ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

About the Pheasant

I finally got a hold of the pheasant.  These are some of the pictures I took this morning.  Can you see how big a hole he has made on our screen door?  There is a heat vent very close to the area that he camps now.  I suspect that he is after the warmth coming from the heat vent. 

My sweetheart

No.  It is not you, honey.  I am not complaining and you shouldn’t be either.  So, who is it?  I don’t know if other families are like ours.  Everything changes after we have kids.  Our eyes no longer rest on each other, but on the little people we have.   

How to be politically correct?

If you ask me, you are asking the wrong person.  As someone who hides nothing on her face, who says almost everything on her mind, who sucks at communication, I am the last person who knows how to be politically correct.

I hate office politics.  I don’t know how to shield myself from harm’s way, so I try to stay away from it.  However, I do occasionally get drag into it.  This time, I was tasked to manage a high profile project with significant impact to the company.  The owner wants it delivered in no time.  However, operational procedures and approaches weren’t defined and finalized.  It is impossible to manage a moving target.  Usually we will have the luxury to keep exploring different options if we have the time.  However, with a tight deadline, we should be moving into design and build now, rather than exploring alternatives.

Snow in April

Was it an April Fool’s joke?  It is not April Fool’s Day yet.  At least it is not in America right now in the area I live.  I was in total disbelief when one of my team members corrected me on the date of my project plan, stating that 4/10/09 is company holiday.  When did this occur?  I am deprived with yet another discretionary day and stuck with a fixed holiday.  Does this mean that we will be adding more company holidays and reduce our discretionary days to spend for our vacation?  Since we now have Good Friday as a company holiday, are we moving towards the trend of adopting religious festivals as company holidays?  Since outside of Christian, we do have a huge population of Muslims and Jewish, are we going to be off on some important Muslim holidays such as on 3/9/09 to celebrate the prophet’s birthday, and on 11/27/09 to celebrate Eid al-Adha to commemorate Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as commanded by Allah, or on 9/28/09 to celebrate Yom Kippur, the most important and solemn Jewish holiday around the themes of atonement and repentance for sins against God and other people?  I am not against having the days off on these religious celebrations.  The more, the merrier.  What I am not happy is that it reduces the number of days left for my discretionary use.

I can understand the decision of the company to have Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday off since he was an important Black civil right leader and we do have a huge black population within our company and in the United States.  In fact, Martin Luther King Jr represent an important history in America.  But Good Friday, I am sorry that not being a Christian, I cannot relate to having it as a holiday.  I don’t’ worship Jesus.  Why am I forced to take that day off!  I know that there is a huge population of Christians; however, there is equally more Muslims.

Now, you might argue why Christmas.  I think the religious meaning of it is less than that of Good Friday.  I think of it more as a day to give kids presents.  I am sorry that I can’t help but being cynical.  I did once hear the Jewish people complaining about taking Christmas off since they don’t celebrate Christmas.  It is Hanukkah that they celebrate.  Having some religious holidays off and not all is going to invite criticism and complaints down the road.  Since America is filled with immigrants (the only non-immigrants will be the Native Americans), how do you justify having one particular religious holiday and not the other?  This is just opening up a can of worms.

So Many Things, So Little Time

I like what Queen Elizabeth (The First) said about time: All my possession for a moment of time. 

I wanted to write about this for some days, but kept putting it off due to lack of time. 

On the day of Martin Luther King’s day, I thought of Martin Niemoller.  Today, I read a message from someone about the attitude towards answering questions in Yahoo Knowledge and I thought of him again.  I am deeply touched by his famous quote.  Ignorance is what brings disaster to mankind.  (This is not his quote.  I don’t know if anyone ever said so, if not, I will claim it mine – Elisa’s quote. J)

A gloomy day right after the President’s inauguration

The day back to work after a day off from Martin Luther King Day and the President’s inauguration doesn’t seem to be such a great day.  Our CEO announced at our town hall a cut of 300 jobs over the course of the year in response to the current economic turmoil.  Our company, along with the other financial companies, has the front-row seat to the financial blow. 

Surviving a birthday party.

We have just survived our son’s birthday party.  Even though they were only twelve kids plus two toddlers with three parent-helpers, it was still hard to manage, and it was not even hosted at our house. 

About American Economy

I feel the urge to write about the current American economy, not that I have a degree in Economics, but that I am in the financial industry, facing an impact that I can no longer ignore. 

2008 America ’s presidential election is finally over.  The result was kind of what we had expected.  The American people are tired of Bush, a Republican president, as a president for 8 years and are looking for changes. 

My son's school has "kids vote".  Of course, the votes do not count because they are not of voting age yet.  I kind of know the reason why my son voted "Obama" not because of us.  We don't discuss that with kids.  We voted for McCain for the long standing support that Republicans have shown towards Taiwan , for foreign policy and economic reasons.

