they suck!

 

(that's it.  they just do.  those greedy bastards, who refused, on several occasions, to reverse late charges when i was just a day late, can keep my money.  i've stopped using my cibc visa, and hereby boycotting interaction with anyone affiliated with cibc visa).

 

i'll start with my most recent rant, on gunther von hagen's bodyworlds exhibit and my friend's comment that it was a bit weird:

 

 

i know i've abandoned blogging a while back for facebook, and i won't go back to regular updates (seriously, who the f cares, right? lol), but now that i have more 'friends' than i care to know (literally) on facebook and as i consider 'limited profile'ing a bunch of these 'friends', i'll start blogging again, but on a very irregular basis.

 

so, now that i'm a public servant, i often have gobs of time on my hands.  my workload started out 'feast or famine', which is fine - i prefer working that way, but now i'm actually good at my job, it's been a very long prolonged period of drought.  so that has led me to email my friends a lot more, which invariably leads to some long, random rants.  so that's what i'll do for now, post a few of these (often uncaled for) bouts of verbal diarrhea.

 

 

By William Easterly

 

July 6, 2007

 

JUST WHEN IT SEEMED that Western images of Africa could not get any weirder, the July 2007 special Africa issue of Vanity Fair was published, complete with a feature article on "Madonna's Malawi." At the same time, the memoirs of an African child soldier are on sale at your local Starbucks, and celebrity activist Bob Geldof is touring Africa yet again, followed by TV cameras, to document that "War, Famine, Plague & Death are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and these days they're riding hard through the back roads of Africa."

 

It's a dark and scary picture of a helpless, backward continent that's being offered up to TV watchers and coffee drinkers. But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.

 

Let's begin with those rampaging Four Horsemen. Do they really explain Africa today? What percentage of the African population would you say dies in war every year? What share of male children, age 10 to 17, are child soldiers? How many Africans are afflicted by famine or died of AIDS last year or are living as refugees?

 

In each case, the answer is one-half of 1% of the population or less. In some cases it's much less; for example, annual war deaths have averaged 1 out of every 10,800 Africans for the last four decades. That doesn't lessen the tragedy, of course, of those who are such victims, and maybe there are things the West can do to help them. But the typical African is a long way from being a starving, AIDS-stricken refugee at the mercy of child soldiers. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.

 

Further distortions of Africa emanate from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's star-studded Africa Progress Panel (which includes the ubiquitous Geldof). The panel laments in its 2007 news release that Africa remains "far short" of its goal of making "substantial inroads into poverty reduction." But this doesn't quite square with the sub-Saharan Africa that in 2006 registered its third straight year of good GDP growth — about 6%, well above historic averages for either today's rich countries or all developing countries. Growth of living standards in the last five years is the highest in Africa's history.

 

The real Africa also has seen cellphone and Internet use double every year for the last seven years. Foreign private capital inflows into Africa hit $38 billion in 2006 — more than foreign aid. Africans are saving a higher percentage of their incomes than Americans are (so much for the "poverty trap" of being "too poor to save" endlessly repeated in aid reports). I agree that it's too soon to conclude that Africa is on a stable growth track, but why not celebrate what Africans have already achieved?

 

Instead, the international development establishment is rigging the game to make Africa — which is, of course, still very poor — look even worse than it really is. It announces, for instance, that Africa is the only region that is failing to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs in aid-speak) set out by the United Nations. Well, it takes extraordinary growth to cut extreme poverty rates in half by 2015 (the first goal) when a near-majority of the population is poor, as is the case in Africa. (Latin America, by contrast, requires only modest growth to halve its extreme poverty rate from 10% to 5%.)

 

This is how Blair's panel managed to call Africa's recent growth successes a failure. But the reality is that virtually all other countries that have escaped extreme poverty did so through the kind of respectable growth that Africa is enjoying — not the kind of extraordinary growth that would have been required to meet the arbitrary Millennium Development Goals.

 

Africa will also fail to meet the second goal of universal primary education by 2015. But this goal is also rigged against Africa, because Africa started with an unusually low percentage of children enrolled in elementary school. As economist Michael Clemens points out, most African countries have actually expanded enrollments far more rapidly over the last five decades than Western countries did during their development, but Africans still won't reach the arbitrary aid target of universal enrollment by 2015. For example, the World Bank condemned Burkina Faso in 2003 as "seriously off track" to meet the second MDG, yet the country has expanded elementary education at more than twice the rate of Western historical experience, and it is even far above the faster educational expansions of all other developing countries in recent decades.

 

Why do aid organizations and their celebrity backers want to make African successes look like failures? One can only speculate, but it certainly helps aid agencies get more publicity and more money if problems seem greater than they are. As for the stars — well, could Africa be saving celebrity careers more than celebrities are saving Africa?

 

In truth, Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs, democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.

 

The real Africa needs increased trade from the West more than it needs more aid handouts. A respected Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda, made this point at a recent African conference despite the fact that the world's most famous celebrity activist — Bono — was attempting to shout him down. Mwenda was suffering from too much reality for Bono's taste: "What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?" asked Mwenda.

 

Perhaps Bono was grouchy because his celebrity-laden "Red" campaign to promote Western brands to finance begging bowls for Africa has spent $100 million on marketing and generated sales of only $18 million, according to a recent report. But the fact remains that the West shows a lot more interest in begging bowls than in, say, letting African cotton growers compete fairly in Western markets (see the recent collapse of world trade talks).

