Mouth wide shut

I should have kept my mouth shut. But I oh so love shooting my mouth off, it's really a wen-hazard, my mouth is faster than my brain. Today we had a surprise QA audit, so of course we were all caught unprepared. There was a nice little granny-like QA lady, big granny hairdo and all that, but wah, she could sure grill like sotong. No sotong will escape alive and uncooked under her scrutiny. I thought I gave an appropriately correct answer, but when documentation was shown, man, I had to remove my foot from my mouth because it had just proven to everyone I didn't do what I said we were supposed to do. Aiyahh. Die. Actually, I think I didn't have enough feet to shove into my too wide mouth at that moment.

C would agree a lot that I let my motor smart-ass mouth run away too much. Gets me into trouble all the time because I don't let my "near genius" IQ head (no, he'll never let me live down that one either) process thinking before talking. Well, better hope granny QA lady has short term memory. Meanwhile I'll just carry on pretending nothing happened. Doodadeedadum.

R&R at last

At yoga today, my body is still very much tight, stiff and sure feels like a bag of creaky bones. As I bent over downwards I could feel the hammies and leg muscles protesting. Wah. I decided to get an hour at the foot reflex place to try to iron the kinks out, and as the uncle was kneding the sole of my feet, I could actually feel the 'knots' in feet. They felt like lumpy marbles, and my feet hurt in places it shouldn't normally hurt as the massage continued. Yeah, it's that bad. But the good news was, I started to feel better, and even dozed off. Off next to the spa to get a body massage, and wowwowowowow as my back was being kneaded by a really good new indonesian therapist, I could feel the tension giving way. I fell asleep, and pretty sure I snored somewhat. But I woke up feeling good, muscles and knots all much relaxed in days. Yum. Gotta go back for another one of those soon, and hope my yoga body will come back to me soon. I thought of sending my poor sickandtensedup boyfriend to the spa too, but he's too much of a massage wimp. But he sure could use some spa time to get relaxed. Hmm, maybe he would prefer those places with nubile youngish nymph types....heehee...

Oww my achy (BBQ) bones

I have gone too long without yoga, and probably even before that, too many weeks of gentle classes. My body is stiff in places today like a wound up toy. I mean, even bending forward I could feel my legs trembling and my hammies seemed to stll be dead asleep.. Took a hatha 1 class for 60 mins and that was it for me, I chose the coward's way out and decided to chew my avocado wrap at Toast rather than take another class. Wimp I am. Saw Stephen T at toast though, and contemplated briefly to go over and say hi, but thought better of it since I wasn't feeling uber friendly nor was I feeling conversational. I always got the impression that Stephen T is a somewhat intimidating and proud fella anyway.

BBQ at my boss' boss' place tonite. My contribution was a couscous salad from Tessa Kiros' Cloudberries book, and a thai pomelo salad which I had done before. The pomelo salad was ok, but there must be a whole lot more of ingredients that go into the restaurant version because those at the thai (in bkk) restaurants are so so so good. The couscous salad was a surprise - I'm not a fan of couscous but I could not find a pasta recipe and this was the next best choice. First time trying the recipe and it was an instant winner. I knew I made the right decision to buy the recipe book despite it's $80 price tag. Of course, the thing about BBQ's are that there's always too much food. The pomelo salad had more than 1/2 left by the time we ended the party, and unfortunately I witnessed it's sad demise into the trashbag. I spent more than 1 hr peeling the pomelos and was truly sad to see it go. Next time for a party of 20, I'll just use 1 pomelo.

Achy bones. Murphy's law says that all the spa slots for massages would be taken up and unavailable when you need it. Yeah Murphy's right. Wish bis or holly could step on my back for me now.

