My Blog

I am sitting in my hotel room, enjoying every bite of the Lindt chocolate bar I resurrected to solid form (forgot about it in my suitcase in 100 degree Texas heat) as I am updating my blog. It’s late night and I have given in to this craving :o(. I acquired this candy when I was in Montreal last week. Lindt chocolate, in my opinion is the best chocolate in the world. I visited their Swiss facility 4 years ago and had fallen in love with their products ever since.

As I am typing away, I am daydreaming of my next visit to Tahoe. I can’t wait for winter to come around again. I welcome El Nino any year, more rain = more snow. I would have to say one of my greatest passions in life is snowboarding. I am hooked like an addict and is determined to become better. I look forward to my next trip - I can picture the breath taking beauty of the lake, the majestic surrounding snow capped mountains and the thin, crisp air I will be feeling against my cheeks as I move down the mountain. The imagery is so vivid - I can smell the air.

I am determined to try all things that make life interesting and worth living. I think that is my quest in this life. I have always been active and open to trying new things….as a child, I literally bounced off walls, couches, beds, chairs and tables. To my parents’ dismay, I wasn’t the quiet and orderly daughter they had wanted me to be. Instead, I was the one who couldn’t sit still, was always on the go and protested piano lessons. I’ve lost count of the number of times when I was scolded for being too mischievous and fearless. Which brings me to recall the one time I was under my cousin’s lead to take out every fruit on the plum tree in his backyard. I have to add that he was a greater menace (I was a close second as his puppet). And when we joined forces - nothing good can come of it. This was the tree his parents had cultivated for years….it was the first time it bore fruit. He was five and I was four. He handed me a baseball bat and together we took the liberty of striking down all the plums within our little reach…….until they were all on the ground. We were so tired and thirsty but also very happy over our victorious afternoon. Needless to say, we were totally busted by dinner time.

Among my siblings, I was the one with the least fear of anyone and anything new. But I have become more and more conservative with age. Ten years ago, I wanted to try bungee jumping and ski diving. I think I still want to try ski diving with the right group of people. For now, I’ll settle on snowboarding in the winter, surfing in the summer………(to be continued)

I am back in Montreal for my third and last week of the audit. Today was busier than ever. I worked about 11 hours and ate McDonald’s for lunch - blaahhh……at least I was able to get a filet-o-fish sandwich w/fries. And I didn’t even have to go pick it up. In Canada, the ketchup is sweeter and less tangy than the one in the US. I still like the US one better! With all the work I have been doing here in Montreal, I have to say I really did enjoy my stay. I haven’t gotten a chance to go downtown to see the world’s largest underground city. I was there the first week and none of us seemed to know there was one. I later acquired that knowledge when I went to the Montreal casino with Stacie to watch her gamble. At the very least, I ended my last week in Canada with some play time at the Sheraton’s waterslide. Last Thurs night, after we arrived in Montreal from Granby, Stacie and I went for a dip in the pool and a few rides down the water tunnel. After going down the slide the "right" way a few times, I told her that I was going to try sliding down head first! She told me, that "I wouldn’t do that if I were you." Well, I did it. Lol!! I had my arms in front of me and went down the slide head first and on my stomach.  I would be lying to say that it wasn’t thrilling at all. I rode up pretty high on the side of the slide and later Stacie said when I went around the corner of the tunnel, she saw a big splash of water come out of the side. Then, I skipped over the water like a rock! - parallel to the surface for about 4 ft before I landed in the water. It was so funny -we busted out laughing til my eyes teared. I finished off the evening with a late dinner meal at Japon -  a must try Japanese restaurant in Montreal. I have become a regular at the restaurant since I found it my first week in Montreal. I’ve been going about 3-4 times a week - taking my coworkers with me every other time. I was going so often that I was getting freebies from the sushi chefs…..who were giving me and my colleagues (when they came along) sushi creations, seafood etc with every visit.

Tonight is my last night in Bromont and tomorrow is my last working day in Granby, Canada. I have found this week to be a pleasantly challenging experience. Normally, I am a zombie functioning on 5-6 hours of sleep but not this week. I am just barely revving up the engine. I think it’s because I’ve had quite a work load this week. I never know anymore when it’s lunch time. Just about every day my new colleague, Stacie has to ask me "are you ready for lunch?" It’s just the two of us here auditing the satellite location of Granby while the rest of the group is still in Montreal. I arrive at work and it feels as if 30 minutes later, it’s lunch time. Four hours would go by but it would feel like 1 hour! That’s just the way I like to spend my work day. With all the work we have in front of us, sometimes I feel overwhelmed about getting to a certain milestone in a 10 hour work day.  But, when that happensI know I am enjoyng my work. Time pressure makes me more efficient! Some things I have found challenging were trying to make out what the people I am interviewing are saying…..their heavy french accent makes them sound like they are chewing on marbles when they are speaking. Some can’t even speak english, in cases like that, we have to deal with make-do "translators" who are sometimes over the telephone. Training Stacie has been easy though, she’s pretty sharp! At first I thought we could just split up the workload, what was 50 hours of work would become 25 hours each. I was telling her in Montreal that it will be a breeze getting all of our work done. Not until I remembered, she’s new to the PBG business. So basically, I’d have to do almost all of the work myself while explaining to her what I am doing and why. But, she’s made my life easier than I thought. Together, we will turn 50 hours of work to hopefully 35 hours. Our goal is to get done early tomorrow to make our 50 mile drive back to Montreal. We shall spend the afternoon or evening (depending on when we finish our work) riding down the 120 ft waterslide at our Montreal hotel (she has only heard of my stories about this slide). I have personally ridden this waterslide (about 7 times last week). It’s fun trying to go through the tunnel as fast as I can. Staying in Montreal Thurs night before we catch our Fri morning flight home would be better than trying to make the drive to the airport on Fri morning - since we can’t anticipate how bad morning traffic would be into Montreal.