 

Today, as I sip my Rwandan gourmet coffee and wear my Nigerian shirt here in New York, and as European men eat fresh Ghanaian pineapple for breakfast and bring Kenyan flowers home to their wives, I wonder what it will take for Western consumers to learn even more about the products of self-sufficient, hardworking, dignified Africans. Perhaps they should spend less time consuming Africa disaster stereotypes from television and Vanity Fair.

 

 

i have nothing against 'raising awareness' for a good cause, nor do i not think that the environment is a good cause.  but what i am against is hypocracy.

 

i'd been traveling for two weeks so i'd been out of the current events loop.  so when i switched on to cnn the other day and saw the piece on the live earth concerts, i could hardly believe it.  i mean seriously, jetting stars around the world to hold mega concerts for the sake of the environment.. i don't think i need to point out what is bleedingly obviously wrong with that sentence.  to be honest, i haven't looked into what this whole live earth thing is about really, but i doubt the details will devoid my arguments here.

 

i've always hated these benefit concerts that are supposed to raise awareness.  in the end, a handful of self-indulgent teens might walk away knowing something that they should have learnt already in school had they paid more attention, and find a way to egocentrically wrap the flag-du-jour around themselves.  the rest of the concert-goers couldn't care less, but will walk away feeling good about themselves.  and the promoters and the stars (like the shamelessly preachy tax-avoiding fradulent bono - i swear i'm going to punch the next guy who thinks that asshole should be given the nobel peace prize) will feel ever more self-righteous.

 

but doing this to help the environment, that's going too far, don't you think?  who, with the ability to purchase a ticket to attend such a concert, has not heard of the need to protect the environment?

 

before al gore's movie came out, i was all for the kyoto accord, reducing emissions, etc.  but since the whole 'inconvenient truth' phenom, public opinion has gone waaaay too far to the extreme.  what's wrong with that?  plenty, if energy, effort, and money is redirected from much more relevant and needy causes to a bunch of moronic schemes in the name of 'climate change' which will, in the long-run, hurt the environment even if they do, technically, reduce emission.  that's exactly what's been happening, and that's exactly what is wrong with these concerts.

 

people are not willing to make real sacrifices, that's the truly inconvenient truth.  the 3 r's - reduce, reuse, recycle - are in that order for a reason.  recycling should be the last resort - much of what is thrown in the recycling bin still ends up in the landfill, and what does get recycled takes a considerable energy/water/etc to be recycled.  but recycling makes ppl feel good about themselves while maintaining their spending habits, and that's why you have ppl taking it up as such a passionate cause, with a 'fucking recycle, it's not that hard' group on facebook, but nothing similar for 'reduce' or 'reuse'.

 

i don't think that the promoters, in this case, are frauds - i think they genuinely believe in what they are saying.  but maybe that's what makes this extra tragic.  that the earth has come to a point where a mega self-congratulatory orgy-fest is held in the name of its health is sad enuf; that ppl see nothing wrong with this and that they actually believe that this is what is required to raise the awareness of today's youths, that's indeed a sad, sorry state that a songwriter can only aspire to portray.

 

and specifically, facebook, has sucked up whatever free time i have had to updating it instead of this blog.  and since it's sooo much easier to update there than here (have i mentioned how much i think microsoft sucks fro making this site so shitty?  oh yes, i think i have, on numerous occasions) i'm gonna limit my updating to facebook, and just keep this blog for my random rants and as a photo depository.

 

so to keep informed of my happenings (or non-happenings), sign up.  it's not just for college freshmen anymore!  :)

 

and also i must urge everyone, whether i know you or not, to join linkedin.com.  this is a 'serious', more grown-up networking site, and this one might actually help me find a job, so the more ppl there are online, and in particular my 'network', the better!

 

finished the bulk of my 'econometric study' for my thesis, awaiting comments and a meeting with my supervisor, but i'm hoping (naively counting on?) that there won't be too much overhauling to do, and so i don't really have that that much left to do!

 

that and one more exam, 1 wk + 1 day from today, and then i'll be done done done!  (but graduation ceremony's in sep, tho i heard the 'ceremony' sucks ass, just like the school).

 

wow, not sure it's gonna sink in until, well, i'm on my way to my various sun-spot destinations in june. :)  consult updated travel list on left.

 

only other big news, and the only travel news, this past wkend went up to lüneburg for the wedding of a couple of friends.  was super-sweet, since i was there (literally, across the table at dinner 3 yrs ago) when they first started falling for each other.

 

alright, that's it, just to say that i'm alive.

 

note to hye: congrats on graduating!  and u know i woulda helped u move if i were there.  in fact, if u move back to gva, i'll help u unpack!  only caveat is that i'd have to be in town. :)

 

if you know me then you know that i like to do things very quickly.  i walk (too) fast, talk fast, work fast, etc.  my penchant for eating junk food is not for the taste but for the speed - walk in, order, and wolf down a meal in 15 min.  i think of it as a virtue.  i do 'stop and smell the roses', and believe u me, i know how to be lazy.  but it's a conscious decision, to turn off the 'productivity' switch and just relax. (hey, i'm a robot, i know).

 

not usually impatient tho, (except perhaps when i'm behind the wheel), but sometimes when i really am in a hurry and i'm running on turbo speed, i can get pissed off at the world.  today was such a day, when all i wanted to do was pop into the grocery store (have to cuz sunday everything's closed) to pick up a few things and hop on the bus.  20 minutes to do that.  "no problem!" thought i.  needless to say, i ended up missing my bus.

