Sandy's life as a small potato in Hong Kong (Dec, 2002)

This is the month for small potatoes!! Festive food, X'mas presents, holiday, parties, and thousands of excuses for being lazy. This is also why I'm telling you not to expect too much about the updates of my homepage this time! :P

Just click on any of the following underlined dates and you can get to know what's going on with me that day.

Dec 2 - 4 , 2002 (Mon - Wed)

Busy

While everyone in my office was being busy preparing for the conference, which was to be held in two weeks' time, I was busy writing X'mas cards to be sent to my friends abroad. It wasn't easier than preparing for the conference which my colleagues were doing. I don't like writing a few words only, 'Merry X'mas' and 'Happy New Year', or 'Wish you all the best', bla bla bla. I don't think anyone would like to receive a Christmas card with those common expressions or blessings and the signature of the sender only either. Of course it's still good to receive a card from a friend whom we haven't seen for a long time, but sometimes we may want more from the card. That's why I had to spend a few days writing all the X'mas cards...

Dec 13, 2002 (Fri)

Conference

The conference organised by my department started today. I was assigned to work in the reception and be in charge of a book exhibition.  There wasn't much to do indeed... ^0^ It was the largest conference I attended. When I was in the UK, I attended a postgraduate student conference organized by my department and almost all the attendees and presenters were PhD students. This time in this conference in HK, the attendees were scholars from different parts of the world, particularly from the US. Some of them even formed a group to do their presentations. A good experience indeed.

Dec 14, 2002 (Sat)

Conference again

Although I had to work today and tomorrow, I was rewarded with different sorts of things for my help with the conference: croissants, coffee, free lunch with numerous supply and souvenirs such as T-shirt, bag and a notebook. At the reception there wasn't much to do: just answered people's enquiries if there was any, or had a chat with them. When we were bored, we could have some candies or chocolates. It was a bit cold standing outside the conference venue.

Dec 15, 2002 (Sun)

It's over!

There were less people as the conference came to its last day.  My rewards turned into punishment coz I started getting tired of those croissants and pies. They were delicious but it was too much, eating croissants every few hours over the last two days. I was afraid I wouldn't eat any croissant in the next few months. There were still lots of croissants left when the conference ended in the early evening and they were all taken back to our office to see if any croissant lover was interested.

There was a buffet dinner after the conference. I regretted for having missed such a chance to enjoy a $400 dinner/person!

Dec 18, 2002 (Wed)

Cheesecakes

We were invited to a buffet lunch as rewards for our help in the conference (I don't think I contributed a lot).  How could I miss this chance to eat as much as I could! 'Oh, what a lovely "cheesecake"! It's too tempting to resist' While everyone was talking to each other happily, I went to and from the table where desserts were placed and I guess I had three to four slices of cheesecakes in total. I ate so much that this evening I had no appetite for dinner. 

Dec 20, 2002 (Fri)

No cheesecakes any more

We had buffet lunch, again as rewards for our help (definitely I wouldn't hesitate to help them again next time ^0^).  There weren't as many varieties of food as on Wednesday since we went to another restaurant of the same hotel.  Only potato looked more attractive to me on the tables. Maybe it was good. I ate too much a couple of days ago. It was time for me to get clean up with my stomach.

Dec 22, 2002 (Sun)

A high-pitched man

Hiking is not a lone activity. You are accompanied with not just your friend(s) but also many other people.  Why would I say so?  Look at the people around you: when you get lost or want to how to get to a certain place, you can ask them and they are usually very nice to answer your question, or you even don't need to ask them, you just follow them who look like professional hikers.  Sometimes they can even give you some entertainment.  Today we went to the Peak again for hiking.  We were walking out of breath on a very steep slope and a nice man seemed to have noticed that. So he tried to give us a boost by singing something with his high-pitched voice when he was walking some distance ahead of us with a woman. We were very grateful for the high-pitched man as we couldn't help laughing, which doesn't help us walk further, though. 

Dec 24, 2002 (Tue)

Christmas Eve

We still needed to go to work in the morning but I was already in a holiday mood and I sneaked time to buy film tickets in a long queue before going back to the office. We had a small-scaled, so-called X'mas party in the office and the focus was on the food - well, not bad, but some more varieties of food would make the party better. After work I tried to feel the atmosphere with my mom in Hong Kong by rubbing my shoulders with others' and risking being pressed like a pizza on a crowded street.

As the classic song 'Silent Night' suggests, I had a really quiet X'mas eve this year on my bed. zzz.....

Dec 25 - 29, 2002 (Wed - Sun)

Winter sleep

The highest level of being a small potato is you don't know what you've been doing!  All I knew was I slept as much as I could during this long holiday... zzz...

Dec 27, 2002 (Fri)

Who should be in his/her office?

My supervisor who was supposed to be on his official annual leave still showed up in the office and was looking for me, who was the one supposed to be in her office. Oh, no... 

Dec 31, 2002 (Tue)

Looking back on 2002

Usually at the end of a year, people like to reflect on what they've done over the past year and look ahead to the next year.  Me?  As you can imagine when I describe myself as 'a small potato', I don't think I've had any great achievement, for myself or for the whole society. Just did what a football fan and a fan of a local singer do.  Perhaps there was a little bit up and down - I returned to HK from the UK, I started working, then my plan to further study had to be deferred, my life's always dull and routine... and I'm glad to have made some new friends through my job and my participation in the activities involving Chris' fans...

This page was last updated on Saturday, 18 October 2003.

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