bird's eye view

I took these on one of the flights with Rocky in July. For some reason it never occurred to me (nor to him) to take pictures until then. We're planning to fly again this Sunday if the weather's good enough, and take some videos with his new camcorder to mail back to his family.

It was kind of a smoggy day (as it usually is in the summer), so my pictures look hazy.

Long Beach harbor from the sky.

Catalina Island from the sky.

house boat in cochin, india

Here's me on a house boat in Cochin, India.

update

I've been lazy and haven't posted my thoughts on my India trip yet...but I plan to. I've got pages already written in my journal anyway. I got back the week before Thanksgiving and apparently some bad sashimi on the airplane (we had a layover in Japan) gave me the gift of vomiting and diarrhea, the latter lasting a entire week. I was in bed for 3 days -- though I think it was due to the jet-lag rather than the vomiting, because I'd sleep all day and stay awake most of the night. It was terrible. And I got my period a day after I fell ill. Thanksgiving was awesome since my whole family was here, but one week later I got a cold again (I started getting one 2 days before leaving India). Enough is enough!

The weekend I was sick was also the weekend I got my Wii. I've been spending most of my free time between Zelda and Final Fantas XII, but I will get to the India trip posts some day... :-P

india trip

So I'll be leaving tomorrow night for 2 weeks to visit my boyfriend's family in southern India. I can't wait to get out of LA!! The weather will be less ungodly this time of year than when we were there August last year, which will allow for normal enjoyment and functioning. I'm all prepared with my toilet paper this time. I might post some stuff about it when I get back.

final fantasy xii

I bought Final Fantasy XII yesterday on the cheap!! Circuit City had 'em for for $37.99 (regular $49.99) on release day, and I grabbed the last copy from my local store after enduring the 2-hour traffic to get home. It's sold out now in stores and online. I am so proud of myself.

change is good

I've converted my blog over to the new Blogger beta with brand-spankin' new features, and let me tell you it is delicious. I can add links and stuff over to the side without messing with the HTML! I got tired of the pink, so I changed to a template called "harbor". It is kind of a reference to my love of sailing, and I suppose the lighthouse is an easy spiritual symbol. I just liked the look in general. There was another template I liked, so I might switch it around some time later.

reflections on a chinese-christian lecture

Last Saturday, I went to a lecture at my Mom's church at her invitation. The topic was about the meaning of life, or what does it mean to win and lose in life, or something like that. The lecture was in Chinese, so excuse my translation. My Mom got me to go by telling that it was something about finding one's purpose in life, which is an interesting enough topic for me. That and there would be a free dinner, and I am still Chinese enough to brighten at the prospect of a free meal.

The speaker was a Chinese pastor from Taiwan who now lives in the US but travels extensively around China and Russia to minister to the Chinese who live in Russia. I was quite interested in his stories about the Chinese who go to Russia to do business or to study, but whose lives are still quite difficult as they deal with a foreign culture, lack of papers, and fear of the police due to shady business dealings. He said they all have their reasons as to why they didn't just turn around and go home – but he stopped short of saying what those reasons were, which rather frustrated me. I suppose the reasons didn't matter much to the topic of his lecture.

Anyway, the gist of the lecture was that there are many Chinese who are driven by the prospect of material wealth to go to another country (such as Russia or the US) and leave their spouse or their kids behind. They make their money and return home, only to find that their spouse is living with someone else or their kids don't recognize them. They gained material wealth, but lost their family. He also talked about his own experience, having studied to be an engineer (and whose classmates rose to high positions in Taiwan) but became a pastor instead. He "lost" the opportunity to be financially successful, but gained happiness/satisfaction and other intangible things.

Overall, I thought it was a good lecture for the Young-souled Chinese culture. I have felt, resented, and finally come to terms with the fact that Chinese culture can often be materialistic to an extreme. I've accepted that my parents may not ever be happy with the fact that I chose a major that satisfied me rather than something that "makes more money", i.e. law/business/medicine, and I'm thankful that they didn't push harder than they did (though I hope to someday surprise them by making boatloads of money in my own business). It was a relief to hear someone say to a group of middle-aged and elderly Chinese that one may not gain by putting material success before family, relationships, and spiritual life. Rather reminds me of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. To be honest, overall it was kind of boring for me except when he relayed a good story. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I felt like a college student sitting in a sixth grade class. It's not bad information, just something I've understood and internalized long ago, so I didn’t have much patience for it.

my first adventure game

I posted this on the Adventure Gamers forums recently. I thought it was a good story and decided to put it here as well.

My first adventure game was, interestingly, the first text adventure game called "Adventure". I was around 11 or 12 (and didn't know English very well, having just moved to the US) and played around with my aunt's computer whenever I went to her place. For some reason this game was on her computer, and I started playing it after I got tired of solitare. I was an avid Nintendo gamer at the time, and the text game really perplexed me. I kept hoping it would show me some new pictures if I went far enough into the game (I remeber it had a single still picture in a corner with directional buttons next to it). Alas, it never did. It took me several visits before I figured out how to open the grate and go inside the cave, and I never got past the green serpent. However, since I'd never played a text game before, I was rather fascinated by the way the game responded to my actions.

