I have been doing workouts with a personal trainer for full 4 months now.  =)  I am rather proud of myself that I actually stuck through it, despite the aches and pains and soreness and ouchness and walking funny sometimes, and ya, the money.  Geez, the money burns fast with two sessions a week.  But I stuck with it, because I realized after the first month that this was the best investment I ever had.

I could have saved the money to get a new gadget every couple months.  Yup, it’s that expensive.  But what I got back from the whole thing is priceless.

Let me tell you my story.

I have never been overweight my whole life.  I had the opposite problem ever since I grew up; I had always been underweight.  Being petite in size and underweight, it meant there were a lot of sports I couldn’t do.  I couldn’t shoot balls from free throw line because I couldn’t jump high enough and my arms were not strong enough.  I couldn’t play volleyball well because well, again, lack of strength.  I couldn’t run very fast though my endurance was better than average in HS.   After college, my exercise level went down to almost zero.  The result was actually quite similar to people who are overweight.  I lacked energy and was easily tired.  With that, I wasn’t able to enjoy outdoor activities as much.  I wasn’t happy about not being able to go outdoor more, and became self aware that despite me being underweight, I was continuing to lose muscle and gain fat.  After a number of years, I no longer wore skirts or dresses because I did not like how I looked in them.  In a way, I quit being a girl.

At some point in life, I decided enough is enough.  I wanted to change this and I thought that I can.  I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to achieve at the end.  My goal was just to lose a bit fat, gain some lean muscles, and gain weight while doing it.  I didn’t even know how to get there.  I just made up my mind last December, that’s what I am going to do.

I signed up for 24 Hours Fitness on December 31st last year (early start on New Year’s resolution), and decided I wanted and needed a personal trainer to help me get started.  Before that, I hadn’t exercised  for 8 years.  I mean, I hadn’t walked for more than 20 min at a time the past 8 years, and that happened probably 2 times a year max.   I didn’t know what exercise I should do, how long I should do, how to increase the load so I wouldn’t hurt myself.  So, I did; I signed up for personal training.

First session was hard.  I was breathing heavy, sweating like a pig, and heart racing so fast that I lost track of it.  I was in a bad shape; I didn’t think I would be able to come back for the 2nd session.  Luckily, my trainer was a young guy who’s energetic, encouraging, and knew how to motivate and “trick” me into pushing myself every session.  I learned to do core exercises as well as with free weights and machines.  Every session was a challenge.  There were always new exercises or increasing difficulties; never a dull moment and never a session that I didn’t think his ultimate goal was to break me (j/k).  The trainer also taught me how and what to eat, which was something I never thought much about.  I have a sweet tooth.  So the eating healthy part is actually harder than exercising more for me.   So far, I managed to cut down from desserts/ice cream/chocolate/sweets every night to at most once a week in small amount, and for the past 4 months I have never been to a fast food place.

I got to say I am not working and eating as “best” as I can or should yet, but the result is in.  I am starting to see some muscles and my endurance level improved dramatically.  From having trouble walking even 20 minutes to being able to walk for 6 hours, I am proud of myself. =)  Something unexpected happened while I exercised.  I got more energy, and I become happier as a person.  I smile more and laugh more, because I have energy now for work AND to have fun with friends.  Because I am proud of my hard work, I have more self confidence.  And, for the first time in years, I am not afraid to pick up a dress and put it on.   BTW, I still don’t have model-like body, or tight abs, slender legs whatever, but I am happy about myself now.  It’s like finding myself again.  I don’t need somebody to tell me that I look different, because I already feel the difference mentally.

After all these years, I am happy about myself, and happy with myself, finally.

Just this year alone, I have gotten a cold twice already.  That’s more than the total number of  times in the last 4 years for me.  People at work have been sick a lot; every week there  is coughing, sneezing, congestion going on somewhere. I have been eating more apples and oranges but still no use.

I am feeling sick again today.  I took a sick day last week. I was so groggy that it took me 15 minutes to type two sentences to the manager.  Today I was a bit less groggy but still really tired.  My body is achy and sore.  I could feel a sore throat developing.  I was congested the whole night before that I could hardly sleep.  But tomorrow there is more training, and then the China trip.  I really hope I don’t get detained for quarantine…

New items adding to my to-bring list to China: Airborne, anti-bacterial wipes of some type, pain killer, cold medicine…  I might end up bringing my whole medicine cabinet with me.

I have not been able to sleep through the night for the past month or two.  I would get tired, but would wake up 3-5 times a night for no apparent reason.  Was it worries or stress?  I cannot tell.

Lay off situation at work is making me tense.  The company gave them two months notice before their last day.  Meanwhile, they are free to work on resumes, talk to recruiters, and go on interviews as needed.  How nice right?  I heard one person having phone interview one time, another had gone to interview a few times.  While they are being productive, I am buried in writing docs and feeling less productive.  I miss coding, miss intense debugging and finally come to the “I got you!” point.  I even miss solving problems in my dreams.  If I only had dreams  nowadays.

