I'm really loving this couple on the Amazing Race - Asia show: Syeon Park and Andrew Tan.
I know it could very well be just a well-edited show that just happens to work in their advantage, but I really love watching how sweet this couple seem to be.
Andrew seemed to have been portrayed as slightly pushy and bossy in the beginning, but they seem to be showing more of his good sides in the later episodes.
I was quite impressed at how patient yet in control Andrew was in one episode, when Syeon seemed to be getting a bit whiny: " Baby, ... I know you're tired, but can you please do it?". There was no sign of annoyance in his tone at all.
I really hope they win the race.

Anyway I just spent the past 20 minutes watching some videos of my youngest niece.
My goodness.... when I saw her around Chinese new year last year, she was just like a doll. Couldn't do anything at the time except maybe cry and smile a bit occasionally.
And she's a full blown toddler now.

One of those days again when I feel so darn old.

Dang! How did I get here?

Breakfast: Muesli & oat milk
At the gym: 30 mins on treadmill, 1 hr of kick-fit.

My sweet sis-in-law sms-ed me and tried to call me several times while I was at the gym. Got an sms from my buddy, Mr Bunny, on my way to the gym.Dad also sent me an sms. Initially thought Mom had forgotten (as usual), but she called me later, put everyone at the office on speaker phone and they sang me the birthday song, which was kinda' sweet in a cheesy way. Also heard from some good friends from all over the place: DC, Oakbrook and home.

Lunch: SUSHI!!!! Don't care even if it's only supermarket sushi. I LOVE IT! And I think I'm fully entitled to a decent b'day meal :P

Afternoon: Found a long lost classmate from secondary school. I'm quite impressed that he still remembers my full name, although it is quite embarassing that the one thing he remembers the most about me was how we used to argue with each other.

Dinner: The most sinful dinner I have had for quite a while now, but I just didn't have the heart to say no to this dear aunt of mine who went through all the trouble. Plus the fact that it's also her husband's b'day..... (So, happy b'day, Uncle Charlie!)

So there you go..... 365 days and counting down to the end of my 20s (as one of my seniors from undergrad reminded me just now). I guess I should say it to myself now and try to accept the reality that the dreadful day is finally here:















(grabbed this from some website coz I love it! Hope I won't get into trouble....)

Waiting for a change

Had an IM session with Miss M just now.
She pointed out an interesting thing:
Although all of us (i.e. the Dearborn plus club) split up and went on our own paths, somehow we ended up at the same spot:
Waiting for a change.

what goes around, comes around....

OK...
I guess it's payback time.
The series of roundhouse kicks I had to do today have landed me with a seriously bruised-up shin, even after my trainer took off his shin pad.
My goodness.... not sure how I am supposed to do it all over again on Wednesday.

what's on TV

I stumbled upon this while browsing another blog.
What the hell is going on with Paula Abdul?
I mean I am aware that she's been getting weirder and weirder for a while now, but what's going on this time?
Is she starting her own reality show any second now? A somewhat Anna Nicole-wannabe perhaps?

Oh, and I noticed how girls got all fired up and went all ga-ga over Wentworth Miller (I only saw some pictures of him but never caught the show he's in). Then everyone suffered a blow after the news that he's gay.
I mean.... come on? Don't tell me that anyone would be surprised about such a thing?
I'm not a fan but, but shouldn't it have been quite obvious?
To be honest, I think I would be more surprised (read: impressed) if such a good-looking guy turns out to be straight all along....

Unbelievable...
One more thing to add to the list of silly things I've done:
Drove from where I live here on the west side of the island, all the way to the airport on the east end of the island.
Purpose? None.

mayday... mayday...

My brain is turning into mush!
I'm trying to salvage any remaining part that is still usable.
Please keep your fingers crossed for me....

Kicking balls

Today was the first time ever I've kicked a guy in the balls. Literally. :P
And the victim was..... my poor trainer.

lol
Serves him right though, for insisting on having me do the push-kick, even after I told him I can't reach the height that he wanted me to do.

It was kinda' awkward for a split second after it happened but I couldn't help but burst out laughing afterwards.
Especially after I did it... the second time.
lol
He then jokingly warned me that he still wants to celebrate Father's day in the future.

SO funny. ... I mean I do feel sorry coz I really didn't mean to (of course), and he's a really, really NICE guy. Wasn't mad at me or anything at all when it happened. I hope he will get to celebrate Father's days with at least a dozen of kids in the future.

