Messing Day

Lunch: Supposed to have private weekly lunch with Florence, but we invited PwCers to join this time. Lunch of 7 people, we went to "Man Kee" at the secret building. Kept on chatting, chatting and chatting ... haha, funny time *,*

Dinner: Clara gave a treat for me, Emily and FK, since she got a job offer. Went to CWB "Banana Leaves" to have Thai foods. Again, chatting, chatting and chatting. Very probably, we won't be able to have dinner with Clara on Mon to Thur starting from Oct, as she won't bother to take long, long ride from her new employer at Tsing Yi to CWB/ Central/ TST, and then take long, long ride back home at Tsing Yi.

Last lunch with Big King for 2005?

Big King would visit her hometown for the coming week, after which she'd be heading right back to Harvard. So honoured that her majesty invited me and Emily for lunch =P Anyway, it turned out to be lunch of 4 --- Big King So Tsit, Michael, FK and I.

It's the first time for me to have lunch at Vintage, a small restaurant adjacent to New World Building and was once so-called "canteen" for So Tsit when she's with McKinsey. There're just 4 tables of 2 to 5 within the restaurant, and some bar seats as well. Each of us ordered a set lunch and started chatting while waiting for foods to be served.

Enjoyed the chat very much, but not for the foods, simply because I made a wrong order of TOMATO SAUCE Tuna Pasta =( I presumed that Tuna Pasta should be in creamy sauce, so I was really surprised when it turned out to be tomato one ... I could only finished half of the dish, that's my further extend though the sauce was very dilute indeed ... @_@

XB

ICBCA Alice had her wedding photos developed. That's why my ex-colleagues dated me out for lunch. Got the 6th sense that I'd be meeting them right in-mid of the downhill lane if I took the "footbridge" route, so I tried out --- Bingo! I really caught them there! *,* They're so excited that we stopped and talked lively for a while; but then, my ex-boss ET appeared on the lane >_<" All ex-colleagues speeded up their paces suddenly, leaving me alone with ET; ET said he followed my ex-colleagues and spotted me ... poor me -_-

Finally, ET went for lunch with us. So bad, turned out that I and Ame had to talk to ET, while others kept burying their heads in foods. Plus, cheapy ET dared to ask me treating him! Weird, weird, weird! I rejected him at once and even scolded him --- I used to scold him by the time when he's my boss, I could scold him even more fiercely now for sure as his ex-staff ... wahaha =P

No beach again ...

Woke up at 12 noon sharp and looked out to the sky through the windows. Cloudy. No beach AGAIN!!! >_<

When will sunny Sat come ...

"Chung Kite Tuen"

Trevor's on leave in the afternoon, it gotta be a relaxing day; however, Joyce's on leave in the afternoon as well @_@ as a result, it turned out to be another busy day. Dated Janice, Florence, Kathy, Monitress and Ivy to have dinner at 8.30pm at TST, but finally I could only arrive by 9pm something =(

Tonight, we had Korean dishes at a small but famous shop named "Ching Kite Tuen". Foods were fine, but I skipped all those spicy ones. Talk and talk and talk all the time. Monitress, Kathy and Ivy would go to Tokyo in mid September. I and Monitress kept discussing on her plan drafted, while Kathy and Ivy just stared at us since they've got no idea about Tokyo ... haha ... such a funny scene. Got souvenir from Janice for her Saba trip, thank you so much =)

Sexy Angel joined us for the chat after she had dinner with somebody else in TST. She walked all the way from Harbour City to TST East, but then we decided to have drink with Sam Wong, Carrie, Joan and Rebecca somewhere near the Kowloon Park, so she gotta walk all the way back through her original route ... haha

Eventually we went to the café recommended by Florence, which was located on the 2nd floor of an old building. A good place for leisure gathering. Lately, I was quite fond of this sorts of cafés, do tell me if you know any which is good, and let's go together for drink and chat through afternoon or night ...

