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SEPT 07 ARCHIVES 10:36 PM 9/3/2007two weeks until 9/17 and STILL the panic hasn't kicked in yet. i can't tell if i'm just getting better about handling stress or if i've slipped further into denial. either way, it's great. i went into work on saturday and today (labor day), but spent a good portion of yesterday goofing off. it was INSANELY hot this weekend - i couldn't believe torrance almost reached triple digits. for those unfortunate schmucks who live in other parts of the country and constantly make fun of the southern california pansies for not being able to withstand 90+ degree weather, SHUT UP. there's a reason why our average real estate prices are four times the rest of the country's - that's the premium we pay for good weather, dangit. now i want a refund so i can fund my medical bills when i get sent to the hospital for heat stroke. btw, whenever we had a cold spell last year, a few Republicans with heads up their asses would roll their eyes and ask each other, "global warming, huh? yeah right. climate seems pretty cold to me." uh, okay, because five straight days of 20 degree weather is gonna refute years and years worth of scientific study and endless amounts of data. so lemme just ask this question to all you Al Gore haters out there: is it hot enough for you now, idiots? after all, if i followed the same compelling logic, i could conclude with absolute certainty that global warming is alive and kicking and ready to send us to hell by the end of this week. fortunately, i'm not that stupid.  anyways, i bet you're wondering what i did to escape the heat yesterday. well, i went to the range. yes, the torrance range with no AC. it was unbearable after 20 minutes so i left before i finished 100 rounds. there is nothing grosser than feeling sweat drip down your back, causing your dorky plastic glasses to fog up and your hearing protection to literally stick to your ears. i'm surprised i managed not to shoot myself or any of the other poor suckers around me. oh yeah, i also renewed my membership fees at the range ($200/year!!), so that means i need to go every other week now. all right, i need to catch up on my beauty sleep. here are a couple pictures from my cousin richard's 30th birthday dinner @ cheesecake factory and his new loft in san pedro.   8:34 PM 9/9/2007 all right, the panic is finally kicking in, eight days before the 9/17. about time, jeez. i just found out last week that the deadline for one of my biggest projects (for a client that starts with "H" and ends with "A" and rhymes with uh, Rhonda) is pushing its due date back to september 30th. now everybody is relieved that we have two extra weeks to work....everybody except for me, that is, considering how i am supposed to be sitting on a cruise ship going down to mexico on the 21st of september. i guess i could techncially still be sitting on a cruise ship - only instead of hitting up the midnight buffets and downing margaritas by the pool, i'll be on my laptop, frantically working away. how lame is that? i should have known better than to plan a mini vacation right after 9/15 - my deadline last year was extended too. remember this picture?  SO SAD. so i was driving to work yesterday (actually, more like crawling along at 2mph on the 110 for an entire hour straight) when i spotted a black 5 series next to me with tinted windows. the driver was a girl in her twenties, chatting away on the phone and completely oblivious to traffic, as evidenced by the two or three times she accidentally drifted into my lane. the lousy driving wasn't what pissed me off, though - it was her license plate. it said: "TO (heart symbol) KUTE." first of all, the misspelling is not "kute" at all. second, why would you leave off the second "o" in "too"? so you can insert a cutesy heart? wait, i'm sorry, a KUTESY heart? and why do some girls think so highly of themselves that they need to proclaim to the world that they're just too damn good looking? i took a closer look at her when we were side by side and she was actually kind of mediocre (five hundred bucks says her screenname has a reference to "sexy" or "hottie" or something else equally full of crap). here's the best part, though - her license plate frame said "USC School of Business." yeah, 'nuff said. if i ever saw a ucla frame on such an obnoxious vanity plate (highly unlikely, because 95% of bruins have more class than that - the other 5% are transfers from 'SC), i'd rip it off the car without blinking an eye. anyway, i left work relatively early friday night to make it down to torrance by 8:00 to bake. yes, you read that right. i had a bbq to go to late saturday afternoon, so i volunteered to make dessert, which is generally foolproof (though we all know the very second you label something foolproof, it explodes in your face). so i suckered lynn into helping me because she is Suzy Homemaker Extraordinaire and i am Girl Who Can't Even Pronounce Colander. unfortunately, something went horribly wrong with lynn's famous bread pudding recipe (me: "dude...is it supposed to look like scrambled eggs?!?") so we had to make another run to the grocery store at midnight to rebuy all the ingredients and start from scratch. public