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.
"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.
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.
"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
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.
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."
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.
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.
Unmasking Truth 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
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.
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.
