Noah's Ark

When the Hanshin Awaji earthquake (M7.2) occured in January 1995, I was in 7th grade. Over 5000 people had died including one of my sister's class mates, while many others lost their homes on that day. Though school and home were 1.5 hour distance away by train, the seismic center was in between it, close enough to make me shiver whenever there's a small quake even today, 10 years after the incident.
How much the earthquake in Sumatra(M8.9) seizure from us, we still don't know. The number of victims are renewed every hour. It always reminds me how humble we humas are, whenever we suffer the natural disasters.
Noah's ark- what would the ark be in today's world? Media reported how weak the alarming systems were in South east asia, asuming that there must have been 2-3 hours before the tsunami reached Sri Lanka. I can't be very technical, but simply the importance of AP aliance is what we've all keenly realized.

**mercy to the victims and hope my AP friends are safe.**

Ms.Forgetful

I'm not cleaver enough to remember as much as others do. Capacity isn't a problem I believe, it's just that I find interest in comparatively narrow issues and I only remember information of either top impartance or least important silly things. Therefor, friends often blame me for forgetting what is severely important to them but was "pretty much" important to me. Only certain good friends are well aware not to expect me too much.
Few days ago, my friend had written me a letter noting that "it was to remind forgetful me of his special feelings" I feel bad about making him say so but I was really happy to recieve the words written in non-erasable form. Being a Ms. Forgetful, I get to hear grave messages.

Season's Greetings

It seems that I've failed to send out greeting cards individually to my friends again this year so let me share my gratitudes here instead.
A lot of things have happend in the year 2004 even regarding my humble life. When the new year began I was in Delhi freezing out in the skating link celebrating the new year with local members from DU. The bon fire, the games and the music were unsatisfactory, memorable enough to fancy the new year. 5 days after my return from India, I left 2 things I lived for during the past 4 years; University and AIESEC. Started working in April and became financially independent -finally!-, made new relationships both professionally and personally. It's been a pretty exciting year and I must thank all my friends who've supported me. Greetings to all of you, have a nice Christmas and hope the year 2005 be special to us! Cheers!!

Party Season

I used to wonder, How does Carry Bradshaw get more weekends than us? She must be stating,"-Another Saturday night in Manhattan" every 10minutes or so, as if it's always Saturday night in New York. What a cruel show it is to be on air on Sunday nights when the rest of us are thinking how we're gonn'a bare another week ahead of us.
Well, I'm not sure if I envy her anymore, after partying 17 hours over the past 3 nights. It's like having 7 Fridays in a row...working during day and partying all night day after day. I didn't expect the year-end to be this busy. Thank God, tomoroow is the national holiday, I'll relax a bit and get ready to party again on Christmas!

The Daily Yomiuri

On my way to work, I stopped at a nearest convenient store to pick up a morning paper. As I was searching Asahi out of tabloids, something new caught my eyes..the Daily Yomiuri, one of the major English papers in Japan. When I held it up at the counter to pay, the clerk was also surprized to see it like he'd never sold one.
Unlike Japanese papers, President Bush was on the cover and football was on the other end. Letters like Ukraine and Al-Qaida dance on the headline...this is different! Here's just a 1$ investment to broad international perspectives.

Left behind

One of my best friends from University flew back to Tokyo this moring after 2months of traineeship in Paris. Though we'd been exchanging e-mails every once in a while, she said she still felt left behind finding the new currency and hearing fragments of news she missed out. So I was filling her in over lunch. But I couldn't help feeling that if one of us had been left behind, it was not her but myself for she seemed to have gotten clearer plans conserning her career. Sometimes I'm so desparate about moving out of the country and trying new things. It's always diffucult to measure whether you've been doing good enough and feel nervous when you're settled in one place. I wonder if I'm ever confident of what I choose to do

The Mighty Yoda

"Be aware of the Yoda" my colleague threatened me when I took over one of his clients. I didn't know what to expect, but I was almost choking from laughter and amazement after my first visit to her shop. Her shop was probably built in the 1800's for I'd never seen such a house out side ledgendary stories and if she'd been paler I might have believed she'd actually slipped out of the George Lucas film.
Now I must apologize for speaking ill of my client, but actually I've come to admire her during the past few months. No matter what the business is or how small the amounts are, there are still loads of things you must keep track of on running a business and it is amazing how she handles them all properly, considering her age.
Today, over 20% of Japan's population belong to the elderly group (= above 65) and it always astonishes me how healthy and enthusiastic they are. A poster in metro reads, "What are your plans for the 20years after retirement?" (Woa...are lives ever lasting on this island??) I'd always thought lives without beauty and strength in your 20's are unpleasant and boring but mighty women like Yoda teaches me they haven't let go much happiness nor possibilities to this day.

La Porte Etroite

Within the last 48hours, I've watched "Bridget Jones's Diary"twice and 3 episodes from "Sex and the City" on DVD. (Now the hopeful thing is that I wasn't alone but with what Bridget would call a "sensible boy friend" , and readers must also be reminded that only 3 hours of our time was dedicated to this activity and not the whole weekend)
Anyways the two drama have one clear message in common; "Single women over 30 can be miserable (for they are to live under a lot of social pressure) The same pressure seems to be on women in Tokyo, for discussions like "Whether single women over 30 without children are loosers" are welcomed with high interests. Although age 30 still seems way over ahead of me I must admit some hastiness has grown since I started working, being surrounded by colleagues with families and receiving more marriage invitations these days. I haven't given a deep thought on this but maybe I should if I wanted to choose "La Porte Etroite" in my case, for I'd declared "lifetime single" back in pre-school at merely age 6.

Parcels

Now that most messages are sent through e-mails, I don't usually expect to get anything in my mail box. However, I happened to receive 2 lovely parcels today. One was from my friend (and a TN) in India who sent me pure darjeeling tea and my favorite type of curry; Paneer Makhani. They're the kinds you could never find in Japan and I can't believe how thoughtful he was to have chosen it.
The other was from mom. She sent me warm jacket and boxes of sweets; chocolates, gaufriers,a stollen, and financiers. Charming indeed, atleast I'd have something to keep myself busy during Christmas. It also included a birthday card decorated with photos from IC in Calgary, which had been sent to me back in October from Erika,ex-MCP of Chile.
Tonight I'm so grateful not only for what I've gotten but by the fact that I'm loved by everyone! Thanks guys!!

a windfall

The first thing that came across my mind after opening this weblog was to repair my electronic dictionary. It had been broken for few months now, ever since I dropped it off my desk one night. It seemed so natural to conclude that it broke of the shock,I didn't even bother to try new batteries.So, it was pretty embarrasing to see it work all right at the electronic device shop, just by inserting 2 new batteries.
Anyways I got my dictionary back in about 5 minutes without paying more than 2$ and what's more, I found out that I'd saved up 300$ worth of points in my membership card! That means, I suddenly have an amazing alternative in front of me...either get a mobile of the latest model, or a brand new degital camera, or perhaps an ipod? COOL!!

Passion

A friend of mine, and a young expatriate in India had called me earlier this evening and we were chatting for some time. He asked me "Aren't you coming down to Delhi during the holidays?" When I answered him I haven't got the time nor money to do so, he was eagerly persuading me how possible it was, with the reward and the holidays I'm getting soon. He was right, the money and time never is a problem if I wished to do so. The passion is always the most difficult to fight especially when you think "you can't."

Horray!!

I've got myself an English weblog!! An opening to a brand new life!