Years later, when I took a game design class, they covered the history of video games. That's when I realized "Adventure" was the same game I played all those years ago. I didn't really get into the genre (or realized what the genre was) until years later though.

new glasses!

If I hadn’t mentioned it before, I’ve been doing vision exercises using The Program for Better Vision as well as other books to improve my nearsightedness. I actually came across these concepts back in college, when I saw a class in the Learning Annex catalog which said that vision is 90% mental and 10% physical, and you can learn how to improve your vision by taking this class. I was a bit skeptical, since I’d never heard of anything like this, but for 35 bucks it was too promising not to check it out. The class was taught by a woman named Gloria Ginn who teaches a program called the School for Better Eyesight in LA, and it’s based on the Bates Method developed by Dr. Bates in the 1920’s but never was accepted in mainstream optometry (for obvious reasons – why cure people of myopia or presbyopia or astigmatism when you can sell them glasses the rest of their lives?). The Learning Annex class I attended was more of an introduction for her own classes and private sessions, but I came away with some useful exercises and a new paradigm about vision. The classes themselves were too expensive for me to afford at the time though.

So after that class I did the eye exercises for a while, but not having a structured program I soon gave up it for the time being. I never forgot about the concepts though, it was just on the back burner. Last June I started a vision program from a book I got online (one of many if you do a search on Amazon). I saw a slight improvement, but after 2 months I didn’t improve any further. Since Rocky and I were leaving for India in August, I stopped doing the exercises shortly before we left since I was so busy with preparations. Now that I think about it, I may have stopped improving because I was close to seeing 20/20 on my contacts and didn’t realize it. After we came back from India, my vision was noticeably worse. I don’t know if it was all the reading and gaming I did on my GBA (half the time Rocky was busy catching up with his family and had to leave me sitting alone in the living room), but I didn’t continue doing the eye exercises again.

I started this most recent program around late February, after I got my last eye exam and had to increase my glasses prescription to about -5.50 in one eye and -6.00 in the other. At that time I switched from wearing contacts full time to wearing glasses full time, remembering that all the vision books I’ve read recommended wearing glasses instead of contacts, since they’re easier to take off. The reasoning is that many of the exercises need to be done without glasses or contacts, and it’s good to keep them off whenever you don’t need them so your eyes can adjust to your natural vision. I also started wearing my older pair of glasses (which had the same strength as my contacts) so that my eyes have room to improve. Since I wear glasses all day, my eyes would not improve past the point where I’m seeing 20/20 in my glasses.

This program has a basic 8-week program with an advanced section for continuing the program past the 8 weeks. So here I was thinking I would see significant improvement in 8 weeks – which I didn’t. Or rather thought I didn’t. It did improve a little perhaps the first month or so, and then held pretty steady. I emailed the author’s office, which provides free email support, and they said that it may take a while since I have such a strong prescription. They couldn’t tell me how long it would take, since everyone is different.

At this point I was pretty disappointed, but I kept going because I couldn’t let my vision get worse and worse, because I was sick of my lack of commitment to myself, and because I hated my glasses. To keep myself doing the program, I wrote affirmation on an index card, which basically said I would do vision exercises 6 days a week (Mon-Sat), and how I would feel about doing it. This I read out loud everyday. I did my exercises every morning after I woke up, even when I didn’t feel like it. Sometimes I missed a Saturday every other week, but it wasn’t a big deal. Even though I didn’t feel like I was still improving, I kept it up for another month past the 8-week program.

My “breakthrough” came when I got a new book on vision improvement called Take Off Your Glasses and See by Jacob Liberman. It had great reviews on Amazon, so I decided to check it out. It included an eye chart, which for kicks I photocopied out of the book and taped together. I taped it up in my room and measured ten feet, which is where you can see the smallest letters if your vision is 20/20. I couldn’t see even the larges letter at that distance, so I had to step forward until I could. Supposedly I could roughly measure my sight by calculating my distance from the chart in order to see the largest letter, but I was too lazy to bother. Instead I put on my glasses and stood at the ten-foot distance to see how much I can see. To my surprise, I was seeing the 20/25 line very clearly and can make out a few of the letters at 20/20. That was my first clue that maybe my vision stopped improving because I was seeing nearly 20/20 in my glasses.

Before I talk about the results of my eye exam this past Saturday, I just have to mention how awesome this new book was. It’s different from my previous programs because it has a much more holistic approach. Rather than give me more eye exercises (which it did a little), the book taught about relaxing your eyes, using your peripheral vision in an “open focus” (as opposed to narrow focus or staring), and releasing pent-up emotions. It emphasizes that most people first start needing glasses a year or so after an upsetting childhood (or even adulthood) experience which causes them not want to see what is happening. It could be something traumatic or even relatively insignificant like having to move and change schools. This book also emphasized the importance of keeping your glasses off unless you really needed it. The weekend after I started reading this book, we took a weekend trip to Yosemite. Since I didn’t have to drive, I was able to keep my glasses off for most of the weekend, putting it on only in short spurts when eating or when I needed to see a sign or the scenery or something. I’m sure it also helped that I was in the midst of nature all weekend long. When I came home, I checked my eyesight that very night, and on the same chart I was able to see the 20/20 line quite easily, as well as most of the letters on the 20/15 line.

