I think I'm catching a cold. I hate runny and itchy nose. Constant sneezing makes me tired. I have had so many blogs, I can't even keep track. I have many thoughts in my head, but I don't always know how to put them in words. I'm a lady of few words. I don't talk much in social life. Sometimes I don't even like to talk at home. You can imagine how annoyed I get being around people that are always yapping. That's why I like writing e-mail or text mesaaging than talking on the phone. If a friend is having a bad day, instead of picking up the phone and call her, I will probably send her a pick me up e-mail. Sometimes people see that as being cold. I guess they don't really know me then.

We had a lot of fun at Peter's cousin Amy's wedding. It's also fun to see the whole family together whether we enjoy it or not. I love the asian food they served at the reception. I like how they asked each guest to go up to the altar to light a candle and say a prayer for the couple. I think that's a sweet idea. Being married to the love of your life is so wonderful, I feel incredibly lucky to have found mine. When you know he's the one, why waste more time dating? Dating is sweet and exciting, but that doesn't last forever. In a marriage, the man and woman should become one. It's not about losing your own identity, it's about becoming part of each other. Love your wife/ husband as you love yourself.

Peter and I don't take picture of ourselves that often. I stole this one from Wendy. Pete looked tired.

We saw The Departed the other night. This is a remake of a popular Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. I prefer the orginal version better. What's with Hollywood? Can't make anything original anymore? Except for a few minor details, The Departed is an exact copy of Infernal Affairs. It's like a rip off. I feel that The Departed is too Hollywood. It got all the big stars, but you don't feel connected to the characters. It's like a freaking Ocean's Eleven. In Infernal Affairs, you actually feel for characters. They may have copied the general concept of Infernal Affairs, but they failed to portray the psychological struggle each character faces. If you like The Departed, then I would really recommend Infernal Affairs.

So long Chichi! I will always remember your meow and that cute little face of yours. Thank you for being such passionate and cuddly cat. If it wasn't because of your inability to use the litter box, I'm sure we would have many more happy years together. I have to agree with Peter though, that is a big problem whether you know it or not. We like to have people come to our house and hang out in the basement. Your poops weren't exactly welcoming to our guests. The worst though was the urine. We don't know how little thing like you could produce such potent toxic stuff. Forgive us for not being able to tolerate that anymore. We've tried, and you know it. Remember the squirt bottle, the nose dipping into your own poop, the kicking and screaming? We still love ya. We hope they can find you a lovely new home, because you are one lovely cat. No matter what will happen to you, it's been fun. Good luck baby!

It's going to be a sad day. Today Peter is going to take Chichi to the animal shelter. I'm going to miss her terribly. I was playing with her outside yesterday. I was blowing bubbles and she was chasing them. She looked confused when she saw the bubbles disappeared. I hope they can find her a good home. I haven't slept all night. The sun has just come up, so I guess it's time for bed.

What a day! I went to this health screen thing at work, and I found out my body composition and was not happy about it. I also found out I'm not 5'5" as I always thought, I'm only a little over 5'3". Then there was some health problem with one of our family members and one of my friends' grandpa passed away suddenly while on a trip. I didn't call my friend right away. I think it's probably better to give her and her famile some times to deal with this right now. I sent her a message though. I never met my grandpa, my dad's dad. In fact, my father never met him either. He died before my father was born. The other grandpa I only met him couple times in my life before he died couple years ago. From what I heard, both of my grandpas were great men. My mom's dad was a well respected teacher. It's too bad I didn't have a chance to get to know them. The only grandparents I'm closed to is my grandma. I was always her favorite. I don't know if she still remembers that. She has Alzheimer's. Last time I was home, I visited her as often as I could. She cried when she saw me. Even though her speech didn't make sense, I knew she recognized me. She kept saying "mui mui" (means little sister), what she used to call me all the time. I hope I get to see her again.

My mom called last night and asked me when we are going to have babies. Our plan is to get pregnant next year. I will be the same age as my mom when she had me. According to Chines zodiac, our first baby will be either rat or pig. My mom was telling me all different calculations for getting either a baby boy or girl. I don't believe any of it, but my mom swears by it. With Peter's new job, our finance has gotten better, maybe it is time to build a family. I really believe that there's never a good time to have babies. Of course you have to be able to take care of yourself first. I think raising children is the scariest thing, but they also bring so much joy. I don't want to miss out on that. To me, being a mom is one of my purposes in life.

