sake and the Base people's sake. Really. If you hear your Base location is sunny while your vacation spot is raining, you will question yourself why you are here. If the Base people hear how much fun you are having while they are working, it just makes their misery more miserable. Leave your phone alone. If you have to check messages, do so first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening.
6. Peace Sign. If there are Japanese tourists around you, bet with the person next to you, that the Japanese will put on that peace finger sign above their heads when they take photos of each other. I guarantee you will win the bet, every time. What's the deal with the peace sign when people take photos?
Advice: The peace finger sign for photos is a Japanese girlish thing to do. It's outdated. We Americans are in a time of war. If your fingers are really itchy and they have to stick out during photo shooting, just the middle finger is enough. No more two fingers please!
7. Photo Shooting. You take a camera with you everywhere you go. If it's not a light-weighted waterproof camera, someone has to stay onshore just to watch your camera. You want to have as many images as possible to remember, and to show for after you return home. You don't watch the sunsets. You just shoot photos of the sunsets. In lieu of traveling, you photograph (Gosh, that's me!).
Advice: A vacation is a great photography opportunity. If you are a paid professional photographer, it's understandable you look at everything through your lens. Everyone else: why can't you just enjoy the quiet sunset moment and forget about posing for photo shooting for a change. You might want a couple of photos to remember that magic image forever, fine. But if you don't put down that camera, be still, hear your breath, and watch the motion of sunsetting, you might as well stay home watching the travel channel.
8. Bragging. You come home in one piece. For at least a couple of weeks following the trip, you relive your trip by sending trip photos, and recounting the events of the trip until everyone grows tired of it.
Advice: Go ahead bragging. Let others get jealous of, or hate you for having too much fun while they suffer at home the entire time. Haha. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Welcome to reality. Tomorrow is Monday. Go back to your capital murder cell!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Quick Easy Scannellini Bean Soup
Ingredients:
- 3 links sweet Italian sausage (1 1/4 pounds), cut into cubes. The recipe says raw sausage but I didn't find it in Fred Meyer so I bought the fully cooked sweet Italian sausage. For that reason I added some bacon to add flavor.
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 pieces of thick lean pepper bacon, chopped to smaller pieces
- 1 bundle of head broccoli rabe, chopped to 2-3 inches. Broccoli rabe is not broccoli but you should be able to find it in a grocery store vegetable section.
- Chicken broth, 8 cups. That's 4 cans or 2 catoons. As you can, it's organic chicken broth that I bought.
- Two 15.5-ounce can scannellini beans, rinsed. scannellini beans are the same as white kidney beans. Next time I think I will try raw beans instead but then it won't live up to its name as being quick because cooking raw beans requires a much longer time.
Directions:
In a large saucepan, cook the sausage, breaking it up, over medium-high heat until browned, about 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Cook the bacon bits, transfer to the same plate. Add a tablespoon of olive oil, add the onion to the saucepan and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in the broccoli rabe and chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Cook for 3 minutes. Transfer the sausage and bacon to the saucepan. Stir and cook until heated through, about 2 minutess, season with salt and papper.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Bye Bye Toyota. Hello Mercedes!
The subject title might be misleading, but I have to use it as a title since that's what's ringing in my ear. For those of you who didn't know, I didn't trade in my Toyota for a new Mercedes. That's upgrading. I sold my Toyota and kept my Mercedes. This is downsizing. If you still don't see the difference between upgrading and downsizing, let's hear it. Bring in music. Drums please. With upgrading, it's the harmonic "hallelujah!" chorus. With downsizing, it's the off the tune "What da heck" solo.
As I was just feeling a sense of loss looking at the empty dark space in the garage where my Toyota used to fill in, I heard this TV auto commercial from the living room "You should never replace joy with practicality". Da. You shouldn't! Da. I didn't!