So, last Saturday I had my eyes checked with a behavioral optometrist in my area. Unlike regular optometrists, behavioral optometrists know how to use vision exercises to correct vision problems, and I went to one because they’re more willing to prescribe under-corrected lenses (which are needed to give my eyes room for more improvement) than regular optometrists. I had never been so excited about getting an eye exam! She determined that I was seeing 20/20 in my left eye and 20/30 in my right, and prescribed new glasses so that I can see at 20/40, which is the legal limit for driving (don’t tell anyone, but I’ve driven to and from work with my glasses off almost the entire way a few times. Under bright sunlight and in a traffic jam, I can drive fine even with my bad eyesight). So my new glasses which I’ll pick up this weekend are -5.25 in the right eye and -5.00 in the left, and I’m getting another pair of weaker glasses for reading/computer work at -4.25 right eye and -4.00 left eye. The exam and two new pairs of glasses burned a giant hole in my pocket, since my insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s worth it though, and a few months down the road I’ll only need to check on my progress and get new lenses for the frames I already have. I’m picking up my new glasses tomorrow, and I’ve never been more committed to doing the exercises. It is absolutely exciting to see results from something you’ve worked on for months. You bet I’m keeping it up until I get back to 20/20 again.

quote of the day

"Religion is not man's relationship to God, it is man's relationship to man."

- Elie Wiesel

Jewish novelist, philosopher, humanitarian, political activist
Holocaust survivor
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1986
Interview with United Press International
June 21, 2006

i have curly hair!

I got my hair permed last Saturday at the Korean salon in downtown where I usually get my hair done. The week before, I decided that I needed a haircut, and I thought, why not get it curled since I've never done it? It came out really nice and was a unanimous hit with my family and co-workers. I did have to go out and get some hair care stuff and put mouse on my hair every morning, otherwise it gets a frizzy and poofs up like crazy.

I also ran into some curly-hair issues that naturally curly-haired people probably deal with, which I have never even thought about. I cannot brush my hair once it starts drying after I wash it, otherwise it becomes a flying mess (imagine each hair curling by itself and not aligned with any other hair). I tried it once before washing my hair, and that's what it looked like.

I'll post pictures some time when I get a chance to take them.

a harrowing experience

I had my Amazon purchase stolen on Tuesday. It was a $100 Invicta pilot watch I was buying on behalf of Rocky, my boyfriend, because he doesn't like to use credit cards. I was having it delivered to my office building, thinking it would be safer because I can get it right away. Later I realized that since I used free saver shipping, it was being delivered by USPS to the mailbox downstairs rather than directly to our office like DHL/Fedex/UPS does. However I didn't think too much about it.

So come Tuesday, I didn't get a package after our receptionist picked up the mail from downstairs. I asked her if she saw any packages, and she didn't. I checked the tracking info, and it said that the package was delivered that morning at 10 a.m. Okay, now I was worried. I went downstairs with the receptionist, and we found an Amazon box with my name on it by the trashcan outside the mail room. It was opened and the contents were gone. There were parking attendants and an occasional security guard walking around the area, but no one saw anything. I had to stay after work (this was around 6 pm) for 20 minutes so the security guard lady could fill out a report for building management. I was so upset I could hardly keep from crying while she was filling out the report. Rocky was not so upset about the lost money but more disturbed by what kind of person who could've opened someone else's package and taken what was in it. I was upset about the money, but I kept remembering something Michael (or perhaps it was another book) said, that whatever is stolen from you (money or whatever) wants to return to you, since it is still your part of your energy (and everything is energy). My understanding is that this energy can return to you in any way, shape, or form. It doesn't necessarily mean that the thief will return the watch to me. Anyway, I took comfort in the fact that $100 is really not that much money, and it wouldn't even matter that much a few months down the road.

Anyway, that night I went home and emailed the whole story Amazon to see if they can replace it. The next day, they responded saying they will send a replacement watch by 2-day shipping, free of charge. The watch arrived at work today without issue. Thank you, Amazon!

Lessons learned:

I, like many other Chinese people, give money too much importance in my life. I got home on Tuesday, exhausted and stressed, mostly because "I lost money". While I was taking a shower (where many inspirations can take place), I realized, why should I let loss of money make me feel bad? I would give ten times that money and more to feel joy and ecstasy, so why not just feel it? I would not care one way or the other a couple months down the road, so why stress out so much now?

