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loving chungking express I am calm now, but that is not the way that I felt when I left work this morning and I will explain why. A twenty minute argument discussion with my boss is not how I like to end my work week. Part of me knew that this was coming from an email that he had sent me on Monday morning. It seems that there was some confusion about the amount of vacation that I had taken through the year. According to what he saw I had taken too many days. Sigh. After some humiliating banter, it was brought to my attention that I misunderstood the vacation policy. In the employee handbook they switch between using the word day and hours. Since I work ten hour days this is very important. Quite simply an eight hour day does not equal a ten hour day and that is what caused me so much woe. At the moment I might "owe" the company three days of vacation time. After spending five years at the prison, it seems like a very cruel joke that I won't get all three weeks that I have earned. I will not let that happen. Instead I will sacrifice some useless fixed holidays like New Year's Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Very seldom do I do anything during those holidays and I would be more than willing to work them without getting a floating holiday in exchange. None of my vacation days are going to be given up for this misunderstanding. I can not wait for the day that I walk out of that building and never return. ... For the first time in months, I did not have to drive to the east side of Milwaukee late this morning. Despite the fact that there are exams this week, the semester is over for me. So instead of fighting traffic and avoiding fascists, I watched the Kar-Wai Wong film Chungking Express and loved it. I'd already seen another of his films called Fallen Angels and was hooked on his style. Fast edits, great music and offbeat characters are what attract me the most to what he puts on the screen. His version of Hong Kong may be slightly exaggerated, but I see it as a great form of propaganda for the city and because of his stuff I want to go there. Now after seeing Chungking Express and Faye Wang, I will never think the same about the Mamas and Papas' song California Dreamin'. |