Did Janet learn her lesson?

I have been told that dog remembers. They obviously can learn and I believe Janet is capable of learning from her mistake. During our walk, Janet often is being a spaz and would meander left and right in front of me. She would be all over the place running in front, behind and around me. And during a handful of those occasion when she is being particularly spastic, I would accidentally step on her paws or kick her head. She would yelp in pain and would carry on. No permanent harm done. I am not sorry that I stepped or kicked her accidentally cause I want her to learn. So if she persist on this behavior, the kicking or stepping could happen again. Till she learns to walk normally besides me, she will have to endure the accidental kicking or stepping.

月亮代表我的心

Israel Trip - Jerusalem

A nice prospect of the City of Jerusalem from Mt. Olive on the other side of the Kidron valley. The golden dome is the Muslim mosque called Dome of the Rock. It is situated on where the ancient temple of King Herod use to stand. The 5 golden onion shaped domes with cross on top is the St. Mary of Magdalene Church. The light Gray dome is the Church of the Holy Sepluchre. The white dome is The Four Sephardic Synagogue.

Fire Fighter in the air.

Looks neat with the huge plane spraying all that liquid.

Israel Trip - Via dolorosa

Via dolorosa translate as way of suffering. This was the way Jesus took with a cross on his back on his way to be crucified. It was a hilly up and down path that made mama very tired. We stopped at the different stations of the cross where our guide would say something or read something from the bible. The whole way looked just like any ordinary small street inside the old city of Jerusalem. I was not listening half of the time cause it was unspecial looking and besides, I could barely hear our guide with the noise generated by the daily activities of the locals.

Next to Disappoint

I almost did not watch Next to Normal. I had no intention to watch it but I was shopping with my friend Tom when he went to purchase the tickets at the Bank of America Theatre. Since my friends raved about this show, I was curious enough to buy one ticket for myself. Plus my friends were saying that Alice Ripley (the original broadway cast) will be reprising her role as Diana in the touring production here in Chicago.

The night came when we finally saw the show. And true enough, it did not live up to the hype that I heard from my friends. First, Alice Ripley's voice was annoying and not pleasant at all. I could not sympathize to her character because I got too distracted by her voice. The story itself about some mentally ill woman and her family did not strike a chord in my heart. I dunno, I just do not care much about the crazies. And the melody of most of the songs were not catchy too.

I am not saying the show was not without its good points. I did find 3 of the male cast to be yummy. And they were very obliging when we saw them later at the stage door. And I was a little sympathetic to the husband (Dan) of the crazy woman. I get his angst. I also did like 2 of the songs in the show namely "I'm Alive" and "I am the one". The set arrangement of 3 levels was ingenious although if you are seated in the nose bleed section, some scenes have obstructed views.

I give this show 3 out of 5 stars. Not the 5 stars I was expecting.

Lousy management

From my previous employment, I have come up with my list of what makes a lousy management.

- When your supervisor tries to borrow 5 thousand dollars to finance the surgery of her in law, it's a big red flag. It does not only create an ethical issue with the workplace environment, it also get very difficult to collect once you terminate your employment. Thanked goodness I lied and did not lend her the money.

- When your supervisor would rather take the short cut to complete online learning assignments, it shows her priorities are not in the right place. We have these yearly online learning tasks to complete and my supervisor would just complete the test and not read the assignments. She would rather tell us what the answers are on the test and skip the learning process all together to save time.

- When management prioritize quantity over quality, then you know you have lousy bosses. When a supervisor would shift therapist from one patient to another to maximize the amount of patients seen, this clearly shows that consistency and quality of patient care is not the priority.

- When the director would make a quick major decisions without exhausting the facts just because he is going away on a vacation shows his poor management skills. Some decisions needs an exhaustive investigation and if he is going away for a 3 week vacation, then this decision should have been done upon his return to complete the investigation.

- When management is too afraid to anger a doctor that their principles are thrown out the windows just to cater to an unreasonable doctor shows weakness of character. If you know that you are in the right, you should be able to defend that to your superior. And as a management team, they should be able to defend their subordinates who are doing what is right rather than just doing what the doctor wants.

- When management would only allow one staff out of 15 to take a vacation at a time shows their shortcoming in managing staffing needs of the department. They would hinder their staff's ability to choose when to take vacation and rather they dictate when their staff can take vacation. How reasonable is it to just have one person take vacation when there are 15 in the department? At least 2 people should be able to take a vacation at the same time if there are 15 of you.

PS. In all fairness, one of the member of the management team was OK. From my conversations with her, I can see that her priorities and ideas are in the right place.

Israel Trip - Tiberias

Tiberias is a town by the sea of Galilee. In fact the sea of Galilee is also known as Lake Tiberias. We stayed one night in Tiberias and mom and I opted not to join the Golan Heights tour. We stayed in the hotel with the hope that we could use the pool but upon inspection, the pool was not very appealing. So we just stayed in the room and rested. In retrospect, we should have explored the town of Tiberias and its historical sights or we could have joined the Golan Heights tour and learned more about the 6 day war. Oh well. At least we got a good view of the Sea of Galilee from the deck of the pool.

Katy's Fireworks

I like this video by Katy Perry. Good message.


Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind
Wanting to start again
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards
One blow from caving in
Do you ever feel already buried deep
Six feet under scream
But no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
Cause there's a spark in you
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby you're a firework
Come on let your colors burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
You're gunna leave 'em fallin' down-own-own

You don't have to feel like a waste of space
You're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow
And when it's time, you'll know
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby you're a firework
Come on let your colors burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe-awe-awe"


Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you
And now it's time to let it through

Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what your worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby you're a firework
Come on slet your colors burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe-awe-awe

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon

My public service to dog owners

I always pick up my dog's feces. Even in those two occasions that I forgot to bring a bag, I returned to that spot where my dog pooped and bagged the feces. And every so often, I see dog poop when I walked Janet. This irritated me cause it gives all dog owners a bad reputation. So during one of those day that I walked Janet, I decided to bring a big bag and a garden shovel so I can pick up all the dog poop I saw in our path. And for a distance of 3 blocks, I was able to pick up almost 6 pounds worth of dog poop. This is my public service to all the irresponsible dog owners out there.