Month: April 2006

April Flu’s

The cold that I picked up on Thursday is finally abating, just in time for the weather to warm up. Just about everything is budding, which just made my recovery that much longer. Saturday, I practically spent the entire day in bed – probably more than 15 hours of sleep. Amazingly, P hasn’t caught anything from me, probably because of the antibiotics she’s taking while recovering from her oral surgery.

The angry flood girl from upstairs finally got herself kicked out this weekend. Apparently she also wasn’t paying her share of the rent with the other woman in the apartment. Most of the afternoon was spent with her stomping up and down the stairs with her bags. Good riddance! Hopefully the flood waters will finally stop.

People

Busy weekend this HK.  Rugby Sevens happening and folks flying in from all over the place.  Still, it was efficient from the airport where they commandeered another bus to shuttle the folks to their hotels as they ran out.  I suppose one of these days I should be less lazy and just take the MTR to Hong Kong Station then transfer to the Fortress Hill Station which then is a 3 minute walk to City Garden Hotel.

After checking in, I took off for dinner at Times Square near the Causeway Bay MTR station. My coworkers and I ate at a Japanese place called Japanese Dining Sun which was quite nice (shop 1304, 13/F, Food Forum, Times Square, 1 matheson St, Causeway Bay, HK, +852-2506-1838).

3 of my staff and I ate dinner and chatted about the changes at work and me trying to understand what it is that they are thinking, worried about and like to change.  Of course going direct to the source to the people actually doing the work is the best way but at the same time, it seems that my managers are the ones who should be doing this.  All the same, I find that managing people, not the daily day-to-day stuff is the most difficult of challenges.  No longer am I doing hands-on work but concern with staff welfare, problem solving, lots of delegation is what preoccupies my time.  Bottom line is one can’t overcommunicate enough, to help morale during times of great change and ease consciences.

Now I’m on to the real work but I’ll try to wake up early to deal with it.  I think my days of working to 1 or 2am are coming to an end.

Good luck and good night.

Saturday!

One of the rare instances in which I post from Manhattan – at Alma Mater Undergrad for Dean’s Day – great lectures, and the wonderful easy access to the Internet that only higher institutions offer. Aah.

Watched Ang Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet” on DVD last night – his gay movie w/o the cowboys (I may not watch “Brokeback Mountain” more because it’s a Western than anything else; I’m not as conservative as my folks, and… well, I aim to be open-minded, that’s all good, right?). Anyway, an Asian American NYC story – with the World Trade Center skyline and lower Manhattan outlook (so pre-2001); Taiwanese culture; about family and love and friendship, even the pre-Brokeback era (the special features on the DVD has Ang Lee and co-writer/co-producer James Shamus talking so freely and relating to how the Ang Lee movies are really about universal stuff than anything else, if not also touching on Lee’s being inspired from his own life).

Yesterday: reading the NY Times articles by Jim Dwyer or watching the news on the release of the audiotapes of the 911 calls on 9/11. The historian in me understands the importance of such materials and how we cannot forget the past (and we better learn something from it). But, the human being in me feels such heartbreak – recalling that horrible morning and remembering that fellow human beings – there for work or what – were there in the towers and fate or other came in. I felt no less pained for the emergency operators – the helplessness, and the sadness they must have felt in wondering and fearing what was going on the other end of that telephone line. I wonder if it feels worse because it was here in the hometown. I wonder how, after almost five years later, it suddenly didn’t feel that long ago.