service announcement: never screw up a recipe in lynn's kitchen, because the kitchen nazi will take it personally and make you do it over again until you get it right. lynn ultimately blamed the failure on her own lack of supervision, but it was pretty obvious she thought it was completely my fault. for a moment i was convinced that she was gonna make me write "i will remember to stir the middle of the pot when scalding the milk and mixing the eggs" a hundred times in cursive on a piece of lined paper. thankfully, i managed to avoid cooking scrambled eggs the second time around, and was therefore dismissed close to 2am. what's sad is i didn't even get a chance to sample the bread pudding at the bbq because i had to leave early in order to make it to dinner #2 with tom at ford's filling station for his birthday. it better have been the best damn bread pudding in the whole universe, that's all i gotta say. in work-related news, last friday yumi and i took over an accounting method project for a PSC out in phoenix, Big Thompson Medical Group. it's actually pretty interesting from a tax technical perspective and a good opportunity for us to show the firm we're not complete idiots. it probably helps if you can remember how to properly pronounce the company's name on serious phone calls, though. because no matter how much research you've done or how eloquently you make your point, the only thing people will take away from your conversation is your repeated references to the corporation as "Big Johnson" instead of "Big Thompson." for crying out loud, what were the owners thinking when they named their company!? i finally caught myself the third time i mispronounced it - and instead of recovering smoothly, i stopped, choked back a laugh with an awkward cough and then somehow managed to stumble through the rest of the call. ANYWAYS, i need to get back to work. let's hope i don't drop any more phallic references in any of my upcoming calls this week. i can hear what the senior managers and partners are saying about me already: "man, what's up with that new manager connie? she a pervert or something?" why yes, as a matter of fact, i am. haha. all right, wish me luck in making it through the next couple of days. i'm out - xoxo. 11:21 PM 9/16/2007 check this out: my job is awesome! in honor of almost finishing my 9/17 projects, here are some key highlights from the above article: Accountants used to be spoofed as bean counters—dutiful, middle-aged, gray-suited men with considerable analytical expertise but little charisma. That was during the good times. After their uninspiring performances in the corporate scandals of recent years, accounting seemed like a profession without much of a future, and the firms certainly no place to launch a career. Scratch that. This year accountants became sexy. Accounting firms dominated BusinessWeek's second annual ranking of the best companies for new college graduates: Deloitte & Touche is No. 1, followed by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. The last of the Big Four, KPMG, moved up four spots, to No. 11. Why did the accounting firms do so well? Enormous demand. Across industries, there is a mad scramble to recruit the best and brightest of a new generation, the much-maligned, heavily scrutinized Gen Y. Nowhere is the pressure more intense than in the Big Four. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has so greatly increased the need for their services that the firms are facing an epic talent shortage. That has put them in an unusual position: They are among the first to rethink how to recruit college grads, keep them happy on the job, or just keep them at all. Ernst & Young uses Facebook to let prospective employees talk freely with real ones. Deloitte will show a rap video about office life—made by interns—to give students a realistic view of the company. And PwC requires some bosses to get a second opinion on their evaluations of new hires to make sure the feedback is clear enough, the goals ambitious enough for kids who are uncomfortable with ambiguity. Welcome to the post-millennial world. huh. interesting. i have a few comments: 1. what's up with the "this year accountants became sexy" line? dude, we've ALWAYS been sexy. duh. 2. ok, E&Y (which was first of the big fours in '06) was beat out this year by D&T and PwC? that's a load of crap! 3. haha, KPMG came in #11. incredible. i'd have ranked it 4,281,598,394,765,295. 4. actually, KPMG would come in #11 on the "top 99 places that will have you contemplating suicide on a daily basis." 5. facebook is pretty stupid. and yes, i'm on it. last week i threatened to sic HR on andy because he wouldn't stop poking me (it didn't work). 