Career Day

An antique book was discovered recently in Italy. It turns out to be a literate slave's journal written in 200BC. It gives us a rare window to look at slave's life in ancient Rome. Here is one typical entry.

5:00am: I had to get up. It was still dark and cold outside. But I couldn't be late for picking grape again. Yesterday I was late and the team leader gave me the look that he was going to kill me if I were not the slave owner's property.

8:00am: Worked two hours non-stop already. Status meeting. I pulled out my bread to have a piece for breakfast. We weighed the grapes. This year we picked 15% more than last year. The owner is happy, but not THAT happy. Hey, he shouted at the end of meeting, our goal is number one in Rome!

9:00am: Meeting again. We were so glad to see the nice lady from Slave Supply Department. She told us over and over how much our owner loved us; he wanted us all to be strong and healthy, and even my family and kids, which, naturally, are his property too.

9:15am The lady's main topic today was how to best spend a life in slavery. Basically we should aspire to be a leader, who can decide what fruit the others pick, and take the bread away if someone is lazy.

10:00am Saw those young slaves under a big tree. They were apprentices from school to learn orchid management here. They were debating which work had bigger potential: fruit-picking or fish-cleaning. But obviously they all wanted to work in Quantity, which counts the gold coin for owners. If you can count over a hundred, the owner could give you some extra bread; if over a thousand, you might even get a gold coin at year-end!

10:15am I was telling young apprentice slaves what I saw yesterday in Lukuani, the central market. A farmer tried to sell a lot of apples for a cow. Pompey, the greatest general and the richest man in Rome brought in his quantity team, after busy counting and computing, they told the farmer that he actually didn't have a lot of apples, instead he had many apples, for which he could only get a goat. Seeing the farmer leading his goat away, Pompey the greatest murmured: we are just doing God's work...

11:00 am Those young apprentices from slavery school swarmed around me after I told the story. They asked me for advices on how to sell themselves for a good price on market. There are very obvious ones, like wear your best tunic, bare your muscle or breast (depends on you are male or female) as much as you can. There are tricky ones too. For example when a buyer asks how much you eat. If you reply with too little, they would think you are weak; with too much, you are expensive.

2:00pm Pulled out my bread for lunch. The best farm to work for is General Pompey's: his slaves got four breads a day, we only got three!

6:00pm Listening to Senator Cicero's inspirational speech "From slave to slave owner: working harder for your masters" Knowing that we have the chance to be a slave owner made everyone so excited that we all agreed that Spartacus and his men were just out of their mind.

How do you want your pictures look like

Most of people think themselves look better in pictures. I am no exception. One seemingly scientific explanation is that our image is distorted subtly by the transformation from three-dimension to two. I have my own theory: we look better because we were younger when taking the picture than when looking at it. The time difference could be years, weeks, days or minutes. Nonetheless the shutter has clicked, and the moment has passed forever. For the few who think that their pictures look uglier than themselves, they have the potential getting into a romantic novel. Dorian Gray had a picture in closet which became aged for him, so he could keep youth perpetually. Benjamin Button went even further. His life reversed the entire cycle from the very beginning. How do you want your own picture look like?

Xiaoxi's birthday

It is very kind of May to organize Xiaoxi's birthday party. I observed girls usually plan better parties because they make it more complicated than landing on Mars. They prepare all the elements including invitations, gifts, dinner, decorations, music, cake, drinks, games, snacks before dinner, little cute box for snacks before dinner, colorful ribbon on little cute box for snacks before dinner, and on and on until they forget whom the party is for. It would be different if we guys plan the party for Xiaoxi. First, it would be two months away from his actual birthday, which is when all the pretty girls finally have time to show up together. There would be plenty of alcohol for drinks, which would also serve as the dinner, the cake, the gift, the snack, the decoration and the game. But don't think guys are just simple-minded. We have sophisticated parties too. Those are the ones with plenty of alcohol plus one or two strippers.
Xiaoxi, since May is planning the party for you this time, please don't expect any of those guy's things. You should feel lucky if anyone of the several pretty girls you admire secretly shows up. And if they do, they would be surrounded by your good friends. Do you know why your good friends like drinking water? Because it's a vital ingredient of beer. The same logic explains why they are so eager to come to your party... You will have dinner, eat the cake, and listen to us singing happy birthday off tune, without anyone dancing on the table or in your lap. Still we wish you sincerely: Happy Birthday!