 

problem is that this is switzerland, so everybody and his dog (literally, dogs go EVERYWHERE with their owners) is out shopping today.  so huge crowds, long queue.  as i'v said before, the swiss just doesn't know how to behave properly in crowds.  'don't leave ur bloody cart in the middle of the aisle blocking everyone!' i'd like to scream.  but then my voice would be hoarse from having to say that a gazillion times in between the cheese section and the.. other cheese sections.  they move about as quickly as the checkout clerks work, which is to say that they would put glaciers to shame.

funnily enuf, this study on how quickly ppl from around the world came out a couple of days ago.  ranked at the top, singapore (and by correlation, hk probably ranks up there too - it wasn't surveyed).  near the bottom, switzerland.

 

in fact, the bottom of the list consists of malawi (nothing to work for, so no need to hurry) and many middle eastern countries (the oil's not going anywhere).  like them, the swiss needs not hurry (there'll always be money-laundering to be done) because they don't really need to work - they don't care about having to sell you things, cuz they already go enuf $$ in the bank.   operating a business seems to be a hobby that they do cuz they have to but that they actually loathe, and 'sales maximization' is by no means a consideration.  hence the store hours and the shitty service.

 

sadly, unlike developing countries where ppl take their time to be happy, the swiss take their time to bitch and complain and be miserable, and try to make others different from them even more miserable.

 

yes, i'm being unfair and generalizing in my swiss-bashing, but dammit i missed my bus!

 

anyway, the full list:

1) Singapore (Singapore)
2) Copenhagen (Denmark)
3) Madrid (Spain)
4) Guangzhou (China)
5) Dublin (Ireland)
6) Curitiba (Brazil)
7) Berlin (Germany)
8) New York (U.S.)
9) Utrecht (Netherlands)
10) Vienna (Austria)
11) Warsaw (Poland)
12) London (United Kingdom)
13) Zagreb (Croatia)
14) Prague (Czech Republic)
15) Wellington (New Zealand)
16) Paris (France)
17) Stockholm (Sweden)
18) Ljubljana (Slovenia)
19) Tokyo (Japan)
20) Ottawa (Canada)
21) Harare (Zimbabwe)
22) Sofia (Bulgaria)
23) Taipei (Taiwan)
24) Cairo (Egypt)
25) Sana (Yemen)
26) Bucharest (Romania)
27) Dubai (United Arab Emirates)
28) Damascus (Syria)
29) Amman (Jordan)
30) Bern (Switzerland)
31) Manama (Bahrain)
32) Blantyre (Malawi)

 

the two french presidential candidates are wrapping up their debate.  seems like everyone in geneva actually cares and is watching it.  several tv channels are broadcasting it live, including MTV.  !!

 

that's rather amazing to me really.  sure, swiss politics is inconsequential (rotating presidency, referenda ad nausea) and france is about 10x the size of switz, and most ppl in geneva are french or have french passport.  but stilll, i consider myself pretty keen on politics, but i never found it worthwhile to watch any cdn prime ministerial debates, and sure as hell i never bothered to watch US presidential debates.

 

been avoiding the debate the whole nite, but now ran out of things to watch on tv.  i couldn't care less.  well actually, i do care, but since i'm not french, i have no personal stake in this.  if i could vote, i'd probably abstain.  would be hard to force myself to choose between an unapologetic xenophobe who'll lead the world to take a giant step backwards with his clash-of-civilizations approach to the islamic world, vs an incompetent undecisive moron who'll lead the world to take a giant step backwards with her pandering to nationalist sentiments in her own ways and her ready arsenal of hair-brained ideas.  she's babbling about boycotting the beijing olympics as i type.  my eye sockets do not allow me to roll my eyes far enuf back..

 

i'm glad that i don't have to make this choice.  but, as a 'global citizen' watching this (for now still) powerful G7, P5 nation choose between these 2, i can't help but feel rather sad, and worried.

 

a few wks back, easyjet had a sale.  realizing that i had to go somewhere for easter, i looked for the cheapest destination, which was amsterdam.  bought a one-way ticket this time tho, with the aim to travel back by train - the way ppl used to travel around europe before the discount airlines!  i'v seen a fair bit of urban europe, need to see more of rural europe (still haven't been to tuscany or provence, for example).

 

i had a guidebook.  but where in the countryside should i go?  so many choices.  so this is where the unesco world heritage site list was helpful (after this trip i'm closing in on 10% - read my earlier post on my unesco hunting).  some turned out to be a great idea, like the kinderdijk windmills, but others left me wondering, how the frig can that be considered of importance to *world* heritage, like the little palace in bruehl.

 

aside from the unesco sites, the other main countryside siteseeing  was the flower fields of holland.  didn't realize that it was this time of year until after i bought the ticket!  so i decided that i had to check out the flowers - and i ended up renting a bike for half a day.  refused to go to the kuchenhof - not paying €11 just to battle off tourists to try to see flowers.. much rather do my own flower-field finding trip.  and it was great!

 

on my way south, wanted to hit Gouda - which apparently doesn't rhyme with 'buddha', but more like 'chowder' with a boston accent. and the 'g' is more like a really throaty 'h'.  anyways, the train trajectory wouldn't have worked/made sense.  so i continued on to kinderdijk, with the 18 or so windmills, with the sun low on the horizon.. that was beautiful.

