I should count my blessings…

Someone told me to count my blessings at the end of every year, so that I can reflect upon all the good in my life and cherish them. And hopefully the list gets longer year after year…

1) My family members are in good health! My mother is happy with her work and my two brothers are (happily??) studying their asses off in NTU!
2) I have a cute BF who loves me and I love him too. And yah, he is also in good health.
3) My crazy and beloved friends are all looking good and yes, also in good health.

(By now, you can see that I am quite a health freak)

4) I am in reasonably good shape, except for the back injury, which is healing slowly but it is healing.
5) I love my job (will love it even more if my boss pays me better) and I really do look forward to work almost everyday!

Above is a picture that we took at QH & SC’s wedding. Looking at their picture, I feel blessed to have such friends. Bitchy but absolutely fabulous friends! Can’t live without them!

May 2008 be a great year for you! Stay healthy and fit! If you arent that healthy and fit yet, hrm.... eat more veg and exercise! ;p

Wii – the best game ever!

I’ve never been a great fan of video-console games, be it PSP, PS3, Xbox, but I am so smitten by the latest generation of Nintendo Wii!!!

My first contact with the game was about 2 weeks ago at a Xmas party where a bunch of us were playing Wii Sports - games like boxing, tennis and bowling. I thought that was already pretty cool and for once, I DON’T HAVE TO PRESS BUTTONS (ie: Don’t have to reveal my lack of coordination of fingers!) Wii’s remote controls basically allow players to just wave them around to mimic the movements.

Then a few days ago, we went to an “open-house” party at QH & SC’s place, and the couple had this really cool wii game, calls Rabbid. The game is about a bunch of silly looking rabbits playing really STUPID games like, bumper cars and eating butterflies and doing, para-para-sakura dance movements.

SO FUN loh!

Above are some pictures taken while we were playing Wii.

I also want a Wii!!!!!!!!!

P/s: in case you are wondering, the theme for the party was GREEN, so most of us are in green! All the green monsters were fighting over the remotes to play Wii!

This is sooo FUNNY! Watch it! Wahahaha

Am I suay or what?

Met a series of unfortunate incidents recently… The story goes:

[A] Two days after my half-marathon, I thought I should do some stretching to help me recover from the muscle aches. Thus, I went to the hot yoga class. BAD move as my body was still tired, I overestimated myself and I ended up pulling a muscle along my spine. Little do I know that, this little pull of muscle is going to cause so much grief.

At first I was ok, but as the day went along, I began to experience pain in my knee, then ankle and finally, my back. The pain came sharp and fast and hit me like a needle poking into my joints. The very next day, I went to look up this Sinseh (who is excellent!) and just after one session of acupuncture and “ba-gua” (cup suction), I felt better already.

[B] So after 3 days, thinking that I am good to do some light exercise, I went to the gym again to do some walking (NOT running) and stationary biking. Another bad move! Immediately, my ankle began to hurt. I ignore the mild pain and continue my cardio workout for a total of 25 mins. I actually felt pretty good after sweating it out although the mild pain at my left ankle was bugging me a little.

On the very same night, my back began to hurt really badly. So much so that, I cant move without going “ouch, ouch ouch!” So, the very next day, I was back to the sinseh again and he was screaming at me that I needed to rest and allow my back muscles to heal and blah, blah, blah… in other words, I am not allowed to exercise for at least 2 to 3 weeks.

Thankfully, this skillful sinseh once again resolved my pain and basically I am up and about pain-free in no time.

In fact, I was so itching for a run that I sneaked out and did a short 4 km on last sun. I made sure that I warmed up properly and did a really slow 2 km run and a 2 km walk. Ahhh… felt much better after that and NO pain! Yay!

I am just waiting for my body to heal and can’t wait to slowly start exercising again. Hmm, if weather permits, I’ll like to do another slow run tmr! Hopefully, no pain and injuries this time!

Dressing Up

I don’t have super dress sense. Unlike BF, who always manages to look good and that’s because he really puts in a lot of effort to choose his shirts, shoes, specs, ties, cufflinks. Almost everything matches… maybe except his underwear! Ha.

I believe that there aren’t ugly girls in this world, only lazy ones. With make-up, clothes, fake eyelashes, hair extensions…. How ugly can a girl be if she really puts in effort to dress well and be well-groomed?

Anyway, once a while, I also like to play dress up and try to create a “look”. I will usually start with creating an image, for example Sexy Kitten? Tai-Tai? Mod? And after that, I will then look for the dress, accessories and think of the make-up and hairdo to go with the “look”.

For a friend’s recent wedding, I came up with a “Cleopatra” idea. Took me a few months to put together the look as I bought the dress quite a while back, but I had to look for suitable shoes and only managed to get a pair just the night b4!

Tried to do the china-doll hairstyle, which turned out to be a disaster. Out of desperation, I just combed everything back and tied a ponytail. Ta-dah! That actually worked out quite well. Haha.

My First Half Marathon 02Dec07

Yesterday, I ran my very first half-marathon and boy, was I disappointed with my timing.

I took 2 hrs and 37 mins to complete 21 km… a far cry from my target of 2 hrs 20 mins. Although to be fair, I just recovered from this nasty flu bug, which the doc suspected was a mild case of Dengue.

So I was out of action for 3 weeks and was really worried that I couldn’t recover in time to run but thankfully, I felt much better two days before the Run and decided that I would take it easy and do a slow run.

And I really took it easy. In fact, I was making a point to run a little slower than usual… partly because I just recovered from the flu bug and secondly, I thought I should reserved some energy to do my final burst during the last 3 km or something.

Damn. Instead of the “final burst”, it was a burst of muscle pain instead. My quads were really tight at the 17 km mark and had to eventually stop to stretch. Unfortunately, once I stopped to walk, it was really difficult to maintain my previous pace and I ended up walking-jogging-walking until the last 1 km to the finishing line, where I finally picked up my last once of energy and ran all the way to the finishing line.

Blah.

Nonetheless, I really had fun running at the Standchart Marathon. It was a truly humbling experience. I was pacing this Ah Pek, who had a tag pinned to his back “I am 61 yrs old and you better be ahead of me”, and yet I was trailing him?!?!

There were so many runners in all ages, shapes and sizes. Some were sporting grey hair, some were twice my size and one even ran the half-marathon while pushing his baby in a pram!

Geez. I am so motivated to train even harder and have decided to try out for the full marathon next year!

Sad to say, I did not bring a camera and couldn’t take any photos. Hmmm… I must think of a way to capture my struggling moments for my full marathon next yr!