6. the article states that the big 4 are among the first to rethink how to keep their college grads happy. hey, maybe it's time to think HARDER, guys. 7. again, toilet & douche was ranked first? who compiled this list, anyways, a bunch of chimps? while on the topic of awesome careers, this past week at work nearly killed me. i only went home to sleep and shower, with the rest of my waking moments spent slaving away at the office or sitting in traffic. things got even crazier towards the end of the week - i'd get up from my desk to chat with a senior manager for five stinkin' minutes and come back to four missed calls on my phone. i gave up on reading most of my emails friday because i figured if the issue was urgent enough, i'd get a phone call or voicemail about it. brandy sent a message to me and tom yesterday morning to suggest going out for drinks after work, and before i could hit reply to decline the invitation, tom wrote back with "I think Connie might die before then." i'm not sure how he figured out how stressed i was - maybe it from was our conversation earlier, when he called to see how i was doing and i could only whine/whimper/growl in response. "i'm fiiiiiine, really. it just suuuuuuuuucks to be me. i've got a pounding headache AND I AM GOING TO FREAKING DIE, OKAY? BUSY SEASON IS GOING TO KILL ME. TODAY. ARGHHHHHHHHH. wah." anyways, i somehow made it alive through friday evening and figured it was smooth sailing from there. WRONG. see, that's what happens when you get all cocky and start thinking things like, "man, this year i beat the deadline by TWO DAYS!" i worked a little bit yesterday and this morning, and then decided to head to the mall to buy some new pantyhose in the afternoon (i wrecked the last pair with a plastic fork - don't ask). as i was standing in line at nordstrom's, my cell phone went off - it was my senior manager, asking me if i could get to my laptop to fix some calcs. so i headed home right away, logged online, and then realized that the relevant contracts i needed were in downtown LA. then i got ANOTHER call 20 minutes later from a senior down in OC, desperate for help in assembling 30 state returns for another client. let me tell you how awesome it feels to jump in your car at 8pm on a sunday night to drive to the office and spend the next five hours there, working all alone. all the stuff got done though, so i was a happy camper. ok, i gotta go finish up my other work so i'm gonna log off. btw, can somebody explain to me how the entire balance of US' trade deficit got transferred to my amex bill this month? i nearly went into cardiac arrest when i went to pay it off. i sure hope i'm getting a 50000% raise from EY this year. p.s. i stupidly left my laptop unlocked again last week, and came back to see this set as my wallpaper:   YUM, VEGETABLES! 1:03 AM 9/26/2007 so i'm back from my 3 day cruise to ensenada. i think my body's equilibrium is a bit off, because i'm leaning funny to one side and my head's still spinning. dude, i need to recuperate from vacation. that is so retarded. anyways, highlights from our trip include the following: • lynn smuggling in a half liter of absolut mandarin onto the ship using an arrowhead bottle. • jon smuggling in an additional liter of generic vodka and rum using arrowhead bottles as well. • no, lynn and jon did not discuss in advance. shady minds and/or alcoholics just think alike. • the mexican jumping beans justin bought in ensenada in mexico for a dollar. • lynn stressing out about getting the jumping beans through customs ("the form says we can't bring seeds! or insects! what should we do!?!?") • eating every five minutes on the cruise ship. literally. • the hairiest chest contest and its seven grotesquely hairy participants. • six shots of tequila and six beers for $10 in ensenada. • the room steward who cleaned up after us and folded my underwear all neatly on my bed. um, on second thought, that was creepy. • the water slide in the middle of the ship. • 24/7 unlimited room service. • running on the elliptical with a 180 degree view of the ocean. • the random naps we took throughout the day in between eating. • the dude in ensenada who tried to sell us bracelets that said stuff like "DIRTY WHORE" and "SKANKY GIRL." • the gorgeous weather. and of course, the lowlights: • me getting seasick on saturday night. • our combined gambling losses of...uh, i don't even want to know. stupid 3 card poker and blackjack. • the overpriced margaritas and lousy service at papas & beer in ensenada. • dirty kids and their equally dirty parents trying to sell me chiclets in ensenada. • getting ripped off within five minutes of boarding the boat by a slick waiter with "free" cocktails. • everybody losing at bingo, which cost us sixty bucks. yes, sixty bucks. for BINGO!!!! • the drunk, trashy people all over the ship. lady, put your boobs away - they haven't looked good since 1983. the worst part about the trip was coming back home to discover the untimely death of lynn's fifty billionth hamster. and guess who volunteered for digging duty in lynn's backyard for the fifty billionth time? i'm fairly certain one day a little hamster zombie is going to burst through the ground while i'm digging and chase me around the yard. i will seriously drop dead from a heart attack. i'm sure there's much more to recap, but i am still in the process of figuring out how to walk properly on solid ground so i'm not going to waste precious brain cells on remembering all the little details of my mini vacation. here are some pictures in the meantime:  playing cards in our tiny room.  this was taken right before i had to run to get dramamine. i thought i was gonna puke all over my dress.  apparently the person who took this picture didn't know how to operate my camera's zoom function.  