blog.yiyan.com

Just as I thought my jobs are all lined up and life is starting to show some kind of an order, a higher order came in the mail. I was summoned to appear for Jury Duty.

Because my childhood aspiration was to be a detective, private investigator, I was secretly thrilled that I got called on. (eventhough it posed a giant inconvenience to my orderly life). I say to myself that this would be as close to be with a detective as I can in this life. Since the last time, I was marginally missed by serving on the grand jury (the most fun type), I have to settle for this kind.

On the morning, I arrived at the court house with a group of ~60 mostly unwilling juror candidates. After much waiting around, filling out forms, being lectured on, we were led to a courtroom. (nothing like all the Law and Order episodes or the Runaway Jury) The judge was this bubbly and friendly man. He first had to ask us a list of questions to determine our eligibility. Out of the 60 of us, they had to select 14 to serve.

Whenever they asked a question, if our answers were “yes” we had to stand up announce our names for the entire courtroom to hear. After a sequence of questions, after they’ve taken down all the names associated with each questions, they would go through the 60 jurors (in a small group at the sidebar) to investigate in details why we answered “yes” to some of the questions. This process lasted a very long time.

Usually everyone who was called to go forward would whisper at the sidebar, but this man was practically yelling, so that the rest of us heard what he had to say. Apparently, this man lived in Nantucket. He flew in to answer the summon at 3AM. Since this was off season, there was only one flight a day leaving from Nantucket. The court couldn’t pay him for his daily travel expenses (they would otherwise pay for everyone’s commute). The man was dismissed.

There was this other man who owned a landscaping company. He was selected as one of the final jurors. Once chosen he complained that the company wouldn’t survive without him for the next three weeks. (yeah this case lasts this long) I thought that he got lost in his own fabricated self importance. Nothing would change much without one person, earth would still do its normal rotation, people would still carry on their activities. There could be some short term chaos, but order would be restored eventually. We liked to think that things couldn’t go on without our presence but that’s not true. (However, it does not equal to the notion that our individual contribution cannot change the world. That, I firmly believe the contrary.)

For that reason, I was chosen. The judge asked the question “other than the normal inconvenience, what else would prevent you from serving on this panel of jurors”. I thought about it, and realized that I could rearrange all my activities. So I didn’t stand up for this question.

I get paid a small amount everyday plus parking and travelling. I am from the nearest town compare to all the other jurors. I thought about this whole thing, and decided that I really have nothing to complain about.

Thus, I started my civil duty experience.

P.S. I just learned that I got a new reader, welcome! I will try to be more diligent with my writing.

I am happy to announce yet another new job. I am officially a language teacher now for 9-12th grade.

In a blitz movement by this Catholic All Girls Private school, I was hired this week to be their Chinese teacher.

I went for my first day today sitting at the auditorium being introduced and experiencing the first day of school. It all came back to me. I felt like my old high school days. Everything is very familiar. Although the teaching load is light for now, I am very excited for this opportunity to work with young girls.

I’ve been secretly wishing to be with young people this year, having made quite a few older friends easily, I suddenly realized that I don’t have any young friends. Now I think I will have more than my share of young people in my life. hehe.

Here is an announcement from the school website.

The past two weeks are not spent blandly. It actually was action packed. I was so focused that I didn’t bother this blog at all.

First of all version 2 of http://www.yiyan.com is alive. It was quickly thrown together. I do anticiapte version 3 coming later this year with a more mature design to intergrate the blog look and the photo gallery look.

I have been thinking redesigning my main page for some time. The main reason is because my blog is getting bigger and bigger, I also need a centralized location to store photo albums. I’ve out grown jalbum (the engine I used before to generate photos). I also need it to be able to let user leave comments, rate pictures, create their own albums…

I’ve left my old look there before I found something good. Finally I came upon it thanks to my blog engine - wordpress. I am using Gallery2 now for my photographs. It has everything I needed and better.

Once gallery2 is decided, I went on to create my new homepage.

Secondly, we were busy changing our bathroom vanity. After much discussion, we gave up the idea of completely renovating our bathrooms - not cost effective. Our bathrooms have some original details which are quite charming to some people. Instead, we decided to change the vanity, sink, upgrade the faucet, medicine cabines and towel bars to give the rooms a face lift. Right now we got our bathroom vanity done. We are still shopping for medicine cabinets. I will post some pictures once that’s completed. Then we have to work on the second bath.

It is already feeling like night and day when I am in the bathroom.

took me 10 minutes to get here.. how do i post comments to your entries?

New look is finally here. Although the summer is more than half over, I still think I can squeez another two months out of this theme.

Enjoy the change!