A Day in the Life
So I was passing by the office pantry on my way to the toilet and a sudden abundance of people in the pantry caught my eye. I looked in and there were actually four… count ‘em, four plumbers in the tiny 10 square-foot pantry trying to fix the leaky hot water spout.
One of them was on his hands and knees with a wrench in his hand, poking around like a hedgehog. Two of them were standing on either side of him, leaning in to take occasional peeks at his progress and provide him, I don’t know, moral support, and one of them was leaning casually against the door jamb talking about everything from politics to the weather.
It looked so much like a scene from one of those “How many electricians does it take –” jokes that I had to clap my hand to my mouth to prevent from laughing out loud.
AND after they left, the spout was still leaking.
Such government efficiency and economy, I say!
Later on, I was on the phone with some parents of clients and was speaking to them in Chinese and the conversation went something like this:
Me: “Erm, we need you to come down for this thing”
Random Chinese Speaking Parent: “What?”
Me: “Erm. You know. It’s this thing where we discuss this thing that your son attended.”
RCSP: “What?!”
Me: “Okay. You know, we need to improve this thing. So they want you to tell us about how we can improve this um… thing that your son went for. It’ll really only take an hour. It’s just talking about things.”
RCSP: “WHAT?!”
Me: (huffily) “I’ll call you back.”
Geraldine was laughing so hard I threw my pen cap at her.
My conversational Chinese is actually pretty good, contrary to what people think! It’s just that I don’t have the technical know-how to say words like “Focus Group Discussion” and “constructive criticism” and “Guidance Programme” (although since that disastrous fiasco, I’ve learnt, okay?). Beside, I’ll bet not many people can say those words in their second languages without learning them either.
It’s not like you pop out of the womb raring to talk policy and programmes!
The last thing that happened today (in no particular order, I might add), was that Geraldine and I were polishing an Anger Management proposal for one of the supervisors. We’ve been working on this… for lack of a better word… thing for over a week now and had finally got down to the finishing line and were just ending a paragraph on the last session of Anger Management which was supposed to be a therapeutic one.
I don’t honestly think all the kids are going to appreciate the things that we suggest, but we thought it was probably a better idea for them to experience something calming and happy as opposed to being preached to all the time. So Ding (because she says that’s her nickname) suggested allowing them to release balloons into the sky to symbolise letting go of resentment and temper, which I thought was a great idea.
Frankly, I was high on coffee and didn’t really care what I was doing so long as I got it out of my hands ASAP, so I typed something like, “And to end the session on a high note (in more ways than one), we will skip happily across the field, singing our happy songs, and let our balloons float away into the sky.”
Seriously.
To our boss.
I was just short of adding “and we will walk into the sunset, warm and fuzzy feelings in our hearts”.
“… on a high note (in more ways than one)”? What was I thinking?!
Oh well. At least you know if you see a group of ten boys and two girls attempting to look happy and irridescent while struggling over a marshy hill, in a place near town, with balloons in their hands, you’ll know our boss approved it.
Was that a completely pointless entry or what?
One of them was on his hands and knees with a wrench in his hand, poking around like a hedgehog. Two of them were standing on either side of him, leaning in to take occasional peeks at his progress and provide him, I don’t know, moral support, and one of them was leaning casually against the door jamb talking about everything from politics to the weather.
It looked so much like a scene from one of those “How many electricians does it take –” jokes that I had to clap my hand to my mouth to prevent from laughing out loud.
AND after they left, the spout was still leaking.
Such government efficiency and economy, I say!
Later on, I was on the phone with some parents of clients and was speaking to them in Chinese and the conversation went something like this:
Me: “Erm, we need you to come down for this thing”
Random Chinese Speaking Parent: “What?”
Me: “Erm. You know. It’s this thing where we discuss this thing that your son attended.”
RCSP: “What?!”
Me: “Okay. You know, we need to improve this thing. So they want you to tell us about how we can improve this um… thing that your son went for. It’ll really only take an hour. It’s just talking about things.”
RCSP: “WHAT?!”
Me: (huffily) “I’ll call you back.”
Geraldine was laughing so hard I threw my pen cap at her.
My conversational Chinese is actually pretty good, contrary to what people think! It’s just that I don’t have the technical know-how to say words like “Focus Group Discussion” and “constructive criticism” and “Guidance Programme” (although since that disastrous fiasco, I’ve learnt, okay?). Beside, I’ll bet not many people can say those words in their second languages without learning them either.
It’s not like you pop out of the womb raring to talk policy and programmes!
The last thing that happened today (in no particular order, I might add), was that Geraldine and I were polishing an Anger Management proposal for one of the supervisors. We’ve been working on this… for lack of a better word… thing for over a week now and had finally got down to the finishing line and were just ending a paragraph on the last session of Anger Management which was supposed to be a therapeutic one.
I don’t honestly think all the kids are going to appreciate the things that we suggest, but we thought it was probably a better idea for them to experience something calming and happy as opposed to being preached to all the time. So Ding (because she says that’s her nickname) suggested allowing them to release balloons into the sky to symbolise letting go of resentment and temper, which I thought was a great idea.
Frankly, I was high on coffee and didn’t really care what I was doing so long as I got it out of my hands ASAP, so I typed something like, “And to end the session on a high note (in more ways than one), we will skip happily across the field, singing our happy songs, and let our balloons float away into the sky.”
Seriously.
To our boss.
I was just short of adding “and we will walk into the sunset, warm and fuzzy feelings in our hearts”.
“… on a high note (in more ways than one)”? What was I thinking?!
Oh well. At least you know if you see a group of ten boys and two girls attempting to look happy and irridescent while struggling over a marshy hill, in a place near town, with balloons in their hands, you’ll know our boss approved it.
Was that a completely pointless entry or what?
She said, she said at 11:36 pm
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