The experience also made me more sympathetic toward our receptionist, who had her wallet stolen out of her purse a month or so when she stepped out of the office, leaving her purse under her desk (they said there was a homeless person wandering around our floor that day). She had no cash and only lost her credit cards and driver's license, but still. I was disturbed by it but didn't think much about it afterwards. Now I know what she must've felt like.

interesting article on immigration

I came across an eye-opening article on the "immigration" issue. Very well written to cover the complexities of the issue.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/rockridge/immigration

I have often felt that mainstream discussions on the topic do not delve into the issue deeply enough (then again, most people don't discuss, they just state their opinions), and the proposed "solutions" are weak and short-sighted. This article is a breath of fresh air and says things I have felt but didn't have the words to express.

on the subject of kongs

I finally watched King Kong last weekend. Needless to say, it was a great movie and deserves all the praise it received. Naomi Watts did a fantastic job conveying feelings and emotions without words. She really makes the movie what it is. I loved those moments of silent communication between her and Kong, and I felt that these scenes were cut too short so the interjecting action scenes were jarring and took away from it. Although I'm sure if they were cut longer, the action types would complain that they're boring. Rocky told me that some people complained about the first hour or so being too slow. I felt that they were just right and not slow at all, actually quite an excellent intro. However this perception may have been colored by the fact that I watched Mrs. Henderson Presents, another wonderful movie, earlier that day. MHP showed a lot of theater life and also had a wispy blond girl in a major role, so there were a lot of similarities between the pacing of this movie and the beginning of King Kong.

The one thing I felt uncomfortable with was Jack Black's character towards the end. In the beginning, when he goes to great lengths to get the boat to leave New York and avoid the authorities, you believe that he is doing this out of passion for a great film. Towards the end, you find that these "great lengths" include letting his friends die (and being so callous as to say they died "for passion", twice) so he can bring back Kong and put him on stage. By the end I had lost all my sympathy for Carl Denham, which is why when he says "It was beauty killed the beast" in the very last line in the film, I didn't believe him. Not that I didn't believe the girl causes Kong's eventual downfall, but that Carl Denham as portrayed in this movie was too shallow and self-serving to have said such a thing, unless it was meant to take responsibility off him and make himself feel better. After all, it is partly, if not mostly, because of him that Kong wreaked havoc on NYC.

Anyway, these were my thoughts on the movie and I wanted to get it off my chest.

sliding to persistence

I can't believe I hardly posted for the last month. I have been pretty stressed out at work since my manager's gone, so I've had to handle logistics all by my lonesome (with some help from the boss and salespeople). Normally it wouldn't be too bad, except that we had a slew of quality issues with one product and a few other headaches that came up. Things are slowing down a bit now, and they hired a new logistics manager, so I have someone else to take the burden off my shoulders.

I did manage to learn a few things about myself through this ordeal though. I learned that whenever something goes wrong, if it is related to my responsibilities, I have a tendency to think it's my fault, so I start criticizing myself and seeing ways in which I could've prevented the situation from happening but didn't. I end up putting much more stress on myself than necessary. Through the Michael teachings I learned that my biggest fear is the fear of vulnerability (and, in turn, fear of criticism), which they call the "chief feature" of Arrogance. People who have a fear of vulnerability can either manifest it as 1. what we typically think of as arrogance, 2. shyness (as in, "I think I'm so important that people watch my every move and is always ready to criticize, so I watch everything I say and do"), and/or 3. fear of making mistakes ("I need to do everything perfectly so that no one can criticize me"). I manifest 2 & 3 for the most part.

Another good thing that came out of this is that I was so stressed out that it bled into my life outside of work. As a result, I desperately sought ways to relieve the stress. I went back to Abraham's teachings, which I had read but did not continue to follow through. Abraham is an entity not unlike Michael, but with different teachings channeled through Esther and Jerry Hicks. Their teachings focus on conscious creation, particularly how the emotions are like a guidance system that tell you if you are aligned with your desires or out of alignment. On their emotional scale, love and joy are at the top and fear/depression are at the bottom. Just re-reading their book The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent helped me feel better, since I was reminded that the stress/frustration/overwhelment I was feeling were obviously not in alignment with my desire of job satisfaction and peace of mind. I will probably find some time to do more of the exercises from their books this weekend.

That and I was driven to meditating regularly. I knew meditation would help calm me down, and it's something I've wanted to do on a regular basis but had a hard time focusing. I recently got a meditation CD with a bunch of 8-minute meditations by Bodhipaksa. The guy is Scottish (Bodhipaksa is his Buddhist name) and so has a lovely accent in the guided meditation. I've been meditating everyday for a week now, and I love the short meditations since I don't have much time to meditate in the mornings. I feel ready to move on to longer meditations now, so I'm getting his other meditation CD's as well.

So that's all for now. I have lots of blogging material, since I transcribed my Michael channeling session. I just love talking about Michael's teachings. In addition, my aunt recently met a new boyfriend under extraordinary synchronicities, and I love stories like this so I may post something about it.

macguyver!

This is an awesome commercial:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5340902491202374013

quote of the day

We have yet to see a more powerfully marketed, unquestioningly-purchased and ultimately pointless product on your planet. This is not to say that value is not ultimately extracted from the experience, but we have seen more detours in personal and global evolution due to the freely-accepted oppression of religion than from any other context in your history.

- Michael on religion, as channeled by Troy Trolley

my work is falling apart

Well, not QUITE, but a VP of ours just left, a salesperson got fired, and my supervisor is leaving in 2 weeks. That leaves one salesperson and her assistant left to handle the sales - I hope my supervisor's sales responsibilities don't get dumped on me because I hate the pressure of having to produce results. On top of this, I know but they don't know that I am looking for new work and will put in my two week's notice as soon as I find it. When my supervisor told me yesterday that he was leaving, I was like, "oh my god, you beat me to it!!"