柯頌謙

他是一個月大的柯頌謙 Little Daniel ，看他多可愛、多勇敢，面對這麼多叔叔和姨姨也沒有哭!

對吖，我們一班莊員隨著小 Daniel 的誕生，一同升格到 uncles 和 aunties 級了。在 ACY 1141 課認識郭麗珊還仿如昨天的事，今天她己成為柯太一年半多，且已身為人母，有點不可思異 *,*

謙謙，你要乖乖吖，乘著爸爸媽媽、叔叔姨姨和無數人的愛與祝福，健康快樂地長大成人 =)

「但願你的眼睛 只看得到笑容
但願你留下每一滴淚 都會讓人感動
但願你以後每一個夢 不會一場空

天上人間 如果真值得歌頌
也是因為有你 才會變得鬧哄哄
天大地大 世界比你想像中朦朧
我不忍心在欺哄 但願你聽得懂」

Watami

Alice dated us out for lunch at Watami as part of the sharing session. For 'us' it represented Mary + Myra + 6 graduates. Actually not much sharing had been done regarding our work, but it's fun time. Didn't wanna talk about work during lunch time indeed ... hehe =P

Terribly busy for the week, but we could foresee that it'd be even more busier for coming weeks until 20 September. Peak season is approaching >,<

奧運

今天上午到奧運上 Induction Training Programme ，要九時前到達，特地早起一小時。

每次要到奧運站，總會遇上點意外，或許是因為早起的緣故罷 #_# 今次沒上次嚴重，只是睡過頭，沒有在太子轉車，到了旺角站才醒來嘞 ...

MD

Didn't had my MD with me for long. Got it charged last night, and brought it to work with 《Charlie and the Chocolate Factory》 MD received from Ming last Fri. Another piece of old MD as well.

Willy Wonka accompanied me all the way to and from office and home. After which came Leo Koo and Sammi Cheng. Yes, Sammi Cheng ... by that one would know I was really listening to a very old MD. At least 1.5-year-old =P

Wandering at lunch

Super busy day, due to daily work + extra work to be cleared after Trevor's annual leave last Fri. Gave myself a break during lunch by going out alone. Purposely. Felt refreshing when I wandered around Central. Ignored people passing by, my mind started to become clearer and clearer, and seeing stuffs through. Went back to office with a cheerful mood, and continued with my busy day.

That serious?!

Really felt bad to get involved in such kind of irrational "conversation", which turned out to be non-value added. To certain extend, I was quite angry at the very beginning, for a friend who I've known for 7 years could keep on saying such things before I revealed I knew the whole story. Then, I found it's useless to give my advices, though I thought she gotta understand it for her growth. Okay, when I found that no progress could be made and said forget about it, trying to have a friend move later on, I got a cold response pinpointing that I've made an innocent accusation which she couldn't forget.

That serious?! Everything turned upside down, inside out. I wondered whether my written English was that poor so that people didn't understand me at all, or she really couldn't catch the point.

Anyway, I won't deal with it further, it has already spoiled my mood. Both parties had wrong doing in the whole incident. I knew it won't be the end of the story, I might be impeached, I might be blamed, but I didn't wanna deal with it anymore. Dear Lord, please forgive me.

Out of control

Heavy rain again, couldn't go to beach =(

Something kept spinning in my mind, out of control.

Opus

Such a coincidence that Trevor took a day off today, and turned out I could leave office by 7pm something after the daily reporting quoted at 6.45pm. So happy with that, thanks be to god *,*

Dined with Ming at Opus tonight. Located on 29/F and have seats next to French windows, we should be able to have harbour view pretty clearly. However, the heavy rain blurred the scene; we could even see thunder flashing through right besides us ... haha =P

7 years ago, it's the first day of 98' BA O'camp; today came the 7th anniversary.

Received Florence's postcard from Australia when I arrived home.「好嘞，相信我回到香港， postcard 應該仍未去到你家。祝你收到 postcard 那天心情愉快!」

I did =) Thank you!

