Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Sorry since I’ve been busy last week I didn’t get a chance to write an entry till now. I was sick last week, probably caught the flu from my brother. So I ended up staying home on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, I felt better and went to work as usual in the morning. When I got to the bus station, I found that none of the trolley buses were working because the cold weather had caused ice to form along the wires, and the buses with anti-freeze were sold to -get this- Argentina (why in the world would they need buses with anti-freeze?) Anyhow, the express buses I used to take is making every stop now because of this (usually it only stops once a block), which is fine since it only means I get to work a little later than usual.

About 3-4 minutes into the bus ride I started to feel sick. My tummy and head hurt alot, and felt nauseated. Around this time the bus stopped and didn’t move for about 5 minutes because there was something wrong with the door (it won’t close). I felt really dizzy and wanted to throw up. The bus started moving again and I’m like having trouble breathing now. So I started to make my way to the door and had wanted to get off at the next stop but then, everything went black. When I woke up again (probably like 10-15 seconds later), people around me were like “are you ok?” I bet half of them thought I fell asleep.

Everyone had to get off the bus at the next stop because of the door malfunction. I still felt dizzy and thought I might faint again so I squat at the side of the street next to some pillar of a building. Ya people were looking at me funny but I didn’t care. At least if I faint this time I won’t hit my head too hard [lol]. I thought about calling Al or my mom but I know both of them are at work by that time. When the next bus came, it was pretty empty so I hopped on and found a seat. That made me felt better and I made it to work 15 mins later than usual.

Well that was the bus incident. It was actually pretty scary. I thought I was going to die or something. I think it was a combination of the flu, my low blood pressure and the air circulation in the bus. Since then, every morning when I get on the the bus for work I get butterflies in my stomach because I’m afraid it might happen again. Hopefully the feeling will go away soon.

Alright on to the $700 suit! Seriously, I hate buying expensive clothings. I just don’t see why a piece of cloth cost so much. This coming Thursday I have to attend a local trade show and so I need a suit. I don’t have a formal one, just a jacket I picked up from GAP and a pair of pants that is decent looking. So Al’s been bugging me to get a suit. He said I need one for future use anyways, like interviews and what not. We visited BCBG, this store had became one of Al’s favourite. He loves dragging me in there and just throws me into the changing room with a bunch of clothes. We found a dark brown suit with pin stripes and it looked pretty nice…except for the price tag. After a lot of nagging from Al, we picked up the suit. >”< I’ll see if I can get a picture of it later this week.

PS: I need your address for x’mas card mailing! Email them to me please!

Brian: Where have you been?! >”<

Kaya: When we meet up, lets having a baking party [lol]. I feel like making lots of cookies and cakes…maybe it’s because Christmas is coming.

I finally got those pictures loaded and I have a lot of food photos for Brian because I know he’ll drool all over his keyboard when he sees them.

Well last weekend was a the Remembrance Day long weekend. I stayed over at the twin’s place because we had a few parties planned and also since their parents are in HK for vacation, I’m cooking dinner for the two of them. Speaking of cooking, I made rosemary marinated steak w/ balsamic roasted root veggies. I love roasted carrots. They are so sweet! I’ll post the recipe on another post later.

Every Remembrance Day weekend we usually celebrate LawLi’s birthday. We went to a hotpot place in Richmond this year with the gang. It has been a while since our last group gathering (back in August for the BBQ) so it’s nice to catch up with everyone. As usual, hotpot is like a beef fest for the guys, check out this tower of meat below. Scary isn’t it! I bet Brian’s drooling now [lol].

On Saturday, Al and I went shopping at Aberdeen Centre and had lunch at a Japanese restaurant called Kitanoya Guu. The food was delicious and wasn’t too pricey. I had sushi combo and Al had marinate tuna. After lunch we went past the food court and saw a new pastry shop there called Beard Papa. Al said it’s a chain from Hong Kong and it’s really popular. The line up was crazy so I didn’t bother trying to buy their cream puffs, which are $20/dozen (kind of expensive in my opinion).

