Life as a fish

My sister April gave me a one-gallon fish tank last Christmas so we got two feeder goldfishes (Su and Shi - yes, lame pun intended) to experiment with, before moving on to more expensive fish. Wanting to show support for any "domestic" thing I do, Mom and Dad gave us seven guppies (also inexpensive) shortly after.

So for a while, all nine fishes lived happily in the same tank (the guppies are small and barely take up any room) until one day, I started noticing that there seem to be fewer guppies than before. Although Mom and Dad had warned me that in nature, the big fish gets to eat the little ones, I thought that I could intervene by giving the fishes more feed, thereby eliminating their need to eat each other.

Initially, it was hard to tell if the guppies really were disappearing but when their numbers got down to 3 - 4 and were easily to count, I had to face the reality that in deed, Su and Shi were following their natural instinct. Still, wanting to believe that what had happened was not habitual, I stepped up on the feeding and hoped for the best.

Then one day, I saw a headless guppy floating around. And to my horror, Su swam up to nip at the dead body, right before my eyes. Even now, I remember the goose bumps that I felt at that chilly, disgusting moment. Since then, I continued to feed Su and Shi but not without some grudge against them for "choosing" to murder their fellow fish when there was plenty of food and no need for such heinous acts. And today, we are down to [gasp] three guppies which means that it's only a matter of time before it will be back to only Su and Shi in the tank.

When that happens, I will probably give them back to Mom and Dad, to be released into their tank full of much bigger goldfishes. Even though I doubt that Su and Shi will be eaten, it seems "right" (although somewhat sadistic, I'll admit) to scare them a little for eating up all of their little neighbors.

Thinking about this made me wonder whether we're sometimes like the goldfishes. God put us in this world (a fish tank of some sort) with many people, some "bigger" and others "smaller." Although He "feeds" us and provides for our needs, sometimes we go out and hurt others in order to get more for ourselves or in trying to get ahead of others.

So if I were God, then we would all be in trouble. Not only would I be unforgiving of our crimes/sins but I would also have "an eye for an eye" plans to punish people.

But thankfully God isn't like me. He truly forgives us and cleanses our sins. No matter what offenses we commit, he is able to look at us as "new beings" if we confess our sins and is able to help us flee from temptation and fight against our weaknesses.

Unfortunately, I don't have such love or power. And Su and Shi can't understand my will. So I can't do anything but let nature run its course and continue to count the guppies each morning.

Maybe after this we will buy a Betta fish (which the tank was intended for) instead. It will be a lonely existence for the fish but at least it won't have to worry about being the bigger or smaller fish in the "pond"

Incidentally, here are some interesting links related to fish.

"You've got fish! Building a backyard pond" (SF Chronicle article, May 12, 2007)
*My Dad actually built a pretty neat pond in the backyard but ran into the two problems mentioned in the article - raccoons and blue herons - too bad this article came too late to help Dad with his pond.

Building your own G4 Cubequarium

[Photo source]

The fortune of losing a horse - 塞翁失馬

My recruiting contact at Google HR is supposed to be back from vacation today so I’ve been waiting for my rejection phone call all morning. While waiting, I started digging around the internet for comments from others who have been rejected by Google and came across a few interesting ones.

It appears that at least some smart and capable people have been screened out because they didn’t fair well with the Google “recruiting machine.” Even though I’m not the best in my field like those who others who have been rejected, it makes me feel better to know that I didn’t single handedly ruin my chances. Had I performed perfectly on the test last week and on all subsequent “tests,” I still might be rejected in the end for some reason.

In the first place, it wasn’t clear that they had approached me for ME. I was under the impression that they contacted me despite my mediocre application because they found something desirable in my resume but it is possible that I was contacted simply because they need to review more people.

In any case, initially, I was hopeful even for a rejection phone call but now I’m expecting at most, a rejection form email (if at all),…sometime down the road, maybe even a few months from now.

I tried to recall a time when I was rejected and how disappointed I felt at the time (fortunately, there weren’t many – I guess I have been blessed to get the jobs I really wanted and have applied only to those that I had the relevant qualifications.) Then I remembered that one semester in college when I was rejected from an IBM (? Can’t even remember now) co-op job only to land one of the ten full scholarships for the one-year study aboard program in Japan.

I’m not sure what I am suppose to learn from this experience but it helps to remember the times when I didn’t get what I wanted but came out on top anyway. Thank God He’s infinitely wiser than me.

Neighbors

We moved into a large apartment complex recently, as a part of the second phase tenants. The third phase just opened last week so new people move in almost every day.

We don't know any of our neighbors and so far, have yet to see anyone we've shared an elevator with more than once.

The other night, a light came on in the apartment across our balcony and vaguely, you can see outlines of a man in a pink or reddish shirt with dark slacks. Most be new neighbors, we thought but we haven't seen the light come on again since.

Still, we are curious about the other tenants in this building, especially when we walk past their front doors in the hallway.

Some have a lone pair of shoes. Others went through the trouble of getting welcome mats, although all of them are rather non-descript and none of them actually say "welcome." Some don't even look occupied except for the tentant notices that hang on the door. One has several pairs of shoes, a few dainty ladies shoes (the strappy kind) on one side and bulky, masculine shoes on the other. The most interesting one is the unit with a trash can - we're not sure why anyone would greet their neighbors and guests this way.

So what's in front of our door, you ask? Well, right now, nothing yet. But Charlie says he wants to get the "Beware of Dog" mat from Bed, Bath, Beyond. Or maybe just for fun, we can get the one that says "leave." LOL