2008 What a year!

It hasn't been a very good year for many people - 2008. Sure - there was the brilliant Beijing Olympics. But unfortunately the other events ensuing made it's glory extremely shortlived.

On the large scale: there was the earthquake in Szechuan, the melamine-tainted milk catastrophe, the collapse of Lehman Brothers - leading into the worldwide recession.

On a personal scale: the tip of my son's right middle finger was caught by a sliding door and ripped off together with the entire finger nail. It was the most horrifying experience I've personally had. We rushed to the hospital with the severed bit in a glass of ice. The tip was re-attached. It eventually turned black and fell off - including the nail. It was a nasty sight!

With plenty of prayers & God's amazing grace, the tip & finger nail grew back and now looks ok. The best part is - he took in all of this very well - probably due to all the medical trauma his been through since he was born. (Or even before he was born.)

Not long after this a good friend who had migrated to Perth a few years ago emailed us - his 6 year-old daughter has passed on in a hospital. He was obviously too distraught and did not provide more information in his brief email. We were so shocked by this news - I was in a daze for quite a while. We've visited them 2 years prior and she was such a sweet girl! I was very worried about her older & only 7 year-old sister now left to deal with death at such a young age - I still am.

Then- like in the dramas - my dad was hospitalised for multiple infections. And the stress made my mum very ill too.

After all that - what do you know? A friend from NZ called. Every November, she'd usually drop me a visit enroute to HK to spend the holidays with her daughter. She didn't go this year - her son-in-law is having an affair with a woman in mainland China. She and her husband were very upset and worried about her daughter but there isn't much they could do about it...

Maybe someone would like to write a drama about all this....? Naw...seems like these have already been done before! A case of art imitating life!

All I pray for now is a better year ahead!

Update on $1.50 Paypal incident

It's official. Paypal is not giving me the $1.50 they held - surprise, surprise!. The payer (888goodchi999) is no longer registered on ebay. I think this is what happened:

888goodchi999 sold a set of golf clubs and used the money in his/her paypal account to buy stuff to get feedback. I think the poor golf clubs buyer didn't get the goods/service from 888goodchi999 so he/she claimed from Paypal. Paypal take back all the payment 888goodchi999 made to sellers like me to reduce their loss. We (sellers, underdogs) become the ultimate losers... story of most honest ebay sellers - ya win some, ya lose some!