Anyway, I cranked up my job search this past week because, after going to the Michael channeling session, they said that my essence (or soul) would like to explore working on a campus or a dynamic web-based company, both of which sounded good to me. I looked at university jobs when I first started job searching after graduation, but I only got one interview that went nowhere. I did find an interesting position for a program assistant at USC, and it's the only job I applied to so far. I have a very good feeling about this one, but if I don't get it I'll start searching again.

the china study

This is my short review of The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell, as posted on Amazon.com.

I decided to become vegetarian again (did it for a while in college) after reading Diet for a New America by John Robbins, and this book further convinced me that a whole food, plant-based diet is the right thing to do. The writing style is very down-to-earth, conservative, and never sensational - almost a bit dull at times. You get the sense he is just conveying the evidence he has discovered for maintaining a healthy, disease-free life, from one human being to another. This book is chock full of scientific evidence showing that animal protein (meat, fish, milk, and eggs) are a fundamental cause/promoter of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and a host of other diseases. I myself did not need this much convincing to go vegetarian, but this is a good book to lend to those who do.

As of today I have been a vegetarian (not vegan because I still eat ice cream once in a while) for a little over 2 weeks, and I lost 2.5 lbs (now weighing 140 lbs) without doing much else - I work in front of a computer all day and don't exercise. I have gooood BM too (bowel movement). I don't miss meat, but I don't obsess over the diet either - if I cook, I don't buy meat products; if someone else cooks, I don't mind eating the veggies cooked in with the meat. Like Dr. Campbell says, give it a try for 30 days. If you can't stand it, you can always go back.

For those of you interested in the effects of meat-eating on animal, environmental, and economic health (not just human), I also highly recommend The Food Revolution by John Robbins, which is the update to Diet for a New America

big bear

I went to Big Bear last weekend, and it snowed for the first time since December or something like that. It was gorgeous. The bed and breakfast I stayed at was awesome too. Will post some pictures and more details later once I get my camera back. Rocky took it from me because he wanted to develop pictures with him in it and deleting the pics from my camera before giving it back - some paranoia about me posting on my blog.

quote of the day

"Nothing in our society, with the exception of violence and fear, has been more effective in keeping women in their place than the degradation of the menstrual cycle."
- Chris Northrup, M.D.

michael

I posted a quote of the day below from Michael, an entity channeled by Shepherd Hoodwin. Michael is an entity consisting of 1050 souls, and they have been channeled by a number of different psychics who have written books about them. I came across Shepherd Hoodwin's website while searching for comments on the Right Use of Will series, and felt very drawn to Michael's teachings, so much so that I ordered a Michael reading and channeling session a few days later. I've never had a live reading before, so I'm pretty excited about it. I may post something about the experience after I have my channeling session in March.

quote of the day

"It is easy to love those who agree with you. Loving those whose views you strongly disagree with is a greater challenge. Yet it is the nature of love to connect from your soul to the soul of all others, without judgment. When you allow love to be in its natural state within you, it transcends differences in opinion."

--Michael channeled by Shepherd Hoodwin

new phone v. 2.0

I talked about getting a new Sony Ericsson Z520a back in January. Well, about a week after using it, the power button started acting up. If the phone was turned off, it would take about a minute after pressing the power button for the screen to light up. After it lights up, it displays the Sony Ericsson logo for 3-4 minutes before the phone is loaded up and working. In addition to that, my battery life was about 10 hours on standby, which is completely ridiculous (the promised standby time is something like 7 or 12 days). So I went online and tried to see if there was something I could do about the battery life, and I ended up finding a bunch of people complaining about the phone. I wasn't too worried about it since people who are happy with a product don't tend to feel the need to praise it as much as people who had bad experiences feel the need to complain. That is, until I kept reading and found that there is a known memory leak problem with the phone, which admittedly I haven't encountered. But there have apparently so many returns that Cingular has privately recalled the phone from their vendors. It no longer appears on their website either. I didn't want to deal with the possibility of more defects on my phone, so I called up Cingular and exchanged the Sony Ericsson for a Motorola V557, which I wanted to get originally but wasn't available at that time on the website I got it from (Cingular Premier, which processes orders with employee discounts).

After getting the V557, I really wished I could keep the Sony Ericsson. The V557 is longer and thicker, and I really hate Motorola's unfriendly user interface. My grandma has an old Motorola black and white flip phone, and I gotta say the user interface has not changed that much. Mostly I hate the fact that you have to program the speed dial when you create a new contact, and if you want to put a number on, say, speed dial 3 and it was already occupied, it would erase the old number if you replace the speed dial with the new number. At least I think this is what happened because I'm missing some numbers that I might have replaced. The text messaging and button assigning aren't as flexible either. Rocky is the only person I text message most of the time, and when you send a new message the Sony phone shows who you've sent texts to before, so you can choose from a smaller list rather than your whole contact list. I loved that feature! Also, if you wanted to reassign functions to the directional buttons, you can assign just about any little selection under any menu option you want, which makes turning Bluetooth on and off real easy. On the Motorola I currently have it assigned to the Bluetooth menu, but I still have to go into setup, and then turn it on or off. There is a shortcut list, so I may be able to assign the Bluetooth on/off selection to a shortcut, then choose the shortcut when I reassign a button. I haven't tried it yet because it's too much work, LOL. Overall the Sony Ericsson interface is just very fluid and easy to use. I hated giving it up. I mean, okay, the Motorola interface is better than my old Nokia phone, but in comparison with Sony Ericsson's, it's a piece of shit.

