VoxSentia

Ben Barnes - Prince Caspian to play Dorian Gray

Perfect casting choice! The handsome Ben Barnes will play Dorian Gray in the adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray." Filming will start this summer. Woohoo!

Summer movies - what's worth watching?

1. Iron Man - Watch it. You won't be dissapointed with the action, story, and dialogue. Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job portraying this anti-hero. It's a smart action movie for the adults. Plus, the Iron Man suit is aweome-o.

2. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Watch it. If you liked the first installment, you will like this one as well. It's actually better than the first movie. It's more mature. It's got a darker story-line. The battle scenes remind me of "The Lord of the Rings." The winged creatures remind me a little of "Harry Potter." And these are both good things in my opinion if you are fans of both. There is one scene which is heart-wrenching and reminiscent of a scene in "Platoon." Added bonus: Ben Barnes.

3. Speed Racer - If you are in debate whether you should see "Speed Racer" or the other two movies listed above, skip this one. It's definitely not as good as "Prince Caspian" or "Iron Man." The movie is colorful and candy-like except it's on speed or LSD. It looks too much like a cartoon, but I guess that was intentional. The story never grasped me. I didn't care too much about the characters either. The special effects didn't impress me that much. It was loud, fast, and colorful, but for some reason, it didn't wow. This is a very mediocre film. Bonus: If you're a K-pop fan or Korean nationalist, you get to see Rain's Hollywood debut.

4. Harold & Kumar - Skip it and wait for it to come out on DVD. There were some laugh-out-loud moments, but overall a terrible movie. You might want to watch it a little buzzed.

5. Baby Mama - Skip it and wait for it to come out on DVD. If you're a Tina Fey and Amy Poeler fan, this movie may be funny. It's got some funny moments. It's a cute movie, I'll give it that, but not worth the $10 admission ticket.

I'm waiting on:

6. Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

7. Sex and the City

8. You Don't Mess with the Zohan

9. Dark Knight

10. Get Smart

11. Wall-E

Prince Caspian - one handsome dude

I saw Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. It was great. I loved the first move "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and this second installment did not dissapoint. I did find Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) to be one handsome dude. Move over Orlando Bloom. He was tall, dark, and handsome...and young. His long hair really complimented him. And his armour suited him well. He sort of reminded me of a young Keanu Reeves back in the "Point Break" years. I felt a little like a cougar thinking he was much too young for my ogling. Judging from the fact that he starred in this virtually a kid's movie, I thought perhaps he's still in his teens. But he's actually 26. I feel better now that I wasn't ogling at a teenager. I at first thought Ben Barnes who played Prince Caspian was Spanish, but he's actually an English actor; he just put on an excellent Spanish accent for the movie. Chronicles of Narnia will definitely make this virtually unknown actor into a star. Here are some pictures of the young star. Handsome, right?

And here's Keanu in his younger years. There are some similarities. I guess I have a type.

Maybe my weight-loss program is working

This week, I've been exercising a lot. I ate no more than around 1000 calories a day and burned about half of what I ate with exercise. Monday, I ate 900 calories and burned 700 calories at the gym. Don't worry, on Tuesday, I ate a lot more than 900 calories. I went to a church pizza party. Earlier that day, just so that I can eat pizza, I burned 400 calories at the gym. Here's the breakdown of what I did at the gym for 2.5 hours on Monday.

Elliptical machine for 30 minutes: 300 calories burned.

Power Yoga for 1.5 hours: 200 calories burned.

Treadmill for 30 minutes: 200 calories burned.

Addendun: We had a pizza party at the bowling alley at work today. So naturally, I had pizza. I had 2 slices so I didn't go overboard. But I also ate a couple of snack bars which were nearly 200 calories each. It's very sad when I have to count calories like this. I can't lose weight unless I exercise and eat no more than 1500 calories. I gained 10 pounds in 3 months. In my 20s, or actually even a year ago, I used to eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I wanted and I would still be skinny. That's not the case anymore. Long gone are the days where I could lose weight quickly even though I would eat a lot.  All I had to do was skip a few meals and I was skinny again. It's so much more difficult now to lose weight. I have to now get excercise in there to up my metabolic rate. I have to cut out snack and misc things like starbucks and yummy desserts from starbucks. The lattes alone are around 200 calories and the snacks are around 500-600 calories. If I feel the urge to eat them, I just don't eat lunch or dinner that day. Something has to get cut. I'm having a mighty hard time losing the 10 pounds. I lost only about 1 pound and that's because of exercise and eating less than 1000 calories a day for a week. My metabolic rate definitely went down. These are some calories a person burns per hour on some activities. Check out some other activities here.

