What about my Christmas? Let me tell you about my Christmas.

From late morning to late afternoon, the K clan kids had lunch chez V with our cousins, their significant others, and baby. We feasted on Lawry's 2005 Turkey To-Go Package (which included cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes,and traditional turkey stuffing), a pumpkin pie, and a tiramisu cake. Let's not forget the After Eight mint chocolates that aren't sold here. After the Secret Santa exchange and some sleeping on the couch, it was off to the Sogo department store to walk around and get some free chopsticks.

Then I went down to the Taipei 101 area with A to walk around and to see a performance, whose poster said "Capoeira Taiwan" which intrigued me. As I road my scooter with A giving directions on the back, I made a left turn coming out of a street and immediately got pulled over. I decided to try my "speak English only" tactic to see if I could get away with it. As he pulled me over, I immediately started speaking in English... and he got mad! He pointed at my face and said loudly in Chinese "講中文! (Speak Chinese!)" I just looked at him blankly and shook my head. He pointed at himself and said "I am Chinese Police. 你講中文! (You, speak Chinese!)" But I was having none of that, as I looked at him shaking my head as my non-Chinese-speaking facade continued. He told me in Chinese that I committed a traffic violation because I made a left turn through double-solid yellow lines, and that he was going give me a ticket. Mind you, he was speaking far too quickly for someone who couldn't speak Chinese to understand. He asked A if she could speak Chinese, but she said nothing. He asked for my license, which I gave him after acting as if not knowing what he meant. He asked me "你是台灣人嗎? (Are you Taiwanese?)", and then answered his own question "喔, 不是. 是 O 開頭的. (Oh, no. [your ID number] starts with O.)" I asked him "So, what did I do wrong?" and he said "I English very little". As he was filling out my ticket, he asked me if I could understand Chinese, and I responded "小小. (small small)", which is grammatically incorrect. And he said "'一點點' 不是'小小' ('a little', not 'small small')". Anyway, he still gave me a 360nt ticket, and at the end of it (which was a very long it, with all the playing around I was doing), he told me "中文要多學一點. (Learn more Chinese)." So, as much fun as it was pretending not to speak Chinese, getting a ticket wasn't much fun at all. In fact, in hindsight, I would have been better off speaking Chinese and saying that I didn't see the double lines because there were so many cars, which was the truth; but I was too focused on making my lack of Chinese understanding look realistic. Anyway, you can't really go back once you start faking that you don't understand. Then you're a liar and you'll probably get another ticket. :P

Moving on... after a stop at Starbucks, we went to Warner Village where they had some street performers to entertain the crowds (and collect money, of course). The performance I went to see turned out to be by a group of street/hip hop dancers that I think I'd seen on TV before. And I saw one guy (Allan) doing a few Capoeira moves, so I asked him where he'd learnt. He told me that once a week, they have an instructor teach them and if I were interested, he could take me there. As we talked, I learned that the instructor was not only from the Capoeira School I trained with (Axe Capoeira) but was also someone I trained with, although I didn't care too much for the guy personally. Allan said he hasn't had much roda (the circle where two people play Capoeira) experience, so he wouldn't play with me, but he said I could freestyle if I wanted. After much internal debate, with willingness and nervousness battling it out, and with A's encouragement, I decided to do it. So, I had my minute of not-quite-fame showing off some Capoeira in front of crowd of Taiwanese. Glad I did it actually! I have Allan contact info, so I'll fire him off an email sometime to drop in on the Axe Capoeira Academy in Taipei.

So, that was my Christmas Day.

Tell me about your day.

I met Bernie Mac!!

Well, the Taiwanese Bernie Mac. It was a good humoured security guard at the Geant supermarket. He tried to help me with getting some refund information. His somewhat flat and wide face, his big googly eyes that suck out of their sockets, his marginal moustache, his hoarse voice that's always running out of air, his fast rambling, and his laugh all reminded me of Charlie's Angel 2's Bosley. It was funny. One of those you-had-to-have-been-there things, I suppose.

When you call a phone number often, there's a physical memorization associated with the number. I think everyone has it, and it has less to do with knowing the numbers rather than knowing their placement on the telephone pad. I would venture to say that it has less to do with the location of the digits as it does with the movement of your thumb of finger on the dialing hand.

A few times, I've thrown myself off. I've tried calling a number I call often, but using my left hand instead of my regular right hand. And you know what? Messes me up most times. It screws me up so badly that my mind blanks out completely, and I need to restart with my right.