If my Toyota were a lemon, then the downsizing could have been celebrated as if it were upgrading. But no. My Toyota has been as perfect as a Toyota can be. For you patriotic Chinese with strong anti-Japanese commodity sentiment out there, I confess I'm a traitor. But blame at them, the Japanese commodities. They are bad because they are just too good to resist. After 120,000 miles, my Toyota still runs and drives like a brand new car. Unlike all my American-made predecessors, this is the only car that has never failed me. With my Toyota, I've never been issued any traffic tickets flying over 60 miles/hr at a 40 mile/hr speed limit road, non-stopping at stop signs. Pure luck? Sure but I have never had such a luck with my previous cars. Okay. My Toyota is just a midsize SUV, not a Tank or Hummer as I really needed. It fell into ditches and got stuck in snow a few times, not to its own accord but due to the operator errors. What can I say? To err is human. I'm just a human. My Toyota is a machine. That 4-wheel drive machine always saved me out of my human errors without any outside rescue effort. Other than a few interior scratches inside the storage compartment, from me jamming it with the real estate signs/metal posts, and a couple of un-noticeable dings at the parking lot, my Toyota has been good to me. As a car bought specifically for selling real estate in mind, I have bought this car many times over with how much real estate I have sold over the years driving in it. It really earned that parking spot in the garage.
Now my Mercedes. Undeserving for any practical reasons. Vanity drives sale of brand cars. I swear I'm vain but in this case stubbornness might have to do with getting my Mercedes. The rational for getting this convertible second car: convertible and 2nd, is very irrational. It rains so much in Washington. No convertible time for me; My primary car Toyota never breaks down. No second car backup need for me. But it's not the need but the want always in my mind. I've always wanted a convertible. I've always wanted a second car. It's mind over matter. If I don't mind, it does not matter. But I mind so it matters. With that in mind, I bought this Mercedes for that matter. For the same mind vs matter, I once owned a Chevrolet tracker, a convertible wannabe. It was a wannabe because it's only manual soft-top convertible. Taking the top off and putting it back on was a job by itself. Because of the hassle, when I did take the hassle taking the top off, I usually left it off for a very long time. That was when I was in Houston. Roads in Houston are flat, and for most of the year it's warm and sunny so my Tracker was at least somewhat practical. Loved the warm air against my skin, the fresh smell of grass and the openness from the car every time I drove my Chevrolet topless. Remembered one time at a stop sign, a homeless black man at the crossroad danced along to my loud car music - Marvin Gaye's song "I heard it through the grapevine". To make the record straight, he heard it through the open roof not through the grapevine. I felt so good about that fact that the topless car not only brought joy to the driver but also to a stranger. Of course, many times, the tracker was completely soaked wet inside from heavy rains while parking on the office building rooftop. After that tracker, I knew I wanted an automatic convertible. Before my Toyota, My American cars always broke down on me, one thing after another. They always gave me a few days' commute inconvenience. That prompted my wanting for a second car as back up in case something happens to my primary car. This convertible Mercedes was only meant to be a dry summertime second car. Dry summer days in Washington mean a low two digit number. When I finally get to drive it, of course once a while during those low two-digit number days, with its hard top down, Boss music playing and warm breeze over my head, driving is believing. Nothing to do when the sun is up? let's go for a drive. Drive, drive, drive. Drive yourself free and sane. The rest of the time, my Mercedes was bored resting in the garage as a greeter and sitter to my Toyota after it was pulled in from a day's hard work. I imagine them carrying a conversation in the garage sometimes.
Mercedes: Hi buddy. How was your day this afternoon?
Toyota: Sucks! It was raining and cold out there. I was first on a bumpy logging road. It was so bumpy that my stomach hurts, and then on to a crush rock road. It was so dusty. I looked dirty and desperately needed a real bath as you can see but you know how our master is. She thinks rain is the car wash for me. Then we landed at this fixer-up for sale in the middle of nowhere. Can you believe my master drove me all the way to see that? So how did your day go this morning?
Mercedes: Sweet! It was nice and sunny. My master took me on a smooth paved scenic road. We stoppped at the cute coffee house. I saw other people checking me up at the parking lot and they told her they loved me too. There my master detected one tiny spot on my right eyebrow (windshield wiper) I didn't even notice but she cleaned it alway anyway with a soft tissue carefully. On the way back, the sky looked cloudy so my master hurried me home to the garage.
