I am
...getting rained on in Tokyo.
...old enough to drink alcohol but not old enough to know when to stop.
...blogging since 02/22/03.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Math skills come in handy when you don't expect it It seems that I haven't crippled my left foot for nothing. The job interview that I seemingly screwed up bad time got me an invitation for the second round. My interviewer must be quite impressible because he liked the fact that I could multiply 7 x 8 and 12 x 13 without using a calculator or fingers. My second guess would be that he liked my boobs. Not that they're particularly outstanding but he's probably happy to see any at all. For men banks can be a really tough place to work at.
NB I'm trying out a new comment system which finally allows me to delete comments. I believe this is my first venture into active censorship if you don't count my job as the chief editor of the student newspaper which involved the refusal of particularly offending material and tasteless jokes. I'm all for freedom of speech, however, my understanding of that term is that you have the freedom to get your own blog and publish your opinions there, not cluttering my comment box with insipid rants or criticism on my grammar without prior consultation of a dictionary (btw, definitively is a word, thank you very much for asking... not).
After all, this is still my space to load off all the mind-deteriorating junk that gets stranded on the shores of my consciousness and nobody else's. You're invited to read and comment but I'm the bouncer of this club who has the final say about what stays out. I'm very sorry for the deletion of the comments that didn't fall into the two categories mentioned above but I hope this won't stop you from commenting in the future.
One foot down, one more to go The "Only a misogynist could have created high heels"-line is old but it has never rang so true in my ears before today. Of course I've had my share of swollen limbs, pus-filled blisters and stabbing pains in the soles of my feet but I've never ever crippled my left foot with some high heeled half-boots before today. If shoe-induced arthritis is covered in an occupational disablement insurance, I'll have to get one after graduation because I definitively want a safeguard for future shoe usage if job interviews reduce me to a state of hobbling already.
Can bladders actually explode? Today I had an interview for a job as a research assistant at the finance department. The professor was quite nice and didn't ask me anything about betas, CAPM or long call options. We talked for about 30 minutes before we ran out conversation material. I was told that I would get a definite answer in two weeks. Then he quickly ushered me out of his office. On my way out through the hall, he overtook me and entered the men's room hurriedly. If I had known that he had to pee so badly, I might have compelled him to give me a positive answer on the spot.
The drama queen My laptop suffers from the electronic equivalent of narcolepsy and occasionally faints when I work on unsaved documents. I should have sympathy with it considering that it's a Methuselah in computer years but I think my laptop is only out to get me. I'll soon send it to the happy computer retirement castle (aka "the trash"). Judging from its past behavior, I'll have to act very secretive because, otherwise, it'll shows me the ultimate blackened screen while I try to make some back-ups. Little spiteful bitch.
When all you learn in a class is "it depends" Today I'm feeling uninspired, exhausted and annoyed by a considerable amount of people so that I'll only share a link on what your sleeping style says about your marriage. You might be shocked to learn that I have tried all of them although I've never been married. I'm not very enthusiastic about any of them. None of them was particularly comfortable and the following morning I would always have a stiff... neck. [I know that this poor attempt at a joke wouldn't even be funny if I were a guy but my cerebrum has let the control over my typing slip so that my cerebellum is currently taking advantage of the situation. The cerebrum apologizes for this one-time occurence and promises to be back tomorrow.]
At least the ribbons diverted the attention away from my face My parents have finally sent me an email with a selection of childhood pics for the yearbook. They have chosen photos on which I wear little frilly dresses with hundreds of ribbons on them and display the kind of broad smile which gives you an insight on the number of transactions the tooth fairy has handled for me so far. Either, my parents really hate me or I was a really ugly child that didn't photograph better than that.
You'll know that it has gone from bad to worse when people start arguing whether to use "that" or "which" in a relative clause A great day is always followed by a less pleasant day: in this case "less pleasant" means "total f*cking crap". After having spent a couple of hours on cobbling a paper together out of the bits and pieces that my fellow team members had written yesterday, I was not really in the mood for additional four hours of proofreading with my team mates "Demands to be in charge of the corrections without properly listening to any suggestions", "Nags a lot before saying 'Forget about it'", "Loses focus quickly", "Cares too much about the marketing aspect" and "Criticizes every word before reading the phrase in its context". Absent from this tedious meeting: "Prefers to spend a week at home instead of working on the paper with the rest of the team" and the French exchange student.