Well that’s about it from last weekend. I’m busy trying to get all the trade shows wrapped up for this month. So many shows and only one of me to coordinate -.-;; Before I go, here’s a picture of the $200 shirt I bought from BCBG. It’s the most expensive shirt I’ve ever bought! It’s made of 100% silk and it feels really good (maybe not so healthy for my wallet). I usually don’t buy stuff that’s over $100 except for shoes [lol]. Oh well, I got this to reward myself for landing the job!

<Ok I’ve got some pics and stuff I’d like to post but I need some time to download them as well as write about them which I did not have time to do this weekend. So for now you get this filler post!>

Romeo & Juliet – Act 2, Scene 2:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other word would smell as sweet. – Juliet

The Chinese character on the banner is a character in my Chinese name. When I was little my mom had told me that since each Chinese character contains a meaning of its own, every Chinese name, commonly containing two to three characters, has a special meaning associate to it.

Lets find out if my parents picked the right name for me. I couldn’t find my dictionary so I’ve used the MDBG Chinese-English dictionary online for the Chinese definitions. The first character is 靜 [Jing] – calm, quiet, motionless, still. The second character is 妍 [Yan] – beautiful, handsome, seductive. So, lets see what we get if we put the two characters together and try to translate it to English: 靜妍 [Jing Yan] – Static is beautiful.

I almost died laughing at the translation. Ok, now that we have the definitions, I’m sure those who knows me will agree that this name doesn’t quite fit my personality. I’m not exactly a quiet person. Although people at my work place always say that I’m a mute since I don’t talk very much but that is because a) its work and I want to finish everything so I can get off work on time and b) it takes a bit of time for me to get to know someone before I start talking my mouth off to them. And lets not even discuss about the second character [lol]. I do however believe that I’m a beautiful person…inside.

Alright now for my English name. Janice is derived from the name Jane with the -ice suffix. There are many variations such as Janis, Janise, Janess, Janyce…etc. The meaning of Jan[e] is God is gracious. The name first appeared in the novel “Janice Meredith” (1899) by Paul Leicester Ford. These information is taking from Think Baby Names and babynames.com.

So there we have it, the meanings of my names. I don’t exactly understand the meaning of Janice but that’s ok. Since names are given to us when we’re babies, I don’t think that many people would actually grow into what their name means – especially the Chinese names. Wouldn’t it be scary if everyone has the personality or trait that fits perfectly with the meaning of their name? Then naming would be like a form of fortune telling and that people with similar name/meaning would be like twins.

PS: So, what does your name mean?

To Brian: I missed our food games. I bet we’d be talking about food all the time if we’re chatting. You should get MSN so we can do that sometimes!

To Kaya: I <3 you! Hope you’re doing well. Is it getting cold in HK?

To Wilson: Al & Ken want you to come visit and you should! I’ll cook for you and even made you my famous brownies!

To Snowy: I hope you’re doing well! It’s so hard to catch you online so I’m glad we can communicate offline through here.

Alright, here’s the disclaimer. If you find that reading about a girl trying to buy bras is a bit too much information, you should stop reading now. I hate shopping for bras and panties but I had to do it today [I try to only do it once a year] and I thought I’d just write down my experience since I thought it’d be amusing to read about it a few years later.

So now that you have been warned, here goes. Like I mentioned, I don’t like shopping for undergarments. Why? I don’t really know. Maybe there are just too many selections. High cuts, low cuts, t-backs, padded, push-ups, laced, wireless [lol I'm thinking internet connection here, but no, it's the ones without under wires], strapless…etc. Then there are all those colors and patterns! So many selections…yet I’m only after one thing: comfy cotton bras & pantsu!

With that in mind, I went into La Senza with Al today. Ken chickened out and went to Chapters to wait for us [lol]. Al doesn’t really mind walking into a lingerie store. So we went in and cruised around a bit to look for the ones that I wanted. However, here comes a problem…They don’t have the ones that I used to buy a year ago! The only one that is slightly similar got all these laces around it [ew?!] So we tried to look for others, but only to find out that they are push-ups, like it has this thick padded piece of “thing” near the bottom of the cup. Why?! I feel like I’d have an extra piece of “meat” if I wear it. So no, I can’t buy that. When I finally found something that looked remotely comfortable and doesn’t have girly laces around it, I found that they don’t have my size. And what’s worse, none of the colours has my size! OMG I was really troubled by this. Is it because I’m so small that they don’t even carry my size T_T And you know what is funny. When I found ones that aren’t push-up bras, I started looking for my size. However when I found one that fits me, it has that stupid “extra piece of meat” there! It’s like mocking me “all the small sizes need extra support”! I had never felt so frustrated when I’m shopping.