 

spent the second nite in antwerp (first nite, wed nite, was in amsterdam, landed in the late afternoon).  while rural netherlands turned out to be what i had thot switzerland would be like - clean, quaint, architecturally harmonious buildings - belgium was, all of a sudden, much more dirty and gritty.  antwerp, outside of the old town, was dirty in parts, fairly run down for the most part, with quite a few dodgy-looking areas.  the newly renovated train station looked super modern tho, and nicely blended with the old shell of the building.

 

3rd nite, in cologne.  got to see it in a more normal state, and not during carnival like my last trip there.  then made my way to stuttgart for the 4th nite before coming back.  originally was going to cut thru the black forest and come back via basel, but because i was enjoying my appel strudel with ice cream and big cup of coffee in the sunshine a little too much, i missed my train. lol  so ended up skirting the black forest, cutting thru rottweil, of the dog's fame, and entering switzerland in schaffhausen.

 

and actually, there was a 5th nite - from schaffhausen, i went to lausanne for a 8-hr party-til-dawn layover. :))  finally hopped into bed close to 11am.  that must be a record, even for me. needless to say, the rest of easter monday was spent in bed. hehe

 

 

at the urging of hye, who also just turned 29, i'm updating my blog.  (hey fyi, i'm VERY busy at work.  tho it's true i don't normally 'work' at work, i have only 2 weeks left (yay!!) so i do have to put in a bit of an effort to produce something.  and i usually use 'work' time to prepare my english lesson plans, or plan my vacations, or do homework, research on various pertinent topics on wikipedia and imdb, etc etc..)  but since i'v been reading up on her turning 29, guess i should do the same. :)

 

so, on turning 29.

 

not a big deal really.  turning the big 3-0 is probably gonna be rough.  but then again, 25 wasn't a big deal at all for me.  27 was for some reason (i have my theories).  so the last 2 wkends i'v been proving to myself that i'm still young enuf to party hardy.  but, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, oh lordy, i paid for it yesterday.  had to override my aching body to get my ass out of bed to start cleaning the apartment (inspection on tuesday) and to do homework.  could not have been prouder of myself if i had climbed mt everest.

 

so what of these party weekends?

 

this past weekend:

friday nite - had a 'potence' dinner, whereby chunks of meat are served on a spiky thing dangling from a metal contraption (will have pix on my flickr site soon, but for now, google image 'potence viande') and set on fire.  flaming meat on a chain, how could i refuse?? lol  after that, was a farewell party for another intern saira, then dragged my friend sophia's sorry ass out of the house to go to shakers.  left fairly early, got to bed around 4.

saturday - woke up.. too early, to head into town to meet up with tensin and eric and their friend jolene to head to the mountains.  snow wasn't the best but was still pretty decent.  realized that this may be the last time i'm in the mtns this season so i went a bit crazy, fell hard a few times - made worse after a lunch that consisted of a few pounds of melted cheese.  but it was a super gorgeous day.  got home, tried to nap but only got in an hr's worth, then headed over to jason and dave's for a pre-party, and within their friend's entourage was.. 'someone from my past', let's just say.  so the party was great, but i was too tired to enjoy it as much.  got to bed a little bit after 6.

 

which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that i had a busy week and didn't get to recoup from the wkend before:

friday nite - opening of 'lady godiva pub' where mike is business partner but not part owner?  not sure about the arrangement.. anyhow, big huge opening party, lots of ppl i hadn't seen in a while, a few ppl i didn't particularly want to see, and met a few cool ppl that hopefully will get to hang out with more in the future.

saturday - woke up SUPER early to catch my 30 min tram ride to place des nation to catch the fucking 7.30am ski bus with the international ski club of gva!  did the bus leave on time?  no.  did the driver drive fast?  hell no!  did we arrive at the slope early? no.  fuck fuck fuck!  but anyway, it was a fantastic day, cuz it'd been snowing 2 days straight, and there was fresh pow to be had!!  i found this one mountain with only 1 slow double chair, and stayed there for a couple of hours carving up the powder (not exactly fresh trax but still, only substantial powder day i'v had since i left canada).  then realized that i had to make my way back to the bus on an empty stomcah (went straight thru lunch), and riding on fresh snow after a quiet season and having not done it for a while was extremely tiring.  i barely made it back to the bus in time.  but did everyone else get back to the the bus on time?  no.  did the bus leave even close to on time?  no.  swiss precision my arse.  had time to basically rush home, shower, change, then head to my joint birthday party with greg and rachel.  and it was a girl sarah's farewell as well (met her once at a pub crawl, bumped into her at fnac just days before).

 

the party: it was awesome! i don't (or didn't) normally celebrate my birthday, but since last year when i organized my own party and had lots of fun, i decided to make it big (hence the joint party) and invited almost everyone.  i'm swearing by joint parties now.. you're surrounded by ppl you already know but you also get to meet so many new ppl who you know cannot be THAT scary/creepy/crazy cuz they're your friend's friends.  i got there (lady godiva, again, 2 nites in a row - booked that place precisely because of the mike connection) early to help set up, but no one was there, and mike was busy in the kitchen prepping the finger foods (which tasted and looked great!  damn my camera and its dead battery.. annalisa took a few pix, but only of ppl so they'll be on my flickr site soon).  at that time everyone in the pub was watching the soccer match, and there were a couple of tables of random ppl eating in the reserved area.  was on the verge of flipping out.. where was everyone?!  but shortly after 9 ppl started showing up, including greg and the supplies, and it was all good.  lots of ppl showed up, felt a bit bad that i wasn't able to flutter around more to spend enuf time with everyone, but believe me, i appreciated everyone who came!!  especially the ones who kept on shoving beers in my face. lol  was pretty tipsy by the time i got to shakers, and almost as soon as i walked in ulli gave me a shaker full of alcohol, and that did it for me.  didn't get ill, so (pardon the econo-talk) it was a 'soft landing' in terms of my super dunkenness. lol

 

my present haul: fnac gift certs (from different ppl, so maybe i was spotted all those times i thot i was book/cd/movie browsing by myself), chocolate, homemade yummy 'almond burfi', a scarf, more chocolate, cash (a boy's best friend!), a dvd, herbal tea..  so thank you thank you thank you, to all of you who read this.