"Demands..." [reads aloud]: ... to sever links with....
"Criticizes ...": Wait a minute, what's "sever" supposed to mean? Is that a word?
Me: It means "to remove".
"Demands...": Do we really want you use a word that our [German] professor might not know? He will think that we used a word that doesn't exist. Or he will be annoyed that he has to look it up in the dictionary.
Me[ready to claw out somebody's eyeballs]: It's a perfectly good word. Why shouldn't we use it just because Prof. X's English sucks? It sounds better than any synonyms that I can think of.
[A lengthy discussion ensues between the advocates of "sever" and its opponents. After ten minutes, we decide to keep "sever". Ten minutes well spent.]
No words of complaint will escape my lips today Today seems to be "important emails and phone calls"-day. It seems to be a lucky charm to spend more than 8 hours non-stop n the computer lab. I got invited to two job interviews and an incredible number of people chatted me up at ICQ. It's unreasonably warm and the sun has been shining since this morning. It's Friday and I got invited to a little BBQ. I feel loved more and more by the minute. This is probably what people refer to as a good day. I could get used to that.
Happy happy joy joy I know that Easter is over but you will still find me bouncing around like a bunny on speed because I had a pleasant call today. Well, the call in itself was not so pleasant but the outcome sure was.
It was an informal call to test my language skills. As I was certain that the nice HR lady wouldn't try to test my poor knowledge of Chinese, I tried to catch up on my French because I hadn't spoken it for about a year. I watched the only French channel I get on TV and a documentary about albino humans was on. It seems that the filmmakers in the documentary business get a kick out of coming up with weird titles but it's probably the only way to make people watch their films. This one was called "Les enfants de la lune". Unfortunately, it didn't help much with my French. I couldn't even recall the word for bureaucracy (it's "bureaucratie", by the way... ouch).
To make a long story short, I got invited to an assessment center where they'll probably make us weep or dance like trained donkeys. After four years of brainwashing business school the thought of that starts to sound very appealing - especially if I get a job out of it.
The dark side of electricity [Today is Easter Sunday. There's nothing exciting going on here like exploding eggs or evil ninjas taking over my village so that I have to fill this post with bland nonsense.] Static electricity can be a bitch - socks sticking to sweaters and hair standing on end. Yesterday I got a big shock when I tried to playfully bite TS' nape. He complained about the sharp pain the electric discharge causes him in the neck but I tell you, nothing beats the weird feeling that I got in my front tooth.
Almost Today's a normal Tuesday: sleeping until noon, riding my bicycle to university, trying to stay awake in class and almost setting some guy's face on fire. Please note that the emphasis is on "almost"; his face is still intact except for the missing eyelashes. I appear to own a psycho lighter that creates darting flames even though it's on lowest setting. I apologized profusely but the guy was very nonchalant about it and only complained about the stink of burnt hair. In retrospect, I think this would've made a great anti-smoking ad.
I was actually searching the web for "EU accession of the Baltic States" but... Did you know that you burn 300 kcal during half an hour of sex including an orgasm (figure in German)? According to the same figure an hour of Rock'n'Roll dancing burns 600 kcal. Ergo both activities burn the same amount of calories per hour. The conclusion to draw: you should take dance lessons in order to lose weight. Men can dance longer than they last.
Chhrrrr I'm living in a room which resembles a winter landscape with fat tissue snow flakes covering all surfaces. This and the fact that I make noises like a cat with a hairball stuck down its throat are good indicators of my current sickness level.
Dinner for one Tomorrow's parental visit is highly anticipated because my father will drop off some necessities, namely Sriracha chili sauce, fresh cilantro (hopefully some other herbs, too) and most importantly my Mom's food that I've missed dearly since January. We're talking about home-made tofu and traditional Vietnamese cuisine in all its tasty glory. (I would write down the names of the dishes but I'm bad at Vietnamese spelling and most of you wouldn't know what I'm talking about anyway but believe me: it's delicious).
I considered inviting my friends for a Vietnamese dinner but 883 advised me to forget the greedy suckers and eat everything myself. I think I will. My decision will be 100% guilt free given the fact that the closest many of my friends have gotten to cooking me dinner is driving me to McDonald's.