Violin has been lying at the exact same spot for a month without being opened or played.  I have been either getting sore from workout or pulling a muscle here and there.  And I am behind in all my favorite TV shows by at least a month on DVR.  With so much not going on, how could I still not being able to sleep?

I wish it would rain more at night; it drowns out my thoughts and sooths me somehow.  Even if I am awake, at least I could tell myself there’s a reason to, to listen to the rain.  I am tired, I just can’t sleep through the night.  Something is happening, I just haven’t figured out what.

When under stress or feeling overwhelmed, people do strange things.  I went to get a hair cut.  I let hair grow for 3 years without a trim, didn’t think much about the lack of style or what impression people have of me.  IT is a very conservative place; I do not see a lot of women dressed up or have fashion accessories.  Actually, there just aren’t a lot of women around.

I got a fobby cut, with bang, and got a highlight as well.  Gee, I haven’t had a highlight for years.  While sitting there with foil still in my hair I wondered how the color would turn out, if it would be too obvious and, too out of the place for work.  The whole time “toasting” my hair I kept my teeth shut and prayed…

Turned out not too bad I thought.  It looked like the haircut I got a number of years ago.  But, it sort of made me look a few years younger, too.  I have a training to present in a few weeks.  I wonder if people would take me seriously with non-traditional haircut.

Thinking too much about the haircut?  Of course.  It’s like haven’t danced ballet for years and now I gotta perform.  *sigh. Dreaded.

Another random thing I did under influence of lack of sleep, was to post 25 random things about me on Facebook.  I thought it was a silly idea when I read some of the other people’s.  but turned out, I got comments about them.  People actually read these kind of stuff?  Really?  Unexpected…

It’s Friday nearly 6pm.  60% to 70% of the folks already left work to enjoy early start of the weekend. I am still in office, battling with tool limitations and various manual steps of compiling/deploying/testing.  It’s a life of a developer who’s starting to get behind schedule.  Yup.  That’s me.

I was washing cups in the break room when a family of 3 walked in.  A dad, mom, and a little boy who’s probably 3 or 4 years old.  Dad said, “Wait, I am getting a water bottle”.  Mom repeated, “Daddy is getting you a water bottle.”

We have the vending machine type of soda dispenser, with brightly lit and larger than palm size buttons to push for selection.  People use it daily, pushing with their palms, a couple fingers, elbows, robotic like.  When the water bottle drops down, it makes a bit of rumbling noise, like a drunk person walking down the stairs I imagined, then the bottle gets to the bottom opening.

Suddenly I heard this chuckle turning to laughter.   The boy probably thought it was a magic, or a big toy.  It was loud and clear and heart-felt.   The mom looked at me with a smile, a little embarrassed I assumed.  While they were walking out, I thought of how happy that boy was, with the magic of the big vending machine 10 times of his size.

His happiness is so simple, laughter so true.  Oh, how I envy him.

That’s the part I don’t get growing older, why we just lose it.   It becomes inappropriate to be simply happy of little things around us.  When we say we are happy about something, it usually is something big, like getting married, buying a new car, new job, promotion, vacation, etc.  Why can’t we just say just because the flower bloomed, the sky is beautiful today, the trees putting on new colors, the peacefulness of a night?  Nobody talks about those any more.  And fewer and fewer people are noticing them.

To me, everyday, surrounded by people demanding and disagreeing, machines fighting against, stress from deadlines, tired.  But when I share food and goodies with friends, I sometimes find a little simple happiness in me.  Smoothness and richness of the dark chocolate, the smell of expresso, the after taste of green tea, the wonderful texture of mochi.  Oh, they are enough to make me smile for a while, until I am surrounded again by the busy schedule, broken AC, strange errors…

If you have allergy, you know how annoying it is to get watering eyes, sneezing, running nose, congestion and so on. I used to carry pocket-size Kleenex with me all the time because of it.

I tried taking Claritin-D, but that stuff takes a while to kick in.  Later I tried Zertec-D and loved it for a while.  Because it kicks in fast and stops almost all of my symptoms.  No more congestion! Yay!  Then I started to get insomnia.  My congestion is the worst at night time.  Without allergy medicine I cannot sleep.  But with Zertec-D, I would be just staring at the ceiling the whole nigh.  *sigh

A friend recommended Benadryl, said it helps to sleep.  It did.  The first night I took it, I was getting drowsy the 3rd hour or so.  I crawled to bed and was unconscious within minutes.  Then the next morning came.  I woke up feeling equally drowsy as 8 hours ago.  My legs were wobbling and my head spinning.  I couldn’t even walk straight.  I crashed right back to bed and was unconscious for another 4 to 6 hours.

So that’s my story.  Zertec-D makes me all hyper (almost mania). Benadryl makes me drowsy, unable to stay awake or concentrate on anything (even my favorite knitting!).

Now what?

I haven’t been blogging much in the past year or so. Well, nothing major happened! I have not been as silly as before (so I hope), and I have not been traveling at all. So really there is nothing worth blogging about.