Calories burned sleeping: 62

Calories burned sitting at a desk: 82

Calories burned watching TV: 82

Calories burned in a 12 min mile: 544

Calories burned for walking as a break: 238

Seriously, I must only burn 62 calories per hour or something judging by the difficulty with weight loss and the amount of exercising I need. I'm getting old!

Mother's Day and going back home

We had a pretty nice Mother's Day dinner. I bought my mom this very beautiful arrangement of flowers. It was one of the best arrangements I've seen and very big. It was nice spending some time with them. But there is always this heavy burden when I think about them.

Truthfully, I don't really like going home to my parents' place that much. I rarely do. It's been months since I last saw them. I've never been that close to my family. It's not that I don't like them. Sure they have their differences and oddities and sometimes the things they do and think annoy me to no end, but that's all families. My family depresses me. I have a brother who's been ill for years, and apparently, it's gotten worse lately. He goes through periods where he's better and worse. But overall, he's always been ill. So I guess better or worse within the ill spectrum. My parents are generally negative people, especially my father. But I guess I can see why. My other brother (youngest) isn't doing too well either.  Well, I guess if you measure success in terms of career and material things. I hate talking about my family and rarely do. I don't want to have kids when I think about my family.

Update: I guess the Christian thing to do is be supportive of them. But I just don't think I have it in me to rise above it. It's just easier not having to think about issues and just live my own life. It's just not fun thinking about them when there is nothing I can do to help them financially or make the illness go away. I can't make us less dysfunctional.

Why did my work load quadruple when my pay didn't?

I'm still at work and it's 11PM. I've been so busy these days. I have to now get on 7:30 AM conference calls(thankfully at home). But I also am not used to my early morning schedule so I'm more tired these days. I took a nap on the bean bag here at work and I'm waiting for the Moscow developers to get in the office. The CTO went over the project plan that I have to accomplish within 90 days with our outsourced resources in India. Right now I'm only overseeing one product (a large product, but nonetheless, just one). I now have to have a good grasp of 4-5 products. Even though I don't have to know it too much in detail; I'm overwhelmed that all of a sudden, my work-load has more than quadrupled. Even though I have deferred my management duties to the new director we just hired, I still have to train him, get him up to speed and participate in all the meetings and conference calls.

Lately I've been relying on this one guy who reports to me a lot to get things done. If it gets too crazy, I'm going to quit. I'm not one of those people that live for their jobs. I believe in balance and quality of life. And I lean more towards the leisurely lifestyle so too much work isn't something I want or good at handling. But I must say, I learned a lot at this job, and still learning. I now have some management skills under my belt as well as more technical skills. Also, a lot of my management kills are remote managing which is difficult in its own way. I also got better in presentation skills; I had to do a lot of product training lately because of all the new people that started. Now the ultimate test that will make or break me is multi-tasking on multiple projects. Contrary to popular belief, not all women are good at multi-tasking. I suck at it. I prefer focus on one thing at a time. I get REALLY overwhelmed when I have to do too many things. And I have a tendency to stress out. I don't really take things in stride. But being able to handle stress is like a muscle; you just have to slowly train yourself to develop those stress handling muscles. We'll see how long I last. I have no interest in seeing how far I can stretch.

Even my boss was like, "Can you handle it? I'll help you as much as I can." It should be a fun challenge though. I'll have to negotiate salary when it gets really tough.

Why do people do this?

Michelle Duggar, 41, from Arkansas is pregnant with her 18th child! I don't know why people would do something like this. It seems so selfish and something just doesn't feel right about this situation. The world is already over-populated, why don't they just adopt. I guess it's really their prerogative to have so many children especially because they are not on welfare--so you can't really even get angry with them for being irresponsible. But something about it makes me feel uneasy about them. How can they properly care for each child? Read the rest of the article.

From some comments that I've read on another site that I agree with:

She must not wear tampons anymore.

"At least he has only one wife."

"Other than the woman made to be a baby factory, another tragedy is her hair."

I can't get enough of these pooches from the 20s

I don't know why, but I'm strangely mesmerized watching these pooches from the 20s. It's so cheesy and funny.

Me holding some reptiles

These are a couple of bad pictures taken with a camera phone of me from the Big Sunday volunteer event. I'm holding a tortoise and a snake. I held frogs and lizards as well, but I don't have pictures of those.

