a long December 10 - part 1

December 10 of all the years to come will always be important for the family. It is a longtime tradition of remembering and celebrating a very important event -- my brother's birthday. We're six children and all of our birthdays are special. But what makes my brother's even special than the rest of us? Well, the fact that we forgot his birthday in years past. My parents were in London, and all of us had to be someplace else where it required overnight for schoolwork, my excuse was thesis. Anyway, when we all got together the weekend after my brother's birthday, he reminded us that we forgot and he went out in the night, blew a candle on top of a big mac and cried.
So in the longstanding tradition of this event, we got him his favorite cake on the eve of his birthday. A Coffee Crunch from Red ribbon, Bihon from Lola Helen's, barbecues and sodas. His eyes lit up like a child when he saw the bounty.
After a few days, Cai surprised him with a birthday dinner at the Shang and we had a blast. It was the best dinner we had for some time. Sharing it with my loved ones made it a perfect evening...

the "shoo-in"

I will be posting several blogs today as I've been slacking off for the last week. This one's appropriately titled due to a few silly but wondrous things along the way.
Monday. I entered Company XYZ for a walk-in and tried my luck. The reception area was huge and candy-colored like nursery. I scanned the room to see a lot of applicants dressed to the nines reviewing their CVs and looked at me for a brief second. I sat comfortably on the couch right after signing my name at the receptionist's desk. My hands were cold and clammy from nervousness. I just wanted to go home and curl up in bed. The confidence I had when I rode the cab, flew out of the window but I told myself, it's too late to go home, at least I tried should I fail this one.
My name was called and I was asked to take an accuracy test for dictation and typing, a girl named Keena smiled to calm me down. She said I was only allowed to have two errors on page.So in a matter of minutes, I was typing nervously while listening to the words of the voice-over. The page prompted that I had finished it and a message bubble appeared "10 errors on page"! Dear Lord! I failed. Keena approached me and shook her head apologetically: "I'm sorry but I cannot endorse you to the next step, you may reapply after four months", my heart fell to my shoes but.. as I got up, some sort of miracle happened.. Keena was standing beside me, ready to walk away, but she stayed,and she looked at me firmly, sighing, "Please wait at the lobby.", a glimmer of hope filled my heart but I didn't wanna entertain it because it might be some false hope she was giving out. Nearly all the applicants were done but they came out of the room, disappointed. "Was I the only one Keena believed in?" I muttered to myself.
Keena signaled me to the room and rubbed the mouse gently as she instructed me to re-take the test but this time, 50 wpm goal. Oh wow! I sat there looking at my computer with a vengeance, this time, typing with care ever so slowly and enjoying dictation like it were Typing 101. The verdict: 1 error on page, 53 wpm! Keena smiled triumphantly and said I was ready to take another exam before final interview. So I did my best and aced everything, I think I had my Oprah-Aha! moment when I finally received my job offer.
I texted Tina to say that I won the bet and she was treating me out to dinner. So I waited for her and I wanted to surprise J as well, but he wasn't replying to my messages. Oh well..
Me and Tina settled for Pancake House and she ordered like we didn't for days.. a hefty potato salad starter, chicken, hot roast, tuna mac, buttered toasts, spaghetti and tacos. As if that wasn't enough, we downed glass fulls of iced coffee beverages from Starbucks. I deserve this happy feeling. Thank you, Tina for sharing the joy of believing that I'm the one for the job.