To be or not to be

Starting yoga again tonite felt a little strange, like my body wasn't quite sure what to do. Think it felt a little lost. And boy, was it stiff, hammies were tight, back was tight, neck was tight, shoulders etc etc. Going into a room packed with some 40 eager and mostly strong yogi types, the atmosphere was certainly highly charged. All these bodies stretching out, some with unbelievable and enviable flexibility and ease before class started. I just sat there and stoned out. Next to me were a few ladies, obviously in their 40s but wearing skimpy aerobics bra tops and their yoga stretch pants leaving a bare but toned midriff that looked 200% better than my overflowing over the elastic band waist. Wah, when I'm in my 40s, I want a body like theirs. These aunties are damn lithe, they must have been dancers in their youth. Even in pigeon pose, where it is always usually so easy for me, my body and muscles were so tight and wound up I could not sit properly into the pose. I must have aged lots in the past 3 weeks.

Often during class I found myself trying to keep my breath smooth and steady, breathing through the heart, with the heart. None of that huffing, puffing I could hear around me. When Stephen said jump into a pose, I chose walk or ease gently into it instead. My yoga has changed, I'm no longer keen in power classes. Wonder how long I'm going to be in this phase before I move back into before, or maybe, I won't. Maybe I'll just go forward being like this, preferring the slow, hatha and heart yoga. More zen, less power.

OM stiff cow.

Freedom!

What happens when one is on the verge of giving a graded presentation in front of a roomful of people, and then feels a fart moving to the 'back door' waiting it's turn to move on out (with a bang, or maybe a stealthy ripple) and say Hello! to the world?

You let it rip.

Nah, of course not. That would almost be like presentation suicide. So one just presses on...err, I mean, hold on (or is it hold off)? What we learnt in yoga about lifting the pelvic floor, engaging the bandhas upward, yeah ok, whatever. As long it works. Think it's a well known fact anyway that cows and farm animals contribute a whole lot to methane emissions and global warming.

School is over. AT LAST. Well, for this year anyway. Exams in 2 weeks, and more assignments. But nevermind those, because finally I can go back to yoga soon. I miss yoga. I haven't been to classes in over 3 weeks, and my practice is as stale as an old fart (pardon the pun). Had a quick look at Pure's website and was really surprised to see Stephen T conducting classes this weekend. Happiness as his return, and then the uh oh! kicks in; Stephen's classes are not easy, and as one will expect, a lot of seasoned, athletic, competitive yogi types will be in that class. I just don't feel competitive, not in yoga, not especially after Mark Whitwell's workshop. In fact I've started to dread going to any 'power' yoga class. Power and Yoga are just complete opposites, in it's purest sense it really doesn't make sense. A real modern americanization bastardization of the essence of yoga.

Is it almost Dec already? Wow, time for Xmas shopping. Uh oh, I can hear Slick plotting for an xmas pressie.....

Anal R' Us

In the Entreprenuership module we each had to take some sort of personality-character profile assessment. Basically it classifies an individual into 1 or 2 out of 4 personality types - the logical (usually engineer types), the organized (administrator types), the feeling (sympathetic, nurses, social worker types) and artistic (IMO, the woozy floozy types). I guess it's no surprised that I fell into the Organized personality type, but according to the test profile, I'm the super duper wuper organized, planned, control dominant type. In short, I'm ANAL. Capital A. Super left brain dominant. My test scores ranked organizational personality over more than double of my logical, creative and emotional skills, i.e. I'm Anal dominant ...or should it be Anal Dominatrix...!!!? :O

Immediately I could see C falling into the completely opposite quadrant from me - the creative, woozy floozy type, the big picture type, who does not follow sequence and logic, a complete failure at organization, can't see the forest for the trees (or is that trees for the forest?). These people suck at time management, because the concept of punctuality is too vague to them. Yep, that's my CreativeConfusedCow. We're complete opposites, but as the saying goes, opposites attract. And it's no wonder he's prone to motion-sickness since most right brained people tend to be that; there was something in the detailed report that mentioned right brain people has the ability to eye-ear coordinate vs left brainers who could only do either one but not both. Ok so that's why he can drive, sms and do some other tasks at the same time. Me, I grip the steering wheel in a death grip and plow ahead. No one talks to me lest I get distracted. No radio, no nothing. Just stare straight ahead.

Now I know why I'm in my job, because my job is so befitting of my anal-personality. And I'm good at it too. Hmm, maybe I should show my test scores to my boss and ask for a raise. Born a planner. Wow.

