The Customer is Not Always Right

Being in part-time retail for a couple years, I have learnt to be more cynical and tactful when it comes to customers who demand they are always right. You would also learn to appreciate other people's stories... with a chuckle or two. Below is a story from this website: http://notalwaysright.com

Personally, I Prefer Stars And Polkadots

Tourist Shop | Vancouver, BC, Canada

American customer: “Your flag is just so pretty. I love maple leaves. Does it come in blue?”

Me: “Um, no, sorry, only red.”

American customer: “That’s a shame. My kitchen is blue, and it would look so pretty on the wall. You should make them in other colours.”

Me: “…”

Canadian customer behind her: “That’s a good point. I’ve always thought the stars-and-stripes would look great in earth tones.”

American customer: “Our flag is ALWAYS red, white and blue! Honestly, Canadians are so stupid sometimes.”

Wishlist

Arts and Crafts
I have always wanted to learn how to oil paint as a child. I have an easel; I draw from time to time, but somehow, oil paints was never explored. I was somewhat working on a watercolour pencil crayon project; I haven't got back to it yet since my college papers beckon me towards their direction with meticulous analyzing, writing and citing.

It would be really cool to get this:







The only oil medium I have been exposed to is oil pastels. It is a little tricky to use, but after a lot of blending and mixing, you can get a really cool painterly effect. Nonetheless, it would also be cool to get stretched canvas, oil paints and brushes for Christmas. A Staedtler Fineliner Set would also be cool since I do a lot of comic drawings. If you'd like to see colour on my comics, Fineliners would come in so handy!

*sigh, it's a good thing I have two days off after my last final exam. Guess where I would be heading: craft stores. It's bad when craft stores, bookstores and music stores are all sorts of candy stores to me.

Meanwhile, I am meeting up with an Artist on the Ward volunteer coordinator tomorrow! This would probably be the most humbling volunteering experience; it's a great way to give back to the community.

Money
On a not so serious note, it would be cool to get cash, just like during the Chinese lunar new year. After all, I would most likely won't spend it, but rather invest it in something. This is why I am a Finance major. On a grim note, my balanced mutual fund is experiencing a $300 loss, which isn't too bad when you compare it to the TSX index within the same period. However, this is only normal -- as long as you keep the money long term, it will grow despite all the short term turbulences and bumps.

Need more cowbells to cure this headache.

Amazing Videos for knitting

Who can resist a ball of beautiful yarn at $0.99? Not I. The bulky yarn, 76.5% Acrylic, 10.5% wool, 10.5% Mohair and 2.5% Polyester, has been incredibly difficult to knit with, especially with bigger sized needles; size 10 mm in my case. Frustrated with trying to wrap my head around knitting abbreviations, I turned to youtube for help. It has been a while since I have knitted! I forgot how to cast on. (Crochet is part of knitting, but it is technically not the same) There are so many methods of casting on -- you could either use your fingers as if the yarn was a sling shot, working with one needle; or use the other needle.

I might just have to rip out the scarf I was working on. I think the yarn I bought would be good for making a scarf with elongated stitches. See pattern. (6 rows of garter stitch, 1 row of elongated stitch. Repeat. Add fringe.Elongated stitch: insert needle as if to knit. Wrap yarn 4 or 5 times around needle. Pull all wraps through stitch. On next round, knit just the front loop, letting wraps fall off of needle.) I might just give this scarf to a cousin as Xmas gift, my way of saying thanks when she drives me to the airport this December, instead of donating it to the business association's silent auction.

Hearing the phrase "Purl stitch" used to make me feel like a knitting idiot, but this video explains it in full and concise clarity.

I was stumped on making my boyfriend's scarf for the longest time. He requested for a scarf with a button, which is a cool idea -- you button your scarf instead of having to wrap it around you. Now, I might not be as stumped. This is how to stitch a button hole.

Seriously, I will love any of my friends to death if they give me knitting patterns/needles/cool yarn for Christmas. You have no idea how addicting knitting is.

