Cataract removal

My mum just went through her cataract removal procedures. Both her eyes had the new lenses now.

I have been on annual leave since first day of her operation. Today will be the last day after staying with my parents for a week. I feel sad that I have to return to my husband's house tomorrow, while he will be away for business trip, leaving me and my mother in law at home.

The cataract removal is a simple procedure, but it takes a lot of post-operation care. My brother helped with the cooking most of the time, while I have been the driver. I don't enjoy the kitchen work, and don't have much passion on food. I much prefer stucked in the traffic than stucked in the kitchen.

I am pretty depressed now.

Bits and pieces

I have been busy travelling between my husband's house and my own home recently.
My mum just removed the cataract from her right eye today, she will do the same for her left eye coming Monday. So I am staying at home during this time.

After the visit to Korea, our agent had placed their first order, which is also my first order today. Not much, but was pretty pleased. Despite all the quality issue we have recently on our China product, and the discouragement from our MD, I am still feeling rather pleased... may be some hint of disappointment, because now that Korean market has showed some potentials, the MD said that he will take it away from me, and let some other sales person handling it.

There are still a lot of work to follow up for the order. So I shouldn't slack too much.

In fact, I should actually start looking actively for jobs, instead of letting the workload pouring over me. I am too tired covering Decamouth's work due to his incompetency, trying to open a road for myself by keep requesting to be in the sales team, and trying very hard to adapt myself to this new life after marriage.

I think I deserve a better treatment for my contributions.

Korea visit

Went to South Korea for business trip, thanks to Decamouth, the trip was rush and ill timed. To be specific, I was only spending my time in Seoul.

Anyway, I visited South Korea with Ms. Sulky, it was our first visit to South Korea and her first visit to four seasons country during winter, though the trip was short, I was able to try some authentic Korean food, except the beef and the beer -- Sulky doesn't eat and drink a lot of things.

I shared a room with Sulky, because she was afraid to sleep alone... sigh, first time in my life I met a mature lady who never slept alone before, which I find it hard to believe and understand.

A lady from our sales agent brought us to have a brief walk in Myeongdong street one night, and I brought a pack of ginseng face mask out of her recommendation. I tried it on after coming home, and I felt like a live ginseng after putting that mask on my face.

Got to see some young handsome kids dancing on some street performance.

I noticed most Koreans have very good skin, and am jealous. >_<

Meanwhile, our company phone was not working in South Korea, as the company did not subscribed 3G service provider nor 3G enabled phones for executives, which is different from managers. So both of us couldn't connect to any mobile network. To top it up, my wireless internet connection on the company laptop was disabled by the system administrator while upgrading our IT security. So I was practically disconnected from the world during that trip.

Ms. Sulky reflected the mobile issue to the MD and HR, the MD was disappointed with the double standard implemented by the HR, and the HR only mentioned that our mobile service provider confirmed that our package does not have 3G and said nothing more.

Anyway, despite the inefficiency of our company, I quite enjoyed the trip and the cold weather there.

1st Chinese New Year as a wife of someone

As we all know, Chinese have a lot of traditions to follow, and depending on the clan, there are different ways of doing things.

This is the first time I celebrated Chinese New Year with my husband's family. It is a totally different culture to mine. Although I am not particularly in agreement with some of the things they do, but in the name of respect, I kept my mouth shut. Nonetheless, I played along and entertained tonnes of stranger relatives and their intimate questions. I hope when it comes to my husband's turn to visit my family, he will at least stay for a longer time, without playing with his phone or flipping the TV channels.

I feel that women after married lost their identity. They become someone's something. Wife is just one of the checkboxes in men's life. Chinese stress on caring the elderly, ironically I always felt that the maternal family and relatives are conviniently forgotten, or put at a lower priority.

I guess gender equality can only be achieved without getting married. Once married, you are done.

Anyway, men and women must not argue on such things, there is no right or wrong. We can only agree to disagree.

Happy New Year 2012

I would like to accomplished the following during this 2012 new year:

1. Finish moving and unpacking my stuff in my new home. -- I have lots of rubbish accummulated over the past decades, which I am having trouble finding time, energy and space to sort them out and place them nicely in this new home. My room is like a war zone now... and will be like this for a long time, because I will start work from tomorrow onwards. This means I have about 1 hour a day to do anything useful at home.

2. Find a suitable job to continue my engineering career. -- I had a nonsensical meeting with the corporate HR the other day. They told me despite my technical competencies and cross-functional roles in the office, they will not promote me nor transfer me to other departments, as it is not within the company's expectation for me to continue developing myself after returning from the USA office. They will, however, train Decamouth to become a better leader, so that myself and Ms England would like to continue working for him.

They requested me to give them 6 months period to see the transformation. Otherwise my resignation will be treated as my personal grudge against Decamouth.

I think it is time to change course. I will find a job in this new year, and leave them to their monkey business.

3. Take care of my own donation accounts. -- My parents have been managing those accounts since I was young. It is time for me to take care of it now.

If possible, I would like to visit these organisations this year.

4. Resume participation in charity work. -- I have stopped participating in charity work since before leaving to USA in 2010. Now that I am more settled, I guess I could take out a weekend per month to join my husband for some charity work.

5. Exercise at least 3 times a week in the park in front of my house. -- I haven't been doing much exercise, and after moving to this new place, there is no more reason, the park is less than 5 mins walk away from my house.

