Merry Christmas

It will be Christmas in another 5 days! I will be in New York in 4 days! Yipee! So exciting! Christmas in New York and New Year in Boston and Niagara Falls! Keeping my fingers cross that it will snow on Christmas day. Or at least once when I'm up in the northeast. It must! It's so much colder than here in Houston! Of course, also keeping my fingers crossed that I won't be snowed in! Want to play with snow but not affect my travels.. Haa.. Wishful thinking.

Already ate 2 Christmas lunches with the company people. First one was last Wednesday - buffet lunch at Marriot. The mexican food was pretty nice and it had a superb salad bar... Dessert was so so. Still, ate 2 meals worth!

Second one was on Monday, where one of the directors treated to lunch at Backstreet Cafe. Food was great there. Appetiser was a fried green tomato salad - Yummy! Entree was a lagsana like vege torta (minus the tomato base) - Delicious! Dessert was warm moist chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream - Heaven! Second time here in US that I had such a good dessert. It was SOOOOOOO good! Sigh... It was a really fun lunch, all ~20 sat together in a private room with nice Christmas deco and everyone all cheery! Again I was so full, didn't had to eat dinner!

Today will be the same too! Haa.. later will be having Christmas potluck. Not bringing anything this time cos there's too much food already! (plus I don't have any idea). The list of dishes was super long! And everytime there's potluck... the food is always so good! I can have like 4 plates of food by just trying a bit of everything. And think.. I'm vegetarian, so already am missing out on some, but still... there's so much to eat! And everyone cooks so well! It's a bliss seeing and eating all the good food. Hmmm.... This should be the last of the season. 3 in 2 months... I'm lucky if I can still fit into my jeans!

Received quite a few presents from my colleagues too. Range from candies, chocolates to home-baked cookies and cheese logs! People here are so nice! G and I can't help but feel that we have to reciprocate with a little something. So we bought some cookie instant mix (hey.. I don't have proper blender!) and baked some cookies. Wrapped them in little festive bags and gave them out to the people we worked with. Was fun baking the cookies and felt good giving them away. Never really celebrated Christmas before, guess this is the first time. Used to think that it's a waste of $$ with all the presents to buy, but think I now kind of understand the idea behind. It's really a way of showing care and concern for your friends, family and colleagues. All the effort, time and $$ is all worth it when you see their faces lit up when they receive your present.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Too Much Security

Banks are getting more and more kiasee. Sigh... I guess if you look at things on the bright side, it's good. Additional protection to your assets. But sometimes too much measures makes it an overkill! Technology is suppose to simplify things, not complicate matters and make you life messier! It's not as if our lifes aren't complicated enough as it is, with the zillions of passwords to remember - emails, logins, pin numbers etc.. Hey, my brain isn't the size of Einstein's!

My first encounter with excessive security is here in US. Without a social security number (SSN-given to tax payers), it's so hard to get things done. Some banks don't even allow you to open an account with them. My bank - Bank of America, does thankfully. However, the transactions that I can do online is very limited with the lack of the SSN. E.g. I can't do fund transfers. So every month, G and I takes turns to go down to the banks personally to transfer our allowance to each other, and even then the maximum transfer without 2 forms of photo ID is $1000 only! Thankfully, I can at least still make bill payments online, which really helps in settling all the bills.

I thought that only US banks are excessively secure.. Guess I'm wrong. Singapore is heading the same way. Maybe because there are too many people with nothing better to do than to hack into bank websites or have evil minds phising your info. Singapore banks are starting to implement a 2nd security measure for internet banking. Essentially you are given a 'token' or via sms, you obtain an unique random one-time password that you have to key in after the login with your standard username and password. I.e. Now, you have to carry that darn 'token' thing everywhere you go if you wish to access your internet banking account on the go. To me, it kind of defeats the idea of internet banking. Wasn't internet banking created for the convenience of having banking services whereever and whenever you want (provided you have access to the internet of cos)? But now, without that darn 'token', you can't do anything! Maybe the idea of SMS password is still not too bad. At least most people have mobile phones (and often can't live without them), so now you just have to pray hard that your mobile communications provider has fast prompt SMS service! Hmm.. multi parameter requirements just to use internet banking. Yeesh.

Okay, I guess I'm crying out such a fuss because being here in US... I have no access to those tokens and SMS, unless my family mail them over. Worst thing is I have accounts with 3 different banks and I do regular money transfers between the accounts online. How convenient! Right now, I have no access to two of my accounts, hence I can't check if the money transfers went through properly. Who knows.. maybe my >$1000 transfer went into another person's pocket! Ahh...

In the Spirit of Christmas

Christmas is coming in another 2+ weeks. People say it's the season of giving, where you get gifts and presents for your loved ones, showing them your care and concern. But have you ever thought of giving to a stranger? I hope you have. I know donations tend to go up around festive seasons, which I think is really nice. However, beyond monetary gifts, have you ever thought of giving something really personal, like your BLOOD? Sad to say, the blood banks tend to suffer a drop in donors during the festive, as everyone gets busy with celebrations, but yet the demand is ever the same or even higher. So I think it's even more critical for people to make the effort to donate blood. If you are squeamish about blood, maybe you can sign up as a bone marrow or organ donor! It's just a prick on your finger to send some blood for testing.