Lunch with FK on her last day

Today is the last day at work for both Emily and FK. That's why I felt a bit surprising when FK called to date me out for lunch at one of her favourites --- "Yung Kee" ground floor. Her company and her boss were really weird. It's good for her to leave asap.

My teammates

I just realized that all my teammates were either grown up or educated in foreign countries ...

- Yaqub, grown up in Canada
- Joyce, grown up in the UK
- Reynold, grown up in HK but educated in Canada
- Kelvin, grown up in HK but had master degree in the UK

Also grown up in HK but educated in the UK for Trevor, my current direct boss. Didn't know for Simon and Jeffrey.

Seemed that only me was a 100% Hong Kong girl, being grown up and educated in HK for the past 20+ years. Am I "extraordinary"? Haha =P

沒有熱褲的巴里

原本的四人晚餐變成我和何曉珊的二人晚餐，卻沒有影響我們的食慾。結果到翡翠拉麵小籠包吃晚飯，逛了街，再吃 Haagen-Dazs *,*

Highlight 了紅髮的何曉珊想買熱褲來迎接巴里的海灘，可惜不是顏色不對、就是尺碼不合 ... 只好空手而回嘞 #_#

一人還比一人遲

又是和郭婉汶午餐聚的日子，因天雨關係，我們去了 IFC ；又因人多關係，我們最後到了 Starbucks 。收到郭婉汶的澳洲手信「能量棒」，感謝 ^o^

告訴她我昨晚九時半才下班，以為會博得同情；怎知她比我更晚，十時才離開公司! 果然一山還有一山高、一人還比一人遲嘞 @_@!!!

Sweety

So happy that he remembered it, even though he got a wrong date *,*

Busy ... busy ... busy ...

Record breaking! Left office by 9.30pm tonight. Joyce took half-day annual leave this afternoon, so I picked up her job. Plus, Trevor finally read the correspondence I forwarded him yesterday, need to draft response for his approval. Plus, system down for the peak hours from 5pm something to 6.45pm. Plus, being assigned around 10 counterparties. Plus, gotta learn matching traders' blotters to system record. Plus, need to call over a set of master agreement. Plus ... after many "plus" added for the day, it sounded not surprising at all to off duty by 21.30. So lucky that there're no reply for London for the outstanding, or else I'd have to work even later @,@

Very productive tonight, and I left Trevor with some questions to be resolved tonight/ tomorrow ... Sorry, I just tried to sort out stuffs which I didn't understand, I didn't expect that all of you haven't noticed that before; and apologies to inform you late, since I only finished checking the agreement by 9.15pm ... =P

Don't cry

Cecilia cried in office! I tried to comfort her and took her out of office for lunch. Actually crying for work would be useless as it couldn't help at all. It's just barely a way to release emotion but scaring colleagues. Cecilia said that it's really great that I could keep smiling even when I was flooded with tones of works; I told that no matter you cry or smile, tasks would have to be accomplished eventually. Why not cheering up yourself as well as your colleagues, so that assignment completion could be speeded up when you work it out with positive attitude?

Seemed like she understood and really learnt something this time.

Hope that everything would turn out fine for her *,*

人種的測驗

人種的測驗

「你是個很有趣， 友善和出眾的人。 你是個真正的會開解別人的人，你經常會走去市中心與朋友分享你的時間，之後你會帶一些你媽媽教你的東西回家。當你快樂過之後才會覺得婚姻與孩子對你重要，不要讓令你快樂的人使你迷失。」

我是這樣的嗎? 於是再做一遍，變成 ...