 

on the nite of THE day itself - it was my officemate bjorn's farewell, and also a few other interns weren't able to go to my party so i celebrated with them at alhambar.  got a UN coffee mug and nescafe gold deluxe instant coffee (inside joke), so that was very cool.  and bjorn also gave me a beer that said 'lagerbier hell'.  apparently 'hell' means light in german.  in any case, it was very good (for you see, he's from munich, ie. bavaria, ie. oktoberfest, ie. beer in their blood, ie...).  so if that's hell, then maybe i should convert to christianity (cuz god knows i'm going to hell anyway! lol)

 

so voilà.  aside from the partying and the snowboarding, been fairly busy at work, 'work', school, and looking for but (so far still) not applying for jobs.  and another farewell - for will from forgot-the-name-of-the-town, ontario, who's now in china.  so that was a bit sad even tho i didn't hang out with him that regularly.  and it was also nice to catch up with our mutual canadian friends.  and i guess just lots of catching up in general with ppl i hadn't talked to in a while.  shouting superficial pleasantries over loud music at a party is one thing, sitting down over coffee/beer/lunch and having a real talk, that's another thing.  but a very very time consuming thing at that.  and maybe that's an age thing, but seems that as i get older, quality is overruling quantity.  i'v gotten good at 'quantity', but 'quality' i need to work on.  and to work on finding time to work on.

 

and seeing as how i still haven't found the space-time-continuum pause button, i will have to be more anti-social and focus more on life.  wait, that sounds familiar.. oh yeah, my new year's resolution, that had kinda fallen by the wayside.  but interesting how reflections on rolling into 2007 came to the same conclusion as reflections on rolling into 29.

 

hmm, consistency.  maybe that's another sign that i'm growing up?

 

k, this entry is a race against the clock.  have about 5 min before i officially turn 29 (officially as in by local time.  by time of place of birth, i'm already 29, tho i was born in the afternoon so technically, i'll still be 28 well into the morning..)

 

anyhow, since last blog:

 - visitor: cousin came and visited, took her around gva, then she went off to verbier with her friends for a week of skiing.  she's australian (not known for their snow) so was good to get an email from her today saying that she's back in london, and survived the swiss alps. :)

 - 12 hr thesis: handed in the first draft of my thesis.  did it in 12 hrs.  not bad, eh?  i said that i'm getting emboldened by my ability in rushing in decent-enuf-quality things at the last minute.  jason says i'm just getting cocky.  i think he's right. lol

 - snowboarding: may have noticed the new pix i'v put up.  hit the slopes twice in a week!  first time since i left canada!  went to chamonix last wed - cannot believe that i hadn't been until last week!  cute little town, beautiful scenary, great slopes, still-decent snow.  then on saturday went (again) to avoriaz.  more snow than the last time, and discovered the whole back-side.  very nice.  if i'm still here next yr, will definitely try to hit that up again after fresh snow

 - swiss countryside: gruyere, of cheese fame, is only 2 hrs away, and again, can't believe i haven't visited it til i went on sunday, with ming and andy and two of their visitors.  cute tiny little old village.  the chateau was a bit hokey inside, and the giger museum (celebrating the town's most famous son HR Giger, who won an oscar for comin gup with the alien in the movies Alien) was .. let's just say more than a little bizarre, especially its place in the middle of this old ancient town on a hill.  the bar just across the street, just as bizarre.  pix to come.

 

ok, 11:59. time's up.

 

ok i suck.  i'm not answering emails, which is normal, but i'm not even updating my blog, which i started so that i don't have to answer emails. lol

 

so here we go, quick update time (which coincidentally is also cram-time to rush in the first draft of my thesis for next monday.  progress thus far: 0 pages)

 

the big thing that happened over the last month of course was chinese new year, which, this year, didn't happen for me.  i forgot to look up when cny was gonna be, and my friend told me back in dec that it's end of jan (thx a lot ming!), and i shoulda known better than to believe things that come out of her mouth.  in any case, because of that in early jan, i booked myself to go somewhere every other week in feb.  THEN i found out that cny was feb 18, the day after i arrive in cologne from venice.  so, i spent the most non-traditional cny of my entire life.  but no matter, it was super fun.

 

so i missed out on some of the festivities that mike had planned in GVA, and seeing as how it was carnival in cologne, any sort of cny celebration would not have had any chances of being visible!  i did pop in to a chinese fast-food place, ordered in chinese (cuz i had to!  ich nein sprechen deutsch, remember?) and got a 同胞 (compatriot) discount. :)

 

the following wkend tho, back in gva, sophia and patsy threw an awesome cny party at l'orangerie (a local bar/lounge-cum-club once ppl like me start dancing on the bar and benches), and that made up for it - was back in partying form after a long hibernation from the gang (tho i had to leave early the next morn so i was already gone by 1).  AND, as a present, from virginia who had just gotten back from a trip to hk, i got 牛肉乾 (chinese beef jerky.. mmm sweet meat) !!  that stuff's like crack, and i'm surprised that i haven't completely devoured the whole box!  V - love you for smuggling meat across the border for me!!! :D

 

so that's it.  just busy with the 2 jobs and researching for my thesis, and tending to my 'social network' as i felt that i'd been neglecting my friends for so long.  a colleague (fellow UN slave) finished his internship last week.. sad to see him go, sadder yet to realize that he (and many more who will follow over the next month) is moving on to better and more exciting things - the lifestyle that i'm used to livign! - while i'm still here drudging thru my degree in gva.