But I managed to keep myself quite busy at home, very busy indeed. I got hooked on cross stitching most of last year, especially Margeret Sherry’s designs. There are so many adorable cat designs! I simply could not resist the temptation to collect all that I could get my paws on. And where else could I better find them than eBay, I say. So I did quite a lot of bidding and receiving few packages almost every other day for about two weeks. Then I stopped completely and quite suddenly. Why? I had just collected enough patterns that would take me years if not my entire life time to stitch! I got to upload pictures of some of the finished projects here. They can make any cat lovers go “OhhhhHHH” and “AwwwWW” in a second.

I finally had all my wisdom teeth pulled last Friday. Yak!

I had been postponing it for years for fear of the pain. Then this year I started to feel a nagging pain around my jaws. The stupid wisdom teeth somehow decided to grow up so fast as if they were trying to break the soil and see the sun. So I finally made up my mind about having all of them taken out. Once decided, I didn’t let my mom persuade me away with her scary tactic: “That’s pulling bones out of your mouth. You are going to lose a lot of blood. And not to mention the pain afterwards! I wouldn’t do it in a hundred years if I were you.” Yup, she still has all hers till this day; her mom’s scary tactic worked on her.

It was a point of no return for me. So I just went in, had the surgery done with general anesthesia (I so don’t want to know what happened during the surgery, especially hearing the drilling or sawing noise). I think I actually did wake up very briefly to hear some machine/motor turning on; it sounded like the doctor was going to saw… But it might as well been my silly dream. I was woken up an hour later. The doctor asked me if I would like to keep my teeth. Oh hell no I said. (My mom expressed a slight sadness that I didn’t keep them, ‘cuz they are part of my body after all, she said. That sounded almost like those ancient Chinese who kept their entire life’s clipped finger nails and toe nails in a red envelope. Creepy.)

So, it’s done. I didn’t feel too much pain afterwards luckily. I didn’t even need to take the prescribed pain killer. I just couldn’t chew very well with the back teeth. I am still eating soft food the 4th day after the surgery, which is driving me nuts at home, especially being surrounded with beef jerky, yummy unopened Valentine’s day chocolate, dried Lychee, nuts, chocolate cookies, and greasy Chinese food. Ahhh! It’s killing me!

Last month I started to learn and use C# for work. Everybody on the team is new to .NET. But in a Scrum environment, we have much to deliver with very little time (or no time in this case) for training. So I picked up a book or two and dived right into it…

At first I was so excited about Visual Studio 2005′s design view for all our UI need. Comparing to Java, I used to hand code every bit of UI code in a third-party SDK that’s a subset of AWT. We had to write tons of inner classes for event handling. C#’s delegate makes things sooo easy.. It’s like a dream. =)

Then when I started to work on the code, I found Visual Studio 2005′s refactoring support to be terrible comparing to Eclipse or IntelliJ. It’s a pain to move code around, or trying to change signature of a method. I won’t know what’s wrong until I compile. How I miss Eclipse & IntelliJ’s real-time error detection…

Then I found ReSharper. That’s like a heaven-sent gift! I spread the good news about it to my teammates and one of them commented “I don’t know how I have coded without it!” =) Great job in run-time error detection and tons of refactoring. I loved it, can’t live without it now.

On a different matter, I agree with one of my coworkers that just because you did it once, you become the dedicate person to do it in the future. She became our graphics person, though her title is User Experience Lead. I somehow become our team’s UI person just because I showed some interest in doing Ajax a while back, and devoted one week on trying to fix some UI bugs on the all-dreaded-Javascript code.

But I am starting to love this role. Everybody on our team likes to do hardcore Java, all the server side, database, web services, multi-threaded, multi-platform/multi-server support stuff. Nobody cared about doing UI before I came on board I guess. And now I get to work on stuff that pleases one’s eyes, easy to use, functional, intuitive, and, did I mention sort of pretty? Ha! It’s actually quite fun. But sometimes I do miss all my desire to do architecture and design work, as well as coding and debugging like a “real programmer”.

Can’t do both I guess.

It’s been damn hot around here the past two weeks; everyday over 90 degrees out there, and I have to walk at least 5-7 minutes one way to get to my car at a surface parking lot for work. I don’t usually sweat much. In fact, 80 degree is my perfect temperature. Yet now I am alway sweating from walking and walking and walking.. Damn the weather.

Company parking lot is huge. Not as big as Disneyland or Magic Mountain parking lot, but pretty big as a surface parking lot. It’s as big as some shopping malls, except longer aisles, with no trees and no shades, and constant construction going on right next to it. The noice and, dust clearly does not add any pleasure in parking there.

As if that is not enough, the parking lot is always 90% full by 9am every work day. That can explain part of the reasons why I need to walk so far. But with such a huge lot, you would expect big spaces? NO! Most of them are compact spots that a mini van or truck can easily step on both sides of the lines. My solara has huge doors unfortunately, which makes parking at tight spots even more painful… If it’s difficult for me to get out, you know the space is tight…

I think I will just blame the weather…