Seems to me like the fire department doesn't have enough to do, at least in San Jose. I saw a fire station there because I was visiting my mom's office. There were Christmas decorations up - some snowmen (fake, of course, because we don't have snow here), wreaths, and such assortment of things. I guess being a fireman is sort of like being a soldier. You're either bored or scared all the time. (You'll be waiting to be deployed, and then once you're going to have to fight it's very dangerous) I heard that firemen end up spending time playing cards and things like that, until a fire happens and they have to slide down the fireman pole. I wonder if it's true?

I think that people at my dad's work also have too much time on their hands. We went into a building that I haven't been to before, which has a cafeteria, because my dad was going to show us the new Cisco Systems jackets that just came in. I was pretty stunned by the cafeteria since it was bigger, or at least seemed bigger than my mom's workplace's cafeteria. Anyhow, apparently Cisco has a small company store in the building which sells all sorts of weird things, like pens, gifts for a baby shower, birthday cards, and even stationery (it wasn't exciting, though, so I decided not to buy any). I was not impressed by the Cisco jackets (the sleeves were kind of long for me, which is typical, and I wasn't interested in being free advertising for Cisco. Sorry, Cisco Systems. XD) and so eventually we didn't buy anything else at the store either.

Apparently at Cisco, at least in the relative area where my dad works, there is a cat club. The Cisco Cat Club takes care of stray cats by feeding them and also giving them to prospective cat owners (my dad's friend's cat was obtained in this manner, actually). Around Christmas to New Year's, Cisco will be having a forced shutdown - in other words, they make the employees use up their vacation time, and so nobody goes to work. The Cat Club was concerned about what would happen to the cats, since no one will be there to make sure they have enough to eat, so they actually set up a schedule where people actually drive to the company to feed the cats. I thought that was really extreme - here you have the chance to take a break since Cisco is making you use your vacation days and you're still going to work anyways, because the cats need to be fed.

I think my mom's group has been demoted. At her company, people are put into groups, and these groups work on different products for the company. Well, my mother and her group were on the second level of the company's building, but now they've been moved downstairs. I told my mom that she was demoted, and she sort of denied it but sort of didn't, so I'm kind of confused. Now she is in a spot near a door. It's convenient for getting in and out of the building, but it's annoying because you can hear it every time someone opens the door.

I noticed that someone had put a sign on the door saying "No Smoking within 20 Feet of the Door". It has been windy today, and people were concerned that the smokers' cigarette smoke would be blown inside when the door was opened. After eating lunch, my mom and I returned to my mom's building and saw a smoker, quite close to the door. Ugh...Maybe they need a much, MUCH bigger sign. Or a punishment. Sometimes people think rules are meant to be broken. (I heard this saying that some teenager said, "When teenagers see fences, they climb them," regarding a fence that had been erected around something to keep people out)

I just saw something really awful on television. There was a well-known song about Santa Claus playing, except in an unusual-sounding fashion. Then there was a deformed, monster-like Santa Claus on top of a roof. He smashed the chimney and climbed down the chimney. Upon seeing the cookies put out for him, he gobbled them up, even smashing the plate... Then some green dudes (elves?) with black sunglasses starting shooting at him. He fell over and a strange doctor sort of guy came over and gave Santa a shot with a syringe. Santa shrank a bit and turned into the normal Santa. It made me very angry seeing people ruining my image like this. Santa is by no means evil and violent and thus you should not shoot at Santa.

Labels: army, boredom, cat, Christmas decorations, cisco systems, club, company, demotion, door, fence, firemen, free time, holidays, jacket, santa claus, smoking, soldiers, store, teenagers

I know, probably there are a lot of blog posts of mine by now which are somehow or other related to death. Sorry, but it seems like it's following me. Or maybe I'm following it. I am probably superstitious now since I spend my time counting crows.

I had better get to the point. I always keep a flashing keychain on my backpack. The keychain has my name on it, and so I don't need to bother introducing myself, or if people forget my name, they can just glance down there (theoretically...). It is solar powered and one side says Hearst Castle since that's where I got it from. Hearst Castle is a mansion on a mountainside in California. Pretty nice place, wish I had swimming pools and a view of the ocean like Hearst had when he was alive.

