Dating a client? No!

A prequel to my last post

There were eyes on me. I could feel it. I hate people staring at me that way, rude and overbearing, like a predator.

It was a ski trip with clients. The pair of eyes followed me from the ski field to the cafeteria…

“Are you a fresh grad?”
“No, I’ve been working for almost four years.” I may look like a teenage girl wearing two pigtails. But don’t judge a book by its cover.

“Are you married?” He asked, no, interrogated.
“No.” Huh, straight to the point.

“What’s your msn?”
…
The next Monday on msn

“Today is my birthday.”
“Oh, happy birthday!” What a coincidence and how dramatic!
“Why not have dinner with me and say that in person?”
“Hmm, I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“What do you do for fun at weekends?”
“Stay home.”
“Do you like bowling?”
“I’m not interested in sports.”
“Do you like karaoke?”
“No.”
“You are so introvert?!”
Ha, I see the connotation here: what a freak you are!

I am who I am. I won’t love something just because the majority loves it. Sorry, you are not my type. Our company will organize other trainings in the future. We may meet again. But it’s just business.

One night in Beijing

All fancy restaurants were fully booked at Friday night. Never would I know the night in Beijing had I stayed in my apartment.

Loft reminded me of Eight over Eight in Sanlitun, the guests who came all the way from France in the early winter of 2004, Catherine who said the place was for lovers to break up, Betty haggling with the Italian restaurant manager with her broken English…Shining wine glasses on polished mahogany tables under pale yellow lights didn’t appeal to me; they felt lofty.

I don’t like business socializing. I’m always a quiet listener, an attentive observer. Having met more and more people, I gradually have the eye to judge. The sophistication of our clients from CITVC astonished me. How can environment shape a person? Change a person? We were the same back at school, but those years in society can make a person unrecognizable. My cousins and old classmates whom I haven’t heard of for years must be like strangers to me today.

Movies, pictures, memories

Gladiator, on HBO last night. This is the first film I watched in university, in Beijing, 7 1/2 years ago. The same movie, a different me. The scene I walked into the screen room on the 4th floor of the library with my roommates was still etched in my mind. It’s weird. I have bad memory, but some ordinary moments in the past just linger there…

The past three years with a diary seems alive; is it the diary that makes it so, or it really is? But the 18 years in my hometown is dim, as if I had slept them away. All I can remember is the dingy classroom, mountains of books on the desks, clouds of chalk dust dancing in front of my eyes… Maybe I just don’t want to leave any space for that period – it was locked deep in my subconscious.

Then the four years in Beiwai is something I’d like to keep forever… Those memories are like pebbles on the beach, waiting to be collected. I’m so afraid they would be washed away by the tide of time.

Last month I found an album with pictures of me at school. Alas, I can barely remember my classmates’ names. Shattered memories…

No title

The most comfy way of writing is lying inclined to a pillow with the laptop on my thighs on a cold winter day. A fireplace in the room would be nicer. Then my thoughts begin to wander around. It’s all but a temporary escape from reality. I treasure every moment I can calm down and do some writing, with the sunlight casting in…

Don’t know how to start this new page because nothing new has ever happened yet. Don’t wanna go out; nothing is more pleasant than snuggle into bed and enjoy the sunshine of winter.

I spent the whole weekend huddling in the sofa watching dvds, dazzled by different stories and styles. Movie is a healer to loners.