Hope Grows (from a Very Low Base)

I went to the company located in a very familiar building to take the “test.” The appointment was at 1:30 pm. Soon after I sat at the desk to start it, a guy, apparently another candidate, left the room, rather loudly saying something like, “Okay lah. Just too much. Three hours…”

Looking at the papers, I realized they were not headlines but leads of news articles, making my task greatly easier. And I had expected the topics would be mostly financial-related. A few were about markets but they were diverse. My practice for the past week was for nothing then, luckily. I had trouble with the name of the president of the People’s Bank of China, (周小川). I have seen his name in the English media, but I simply didn’t remember how he writes his name in alphabet. “Zhou Xiaochuan” is it. No choice, I had to leave his name blank. Another problem was with the original Japanese movie title for “Morning Forest.” I knew it was referring to one by Kawase Naomi (河瀬直美), but the name (「殯（もがり）の森」) didn’t come out of my memory. But nothing about Dow Jones-News Corp-Pearson-GE, Thomson-Reuters, Ford-Land Rover-Jaguar-Cerberus, Gaza, Lee’s Yasukuni visit… As I see it, these are the current happenings.

I finished the test and went through it again while amending a few places. Altogether, it took me less than an hour and half. When I passed my papers to the manager, she said, “So fast?” She told me that she would mark the papers tonight and call me by next week. I made sure to ask her to give me a call, regardless of the result.

On the way home, I was having a coffee at a “Mos Burger” joint at TB Plaza and received a call from her for arranging an interview. It was not yet an hour since I left the office. (So fast?) A tomorrow-morning interview has been arranged. I seem successfully to have jumped one hurdle and hope is growing, but it is way too soon for popping open a Champaign bottle... (Remember “R”?)

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Yesterday, I got many tablets. J at the clinic gave me 45 Cymbalta tablets. I almost said, “I don’t need that many because it costs more.” However I paid the full amount as I needed them in any case. It was just a matter of “pay now or later.”