We saw Jet Li's Fearless today. I like it better than his other Hollywood movies. The guy he portrayed in the movie, Huo Yuanjia, had very significant influence on martial art. Yes, it is based on a real person, but a lot of the details were fictionalized for the movie. Although there's a message, the fighting is still the selling point here, and it was very entertaining.

After the movie, we had cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Factory. Umm~ Cheesecake.

Three days pain preceptor seminar is finally over. I shouldn't say "finally" because I really enjoyed it. I was exhausted when I came home. I have only slept for 4 hours every night for the past three nights. For people like me who needs at least 8 hours sleep every night, this is just intolerable. I was going to take a little nap, which turned into a 3 hours makeup sleep. It's starting to get cold really fast. Good thing I have a warm body to cuddle with.

I went to M.A.C. today, and there was this boy (I call him boy because he really is just a boy, maybe in his early 20s) who showed me some good techniques. It's a delightful experience when a makeup artist actually knows what he's doing. I have encountered so many that were disappointing. I walked out there with new eyeshadows and blush and feeling pretty good.

I'm in pain class this week. Today was my first day, and it was very good. Also free breakfast and lunch, yay! I got a lot of valuable information today, and tomorrow we are going to do rounds with the pain clinicians. Today Angie, one of the girls at work, gave me a few Paula Begoun newletters. Paula's the author of Don't Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me. Angie and I are both cosmetics and skin care junkies. We love to talk about it whenever we can at workl. One of the benefits of being a girly girl. For girls like us, Paula's newsletter is really help, because she goes indepth in the effectiveness of the product, and why it does or doesn't work, or if it's worth the money. We all know how much money we have wasted on products that not only ineffective but also caused problems, right?

About those Origins products I purchased couple weeks ago, here's my verdict:


Modern Friction"Skin-refining Rice Starch, cushioned in cream, shows real affinity for rapidly removing sluggish cells, uneven patches and signs of skin damage and discolorations..."
I like it because it's not too harsh like a lot of the micro-dermabrasion on the market. I'm not sure if it's as effective as I hoped for though as far as the discolorations goes. It does however make you skin feels clean and smooth.


Out of Trouble "Nature’s trouble-shooters, including super-absorbent Zinc Oxide and Sulfur, calming Camphor plus skin-sloughing salicylic acid, rapidly respond to problem skin’s plight with a three-part plan - sop up oily-shine, slough off sticky, dead cells, and sweep away irksome debris..."
I also like this one. Although it's not mentioned in its description, it seems to dry out pimples faster. One thing though, make sure put some good mositurizer on afterward. It drys out skin quite a bit as well.

I had a bizarre dream couple nights ago. I dreamed about being part of the LOTR fellowship. Apparently the lava didn't really destroy the ring. I forgot what we were supposed to do to save the middle-earth, but I remember I was running constantly and chased by dragons. Weird eh?!

I got my bangs trimmed this afternoon. It was nice, but I had to do some touch up when I got home. Then I went to tattoo shopping with Mary Ann. Okay, don't get too excited yet my friends, we were just looking. So far neither of us has any ink on my body yet. I was creeped out by the buzzing sound of the needles. I haven't seen any design I'm dying to have marked on myself permanently, and I doubt if I ever will. I should be extremely picky when it comes to things like that. Don't want anything that will scream "What were you thinking?!" later. There's this little pizza place called Big Tomato. They have a sign that says "lousy service". No kidding. You walk in there, and then up to this tiny counter, no big menu hanging up above, just a stack of paper menus you can pick up at the counter. We had the New York style, which is my favorite, with Italian sausages and mushroom. It was very good. High recommened.

Happy Monday! I'm happy cuz I don't have to work today and I'm going to have my bang trimmed this afternoon, very excited. So you probably notice there are a few cute things added on my blog. Look to the right side. One of them is my blog pet. Yes, I'm dork. So what?! I have a lot more free time than most of you. Well, this little guy eats my blog. Which means it gets bigger the more I blog. Isn't that funny? It can also learn to say some of the things on your blog. You all should get one so our little guys can hang out at each other's home.

Last night was Mary Ann's birthday, and we went to bar to celebrate. It's a sport bar, and it's quite nice on sunday night because there weren't that many people. I'm not a big bar or night club person. I don't drink, smoke, or dance, so that's not really my scene. I met some of Mary Ann's friends. They all seemed really nice, but I couldn't help but feel the gap between us. They all seemed so young. We are only few years apart, but somehow I felt much older. People put on their party faces. Just because we are supposed to be partying, doesn't mean we have to laugh at every joke, get excited and screamed at every drunken moment. Listening to myself, I realized not only am I old, I'm also a partypooper.

