I just received a phone call with an invitation to attend a Dior christmas party (presumably because I’m a Dior member and not because I’m a blogger.)

I was first told the date of the party, then a list of highlights, including makeup and fashion shows, food and drinks, limited edition products on sale, and a door gift, all of these read off a page in monotone.

Then silence.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“The price is $50. If you want to bring a friend, it’s $80. But you can redeem products with your tickets.”

“Oh, okay. I’m not interested, but thanks.”

The caller asked for a reason, so I said I wasn’t interested in buying any Dior products at the moment. Parties are okay, but having to pay to attend one where they will try to make you spend even more money is plain ridiculous.

She said, “Oh, you don’t have to buy anything.”

“But I have to pay to attend the party,” I said.

She then went on to inform me that I can redeem other stuff with the price of my ticket, but neglected to explain what she meant.

I wasn’t interested, anyway, so I just said, “No, thanks.”

But she wouldn’t give up.

“You can have fun at the party with your friends,” she persuaded.

“No, it’s okay, thanks.”

“You’ll also get a door gift.”

“No, I’m not really keen, but thanks.”

“There’ll be free refreshments, and you can just come and have fun with your friends.”

“Erm… no, thanks.”

She finally accepted my polite refusal and allowed me to hang up.

Although I hate telemarketing, I can kind of understand why companies would use this channel to sell, for example, insurance policies. But telemarketing for parties? I think it’s a new low.

Not very impressed with Dior now.

A bit off-topic, but some time in the beginning of this year, they sent me my membership card with a letter asking me to go pick up a welcome gift at any Dior counter.

I went to pick it up.

The gift was a welcome letter and a brochure.

Thanks, Dior. What I always wanted.

I have a problem: The English can’t pronounce my name.

You see, my official name (Shen Qiaoyun) is written in hanyu pinyin, which is the English phonetic representation of Mandarin.

So the English would read it as Kiao Yoon because Q is supposed to be a hard K sound in English. Some of them even get stressed because Q is not supposed to come without a U.

“What on earth is this word?!” they’d be thinking to themselves. “It breaks all the rules of the English language!”

They’d make an attempt: “Kuh… Keeee… Kao… Keeeeowwww? Kiao Yoooon? The doctor will see you now.”

I don’t want to be called Kiao Yoon forever.

So what am I going to do?

The most logical solution is to legally change my name.

But that is a massive pain in the behind. I have already done that. I changed my name once in November 2005 for feng shui reasons and had to go through the tedious process of updating records everywhere.

In fact, I only updated my driving license recently, which is exactly six years late.

I’ve also had to use a passport bearing my old name for more than five years because ICA refused to give me a new one. They just made an annotation in one of the pages in my passport showing that I have changed my name.

But no immigration officer in the world has ever thought to flip to that page on his/her own accord. I always have to spend a long time at the counter waiting for the officer to check my photo page against my arrival card, then look at me suspiciously, then allow me to turn the pages in my passport to show him the annotation.

Once, a Hong Kong immigration officer even scolded me after I showed him the page. He said I should have written my old name in my arrival card since that was what was showing on the photo page.

So, now that I finally have a new passport with the right name, I never ever want to go through that process again.

In England, Piers usually introduces me as Shey for the sake of convenience because, even if the English hear Qiaoyun being said, they find it hard to say it themselves.

Piers has been practisig the pronunciation for nine months and he still says Chiao Yoon, which is close enough but not quite right.

I’m not sure what to do about it. I don’t regret changing my name because it’s been good for me, overall. It has helped to somewhat change my personality, which has in turn altered the course of my life for the better. But I wish I’d had gotten a name that didn’t start with a stupid Q.

My feng shui master had actually given me a list of names to choose from and Qiaoyun was the nicest sounding one. Many of the ones on the list sounded male or ugly, for example, Yongkang. Wtf, right?

I was talking to Piers about this recently. I told him I didn’t want to be called Kiao Yoon because kiao means dead in Hokkien and he wtflol-ed.

Life is never easy, is it?

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Addendum:

Just remembered a good example I should have given.

When I was in England, I was online shopping a lot. I received packages from postmen and courier service men probably 30 or 40 times in all my time there.

Each time I opened the door, they would read off the package: “Kiao Yoon?”

Because there are many different courier services in England, I was always getting different people, so I didn’t even try to educate them as to the pronunciation of my name.

I suppose I could use the name Sheylara for my online shopping from now on, but there will still be situations where I can’t use it (bank, insurance, clinic, etc) where people will have to try and read my name off a form. These are the ones I want to avoid!

I’m back! But I probably have only one reader left because everyone else must have been scared off by the scary anti-virus warnings on my blog.