3 weeks with hardly any yoga, is irritating me. I start to eat more meat, I get more irritated, my temper is shortened and I feel like giving some folks a well deserved kick in the shins. I rant more. Owww...I need to get back to yoga soon. I need to be zen again.

Invention of Time

School 2nd week in a row, boyo I'm exhausted. I've got econs assignment to hand in, marketing materials to read that are about 3 inches thick (which according to MrCannotTeachMarketingtoSavehisLife requires 100hrs reading time) and attending classes on how to be an Entreprenuerial being. Actually it's not exactly a How to Setup your own business class, it's more like a creative thinking class. How to think out of the box, how to solve problems creatively. Similar to those QC circle processes in production shopfloors. Guess if I harboured any hopes of milking a cow, bringing the milk to market and trying to convince the hdb aunties I'm actually selling a natural face-wash that g'tees fair smooth skin....well...I don't think it's the right class for it. Nonethelss it's a fun class. We have been assigned into groups to invent a product as part of our presentation on Thus. Invention is never easy, just look at the bizillion useless inventions and patents on some of the wierdest, wackiest stuff. I mean, people actually invent ear muffs for dogs??? I'm skeptical if we can come up with anything that hasn't already been patented or invented. Bleh. Oh wait, is there an invention I can use to stop Holly from kidnapping Codie??? You know what, the invention I would probably most appreciate is a money making machine. Real, spendable money of course. No wait...someone please invent more time in a day so that I have more time to get through my assignments and researches. Of course it does help that more time in a day means next (getting older) birthdays don't come so soon.

On the bright side, Flushed Away is a superly duperly hilarious animated film. Absolutely hilarious. Those singing slugs? Brilliant. If I had laughed any harder I'll be kissing the unwashed carpeted floor of the cinema.

Toys for Boys

Marketing is over. At last. Gawd, he's really one of the worst. Any kid at A-levels could probably teach that module. Gave Mr.Suck@Marketing a really poor review. I want my money back. Bleh. Entreprenuership starts this weekend, man, between Econs assignment, Marketing and Ent lessons, the next few weeks are gonna be real though as I'll be churning paper after paper and exams after exams. Haven't gone to yoga in 2 weeks. A sure sign of sloth is ever omnipresent when one wears her pants, and rolls of fat spill out from the waistline (yes we already know that) but to take it to a level even higher, the area around the butt has become so tight that I have to attempt to "unpinch" the pants from my arse every now and then because it's riding at the crotch. In fact, all of Monday evening was extremelyl uncomfortable for me in class as I could not sit comfortably because the pants were pinching at parts of my over-spilling thighs and waistline. Man, this really sucks. The other day when sharing dessert with YP at Toast, she commented I seemed to have put on weight. Which I straight out denied, honestly thinking that my diet for 2 weeks have been fairly simple. Only to find myself at the scales later that day, and witnessing the horrific truth that indeed I have put on 2kgs. Of course now we know where the 2kg have gone to. :P

The thing about boys and their toys....well...they like their toys. I got C a toy for his bday pressie, only to find out it's just a model toy that needs to sit nicely in it's box. You can't paint it, take it out to play with it, or remote fly it anyway. Duh. And then we lost C's little toy plane (pressie from his good friend), so I tried to replace it with a remote control Heli. Except these Taiyoh people must be darn lousy toy designers because the stooooopid heli would not lift more than 20cm off the ground. And for $100 piece of styrofoam, it's a real piece of shit. I WANT MY $$$$ BACK!!! Was trying to convince C to bring me to the Taiyo service center so I can stomp my feet and yell at them. I felt bad for my poor missingpressiecow, so I bought a replacement model plane, same that was lost. So far so good. Ok ok so maybe cheap can be good in some cases. Oh btw, it's not really C's plane, it's Slick's plane (damn bugger demanded a toy since he had the gall to tell me I haven't bought him a pressie for HIS bday this year). Wah, got such thing meh?

C went out and bought himself a pressie to - a brand new nokia phone. Which I'm sure he'll bust up, scratch, break and damange in less than 3 months. Dainty fones are not meant for big guys. Period.