Some people say cars are only devices taking us from Point A to Pint B. That's car talk strictly from a practicality point of view, assuming we use cars as tools only for their functionality. That's my Toyota talking. Some people buy cars for their functionality and resale value. It's just a car. You only need it for transportation. That's all. I once questioned as many paint colors we had for car, why didn't we see a lot of vibrant color cars on the road. I was told it was easier for resale and repaint. It's the same way with houses. Fewer and fewer people are going with bold colors for their walls not because the neutral colors are their most favorite colors. It's because they are told that the neutral colors are better for future resale. That's well and good. But excuse me. Are you telling me you are living in someone else's future home? You argue it's practical. Practical? I turn my head to my Mercedes. "Don't look at me", my Mercedes seems to say. I hear myself reason on behalf of my Mercedes: If we purchase a commodity solely based on practicality, aren't we missing something? If we strip cars down to only the practicality level, we strip the joy out of driving. Case in point: If we strip clothing to warmth level, no fashion; Strip houses to shelter level, no decor; Strip sex to biological reproduction level, no romance; Strip living to existance level, no life. Think cave age. Think your great-great-great.. grandma. Then other people say you are what you drive. That's car talk from choice point of view, assuming that everything goes with us represents our choices. That's my Mercedes talking. Within means, in a certain scale, including but not limited to practicality such as personal finance, and car availability and functionality, we choose which car to buy after considering color, size, style, brand, ...The car you end up driving can be a temporary statement of you. Not completely and not always but perhaps in some degree and sometimes? After you drive your car long enough, your car even looks like you (to me anyway). We become what we drive. Don't we? Also, most of us judge/discriminate people for the things that go with us: looks, clothes, houses, jobs, bank accounts..oh and cars, or to be judged or discriminated by them. Don't we? I picture a shinny new BMW side by side with a badly beaten up Nissan pickup. Their drivers get into a road rage on the Highway. The BMW driver yells at the Nissan pickup "You Piece of crap! Never should be even allowed on the road!” The Nissan driver yells back at the BMW driver "You Snob! Think you have money you can buy a BMW but you don't own the road". There you are. Those two drivers don't even know each other. But do you see how the car discrimination is easily turned back to the people who drive the cars?!
I imagine if cars were animals, my Toyota was a working cow and my Mercedes was a pet dog. Now that the working cow is gone, I'll be forced to play my pet dog more. Haha! but... Can I expect my pet dog produces like a working cow. Let's see:
Yesterday as I gave a last glance of my Toyota after I handed the keys to the new owners, I started to envision my life thereafter without my Toyota. I imagine I am sitting in my office. A couple walks into my office. Finally, a walk-in buyer! They come in with a flyer of a house and they are adamant they have to see it right away. They tell me that they are pre-approved by their lender...ready to go! I jump from my chair. Let's go! I lock the office behind me. Wait!
- Ride with me? Sorry. No free ride. It's a two car seat, for me and my purse only;
- Any dusty dirt road to the property? Sorry no Mercedes on dirt roads.
As I watch them leave, I head over to my car. There goes my commission. Sigh. Here comes my Mercedes. Smile.
As I was just feeling a sense of loss looking at the empty dark space in the garage where my Toyota used to fill in, I heard this TV auto commercial from the living room "You should never replace joy with practicality". Da. You shouldn't! Da. I didn't!
If my Toyota were a lemon, then the downsizing could have been celebrated as if it were upgrading. But no. My Toyota has been as perfect as a Toyota can be. For you patriotic Chinese with strong anti-Japanese commodity sentiment out there, I confess I'm a traitor. But blame at them, the Japanese commodities. They are bad because they are just too good to resist. After 120,000 miles, my Toyota still runs and drives like a brand new car. Unlike all my American-made predecessors, this is the only car that has never failed me. With my Toyota, I've never been issued any traffic tickets flying over 60 miles/hr at a 40 mile/hr speed limit road, non-stopping at stop signs. Pure luck? Sure but I have never had such a luck with my previous cars. Okay. My Toyota is just a midsize SUV, not a Tank or Hummer as I really needed. It fell into ditches and got stuck in snow a few times, not to its own accord but due to the operator errors. What can I say? To err is human. I'm just a human. My Toyota is a machine. That 4-wheel drive machine always saved me out of my human errors without any outside rescue effort. Other than a few interior scratches inside the storage compartment, from me jamming it with the real estate signs/metal posts, and a couple of un-noticeable dings at the parking lot, my Toyota has been good to me. As a car bought specifically for selling real estate in mind, I have bought this car many times over with how much real estate I have sold over the years driving in it. It really earned that parking spot in the garage.