Crash - I didn't see the point

I watch a lot of movies. I especially make it a point to watch movies that win awards like Academy award, Golden Globe, Sundance--usually in that order. I want to know what the hype is about. I view watching movies as somewhat of a cultural experience; no different than reading a book or going to a museum. It's just another medium for information dissemination; telling of a story. There are lessons to be learned: history lessons, cultural lessons, moral lessons. And sometimes, good ones lead you to philosophize, think, discuss. With that said, I decided to rent "Crash" which won the Best Picture Academy award in 2005. That movie never really interested me so I waited this long to finally see it. It turns out, I wasn't really missing out. It should not have won the Best Picture Award. Brokeback Mountain should have won. But the Academy played it safe. People are just not ready for that kind of progressive move.

I didn't really see the point of rehashing stories of racism in LA. Yes, there is racism; but must we be hit with it 20 times for 2 whole hours? The characters do nothing but spew out racist rants for the whole movie. I just didn't see the point of telling a story this negative. Yes, racism is ugly, let's get on with our lives. I just didn't think any of the characters had any redeeming qualities (except the Latino locksmith). There was just too little character development for each character, except Matt Dillon's (The accident scene I must admit was quite moving). I guess that's hard to do when it's an ensemble cast of about 20.

People have said, but it's realism. I don't think so. I think the characters were too stereotyped regarding their racism. The characters were nothing else but racists and evil. They had no other identities. Each character's line was to be as racist as possible. No one is really that in-your-face racist. It was so much so that it got ridiculous and cliched. Isn't there an in-between or secretly or in-shame or trying-not-to-be? And I prefer to see people happier than how they are presented in the movie. Even if people have racist moments in their lives, I don't think it's a major part of their lives. Most people are not sitting there spewing racist rants or hating other races all day. In the movie, everybody hates everybody and it's simply not realistic.

The movie was just very unpleasant. And I didn't see the point of it taking the audience on this journey. And it's not because I'm in denial about racism, but it's like with anything else in life, would you rather focus on the good things that people do or the bad things? Racism is just a fraction of many many social problems that we have today. I honestly don't think most people are as racist as they were portrayed in the film. Being aware of race and being a racist is totally different. And I think most people are the former.

The movie is supposed to be a morality tale, but I didn't really think it delivered. This was a story that the audience didn't really benefit from being told. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. I just simply didn't care to rehash and dissect race issues.

The screenplay was written by Paul Haggis who in the previous year wrote "Million Dollar Baby." Now that movie was excellent! It definitely deserved the Oscar.

Adam Sandler is still funny

I've always been a big Adam Sandler fan, even when he made some stupid movies. I find all his movies entertaining, even the bad ones. A new movie, "You don't mess with the Zohan" is out sometime in June which I can't wait to see. It's about an Israeli special agent turned hair-stylist. Watch the trailer. I find it hillarious when his parents make fun of his dreams.

My back hurts

It's been a week and it still hurts. I didn't strain it doing anything strenuous. I did no lifting, no exercising, nothing. I just woke up one morning with pain and it's been that way for a week. Although I did notice last week that my back would hurt after sitting for a bit and getting up to walk around. I'm really upset. I was barely able to bend down today to draw on the ground with chalk. It nearly killed me. I can barely toss and turn in bed. I don't know what to do. I'll be crabby until it gets better. I never had back problems before. I think maybe I should start Yoga again.

Russians have the creepiest playgrounds

These are downright creepy, hillarious, and  some indescribable. Wouldn't want to let your kids near these playgrounds lest they get psychological trauma. Below are some of my favorites.

Check out the rest: Part 1 and Part 2. 

 

 

Electric sports cars actually looking cool

For a long time I thought electric cars or fuel efficient hybrid cars were too wimpy in performance and unsexy in style. They just didn't look cool enough to me. But check out the electric sports car below. Sweeeeeet! The Tesla Roadster can go 225 miles in one charge. But what I'd like to know is, how fast is 0 to 60? The car goes from 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds and tops out at 125 mph.

"Accelerate pretty good? I call it a turbine sound," he said of the sound. "Because it's an electric motor, it's got 100 percent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you're taking off in an airplane." It can be fully recharged in 3½ hours, which Tesla officials say should allow most people to drive it to work and back and recharge it at night like a cell phone.

Driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, however, would require stopping in, say, Fresno and plugging its adapter cord into a motel room wall socket.