 

as for travel updates:

 

 - venice (was only there 1 nite, and due to my mistake, booked the hotel room for the wrong day (wrong month in fact), so spent the nite in the mestre train station, outside on the platform in the freezing cold, then hopped on the first train 5am into venice central stn and tried to sleep there til the train started moving again. lol  yeah, i definitely don't have the 'sheraton enzyme' that i wrote about in my 'yuppiedom' entry) - the carnival there felt kinda contrived and touristy.. heard waaay too much north american english spoken.  venice itself tho was amazing, very beautiful, worth the hype.  will be back to check it out in daylight.

 - cologne - have heard it's the most friendly city in germany.  can't judge, cuz it was carnival wkend, and the place was off the hook!!!  think oktoberfest meets halloween.  check out my pix for a glimpse.  i had to catch the train on monday and couldn't check out the big rose pardae on monday, but did check out the smaller school parade on sunday - complete with ppl with bags asking for candy from the ppl marching in the parade (see what i mean by being like halloween?!)  hiroko and patrick (and a friend visiting from jpn) came as well, so it was good catching up

 - hamburg - just got back yesterday (technically this morning, cuz the flight was delayed (again! - twice in hamburg, twice the flight back was waaay delayed) - easyjet had a sale, i wanted to escape - didn't call up hiroko and patrick since i'll see them again in may, and plus i needed to get a lot of reading done and mull over some things by myself.  sorry guys, if you're reading this!  i quite like hamburg.. big enuf but not huge, weather could be better.  nice vibe overall.  also did the weekend-ticket and checked out rural northern germany as well (bremen, goslar, and the long train ride in between them all..)  saw most of what i wanted to see in hamburg, good beer, good food, met some great ppl.. not that i was depressed but they gave me a good boost in spirits, and i really needed that.  thx stefan, for being an awesome tour guide!  :))

 - and in between these bi-monthly hops, i was supposed to hit the slopes in the mtns.  didn't happen.  snow's been getting better but still sux. and just due to circumstance.  and last wed i was planning on just hopping the bus for the day to chamonix (still haven't been yet, believe it or not!) but instead, because of an offer for a free lift, went to a nearby small tiny place for a couple of hours instead.  (thx tensin!  - this time i'm actually sincere, it was a fun little distraction for the afternoon)

 

my cousin's visiting on wednesday for a few days before she heads off to verbier with her friends, i want to hit the slopes somewhere on sunday, and i really have to work on my thesis between now and monday.  oh yeah, and to get ready for classes to resume next week (bleah!)  so i might be silent for a while (or not, depends on my level of procrastination. hehe)

 

so a very belated:

  恭喜發財
  豬年快樂

 

 

 

first of all, i do believe in the UN.  but criticisms against it are usually not unjustified, and in the few months i'v been working within the UN system, i can definitely see the many things that are wrong with it.

 

following are excerpts from a news item that recently popped up on the intranet:

 

---------------------------------------- 

 

 

With radiating waves, a skull and crossbones and a running person, a new ionizing radiation warning symbol is being introduced to supplement the traditional international symbol for radiation, the three cornered trefoil.

 

The new symbol is being launched today by the IAEA and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to help reduce needless deaths and serious injuries from accidental exposure to large radioactive sources. It will serve as a supplementary warning to the trefoil, which has no intuitive meaning and little recognition beyond those educated in its significance.

 

...

 

The new symbol is aimed at alerting anyone, anywhere to the potential dangers of being close to a large source of ionizing radiation, the result of a five-year project conducted in 11 countries around the world.

 

...

 

"The new ionizing radiation warning symbol (ISO 21482) is the latest successful result of long-standing cooperation between the IAEA and ISO. We encourage the symbol´s rapid adoption by the international community," said ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden.

 

---------------------------------------- 

 

(bold was my addition for emphasis)

 

ok, that the trefoil has no intuitive meaning and needed to be changed, fair enuf.  but the pat-self-on-back fanfare that they're trying to solicit with this fugly thing that cost who-knows-how-much-money to create, that's a little much.

 

glad to see that they're urging 'rapid adoption'; too bad they couldn't have been a bit more rapid in the design.  but at least it kept a bunch of overbloated overpaid 'consultants' employed for a good 5 years.  can't help but wonder, tho, how many 'needless deaths' occurred during that time.

 

 

here's a riddle.  how does me being a poor student, plus european reticence in using credit cards, result in "here, have lunch on us"?

 

back in north america, land of easy credit, it's hard to imagine living without a credit card.  it's gotten to a point where a lot of times you don't even sign.  i had a key fob with RFID that i used to just bleep at the gas pump, fill up my car and be on my merry way.  at so many places, you just swipe and go.  every week, i would get a letter with 'you have been pre-approved for $xxxx credit super-duper card with an amazingly low introductory rate of x.9%'.