Now my Mercedes. Undeserving for any practical reasons. Vanity drives sale of brand cars. I swear I'm vain but in this case stubbornness might have to do with getting my Mercedes. The rational for getting this convertible second car: convertible and 2nd, is very irrational. It rains so much in Washington. No convertible time for me; My primary car Toyota never breaks down. No second car backup need for me. But it's not the need but the want always in my mind. I've always wanted a convertible. I've always wanted a second car. It's mind over matter. If I don't mind, it does not matter. But I mind so it matters. With that in mind, I bought this Mercedes for that matter. For the same mind vs matter, I once owned a Chevrolet tracker, a convertible wannabe. It was a wannabe because it's only manual soft-top convertible. Taking the top off and putting it back on was a job by itself. Because of the hassle, when I did take the hassle taking the top off, I usually left it off for a very long time. That was when I was in Houston. Roads in Houston are flat, and for most of the year it's warm and sunny so my Tracker was at least somewhat practical. Loved the warm air against my skin, the fresh smell of grass and the openness from the car every time I drove my Chevrolet topless. Remembered one time at a stop sign, a homeless black man at the crossroad danced along to my loud car music - Marvin Gaye's song "I heard it through the grapevine". To make the record straight, he heard it through the open roof not through the grapevine. I felt so good about that fact that the topless car not only brought joy to the driver but also to a stranger. Of course, many times, the tracker was completely soaked wet inside from heavy rains while parking on the office building rooftop. After that tracker, I knew I wanted an automatic convertible. Before my Toyota, My American cars always broke down on me, one thing after another. They always gave me a few days' commute inconvenience. That prompted my wanting for a second car as back up in case something happens to my primary car. This convertible Mercedes was only meant to be a dry summertime second car. Dry summer days in Washington mean a low two digit number. When I finally get to drive it, of course once a while during those low two-digit number days, with its hard top down, Boss music playing and warm breeze over my head, driving is believing. Nothing to do when the sun is up? let's go for a drive. Drive, drive, drive. Drive yourself free and sane. The rest of the time, my Mercedes was bored resting in the garage as a greeter and sitter to my Toyota after it was pulled in from a day's hard work. I imagine them carrying a conversation in the garage sometimes.
Mercedes: Hi buddy. How was your day this afternoon?
Toyota: Sucks! It was raining and cold out there. I was first on a bumpy logging road. It was so bumpy that my stomach hurts, and then on to a crush rock road. It was so dusty. I looked dirty and desperately needed a real bath as you can see but you know how our master is. She thinks rain is the car wash for me. Then we landed at this fixer-up for sale in the middle of nowhere. Can you believe my master drove me all the way to see that? So how did your day go this morning?
Mercedes: Sweet! It was nice and sunny. My master took me on a smooth paved scenic road. We stoppped at the cute coffee house. I saw other people checking me up at the parking lot and they told her they loved me too. There my master detected one tiny spot on my right eyebrow (windshield wiper) I didn't even notice but she cleaned it alway anyway with a soft tissue carefully. On the way back, the sky looked cloudy so my master hurried me home to the garage.
Some people say cars are only devices taking us from Point A to Pint B. That's car talk strictly from a practicality point of view, assuming we use cars as tools only for their functionality. That's my Toyota talking. Some people buy cars for their functionality and resale value. It's just a car. You only need it for transportation. That's all. I once questioned as many paint colors we had for car, why didn't we see a lot of vibrant color cars on the road. I was told it was easier for resale and repaint. It's the same way with houses. Fewer and fewer people are going with bold colors for their walls not because the neutral colors are their most favorite colors. It's because they are told that the neutral colors are better for future resale. That's well and good. But excuse me. Are you telling me you are living in someone else's future home? You argue it's practical. Practical? I turn my head to my Mercedes. "Don't look at me", my Mercedes seems to say. I hear myself reason on behalf of my Mercedes: If we purchase a commodity solely based on practicality, aren't we missing something? If we strip cars down to only the practicality level, we strip the joy out of driving. Case in point: If we strip clothing to warmth level, no fashion; Strip houses to shelter level, no decor; Strip sex to biological reproduction level, no romance; Strip living to existance level, no life. Think cave age. Think your great-great-great.. grandma. Then other people say you are what you drive. That's car talk from choice point of view, assuming that everything goes with us represents our choices. That's my Mercedes talking. Within means, in a certain scale, including but not limited to practicality such as personal finance, and car availability and functionality, we choose which car to buy after considering color, size, style, brand, ...The car you end up driving can be a temporary statement of you. Not completely and not always but perhaps in some degree and sometimes? After you drive your car long enough, your car even looks like you (to me anyway). We become what we drive. Don't we? Also, most of us judge/discriminate people for the things that go with us: looks, clothes, houses, jobs, bank accounts..oh and cars, or to be judged or discriminated by them. Don't we? I picture a shinny new BMW side by side with a badly beaten up Nissan pickup. Their drivers get into a road rage on the Highway. The BMW driver yells at the Nissan pickup "You Piece of crap! Never should be even allowed on the road!” The Nissan driver yells back at the BMW driver "You Snob! Think you have money you can buy a BMW but you don't own the road". There you are. Those two drivers don't even know each other. But do you see how the car discrimination is easily turned back to the people who drive the cars?!