Read the rest of the article.

Locked myself out again!

I'm an idiot. This is the 6th time I locked myself out of my apartment in the past 2 years. This time though, the locksmith was unable to pick the lock. He had to drill a hole to get it open and install a new lock. It cost me $220 intead of the usual $75 dollars. I even gave my key to my neighbor because I do this so often, but she's not home that much. I'll have to leave another key to my neighbor downstairs who's home more often. 

Big Sunday volunteering

I was at the LA Family Housing Valley Shelter today to help throw a big party for the residents of the shelter, individual adults transitioning out of homelessness. Big Sunday is an annual volunteer weekend which brought about 50,000 people last year volunteering at 300+ various community organizations all across LA and Orange County.

There were more than 15 volunteers needed at the shelter. We ended up kind of standing around a lot because there wasn't that much to do. At times I felt that I should have been helping out at places where they could have really used my help, but nevertheless, it was still a fun day. We helped put up all the decorations and helped serve food. We also drew all over the ground with chalk and helped BBQ some burgers and hotdogs. There was also a reptile show where this guy brought several frogs, lizards, turtles, tortoises, and snakes. I held them all and even had the snakes around my neck. I have pictures which I will post later. That is, if my friend is still my friend and will send me those pictures. See post below.

I think the reptile show portion was more fun than any activity I participated in a long time. The "homeless" people didn't really look homeless to me. I think they are very selective about who they decide to provide the shelters for. Afterall, it's just temporary housing until they can get on their feet again. All the people looked like they can hold down jobs and some were even a family. I guess they are just people who just fell on hard times. No persons who have criminal records like murder, felony, child-molestation are allowed there. No surprise there because there are kids there. One of the older gentleman at the shelter asked us what it was like for us hanging out with down and out folks there. But mingling with the "homeless" shelter folks felt no different than mingling with random strangers at the carwash, lines, or what have you.

It was also fun meeting the other volunteers. Some were from this other local church that I know, and some were from the comedy improv group, and other randoms. Everyone volunteering appeared to be in their 20s and 30s. At times, I felt that the volunteers were enjoying the party more than the residents there. My friend said something like, "how does this party help the folks here? It seems more like an event to make the volunteers feel better about themselves. I'd rather be somewhere where I'm doing some real work that matters to them. I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just efficient and practical." Ouch. I guess, it appeared that some of the residents just sat down for quick food and left. Some didn't even leave their rooms to come down for the party. But at least there were some who appeared to really enjoy the party. There was one family with kids that really enjoyed the reptile show. There was also this young couple who lunched with us and enjoyed the reptile show. And I have to say, I really did have a good time, and so did they. Not all of our human efforts have to be perfect. It was a good day.

Iron Man - nothing short of awesome

I saw Iron Man today, and it was awesome. It has to be the best super-hero movie save for Dark Knight. Even better than Spiderman in my opinion. I loved this anti-hero thing that Ironman has going. He's a flawed hero. He's kind of a jerk with a heart which made his character that much more interesting. It was nice to see Robert Downey Jr. sober, out of rehab, and healthy--judging from how he bulked up for the role. His acting is great, ever so quirky, funny, and full of personality.

I'm so happy the summer movie season is here. Watching the trailer for "Prince Caspian", "Indiana Jones", "Dark Knight", "Sex and the City" made me super excited. Woohoo!

How honest should you be with friends?

A couple of times, I was at the gym and saw a clearly anorexic girl who probably was going pay a visit to the emergency room soon judging by the way she looked. She must have been no more than 70-80 lbs and she was like 5'6. I saw her about 3 times at the gym within a couple of weeks. She wasn't just a model skinny girl. She was cleary sick and looked very scary. People turned their heads trying to avoid looking at her. She looked THAT disturbing. She was definitely making everybody there very uncomfortable with her working out. I was surprised she even had any energy to even go on the cardio machine or lift weights. I seriously wanted to say something to her. I'm assuming her family members and friends probably already told her she was anorexic and that she needed help. But I thought perhaps hearing from strangers might help her realize it more. But I didn't. I wonder if I would have been kicked out of the gym for trying. I just really wanted to help her, even if I came off as someone who should mind her own business.

