After the sad entry on Monday, let's change gears to a much happier piece of news. My new niece, the 5th so far, was born this morning. Yup, a New Year's Eve baby. She weighed in at a healthy 7lb 3oz. But she's a little short on the get go at 17.5 inches. But not to worry, she will catch up. This is my 3rd brother's 1st kid. Needless to say he is proud and gleaming with joy right now. According to him, every year the entire world will celebrate his daughter's birthday with fireworks. Ha! A very proud remark indeed.

Today marks a sad day in history. Popular Hong Kong singer/actress Anita Mui died of complications to the lungs caused by cervical cancer at 2:50am Dec 30 HK time. I am quite saddened by this piece of news. Ever since she announced to the public in September that she has cancer, she's been fighting the illness bravely. She vowed to continue living life to the fullest. Sadly her final days were short and few.

A strong and determined woman, she's made a tremendous life and reputation for herself. Besides winning numerous singing and acting awards, she had also won the love of many - her friends, her colleagues, and her fans. She will be missed by many, including myself. I had always admired her strength and determination. In a way, I see some resemblance of her in me. Though I never really idolized her, I always respected her. Goodbye Anita.

So I did it. I went to the "job interview" and politely declined the offer. They were very understanding. No feelings were hurt. No bridges burnt. All is good.

I have a job interview scheduled for today. I'm gonna go in as planned. But I'm not going in to fight for the job. On the contrary, I'm going in to decline the offer.

Why am I going if I don't want the job? Why don't I just call them and say I'm not interested? Why waste my time going there and their time seeing me? The answer is I don't want to come across as rude or wishy-washy. What? 3 months ago I wanted the job and now I don't? 2 days ago I wanted to speak with them about the job nature and now I don't? It's not that at all. It's all a matter of timing.

3 months ago when they first approached me about this pending job position, I felt insecure about my current job and would have accepted offers from prospective new employers. But as they took the 3 months to get approval from corporate headquarters to create this new position, my current company also went on with making plans of expansion and thus broadening my horizons here. Now I see new outlooks and challenges at this current job and am looking forward to tackling them. Therefore I have no choice but to turn down other offers that come at this time.

So...I'm going to the "job interview" today to ensure to them that my interest was genuine, to express regret that timing is not right to make this happen at this current point in time, to thank them for considering me for the position and for the well thoughts that I could be a good candidate. Hopefully I won't burn any bridges with them and they'll continue to consider me if and when other opportunities arise in the future. The world is round. It keeps turning and turning. But you might still keep ending up at about the same place with about the same people. It'd be wise to keep good ties with them.

Just as I'm starting to think life is getting too monotonous, along came acid reflux and a stomach flu to spice things up for me. One goes up along the system while the other goes down. What fun. Not!