I'm spending this weekend alone. Peter has to work. I haven't had a weekend all by myself for a very long time. It's actually kinda nice. I have done a lot of lazying around today. I was going to see that movie The Illuionist by myself, but I lost track of time, maybe tomorrow. I was on the computer all afternoon messing with my blogs. Yes, I'm obsessed. I was playing with my blog pets. Haha... They are kinda dumb, but they are cute and they don't poop on my floor. I'm so hungry right now. We had a good lunch at the Waterfront Seafood restaurant. My tuna sandwich was delicious. I can't wait for Peter to get off work so we can have dinner together. It will be a midnight meal by the time he's done.

Peter suggested if Chichi keeps pooping on the basement floor, we may have to get rid of her. If Chichi's gone, I'm not sure if we should keep Orlando. He will be so lonely. We have tried so many things, but Chichi just won't use the litter box. I would hate to give her away, she's the first cat I ever had. She's so darn cute too. So sad to even think about it.

Work sucked tonight. I was gonna go home early, but then one of the nurses' little girl was having a fever and was in day care. She had to go pick her up, so I said I would stay few more hours. Actually I didn't mind, I was scheduled to work anyway. The sucking part was one of my patients started to have more pain and just out of control anxiety. I spent almost an hour in there total. I had given her everything she could have, I even called the doc for more pain meds. She just had her other knee done couple weeks ago, and she kept comparing this knee to the other one. She just couldn't believe how this one could hurt much more. I explained to her they are two different knees. Then she said she jsut didn't think she should be having this much pain when she's in the hospital. That didn't make any sense at all. We were always told that pain is whatever the patient says. I'd like to believe that, and I do a good job of providing pain relief to my patients, but there's a limit. When you see your patients sound asleep, then you wake them up and ask how their pain is, they still say it's at a 10, you'd wonder, wouldn't you? I think some people are more dramatic than others, just like how we are in life. Yes, we all have different pain tolerance, but I think we all have different ways to deal with pain too. Even though it's the same level of pain, some people tough it up because they know certain pain is inevitable while others choose to scream and cry. There are so many patients who don't know how to deal with pain would tell us to just knock them out with narcotics. We have advanced a lot in medicine, but they still have to cut your flesh open in surgery. If paper cut hurt like hell, what do you think having a big old incision will feel? People need to get real. Things are easlier nowaday, but having a major surgery is no picnic. Don't expect things to be easy especially when it's an elective surgery.We nurses do our best to get you well, but you got to do your part too. Remember, "No pain, no gain".

I like blogging because I have so much free time, and I'm in love with myself. Why else do we want to blog about our daily lives and let millions of people to read about it? (Pardon me for not actually having millions of readers. Maybe just a handful.) Are our lives really that interesting? Do we really think people give a thing about it? Or maybe this is how we feel connected to others. We don't like people to invade our privacy, but we gladly tell them details about our lives on the internet. Aren't we contradicting ourselves here? I guess the only difference is when we blog, we can choose to blog about the things that make us look good. Aren't we a little full of ourselves?

It's been rainning for a few days now, when is it gonna stop? The gloomy weather is kinda soothing, but it also makes me dreary. I feel lack of interest in doing anything, but that's not new for me. I think it's the pace of the mid-west. I'm not used to this slow pace life style. Anyway, I can smell the fall coming soon. That's my favorite season. I love fall and winter. That's when all the best holiday are, halloween, thanksgiving, christmas. I'm getting a little excited for halloween this year. I have a house to decorate and candies to hand out to the kids from the neighborhood. My mood has just been lifted.

Well, saw a few movies this weekend. One of them was Match Point. It's a story about a man climbing up the social ladder by marrying a girl from rich family. Later he was torn between his comfortable life with his wife and the woman he obsessed with. I can't tell you the ending, because it is quite dramatic. Nothing good ever comes with adultery. It always ends in tragedy. An affair starts with betrayal and lies on both sides. How does a relationship last without honesty and loyalty? That's what happens when people just do whatever that makes them happy. We are sinful, since birth. It's our nature to sin. When it comes to that fine line between good and evil, we already have one foot on the evil side. We have to make a conscious effort to do the right thing everyday of our lives. Nobody said it's easy.

The other movie we saw was The Family Stone. It's a big propaganda, just terrible. Boo...

My HKnese, here's my new and improved chinese blog. <http://chenniarmstrong.mysinablog.com/>