Although one saving grace about the Motorola, which I realized last night, is that it's the phone I've been wanting for a while. I was looking at my aunt's Motorola V330, which is only available for T-Mobile and is the phone I would've gotten if I were still with them. After owning the V557, I realized that the V330 is almost exactly the same. It's the same size, has camera & Bluetooth, same antenna, same button layout, and very similar interface. The biggest difference is the way the shell looks - the top side is all blue and rubbery whereas the V557 has a lot of silver and some black rubbery stuff (the bottom side is exactly the same except for color). That makes me feel better, but next time I change phones I hope there'd be a more stable Sony Ericsson.

forgiveness

I read this article in the CWG bulletin and thought it was quite inspiring, so I decided to post it here.

CBS News reports that nearly two decades after taking part in a brutal attack on a young woman in her Akron, Ohio, home, Lane Mikaloff has crossed paths with his victim in a way no one ever expected. CBS News national correspondent Tracy Smith spoke with the victim, Christine Robbins, for a two-part series on The Early Show and learned her remarkable story.

Now, Mikaloff tells his story, too. The attack took place on a fall night in 1986, when Robbins awoke to find that two men had broken into her home. They ransacked the house, and took turns raping her. The attackers tied her up and disappeared but with the details Robbins remembered, police had the clues they needed.

Lane Mikaloff, 18 at the time, and an accomplice were both convicted and sent to prison. Long after the attack, Robbins endured terrible, lingering fear but, in time, she went on with her life. She married, had three sons, and did her best to put that horrible night behind her. As for Lane Mikaloff, when he got out of prison in 2002, he vowed to stay out of trouble.

"People that know me know the progress that I've made in my life," he told Smith. "I made a decision to change after I done what I done." Mikaloff started a family of his own on a quiet Akron street. Although he would always be labeled a sex offender, he thought an ugly chapter of his life was closed. But there was a problem: just 592 feet from Mikaloff's front door is an elementary school. Smith reports that, under state law, no registered sex offender can live within 1,000 feet of a school. Two weeks before Christmas, Mikaloff and his family got an eviction notice.

"I can't even think of myself as being that person anymore," he said. "Especially now I look at my girls and … I think about if somebody else did something to them. And how would I feel about that? My victim, that's somebody's daughter. And I think along those lines now whereas before I didn't think like that."

The sheriff's office is not sympathetic. "He's a sexual predator," says Christine Croce of the Summit County Sheriff's Office. "He's required to register every 90 days for the rest of his life, so, therefore, obviously the court thought his actions were pretty heinous and pretty serious."

But when Christine Robbins heard about what was happening to the man who raped her, she felt great sympathy. "I'd feel bad for anyone in that situation," she told Smith. "Here's a man who's really doing all the right things. Even more astounding, Robbins told Smith she is so far beyond that terrible phase of her life, she is now able to forgive Mikaloff for his crime. "I feel no hatred toward him, none whatever. I wish him the best," she said.

With the help of a friend, Robbins started collecting money to help Mikaloff's family. And so, two weeks ago, the man who raped Christine Robbins received her heartfelt forgiveness and $800.

"She restored my faith in a lot of things," Mikaloff told Smith. "I have her forgiveness. And that means more than this house."

thoughts on valentine's day

For the first time in my life, I actually have a boyfriend on Valentine's Day. And you know what? It doesn't even matter to me any more. I guess when you don't have a signifant other, it seems more like a big deal because it reminds you that you don't have a significant other. Although we will be celebrating our anniversary in Big Bear the weekend after Valentine's - Rocky asked me out the week after last year's Valentine's Day (which we spent at Toastmaster's Club since it coincided with our meeting night). A few weeks ago I asked Rocky about his thoughts on Valentine's Day and if he's used to doing something, giving gifts or some such. The question came up because I was walking through Wal-Mart (this was the beginning of January), and they already had an aisle full of red and pink hearts. I was rather turned off by this, and was relieved when Rocky said he doesn't like it either because it's been so commercialized. The Valentine's Day overkill in stores give me kind of a gross vibe, like a strategic apology or something, that strips a thing of all meaning. I wondered for a bit why the same kind of commercialism doesn't kill the spirit of Christmas, but I guess Christmas has enough meaning in itself to hold up that kind of weight.

fasting journal

I haven't posted anything about the fast since I started fasting, but suffice it to say it only lasted two days (Friday evening to Sunday evening). It is really hard to go without food even if I am not hungry, and I will need some more practice (perhaps fasting a couple days every month) before I'm ready to do the full course. Here's what happened during the two days I fasted:

Jan. 20 Friday evening -

Drank the senna leaf tea (a laxative) before going to bed. Has a subtle taste and not very strong.