I imagine if cars were animals, my Toyota was a working cow and my Mercedes was a pet dog. Now that the working cow is gone, I'll be forced to play my pet dog more. Haha! but... Can I expect my pet dog produces like a working cow. Let's see:
Yesterday as I gave a last glance of my Toyota after I handed the keys to the new owners, I started to envision my life thereafter without my Toyota. I imagine I am sitting in my office. A couple walks into my office. Finally, a walk-in buyer! They come in with a flyer of a house and they are adamant they have to see it right away. They tell me that they are pre-approved by their lender...ready to go! I jump from my chair. Let's go! I lock the office behind me. Wait!
- Ride with me? Sorry. No free ride. It's a two car seat, for me and my purse only;
- Any dusty dirt road to the property? Sorry no Mercedes on dirt roads.
As I watch them leave, I head over to my car. There goes my commission. Sigh. Here comes my Mercedes. Smile.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
In Search for A Career
I watched Chris Rock's standup comedy show from Johannesburg, South Africa the other day. Oddly enough, comedy sometimes is a better form of depicting things and getting an idea across. He said he used to have a job but now he's got a career. When he had a job as a shrimp scrubber, he couldn't wait for his work hours to end and time always seemed to pass too slow. Now he's got a career. He is eager to start a day and the working hours don't seem to be enough because they pass too fast. The funny man had his funny way of delivering this message so he didn’t say the exact words. While I was greatly amuzed at his funny deliverance, it dawned on me that what he said was so damn true, and the fact of matter is I need a career!
Face it. Most people have 9-5 jobs. They work at the jobs, not because that's where their passions lie, but because their jobs pay their bills. Before real estate, I took various regular 9-5 jobs. Most of the jobs to me were to accumulate unwilling hours for paychecks. The paychecks would NEVER, EVER make me independently wealthy but they ensure not to starve me to death either. Hanging to a job was just enough to hang my breath from paycheck to paycheck. The me I knew lived two lives: the life at work and the life after work. My life at work was like a dead woman walking. I only lived off work hours, i.e. 24 hours deducted by those working hours. Life is short. Life is shorter if 1/3 of it does not count. It makes sense to do only what you love doing so you don't cut your life shorter by your own choosing. The only jobs that did make me feel alive were several power plant field jobs. At least at jobsites, you saw with your own eyes the project progressing from bare beginning to finish. All what you did, small or big, contributed to the final products - power plants. With the rest of the jobs I took, I worked in the corporate offices shuffling papers, punching numbers, attending meetings, or staring at computers, purposeless between this assignment and that assignment. In general, I concluded the bigger the company size is and the higher your ranking in the company is, the more individual freedom you have. It's less miserable if you work for a Fortune 500 international company. A sheer number of employees in a large company makes you less visible. Nobody even noticed if I slipped away for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. In a small-size company, don't even think about it! No way! If you hold a management or executive level position, you dont' need to ask your staff's permission for leaving the office earlier and you will more likely travel to some meeting locations where everyone else wants to vacation. If you are not a manager, no way! I got about 10-12 days paid vacation a year. I used to mark my calender with the countdown days to my next permitted extended release from my cubicle, cell number ###. Of course, occasionally a job gave me enough things to occupy my time, and an occupied mind is a happy mind, so for a while I was happy. The rest of the time, I was not busy but had to pretend to be busy. Giving others an impression of being busy protects you from any potential layoffs. Since I had nowhere to run other than sitting in front of my computer "working" away, I had written some of my best uninterrupted long emails those days. Sometimes, paid business trips, free team building meals and company parties could also be fun. Sometimes, a work task could be seemingly challenging, giving me a temporary sense of accomplishment, especially when that accomplishment was noticed and acknowledged, enough to delude me to feel like a big shot in the work place. Born of a very competitive nature, no matter what job I took, I wanted to excel. My “Anything you can do, I can do better” attitude often earned me a reputation as a workaholic or an aggressive, the best kind of worker in a work place. Many times, the corporate ladders were on sight for me to climb only if I stayed and played the game. As it turned out, I usually left and didn't want to make that job a lifetime job - a career in my understanding at the time. When you first got into a new job, for the first few months there were new things to learn. Soon after you learned the new little tricks, a job fell into the boring routine again. The job veil finally unveiled to me one day when I learned from my part-time MBA program financial management class that the sole purpose of a corporation was to maximize the corporate shareholders' share values. So all the time, I as a non-shareholder, was just working for that sole purpose? So my purposeless work after all did have a purpose: that is to make someone else richer. My career fantasy, ie. making a job working for someone else as a career fantasy was smashed.