I must say though.... it feels so damn good to get to kick somebody :P

Oh and today, I had my very first Subway after 1.5 years.
I know... I'm supposed to be watching what I eat, but I was really hungry. And I just happened to walk pass by Subway. And I remembered Jared, the subway guy (wonder if I got the spelling right).
Then the devil inside me thought: Shouldn't be that bad right? I mean... Jared still managed to lose weight, didn't he?
Besides, it was like 2.5 hrs past lunchtime and I was really starving.
So there I was, munching on my toasted chicken teriyaki on honey oat with teary eyes.
I was quite impressed how it tastes exactly the same as the ones I used to have in Chicago. Except somehow the chicken is so much softer (almost mashed up compared to the ones I used to have). One thing though, was totally, completely consistent: The crappy service.

My plateau

I'm hitting a plateau, and my trainer wants me to run for an hour every day....
It's not like I don't want to do it, but I can't even do 2 minutes without stopping to catch my breath.
Sometimes I wonder what the heck is wrong with my lungs that I have such a terribly short breathing. I mean, even people with worse weight problem than me seems to be handling it much better than I do.
Don't tell me that those crappy cigarettes that I once upon a time enjoyed (for a really short period of time) did this to me?

Anyway, I'm starting a 4-times a week training program. I just got home around 8.30 pm and I have to be back there tomorrow by 9 am. My trainer also told me he would arrange for a free membership upgrade that would allow me to go every day, instead of 4 days/week, which I have been using as an excuse not to work out every day.
(I wonder if that means I really, really have to do it now ^_^)

Anyway, my trainer told me that his other client, a rather well-known local designer, has managed to lose more weight than I have, eventhough he started later than me.

So, I'm trying to hypnotize the lazy little biatch in me into thinking: MUST NOT LOSE TO THIS GUY!

So, I'm setting my own target now:
5 kg loss by the end of the month.

Seriously doubt I can make it happen, but why settle for low target that won't get me anywhere right? Might as well try to go for the big bang. Now,... if I can just somehow make myself more disciplined in watching what I eat .

F.O.O.L

Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

My roommate was the first one who told me this, and I fell in love with this aphorism right away.

Ever since that day, whenever I'm feeling down (like today), I try to tell myself that I will get over it before I even know it. I try to remind myself to look forward to that one day when I'll look back and have a good laugh about all of this.

I must say though... that it's getting harder and harder to convince myself nowadays.

Sometimes I'm just amazed at what a big fool I am...
I mean, what else can you say to describe a person who continuously inflicts pain on him or herself?
F.O.O.L.... that's it.

Well, either that or a masochist, I suppose..... ^_^

Just wondering...

You walk pass by a place that looks and feels like your dream home from the outside, but then you find out that it is totally beyond your means.

Do you:
a. Knock on the door and try to get a look at the place? Maybe see if you can somehow strike a bargain?
b. Just marvel at the place from the outside for a while before heaving a sigh and reluctantly walking away, occasionally turning around to steal another look at the place.
c. Fuhgedaboutit.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Or, as my roommate reminded me:
d. Start laying out a plan to build your own dream home.

Another encounter with men in uniforms

Time: 3.30 am
Location: A blip on the blue island

I could've sworn I heard the door bell, but then again I might be dreaming.
There it goes again. You've got tons of imagination, I told myself.
Third time. Is it for real? Must be... You're not that creative, I told myself.
Fourth time. Is it Dad? No, he's not coming till this afternoon. Can't be....
Then who the heck is this nut case?

In seriously bed-tousled hair and half-opened eyes,upsetly walked to the door and took a peek.
Only saw 2 guys' faces.

Opened door: Yes?

Only then did I notice the uniforms. One of them mumbled a name, which I really couldn't hear, to which I replied that I thought they must've gotten the wrong address.
He took a look at his note and read out a license plate number.

SHIT, I thought.

"The car alarm has been going on and off for the past 4 hours, Mam. "

I apologized right away and scurried away for the keys. In the elevator, they told me that the car's ok and it was locked. Only the interior light was on.

Phewh.... what a relief....

Phai seh lah.... I really didn't realize it. Gosh, now I'm worried about the car battery. I guess it's a good thing I cancelled off my apppointment for tomorrow morning.

Then on my nerve-wrecking walk back home (coz I was afraid I might get rotten eggs or tomatoes dropped on me from some of the flats), after giving the men my cell phone number in case something goes wrong again, I was thinking: The poor people who couldn't sleep because of the alarm.... I really feel bad for them but I dunno whom to apologize to.
So phai seh lah...

Then in the elevator ride back up, it hit me: How come it took 4 hours before I get the notice?
Did people actually put up with such a crazy thing for that long? Or did the officers really need that much time to respond?
I'm sorry but I guess after my first encounter with their colleagues, I really didn't appreciate the squad that much.
I hope it was for the first reason.