Well, the keychain has served me faithfully for more than a year, not far from two years. But age has taken its toll on the keychain. The little part that keeps the keychain attached to its ring has been eroding. I jerked on my keychain too hard (I am too lazy to properly zip my backpack, so I just pull the keychain, since it is attached to the zipper) and a tiny part broke off. It was basically the last straw that broke the camel's back since the keychain fell off. I managed to get ahold of it so I wouldn't lose it but it seems that it is the end for the keychain unless my mom comes up with a way to fix it. (She is the person in my family who is best with little things like sewing and origami and whatnot so we leave it to her. I mean, I have trouble buttoning my shirts and tying my shoelaces...Ironic considering I am a fast typer. You would think my hands would be nimbler.)

I had convinced myself that I was going to make changes in my life this year, so I have been trying to become a more open and charismatic person, but that is not going too well. I won't give up, though! Just like I don't give up on trying to convince my mom that I should have a cat or dog. I think it makes me an admirable person if I keep trying. :p Or maybe it just means I'm too stubborn like my grandma. Well, as a result of these changes, at lunchtime I went into my old teacher's classroom so I could see what happens during Debate Club. I had never really joined clubs much (I tried MathCounts because my mom wanted me to, back in sixth grade, but it was too hard for me to understand. It was funny when someone tried to show the area of a grape, though. And then there was the time I tried to join the Go Green Club last year but I got intimidated since there weren't enough chairs and I didn't know anyone) but now I was curious and I got up the nerve to go in. It was very loud, that's for sure. Two of the students, who were supposedly in charge today, kept banging the weird hammer the teacher has to keep order. We were supposed to be debating whether swine flu is overblown. It wasn't really a formal debate like what I did in the summer once, but oh well. I suppose it was interesting in its own way, even if all I did was listen and not talk. I guess I might go again unless French Week committee meetings get in the way.

When I was walking home not long ago, I saw a blimp in the sky. It said "23andme.com", "Personal Genetics", and "Join the research revolution" or something like that. I guess advertising things on blimps works on people like me, since today I actually went on the website out of curiosity. The Human Prehistory: Prologue video in the Genetics 101 section is not bad. It would have been nice if I learned about humans by watching videos like that back in sixth grade...

Labels: 23andme, broken, club, death, debate, debate club, discord, genetics, hands, hearst castle, history, humans, keychain, stubborn, swine flu, video

That bond is a very important one, one that many people have. The bond differs from person to person...I have read or heard about pretty close bonds, and I wanted to share them.

My dad watched a movie called District 9, about aliens who landed on Earth, in fact, near Johannesburg, South Africa, I think. I was pretty freaked out by the movie since the main character had something happen to his arm and started turning into an alien little by little or something... We call the main character the "sweety man" because in fact, in the movie, he had tried to tempt out an alien child by saying "It's the sweety man!". So now we're addicted to saying "sweety man". But anyways, the point is, that even the aliens cared a lot about their children. It was the sweety man's job to move the aliens to a new camp outside of Johannesburg, so then he tried threatening to take away an alien's child unless they moved to the new camp. The alien, who was previously calm, then became very worked up and upset.

And then there are cats and their kittens. My dad's friend is getting a cat soon, from a "cat club" that was set up at my dad's workplace, what with lots of stray cats hanging around Cisco's buildings. Apparently someone who helps take care of the cats came up to my dad and said he was very worried about the mother of the cat that was getting adopted. He said the mother was fretting and stressed because she didn't know where her child had gotten off to suddenly. My mom thought the solution would be for my dad's friend to adopt the mother and its child (but I doubt their family was planning to get two cats). Either way, I hope that the mother cat can see her child again. If she did, then she would know her child was safe (and hopefully happy and well taken care of) and then she wouldn't have to worry.

Guardians aren't always in the form of parents. Sometimes grandparents serve as the parental figures. I started reading a book, and when the mother of the main character's friend mentioned that not doing something would be like child abuse, then the grandmother of the main character allowed the main character to do something that she'd forbidden until then. The grandmother was always concerned about someone taking her granddaughter away from her, because they might think she was too old to take care of a child, or something. So hearing "child abuse", even if the person only meant it figuratively and not literally, probably made alarm bells go off in her head.

But sometimes the relationship between parents and their children are...less than perfect. A good example is Alice and Kev (yep, that's a link, click on it!), a story about a homeless girl and her father, created with the Sims 3. Unfortunately there isn't really an ending to the story. But it's pretty cool, seeing a video game being used to tell a compelling story.

Labels: alice and kev, aliens, bond, cat, child cruelty, children, cisco systems, club, district 9, grandmother, homeless, parents, relationship, sims 3, sweety man

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