Happy New Year!

Hello my blogging friends! It's a new year and time for a new post. I hope you all had a wonderful transition from old to new as I did. There's been a recent trend to sum up your old year in one word and then to choose a new word for the 2011 year to embody what you would like to see happen followed by a short description of your reasoning.

For me, 2010 word is disregard - I seemed to go through 2010 not watching my finances, my health, or following certain rules, feeling as if I was invincible in my quest to leave Midland, that somehow I was living in a little fantasy microcosm and real life would start after I stepped out of its boundaries.

As for 2011, I've struggled with a single word, so in order of strength, I chose: Intention, Effort, Completion. After much reflection, I find that I've been coasting through a large portion of my life, and lucky that I have accomplished some great things despite my emotional coasting. However, it's difficult for me to remember a time that I put more than 80% effort into a problem, class, or work. And most things I did because I had to rather than because I chose to do that. This year, I want to be mindful of what I'm choosing to do and to put in the effort to see it through as well as to see how deep I can dive into a subject. So there you have it - my resolutions will follow, I suppose, but they are mainly a list of races I want to do =P

I would love to hear your words as well! Happy 2011 :)

Imade

I can't believe it's been a year since she passed away. Sometimes in
the back of my mind, i think she was still with us. she's just in ann
arbor working hard at her phd. every time i make a trip out to ann
arbor for something, i catch myself thinking "hey, we should meet up
with imade for sushi or korean food!" then it would suddenly dawn on me
that we don't have that privilege anymore. our angel has passed on.



it was truly a privilege to have known her, even if it was only for a
couple of years. now to think of it, the total time we spend together
face-to-face probably didn't even add up to a month. we worked at
different sites, then studied in two different cities. we got together
any chance we got, but still, how can anyone get too much of imade??
Andrea and I found out about her death on facebook. We both thought it
was a prank... it was just shocking. After, I thought, man, life is
mysterious, chance had it that we met up with her not long before that
in ann arbor for chinese food. we laughed so hard together, like every
other time we were together.



One of my favorite memory was of her playing Guesstures at my house.
Alexis and her were just the killer team!!! That's the cool thing about
her, no matter what she did, she gave her all. Even if it's just a
game, she played hard, and laughed harder!!! I still remember that
night, for some weird reason, my dog suki would not stop sticking her
nose in her crouch!! it was just so strangely hilarious!!!



I am sure in my heart that no matter where she is now, she definitely is
still laughing and loving, just as i remembered. We miss you, Miss
Imade.

girl in the puddle

After having about a week of ridiculously warm weather, now it's freezing again... and wet!  Raining is probably my least favorite weather. Snow? Yes, love that.  Rain? not so much.  it's gloomy, dirty, wet, muddy...blah blah blah 

But, come on, didn't we all used to love rain?  the pouring rain that made puddles right by the sidewalk?  the kind that looks like a water fall, overflowing the leaf gutter on your roof? one of my favorite thing to do when i was a kid, and i'm sure yall did too, was to ride my bicycle as fast as i could and crash right into the water puddles by the side walk, throw my legs up and watch the splash chasing me down the street. Wheee... if i happened to get it just right, i can splash the innocent little old ladies walking on the sidewalk.  they'd scream and curse and...oh who cares, i was gone already.

Last time i played in the rain puddles was in 2003. hehe i remembered because that was the only one time in the last 15 years.  my bff jane-jane and i would run out in the rain and hop right into those puddles as hard as we could, and hear the other delicate freshman girls scream... lol...i miss that.

An Ironic, Time-Management Waste of Time

On my new Dell netbook, there was a game called Purple Place.  I have no idea why it's called that or why the color purple??  There are three minigames included, memory, bakery and some weird design a face thing.  The bakery game really reminded of this online game i used to play call Cake Mania.  The goal was simple, just making cakes with the right color icing and top as ordered by customers, as fast as possible before they are pissed off.  It also included other little features like TV with channels that entertain your customers so they'll wait longer...cupcakes to keep them around, etc.  The money you make can be used to purchase more equipment, or update the ones you have.  It is quite additive.  I think it is really that "ke-ching" sound it makes when you take the cash that my head is really responding to.  Making virtue money apparently makes me happy too.  huh...what a concept. 

