I just found out an ideal part-time opportunity from my cousins. What kind of part time job gives you $80 an hour basic salary, included dinner, on top of that every $5 for every 3 minutes of work, while you can have fun and excerise at the same time? The answer is to be a gigolo! Oh well… not quite right, but close enough. This job is “dance man”, be the dance partner for old women. Of course you first have to be reasonably good in ball room dancing. Then the big leap is that you are willing to scarfice your digity or perhaps your butt, which may get squeezed by those aunties. The fact is there are many old women like ball room dancing, but most of their husbands are not very interested nor good in dancing. This creates a hugh demand on men who can dance. Thus allow them charge money in this normally recreational activity. Both me and YanYan’s boyfriend are very interested in joining this profession. The prospect of becoming a dance gigolo is a good motivator for us to go thru the harsh dance lessons, especially on the painful trainings in counting the beats and remember the steps. The only problem is how can I convince Pat let me “step into the sea” to be a part-time dance gigolo.

Today, Father Perie didn’t talk about the Bible in his homily. He dedicate the whole homily to the victims of the Pakinstain earthquake, urge us to donation money through the national charity to help those victims. I think today’s message is very meaningful, the father as a good example to acted out Jesus’ teaching rather just talk about it.

This earthquake is like the hurricane in New Orleans, most of the damage could be avoided if the growth of the cities are well controlled. An earthquake will not cause much damage to a primitive society doesn’t rely on electroncity or pumping water. In ancient time, villagers could probably rebuild their shaggy home and life back to normal in relative short period of time. The more complicated the society, the better its ability to fight natural disasters. But it also prone to suffer much more damage if it face a disaster it couldn’t win.

We have heard about the damage cause of flooding almost every year in the recent years. The number of damage in dollar value or lives taken is getting higher and higher. These numbers may give an impression that the world’s climate is getter worse and worse. However if we look at a different presective, the area of the flood remains about the same for centuries. Flooding is just part of the nature. It is the fault of man who expand their cities into high risk areas, ignoring the geographical reality.

I havn’t make up my mind whether or not donate to help the victims of the earthquake. If Pakinstain government can spend millions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons, they should not ask for aids from other counties. The people living in Kashamir is different than those who lives in poor rural China. I don’t feel the bond to them, and the obligation to help them. Natural disaster always happens, and the local government always asking for aids afterward, rather having better preparation. If there is some kind of charity insurance fund covering natural disaster in selected poor places, or charity investment fund help poor area to build better infrastructure against the disaster, I will definite donate. Giving money to reward poor planning will only encourage local officials to become more irresponsible about the welfare of their own people. At last, the root cause of all the huge damages is there are too many people. I always wanted to donate money help solving this problem. I have long been searching for to a charity organization that carry out birth control in poor countries.

My mother stoped by Vancouver and visit me on her way back to Hong Kong. She will stay for 2 weeks this time and another two weeks on her way back to Toronto. I originally planned to go back to Toronto on the X’mas, but couldn’t make it due to Pat’s schedule. It is always nice to have her tasty cooking and have someone clean up my apartment. I am kinda lazy since her last visit. I will only vaccum or dust my place when I absolutely cannot stay it any longer. On average, I think I clean my place every 2 to 3 months. My mom also repairs my clothes, which is a very important skill that Pat lacks. My mom always boast how much time I save while she is here. The reality is there is no big difference. The time I save for not cooking my rudimentary dinner is lost to eat a proper meal at the table. I rarely clean the house, so not much time is save over there. The only real time saver I can think of is doing the laundary that is a task I couldn’t avoid every week.

Today I have my first foosball match with Johnathan Gay’s team. I am partnering with Anson. The tournament has 5 preliminary round, play one game each one, today is the first game. We did quite well today, beat the other team 2-0 games. We could win two games straight, but let them caught up with us with a 4-2 lead. My skill is still on the beginer level. Although I am playing offensive, I still shot the ball backward by mistake sometimes. There are many better than beginner player in the novice league, because the players in the expert are really crazy. There is no way to win a match against those guys who can score before I have a chance to touch the ball. We’ll see how the tournament turns out, my only concern is the foosball may not last that long from the abuse every day. Some plastic players already have stress mark on the legs. It seems everyone who use that foosball table want to be the one who break the first leg.

I had a really bad day today. On my way to work, I hit the curb and resulted in two flat tires on the right side of my car. If it is only 1 flat tire, I could change the spare tire myself, but I couldn’t help when there are 2 flat tires. I called BCAA to tow the car to the nearest tire shop. I was not the BCAA member, so I have to join it right on the spot. I explicitly told them I had 2 flat tires afraid that they will send the service truck instead of the tow truck. I had waited for 45 minutes before the service truck arrived, which can’t provide much help. Then I have to wait for another 30 minutes for the tow truck. The service of both the truck drivers are excellent, they are friendly and very helpful. We all agreed that it is the dispatch center’s fault to send the wrong truck. Luckily my tires are bought at Canadian Tire and have life time warrenty. Can Tire replaced the two unrepariable tires just for $16 warrently fee. Able to saved two hundred dollars for a pair of new tires, I am not too upset at the end of the day.