Crawling towards the Future

I am busy doing many things lately. Volunteer teaching. Cantonese studies. Working towards tenure at my job despite my pretty strong belief that I have a better shot of winning the Megamillions and Powerball in the same week. Still they pay me to make the effort, so I am, whether they think it is enough, well ...

So I am also job hunting. But not as a librarian, I am aiming to become a teacher. I have the degree and event though I haven't been a librarian for that long, I have worked in libraries for a very long time. I am ready to make a change. I wish I could put more time and effort into it, but I am doing the best that I can right now. The good news is that I still have a job and probably have at least a year before I need to panic. And sometime in May I will have more time to devote to the effort.

I have revised my resume and started posting it, even sent it to one school that I saw an ad for. It would be a career transition, to teaching. Right now I am focused on Hong Kong. I may broaden that at some point. I have long been ready to leave NYC but various factors have kept me here. Some of those factors, like my sweet pitbull, are gone now, others will be easier to replace.

I'd like to work at a private English Medium School with older kids, preferably high school. I still have a lot to learn about Hong Kong schools but I am learning and my preference may change in the process. That is okay, as I said I have some time.

bad blogger

When I started this blog I wasn't sure what I was doing. My main thought (or was it? so long ago now) was that here I was reading X, Y, and Zs blog and it seemed unfair not to share in return. And maybe I could connect more with the bloggers I had been reading. And in the beginning, when I was more consistent, it did serve that purpose. But I think it just really isn't me judging by my inconsistency in posting once the "honeymoon" ended. Actually I am not even reading as many blogs or reading them as intently as I used to, commenting even less often. It could just be another phase in my life.

So this is in part an apology for those of you who have supported me by stopping by, reading and/or making comments. I do appreciate it. And I guess it is also an acknowledgment of what you probably have figure out, that I am not the best of bloggers. That being said I still will probably post here and there but I am letting go of that little bit of guilt I would feel every time I realized how long it has been since I last blogged.

LOL to sum up, this blog update is to update you on how little I update this blog. (Sorry I couldn't resist)

Cheung Chau--part 2

Just off the boat, we started exploring the shops. My friends did a lot of shopping mainly for food items that they wanted to bring back to the US with them but we also took pictures of the items for sale.













More to come at a later date ... the pictures take forever and a day to load so I am only doing a few at a time.

Snow day reading

I know everyone is waiting breathlessly for the continuation of my latest Hong Kong chronicle and I promise I will get back to it. I have been in a bit of a winter funk, which is not that unusual for me really. This winter has been unusually snowy and I have become a bit of a hermit. I used to be a non-stop reader but at some point I became a non-stop movie watcher. Now, I am, well, either I am switching back to being more of a reader or maybe I am just finding a better balance in my life. Time will tell.

My latest book is "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" which I have been sneaking peeks at over the shoulders of my fellow subway riders for what seems like the longest time now, so I decided to give it a go. And I have to say, I am a bit underwhelmed. Am I missing something? I realize it is a translation of the original. Some of the stuff just was too tedious for me, if I hadn't read a review that warned me about how the book started with that detailed analysis of financial misdeeds I probably wouldn't have lasted long. And the long passages detailing every step of a murder investigation which only served to make me sympathize with the characters needing to alternate between acquavit and coffee.

I did like the character Lisabeth, I found her refreshingly different, she is a highly functional dysfunctional woman. Meanwhile the character of Mikael was too "perfect": smart, high morals and every woman wants to sleep with him. That kind of character is not so refreshing to me, sort of every man's dream of himself. Reeks of James Bond but without the sense of humor.

I am no literary critic and wouldn't even bring this up here except I feel like I missed something here, why is this series so popular? Can anyone explain that to me? It seems like everyone has read or is reading this trilogy and I am just not sure if I want to continue it. I do want to know what happens to Lisabeth, and how she got to be so dysfunctional but I might just skip the books and watch the movies--after all how many more snow days can I possibly have this winter? (Don't answer that question!)

Cheung Chau--part 1

This had to be my favorite place to visit this trip. And we chose a lovely day to go too.

House of Dancing Water

Somehow a friend of a friend of probably another friend was able to get us reasonably priced tickets to see "House of Dancing Water" in Macau. It was a bit nerve wracking to fit into our schedule being that the show was at 5 and Andy Lau's concerts start at 8:30 but it was well worth it. We wouldn't have been late at all if we had had an easier time catching a taxi upon our return to Hong Kong, as it was we only missed the first 2 or 3 songs.

The show is accessible to anyone I think, the cast is a mix of most if not all cultural backgrounds and although there is a plot to the show, there are no actual words spoken. It has ballerinas, an evil step-mother, a handsome prince, a damsel in distress who just happens to be a beautiful princess ... but really, forget the plot, doesn't really matter. And forget the water, which moves very fast in every direction, one minute it is barely more than a puddle, next it is deep enough for the cast to dive into from great heights and then before you can blink twice there is no water at all it and at times it is one massive, gorgeously lit water fountain--because at least for me, it was the artistry of the physicality of everyone in the show that is the real star of the show. It was a great demonstration of strength, agility and flexibility of both men and women. And clearly no one was afraid of heights, because there were quite a few entrances from the rafters, high diving and even motorcycle stunts, which seemed out of place and then again, not somehow. Anyway, I enjoyed the show immensely.

Unfortunately for an amateur photographer for me this was a nightmare in terms of trying to get a decent picture but I did try ...

Shopping

Sorry for the delay. Really had major jet lag on both ends of my trip. But it has been shorter on this end, thankfully, still it has taken more than a week. And this is just a short entry, I just wanted to start. I am going to post my pix chronologically because that is how my pix are loaded onto my computer. Some days I took almost no pix (except for concert photos) and some I took quite a few.

I don't shop, not here, not anywhere. But it seems that when in Hong Kong, one shops, even if you aren't the one buying anything.



Apparently there is an art to buying towels, its all in the fingers



Despite being fascinated by these wax apples, I never got around to tasting them