French 101: Parlez français

You cannot ruthlessly translate English into French, word for word. Each language behaves differently when you try conjugate words to make a sentence.

For example, I am hot. (Or I feel hot.)
I overheard a girl saying, "Je suis chaud."
It was quite awkward because she has just said that she is horny.

In French, some adjectives are meant to be possessed, such as hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, 'seems like' and the list goes on.... Hence, it should be les pronoms + avoir + ces adjectifs.

J'ai chaude.

For more stories on this kind of language blunders, go to here.

Burning cash to survive

Recently, my lecture-mates and I have been stalking GM in the TV and newspapers, just like some of you might read tabloids about celebrity gossips. The business section of the newspapers is "tabloid material" for me to analyze; it's all relevant to what I am studying. I have no life.

It's a real mess; Cerberus Capital (note: not an auto company) owns Chrysler and 51% of GMAC. GM and Chrysler were in talks of a merger; it all seemed very exciting since it might tell me what the answer to my assignment is. The assignment due date is November 17. Despite the events that are fast unveiling in the "real world", my time spent on reading the news now seems somewhat futile when Chrysler might turn to Nissan for merger talks -- my assignment is now a fictional "what-if" scenario; I am suppose to come up with a way to carve the deal if the merger were to happen, such that GM would have access to Chrysler's cash. (This takes account into setting my personal opinions aside, like many other doubters)

One of my frustrations with following the news is that a lot of the news articles are opinionated. Damn it, I don't care if you think GM's execs don't deserve to be on the board, bla, bla, bla... I just want facts! And FYI, it's not easy to just fire your top executives when there are severance packages, gold, silver and tin parachutes. Column writers ought to use their nogging before they voice their opinions, especially if it is a business news column.

Time is of the essence. $25 billion is supposed to go to the auto industry in the US, but there are going to be restrictions on how the car-makers can use it; they can't use it merely for survival purposes, but rather to help in the innovation process. It is rather tempting to write my paper as if I was a pseudo-journalist, but I will not. It is also tempting to add the cartoon as a part of my paper. So much for sardonic humour.

A Cynful column: It's not easy to be "me"

It’s not easy being a twenty-something. Your parents silently expect you to be at least decently successful; silently because they miraculously nag slightly less now that you’re no longer a teenager. You may have switched majors for the umpteenth time, cursing yourself why you did not take a year off travelling after high school. You still have no idea what you want to be when you grow up. You wanted to be an architect when you were 8, but a cousin misinformed the deadly legal consequences of not designing buildings properly. (See Cynful comic) You wanted to be a rock-star, but you’d never have the time to practice when there are multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet. Your peers have almost everything they want while you are still working hard at it. You suddenly find yourself stuck – as if a car were trying to roll its wheels on a heavily bubble-gum littered track….. Discouraged, you try convincing yourself that you’re a failure. Wait, there’s a red light; Stop.

Look, times have changed. We cannot always get what we want anymore when we want it at this exact instant. It is, however, not the end of the world. To be successful in life, we need Opportunity, Passion and Vision.

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” - Charles R. Swindoll

A vision without an opportunity or rather, an opportunity without a vision, is like a cat chasing after its tail. An opportunity without passion is not worth exploring; I have been there – I pushed myself towards an actuarial degree I suddenly had the least interest in towards the end of it. Nothing, however, was gone to waste – the discipline from being trained to think and form good study habits remained. Meanwhile, a vision without passion seems quite half-assed; I would call that day-dreaming. Passion is conviction, dedication and all the other positive -ions. Have I lost you yet? In a nutshell, you need all three; you can’t just have one of or two of the above.

It is not easy being a twenty-something these days. When the economy is at its trough, we are competing with experienced people who are laid-off for jobs. Employers are the one having the better bargaining chip this time. While times seem to be bleak, if you are a law student, studying bankruptcy laws might be a good idea. Opportunities will always be present, but they might not be very obvious. This isn’t the time to wait nor hunt for opportunities; it might be our time to create one. The light has now changed to green, it's race time....

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Seneca (Roman philosopher, mid 1st century AD)