All in all, the total $$ we spent on pressies, aiyah, could have bought a new PS3.

To Market To Market

To buy a fat pig. No not really, well yes, maybe for Bis and Holly. Imagine a cow going to the marketplace, and attempt to barter milk for 1 whole pig. Either the butcher is damn stooopid, or milk has somehow become a valuable and expensive commodity scarce in supply in order for 1-2 litres of milk to get a whole pig.

Anyway.....

It's back to school. The subject of the week is....*drums rolls*...MARKETING. Yep, the fine art of going to the marketplace, telling the bucher, "Uncle, I wan 2kg topside, and oh, throw in 1kg oxtail free hor...". And then maybe bat one's eyelashes for added effect to complete the transaction. Once again, either butcher is really dumb (or a sucker for batting eyelashes), or this is pure wishful thinking on my part. The latter would be true of course. I digress. It's same old Ya Kun brekkie, this time some (possibly) Australian of greek origin (given the strange sounding last name) but speaks with a strong Brit twang. Ah. The effects of internationalization. But damn, this fake Tod's sucks, cuz his speaks at a rate of 10 words per min and it sure feels as if we're in Marketing for Kindergarten rather than Marketing for MBA students. Man, what a letdown, you can see all students in class spacing out. Definitely not promising.

Happier things: belated b'day dinner with C at Hua Ting, with a fab 50% discount thanks to those hotel food cards. Seriously, cold crab, peking duck, sharksfin soup, cod fish, beef steak, veggie and dessert for $100 is a damn good steal. Of course, they do add to my increasing contribution of sludge that goes into the country's New Water processing plant. Speaking of sludge, my contribution has tripled and sometimes quadrupled recently. Wow. If only money grows at the same rate. Ha ha.

Death by Italian

Maybe because I'm semi-vegetarian zen diet too long. I haven't overeaten in a long time. In fact, in eons. In fact, I don't think I overate at all - 1 tiny piece of escargot the size of a 20c coin, one piece of buffalo mozzarella 1 inc thick, 1 bowl of pumpkin broth (that thing cannot be qualified as a cream SOUP), 1 scampi/2 scallops/2 peeled prawns/1 sliver of fish so thin it's not even 0.5cm thick. 2 tablespoons of dessert - maybe 1/4 panna cotta, 1/6 dark choc valhorna, 1/6 creme brulee. Something like that. But by the time I was stuggling to down my last bit of prawn, I already felt like my tummy was about to explode. You know, the feeling of food being 'stuck' somewhere under the sternum, at the ribcage. It's a damn uncomfortable nearly I'm-gonna-throw-up feeling. Almost felt like I was dying a slow suffocating death. If someone came over and elbowed me in the ribs, I'm sure a goner.

Anyway, Garibaldi is as I expected - overpriced, overrated, over -pretentious. Ours was the only table that did not order wine, and I guess that was why we were somewhat snubbed, despite the $600 food bill for 6 of us. Not that we're a bunch of clerical staff having a big nite out, mind you. Our table was mostly a bunch of high-powered earners (save for me of course), but then, looking around, tables around us were groups of even higher-powered earners. The other diners practically reeked of fashion, big banking money and high powered types. Just look at all their coiffed hairdo and big thick pearls. Anyway, no thank you, Garibaldi will be my first (actually 2nd) and last time. I'll take my $$ elswhere....to Valentino's. Gimme Valentino's anytime.

School tomorrow. Cows go Marketing - i.e they teach us the fine art of going to tekka market and bargain 30 cents of ikan bilis to the impossibly cheap price 10 cents? Whoooieee!

Squashed cockroach....and other strange droppings

So ironic in my last blog I mentioned the squashed cockroach bit. For when I came home on Sunday after yoga, shortly after to hear mom yell whilst in the kitchen. Apparently there was a giant cockroach crawling around the dried goods drawer, having a good time with a certain rotting onion. So there I was to the rescue, the cockroach was heavily doused in Baygon and suffocated under a thick cloud of Baygon, and then violently smacked with a rolled up magazine before being unceremoniously squashed (several times with effort) by the bottom of the Ridsect can. Yes, as it lay in the throes of death, its creepy legs doing their final twitch, I marvelled at the irony of Margaret Chan and her infamous cockroach quote. Maybe she had foretold the day would come where Cow-with-Baygon-spray vs Giant-Onion-Eating-Cockroach. Cows won, cockroach K.O.'d.

