Knowing Your Roots

Over dinner tonight, Jeanne shared that she had a copy of her family's ancestral "records"- which date back to 741AD. Apparently she comes from a long line of scholars, with one of her ancestors even being a prime minister of sorts back in China.

Curious to know what my family history is, I ask my dad if he has any idea. I come home and see him poring over a yearbook-like tome of picture after picture. We have a book too!

This book was compiled by the Lee Clan Association Group (haha ok I don't know the official name, but it's some sort of 会馆) but only dates back to 1410AD. It doesn't look like it contains *everyone's* names though.

Anyways, we find my dad's pictures in it but we're not too sure how to read the information so can't really tell who the upline is. I did manage to figure out that we came from 永春. So pleased!

After a quick google search, LGG tells me it's -40degrees at night and -26degrees in the day and really shouldn't have complained about the relative toastiness in Darjeeling, seeing how I apparently come from Eskimo stock.

Yong Chun is also famous for producing lychees, which I guess would explain my love for lychee martinis. Lol. It's all in my blood!

Ah well. It's interesting to read about such stuff and have a better understand of your roots. Maybe I should make a trip to Yong Chun one day.

Ramblings

It's 2.20am and I can't sleep. I'm not sure why- I didn't have any coffee in the aftern... Oh oops. I did.

Well that explains it.

Anyway. Had a pleasant evening with Alfred and EYS, and have discovered (invented?) a new and nicer way to say "f*ck buddy". No more crude f-words and it's all kid friendly too.

Oxytocin-friend.

Hehe. Apparently oxytocin is produced after one has reached a climax. It helps ... Wait a minute. According to Wikipedia it's given out after childbirth?!

Wat? I guess scrap that then.

Erm.

Hmmm. I seem to have nothing else to say. Pfft. How is that even possible? I'm supposed to be rambling.

Bleh. Ok. Shall count sheep and try to sleep. (It rhymed! Wah. So clever.)

Huat Ah!

Wow, I've been using this image to wish everyone Gong Xi Fa Cai for the longest time! Anyway, as we usher in the year of the Dragon, I wish everyone an abundance of good health, prosperity, and happiness.

[Posting this early in case I forget. Haha.]

Parenting Fail

I'm sitting here at Burger King, happily chomping down on 1000 calories worth of burgers and onion rings and there is a mother sitting at the opposite table, scolding her child.

The kid must be what, nine or ten? And while I don't know what she did to warrant such a scolding, the words that are coming out of the mother's mouth are just so harsh.

"Get out! Get lost! I don't want to see your face!"

WTF?!

The little girl goes off to sit at another table while the mother rants on and on to her husband. She's obviously angry, but is that how you should speak to a child?

I'm no parent, and I can't say what kind of parent I'll be next time, but I do want to raise my child in a loving environment and minimise saying hurtful things to them. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, but do you have to say that you don't want to see their face?

Sigh.

Eventually the kid is asked to come back to the table by someone else (an uncle?) and she was not allowed to eat till her mother had given her an earful (of verbal abuse sheesh).

I don't know what to say.

Calorie Counting Fail

Calorie count today? 2472. LOL that's 1272 more (aka double) what I should be having.

Calorie Counting

I'm not one to count calories and go on diets, but CH recently decided to get healthy and lose weight and encouraged me to log my food intake. myfitnesspal.com is a website (with an iPhone app) that allows you to keep track of the amount of food and drink consumed. It then calculates how many calories that translates to, and also lets you log in any workouts so that you can do a daily tally of the total calorie input and output.

Not wanting to be a bad sport, I dutifully downloaded the app and started keying in whatever I had eaten today. Apparently, in order to lose weight, one needs to keep to less than 1200 calories a day. I'm not too sure if that's a total calorie intake or nett though. Oh well. Here are my numbers for today.

Total calorie consumed today: 1651

That's 451 more than my recommended intake! Gasp. But then the app makes a booboo and tells me that at the rate I'm going, I will be 3.4kg in 5 weeks. Say, what? So I don't think this app is all that reliable. But anyway, let's look at the breakdown.

Breakfast-
Kopi (113)
Sausage bun (290)

Lunch-
Chicken meatball soup with white rice (184)
Sweet lime juice (128)

Snacks-
Macadamia nuts (210)
Digestives (136)
Ferrero rocher (147)

Dinner-
Fruit rojak (443)

Hmmm so it seems like the culprit was my fruit rojak! But then again, it was the tastiest thing I ate today so I guess it makes sense. Tastier = more calories. Lol. I'm surprised at my sausage bun too. 290 calories?

But then, these are just numbers. CH said that the bottle of wine I had yesterday made half my daily calorie intake, and my first thought was that it meant I could have had another bottle and be fine. Hehehehahaha. Alcoholic, much?

Hmmm I don't really know the point of post though. Lol. So I shall end here now.

The Power Of Friendship

I've written many times about how blessed I am to have the most amazing family and friends- people in my life who love me and are so supportive of what I do. To be honest, when I write about these friends, I usually have in mind the same bunch of people- typically my close circle of friends whom I hang out with on a regular basis.

Last week, I was reminded of how truly blessed I was again. And not from the usual suspects, too.

It had been a crazy week at work, and I was thrown a curveball and had to get some last minute work done. The few "official" vendors that I had refused to do this project, mainly because of the extremely short timeline.

Feeling desperate, I turned to some old vendors that I had previously done work with and asked (ok, begged) for help. Amazingly, I managed to get not one, but three contacts of people who were willing and able to finish the project for me. *bless*

And it touched me that they were so willing to help, because they were helping me. Yep, they were doing this as a special favour. For me! :)

Imagine the grin I had on my face for the rest of the day. I was walking on cloud nine. Throw anything and everything at me, I don't care. Cos I have friends who will be willing to help me out.

Anth told me this a long time ago, when I remarked about the outpouring of love my friends gave me when I was going through a break-up. She said something to the effect that I give out love, and thus get back love in return. (She phrased it much better.)

And you know, I think it's true. I've always had good relationships with my vendors. While I agree that as a client, we are paying for a service, there is no need to take advantage of your vendors. I always try to give them a fair and honest deadline, and do not understand people who say they need things urgently tomorrow when actually they need it two weeks later. And always remember that they need to make some profit! If they go bust cos you keep squeezing them dry, they won't be able to help you next time, right?

Ah well. That's just what I think. :)

Zuo Gong Ah!

First day of work and I'm up two hours earlier than I should be. Lol. Now that the holidays are over, we can't quite use "it's the holidays" as an excuse not to get any work done. Boo.

Ah well. Thankfully CNY is round the corner. Heh.

And... It's 2012

Who woulda thunk we would have gotten here, but we have. Not going to talk about the usual "OMG time flies so fast!" because, yes, it does. And it always will.

I'm feeling.. hopeful. A sense of excitement of the unknown, and to be honest, I'm utterly surprised that I'm feeling this way. The start to the new year certainly didn't feel this way, with me sobbing into my pillow for 5 minutes after being woken up by everyone's cheers and toasts. (I was already in bed, drugged out by my meds and woke up thinking there were ducks in the house. It was all the honking la.)

So I think that was my last sob for 2011. A rather belated one seeing how it was already 2012, but whatever. Then again, I did sleep more than half the day away. Maybe that's why I'm in a chipper mood.

No idea what 2012 is going to bring, but there are some things I'd like to achieve in the year. New projects are always a good thing, although this (maybe false) sense of enthusiasm could be because it's the start of the new year. Haha. Am also tempted to start writing in a new blogspace (haha, new online real estate) but too lazy to think of a new online moniker.

So there. My first blog post of 2012. Happy New Year!