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.

harry potter and the goblet of fire

Saw Harry Potter last Sunday. Wow. Just wow. It was easily the best in the series so far.

movie paradise month

It is simly inexcusable, even with my busy-ness, that I had no clue there was a new Pride & Prejudice movie out until the day it opens - today. Admittedly I first thought Keira Knightley is too pretty to be Elizabeth and Matthew MacFayden at times looks more like a Mr. Collins than a Mr. Darcy (mostly because he is not Colin Firth), but there are good reviews all over the place and it's definitely a movie to get excited about amidst the current theater offerings. I titled this post "movie paradise month" because Harry Potter comes out next weekend (woohoo!) and then Rent the weekend after (woohoo again!).

quote of the day

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear."
- Ambrose Red Moon