Mog and Chinese New Year Follies

Just a quick word to MOG, one of the few bloggers who reads my posts (!)...you are famous! Or at least, much revered in my cat-obsessed daughter's eyes. Mog is actually a series about a rather neurotic and fearful cat who gets freaked out by vets, walking Christmas trees and person-birds (Red Indians). It's her fave of the day, although I haven't told her that there is actually one of the series called "Goodbye Mog", about how Mog died and leaves her family in the hands of a new kitten. A very nice series by Judith Kerr, who apparently had an exciting childhood herself, fleeing from Nazi Germany and going to UK.

Anyway, it's been a hectic couple of days - I feel like I've been eating forever. But I do feel MUCH better as I have had afternoon naps for 2 consecutive days, which has put paid to my chronic sleep debt. CNY is certainly a challenging time. Was deeply annoyed by 2 relatives, one of whom said, "Eh, how come you are not professor yet? I thought very easy to become, what?" and another who insisted, "You mean you only get a 13 month bonus in the university? I pay my people 4 - 5 months' bonus, you know? And so-and-so only has O-levels and I pay her a base pay of $13K with at least 50K bonus." Argh. Go tell it to the university and maybe the gah-men, and I will get a little raise this time round.

But it seems that I didn't have it that bad this year - one of my girlfriends was confessing that her husband was hiding out at home (he had told everyone that they were away for CNY) because he didn't want to be faced with the perennial questions "when are you finishing your PhD?" and "when are you having your kids, your wife is not young, you know?". No wonder so many people are heading off shore over this season.

But truly back to the job issue - I do feel a little guilty to be griping about it, given that there are so many people out there who live on tighter budgets, but sometimes I think that the academic life is really not well re-imbursed. But I had to get back to the basic issue of where God has put me (thanks for manna and the wilderness!) and be grateful for His daily provision and faithfulness.