bad margaritas! ok, i need to sleep because the stupid ground won't stop undulating. and yes, i realize "undulating" may not be the most appropriate verb to use in this case, but like i said, my brain is functioning in a very limited capacity right now. i am going to vegas next week for work, and hopefully DC the week after that. and then sacramento (YAY). i'll update more later. adios. 11:39 PM 9/29/2007 check out this weird conversation i had at five AM saturday morning, when i picked up a call from a blocked number: girl: (whispering) connie? me: uh, yeah. girl: connie, are you sleeping? me: uh huh. who is this? girl: (still whispering) connie? me: (getting irritated) yeah, it's me. girl: okay. me: is this aunt *****? (one of my aunts from taiwan who has a tendency to call my cell at weird times) girl: yes. do you work tomorrow? me: (suspiciously) yes. girl: what time? me: (even more suspiciously, this time answering in taiwanese) nine. girl: what? me: (in taiwanese, again) nine. don't you understand what i'm saying? girl: huh? me: i'm going to give you two seconds to tell me who you are before i hang up on you. girl: connie, don't you remember me? me: TWO SECONDS, OR ELSE I HANG UP. girl: (softly) we had sex. me: uh, i think i would have remembered that. bye. *CLICK* how creepy/gross is that? i get the strangest calls, i swear. there was the male stripper who called himself the "italian stallion" and offered me a job as a phone sex operator in high school (no joke). he kept calling back so finally i pretended to be my mom and told him that connie moved away. his response? "you're lying - i was outside her school today and i saw her. ha!" i threatened to call the cops and never heard back from him. then one time in college somebody called my dorm and i thought it was james (kimchi james, not bitter ex james), so i proceeded to have a normal conversation with him until he started talking about how he had a dirty dream with me in it and went into embarrassingly explicit details. it was about then that i started realizing that "james" sounded um, different. i hung up the phone in mid conversation, and then dialed james back in his dorm room: andrew: hello? me: andrew, it's connie. is james there? andrew: nah, he's in the middle of lab right now. what's up? me: oh jeez, nevermind. the next week i got another random phone call when i was alone in my room again: me: hello? guy: baby, i'm horny. me: uh, you've got a hand, use it. anyways, i'm back working my butt off at work, while everybody else who went on the cruise with me is currently recuperating from an especially bad case of food poisoning. i think it's pretty safe to say that nobody's gonna want to go on a cruise again anytime in the next century or so - this is what i call the "thailand effect." it's been over seven years since that god-forsaken country nearly killed me and i'm STILL traumatized. so when i got back into work on monday, yumi informed me that she and peter signed me up for the singing bee - you know, the tv show that quizzes people on random song lyrics. i was trying to recover from the shock when she told me that they also signed me up for don't forget the lyrics - the OTHER tv show that quizzes people on random song lyrics. i suppose that's what i get for introducing my coworkers to my extensive repertoire of backstreet boys songs and awesome renditions of 2pac's greatest hits ("grab your glocks when you see 2 paaaaaaaaaac; call the cops when you see 2 paaaaaaac!"). i didn't think they'd volunteer me for public humiliation in front of millions of viewers though. i'm sure i'll be able to weasel my way out of it, but in the meantime, i am looking for a way to sign yumi up for flavor of love. FLAVA FLAV!!! if that show isn't the epitome of class, then i don't know what is. i am also the unofficial captain of EY's team for AAJA's trivia bowl. ugh. i bet all my geeky friends are laughing at me right about now. a little part of me (the nerdy part) is excited, but most of me (the realistic part) is intimidated. i used to be queen of cramming in massive amounts of information in very little time, but let's face it, 1) i have less than two weeks, and 2) i think my brain has atrophied since i left school. seriously, i used to know every single step of the Krebs cycle. i had the periodic table memorized. i could solve stupid instaneous rate of flow word problems in calculus, write a term paper on the role of the balkan powder keg in WWI and explain the difference between a gerund and an infinitive. i also figured out how to cheat off lynn in japanese without getting caught by murata. haha. now all i know are generally useless facts about corporate taxation. hey, maybe we'll luck out and get a bunch of accounting questions. btw, our biggest competitor, JABA, has a jeopardy champion on its team. in the words of one of my teammates (who happens to be one of my staff that i forced into joining): "ummmm yeah we're screwed." all right i gotta run; there's work to do and trivia to memorize. man, i am such a loser. good thing i've come to terms with it. now please send some luck my way so i don't embarrass myself, my firm and my poor coworkers in a few weeks. later, kids. | |||||||
Copyright 2006 Connie Cheng