Think some of you know that I'm a regular blood/plasma donor. It started with the first one when I was in JC. You know how the mobile donation drives go round to schools and community centers. It started there and I never turned back since. I'm not rich, so monetary donations are limited but my blood is free (kind of). And hey, it's kind of good for you, donating away some 'old' blood and get your body to make some fresh ones! There's some myth going round that if you start donating blood and don't do it regularly, you will go fat. Bulls***! I stopped for a year cos I had my ears pierced, but I never got any fatter (than I already am). So, don't hesitate. And it's really pretty painless. In SG, be thankful that you get an anesthetic shot before they put in the needle. All you feel is a little ant bite and then 10 minutes later, you can see and feel the warm red blood that you've generously donated. Oh, you get a coupon for drink and snack too! Hee.

I just (literally just) came back from the blood center of a hospital here. My colleague told me about this patient who is suffering from lukemia (blood cancer) and needs an infusion of white blood cells (WBC) due to an infection. So G and I offered to head down and be screened for it. After all, I'm due for my next blood donation.

WBC donation is a little trickier than normal blood donation. It requires the additional stimulation (a drug injection and oral medication the night before donation) of WBCs in your blood stream, so that the physician can collect enough for the patient. Basically during collection, blood comes out of one arm and then gets separated in a machine and the remaining plasma, red blood cells and platets goes back into you through the other arm. It takes a couple of hours and you have to lie with your arms outstretched and unmovable. Yaa.. it sounds kind of tough, but hey... I know my WBCs can make the patient a lot healthier, and I think that's all that matter.

I just passed the oral and physical screening (got to have big enough veins on both arms for the blood collection tubes). Now, just have to wait for the screening results. By tomorrow morning, I will know if I'm eligible to donate to the lukemia patient. Even if not, I will still just go down to the blood center and my whole blood. Hey.. it's Christmas after all!

Donate your blood!

Thanksgiving Chicago and Mizzou!

Okay. I've been really lazy. Took so long to upload pictures of my Thanksgiving trip to Chicago. But it's finally done. So enjoy!

The whole trip was fine. Wish we had more time to explore the city though. But most importantly, I met my dearest Sister and got to spend some time with her. That's us on the streets of Chicago on Thanksgiving day.

After SY and friends picked me up from the airport, we went to Chinatown for dim sum brunch. The queue was incredibly long and we waited like 2 hours before we got to sit down. Food was not bad. Chicago's Chinatown isn't impressive at all. In fact, kind of sad looking. I couldn't even find a nice picture to put up here.
Anyway, after that we took the subway downtown. Chicago's subway system is antique. Old and dingy.. the stations look like they were built in WWII or something. But it's a pretty comprehensive system, covering many areas. But damn.. it's old. Sure could do with some sprucing up.
Went walking around downtown. First stop was Millenium Park with the impressive Bean sculpture. Really nice idea I must say. It reflects of the skyline of Chicago and of cos, people take pictures of their reflections (and we of cos did that too!)
From there we just went wandering around the streets, looking at the architecture and Christmas deco, before we headed back for steamboat dinner!
2nd day was shopping day. It's called Black Friday in US. Suppose to have crazy sales that start at 5am in the morning and people queueing up from the night before. We were checking out the stacks of newpaper ads on deals... Of cos we weren't that crazy. Went to a huge mall in the late morning. Deals weren't that great actually. We all didn't buy much stuff. In fact, think the others had a better time at IKEA, which we went later. Dinner was a potluck session. It was a university friends gathering for 2 of the people in our group. That's our Chicago gang at the potluck session. Yup, I was with other Asians for the trip.. essentially Taiwanese..
3rd day was spent walking around downtown again. It was really a lot of walking. But the weather was so good.. It was very enjoyable. And Michigan lake is so huge.. Makes you feel like you are looking at the sea.
The Art Insitute of Chicago is a pretty famous attraction and supposingly have great collections of artworks. But didn't had the time to go in. The other picture is a look of Chicago streets from the Art Institute. Oh.. I like the lampposts on the streets! They are so cute.. bit victorian style.

Passed by a mobile puppet theatre. It's pretty cute and u can see that it picks kids' interests.
Lunch was at Gino's East. It's rivaling a couple of other restaurants over who's the first to serve Chicago's famous Deep dish pizza. It's basically pizza with lots of cheese, tomato and toppings. So it's bit thicker than the common ones and with a biscuity crust around the side. Pretty good but of cos one slice fills you up!
We walked down Michigan Mile which is kind of like Orchard Rd, with lots of brands, and of cos lots of people.
Then went to Navy Pier in the evening. It's like an amusement park area for the kids. There were Christmas celebrations going on, and Santa popped by on a ship! Manage to capture the night skyline of Chicago. Pretty huh.
4th day was spent travelling back to Columbia, Missouri where SY's home/school is. It was a 6+hours drive. Long but bearable.
Columbia is a typical university town. Peaceful. It's autumn, so trees were almost bald with yellow/orange/brown/red leaves all over. Pretty in a way. Spent my 5th morning wandering around the school and capturing some pictures. Hee.. the students there must have thought me to be really odd, going around taking pictures of trees and buildings.
That's Thomas Jefferson. He was so kind to let me lean against his shoulder for a little rest. Hee.
The university has it's own power plant! Amazing huh. Not hard to see that the school consumes a lot of electricity. Haa.
And oh.. finally.. a picture of my crazy interest in plant photography. Haa.. pretty little red berry like fruits on a leafless tree!
That pretty much concluded my Thanksgiving trip. Journey back was long and ardous though. Left Mizzou (Unviersity of Missouri) at 12.30pm, got home only at 9.30pm! 2.5 hours bus to St Louis airport, 2 hours waiting for flight, 3 hours flight, 1.5 hours back home from airport. Yeesh. Still, all the effort and money was worth it, cos got to see another city of US and of cos got to see my dearest friend.