Either way, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to apologize to people in this tiny island who couldn't sleep on the second evening of the new year due to my absent-mindedness.
I promise, I'l try really really really hard to not let such a thing happen again.
May your patience be awarded with loads and loads of good things to come in this new year.

Cheers!

Back to sleep....

P.s. I wish I could come up with my case studies as fast as I could come up with a post for this blog of mine.

New year's resolution

Finding out that you were wrong about something can sometimes be such a good feeling.

Anyway, is there really a need for new year's resolutions?
I didn't have much time to come up with a list for the year, so I've decided that I will only have one set of resolution that I will be using each year from now on, which is:

I will start.

Old & New

This was an impressively quiet New Year's Eve.
For 4 consecutive years before last year, New Year's Eve was a pretty much standard operation for FUN. Last year was spent back home with my family. Although with two toddlers, my sis-in-law and my brother was in no mood to stay up late, at least I was home.
Most importantly, it was not quite.... at all. With the amount of illegal fire crackers that were unleashed around the block, I was even starting to get nervous, thinking that I had somehow got myself stranded in some war zone.

This year, however.... was totally the opposite.
Silent Night couldn't have been more appropriate as a theme song for the night.
Just me, my notebook, the stack of material for my assignment, my hand phone(which had turned into some sort of gallery for Hallmark-card kind of wishes), and .... the quiet reservoir.
There was almost no wind, so the water was almost perfectly still.

Somebody made me really miserable, and bugged as hell for a while coz I didn't expect to get that miserable.

My sis-in-law called to wish me happy new year since I'm one hour ahead of her.

Then the new year came.

Suzie was the first one to sms me right after midnite.
Mom followed with confirmation of the annual illegal firecracker competition around the block at home.

Wished for a second that I had some champagne or even just plain nice girly beer to celebrate the new year. Just me, myself and I.

Anyway, life goes on...
New year. New calendar on the wall.New (older) age to put in forms (well, technically still got some time before that happens).
Same old life. Same old me. Same old world.

leave me alone

It sucks when you think someone's avoiding you, regardless of whether or not that person is really doing so.
Although in this case, I'm almost 99% sure that person is really avoiding me.

And if that's true, what's annoying me is that it wasn't even my fault, since I know exactly what the cause is.
I didn't have anything to do with it!!!!
It really wasn't me......

Anyway, on the other hand I guess it is a rather effective way of putting an end to all this nonsense.

As much as I know how impossible it is, I just wish those over-zealous people (as HB put it)would leave me alone after all this brouhaha.
I just feel like sitting in my dark corner and dwell in this unbelievably miserable feeling.

Just leave me alone.

Hooked

Thanks to channel 255, I'm hooked....

None of the endless crying and sobbing typical of Korean dramas, this one has way more hilarious moments than anything else. Just a dash of some touching scenes here and there. And when they do have sad scenes, they're never too lengthy, which is something I definitely like.
But then again, I've only seen 6 out of 16 episodes.
So far though, I'm liking it so much I'm having a hard time figuring out whether or not Full House is the only Korean drama I can enjoy.

I missed the first episode coz I really wasn't planning on watching the show. I had come up with a strategy for watching K-drama, which is to have my relatives or friends watch everything and only watch any of those that they say are funny. In other words, I only watch one show: Full House.

Out of boredom though, I caught the second episode of this show. I was skeptic at first but decided to give it a chance as I wasn't sure where it was heading. I figured the show is different from the rest when they got to the scene at the hospital when Gong-chan thought his grandpa had died. That was quite funny and that was really the turning point for me. My favorite scene so far though was when the lead actress dressed up in a super-chicken mascot costume (cape and all) and took revenge for her father.
Damn hilarious!!! Can't wait for next weekend.

Still got no resolutions

After my trainer stood me up yesterday, I went for a girl-power lunch with HB yesterday. Initially, we wanted to go to this French restaurant for dinner but decided to do lunch instead to make sure we still have some cash to last us till the end of the year. It was a really good pow-wow with really good food served in very xiao-jie servings, as HB put it.

I ran out of memory on my phone so couldn't take any pictures of the yummy stuff. It was a 3-course lunch andHB started taking pictures of the appetizers but I think by the time we finished it, we completely forgot about it.

I'm (very) slowly getting acquainted with the nice places in town, thanks to my nice classmates (just the nice ones... :P).
It's a bit sad though, when I think of the possibility that I might have to leave pretty soon just as I'm getting more acquainted with the place, and most importantly, the people.
I guess it's the same old story all over again.

Anyway, I DID MY LAUNDRY TODAY!!!!
It's quite a risky move considering I'm 3 databases and 3 case studies behind.
(Somehow I can hear my brother's voice from our recent phone conversation: You haven't changed that much, have you?)