「你很可愛而且每個你認識的人都喜歡你。你是能夠成為別人最好朋友的人所以沒有人會嘗試做任何事而引致失去你。你從不傷害別人的感覺和我很少傷到自己的感覺的。生活對你來說是輕而易舉的，你經常表現可愛和平靜的。你只要避開金手指就能夠無憂無累了。」

其實我只改了一個決定不了的答案，分別就這麼大嘞 *_*

Tidy girl =)

Finally got all bank statements and correspondences properly filed. Started from 3pm and ended by 6pm. Well done! *,*

《Charlie and the Chocolate Factory》

Watched 《Charlie and the Chocolate Factory》 with Ming this afternoon at APM. I like it! Indeed I read and got addicted to the story since I was in childhood; and after 18+ years, someone did turn the story into a movie show *,* So glad with it ... hohoho

Though Charlie and Willy Wonka were of no doubt the main characters, I was sure that Oompa-Loompas were the ones who did make everybody laughed =P Their "performance and singing" were so entertaining ... haha

《Wonka's Welcome Song》
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka ... the amazing chocolatier.
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka ... everybody give a cheer!
He's modest, clever, and so smart, he barely can restrain it.
With so much generosity, there is no way to contain it ...
To contain it ... to contain ... to contain ... to contain.
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka ... he's the one that you're about to meet.
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka ... he's a genius who just can't be beat.
The magician and the chocolate wiz ...
He's the best darn guy who ever lived.
Willy Wonka here he is ...

When will be my turn ...

Dated 4 ex-PwCers + 2 PwC girls for dinner tonight. When I arrived at the restaurant at Mongkok by around 8pm, they're there already. It's a Shanghai restaurant. Foods were just so-so, but seats were acceptable and price was reasonable. Anyway, I guess I won't have it included on my restaurant list.

Monitress Shum will go to Tokyo for leisure trip with Kathy and Ivy in mid September. Trip trip trip. Everybody has trip. Carrie by last month end, Christina for last week, Florence on her trip now, Sum this weekend, Emily, FK and Clara 1 week later, and Monitress Shum in mid September. When will be my turn *_*

Fresh graduates

Had lunch with 4 fresh graduates after a so-called "Sharing Session" held at 11am to 12 noon. Seemed that they've different types of "complaints" after working a month here: long working hours, too much idle time, no leisure time, not working on main parts of operations, minute workload, too busy, low pay (@,*?! Indeed higher than pay of 90% of fresh graduates already ...), exposure, etc.

It's funny to see them having the discussion, I wondered whether I did the same when I just started working at PwC ... haha =P

By the way, I met 4.0 Joyce Ng in office this afternoon. She came to our floor to have discussion with someone in our section. We recognized each other once our eye sights met, and chatted for a while so "lively" that aroused others' attentions =P haha ... Really glad to see her, though we're not familiar with each other indeed --- I knew her since she's the first in PAC in CUHK, while she knew me since I was a committee member of CUSA, I guessed. Anyway, she proposed for a lunch gathering and I looked forward to meet her again =)

Pret A Manger

Changed the time of weekly lunch with Florence to today for this week, since she had to go signing contract with ABC yesterday. Yeah, her new office would be closer to mine, and she'd have 1.5 hours for lunch (vs 1 hour currently). I longed to have lunch at Admiralty with her =)

Intending to have better food before her short trip to Australia tonight, we headed to IFC. Saint's Alp Teahouse was our first choice, but it has been closed ... I proposed to go to Pret A Manger instead. Pret A Manger always ignited my desire to go to South Bay, for every time I went there, I would bring a pack of Pret A Manger sandwiches with me. It has been 4 months since last time I visited South Bay. Lately, I missed the beach very much and planned to go; yet, it'd be rainy again this weekend according to the weather forecast. When could I be there again *_*

First month completed

I've been here for a month. Time flied. So far so good. The disgusting feeling flooding in my mind last week faded along with increasing workload. As long as the assignment is meaningful, I would be happy to work on it. I won't work on tasks which are redundant or not contributory, as well as those which I think I shouldn't have to work on. That's my bottom line.

Workaholic?

My life was so solid today. Due to ad-hoc tasks assigned by Trevor, my day was fully occupied from 9.30am to 8.40pm, working non-stop except for lunch of around 1.5 hours. Yet, I felt so happy with the busy and concrete work. Was I crazy? Was I a workaholic? #_#

Remember?