Ok. If we don't want to be a mini, tiny work force that adds to the maximization of the shareholders' profits, what options are there? Is there such a thing in the world that you can do and you love to do, and earn you a pretty good living? We have all heard those advices about following your heart and money will follow. So the first thing is to find your passion. What is that one thing that you are passionate about, above everything else? First of all, identifying that passion is a bit of a challenge for me, as I'm passionate about many useless things. Secondly I doubt in reality, making a living out of your passion would really work. There are no lack of starving artists. They followed their hearts or passions. Look what happened. Isn’t it like other people tell you to pray to God and God will listen? Then you realize you are God because you are really the only one who listens. Recently, I was making steady little income from blogging. Though not enough to brag about, I thought I peeped my possible career choice. Maybe I can make a career out of two things I enjoy doing: traveling and writing like Anthony Bourdain, or opening a cozy coffee house having live music, homemade pastry, good coffee, and all my useless arts and crafts? That thought was interrupted as soon as I looked around at the business people around me, and as soon as I read what Anthony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential: "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love." Anthony is a smart business guy. So job vs career should not be that black and white. There might be a middle ground. That might be where job happiness meets money success.
My husband always tells me "Once you step your foot in real estate, you are unemployed". After these many years, I realize he is right. Actually, once you become self-employed and once you've tasted the freedom and sweet pay from being self-employed, it’s hard, almost unbearable to think about a 9-5 job. However, as real estate business in the US continues to gloom, my once seemingly sweet career becomes more and more a job without realizing it, until I caught up with Chris Rock's show. Now I am forced to examine my career choices and think what I should have started a long time ago. 1. What is my passion? 2. Can I make a career out of it? If 2 is negetive, then 3 where is the interface - the middle ground I can stand on?
Face it. Most people have 9-5 jobs. They work at the jobs, not because that's where their passions lie, but because their jobs pay their bills. Before real estate, I took various regular 9-5 jobs. Most of the jobs to me were to accumulate unwilling hours for paychecks. The paychecks would NEVER, EVER make me independently wealthy but they ensure not to starve me to death either. Hanging to a job was just enough to hang my breath from paycheck to paycheck. The me I knew lived two lives: the life at work and the life after work. My life at work was like a dead woman walking. I only lived off work hours, i.e. 24 hours deducted by those working hours. Life is short. Life is shorter if 1/3 of it does not count. It makes sense to do only what you love doing so you don't cut your life shorter by your own choosing. The only jobs that did make me feel alive were several power plant field jobs. At least at jobsites, you saw with your own eyes the project progressing from bare beginning to finish. All what you did, small or big, contributed to the final products - power plants. With the rest of the jobs I took, I worked in the corporate offices shuffling papers, punching numbers, attending meetings, or staring at computers, purposeless between this assignment and that assignment. In general, I concluded the bigger the company size is and the higher your ranking in the company is, the more individual freedom you have. It's less miserable if you work for a Fortune 500 international company. A sheer number of employees in a large company makes you less visible. Nobody even noticed if I slipped away for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. In a small-size company, don't even think about it! No way! If you hold a management or executive level position, you dont' need to ask your staff's permission for leaving the office earlier and you will more likely travel to some meeting locations where everyone else wants to vacation. If you are not a manager, no way! I got about 10-12 days paid vacation a year. I used to mark my calender with the countdown days to my next permitted extended release from my cubicle, cell number ###. Of course, occasionally a job gave me enough things to occupy my time, and an occupied mind is a happy mind, so for a while I was happy. The rest of the time, I was not busy but had to pretend to be busy. Giving others an impression of being busy protects you from any potential layoffs. Since I had nowhere to run other than sitting in front of my computer "working" away, I had written some of my best uninterrupted