網誌
2008年3月11日 下午4點20分42秒The Supermarket Chronicles
Yes, I’ve survived another week at my new workplace, a small supermarket, and yesterday was the first payday. Of course the pay was very small because I started working there in the middle of this month, but it made me so happy. If I don't get fired for some reason, from next month on I’ll be able to pay all the bills, buy groceries and still have a little money left in my bank account. Yeah, mediocrity. I know. But in this country, if you are a single, middle-aged woman living in a rural town, even such a mediocre success can be hard to achieve sometimes. I mean it.
Anyway, let me tell you what my days are like now. I wake up at 5:50 am every morning and spend good 5 minutes to make myself “cold-resistant” by putting on warm clothes including “high-tech” underwear and several pairs of long socks. Then I have a big breakfast because I won't be able to have lunch until around 2 pm.
The supermarket is only about 5 minutes by bicycle, which is very nice especially on rainy days in winter. Usually I meet my co-worker -- my mentor-- in the dressing room. Then we go downstairs to the small kitchen in the fish section of the supermarket, where our boss (who is the owner of the supermarket) and one elder guy are already filleting fish. There my mentor and I share some morning chores, including washing a fish scrap bucket in an outdoor sink using water and a scrubber. Yes, outdoor. Rain or shine. Or even snow. (Actually it snowed on my second day there.) Now you know why I need “high-tech” underwear? ;)
After that, my mentor and I start packing the fillets and sashimi (sliced raw fish) the two guys prepare one after another. There’s an automatic wrapping machine there, and we punch in different code numbers to wrap up the seafood in Styrofoam trays with plastic food wrap and put proper stickers on them.
Now, I don’t know if this is the same in other countries, but here in Japan, learning fish names can be a nightmare. The classification is so detailed -- for example, I have seen 4 or 5 different kinds of horse mackerel so far -- and complicated by special local names. Some fish are called by different names as they grow. I wonder how non-Japanese people being trained to be sushi chef feel about this. Don’t they think it’s crazy?
So there ARE challenges, but I guess I’m enjoying my work there. Maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that I was born and raised in a small fishing village until I was 12 years old. In my childhood, I often went to the local fishing port, and sometimes accompanied dad when he went fishing. The fishy smell or grotesque-looking fish scraps I smell/see at my work now are, of course, not very tempting, but those make me feel somewhat nostalgic rather than totally disgusted. That’s probably why I’m feeling better than the time when I was working at the bento shop.
BTW, the photo is the horse mackerel that I filleted in my kitchen. I just wanted to post a seafood-related photo with this story. And I might change the title of this post soon. (I'm a bit tired of "******* chronicles.")
2008年3月11日 下午4點13分15秒How To Choose A Good Web Hosting Service For Your
So you’ve tried free web hosting services, had a blog on sites like blogger.com and basically had fun and treated it as a hobby, but all of that changed when you discovered that you actually love blogging and that there are people out there that are actually making money with their blogs, you figured out that you might as well get into the game as well but your main obstacle is that few (if any) advertisers are willing to do business with you if your not hosting your own blog with a proper domain name, hence your hosting experince begins…..
1.Assess your needs - This is one of the crucial parts of determining your Web Host, assess what you need, not everyone needs a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a Dedicated Server right off the bat.A majority of bloggers begin their web hosting journey with a Shared Hosting service.
2.Support and Scalability - When choosing a host for your blog it is a good idea to ensure that they provide good support and that their services are scalable.Test their support by sending emails and see how long it takes before they reply, do they give you an option at the end of the reply mail to answer further questions?, did they answer your questions well enough?.
A plus point for a hosting company is if they provide you with good support via 24 hour email, forum, live chat , etc.
By scalability i mean do they allow you to “grow”?, some hosting company only offer shared hosting services and this could be a pain if your blog starts to blossom and you discover that 5GB bandwidth a month is not going to be enough anymore,a good hosting company would normally also have a VPS and Dedicated Server plan so that moving your blog to a better server won’t be that much of a pain, trust me sometimes moving a blog from one hosting company to another can really be a nightmare is it doesn’t go well.
Web Hosting services like http://www.ec2biz.com and http://www.ec2link.com are a good choice to go with.
2008年3月11日 下午4點09分07秒My Day at Quarry Hill
My class went to Quarry Hill. And we also went into the Nature Center at Quarry Hill. I really liked it because we learned all about honey bees. We learned that honey bees get their nectar from flowers. And the honey bee doesn't only see one flower. They see LOTS of flowers. And you can keep honey bees. This how how you get the honey bees' honey. Well, you put them in this little cage. You make a little fire in a little can. And you put it at the edge the box. And then the honey bees scared because they think there is a fire! So they get ready and want their food, so they grab their honey and try to go, but they can't! They have trouble. Well, the girl bees have trouble lifting their stinger. So we just let them smell around and then we get their honey!
And we also learned that when snakes put their tongue out at you, they are not being mean. They are smelling you. So, they put their tongue out to get the smell and then they put it back in. And I think it tells them if it is okay to eat or not okay to eat.
And we looked around at the Nature Center. There was a bear, but he was dead. Two bears actually. And we also got to look outside with some binoculars. And we also saw this big dinosaur bone-head. This little girl named Meredith, she found it, I think. I don't know where she found it, but she died in a car wreck. That is sad. Mrs. Rolfs loved her. We also saw snakes. There was a black snake and I don't remember the other colors though. I DID NOT PET A SNAKE! I think they will bite me. He will think I am okay to eat. I'm a good snake treat! And I saw a spider. He was a black spider. He was big. Well, he had this animal to eat, which I think was rat or a mouse. It was dead. It was gross---but he didn't have blood.
I also saw a cockroach!! He moved around his little thing and off his log. He didn't sing "Joe's toilet." I was very disappointed. He should sing "Joe's toilet." He was not gross! I think he wanted to go live with Nana or Emmaline. (teehehehehehe) He had a lot of germs on his back. They have been on Earth for a very long time, cockroaches.
And I saw a tree frog. I can't remember, but I think he had red eyes. I also saw fishes. And I saw a turtle. I also know where bees eat. They just stick their foot in their food. You know what?! I'm going to stick my foot in my food now! My new favorite snack is a toe-jam sandwich. Just kidding! I wish mama would let me eat like bee.