Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Ever since I had the car accident I’ve been wondering if I’d see the car that I rear ended again.

Well this morning, at the same intersection where the accident happened, that car was right in front of me again! It’s exactly the same situation, he was in front of me and we’re both waiting in the left turn lane. It was scare. I had to do a double take to make sure it’s the same car. How can I tell? Well I didn’t quite remember the license plate but I did remember what his bumper and side panel looked like after I hit him. That’s how I recognized that it’s the same car.

And what is even weirder is that his work place is close to mine! We both headed up the bridge and took the same exit off the highway. I thinking to myself “I hope he doesn’t work in the same building as me.” He took a left turn on the street where I took a right so I guess he works down the road from me. Interesting…yet a bit weird at the same time.

Anyways, I’ll be taking the car for repairs next Monday. Then I’d need to wash the car. I didn’t get a chance to wash it after the road trip to Seattle and it’s super SUPER dirty right now.

Before we start lets define what a road star is. Basically if you’ve kept a clean driving record (or at least you were not at fault for the accident), after 9 years you’d be a “road star” as termed by ICBC. It actually goes by a scale, you start at zero and every year you’ll get -1 provided that no accidents that is your fault happened.

Now most of you know that I’ve basically taken public transit since I got my driver license. It wasn’t until last June that I finally got a car of my own and started to drive. However the many years of taking the bus had provided me with the road star status, giving me a maximum discount on my car insurance which is a good thing!

Ok on to the main part of the post…(I’m not really thinking right now because I haven’t gotten over what happened yet so what I wrote might seem all over the place, read on and you’ll see). Last Thursday, on my way to work, I stopped along with all the other cars that’s waiting for the left turn lane. I remembered something stung my eye and by reflex, I closed them very quickly (like a longer blink) and at the same time my head dipped down/forward (kinda like I was looking down).  Next thing I know, I felt myself jerked forward and boom! I hit the car in front of me, a green Civic SE. I’m guessing I must have hit the gas when I did the whole “long blink + head down motion”. My first reaction was “Ouch my head/neck!” I had hit my head on the headrest after the impact. I didn’t feel a lot pain at the time because I started to panic. What should I do?! This is the first time I’ve gotten in a car accident. The next thing that went through my head was “Did I imagine this?!” lol. Well after seeing the guy in the Civic look back at me with this “what the hell?” look, I knew it was real. So we did the normal “exchange the info and call ICBC to report the clame” thing after pulling into a side street. All this time I’m having mixed thoughts of: “Shit, how did I end up hitting the guy” + “why is this happening to me” + “I wonder how much this would cost” + “Damn there goes the vacation I was planning to go in the Fall”.

After driving to work and calling Al to let him know about this rear end accident. My coworker actually told me to go home because I look pale. I actually felt sick in my stomach. Maybe it’s from the stress? When I got home I wanted to sleep but the neighbour decided to clean their roof and there were like 5 kids playing outside which made it way too loud to fall asleep and I ended up lying there starring at the ceiling for 1.5 hrs.

As if this isn’t bad enough, my iPhone 3GS decided to give me the black screen of death (with a bonus of the Apple logo) on Saturday. When I left the phone to charge on Friday night it was working perfectly. Saturday when I checked to see if I had any calls. The phone was sluggish so I turned it off, waited 30 seconds then tried to turn it back on. It went dead. All it showed was the Apple logo. I took it to the Apple store that afternoon and the guy behind the bar told me it’s a hardware issue so the only way to “fix” it is to replace the phone. BUT, my warranty expired exactly 14 days ago. This means that in order to replace my phone I need to pay $260 + tax. I can’t believe this is happening. What rotten luck to have a car accident then have the phone die on you in the span of two days? I have a lot of data stored on the phone and all my appointments are on there as well so now I’m trying to remember what I had booked for the next two months so I won’t miss them.

I’m waiting for the iPhone 4 to be in stock as I’d rather upgrade for $399 than pay $260 for an older phone. And I’m using my mom’s old Nokia phone which is only good for calling. I tried to text using the phone and after 15 mins, I give up. Also I don’t have my contact list on my sim card so if you need to reach me, calling me is better and if you insist on texting, please include your name (lol) so I know who you are.

Hopefully I can get my hands on the new phone soon. Feeling pretty shitty the past few days :[ Not even sweets/desserts were cheering me up. Grr.

It’s just under a month away and I’m super excited about my trip to HK! It’s been a long time since I’ve been back so I’m really looking forward to the shopping. I’m only staying for two weeks though, so I hope I’ll have time to squeeze in shopping, dining and meeting up with friends all in the two weeks time frame. Oh ya I’ll be bringing my iPhone and hopefully the SIM card in HK will work for me so I can stay up to date (as well as update!) with you guys.

On a side note, now that the wedding date is set, I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for the wedding website. Check out the graphics I’ve created so far while brainstorming over at my wedding planning site.

Happy new year! It’s been a while since I’ve last posted. With weddings happening as late as November and then a bunch of birthday parties followed by holiday gatherings my last two months were pretty busy. I kind of liked it though. All those gathering gave me a chance to catch up with family and friends that I haven’t seen for a while.

Anyways since I haven’t posted for so long I thought I’d start the new year off with a recap of 2009. It was a challenging year for me in both personal and career aspects. It called for some interesting and difficult decision making. Looking back now I don’t regret in the path I’ve chosen. I don’t want to be in a position where I’ll have doubts and so I’ve done what I thought would best help me eliminate this. Thanks to my family and friends who were all very supportive with my decision and continue to be there for me. Love you guys ♥

The past year was also a very “unlucky” year for my family as well. I think in total my parents had to go to the hospital three times. The scariest incident was my dad falling off a ladder and had to be hospitalized for two weeks with broken hip bone and ribs. Also my grandparents’ health seemed to have gone south faster than I thought. Maybe it’s because I don’t see them as often anymore. Every time I saw them I find that they have a stricter diet or that they are less mobile.

Ok on to the happy thoughts. Aside from all those weddings, the highlights of the year is actually my Jamaica trip with Al! It’s our first vacation together and it was really fun. I’m hoping this will be the start of us taking annual vacations from now on. I’ve also been trying to see my girlfriends more often. It’s an interesting experience (will talk more in another post) as I don’t usually hang out with girls too much. No offense to females but I find guys are just easier to talk to. Maybe it’s because I have a brother or the fact that I game a bit…too much.

So for 2010, I’m not exactly sure what’s happening yet. There’s talk of going back to HK in April and going to a wedding in Vegas in May. Work wise I’m hoping to focus on developing some customer retention programs and take the email marketing further. I also plan on spending more time with my parents and grandparents. As for those that’s been wondering about the wedding, well you’ll just have to wait till we can find a date!

I’m still here…just been busy with a lot of things the past months. After a wave of weddings (not mine of course!) things have finally quiet down but now work just started to pick up. Direct mail, email, seasonal mailouts…so many campaigns all coming at once plus I’m redesigning two websites.

I’ve got a lot of photos to upload so you’ll be able to see something new (and you can bet there’ll be food pictures). Also I think (90% sure) that I’ll be heading back to HK next Spring. Yay! I’m so excited. I haven’t been back in a long time. If you know of a good/interesting restaurant in HK that you think I MUST try, please send info my way.