The Perseids Meteor Shower

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

It's Sunday and I woke up from five hours of sleep around 6 pm, had a lunch of chive dumplings with soya sauce and shredded ginger and sat down to blog about the turn of events that led to this hazy moment. There were copious amounts of caffeine, a hash brown, packed sandwiches, chips, stray cats, the calming sounds of waves, brightly lit oil tankers on the horizon, people camping out and fishing, chilling shivers from the sea breeze, badly used public toilets, a rain shower at dawn, lots of walking, mild food poisoning...

...and the best of all, SHOOTING STARS!

It is the season of the Perseids meteor shower! And I caught it with Ryuu last night at East Coast Park. Singapore is not particularly famous for star gazing due to light pollution but we were pretty lucky to have clear skies without the moon. We managed to spot clusters of stars (none of which we recognised from the constellations on our star map, except for Orion's belt, because it was too dark to read and we forgot to take a torch!) and 4-6 pretty meteors, including a fireball that streaked across the sky in slow motion. Fireballs are bright meteors that come really close to the Earth's atmosphere and appear brighter than Venus. Star gazing brings me much joy. It is comparable to catching a special effects movie with good front row seats on the largest screen ever built, humbled by the fact that I am so insignificant on a celestial scale.

It's at times like these I really feel blessed having adventurous friends who accompany me without so much as a protest to all kinds of places, amid small inconveniences to do fun things like camping at zoos and catching meteor showers. I like to think that I am capable of going wherever I please to experience whatever I fancy regardless of having company or not, but having the same experience in good company makes it much more memorable and that is always appreciated.

This map shows all of Singapore. Put on a map of the world, Singapore is like a microscopic wart. We got from point A to B to watch the meteor shower in under 2 hours.

Every August, the Earth passes through the debris left behind from the comet Swift-Tuttle, forming the Perseids meteor shower. It's favourite among meteor shower fans as it promises a good show of meteors and fireballs (estimated 60 meteors an hour at its peak!) and increases the odds of spotting meteors even for people living in places with bright city-lights like Singapore. As a bonus, the event this year coincided with a dark phase of the moon.

For star gazers, the meteors would appear to originate from the constellation of Perseus

Bother, it's work tomorrow. The star charms collected over the weekend should help me get through this week.

Office Pro

My boss has an interesting personality. He is funny and full of wise sayings (the most notable one being "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one"). One of the perks of working in an all-male-except-Shu team is that I am constantly amused by the swear words and associated phrases flying around, strewn in very creative combinations. That and the absence of female hormones (except mine) affecting judgements and team dynamics makes it a conducive environment for working 60 hours a week.

Lately, my boss has discovered a new productivity tool: Shuri.

He's great at talking and I'm better at writing so he's been conveniently handing over the team's job of drafting diplomatic emails to me. Not just diplomatic ones, but also emails sent out with specific outcomes in mind. My boss is eternally snowed under his work and taking off some of the burden of grammar and organising thoughts in writing, which a lot of technical people deeply dislike, makes his work life more productive. And since I get a small high out of writing (pretty much anything), I'm mostly okay with the arrangement... except for the slight fear that he's becoming overly dependent on me to be his voice and that people might start to notice my alpha-male-type boss starting to sound like a thoughtful woman in his emails!

He also says that it is not so much what you ask, but how you ask that makes all the difference. Without the body language factor, written communication often leads to misunderstandings in tone.

Following an explosive reaction to an email...
Boss: Shu, please draft an email for me. I just forwarded you the email.
Shu: Ok, so what do you want to tell him?
Boss: Tell him to fuck off and tell him I know my job and I don't want him to remind me.... in diplomatic words, please.
Shu: .....

Another scenario...
Boss: Shu, ok this email has a lot of history, I have forwarded you all the emails to read up and understand the background. Let me know when you've caught up.
Shu: Done.
Boss: This is how I want to structure the email... (goes on the explain the details in length). Did you get all that? You look a bit lost....
Shu: Um... that's a lot of information.
Boss: You look lost most of the time, but when I see what you've done afterwards, I realise that you understand things pretty well.
Shu: Gee. Thanks.

Men are usually terrified of reactions coming from women because they don't know what to expect sometimes:
Boss: Shu, I need your help on this one. This email is going out to a woman. We can't afford to piss her off. Please see if anything is even remotely offensive in this draft.
Shu: O_O

It's funny how one letter can change the meaning of a sentence and trigger the imagination of a hyper-active mind. The other day, I received an out-of-office-reply which read as follows:

Thank you for your massage. I have limited access to emails and will respond when I get back on 29th July.