(Piers is hard to scare.)

The viruses (malicious codes) are gone now. Lionel from Ripplewerkz scared them off for me. Yay.

On the bright side, no readers means I don’t have to watch my words and can be rude if I want to. However, I’m not in the mood to be rude today, so I think I shall do a bit of updating, instead.

Shall be rude another day.

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Studying in UK

I’ve finally completed all the paperwork and legwork. All that’s left now is to wait for my student visa to be approved and then for the school term to start (Jan 9, 2012).

My IELTS results startled me. I had expected to only borderline pass because it was such a tedious and tough exam. But I miraculously got an overall 8.5 (top score is 9).

For school, I have been given a reading list and tasked to read the first book before the course starts.

It’s rather old, the book, first published in 1948, so maybe some things have become either outdated or common knowledge. But I still find in it a wealth of information that’s intriguing and thought-provoking.

Can’t wait for the course to start.

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Facebook

When I quit Restaurant City and Cafe World (about two years ago, if memory serves), I swore I’d never play another Facebook game again because they’re too freaking addictive despite being exceptionally silly.

I was true to my word for two years.

I don’t know what happened, really.

I started spending more time in Facebook recently because I liked the latest layout with all the interesting additions such as scrolling real-time friend updates.

It took just one curious click on a Facebook game advert to suck me in before my brain remembered that I wasn’t supposed to click on ads.

But then I discovered that Facebook games have gone through marked improvements since two years ago; they are marginally less silly now.

I still hate how some games force you to beg your friends for in-game gifts. I had to make Piers play this cutesy game in order to gift me game items since he’s the only person I don’t mind begging from.

But he was understandably horrified about Facebook putting words in his mouth (see above picture) and promptly deleted the app.

I started many new games in the last few weeks and also quit many. Even if fun and cute, I refuse to play games that make you beg for stuff. You could pay for them but they cost too much for the paltry purpose they serve.

My current active Facebook games list:

Family Feud
Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Bingo Blitz
CSI: Crime City
1 vs 100
Games (has about 100 games in it)

By the way, feel free to stalk me on Facebook.

Stalking is the new socialising.

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Stalking

People in Facebook would have been able to see me jumping from game to game like a true gaming addict every day in the last few weeks.

I can’t hide. When I load up a game, my 1381 friends know that I’m awake and playing a game instead of doing something more useful with my life.

Piers noticed once that I was playing CSI: Crime City despite having said good night to him an hour earlier. It was a bit hard to explain to him why I felt compelled to solve crimes in the middle of a sleep.

On the flip side, I also know what my friends are up to every minute I’m in Facebook.

Supposedly, that is a scary thing. But it must also be cool. Times have changed, right? Stalking is not the exclusive domain of crazy stalkers anymore.

These days, people are willing to be stalked, which increases the demand for stalkers, a position easily filled because social networking has made it fun and easy.

Don’t try to stalk bulls, though. They don’t like it.

Piers and I encountered this bull in Guernsey (a little island in the English Channel) while driving around. It was standing alone just a few feet from the road, so I stuck my camera in its face and started snapping away.

It stood upright and bellowed at me angrily.

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Gaming

Other than Facebook games, I haven’t been gaming much. My iPad is only used for reading now but I expect to get tired of Facebook games eventually and go back to my iPad.

I recently tried a pretty cool game recommended by Swordplay. It’s a small independent game in alpha stage that’s a bit like Little Big Planet, called Way.

In this two-player game, you travel through a world, trying to get past obstacles with the help of a second player who is very likely a stranger from another part of the world. You’re not allowed to text or talk to each other, but you can communicate by manipulating your avatar’s facial expressions and arms. In this way, you try to work with each other to complete the stages.

It’s really tough and frustrating but also rewarding as you conquer each obstacle. But Piers and I cheated a bit; we were on webcam when we played it together.

We made this picture in the end:

You can “write” to each other in the game after you complete it.

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Jet lag

It is so very hard to adjust my body clock every time I come back to Singapore. For two weeks, I was sleeping at 9 am and waking up at 5 pm.

I tried making myself really exhausted by waking up early even after only sleeping three hours. I’d then go to bed around 2 am, hoping to wake up at 10 am, a goodly hour.

But then, I would wake up after only two or three hours of sleep and not be able to go back to sleep.

I tried doing that for three days, managing only to sleep about three hours a day. I finally collapsed from exhaustion one afternoon and slept all the way through to 9 pm, which completely undid my heroic effort.

Give up.

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And now it’s time to eat.

My appetite has been largely dead due to jet lag. But I only have one month left to enjoy Singaporean cuisine. What am I going to do?