Suddenly got a weird thought --- Would he remember that?

倫敦

又是一整天沒工作、工作突然在下午五時多湧現的日子，全拜倫敦所致，只因我們有七小時的時差!!!

美國和香港時差十二小時，今天的交易永遠都是留待明天更進，不過我不負責美國的交易。至於日本和澳洲，比香港快一、兩小時，他們收市時還是香港的辦工時間，工作可在香港的辦公時間內完成。

唯獨倫敦最可惡! 他們最喜歡在倫敦時間上午八、九時/ 香港時間下午三、四時把大堆交易文件一併傳來，輾轉交到我手上，已經是下午五、六時了，弄得我要加班工作至八、九時 >_< 其實只要他們不留待次日早晨、是日下午就開始傳送，那麼我便可以在香港早晨後黃昏前把工作做妥，不用加班嘞 ...

可惜，世事是沒有這麼完美的 *_*

出奇

非常出奇地，除了幾個 daily reports 之外，今天沒甚麼工作做嘞! 癡癡地等，終於到了六時四十五分，立即趕製最後一個 report ，七時十五分踏出辦公室大門， yeah *,*

走過辦公室外的會議室，透過百葉窗簾看到金詩韻還在面試。不知道她這回表現如何? 無論她得到這個 offer 與否，她未來的辦公室也將會是最接近我的，不是同樓、便是鄰座 >,<

周嘉怡第一天到 HSB 上班，似乎挺不錯。郭婉汶今天面試，希望她得到 offer ，可以脫離她那家甚麼怪事都可以發生的 ACB ，投入 ABC 的懷抱!

半島自助餐

為了慶祝各人轉工/ 出 bonus/ 賣樓賺大錢，今晚和何曉珊、梁善儀、金詩韻、鄧詠琳及雷碧華到半島酒店的今佐日本料理吃日式自助餐；我們還邀請到蘇婕大王與我們共眾晚餐，榮幸之至 *,*

酒店的格調是一流的，何曉珊走上往一樓的樓梯時，想起慧雲李在《亂世佳人》中傲慢地站在樓梯上的場景。至於食物 ... 我想除了海膽、銀鱈魚和柚子雪糕較美味外，其他都是一般嘞! 四百三十元的價錢，好像有點不值 --- 大部分都是場地格調的消費，不在於食物的質素 ... 不過到了半島酒店一遊，還是有其紀念價值的。

《阿嫂》

以為《阿嫂》會是一齣不錯的電影，怎知道劇情只是如此，結局只是那樣 ... 哎吖，挺失望嘞 @_@

Tokyo vs Bali

Completed daily reporting and ad-hoc jobs of the day by 7.30pm something, I ignored Jeffrey's request and escaped from office right away =P

Rushed to Causeway Bay at once to join Emily, FK and Clara. Siu Kam was there as well, and they were still selecting travel package. Finally they couldn't make the trip to Tokyo due to flight availability and fare; instead, they picked the tour group to Bali. Totally different style.

After that, we had dinner at Li Garden. Had funny chat all the way round =P Sister Cat finished with her church stuffs at 10.30pm something, and we headed to Leighton Road Starbucks to have drink. I had my favourite cold drink Vanilla Cream Frappuccino, yummy *,* Sister Cat kept on asking Siu Kam to look for colleagues suitable for her ... haha ... what an interesting scene ... haha

CUHK gathering at HSBC

Cecilia told me that when she took elevator back to our office floor, she met someone from Shaw College CUHK who was 3 years older than her. That guy said he knew another guy from CUHK who worked for placement in another department under CIBM, and arranged for lunch on L28 this afternoon. Cecilia invited me to go with her. No big deal to go, right? and actually I was curious to see what's going on =P

That guy was named Kelvin, who worked as an IT Officer; another guy, named Brian, was attached with financial reporting of CIBM. Kelvin was very talkative, kept on asking me this and that, said that he knew Choy of SCBA and was a close friend of him. Brian has just completed his year 2 Engineering study in CUHK and will work for placement for a year before going back to CUHK.

