Sandy's life as a small potato in Hong Kong (June, 2003)

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

June 2, 2003 (Mon)

Are old men the same?

Not in a good mood today. I was a bit late for work this morning and my colleagues were surprised as they used to see me working already when they entered the office. I was puzzled by the fact that my dad always lost his temper without reasons. After talking to my friends, I found that men seemed to behave in the same way - often lose temper, be stubborn, when they got older and had retired from work.

June 3, 2003 (Tue)

souvenir from Thailand

Got a souvenir from my elder brother and sister-in-law who had just returned from their honeymoon trip in Thailand.  It was stationery. Maybe because they knew I was going to be a student again and so thought it'd be useful for me?! 

June 5, 2003 (Thur)

Meeting old friends

Sometimes it's interesting that you do not meet your friends even when you live close to each other but when you do happen to meet one, then you'll meet many others as well.

Today I got a phone call from a friend of mine whom I do not always meet. She asked me to join her and another guy whom I hadn't met for at least ten years! So we had a drink in the evening and as my friend said, everything seemed to have happened a day before. What my friend told me reminded me how lucky I was to have a chance to do what I want to without much burden (e.g. study abroad).

When I got off the public transport, I didn't feel like going home and I took a walk in the shopping centre until most shops were closed. When I got to the bus stop, I happened to meet an old friend, who lives in the same building as me but seldom met me. Maybe that's fate?

June 7, 2003 (Sat)

The stupid girl

I was quite stupid today. I had been busy checking out air tickets these days and I couldn't concentrate on my work. I found it tiring to check with different travel agents for the best deal. I was so tired of calling this agent and that agent that I just wanted to pick any agent, any airline and then pay the money.

As I wanted to get the thing done as soon as possible so that I could concentrate on my work and my preparation for the trip to the UK, I rushed to a travel agent this afternoon. Some of my friends had referred travel agents to me for the air tickets but in the end was attracted by the cheap single ticket to Manchester mentioned by the travel agent. When I arrived at the agency, the consultant said that cheap ticket was a group ticket and it couldn't be confirmed until one day prior to the departure. So he recommended a return ticket by another airline and I agreed to buy it. But I forgot the quoted price didn't include the taxes and when I remember to ask him about the taxes, it was too late as the booking had been made!  I felt cheated as I was charged more than HK$1000 for the taxes (for a return trip, although I didn't think I'd come back to HK)... I should be careful next time!

June 10, 2003 (Tue)

Small help

Got a nice bag from a friend of mine as my farewell present. I was very, very grateful to her and even felt I owed her a lot and so when she asked me to help her friend to borrow a book from the university library, I had no hesitation and thought her request was really nothing considering how much she had done for me.

June 13, 2003 (Fri)

Who are good friends?

Had a farewell dinner with two girls with whom I made good friends in this office. Although I didn't see one of them very often as she had worked on a part-time basis and her part-time contract had already ended, we could talk a lot every time we met and I had a feeling that we had been friends for a long time. She was one of the persons who had given me a lot of encouragement to my study.

June 14, 2003 (Sat)

Be a little fan again...

Got tickets to a radio show involving Chris & Hins and many other singers for medical organisations for rewarding their unselfish contributions to the war against SARS.  And had a chance to meet all those fans of Chris whose face I was familiar with.  Would it be the last show I attended before I was flying to the UK?

Met a CU classmate of mine whom I hadn't seen for ages since graduation as he was submitting his thesis to our general office. Maybe it was the fate?!  If my friend hadn't helped me to get a ticket to the show mentioned above, if I had decided not to go, if I had not come back to the office because of the bad rainy weather this morning, I wouldn't have had met my university classmate.

June 15, 2003 (Sun)

MP3 player

Planned to buy an MP3 player but after checking with different shops for different models, I decided not to buy until later.  And later I even didn't need to pay... (see below)

June 16, 2003 (Mon)

A great brother

What a coincidence that my eldest brother asked me if I liked to have an MP3 player as a farewell gift after I had decided to delay my purchase (but I hadn't known he was going to buy me one).  Sometimes I felt like I was a spoilt by the people around me and they had always been so nice to me. Thought I shouldn't let them down and gotta study hard in the UK...

June 17, 2003 (Tue)

Beckham for Real Madrid

Busy with different things lately in preparation for my trip to the UK and made phone calls to friends for gatherings.