But with friends it's a little different. If you care about them, I think you should be honest sometimes if they are being self-destructive. I may have lost a friend by being too honest and telling her how I felt about some of her life choices. She told me about breaking up with her horrible boyfriend this week and I was really happy for her because he was truly draining her life force. But the stupid manipulative prick got back into her life. Sure he didn't point a gun to her head and force her to reconcile, but I still got upset because I know he's manipulative. I just don't get why she lets him treat her this way. She's a very beautiful and intelligent girl, but when it comes to this jerk, she let's him walk all over her. I hate mysoginists. His self-love and ego disgusts me. He does not care about my friend's best interests but only about his selfish needs. For crying out loud he's been married 3 freaking times! I don't care if he thinks he's this hot-shot lawyer, successful businessman, or high up in the social ladder (hanging out with the Clintons, has millions, whatever other bullshit he told my friend). I.DON'T.GIVE.A.SHIT! Who does he think he is? He's just an old decrepit man, who is in love with himself. What a philandering loser! I'd like to kick him where it really hurts and then sock him in the face. In that order.

My back has been hurting all this week and I don't know why. Maybe that's why I'm more crabby these days. But I really am dissapointed with her decision to let this idiot back into her life. I wrote her a long email because I knew she'll argue with me if I try to talk to her again about this in person. I tried. I let her know what I thought about the guy and what I think this says about her. She might not speak to me for a while, but I felt like I had to say it. I would expect the same from my girlfriends if I was in this situation. And they have.

The Hobbit - 2 installments

I'm a huge LOTR fan but I still have to ask--why oh why are they making 2 movies out of  "The Hobbit"? It's one book! What, you can't fit that into a 3 hour movie? The movie studios are greedy little bastards. They obviously are trying to repeat the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogies which raked in probably over a billion. They want to cash in as many dollars as possible from the consumer because you know what? No matter what, we will still see the movie! It made sense that there were 3 movies, because there were 3 books plus prequel. But Hobbit isn't even a long book. It's the shortest out of the four and it's only a prequel about how the ring was found.

Well, Guillermo Del Toro is set to direct and Gandalf has signed on, so it should be pretty good. I'll see it, but I'm a little irked that I have to see the complete story in 2 installments. I hated the way "Pirates of the Caribean 2" ended with no resolve with "Pirates 3" totally sucking. But at least we know what happens already in "The Hobbit" and won't be left with the lamest cliff hanger as seen in Pirates 2.

My stock options

I've been with the current company for about 8 months now. There have been numerous structural changes since the time I started. I was like the 22nd employee and we now have about 50. We are still hiring people on a mad frenzy. And there will be even more structural changes. I do not know what my job description will be like in a few months, but I'll just ride it out for a while. If I start disliking the way things are here, I will start looking elsewhere. My stock options may or may not be worth something in about a year. I hope we do well resulting in me making some money. I never made a cent from stock options in the past, but maybe it'll be different this time. But after this gig, I want to do something else totally different. I should think about it.

Harold & Kumar the worst movie I've seen this year

I paid $12.75 at the Mann Chinese theater to watch Harold & Kumar last weekend with friend. It was the worst movie I've seen this year. I can't imagine enjoying this movie unless I had a lot to drink.

On to a totally different genre, I watched Bernardo Bertolucci's  "Little Buddha" sometime this week. I thought it was a little simplistic but a good Buddhism 101 movie. I think teachers can probably use this movie for educational purposes. It's very PG and I think it can be good for world religion lessons at schools. I knew nothing about Buddhism nor was I ever interested in learning more about it, but watching this movie did introduce some basic concepts of the philosophy. And the life story about any historical figure is interesting to me.

I did think though the movie didn't bring about enough emotional connection with the audience and that's where it fails. It wasn't even really inspiring; it was just factual. When doing a movie about a religious historical figure who inspired many; I think there needs to be that element. Some people might think that's pandering to the audience; but that's a big part of the ministry of these historical figures--to connect, to inspire.

Tudors marathon - love the dynasty

Last weekend, I went on a Tudors marathon watch. I watched all of season 1 starting from 9:00PM Friday until 6:00AM the next morning. I know, it's crazy. I did it because I don't have any time to watch it during the weeknights. Stuff like this you can do when you're single. And I don't like not finishing things. It's the obssesive compulsive side of me. I do that with books too. I don't like reading little bit at a time over a long stretch. If I don't finish the book within 3 days, I won't ever finish it. It doesn't matter how long the book is.

