Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada

::Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada::

My notes and my memories: sometimes about a mom - sometimes about a wife - sometimes about a woman - sometimes about our life

::Author::

Name::Andrea
From::Small city/town, B.C., Canada
I am a short girl from the west cost of BC, Canada and I am a proud Canadian. I went to Japan in 2000 because my Dad told me I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't. He was right. I lived a good life found my husband from the other side of the world and have a beautiful daughter. Basically we lead a pretty normal life filled with normal ups and downs. We both come from different cultures: me Canadian, him Chinese. Living in Japan was a real eye opener about who I am and about the people I associate myself with. I lived and loved in Japan but the time to move on came upon us and in May of 2006 we left and moved to Canada: a huge move for us all. We are now trying to start up again, remodel our lives and create our future for our family. I now feel like a tourist in the country of my birth, my eyes see different and my life will be forever changed. This blog is my notes and observations of our life, our changes, our adventures and new beginnings. Welcome.
View my complete

::Recent Entries::

::Personal Links::

My Japanese Culture Teaching Notes

::My Family's Sites::

Alisha - a site set up by friends and family of my little sis

Phrax - my step-brother

Blue Mountain Stable

::Index::

An Index of past posts - the Japan Years

::Archives::

::Image Event Album::

My Image Event Photo Album

::My FlickR Photos::

www.flickr.com

::Tech Sites::

Tech2all

Blog Flak

::Extra Internet Info::

Canadian Atlas

National Geographic

Wikipedia

World TimesZones - please check this BEFORE calling me!

Currency Converter

eigoNavi - a pretty good language converter

The Samurai Appliance Repair Man - a funny repair site for N

::World News::

Generation Woman

Japan Times

Counter Punch

Japanese General Union - a must! read before working in Japan

::RSS Feed::

Blogarama

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Ramblings about basically EVERYTHING

Hmm
I don’t really have anything in the way of news or exciting to say.

JiXiang now has 8 and a half teeth. Tooth number 9 is coming in on the top. She is actually being a pretty good girl about it, minus the constant hand and leg biting: my hands and my legs.
She has added a whole new meaning to the term ‘ankle biter’.

On Tuesday JiXiang graduated to the next step up toothbrush.
Before her toothbrush was step one in this pack of brushes I found. Two was basically a soft chew stick with some small spikies on it. She loved it and would chew on it every night while in the bathtub. With the emergence of tooth 9 she stepped up to level two.
This brush resembles a normal brush except that instead of bristles it has very soft rubber spicks. I have been showing her how to use it by demonstrating with my toothbrush. She is getting better.
She tries to brush my teeth all the time with it as well. She thinks that it is tons of fun. I have been obliging in hopes that she continues to think brushing her teeth is fun.

JiXiang’s walking ability is almost freaky now.
She can walk ALL over the house with no trouble. She usually takes one or two toys with her as she toddles around. She is also starting to pick up speed and can toddle pretty damn fast now. At daycare she has been learning tag type games and chases her friends all over. Her and her daddy play similar games at home and she scream/squeals when they play.
I am thinking she will be running just before she turns one.
(sigh)

Work has been crazy busy the past few days. I have students flying all over the world who need their reports and presentations checked. I cringe when I think of the idiots who did NOT have me check.
(sigh) (sigh)

Li is starting to get really worried about job hunting. He cannot really look for a job until this one is finished, as he cannot make himself available for interviews until then. We have been talking about daycare and trying to cut down JiXiang’s daycare hours. She loves her daycare and it has done her wonders in terms of development, but it does cost us 600bucks a month. Any restaurant job Li is able to find will not let him pull in much more than a thousand. Totally sucks. If we are able to cut her hours in half, along with the price, we will be on solid, safe ground. Cannot make any moves until he finds a job though.
(sigh)

I am actually in a fairly content and blaa mood; not sad, not angry, not really anything right now. Just here and living.
Little tired maybe. I think this weekend Li and I are going to have to take turns sleeping in. Didn’t do that last weekend and I REALLY need a few extra shuteye minutes to reenergize.

The fastest way to piss me off right now is to not hang the towel straight after having a shower, so when I reach for it after my shower it is COLD AND WET!
Did I mention there was no central heating?

Due to no central heating, stepping out of the shower is the most painful thing I do every day. I have a heater in that area, which raises the temperature a tad, but as soon as I leave the shower room area, ICICLES!!!

Because of no central heating, breast pumping at work has become very difficult. There is no heat source of any type in our washrooms and even taking a pee is almost painful. Pumping is almost impossible. I have to undo my shirt and raise my sweater to get at my tits in order to pump, BUT because it is sooooo damn cold my tits have caved in upon themselves and are hiding in the deep recesses of my fat in order to stay warm. I am actually having troubles finding them.
The dripping milk actually feels cold before it hits the bottom of the bottle.

I slept in for five minutes this morning and had to eat my breakfast at work. For some reason I feel heavier, not lighter.
A diet would never work for me. Not that I have any plans to go on one.
Love to eat far tooooo much.

I did my Christmas photo postcards last weekend and mailed them on Monday. Those of you who are getting one should be seeing them in your mailbox this weekend sometime. Don’t forget that the numbers on the bottom back corners are actually lottery numbers and those numbers will be drawn mid January. I will post the winning numbers then and we will see if any of you have won anything.
I won a stamp last year.
Woohooo!!

I have my year end Bonenkai Work party tomorrow night. The company is paying for my taxi ride because I cannot take the bus there: have to pick up JiXiang from daycare first.
I hope it is fun. I hope there is actually enough food this year.
There tends to be more alcohol than food, but I am a breastfeeding momma and need to EAT!

Mt. U is taking a picture of this GIANT bubble that occurred on a customer’s circuit board. I am assuming that the problem is production line and not properties. He agrees with me but still has to go thought the two weeks of testing to prove it.
I had a class with two new guys this morning and blew them away because I tend to know more about their products than they do and actually corrected them when they were comparing products for an adjective class.
I love freaking them out like that.

We just bought another company in Europe. It is really very cool. I am not allowed to tell you about it but it is pretty damn interesting.

One of my students is having a meeting with a Canadian company in Shanghai as I write this. They are talking about the possibility of doing a joint venture project. Sounds cool. I told Li about this and was all:
-Do you realize that this Canadian company totally needs someone like you. They are sitting in Shanghai, talking to a company from Japan but they are based in Canada. HELLO you speak all of those languages!!
Li just looked at me and went:
-I would love to get a job where I was transferred to China or another country and using my languages. If I was working for a foreigner company but living in China we could make really good money.

It was then that I realized that even though I want to move back to Canada (I want JiXiang to have family and I would love to start riding again) I would willingly move to another country with Li if he were transferred there with a great job. It was actually quite shocking when I realized this.
MIND YOU, I would only do it if he had that damn Canadian visa in place and we could move back at any time with no damn hassles. Actually it would be even better if Li had a Canadian citizenship (he would only do it if he could do Duel-Citizenship with China). A Canadian passport would make our traveling life much better.
I mentioned it to Li and he went on a rampage about HIS government and how they have not yet allowed duel citizenship. He went into this whole business and money ranting thing for about an hour, until I told him to shut up because he was repeating himself and ‘Prison Break’ was about to start.

Yes we download ‘Prison Break’ off of the Internet as it comes out each week. We have actually canceled our Satellite subscription because neither of us can remember the last time we actually watched TV. We watch computer TV instead.

This is getting ridiculously long and I am going to stop rambling now.

This post has taken me two days to write.

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Posted by (Top)Andrea::12/14/2005 :: 4 Comments:

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