6. Keep in touch with my friends. -- I have been meeting my friends after married pretty frequently, and I love the time spent with them.

Unlike my husband who has all his friends and relatives around the same area, and could meet up for a chat anytime. I need to drive a little further, if not flying, in order to  meet up with my friends, which of course would spend a little longer time comparatively. I guess time management is the key.

7. Visiting my family at least once a month. -- Given that my family is pretty busy, it is hard to find them available at home... But I miss home after married.

8. Reward myself once a month, without blowing the budget. -- I have not been rewarding myself enough throughout 2011, and have dumped all the money at the end of the year for crazy shopping... I am guilty for spending a little too much in the shopaholic shrine.

9. Start growing my own vegetables. -- My passion fruit plant in my house has started producing large, juicy and passionately red fruits for months. I have started planting baby leeks in front of my husband's house. Let's hope it would start growing.

10. Go for honeymoon. -- My husband's friend has bought us a travel package as our wedding present. It is a travel package to Cambodia. We have not claimed or make any bookings, will need to get that done some time soon.

11. Find someone who can carve the world map onto a 4ft tall x 8ft long steel flat plate. I would like to hang it onto the wall in the stair well, and hook up all the fridge magnets collected from all over the world.

My uneventful wedding

My traditional wedding ceremony was held on Tuesday, 13 December, 2011.
It happened my husband's neighbour also had a funeral on the same day.
With the Chinese tradition, we tried to avoid the funeral traffic by having a quick tea ceremony on the bride's house, before leaving to the groom's house (approx. 1 hour by car).
In the end, we managed to avoid the funeral team, who left the neighbour's house slightly after we entered the groom's house.

My wedding banquet was held on Friday, 16 December, 2011.
I started the day by rushing back to my house to collect the dinner gown -- which is my mom's wedding gown.

I then rushed to the bridal shop for make up etc., but was faced with pouring thunderstorm on my way, which caused flash flood in the city center. I was forced to take routes that I have never taken before, risking of getting lost, in order to reach to the bridal shop on time.

Half way through preparing myself in the bridal shop, I received a phone call from the restaurant manager telling me that they have electrical failure at the venue. That was 2.5 hours before the dinner starts. I asked if they have enough generator sets for back up, the manager said alright, she also promised that the blackout will be fixed in 2 hours time. I also found out that the electrical breakdown occurred since 11.30am that day. If they can't get it fixed since 5 hours ago, I doubt they could get it fixed in the next 2 hours time, but I can only trust the manager's word without any choice.

i reached the venue just before 6pm, changed into my mom's wedding gown in the dark, and started helping in setting up the cocktail food prepared by my husband's relatives. There was still no electricity, it seemed to me that they did not prepare the gen-set early enough, and had trouble connecting them. I also found out that the electricity blackout has a chained effect -- pumps not running, that means no water in toilet, kitchen can't cook the dinner.

Guests started coming around 6.30pm, and all well sat by around 7.30pm. My husband's side was furious with the slow response of the M&E team on fixing the issue. The restaurant manager prepared a few portable coolers, and I was busy walking around making sure people are aware of the cocktail, hoping that the food will keep them occupied, and lined the stomachs with some cold beers, that they would have less complaints.

We had a tea ceremony with my grandma and uncle, they couldn't make it for the actual wedding ceremony, and was travelling from out of state to attend the dinner.

While everyone was melting and munching away the limited home-made cocktail food, the M&E team finally managed to connect the gen-set. With my brother's help, we quickly set up the PA system to broadcast the wedding march.

The dinner finally started at 8.30pm.

Due to the government regulations for organising social events passed midnight, the dishes brought to the tables were rushed. Our greetings to each table was brief, and wasn't able to spend enough time with our much cherished friends and relatives.

While we were greeting from table to table, I had a bad cramp on my legs resulted from my high heels. I am not used to wearing high heels for long hours, and was forced to take out the shoes.

By the time we finished greeting each table, guests already started leaving. We then went straight to sending people off at the door.

The entire event went through very quick, I was unable to find out from people how they felt about the dinner. Thanks to my husband's uncle, who fought for us for discounts on the banquet due to the mishaps, we managed to get some discounts from the restaurant manager.

In the end, I was glad that my much-liked wedding march music was played. We chose George Frideric Handel's See, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes March from Judas Maccabaeus. I am also glad that the dining music that I have prepared long ago was played over the dinner, though I doubt many people would pay attention to it.

Last but not least, I woke up the next day with a burning sensation in my eyes. After visiting the doctor, it seems that it was resulted from tiredness, make up chemicals went into the eyes, and contact lenses.

I guess with the incident of cramp legs from high heels, and the painfully-teary-red eyes from the beautifying products, it is concluded that I am just not feminine enough to be a lady that I would like to be. Nonetheless, I think at this age, I should just accept myself for who I am, and am glad that I have a small group of friends who appreciate me for who I am. I am glad that they showed their supports and participation over this uneventful banquet by staying and patiently trusting that the event would eventually turn out fine.

I am sure not many people had attended a blackout dinner like this, so on the positive side, I guess people would remember my wedding dinner as an out-of-ordinary one. :-)

Marriage

I am ill with flu, tired with pimplish face and panda eyes.
I wonder if I really want to go down the path of getting married.

I am stressful everyday with work, and night with life after marriage.

I guess I don't know who I am marrying after all, or perhaps I am just having some pre-marriage syndrome.