Thoughts beyond my life & my travel - Bel

Every time the government announces its annual budget, people hope for tax rebates, waive of government rates and many other subsidies. If you are really rich, you might not benefit from any government measures but you should be happy that you don't need to hope for any subsidies from the government. Yes, maybe we should be content with what we have in life. At least, we are not worried about not having a shelter, enough food or clothes.

I copied some of the backup discs back to my computer during the Chinese New Year and found a few interesting pictures. Everyone says young people have dream and ambition. It's probably because they've got nothing to lose if they take a risk. Look at this picture and I really feel that I was fearless at the time. Work sounded more fun rather than routine, too!

Appearance plays an important role in the job market, especially for artists. A documentary did a great job on an "acid attacks" report. There were a few incidents in which plastic bottles filled with corrosive liquid were thrown onto the shoppers in busy streets. Innocent people were left with burnts and marks that will stay with them the whole life. Hardly any of the victims were willing to be interviewed to recall what had happened. But a singer hurt by corrosive liquid many years ago told her story. She underwent 20 reconstructive surgery, a great deal of pain and a life with this unforgettable memory. She looks fine right now but the incident ruined her career and more importantly hurt her self esteem dramatically. It's powerful accusation from a person like her. Yes, they've got no ideas on how much pain they caused to those innocent people. Sadly, the incidents were reported on Asian newspapers and made Hong Kong sound like an uncivilized third country.

I read Mitch Albom's latest book. There is a line saying that we always talk about work when meeting acquaintances and it's like work connects people together. I love the new movie, "Up in the Air" a lot but it's definitely not a Chinese New Year movie. I don't know since when jobs have become an important part of our life. Our mortgage rely on it, the child's education depend on it. We can't pay our groceries without working. If we lose our jobs, what will we do? We might feel like we lost our identity. Why do we feel this way? Maybe we care about money too much? Maybe we care about what other people have and we just spend too much on houses, pets, clothes and everything. We just can't live a simple life again.

My friend is in her 50s. She once told me that the biggest challenge for her at work was the introduction of a computer. She did the traditional typesetting work and all in a sudden, no one used that old machine again and she had to learn all these new skills in her 30s and is now doing the publishing work with her PC. To generations like me, the biggest challenge is probably the social media buzz. I didn't think internet was a challenge at all as I first tried out BBS and emailing when I was a student. It's just a fun play for me at the time. So, you thought you learnt all the skills at work and then the world has changed and here's the new world. It's not a scary thing at all but I just felt I should hurry up to catch this train for it's more like a speed train heading for the moon. So, what's the next challenge for the generations Y?

Someone noticed that I got quite many pairs of shoes. Well, I didn't have 99 pairs of shoes like those shoesaholics. I'm not collecting high heels and want to look glmourous with those fancy shoes. I definitely won't cut my feet to fit into Jimmy Choo's shoes. I just look for affordable comfortable weekend shoes. However, most of the comfortable shoes are either unatttractive, expensive or outdated while beautiful shoes are always killing your feet. I got high heels that are comfortable but I don't want to wear them for walking over hours. Then I got sneakers that are super comfy but it's a bit too casual sometimes and you don't want to wear it when you want your feet to be more relaxed over the weekend. I'm almost desperate to find the next lovely footglove, so I bought this today. Crocs had never been my shoe option, but maybe I was disappointed a few times, so I gave it a try. I just want a pair that I could just slip on and go quickly, especially in ...

I spent hours watching realty TV shows every week. All in the sudden, I realize that many of these shows have a simple formula to success, that is, the problem solving approach. So, we found a problem in our lives no matter it's a financial one, house improvement exercise or taming a naughty kid, then an expert will show up, discuss with the people about their problems and what are the feasible solutions. These shows made those designers, nannies, handy men or chefs a saviour that can change people's lives. Maybe we hope for a saviour to solve our own problems no matter it's big or small. That's why we're drawn to these kinds of programme. So, do we have extremely high expectation on our lives that we assume that we can be happier if it's problem free?

I finally bought the deluxe box set of kd lang: recollection. I probably almost have all the songs except two or three but it's still a joy to get her new album, especially after watching her spectacular performance in the Winter Olympics. Tonight I watched a couple of her old music videos and her live performance at the Juno awards. It's awesome and there is no doubt she's one of the singers whom you prefer to see her live instead of just listening to her music. Her Ingenue album was a big hit but I now appreciate more of her works in the Hymns of the the 49th Parallel album. She also has a gift to deliver songs written by some great song writers such as Cole Porter and Leonard Cohen. What is missing is the song she wrote. She hasn't written any really great songs herself for a while. She said It's hard to write. Yes, it is but I hope she can collaborate with some songwriters to release some great new songs again.

So, we didn't write letters with pens and papers anymore. Rarely people really write letters these days though we still love to read. We sent sms, emailed words of feelings to each other. What else? Maybe youtube videos to express our feeling to the one we love. I'm not new to the emailing or texting era but the idea of video is a bit new to me. Today, I got a home-made video that could make me smile. It's good timing especially today is the first working day after the Chinese New Year, not a day that you want to work as hard as a dog. I heard a lot of greetings from people today but definitely this video greeting is a lot sweeter.

Do you find blue a trendy colour? My colleague told me that she thought she looked slimmer with a blue background. Then, a reporter described this operating theatre an "avator" one, so I can see the influence of Avatar and everything looks better with this blue colour.