Speaking of my brother, he called me long distance this morning, only to find out how to say "Finally" in Mandarin.
I suppose he's making good money to be able to afford such an expensive translation service, huh? And not even a reliable one at that.

Although I was already scouring the saturday's Paper of Hope (a.k.a. Recruit section, which was so terribly disappointing today -- which I suppose should've been obvious before I ran downstairs to get them as most people are still enjoying their holidays), I was still in a blurry mode. It wasn't until much later that I found myself a tad impressed with how I could answer it quite promptly without having to check my dictionary.

This only reminds me of my plan a few months ago: To pick-up where I (was) left in my mandarin lessons next year! I suppose this must go to my new year's resolution then.

Anyway, I've been on and off my emo mode the past week or so, so just ignore me when I start to gripe and whine. And what a perfect song I was listening to (I LUUURRRRVVE this musical so much I promised myself I would go again if it ever comes to town):

Hands touch, eyes meet
Sudden silence, sudden heat
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl
He could be that boy
But I'm not that girl

Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are
Don't remember that rush of joy
He could be that boy
I'm not that girl

Ev'ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in

Blithe smile, lithe limb
She who's winsome, she wins him
Gold hair with a gentle curl
That's the girl he chose
And Heaven knows
I'm not that girl

Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl

- Idina Menzel, Wicked-the musical -

Indecent exposure

I'm trying really hard to stay on my program, which means I have to physically drag my butt to the gym three times a week.
As a result, I'm really bugged by this one issue I've always had with ladies in the changing/locker room.

Why the heck do I have to be exposed to all these exhibitionist ladies who walk around in their underwears, or worse, in their bare skin.
I mean I don't care if it's Jessica Alba or Carmen Electra, or if John Mayer thinks it's a wonderland, I don't think it's right for these ladies to force me to put up with this.

So OK.... say they have really hot bodies. Some guys might love it but hey, for all I know, I might just get too traumatized and too self-conscious after the shock to even step out of my door anymore. Can you imagine? What a poor thing... can't even go to work (yea... rite).

Seriously, can't I sue anyone for indecent exposure?
Isn't it illegal for someone to flash his/her private parts in public, non nudity-designated areas? I mean, I for sure did not see a warning-you-are-entering-a-nudist-camp sign at the entrance. So why should I have to put up with all this?

I remember bringing this up to someone a few years back and this friend was trying to reason with me, reminding me that it is a ladies locker/changing room after all. Girls feeling comfortable changing in front of girls... that kinda thing.

However, I don't think some sort of comfort zone from being surrounded by the same gender is the issue here. I think it's simply a matter of courtesy and being considerate towards others.
Just because you feel that the provided cubicles less than 6 metres away are too far, that you'd rather save your energy to torture yourself on the cross-trainer, should not mean that I have to put up with all these boob-flashing (and potentially more).

I'm just a tad upset.

Stop the freakin' train

I have no idea when John Mayer's Continuum was released coz there was quite a long period of time until recently that I wasn't keeping up with the latest pop music.
So I got all excited when I stumbled upon the album while browsing around at the music corner of a local bookstore.

I'm loving it! The whole grown-up John Mayer thing. The lyrics, the music, everything!
I'm not sure how to describe it but somehow the whole album can really "cool" me down. It's now a current staple when I drive.
2.5 days and still going....

So scared of gettin' older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
to find a way to say that
life has just begun
- Stop the Train (John Mayer) -

Wet laundry

My roomie was complaining about doing laundry, and I couldn't help but smile reading her blog, coz I remember that she was the "better" one in this area when we used to share an apartment.
All I can say is, as much as I'm impressed at how she's turned the other way around, I am afraid I can quite confidently say that I still outdo her record.

Anyway, those who really know me would know that I am the biggest fan of cool, super gloomy, overcast days. Simply for the cool air and nothing else.
It never crossed my mind that I would one day beg for the sun to show up (at least just a bit), but surprisingly it has happened today.
The reason?

What else but the freakin' laundry?
My gosh! What do I have to do to get my freakin' underwears dry?????!?!
OK, I know I'm gonna regret posting this since I really don't feel comfortable talking about underwears and all (in public)... but what can I say? It does get to you a bit when, after like a whole 7-day week of non-stop rain, none of your "intimate apparel" can hang to dry, ok??!??!?

I really miss the 24-hr laundry room in my old apartment, but then again, I guess it won't solve the problem since I have definitely learned my lesson that some stuff are just not machine-washable.Period.

Ona side note, you know there's a mismatch between your actual and "musical" age, when you can't get Justin Timberlake's My Love out of your head. And to make things worse, you can't even stop yourself from sitting in a daze in front of the TV whenever you accidentally see the video on MTV while flipping channels.
I'm doomed!!! DOOMED, I tell ya!