Anyway, I love the Tudor dynasty and I blogged in the past about watching The Other Boleyn Girl, Elizabeth, and reading about Henry VIII and his wives, the Tudors, etc. The Showtime series is written by the same screenwriter who wrote Elizabeth and I LOVED that movie. Jonathan Rhys Meyers makes a pretty good Henry VIII. And it's not weird that he's cast as Henry because Henry VIII was sort of a rockstar in his younger years. He was fit, thin, athletic, learned, accomplished musiciain, poet, archer, horseman, tennis player, etc. Of course, always a womanizer/mysoginist in my opinion. But this series does a better job of painting him in a better light. Henry is very likeable played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The fat picture that is common of Henry VIII is after his hunting accident and old age which caused him to gain a lot of weight. Anyway, the Showtime series Tudors is a little salacious (it's cable), and definitely not for kids, but it's pretty well done even though historically inaccurate. It's a sexy series, very deliberately. The acting, costumes, and set is amazing.

I don't really watch a lot of TV, with the exception of movies. I usually don't have the patience to watch television series, so I always rent or buy the DVD when it's released. That's what I did for The Office and some other shows that I liked in the past.

Russian sounds like fighting sometimes

I manage a group of Russian developers so I get on a nightly conference call with them. This duty however will be taken over by someone else, which is probably good for me since my evenings will be free now. Anyway, sometimes, the Russian developers talk among themselves because it's too difficult to communicate everything in English. They're usually discussing programming issues when they're speaking in Russian. But it's funny listening to them because they sound like they're sort of yelling or talking loudly at each other out of anger. I don't know if that's what Russian generally sounds like, but I'm always wondering while I'm listening whether they are arguing about something. I took Russian in college but we read and pronounced everything slowly and none of it sounded angry.

Big Sunday - largest citywide community service event in America

In between some selfish living, I thought I'd make myself of some use to the community. I'll be helping organize a party for residents of L.A. Family Housing's Valley Shelter; individual adults transitioning out of homelessness, this saturday for Big Sunday. Bel Air Presbyterian will be one of the many organizations joining the 10th annual event. See the list of people/organizations involved. This is a secular community service event that many religious organizations also join in.

Big Sunday is the largest annual citywide community service event in America. It will take place May 3-4, 2008. Volunteers of every age and from every walk of life work together to help others. Big Sunday is driven by the belief that everyone has something to give—no matter who you are, what you do, how much money you have, where you live or what ethnicity or religion you happen to be. Last year on Big Sunday about 50,000 people — some who turned out as individuals, others with their families, and others as part of their class, church, synagogue, business or club — volunteered at 300 nonprofits, schools and other agencies. These volunteers, along with those we helped, hailed from all over the Southland — from downtown L.A. to the Westside, from the San Fernando Valley to the San Gabriel Valley, from Orange County to the Inland Empire to Ventura County.

This should be interesting. There are hundreds of volunteer opportunities for everyone; and it's not too late to join.

She was in a better mood today

Courtenay was in a much better mood today. And she was really happy about the cake I gave her. She came home at midnight.

What have you done for me lately?

Last night, my neighbor was having a very bad day. She came home and she stood outside my door telling me about her day and how horrible it was. She usually comes to me when she wants to talk to someone. She had gotten into a minor accident, the acting gig wasn't working out for her, and a slew of other things. I gave her a hug to make her feel better. She then asked that I come over in about half an hour to have some wine and hang out. It's not often that she gets out of her shell to invite me over. She's a very friendly girl, but she's a pretty private person. She has always kind of relied on me even though we don't really hang out (like when my neighbor died downstairs or some other problems she's having).  She's young and perhaps I look more stable to her being older and all. But we do talk often by the doorstep since she lives next door to me. Most of the time, when we're home, we leave our doors open with just our screen doors closed.

Anyway, last night wasn't a "convenient" night for me. I just didn't feel like going over. I thought to myself  "I have to sleep early because I have an early dental appointment before work." It's not even like I was doing anything important last night. I was just watching a movie that was almost ending. So in the end, I put my head down on my bed and fell asleep even though I knew that I should have probably gone over to my neighbor's place to console her or listen to how bad her day was. I felt pretty guilty about it last night and I felt pretty bad about it all day today. I thought to myself, "What kind of Christian am I?" I want to help and be there for people but only at convenient times. This is not how Jesus lived his life. Jesus never turned anyone away. He was always compassionate. He had perfect excuses to turn people away. He was dog tired. I didn't even have that excuse.

I thought to myself, "What does it mean to be a follower of Christ?" Recently for me, it's just been going to Sunday services. But God cares about the way I choose to live. The people I care about. Things that I do and not things that I say or think. Would it have killed me if I spent just one hour listening to her? Granted it was 10PM and I wanted to sleep early, I still could have gone to bed early even after hanging out with her for a bit. I was simply just being lazy.