The strangest and the most ironic part is that this game, or rather series of Cake Mania, was categorized under "time-management"!!  Time-management games??  i don't know when other people plays this game, i know when i do it, it's basically a form of the worst time-management in the world, well, in my real life, of course.  while i kick ass at the game of managing baking time and icing time, in reality it is really the thing i do to avoid work and continue my life-long streak of procrastination.  I am a clinical procrastinator who kicks ass at time management, here is the twist, GAME!

are you lost?

i always thought people who sit around and wonder about their "path" in life, trying to "focus on myself", discover "thy-self" are self-centered, self-indulging...weasels.  and, i lost just a little bit respect for my skeptical self when that same thought popped into my head. 

everyone is moving on, or simply just moving.  i suppose there's nothing i can do to help it.  most people, well, let me rephrase that, everyone i know who has left or is planning on leaving, are leaving for good.  for the better. this sad excuse of a family-friendly town has finally wore us out.  they chose life! 

it's great to have a plan, or at least a start on one.  i am going back and forth, back and forth on what i should do.  should i apply this year?  should i wait?  If i do go on, there's no turning back.  or i really would like not to have to turn back one more round. while it's true that it's never too late for anything, really, time still doesn't go backwards.  i'd rather be "on time" if given the choice.  "on time" for all the things we are supposed to do. i guess technically i was "on time" for all my "social" rites of passages, graduation, marriage, job.  it still felt like a dead end.  everyone but me seems to be hopeful about my future.  i do feel lost.  rob always asks me do the thing that i would do if money is no object.  what if the answer to that question is... nothing.  whom exactly am i afraid to disappoint?  at some point that line seems gray to me, i am so used to feeling disappointed in myself when i think i have disappointed someone else.  is it me?

i hear women say all the time to their kid, "when i had you, my life was complete." so what? a screaming, pooping baby is the answer to everything? i suppose it's smart move, who can argue with the best "excuse" in the world?  it's such a tempting escape for me, just have a baby.  then my mind and all my time would be occupied, i won't have time or the energy to worry about myself when there's someone else to worry about. 

we all admire people who dare to be different, who dare to stride around living the life we were taught not to live. but almost everyone in this "category" still finds it hard to continue their stubborn streak.  are they really happy and carefree like the they paint themselves to be?  or is it just a front to put up to shut everyone up?

Pregnant people on water slides

I took my ma to splash village in Frankenmuth today.  It was so steamy in there...phew... it was fun, but it reminded me how much better Michigan Adventures in Muskegon was, well in the summer that is, and it costs about the same, $25 for half day.  The weird thing is, well, or so i was told...my mom and rob told me they spotted 4 or 5 really pregnant ladies in there, on the slides and everything... i've never been pregnant, so i don't know... but is that safe???  speeding through some tube ride crushing out and hit the bottom?

Taking showers at a swimming pool or something is always a dilemma,  if there's no individual showers with curtains and stuff, just a big open area with a bunch of shower heads... do you or do you not take off the swimsuit to shower??  If i keep it on, it felt like i'm rinsing the suit on me, not washing myself...if i take it off, and someone to walk in...the dilemma continues... do you say hi? what do you say when you are butt naked? "oh the water sure was nice?"  And let's say, you do talk, what if the other person isn't naked, should I apologize for letting all my junk in the trunk out in the open??

Afterwards we went to Jerry and Pat's in Auburn for seafood buffet... a word of caution:  the crab legs are great! the lake perch however, is a hit or miss...  my fav is this chocolate mousse thing, delish!

Butterflies

it was a beautiful day outside. We went out for a walk with the dogs this morning, did some house chores.  In the afternoon, I took my Ma to Dow Garden's conservatory where they have a live butterflies exhibit.  It was so humid and hot in there, some of the pictures turned out blurry because the lens had condensation on it. 

The smaller butterflies were more friendly and less timid than the bigger ones.  When it rested on a flower or something, we just offer our hands and they would walk right onto it.  It was really cool.  The bigger ones would not have any of that, of course.  They flutters around and refused to settle.  They were probably very annoyed. 

In the "breeding box", there were a whole bunch of pupa hanging, a couple of them, the adult butterfly just emerged or in the process of emerging.  A couple of the pictures, you can see the antenna and the head had just come out.  The whole emerging process is very very very slow. 

In one picture, you can clearly see it's a butterfly that just came out, it was hanging on the old pupa, and its wings were still curled, trying to straighten out.