During all this time while I was flipping through rows after rows of bras, Al was standing there looking like he wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I felt the same way. So I had asked him to help me look but he said no. T_T However, I did make him help me hold my bras for me. It was so funny because he’d like hold them with one finger, like they are dirty, smelly socks. [lol] I don’t understand why he can’t just hold them properly. I keep telling him that they are “clean” and “doesn’t have germs”. Some girl heard me and laughed.

Well that’s pretty much the highlight of this weekend. The twins’ parents left for HK on Friday so they are making me cook dinner for them for the next three weeks. Now I gotta start figuring out what to cook every night D:

Wow, it’s the weekend again. Time passes by so much more quicker when you are busy.

This week has been slower, I think mainly because JP, my director, was sick for a day and then had to attend 2-3 hours meeting every day since then which leaves him no time to reply to emails. I foresee more last minute stuff to come in next week.

Instead of having a “what I’ve learned” this week lets focus on trade shows. Most of my experience in this area is from my last position. RS had taught me a lot and I also had the opportunity to attend a trade show training by The Portables. At the training, I found out that you should:

• Qualify each attendee in the first 30 seconds to 1 minute – At a busy convention there’ll be lots of people dropping by your booth, but that doesn’t mean all of them are interested at your product/service. To qualify whether or not the visitor is worth spending time on [ie. promote to], find out what their needs are. If they are not really interested, you know it’s time to move on to the next. There is no point in talking to everyone about your product/service if it doesn’t not offer them a solution to their problem. Exhibiting at a trade show cost a lot of resources so make sure you utilize every minute of the time spend during the exhibition hours.
• Beware of the freebie collectors – Some people never get any of the free samples, brochures or promotional materials at trade shows because it might be a hassle to carry around, while others will take what they need so when they leave, it’ll remind them to check up on items that interested them. Then finally, there are those “collectors” who take everything for the sake of having them. They are almost like the trophies of attending the exhibition. Promotional materials aren’t cheap. Some companies like to give out free pens or memo pads, while my current company has this big portfolio promotional package which isn’t very cost effective to handout at trade shows. Here’s why: each portfolio folder cost $1.00, the printed materials is roughly $4-5 [4-colour printed double-sided on glossy stock] and the CD lets say $1.00. This means the total value of the package is roughly $7. If you give out $7 per visitor at your booth and there’s no guarantee that the visitor will purchase your produce/service then you are basically throwing out $7/person. I think the best way is to not give out promotional materials like these [although I'm sure those pens with the corporate name and contact information are like $0.10 each so by all means hand them out] and save them for prospects whom you feel are the ones who will most likely contact you back after the trade show. Think ROI [return of investment] before handing out the promotional items.
• Collect leads and follow up promptly – I find it a shocking surprise that my current company does not have any form of collecting or plan on collecting leads at trade shows. Why do we want leads? Well, attending the conference and having an awareness out in the field is important but what we ultimately want to do is sell stuff. With so many people popping by your booth, you can’t possibly remember them all and of course it’d be the same for them. A good way to follow up on the prospective client as well as to continue the sales process is to have lead forms or use lead capture service [like PDAs or business card scanners] so you can have a list of contact information of your potential customers. Leads should be followed up by the sales team 48 hours after the trade shows ended so that your company is still fresh in the clients’ minds. They might not make a purchase immediately but it is good to facilitate communications with the prospects. You might never know, a few months down the road they might need your produce/services.

Alright, I think I should stop there. The reason I posted this is because I was talking to our sales rep today and she said she wanted 400 of our promotional package for a trade show. My jaw dropped when I heard that because the first thing that came to mind was “what a waste!” Anyways, I believe that trade shows promotion is very different than normal day-to-day sales activities and not many people know that. Sure, if you’re going to meet with a client, you will want to give them some reading materials to take away. But that client should already be qualified. At a trade show, as I’ve mentioned, not everyone is a potential prospect so you don’t want to be throwing your money out into the sea [of people in this case].