Today, I thought about her a few times throughout the day. I wondered how dissapointed she must have been that I didn't show any concern for her problems last night. I wondered if she cried herself to sleep. I used to cry when I used to feel alone(during my depression years). I have no idea if she did or not, but that's not the point. You get what I'm saying. So after bible study tonight, I went out and got her a little happy-face cake from Gelsons. But I had a feeling she wasn't going to be home. And she wasn't. She probably went home to her mother's. Her mom lives in Yorba Linda. She goes there often because she's close to her mother. And I figured since she was feeling bad, she wanted to be home with her mom.

These are the opportunities in life that I can make someone's life a little better, but I'm selfish. I often complain about feeling like life doesn't have that much meaning--well, or at least that I haven't lived it that meaningfully. I feel purposeless often (don't worry, I'm talking about "meaning of life" in a more philosophical way and in no way going through depression again)-- not finding my place in this world(true calling/purpose; what have you), not finding that much meaning in my job(although I'm grateful), unfulfilling relationships(so far), pursuit of mindless entertainment(although not in itself bad), not reproducing(i have hesitations about this, I don't think everyone should breed), never feeling like I've arrived. Perhaps I would find more meaning if I'm loving people more rather than always looking inward and thinking that something's missing. Looking inward is an indulgent act. I don't mean the occasional reflective kind. I'm talking about self-absorption. That's indulgence. And it's sin. There would be more meaning to my life if I looked outside of myself more often.

Eating only when I'm hungry

I gained about 10 lbs in the last 3 months. For some reason I started eating a lot of food since I got off my meds. I was trying to get healthy, so I just ate all the time, ironically. It's amazing how much food I'm able to consume.

I used to eat very seldom. I felt like eating was a waste of time and I didn't really like food that much. I'm now back to the weight I used to be when I was in college. Yeah, I was heavier in college than in my working years, which is unusual. I used to wear a size 0 pants, but now I wear a size 2, barely. I'm not trying to sound obnoxious here, but I'm a short person so it's not that weird that I wear small sizes. On a tiny person, gaining 10 lbs is like equivalent of gaining 20 lbs.

Anyway, I'm going on a diet now to lose the 10 lbs again. What am I doing to lose the lbs? First of all, going back to exercising. I stopped doing that recently. Also, only eating when I'm hungry. I think that really takes care of the weight issues. Well, at least for me. Perhaps it's more difficult for other people. But I find that if you only eat when you're hungry, you're just not going to get fat. Eating smaller portions is important too. Your body gets used to how ever much or little you eat anyway. In this article I read online, someone said you are "hungry" if you drink a glass of water and you're still hungry. I drink water if I think I'm hungry, but I'm really not.  Here's rest of what the guy wrote about what it means to be hungry.

Here are some signs of true hunger:

   1. You feel truly empty in your tummy vs. your mouth

   2. Anything you eat tastes absolutely wonderful

   3. It is impossible for anything to distract you; you can only think about food.

   4. A tall glass of water doesn’t satisfy you.

   5. Your food won’t require any extra seasoning like salt, pepper, ketchup, or tabasco. Hunger is the best seasoning!

   6. If you are truly hungry nothing will interest you more than sitting down and savoring your f0od. If you feel compelled to do anything other than eat, for example, you want to watch TV, read, or drive a car, you are not hungry!

   7. Discomfort is not hunger. If you are feeling gas, it is due to the combinations of foods you put into your stomach last time you ate. Eating more will not make you feel any better. It is best to wait and let your body digest the food.

   8. And, if you have any doubts about whether or not you are truly hungry, you’re not! True hunger is unmistakable.

One of the funniest sites I've visited

There is a site called, "Stuff white people like." It's a satirical blog written by a white dude about white, liberal, left-wing, upper-middle class stereo-types. Although, I think it applies to Asians too; in fact all liberals. It definitely reminds me of the liberals I went to school with at Berkeley! It basically defines the Bay Area culture. It's one of the funniest things I've read online. Note: It's tongue-in-cheek, humor-intended; a satire. So don't get offended saying it's racist. Besides, it's really more about making fun of the liberal, left-wing hippies, and not really about white people at all. He must have named his site that so that he can generate more controversy, hence more traffic.

Below are his satirical commentaries on people owning new balance shoes, having black friends, having gay friends, owning a Prius, studying abroad , the outdoors, and grad school. He has a list of about 100. Read them all, they are hillarious!

