I’m having a hard time deciding if I should learn Cantonese (the language of quanta’s family) or if I should learn to read Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (the writing system of my biggest passion, outside of quanta of course). I know that my poor brain is only capable of learning one, but I don’t know how to decide.

So, the pros of learning Cantonese:

• can talk to quanta’s relatives (all of which speak English anyway)
• may get better deals in Chinatown
• helpful if we ever visit Hong Kong (highly unlikely)
• helpful when teaching future children (if any) about their heritage

The pros of learning hieroglyphs:

• can read inscriptions first hand
• can be a form of worship of Isis
• something I have always wanted to do

What is more important, family or faith?

Well, I am very glad that one of my New Year’s goals wasn’t to post to my blog every day. I obviously would have failed on that one. I have been busy with a new part-time, freelance job which is pretty interesting. I have even started my own business with my own GST number. Wow, eh?

I’ve also become totally addicted to Animal Crossing: Wild World for my Nintendo DS. I am wasting way too much playing that game. But it is so much fun!

So, life goes on. I’ve at least managed to extricate myself from my very annoying job and find something I’m enjoying that I can do at home. I’ve also spent a very busy week getting the last of my name changes done, gift cards spent, etc. Next week looks free and quite, which hopefully means I can finally spend some time writing here and on my main site.

I thought about resolving to do the typical things–loose weight, eat right, exercise everyday, etc. But we all know how long it takes for those sort of resolutions to be broken. Then I thought I could resolve to keep the hose cleaner (it is already nearly spotless) or call my parents more often (isn’t twice a week enough?), these resolutions didn’t seem right either.

Ultimately, I decided to choose resolutions who’s success for failure is will be difficult to judge, but will probably do me better in the long run than resolving to spend less of eat more salad. I won’t bore you by sharing all of my resolutions, but here are a few:

• start developing my own voice as a writer
• stop caring so much about what other people think about me
• write to have something (anything!) published in 2007

Good luck in coming up with your own resolutions, and best wishes for a happy, prosperous and peaceful new year.

As much as I hate to say it, I am finished with this holiday season. I have never had to deal with so many unpleasant customers in all the years I have worked retail. There are complaints about prices and the exchange rate*, our selection**, our opening hours, the postage rates, etc. It is becoming maddening!

My last day of work is December 31st, and there is nothing that could convince me to stay longer, not even the ridiculous raise I have been offered. I have many skills that make me quite successful in retail sales, but the overabundance of inconsiderate customers has cause me to burn out. If I could say something to all those customers that have caused me grief over the years it would be this: I am a real person with feelings, who works very hard. No matter how much money you spend in my store, you have no right to treat me poorly. If there is something you don’t like, please go somewhere else because my time is better spent helping kind and reasonable customers.

* Gift cards, gift wrap, and many other items have both an American and a Canadian price on them, and the Canadian price is rarely changed to reflect what is thought to be temporary changes in the exchange rate. The fact that our dollar has been over 80¢s U.S. for over a year seems to have had no effect on prices.

** If is the middle of December! Of course we are going to have a smaller selection of boxed and individual cards now then when they first when out two months ago! Christmas isn’t very far away and many people have already sent their cards. *sigh*