How the Beijing Olympics got its logo

via (vincentchow.net)

First Pay Check

I’m 25 and I haven’t worked a day in my life. Until now.

I’m Asian and in most Asian families the children depend on their parents for financial support until they graduate and get themselves a job. It is then that the parents demand or at least expect that their children will take care of them. That was the culture I was brought up with. 

When I was a high-school student, I knew some of my friends who used to work part-time as waiters or as data-entry clerks. It used to be the trend, not only to work for the money. So I tried to get a job, to no avail. That was my first and last failed attempt.

Since then, I made peace with the fact that I was not born to work, but to play and enjoy myself till I graduate and have to suffer the miserable daily affair of going to the office. I have friends now who have 9am-12am jobs (yes, that’s right - 15 hour days) and they keep telling me to enjoy my university life and worry about making money later. Spending your parents’ money is a blessing, they say. You don’t really want to spend your own money once you know how hard you’ve worked for it. And I still don’t know. How hard? How hard is it to earn a couple of bucks?

When I was traveling in Europe, every student I met had a job. So I interviewed every one of them. Why do you have a job, I asked them. Don’t your parents give you enough money to spend? Most of them replied: Yes, but sometimes you just want to have your OWN money. And sometimes, if you want some luxuries in life, like a mobile phone, you’ll have to pay for it yourself. I don’t think that would have gone down well in my life.

I know of a Russian girl who works during the day until 5.30pm and goes for evening classes at 6pm. And she does it 5 days a week. She sleeps at 2 am. Why? How? I have a million questions to ask but the most important one is “Why do you put yourself through this misery?” But I don’t ask. It’s their lifestyle and I realise that they could probably ask me the opposite question: Why don’t you work?

So when I finally found a small job, I felt like I’d accomplished something in my life. Learning to juggle that with studies is a new challenge for me. But I accept challenges, I embrace it. Overcoming the challenge is empowering.

The time has come for me to receive my first pay check, the money which I can call my own and the little space in my life which is mine and no one else’s. It’ll be a bitch if it’s less that I expect, though. I worked so hard for it. 

Getting better accelerated

My secret recipe for accelerated recovery from the flu:

1. Stay at home, but keep in the sunlight (induces serotonin production; to lift your mood)
2. Eat simple-to-digest foods eg soups, broths.
3. Stuff yourself with Vitamin C - while you’re sick, you have to take a double dosage ie 1000mg. But if you want an accelerated recovery: 1000mg immediately after breakfast and 500mg before you sleep.
4. Drink lots of honey - it has magical healing powers
5. Rest and rehydrate - you lose extra water when you’re ill
6. Isolation - keep away from others who are also sick, you might get a superinfection while your immunity is low