Beckham moved from Manchester United for Read Madrid.  I had never thought ManUtd would sell Beckham as he was so 'valuable' in the market and a big football like Manutd definitely wouldn't let him go. But nothing is impossible. In such highly mobile society, it's very unlikely a person will stay and work in an organisation forever. There's a day they'll leave it. It's especially the case in the football world nowadays.  There'd be much less chance to see Beckham play in England (besides the international games).  Maybe from today onward I gotta save money for a trip to Spain.

June 18, 2003 (Wed)

Dinner of four 'Little' flowers

Had lunch with my supervisor today and got to know more about him through our chat. So grateful for his full trust in me.

Had dinner with three of my secondary school classmates, listened to one of them who talked about her job, which was a totally different world to my academic environment.

June 21, 2003 (Sat)

Lunch in a Russian restaurant

Please click here to read details about our lunch and the restaurant.

June 22, 2003 (Sun)

Autograph

I hadn't been a crazy fan for a while since Chris' concerts last year.  Perhaps because I knew I wouldn't have a lot of chance to do this after I started my study in the UK, I grasped this opportunity to get an autograph of my favourite singer, Hins.  Chris would also be present but wouldn't sign for the CDs that the album company wasn't trying to sell. Perhaps because both Hins & Chris worked for the same album company, they were quite often seen in the same function.

The autograph function was held in a very small shopping centre. Most of the people who got tickets to get an autograph were youngsters; there might be a few middle-aged men. I was a bit nervous but also excited. After I had got Hins sign on the CD and poster, I asked a fan to help me take a photo of Hins and me (but unfortunately no photo was taken, which I found out later).  Chris came out of a passage to the carpark and walked past me (!). Too bad that he didn't sign for the CD or I'd definitely go crazy! :P 

June 23, 2003 (Mon)

The memories of CU schooldays

Hadn't had dinner with my CU classmates for long. In fact I didn't have much contact with them. But I was glad to dine out with two of my CU classmates and we had a nice dinner. We weren't close when we were studying at CU but it wasn't important and we still had a nice evening. :)  My departure for the UK seemed to give me chances to meet people whom I hadn't met before!

June 26, 2003 (Thur)

Hey, gals, you're too nice to me!!

I always thought my job was a gift from God coz he let me get to know a kind supervisor and a group of friendly colleagues. A few colleagues of mine bought me karaoke lunch today and they seemed to know, without me telling them, what my favourite food was - cheesecake. I was too shy to sing a song while they showed their talents in singing (I did think they sang much better than some young singers!).  When they put a cheesecake on the table, I felt very touched; I already felt grateful for their treating me lunch and now they bought me one of the most delicious food in the world! Oh, no word could describe my feeling at that moment!!

June 27, 2003 (Fri)

HKU

Too many people I feel I owe a deep gratitude.  My former supervisors at HKU are definitely on the list for my acknowledgement (if I got a chance to publish something!). Without them, I doubt if I would have worked in the academic field. Anyway, I had a short meeting with them.  I always think they are more like my friends than supervisors even in the time when I was working for them.

In the evening I had dinner with another person whom I met during my work at HKU.  She hadn't changed much and looking at both of us, I thought it was as if we still worked in the same office yesterday.

June 28, 2003 (Sat)

One-day trip to Shen Zhen

The past year has changed my views on China and the people there, which were not as negative as before and I got to know more about them. Partly because of my friend who lived in Shen Zhen and who always showed us around. This time besides tasting different kinds of food I bought a lot of books in the Book City which were much much cheaper than those sold in Hong Kong (which is why HK people like to do shopping there).

June 29, 2003 (Sun)

My family

It has been a busy week for me as every evening I had dinner with different friends. But I didn't feel tired as I did enjoy every meeting. After all, I haven't met my friends for a long time and the feeling about seeing them again was good. I started believing I was a talkative person as I enjoyed talking with and listened to people of different background with different experience.

This evening I had dinner with a group of CU friends whom we got to know in a college O' Camp. A question arose in my mind then: Is it more likely that women can keep their look and body shape?  Because they are more conscious of any change in their weight? I had this question when I saw how big the changes my male friends had in terms of their size... There have been some changes to each of us, besides the weight, e.g. some have got married and one of them was expecting her second child.  We hadn't updated each other with our news for a long time, which inspired me to create a website for them... (hope I can make it later).

My family is definitely another gift from god.  They have been supporting my decision to continue my study. And my two elder brothers gave me different presents during our family lunch.  Especially my elder brother. I think he's changed a lot since he met his wife. :)  His change is something good to me. Hehe...

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

Copyright © 2000 - 2003 - Sandy Lo has the "property rights" of this homepage. All rights reserved.