Soon after the buffet started, I was able to capture a picture of the whole situation. Brian as a student was really glad to meet so many big "sisters and brother" from the same university, and he was quite clever to decide not applying for HSBC right after graduation for his own reasons. Cecilia as a fresh graduate was a 100% honest girl. She told her true feeling without hold back even to strangers, which was a bit dangerous for her future development if she met someone who was cunning. Kelvin as a guy who has graduated for 3 years was a bit over enthusiastic. After he got some basic information, he put too much effort in getting to know others' remuneration package. More than half of his conversation was on that. He couldn't get any pay figure or even pay range from me, as I tactfully avoided that. He started changing the direction to ask what actually were years of experiences, requirement and qualifications needed for my position. Again, I bypassed the question, saying that I was an exception and kept laughing.

After all, I was old enough to see through all these stuffs ...

Thoughtful lunch

Spent half of my lunch time wandering around Central, pondering next step to take.

Decision made by 12.45pm. Let's see whether it'll work out fine.

The Happiest vs the Worst

The Happiest

It'd certainly be my weekly lunch with Florence! This time we'd it at "Pearl" the small Vietnamese restaurant. So glad that Florence has decided to move on, very happy about that =) Looking forward to have lunch with her at Admiralty 2 months later.

The Worst

I dislike Jeffrey's style of work and behaviour very much. It has been years since I could actually name a person at work whom I was not happy with. I saw Cecilia was shocked at his requests and questions, and didn't know how to response. Afterall, it's her first job and she couldn't imagine people would make unreasonable requests in such an implied way. What's on my mind was to stop Jeffrey from saying rubbish and freed us home asap; however, I couldn't stop him right away simply because he's a manager. If I was still in ICBCA, I would certainly scold him and reject him; but sorry, here's the so-called "the world's local bank". Together with other concerns which popped up my mind earlier and many other added elements, I was driven to think carefully whether it's really worth to stay. Yup, I gotta think it carefully before it's too late.

Cecilia

Finally I was able to have lunch with Cecilia. Just we two girls alone, but we're happy with that. We settled at "Mix" and tried out new dishes there. Soup pumpkin was so tasty, yummy *,*

We both felt weird towards our colleagues' culture of not hanging out in group. For me, I've still got ex-colleagues and friends going out for lunch sometimes; for Cecilia, the case was worse since she's fresh graduate. Her u-mates were busy with their "happy and exciting" (per Cecilia) working lives, mainly in Big 4. Seemed like she's the only one who got into a company with such culture.

Anyway, we had nice chat on a lot of topics, even on CUHK and GPA ... haha =P It's really fine to have leisure talk in such a comfortable dining place. We didn't wanna get back to office ... but we had to as the Main Building was just adjacent to "Mix" ... Gosh @_@

Lunch with Michael and Jeffrey

I though Michael might forget what he said again, but he kept his promise of having lunch with me and Jeffrey So this time. Actually I didn't "know" Jeffrey. He was a legacy-AA staff who was in the same division with me in PwC, but for no doubt he couldn't be classified as my "hi-bye" friend at all --- I was quite sure that I've never talked to him in PwC. Anyway, he's quite close with Michael, and that's why Michael asked him out for lunch together.

Michael reserved a table at "Heaven and Earth", and we could go straight into the shop while there're tones of people queuing up outside the restaurant. All our topics were banking related, as we're all from banks. Jeffrey's girl friend, Elaine, joined a while later. She had her first day work with ABN today, and just came over to have a quick chat before she went attending her afternoon training session at IFC II.

Was it so-called a "business" lunch?

Wedding photos

It's a hot summer night, let's start with something good. Got my roommate's wedding photos from her hubby some days ago, and finally roommate sent the link to me "formally" tonight =P They just looked the same as when they're in university if roommate didn't put on make-up!!! Was it really 4 years after our graduation, or 6.5 years after they started dating? Really hard to believe *,*