 

during the first days of classes at university, the credit card company reps ritualistically invade campuses, signing up freshmen.  hell, you can even pay tuition with your credit card!  with that first credit card, i racked up 'firsthome' points, so now i have about $6000 worth of credit towards my first mortgage at BMO.  will BMO still be around or will it have been bought up by another bank by the time i actually get around to buying a home in canada, if that ever happens?  and the fact that ING has come along since then and offer much better rates than the traditional banks.. maybe i won't get to reap the loyalty benefits from those years of consumption during university afterall.  anyways, now, my 2 cards from canada are on a rebate system - every $100 i buy, i get up to $1 back.  not bad.  as close to money in the pocket as loyalty systems go.  (the 'only' other card i have, not counting dept store cards, is a platinum MC that i'd used only to rent cars, for their supplemental insurance, and as a backup.  in limiting it to 3 i had shown great restraint.)

 

so, having opened a bank acct in switz, i naturally applied for a credit card.  at first i couldnt' simply because i hadn't received my residence permit yet.  fair enuf.  during that time tho, i started to notice that here in europe, ppl rarely use credit cards!  a classmate, wanting to order a book from amazon.de, asked if i had a credit card.  'uh, yeah, of course!'  'oh good, can you order a book for me?  i don't have a credit card.'  'sure, no prob.'  i wanted to add, 'no credit cards?!  is it against ur religion?'  and for a short time last spring i was extremely cash-strapped, and needed to use my credit card as much as possible.  forget about getting a quick bite at McD's with ur visa.  for about a week, 'eating out' consisted of buying sandwiches and bottled drinks from the big grocery stores and eating on the go (saved a lot of money and time actually).

 

apparently, up until recently all credit cards came with a fee.  and since imo, the banking system here (europe in general, but swtiz in particular) so archaically inflexible (because the banks are all-powerful and have a vested interest in keeping the status quo), change happens very slowly, so the whole flood-the-market-with-credit-cards concept hasn't caught on (which helps explain why online shopping, and innovation in online payment, is so much more prevalent in north america - stuff i'v been reading at work.. but i digress.)

 

for about a year now i'v had my swiss visa (no fees cuz i'm a student) on which i collect some sort of points that i probably won't ever get to use (at a 0.3% rate!  wtf?!  cash-back rebates at 0.3% of your purchases, ok.  but to collect loyalty points, should be at least 3%!  fucking scrooges.. i hate UBS.)  then last summer, migros, the biggest food (and more) retailer started issuing credit cards.  and since i collect their M-Cumulus points and get their newsletters and coupons etc, they sent me an application form.  u collect M-Cumuls points with the card(which convert to groceries, so definitely usable!)  i submitted it, indicating my meager part-time english-teacher income, and waited.  i didn't expect to get approved, knowing what i know about the europeans' stinginess in card issuance.

 

months passed and i'd forgotten about it.  then all of a sudden, they sent a letter to the effect of 'sorry it took us so long to get back to you, the response has been overwhelming... your profile does not qualify you for a credit card at this time.  to thank you for your interest, we're sending you 30CHF in migros gift certificates.'  SWEET!!  even if it was 'aww, you poor poor thing, u make so little, here, have some food on us' pity/consolation prize, i don't care!  it's free money!  i'v already spent it, and i bought (as i often do) mostly things that were on sale, so it was enuf to cover 3 lunches... so the saying is wrong, there are free lunches to be had afterall.

 

so now i'm not complaining about the europeans' lack of trust for the almighty plastic anymore (which i used to do, a lot, to my german colleagues at work.. 'why don't u just pay with a credit card?!?!  i just don't understand!!')  i'm happy, in fact, that they, bless their hearts, tried to do the mass-consumer credit thing but still applied the old standards of credit-worthiness.  cuz in canada, i woulda walked away with another credit card.  but in this case, the great clash of consumer culture and the swiss incompetence in preparing for anything new (oooh, them fighting words, but oh how i can write about that topic!) netted me 30bux worth of food.

 

funnily enuf, just today i was watching news from canada, and apparently CIBC and BMO (the 2 banks that my 2 credit cards are issued from) re-issued thousands of new card to their customers because of a possible security breach.  here's the story.  am i worried?  noooo.  (well, maybe a little bit re: identity theft, but conveniently i have a 2 year out-of-country alibi.)  i checked my balances not too long ago, nothing was amiss.  and my feeling is, if they took steps to do something, they're on the ball, and also they hav, in a way, admitted fault, so if anything screwy turns up on my statements, they can't say no.

 

i, the consumer, of the omnipotent north american variety, am protected.  or so the Can-USA consumption-centric consumer-is-king culture would have me believe.  and you know what?  i'm quite content believing that.  so <shhh!> go away, don't burst my bubble, and leave me to consume.

 

 

just one quick additional update to say that i did not fail the course afterall.  i failed the exam apparently, but the prof gave me (and about half the class) a barely-passing grade.

 

still quite upset, but the proverbial shit did not hit the fan, so there will be no proverbial hell to pay.  after my infernal affairs marathon day, feeling very buddhist.  so i'm letting the anger go.  *deep breath* 阿彌陀佛. :)

 

i'd d/l'ed infernal affairs (無間道) 1 to 3 a LOOOONG time ago, but only now did i find time to finish them.  and i decided to watch all 3, back-to-back.  and thus went my sunday. lol

 

['infernal affairs' is the movie from which the oscar-nominated 'the departed' is based.]