Jan. 21 Satuday -

Had two bowel movements first thing in the morning. I prepared the saline wash (sea salt + 1 qt. warm water) for me and Rocky. He drank his in one go, although I had a hard time drinking mine. I could drink half of it and the rest I have to drink a few swallows at a time - otherwise I'd feel like vomiting. We had to make the hot water in the coffee maker, and the slight coffee taste in the water made it worse.

About half an hour later the salt water started coming out the other end. Yes, I was pooping water, along with some other stuff that washed out with it. It's not like diarrhea; you poop normally and water comes out instead of solid stuff (the water does not get absorbed by the body since the salt content is the same as blood). I guess the saline wash works! I had to run back to the bathroom a few times, probably since I didn't drink my water all at once. After that I made lemonade enough for the day for two of us. Was not hungry all morning so didn't drink much of the juice.

In the afternoon, we went to the Cerritos Library to "study" (I played my DS mostly). Rocky teased me about food every time we drove by a restaurant, although my will power was still working at this time, so I wasn't too tempted. Got really hungry at the library and the juice would only keep me satisfied for maybe half an hour at a time.

After we went home to Rocky's place, Rocky insisted on watching Food Network. They were making lamb on Iron Chef America and it was too good!! By dinner time I was hungry for real food, and I made up my mind to give up the fast. When I told Rocky, he was like, "I was just joking around." I got pissed and told him if I gave up on it today the next time I'm fasting by myself! I cried and threw a fit, and he kind of toned it down after that and convinced me to wait 'til tomorrow to see if I still want to give it up.

Jan. 22 Sunday -

I felt better in the morning. Still wanted to eat, but the urge wasn't as bad. Had a BM in the morning with a little poop, then did the saline wash. It went down slightly easier this time, but I still had to drink it a little at a time. We watched Food Network in the morning (it was a cake contest) until I said it was making me want to eat again. We went for a motorcycle ride and then I went home to take care of my chores. On my way home I decided I didn't want to miss the Chinese New Year festivities nor make Rocky miss them, so we would stop the fast and try again after the we return from our Big Bear trip in February. We went to a Chinese dumpling restaurant that evening and had dumpling soup and fried rice. I was so happy to eat food again!

Some impressions afterwards:

If nothing else, having fasted for two days really made me appreciate food. I appreciated good food like anybody else, but I never appreciated eating quite like this. I enjoyed the anticipation of looking forward to a meal, the act of sitting down at a table and waiting for the food, the act of eating, and the flavors and textures of the food. I am also a pound lighter than when I started the fast (this is after 5 days of eating again). Rocky said that he has more energy, and his gym routine (he runs 6 miles per session, 3 times a week) feels easier than before.

While fasting I realized how often I think about food, and I start to notice these thoughts because I'd be thinking about food when I can't eat. Around meal time I would start thinking about what to eat or to cook (if my parents or someone else isn't cooking), and being indecisive I end up spending waaay too much time thinking about food. I catch myself doing it now, and I try to make my food choices more quickly so that I'm not thinking too much about what to eat.

In any case, this was a fruitful if not entirely successful attempt at fasting. Will journal about the next try when I do this again late February or in March.

quote of the day

Unmasking Truth

All judgments, opinions, inerpretations disguise the truth. They
are all forms of trespass. As long as you are judging someone, you cannot see the truth about that person. What you see is just a mask.

Only when you take your own mask off can you see behind the masks others wear. That's when you see who people really are. That is when you see others as God sees you.

- Paul Ferrini

fasting (take two)

So tonight my fasting officially begins. I am so ready to do this, although last night I was reminded that Chinese New Year starts next week - and I can't eat! It's the time of year when Chinese people stuff themselves on delicious season foods (kinda like Christmas), and I was asking my Mom to make this red bean rice cake when I remembered. The past 3 months at work I've been communicating with suppliers in China to rush orders out before everything closes for 3 weeks during Chinese New Year, but I hadn't thought anything wrong with fasting during CNY. LOL go figure. Anyway I'm not willing to delay this any longer, so I'm doing it anyway. At least I won't pig out and get pissed at myself for eating so much.

Basically the cleansing diet goes like this:

1. drink 1-quart of saline wash (sea salt + warm water) each morning to wash out your digestive system (or herbal laxative tea if saline wash cannot be taken)

2. drink a special lemonade recipe whenever you're hungry, between 6-10 10 oz. glasses per day depending on level of activity. The lemonade recipe can be found at various places on the Net by googling "Master Cleanser recipe."

3. drink an herbal laxative tea each night (including the night before the first full day of fasting)

4. mint tea can be taken if desired; no other food or drink should be consumed whatsoever.

I was inspired to start my own Master Cleanser diet journal after reading this one: Lemonade Diet Journal. It's interesting to read someone else's story and how the diet affected them. I'm reading Kevin Troudeau's book Natural Cures at the moment, and although the book is not very well referenced and I don't quite care for his tone, it's interesting how he says the food we eat are filled with toxins and chemicals that make us addicted to them. In the journal I linked, the woman says she stopped desiring meat and other foods she used to like, and n fact thought they were gross when she ate them. She also started craving fresh fruit and vegetables and became a vegetarian without intending to. I think that is very cool, and if I stop craving meat and junk foods after this, good riddance I say.

new digital camera!

