Penance

This week is the most important week in the Christian calendar. It is the week commemorating the passion of Jesus Christ upon which forms the basis of the Christian belief. It is supposed to be a week of solemn reflection and penance followed by a celebration at the end of the week with Easter officially marking the start of Spring. Hong Kong sure has a very interesting take on penance and fasting. The Last Supper has a rite where the celebrant washes the feet of twelve members of the congregation as a sign of humility and service to others. Well... they skip all that here BUT put out donation boxes so that everyone can show service to others by donating money. It was the same for Ash Wednesday; fasting was scraped for monetary donations. I don't like this whole business of donations instead of penance. I am sure hoping people do not take it that way. The whole reason for the remembering the Passion is to re-examine ourselves, be mindful of others and remember the true road to salvation is service, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, faith, hope and love.

This weekend is going to be a long weekend. I have so many plans!
They are in chronological order:
1. To do my laundry.
2. Sweep and mop my room.
3. Go to Ocean Park to pet the stingrays in the stingray pool and annoy the panda.
4. Go to Lamma Island to see the sunset and eat seafood. A nudist beach would be the icing on the cake.
5. Go to Lantau Island for the 5.27km cable car ride up to see the Big Buddha and the cool village hanging in the middle. Apparently even paratroopers shit their pants on this ride.
6. Eat chocolate pudding with ice-cream. Eat Kinder Surprise eggs.
7. Go to the fake Disneyland in ShenZhen.
8. Play drinking games with our HSBC Internet banking PIN generator at the pub.
9. Go get a massage/facial/nails done.
10. Eat a 2 pound mango pudding.

So you see, I have a heavy weekend planned. So far, I have done none of those. I am unlikely to finish doing all those and will probably just sit in my room to nurse a cold. My body has the uncanny ability to run down at holiday season so that my clinics will not be disrupted. Who cares about my social life eh?

My brother told me that engineers in industrial training get paid a decent amount to survive. I was shocked to find that they were paid the same amount as a graduate podiatrist. It is so depressing... All my work goes unrecognised by HR. I have a mind to quit charity work and go into private practice. But I believe in doing good things, so maybe being paid peanuts is going to benefit me in the long run when the cute grandson of a rich patient wants to marry me hahaha. My mother seems to have my life all planned out for me. If there is anything more scary that having your mother deciding on who/where/when you should get married and getting your siblings to vote on that then please enlighten me. We all turn out like our mothers in some way or another whether we like it or not. My kids will probably remain celibate/commit suicide. I pity them already. Maybe I should not have kids or give them up for adoption once they don't look cute in Winnie the Pooh costumes.

I can't wait to terrorise the pandas and provoke them to attack the other pandas and break open the glass enclosure and run away to the wilderness! =D That would be so cooolllll...

PS: I got a lovely postcard from South Africa telling me that I mean something in some one's life. It is lovely to know that I am included in people's life plans! :) Lovely cards from beautiful friends mean just as much as I can't stop the stupid grin on my face when I get them!