 

for disclosure purposes, i admit that i do have a soft spot for certain hk films.  but, i am equally likely to be critical, and harshly critical, of a bad hk film, if nothing more than a 'omg i'm so embarassed that this is representing hong kong' kinda cringe reflex.  while i find most hollywood romantic comedies bearable, sometimes even enjoyable, most hk rom-com's make me physically ill.  and the much-lauded shaolin soccer?  hated it.

 

so it's not with a completely biased subjectivity when i say the IA trilogy may well be one of the best trilogies out there.  i liked them basically in their order: 1 the best, 2 was not far behind, and 3 the least.  in fact the third one was a bit too contrived and confusing at times, with the whole mental/inasnity thing a bit off, but if you don't fuss over the details and just ride out the movie til the end to get an explanation (and casually forget the loose ends), then even the third one was very good.

 

maybe it's cuz i watched them all at once that i really got to appreciate the whole thing.  saw the first one for the story, the second for the prequel to develop the characters and explain some things while revolving around an in-itself intriguing plot, and the third to wrap things up and bring closure to the two protagonist, and spinning out one more story from that.

 

highly recommended.  ppl of geneva, i'v burned a copy.  feel free to ask

 

now, to hunt for 'the departed' to download, if it's not playing in the cinemas anymore.. :)

 

i'll keep this short, cuz it really just suffices to say that i loved madrid!

 

maybe because i was expecting something more like barcelona, or even milan or rome, in terms of being a bit dirty, dark, run-down, disorganized.. but it wasn't like that at all.  it's a fairly new city, and all the late 19th century, turn-of-the-century and art-deco style grand buildings were a surprise to me.  the general colour was white or off-white, and the subway was clean and well-lit, sidewalks were clean and wide, and the old neighbourhoods (at least the ones i went to) did not feel neglected.  i mean, it's not paradise, i did see lots of homeless ppl and a couple of underpasses the stank of urine, but overall, it was muy linda!

 

and the nitelife.. omg!  i'd never seen so much traffic and ppl out at 4.30am!!

 

in terms of actual 'siteseeing', there's not much in madrid i guess, compared to other capitals.  there are the big 3 museums, of which i went to 2.  as i'v said many times before, not a big museum guy, but apparently those are 'musts' for madrid so i obliged.  even brought along my 'art for dummies' book to help me appreciate what i was seeing (hey, don't laugh!  that book is actually quite informative, and it's helping me loads in trying to be more pretentious. lol)

 

will definitely go back.  already planning to go with friends end of june.  maybe i might even do a long overland trip thru the south of spain (see updated trave list on left).  that'd be super cool if i can pull that off.  all depends on if i'll have enuf free time to do that on top of everything else.

 

dammit, i need to pause time.  anyone seen my remote?

 

ok, just finished my final exam for econometrics, and for the first time in my life i'm facing the very real and probable possibility that i've failed a course.  very angry and upset.  but not at myself.  i do take responsibility for not having done more to prepare, but i'm not apologetic.  but i'm not gonna launch into an irate rant here, and certainly not before the shit for sure hits the fan when the grades are released.

 

so now, in the office, i'm naturally drawn to the 'work' world and thinking about the future.  since classes don't resume til march and i'm stuck in geneva cuz of work, one of my (many) projects for february is to think long and hard about what kinda work i want to do come year-end, and start taking steps to look for such a job in this to-be-determined domain.

 

surfing around some career pages and took an online personality/career test.  i'v done many before (true colors: green-orange, myers-briggs: everything from INTP to ESTJ, with T being the only constant) but i wanted to see if anything's changed, maybe learn a bit more about myself?  besides, it's always nice reading things that just goes to confirm what you already believe.

 

so this time i did one that turned out to be a 'holland codes' test, aimed at career typecasting.  turns out i'm an 'investigative enterprising'.  check out this diagram:

 

 

notice how they're on the opposite sides??  that explains a lot about my indecisiveness.  apparently i want and can do things that are polar opposites of each other!  for example, investigative types are asocial and scientific while enterprising types are gregarious and lack scientific ability.

 

hmm..

 

i suppose that's my 'jack-of-all-trades-ness', that i'm all over the place in terms of interests, and have picked up skills and experiences in those areas along the way.  but i'v noticed, in tests taken in the past, that what i answer in 'work' situations tend to be completely different from those for 'play' situations.  and since i am the type to keep work and play separate, it could just be a reflection of that.. well ok, so 'play' often seeps into my work, but i mean that the actual job, the tasks themselves, those are ideally not 'fun'.  by that i mean that work that i find rewarding and enjoyable, are not the type of things that i would want to do outside of the office.

 

so anyhow, will stop babbling.  headnig to madrid tmrw for some well-deserved r&r for the wkend.  then nex tweek i'll start thinking about my life and work on a game plan to start the job-hunt.  wish me luck!   but even better would be some 'a-ha!' ideas that would help me.  and better still, u give me (or give me a contact which will lead me to get) a job that is perfect-for-me-but-i-don't-know-it-yet. :)

 

 

like i'v done before with www.lepuppypoo.com, i'm more than happy to use my blog to help pimp out my friends' ventures and endeavours pro bono.  and no, i wasn't asked to do this, but i do admire my friends who aren't afraid to take control and steer their lives in a different direction.. very admirable.

 

this time, it's liz, a good friend i've known for a while.. hard to believe she's all grown up and doing grown-up stuff! lol 

 

check out her website to see some of her work in makeup and jewelry:

 

and her very-soon-to-be-launched online cosmetics store:

 

so yeah, check them out!