Ellipsis [...]

It just hit me that the Hong Kong trip is less than 2 months away, and the only thing I have is flight tickets. No hotel room, no itinerary. And Mama’s leaving everything to me. If I don’t start planning soon, we might just end up landing in HKIA on the morning of November 4th not knowing where to go next. Haha. Better start squeezing in some time for planning then.

I miss Hong Kong much much.

South Korea for November 2009 seems highly likely at the moment. (I would go sooner, but this part-time student has to plan around her school schedule. Meh.) By then, I would (hopefully) be brave enough to bust out my Korean-speaking skills to the native Koreans. Haha! I just need to look for a travel partner (or two). Any takers? If I’m lucky, I might get to meet up with my online buddies in Seoul as well. Squeeee, how exciting!

• Am totally craaaaaving the cheese baked rice at Eighteen Chefs right now. Gosh, the TORTURE of PMS-induced food cravings!
• It’s been ages since I bought a damn good movie on DVD because it’s been ages since a damn good movie came out of Korea.
• Business law started out surprisingly interesting despite its dry nature. I think it has everything to do with my captivating seminar leader. He actually explains law terms in English!
• Wanted: a high-quality, roomy black tote bag to last me for years. Maybe I should just try to live without one until my Hong Kong shopping trip in November.
• Firefox 3 on Mac looks uncannily like Safari. O.o
• I now have a pet dog. He’s a basset hound and almost as big as me! Any name suggestions?

…너무…아프다. 그남자 때문에.

어제밤 네가 바보 같이 기다리고있었어… 왜 그러지?

어제밤 네가 바보 같이 울고있었어… 왜 그러지?

어제밤 네가 바보 같이 잠을 못했어…왜 그러지?

피군하다. 진짜 피군해. 우리 그만하자… 근데 지금부터 어떡할까?

I cannot understand them. I do not understand them. But they sting, those words.

Time to take a look back at what I dreamt up six months ago.

Jannah’s goals for 2008

1. Know 700 Korean words by end 2008. My current Korean vocabulary “word bank” stands at 562 words, and I know there are plenty of words not recorded, likely because I haven’t even realised I know them. 700 is easily reachable within the year. Should I change it to 1000 then? Heh.
2. Read at least one book a month. Shame on me. I haven’t finished a single book this year! I think it has to do with the fact that I read mostly non-fiction, like travel, finance & IT. These books tend to be picked up whenever I feel like reading on the subject, and they’re hardly meant to be read from cover to cover, so I don’t end up “finishing” any single book. Maybe I should just read more fiction.
3. Reach assistant manager position by end 2008. I’m working on getting there. We’ll see.
4. Get my salary increased by 15% by end 2008. DONE!
5. Have at least $5000 in savings by mid 2008 and $7000 by end 2008. DONE! The $5000-by-mid-year goal, I mean. I’m just going to let the money sit in the bank as my emergency fund (a liquid asset, as the finance people call it). Eventual target amount for this fund: at least 6 times my current monthly salary. I think I can easily have $7000 or more by the end of the year, so this one is looking good.
6. Get my GPA up to at least 4.5 by end 2008. Considering last semester’s exam results, this looks pretty bleak unless I drop everything else & just study next semester. Haha. So I’m revising this goal to: Get my GPA up to at least 4.2 by end 2008. Imma work my ass off next semester!

Now Jannah is one happy & relieved girl. Couldn’t care less about the results right now. I just want my life back.

I’m back in the office today and surprisingly NOT flooded with a tsunami of work. Which is not at all good, because it means the worst is yet to come. The only other Java developer on my team will be making his exit in a week, so I’m going to be dumped with his work. And I’ll be left alone again. Damn him.

So I’ll have what, seven, eight projects to handle starting June. Plus a new project coming in next month. If that’s not overloaded, I don’t know what is. Good thing my manager knows that very well, and makes it clear to the other teams that Jannah is indeed overloaded (so bugger off & don’t try to include me in every single project, thanks very much).

Despite that, I’m still looking forward to the next couple of months because:

• No school -> more leisure time, more SLEEP.
• More money will be rolling in – pay adjustments take effect this month!
• I’m switching from Windows to Mac, hopefully never having look back.
• I signed up for the Korean language course I mentioned before; classes start June 11th.
• Real planning for the HK trip in November will begin!

The whimsical side of me is considering taking drum lessons. Haha. Just for fun, and as an outlet for stress. The other time I came across a poster advertising a 3-month drum course at a little music academy near home. Well, we’ll see about that.

Last bit of randomness: I want an iPod Touch!

1. I received my YUI albums in the mail! God I love her music. Oh no, I feel tempted to start a whole YUI collection now.
2. My credit card arrived in the mail too. Honestly though, having your name engraved on plastic doesn’t feel as exhilarating as I imagined.
3. He’s (finally) crawled out of his hole & resumed normal programming. Which includes asking me questions I don’t know how to answer. Sigh.
4. I found the book I’ve been looking for (The Buzan Study Skills Handbook by Tony Buzan) here at a local bookstore.
5. Went to Zingdo with Mama yesterday and finally got a taste of 떡 (ddeok), a glutinous Korean rice cake that tastes rather spongy & squishy, like nothing I’ve tasted before. Next time I’m there, I’m going to try the stir-fried ddeok.
6. This weekend will be my first free weekend in months. No school, no deadlines!

A 10-week Elementary Korean Language course is being offered at the CC near my home starting next month. It’s as affordable & convenient as one can get – only once a week on Wednesday nights at a venue within walking distance from home, at just $115.00! I’m seriously considering signing up. The course will cover basics like greetings, numbers & counting money, telling time – stuff that I’m pretty proficient at by now. But I’m motivated to sign up for the experience of interacting with a native Korean speaker more than anything else.

Funnily enough, even after years of self-studying Korean, I’ve always been too shy to speak the language in front of a native speaker. Even when the cashier at the Korean supermarket says “감사함니다”, I’d only reply with “Thank you”. You could say I’m pretty paranoid about the accuracy of my pronunciation. I’d really hate to butcher someone else’s native language. Having face-to-face interaction with a Korean teacher would probably do a lot for my confidence in speaking the language.

Now that the school semester has almost come to a close, nothing much is stopping me from signing up for the course. My only concern is that it’ll overlap with the July school semester for about 4 weeks. Which means I’d likely have 3 night classes per week for a month. O.o Then again, I could probably deal with that when the time comes.

Speaking of courses, after months of contemplating, I’ve signed my brother up for one today – Effective Study Skills & Mind Mapping at Tony Buzan Learning Centre. (Tony Buzan is the guy famous for pioneering Mind Maps.) So he’ll be kept busy during the school holidays, with softball training & all, which is good – the boy sleeps too much!