Haven’t updated my blog for a while and I’ve been crazy busy lately.  Now I have a bit of free time, I’d thought I’d update it. Hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and New Years by the way.  This would be the second year I’ve spent Christmas away from family but it was pretty good. I spent Christmas with friends. Also got to see my family in Guangxi during New Years, which was great.

So what have I been doing since my last blog entry? Well, I’m still working as Online Marketing Manager for MO-Call and recently my responsibilities  extended to managing the production side of things, which I really enjoy. Sadly for many reasons out of my control, this will be my last month with MO-Call. I have really enjoyed working with everyone at MO-Call and wished the circumstances were different but life must go on. So for the past two weeks, I’ve had interviews with various companies so wish me luck.

I’m still looking until I get a job, so if you know of any jobs, drop me a line Hopefully before Chinese New Year/Spring Festival, I would have secured a job so fingers crossed.

One of the most important Chinese holidays is coming up, Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, which begins from 2nd of Feb till 8th of Feb. This is the time when everyone returns home to spend time with their family. This is basically the equivalent to Christmas in the west. I will be going to Guangzhou and Sanya to escape the Beijing cold during this period so can’t wait ^_^

So last night I attended a charity poker event organised by Peace for Humanity, which is in fact ran by my friend, Jennifer. I haven’t played poker for a good while and being the guy who is really into poker, I of course went along. It was a great laugh and it was good to see some familiar faces again. Warning: If you ain’t into poker, you might want to skip reading the next two paragraph as it contains poker jargon.

Pictured on the left is the final table and I’m doing ok. Black and blue chips are worth 10 kuai and the green chips are worth 25 kuai. I think I played good last night but not good enough to win it  My best play last night was folding AA in the hold after fourth street to trip Q’s.  赌赌赌赌赌赌赌赌赌赌神!!!!!! hahha

There were of course some fishes on the tables and to quote Matt Damon from the film Rounders, “Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.”

I was pretty tired at the end of the night and the whole tournament lasted about 7 and half hours. Yes, very exhausting but well worth it! So tiring in fact, the players decided to split the winning prize money as everyone had to work in the next couple of hours. I came 3rd out of 21 people, which meant I broke even so not too bad. I came 4th at the last charity poker tournament so hopefully at the next one, I will win it

That’s it for now, in the meantime, have a good Chinese New Year or 新年快乐(xīn nián kuài lè) and 恭喜发财 (gōng xǐ fā cái).

-Ving

*Edit – link to Poker night review (I look really tired after playing over 7 hours!)*