long emails those days. Sometimes, paid business trips, free team building meals and company parties could also be fun. Sometimes, a work task could be seemingly challenging, giving me a temporary sense of accomplishment, especially when that accomplishment was noticed and acknowledged, enough to delude me to feel like a big shot in the work place. Born of a very competitive nature, no matter what job I took, I wanted to excel. My “Anything you can do, I can do better” attitude often earned me a reputation as a workaholic or an aggressive, the best kind of worker in a work place. Many times, the corporate ladders were on sight for me to climb only if I stayed and played the game. As it turned out, I usually left and didn't want to make that job a lifetime job - a career in my understanding at the time. When you first got into a new job, for the first few months there were new things to learn. Soon after you learned the new little tricks, a job fell into the boring routine again. The job veil finally unveiled to me one day when I learned from my part-time MBA program financial management class that the sole purpose of a corporation was to maximize the corporate shareholders' share values. So all the time, I as a non-shareholder, was just working for that sole purpose? So my purposeless work after all did have a purpose: that is to make someone else richer. My career fantasy, ie. making a job working for someone else as a career fantasy was smashed.
Ok. If we don't want to be a mini, tiny work force that adds to the maximization of the shareholders' profits, what options are there? Is there such a thing in the world that you can do and you love to do, and earn you a pretty good living? We have all heard those advices about following your heart and money will follow. So the first thing is to find your passion. What is that one thing that you are passionate about, above everything else? First of all, identifying that passion is a bit of a challenge for me, as I'm passionate about many useless things. Secondly I doubt in reality, making a living out of your passion would really work. There are no lack of starving artists. They followed their hearts or passions. Look what happened. Isn’t it like other people tell you to pray to God and God will listen? Then you realize you are God because you are really the only one who listens. Recently, I was making steady little income from blogging. Though not enough to brag about, I thought I peeped my possible career choice. Maybe I can make a career out of two things I enjoy doing: traveling and writing like Anthony Bourdain, or opening a cozy coffee house having live music, homemade pastry, good coffee, and all my useless arts and crafts? That thought was interrupted as soon as I looked around at the business people around me, and as soon as I read what Anthony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential: "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love." Anthony is a smart business guy. So job vs career should not be that black and white. There might be a middle ground. That might be where job happiness meets money success.
My husband always tells me "Once you step your foot in real estate, you are unemployed". After these many years, I realize he is right. Actually, once you become self-employed and once you've tasted the freedom and sweet pay from being self-employed, it’s hard, almost unbearable to think about a 9-5 job. However, as real estate business in the US continues to gloom, my once seemingly sweet career becomes more and more a job without realizing it, until I caught up with Chris Rock's show. Now I am forced to examine my career choices and think what I should have started a long time ago. 1. What is my passion? 2. Can I make a career out of it? If 2 is negetive, then 3 where is the interface - the middle ground I can stand on?
Monday, January 4, 2010
Photographs and Memories III - Eye
I recently retwittered a tweet I read: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eye". Photography to me takes the same voyage. It's all about developing good eye: the ability to spot, recognize, capture and construe beauty and magnificence out of the ordinary. Further, I'd like to think the "eye" here is not literally our understanding of eye as an organ eye. Of course, being observant is a given. I like to think the "eye" here refer more so to our third eye, the ability to transpire insight and to rise above ordinary. I just browsed my Flickr photos taken in the year of 2009. Didn't find any good third eye photos. There are perhaps a few of my literal good eye (organ eye) photos from 2009.
Dancing
Once tangoed to a sad ending
Coupling
Togetherness to sunset
Singing
Music notes unknown but sounds so pleasant
Failling
Fragile descending
A raindrop to a rose pedal
Trapping
The more you build, the more you are stuck.
Plunging
Throw yourself in to leave a trail
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
