Happy things

This week has been pretty great. My good friend got engaged, all the partners and senior associates gone for annual conference, took a half day off from work and lounged in bed all day... Weeks like these won't come by so often so I am enjoying it to the fullest.

Two things made me especially happy this week. Couple days ago on Buzzfeed I saw a post about spiked hot chocolate. I immediately knew that I needed it. Some of the recipes required a lot of liqueur. All I have is a bottle of Bailey's that my mom told me to gift to a family friend. The guy, being Chinese and knowing that we have gifts for him, was very hard to track down, so after a month of trying to reach him I decided to drink it. Haha. I wanted to make Irish hot cocoa, with whiskey, Guinness and Bailey's, but I only had Bailey's. It was still yummy!

Hot Cocoa Mix, a surprisingly affordable imported good

Finished product. Next time, some marshmallows and whiskey.

It was super easy to make. Just heat milk in a pot (without boiling it), add the hot cocoa mix and stir, like you would make hot chocolate normally. If you want to be fancy and use real chocolate I'm sure it'll taste even better. Then take it off the heat, pour into your mug, and add Bailey's to your heart's desire. I added about 2 shot glasses worth. It has a strong-ish liqueur smell but doesn't taste strong at all. SO GOOD. A mug of that and cheesy Korean drama on a Friday night is just perfection.

The next happy thing, and partly the reason I made spiked hot chocolate, is because my bar results came out that day. And I passed! Yeah! I'm so happy for all my friends who passed as well. I am surrounded by so many smart talented people. Now we can finally put those few months behind us (am I the only one who felt like I couldn't leave those dark days behind until I get the results, just in case I didn't pass?). Now I can start planning my US trip seriously, so excited to see everyone!!!

More plants!

Ever since two of my plants died, I have been wanting to buy some more. And that's what I did on my precious 1-day weekend last week. I went to the same flower market, tried to avoid the same stores in case they remember and ask me about those plants...

I did some research ahead of time for plants that are easy to keep alive. I've been eying succulents, which I saw the last time I was there. I think they're in the cacti family but they're not spiky. They're supposed to be super easy to grow, even in the winter. Another great thing about them is, theoretically, you can break off a leaf, leave it on the soil and it would germinate into a new succulent without much effort on your part.

I came back with a grand total of 5 plants. Clockwise from left: succulent, purple succlent, random easy-to-grow plant, succulent and aloe vera.

I may have gone a little overboard with the succulents, but they are so cheap! I think total for all three was less than 20 bucks. The other two were spur of the moment buys. I've seen people at work with the random plant and it looks quite low maintenance. The aloe is purely for skincare use. Lady at the store said there's no need to water at all!

Without sounding super uncool, I am very excited about these. The only thing I am slightly worried about is I got ambitious and decided to transfer the succulents into pretty pots I've bought (they come in cheap looking plastic pots). I was trying to get them transferred into the new pots, but I wasn't sure how to pack the dirt with their roots so I kind of just stuffed it all in there... In the process some leaves from the purple succulent snapped off so parts of it look bald right now. I'm trying the germination thing with those leaves so we shall see if that actually works.

Will keep you posted xx

Work life balance

When I first started work, I was expecting to be at the office until at least 8pm regularly, and that's on a good day. It's the typical big law experience. Imagine my surprise when people at the office bounced at 6pm on the dot. I was even more surprised when my boss told me to go home if I didn't have any pressing matters. What kind of boss says that?!

In the past month I have realized that this is just how the firm culture is. People leave pretty close to normal business hours regardless of how much work they have. I am totally on board with that as long as I get my paychecks. See, to me law isn't really a passion but a means to an end. I like it enough and am decent at it, but what I really want is to get paid so I can do other fun things, like shop or travel. I care about how successful my career is, just not enough to dedicate my entire life to it.

I admire people who can sacrifice so much for their career, like my boss, the managing partner. He works so hard. He goes to networking functions almost every night after work, responds to emails at all times even on vacation, and wakes up at 5am involuntarily because he thinks about work unconsciously. As a result of his hard work, our office in Shanghai has annual billing hours comparable to our US counterparts, which is almost never the case for firms with foreign offices. But because of his dedication to work, he looks tired and stressed all the time. And his hair is all white even though I think he's barely 50.

I look at him and think, is it worth it??? YOLO man, I'm gonna enjoy it.