The First Walk (After School Started)

It had been a long time since my last walk. These two days I didn’t get out of bed until 8 or 9am, and it felt great! Also I slept most yesterday as well. I had no idea why I had been so sleepy, other than now I got 6 hours of sleep instead of 8. I guess that my body was still trying to adjust to my new schedule.

Anyway, David decided that we would take a short-but-sweet (read: HARD) walk this morning. During his solo hike, he had found that the Fred Herbert Path was a great power walk if he was short of time. So off we went!

On the way to the path, we ran into beautiful butterflies and busy bees:

David’s Long Bean Tofu Dish

Here comes the long awaited recipe — David’s Long Bean Tofu Dish! It’s not an exaggeration to say that this is David’s signature Chinese dish (although I’ve never seen it in any Chinese restaurants), because we have it at least once a week. Today I’ll reveal David’s secret, so you can reproduce it at home and modify it as you see fit.

As the name suggests, you’ll need some Chinese long beans and five spice tofu to start with. If you live around the SF Bay Area, you can get all the ingredients from your local 99 Ranch Market. You might even find them at Safeway, but we’ve found that they tend to charge more.

David parboils the beans (四季豆) and then cools them under running water. You don’t want to complete cook them, because they’ll be cooked again with other ingredients later.

Now we’ll focus on the non-liquid ingredients first:

Week 1 @ School

I survived my first week at work!

Every night before going to bed, I had to set my alarm and constantly remind myself not to forget about going to school the next morning. It was a very strange feeling. If I didn’t do that, I really would’ve forgotten to go to work on Tuesday…

Even though the first week was pretty easy, every night I was so tired that I fell asleep while watching TV. These days I only got an average 6-hours sleep per day (school anxiety?); no wonder I pooped out in the evening. Well, also I was so used to being with myself and David and not having to talk much. Even though I’m quite fond of my new co-workers, it did take some time and effort to get back to the society mentally and physically. (Somehow my new-workers all thought that I’m talkative; I don’t know where they got that illusion.)

I continued brainstorming how to improve my cube. Feng Shui-wise, it really sucks. However, my little panda and its buddies did an excellent job to fend off bad Chi and attract good Chi. They still have a lot of friends at home; maybe I should make them a big happy family by bringing the rest over, so they can form an even stronger force.

Oh, yes, now I know that I have a big cube (due to the funny layout and odd location), I can certainly use a Totoro pen holder on my desk. And since I have peer pressure from my Chinese co-workers to have lunch together, I do need a Hello Kitty lunch bag. (We are working on a conspiracy theory to turn the engineering department Chinese. ) More back to school shopping to do this weekend!

Day 4 @ School

Our office building is really located: On one side, we have the beautiful Lake Marriett; on the other side, we have this well tended park-in-air. As long as I can see plenty of green, things seem to be more manageable and I have an easier time to have my calm. And it looks like that I won’t have any shortage of it here.

I continued customizing my cube with some of my stuff toys, and they seemed to be very comfortable with their new home already. My little panda, now giving a new important role as my cube gargoyle, was taking his job very seriously and fending off any possible evil spirits coming down the hallway.

---

我是掛了很多小小的佛畫像, 可是他們的威力好像沒有趴趴熊的大… 它這麼努力的幫我看家, 看得黑眼框都跑出來了!

Day 1 @ School

This morning I arrived at my new job at 8:44am, because the HR manager from the East Coast had told me to fax all my paperwork before 9am. And she also informed me that I would get a new employee orientation at 10am to go through all the paperwork that I just faxed. Talking about efficiency.

My manager shook her head when she heard what the HR manager had told me. However, since I was already there but my computer wasn’t setup, she took advantage of the precious little free time she got and introduced me to the other early birds (read: non-engineers). And how many names I still remembered at the end of the day? Well…

The telecom orientation was expected to be boring and the weather was beautiful, so I took some photos of the Lake Merritt from the office. As you can see from the photo, the view is not bad! Pas mal du tout !

My new cube faces a long, long hallway. Accordingly to Chinese Feng Shui, the bad Chi can come straight down to it and unsettle the person inside. You might think that it’s superstitious, but when I sat there with my back facing the hallway, boy, was I dizzy! I felt cold draft after cold draft attacking my back. I moved my monitor to face the hallway instead. I felt less dizzy, but this time I felt my chest so tight that I couldn’t get enough air. Well, some drastic measure had to be done. With Ge and Kevin’s help, we stole a bookcase and placed it facing the hallway. I helped myself with 2 unclaimed white boards to give myself just enough privacy and light. Voilà! I was finally able to sit in my cube peacefully.Yup, this was just my first day at work, but I already started customizing my cube. Now I just have to make this place my 2nd home, and I’ll be all set…

---

我的新辦公室的風水很糟, 正對著長長的走廊, 所以怎麼坐都很不舒服, 頭會暈. 靠兩個同事的幫忙, 偷搬了一個沒人用的書櫃, 之後我再去摸兩個白板, 總算可以比較安心的坐在裏面了.

Back To School

This morning Dorothy called and asked David to take me to shop for school supplies and a lunch box, because my school (job) starts tomorrow. I didn’t really need anything, but no one could ever say no to Dorothy’s good intention and fun spirits… My only request was that the stuff had to be cute. I already had plenty of serious office supplies, and I certainly didn’t need more boring looking things in life.

For the incredibly cute stuff, one has to go to a Far East Asian office supply stores. That was why we went to the Pacific East Mall, to immerse ourselves with all the cute things and indulge myself with all the happy stuff. I picked up a green cat pencil box (with a blue fish on its tail!), 1 piggy ruler, and 3 small piggy notebooks. (Tons of cute piggy stuff in stores to celebrate this Pig year.) Not knowing my future daily routine or my future cube size, we couldn’t get a Hello Kitty lunch box or a Totoro pencil holder. I was a little bummed about it. But David assured me that we’ll come back for more school supplies as we know more about the school and how the school runs.

Weird, I thought I didn’t need anything!

---

今早石頭媽媽打電話來, 叫他帶我去買明天要上課 (她意指上班啦! ) 的文具用品及午餐袋. 我東西是都不缺, 可是母命不能違 (她媽媽人很好, 像個活菩薩). 美國的東西是很耐用, 可是都醜醜的, 所以我們去Pacific East 百貨公司的Hello Kitty 店及金石堂文具店買可愛的文具. 我選了一個貓咪鉛筆盒, 一枝小豬尺, 還有三本小豬筆記本. 因為不知道會不會帶便當, 也不知道辦公桌大小, 所以沒買Hello Kitty 午餐袋和Totoro 筆筒. 石頭說沒關係, 知道學校情況後, 他再帶我來買. 奇怪啊, 本來以為沒缺東西的…

The Last Walk (Before School Starts)

Once the school starts, I won’t be able to explore our neighborhood like before. It was a sad feeling… Probably because of that, today our walk was half an hour longer than usual. It was a bit too long, but it was supposed to last me through the upcoming week…Acacia Steps was my favorite path. The home owners along the path took great care of it and planted beautiful flowers for all seasons. It was a narrow path, but it was such a charm that I found very enjoyable.

This garage was decorated with bright colored glass, in parallel with the well tended garden. It was impossible not to stop to take all the art work in.

Of course we couldn’t miss those beautiful flowers along the way…