Daily Poo Index - is at it's maximum grossness. Some other dog left a messy pile of watery LS-poo at the big field. For some horrific reason Bis and Holly were extremely attracted to it. Holly the rubbish bin without a doubt attempted (and was somewhat successful at taking a few bites and licks at it). YUCK YUCK double yuck even as I write (oh gawd, the memory of it still clear in my mind). Even the normally very fussy Bis was sniffing his way around and took a few good licks. Apparently the same stray dog or whatever that left the messy pile behind, left another similar pile further up the path. Needless to say both my stoooooopid dogs helped themselves to some of it before I yelled my lungs out at them. Eeuuuuww. To give the gross factor more oomph, both did the same thing again the next day on the walk. Euuuww euwww. At that point I decided I would feed them the worming tablet. Triple quadruple eeeeuoowww and grossness when I had to stick my finger into their (not so clean) mouths to shove the tablet down their throats. Aiiieeee. YUCK.

Since we're on this topic, there's something to be said about practising a few rounds of Uddiana bhanda every morning when I wake up. Yes it's a practice for inner cleansing, and it stimulates the innards. Yep surely rather effective, because my own innards are getting 'detoxed' at the rate of twice daily (sometimes up to four). Wow, no wonder they sometimes call the WC the "throne room". Hmmm.

Ugly Duckling

Boy was I an ugly teenager. Really. Seriously. I didn't realise how ugly (well, not at that age anyway). Yesterday when in my bro's room to get some tape I spied a large photo album on the floor. My kapoh auntie-ness urged me to go over and sneak a peek - slightly thrilled at the thought of possibly finding some pictures of my bro living the secret life of a cross-dresser, or maybe his selection of favourite porn film titles (and possibly a few old stains on some of his 'fav' pictures, wahaha). Anyway, all thoughts and anticipation of finding secret loot was immediately squashed just as Emily from the really bad 80's local tv series Masters of the Sea would in her infamous shrilly quote, "squashed....like a cockroach..". (Hey that series was really really bad, and most of us who've been around surely know the cockroach quote).

Now where was I? Oh yeah, pictures of myself, my ex and bro on holiday in Australia. Wah, I had forgotten about it, as in, I don't even remember making a trip there. The album reminded me that it was our 'yay we have graduated from poly' holiday,....you know, the holidays student take to celebrate end of school, and a new life dreaming of earning plenty of $$$$. Of course, 10 years from that dream, the realities of life tells us, there's no plenty $$$ to be had, because all $$$ spent on Tod's. Plus one does need to keep her job so she can feed her dogs.

Anyway, back to the album, the forgotten memories of 10yrs ago. Bro looked ok, ex bf looked ok, I looked like....the female version of bro (which doesn't say much for me, since bro wasn't a good looking boy). Wahlau eh, that hairstyle, that wavy look, that...that...that.....horrible dress sense (what in the world would possess me to dress like that! in ugly baggy t-shirt and jeans etc). Seriously though, the more I look at it, the more convinced I looked like taiwanese actor Lin Zhi Ying. No, not a compliment. Wait wait, as I type this now, I suddenly remember why I had ugly dress sense. The ex was pretty adamant about making sure my dressing does not attraction. One of the reasons I'm glad that relationship is over. *stick middle finger at him* (wherever he is now).

Ok, in summary, I was an ugly teenager. Con wouldn't date me then even if he had met me. Heck, I wouldn't even date myself if I looked like that. Yeeow. Thank goodness I'm sure I'm much better looking now. Quick check of my japan trip photos with YP eons ago confirmed I'm definitely prettier vs teenage years of before. Thank goodness, else I better contact famed plastic surgeon Woffles Wu and have him pull, stretch, and cut me into shape.