October 26th, 2008 marked our official first snow of the season.  This signaled that winter is here to stay.  My son has a love-and-hate relationship with snow.  He likes snowing for the thrill from sledding, skating and snow-fight.  He also likes to taste snow.  However, with snow, he will not be able to ride his bike anymore, which is his favorite past-time.  He will not be able to stay outside as long as he wants, not to mention to wear his favorite shorts and short-sleeves.  He hates bundling up.  He also hates that cold may trigger his asthma.

As I woke up the next day, the temperature was around 24 degrees Fahrenheit, which was 4 degrees Celsius below zero.  That is not the coldest of the season.  Can you imagine living in winter for almost half of the year, with subzero degree most of the time from November to February?  The coldest month is January.  If you factor into wind chill effect, we are talking about a 40 or 50-degree below zero temperature in Fahrenheit.  Isn’t that amazing!

Since we are onto the subject of religions, I would like to entertain you with a scene that occurs in our house every once in a while. 

If you come to our house for dinner, you will see my daughter crossing her fingers saying “amen”.  By the way, she is only 2 ½ years old.  You will see my son, almost 6 years old, asking me to sing with him the praying songx learned from the Lutheran church run childcare center.  You will see my mother-in-law saying “阿彌陀佛”.  It is pretty interesting; by the way, my husband and I are atheists. 

Anyway, maybe there are some strategies behind this which I haven't figured out.  I do hope that whatever strategy they come up with will not hurt McCaine becoming the next US President.

My son is now a kindergartener.  He started kindergarten last Thursday.  Right away on his first day of school, he got a time-out.  As we approached his second day of school, he had a tree-nut allergic episode.  Oh well!  It looks like we are heading down the wrong path. 

The nurse called me on his third day of school.  I was thinking: Oh God!  Please don’t tell me that he had an asthma attack.  By the way, I don’t pray.  It’s a figure of speech.  Anyway, she told me that I might have to pack his lunch, and take him off the school lunch program.  I tried to negotiate my way out of that, as my son is a very picky eater.  He will not eat what I prepare for him.  He pretty much just eats fruits, plain rice, plain noodle, pasta without any topping (not even the cheese on top of it), and yogurt at home.  Maybe his body is acting as a defense, telling him not to try anything strange, in case it will trigger any allergic reaction.  I did manage to get the nurse to agree on my plan to have him eat the main course only, without any dessert for a couple of days. 

I always vote for the presidential candidate appointed by the Republican Party, no matter who the candidate is, as the party’s policies appeal to me.  I voted for Bush twice even though he is a laughing stalk in America for all the wrong words coming out from his mouth.  I like Republican’s policies mainly because I am a white collar and because I was born as a Taiwanese. 

I cannot stand the Democratic Party, lowering their status as the strongest country in the world, appealing to the Communist Chinese, just for short term interest, forgoing all human rights.  How can you sanction Iraq for being inhuman but not the Communist Chinese?  America has all the bargaining power, so it is beyond me when Clinton accepted all terms from the Communist Chinese, acting like a rat in front of a cat.

Reading feihong’s response prompted me to write this article.    

It is a pity that people would close their mind based on how they see where they belong.  What I meant is:  If you are a so-called Chinese descendant (offspring from people who retreated to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Sheik), you see only the value of Chinese and no more.  Anything related to Hakka or Taiwanese are not considered valuable to be even entertained.  If you are a so-called Taiwanese descendant (offspring from people that have lived in Taiwan long before those who retreated with Chiang Kai-Sheik), you may discredit anything related to China .

I used to dislike attorneys because of the stereotype I had of them.  I thought that all attorneys would defend their clients at all costs regardless of their crime.

In the course of my life, I have encountered several attorneys and work with attorneys every day due to the nature of my work, outside the field of criminal law.  I actually have made quite a few attorney friends.  They are like any normal human beings.  One of my best friends is actually my colleague, who specializes in business law for insurance and annuity products.  Occasionally, he would provide me advice for investment properties and copyrights because I want to get in the field of investing in properties and of publishing my writings and translations.

I mentioned to my husband the other day that I have volunteered to be a Mandarin Chinese speaker for the Bravo (musical) and Art Masterpiece program in Chinese Immersion Class at my son’s school if my schedule allows.  His reaction was that I would add more harm than help because of my poor Chinese.  He likes to joke about my poor Chinese language ability.  That was not very encouraging.  I know that my Chinese is not very good but I think that I should be able to handle a bunch of elementary school students between the ages of 5 to 7 with English as mother tongue.  His next response was that I did not have any musical or art background to introduce the musical piece or the art masterpiece.  I argued that the school will provide the material.  (I hope so.)  Then he came back with the comment that I would make a fool of myself if I cannot answer the questions from the students.  That may be true.

What a non-supporting spouse!   He is my talking cricket.  If you have read Pinocchio, you would know what I meant!