Give it a try. You probably have already.

I stand corrected.

"Ovaltine 3-in-1 is a unique and nutritious blend of Ovaltine, skimmed milk powder and sugar. It is made with high quality ingredients providing the body with vital energy-producing and protective nutrients. Ovaltine 3-in-1 mixed with water, contains only 1.5g of fat per 200 c.c. serving. Suitable for vegetarian."

And here I was thinking that drinking too much instant hot chocolate was bad for me. On the other hand, the Nestle Carnation "Rich Chocolate" Hot Chocolate that was sent to me from Canada by my very caring friends seems to be a little less healthy.

But... everyone can treat themselves to a warm cup of love every so often, right?

My Christmas tree is up now. Thanks to B who donated a tree to each sibling, we can now share a bit of Christmas spirit in our respective homes. It stands a towering twelve inches high, further heightened by its position on a DVD player, which is on a fridge, which is on a TV stand. So, besides my armoire, it's the tallest thing in my room.

"Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,
Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree."

(yes, that's really how the song goes!)

What do you do when you keep passing the same person in your office? There are days when you seem to continuously bump into this one person, as if s/he's timing your washroom times to "accidentally" meet you as you're on your way somewhere.

Ok, let's assume you know this person a little, and you've chatted; so, you're not complete strangers. Because you can ignore someone you don't really know. We also assume that the "counter" is reset each day, so in the morning of that workday, you're starting anew.

So, this is how it roughly works for me:

1st encounter> Hey Bob, good morning. How's it going? (and we chat for a bit)
2nd encounter> Hey. (because I know how it's going, no need to dwell on the subject)
3rd encounter> [nod, salute, smile]
Nth encounter> [nod, then quickly avoid eye contact]

As the day goes on, I start to realize that it's better to stay in my cubicle to avoid Bob. And it's even worse when you pass each other in a long hall, where you're watching him come your way for what seems like HOURS just finding a way to avoid another awkward hallway-meeting moment.

And I give that cheesy captain's salute... And each time after I do it, I always say to myself "WHY did I just give that cheesy captain's salute?? Fine, I won't do THAT again." But I always do. Each time around, it's always "Aye Aye, Mate!" Kills me.

I was a bartender last night at the CCPN Christmas Party. Since A is a CCPN staff, I was "volunteering" to help out (for a free ticket). It was pretty fun serving drinks for 200+ people (well, not all 200 people came to the bar). The selection of drinks was fairly limited: Hennessy XO, Sparkling champagne, red wine, white wine, hot chocolate, cranberry juice with XO, orange juice with XO, hot chocolate with XO, and hot coke. While being a bartender means you can't really go out and socialize all night, it means that a lot of people recognize you. So, that gives you something to talk about, at least to start. It was also neat to see a couple unexpected faces, including a coworker and an SFU engineer I know who just graduated and moved back to Taiwan. All in all, a good time. The Christmas parties are just getting started.

In other news, I had my first facial. It was painful. But it's amazing how much cleaner my nose looks without the blackheads.

I couple months ago, I talked about balding. Today's topic is white hair. I guess white hair is better than having no hair... at least you can dye it black (or whatever your natural hair colour may be). It's scary to see people in your office the same age as you (still 26 for those counting) with hair going white. It just shows you how much pressure some of these engineers are under.

I noticed as I pointed out a white hair on B's head that it was slightly crooked, even though the rest of his hair (black) was straight. And then I thought to myself, "Self, is white hair always crooked?" I'm not sure yet. I haven't researched enough. But it seems like white hair always has a different texture. Often it's crooked, like I mentioned, more like as if it were really a pubic hair that climbed Mount Everest and turned white because of the cold.

Another question is, does white hair grow white? Or does it turn white as it dies and shivels up? I'm leaning towards the latter, but I guess I'd have to talk to my friend Google to know for sure.

Anyway, just another odd subject on my mind.

Why is "Kevin" such a difficult name for Chinese people to get? In particular people from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Why do so many people naturally pronounce it "Kelvin"? The thing is, there aren't even that many Kelvins out here!! I've met at least 5 or 6 Kevins here, and no Kelvins. So what gives?

Other times, they fool me. They do this thing where they start off good, with a "Ke" instead of "Kel". Then they kind of hold that on their tongues for an elongated "Kehhhhhhh", and just when I'm about to extend my hand to shake theirs and congratulate them on getting it right, they finish it wrong "Kehhhhhhh.... lvin".