I will surely miss my stay in Bromont. The hotel I am staying in is so comfortable and cozy. It has a European feel - my room would probably be a 5 star in Europe. I will miss dining at Chateau Bromont and all the little and big family owned restaurants (that were either a hit or miss). We never knew what we were walking into until it was too late. Last night, Stacie ordered a cheeseburger (that’s basically all she likes) that looked like it came out of a microwave. It was hardened on the sides. The buns were toasted though (she suspected it was stale) and it had 2 pickles and a glob of ketchup. Even I wouldn’t touch that stuff!I kidded with her that she might have accidently ordered from the kid’s menu and encouraged her to order something else (since service was so slow) and we had to go back to the laundromat where my clothes were being washed. That night before dinner, we drove all over town trying to find a laundromat and  bursted out laughing when what we finally found was a small white shack, at the end of a long driveway in the middle of a run-down neighborhood. It was a little trailer that we kept passing over and over again. We would have never found that place if we weren’t able understand the laundromat lady’s directions in broken english. That might be the end of my bright idea of traveling with a 19" carry on for a two week stay (I am the queen of packing light cuz I always know I can find a laundromat somewhere). Normally, the hotels I stay in have a self service one or i just have the hotel send it off for dry cleaning/laundry. Unfortunately, our charming hotel in Bromont doesn’t offer any of those services or amenities.

In any case, I am glad to have been to Granby/Bromont but I am more looking forward to going home this weekend!

What is destiny? Or more specifically what is my destiny? Sometimes I find myself asking these kinds of questions. I have a friend who is supposedly a “psychic” to whom I often ask questions. I am both a skeptic and a believer in his abilities. I have heard some things that I almost cannot believe either because these events have occurred and I am utterly impressed or because they are so far fetched that they cannot comprehensibly happen. For the most part, I am a skeptic when he tells me what my destiny is…..#1 because it hasn’t happened and #2 there is no certainty is will happen in the future. I am always the one in the group challenging his answers, looking for inconsistencies in his words or hypochrisies in his behavior but at the same time looking for confirmations in his statements. Yet, I desperately want to be believe in the encouraging and the very good things he has to say.

Our destinies are supposedly mapped out before we entered this world. To me, there’s both security and inequality if this was true. For example: If you were destined to be successful in a particular field, you are ensured “help” from different individuals along the way and you will encounter fewer set backs. These helpers can be your friends, your employer, a stranger, your family – basically from anyone. The inequality I see is for those who are less fortunate. What if you have more mishaps and setbacks than the average Joe (in any aspect of life)? My “counsel’s” reasoning is because you have not done enough “good” in a prior existence. How can you be punished for something you did in a previous life of which you have no recollection of? How can you correct the wrong, when you don’t even remember what you have done and to whom you have done it to? If you were forced to drink from the river of forgetfulness before entering this realm again, how can you “pay back your debt” and stop the cycle from perpetuating itself if you don’t’ remember the events or the series of events that occurred? That’s like asking someone with Amnesia to remember a series of events leading up the illness. How can restitution be paid otherwise when there are no recognition of wrong doing and no opportunity for remorse? And if you continue to do more wrong……then I guess you’d be indebted forever from one lifetime to the next. There would be no end to this debaucle and no hope for your plight.

So does the more cumulative “good” or charitable deeds done in one’s lifetime commensurate with the amount of luck and fortune in the next life? What about animals? I know some Asian religions ( I won’t name those) believe that if you have done terrible things in your lifetime, you may come back as an animal in the next one. So, does that mean Toby (my dog) was a criminal in a previous life? Perhaps he was just a bank robber (hence the good life he supposedly leads - per Frank he’s one lucky dog  ) versus if he was a serial killer, then he’d be a homeless, flea-infested dog who has to fetch his own scraps from the local landfill and fend for himself from ruthless children and cruel adults?

I don’t know. Who would be the judge of the number of good deeds done? Is there a scorekeeper and is he fair? Does anyone audit his tablets? (hehe- ok I had to write this one in- I am such a dork!). What if he screwed up on yours? Then, I guess you’ll have to live a dog’s life………

Just some random thoughts as I am sitting in my

Montreal

hotel room….on one sleepless night.