GENIUS!!

Structural changes at work

Whenever a company is growing, it's expected that there are lots of structural changes. I just talked to my boss and he told me of some new hires I didn't know about. They are more of the senior positions who will be taking over managing a few of our products. That manager and architect may replace the current team that I am working with. I really don't want to be the person to tell my team that they don't have jobs possibly in a few months. I always knew that eventually, we'll bring the development in-house. But this became more concrete with hiring of the manager of the application I'm working on. I don't know what that means for me. Probably less management duties for me. Perhaps I'll be switching over my management focus to the Indian test team. Also probably more release engineering duties. When a company is small, you get to fill in for many roles that are not defined yet. But as the company gets bigger, everyone's duties becomes more specialized. When I started 6 months ago, we had 25 people in the office. Since then, we've tripled that number. And in that time, we hired many senior management in every department.  It should be interesting to see what happens in the next 6 months. Times like this, I keep thinking about starting my own side business.

Work is a little stressful

There are times when I am very unmotivated to do just about anything at work. But I snap out of it and think about how I should at least do what I'm paid to do. And as a person who believes in God, I think I have to hold my end of the bargain. It's only fair. I know that a lot of Christians hold to the belief that they should do everything with excellence and do everything as if they are doing it for God. But I really can't subscribe to that for everything I do. Seriously people?

I am thankful for my job. Really I am. It's not too stressful but at the same time there are some challenges and opportunity for growth. I manage a team of developers and testers remotely (Moscow), and will take on another remote testing team(India) coming next month. I'm basically in charge of the development and releases of one of our main applications. So I do some people managing, delegating bug fixes and feature enhancements, lots of testing, delegating testing, and giving the approval for product releases. So I guess I'm like a lead for development and manager of QA.

It's been a bit busy this week. We have a release planned that has dragged out for weeks. I'm a little stressed out because there are expectations from management to hurry up and release. I guess I'm a little more motivated than I was all last month. In the future months, there is going to be a lot more work for me to do, with new hires and new applications/projects developed. I want to do a better job and not be so short-sighted and complain about getting bored at work or about how I want to start my own thing, whatever that may be.

Also, work can't fix your blaise state in life. I think I need to change some things in my life to shake off this general sense of apathy. I probably need to exercise again. I gained a little bit of weight. I'm not depressed or anything. Just not really motivated as I used to be. I've come a long way from last year. I need keep moving forward.

Target Practice, sky-diving, and hang-gliding

I went to a shooting range this weekend with a friend. I had a fantastic time. I used a revolver(the type of gun that the cowboys use in movies) since it was only my second time shooting(instructor recommended). The first time was in H.S using a 22. The next time I go, I'll be using a 9mm. The class was 3 hours long. 1.5 hours of lecture and 1.5 hours of shooting about 48 rounds. There are so many safety precautions that need to be taken into consideration. The movies only show people shootin' em up without showing any real consequences. For example, some guns will go through about 15 walls and not stop at the building you're in. Some bullets travel for about 1 mile if there are no obstructions. These are things that people don't really think about.

I have poor aim. But it was still fun loading my 6 chamber revolver and shooting it. My friend Rasika on the other hand had excellent aim. I'll post pictures later of her target vs. mine. Her bullet holes center around the bulls-eye whereas mine were all over the place. I'll also post the video of us shooting in another post. I need to edit it before posting because of all the inactivity in the clips.

We'll go again in a couple of weeks to practice shooting with a 9mm. And some other time, we'd like to go outdoor shooting.

I looked up sky-diving. But I'm not sure if I'll actually do it. 5 years ago, I would have definitely done it. I should have done it then. But now that I'm older I'm not sure that I want to take such risks. I'm a little more afraid of doing crazy things as I get older. First time jumping costs about $15o, and it's tandem jumping with an instructor. I'm going to have to think about this one.

I've wanted to hang-glide ever since I was a little girl. It doesn't seem as dangerous as sky-diving. But the only problem is, it'll cost about $1000-$2000 before one can do a solo glide. They recommend you jump about 2 times a week before finally doing a solo glide. And it'll cost about $200 dollars each time I want to hang-glide. This one is more of the time and money issue.

Same with flying a plane. I looked into getting a pilot license a couple of years ago, but it'll cost you more than $5000 dollars for lessons and you need the free time as well.

Because of this, I'm resigning to golfing and target practice for now.