My new digital camera arrived today! I have been researching for a camera for so long and been so frustrated (kinda like my cell phone search) because there aren't many good budget cameras out there. I was looking at 5 megapixel cameras at first, and the good ones go for $300-400 with taxes and shipping. I wanted something that is ultracompact, between 4-5 mp, has good picture quality, great battery life, SD card compatible, and a big LCD screen -- not like I'm asking for the world. Anyway, most cameras that fit this description cost more than I'm willing to pay. I dropped my expectation to 4 megapixels and decided on the Sony DSC-S90, which is a very nice camera that comes with rechargeable batteries and a very big screen (2.5") for its price range. My only frustration was that it only uses Sony's memory stick pro, which is their proprietary memory card that costs twice as much as an SD card with the same capacity.

Shortly after I ordered it (on a Sunday), my brother came home and I discussed it with him. He doesn't like Sony electronics (says they're unreliable) and the memory stick of course. So I did some more research and went with the Canon A520, which was $10.00 more than the Sony. The A520 is bigger than the Canon Elph cameras that I originally wanted (but decided against after reading numerous complaints that its LCD screen is defective), but still smaller than I thought it would be. I will try it out more once I get my rechargeable batteries, but I am so ready to start photoblogging!

fasting rescheduled

Okay, so much for starting when I said I would start. I mentioned starting the fast to my aunt last night at dinner, and she suggested that I should start on Friday night so that I have two days to get used to it before having to work on Monday. I saw her point but was reluctant to delay it for another week. And then she mentioned that I would be more likely to keep up with it if Rocky and I did it together - which I was also reluctant to do because I was thinking he'd back out on it by Friday. But then he promised he would do it - and my aunt would hold him to his word. So I will start the fast next Friday night instead.

i love my new phone

So I switched from T-Mobile to Cingular so I can talk to Rocky for free (about 90% of my 1000 monthly minutes were spent talking to him). After much frustrating research (frustrating because almost every phone has some glaring flaw or another), I decided on getting a Sony Ericsson Z520a. It is a charming yet sexy phone, and the screen, interface, and menu options are waaay better than my old Nokia 3595. I am waiting for my Bluetooth headset to arrive, and then I will be talking in style.

fasting

I was recently introduced to a cleansing method called "The Master Cleanser" or lemonade diet, developed by a man named Stanley Burroughs. It is basically a fast that includes consuming nothing but lemonade (a special recipe)and water for 10+ days. My aunt Phoebe went through this fast after being introduced by her friend, and although she didn't experience any drastic results, she felt that it gave her a new perspective on life by observing how often people think about food. After reading the booklet that describes this cleansing diet, I am quite fascinated by the promises of healing from the fast. The special lemonade recipe is supposed to break up the toxic chemicals/minerals/etc deposited in various parts of the body and allow them to pass out of your systems, thereby curing or begins to cure any number of diseases. I know from a couple of Chinese doctors that my body retains too much water, which causes me to be overweight. I am very excited to see if this fasting will help.

After being inspired by a Master Cleanser fasting journal online, I've decided I will document my fasting as well. I will start the fast this Sunday and shoot for 13 days of fasting. May do more if I feel like it by the end of 13 days.

christmas at disneyland

So here's my second post of the year! Haven't been doing much lately besides work, but the Thursday before Christmas I took a day off to go to Disneyland with Rocky (my boyfriend). We got in around 8:20 a.m., and it was a good idea to go early because fewer people were there. We were able to hit 5 or 6 rides in the first two hours - the average wait was between 2 to 15 minutes (for more popular rides). That was quite nice because when the lines got longer in the afternoon, we just chilled and waited for parades and stuff.

My favorite ride this time was the redecorated Haunted Mansion. I don' t know if they've done this last year too, but it was entire redecorated with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme. It was cute and very awesome to see the ride almost completely changed. I also loved the snowfall after the 50th anniversary fireworks. The fireworks itself is already a sight to behold (saw it when I was there in July, quite impressive), but afterwards the snowfall on Main Street was just unreal. Even though it only lasted five minutes, it was gorgeous to see the snow (at least what looks like it). It was like my most perfect Disneyland visit ever.

new year's resolution

Following my boyfriend's suggestion, my new year's resolution is to write something in my journal or on my blog every day, so I can keep up with my writing at least a little bit. My other new year's resolution is to get a new job, although first I have to figure out what I want to do with my life before I seriously start looking. Today our boss asked us to prepare our goals and plans for 2006 to present at the team meeting tomorrow. I was like, uh, my plan is to get the heck outta here as fast as possible. Yeah.

So I've been reading this new spiritual book series called "The Right Use of Will" (also name of the first book). I've been thinking about writing about it, because the books are very thought-provoking, but it took me two months from the reading of the first book to get myself to write anything down (that's meant to be read anyway). The concepts in these books are really quite different from what I'm used to reading in spiritual and self-help books, and its ideas are not quite easily articulated to someone else because there are layers upon layers of complexity. I am fascinated by this series, but like most of the Amazon reviews for this book, it's not something I would whole-heartedly recommend to someone else. You kind of have to be willing to look at the things in life you don't want to look at.