It's been too long

Someone reading consistantly would assume that I haven't had anything to rant about in a really really long time but thats not quite the case. I've just recently been picked up by this windstorm called third year university and I really could not tell you where the time has gone. I feel like I went to bed after new years and then bam! It's March. Still not able to get over that fact yet. It's about time to commence freaking out because yet another year is over and I'm just as lost, if not more. The winter holidays came and went. Christmas shopping was anoteher blur. My finals last term ended early which was awesome and I was pretty diligent about my shopping. I saw little A a couple times over the break which was really nice. She brought me to another birthday party she was invited to and I got to play with her cute little friends. I was able to leave E's gift with her because I haven't seen her since the summer. I had a blast buying winter clothes for them at H&M kids. A surprised me with a gift before I delivered hers which was adorable (and consequently started my mac "collection". hehe). E gave me another puzzle along with her moms gift which is a little strange but nonetheless, I can make use of. I really need to pull out last year's puzzle to make because I now have the space. A little before the holiday I sneakily moved down to the basement because my mom had cleaned it out. I now own my own space which I am really really grateful for. I think my little sister is grateful to have me out as well which is fine. I almost have too much space down here because a lot of my junk is in storage upstairs. I'm constantly tempted now to go shopping to expand my wardrobe and decorate my room!

So now that I have briefly blown past Christmas, New Years. New Years Eve was a blast. We hung out at a friend's before heading downtown to the Pint. Since then, I've recently gone back to that pub again because its so roomy and fun. I had gone once before nye and coincidently shared a taxi with one of the managers but I don't know if the gift cert he had made is still waiting for me. I go back to play regardless. My brother's friends were there that night as well and they had prepartied in a hotel room so I ended up going back with them to watch their wasted guys. All in all it was a really fun night. My brother's friends had a blast and got along with my friends which is The best situation :). 

After that, January was relatively uneventful. School started and I was so caught up with the holidays that it was really hard to get back into the jist of things. At the beginning of the term, I unintentionally avoided clubs days at school but ended up coming across UBCs CAFP club on Facebook. Went to the icebreaker just for kicks and decided that I would try it out. It turned out to be a networking club between students and food professionals. Although, it's been a slightly pricy experience, I'm in the works of running for an executive position. Hopefully its not too late to be doing substantial stuff to add to my resume. With this term being the end of my third year, it has got me thinking a lot about next year and beyond. Normally, this is about the time where people start planning grad and co-op and life. I know for a fact that I won't be graduating after my fourth year and I'm okay with that, even if other people aren't. But I think its really important for me to start figuring out what my extra year is going to look like and where it is going to get me. Hopefully classes are interesting enough next year that I will enjoy the full load and have an opportunity to see what else the worl has to offer. I am hoping to actually find a new job this summer and work enough to save for a trip. No idea how, no idea when but I would really really like to get out period. Even if it's momentarily. Exchange is pretty much out of the question because of my marks, lack of funds, etc. My sister brought up a masters degree that kind of applies to my what I'm interested in now so hopefully I can work towards that and get somewhere.. Haha I sound so lost..oh wait....

At the begining of last term I also started volunteering with my faculty's student run cafe, Agora. It's been a great learning experience and I've met so many people within faculty which is really nice. It has been hard to make these networks stick outside of Agora but it's something. 

February was a busy busy month. There are two birthdays in the family in January and once February rolls around it gets a little crazy. This year, Chinese New Year landed during the week of Reading Week for us so it was a huge encouragement towards eating, sleeping, and repeating. For some reason, it was necessary to have dinner out the weekend before, dinner in the day of, and then dinner out again the weekend after. Given however, my cousin was only in town for one. On top of that, we celebrated my dads birthday, and a combined grandma's birhtday/ new years the week after. Don't get me wrong, I love family time and eating and all the love but it was just a little overwhelming as I had midterms left right and center. I guess it was lucky that I had school off during the festivities.

Speaking of midterms, I did surprisingly decent on my Chem midterm. Safe to say that I am now completely lost in the course but people always say it's the little things that count right...? Math on the otherhand has been a total disaster, not even taking into account the fact that my grad student prof is fresh off the boat from China (I kid you not. It's obvious). To make things worse, the recent paper due for LFS was due right after an 8am statistics midterm and that did not end well at all. I am still waiting to see how badly that will screw me over. ): So, school has been spiraling to say the least. But there's time to fix that and I will just have to pick it up and get with the program. 

I have been trying to create a routine so that I get to the gym more often (then not). I started lunch time cycle fit last Wednesday and hopefully I can keep it regular. February was also my cousin's birthday which added to the excuse of eating extremely large portions of food out regularly. Who says you can't gain freshman 15 in a week....? Not embarassing at all.... At this rate, there will be no need to spend on a swimsuit this summer...

Think I've blabbed quite enough for tonight. I have finally roughly made it to March so I'll leave it there and throw some pictures here and there. I went to Dine out twice this year and they were both scrumptiously expensive :). Went back to Parallel 49 Brewery finally with somefriends to try their new beers. Gotta love that place. Oh and 33 Acres!! Tried their weekend brunch for ^cousn's bday and it was pretty awesome. Nonetheless, waaay too much beer lately. Then again, how much is too much ;)

Good night world. Time to dose off to some At Gwanghwamun by Kyuhyun because he is beautifully peaceful, and dream about future adventures hopefully in which I am fluent in Korean. :D Girl can dream right? Literally.

Oh oh oh! A little while ago I decided to try something new. Still a work in progress though. Don't know if it will go anywhere. City Life Food

*changing tires*

"You're Welcome"

Now was that so hard?

Rough week that really hasn't been getting better. Guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all, it is midterm season. I can't even be complaning because I only have 3 and they're not back to back. Doesn't mean I've learnt to study early. Doesn't mean I'm not getting stressed out. I feel like history is repeating itself but I do feel slightly more prepared. Or atleast know what to expect (shittyness wise). Had my first of two Chem midterms last week and I'm proud to say I filled everything out. But that's as much as I can speak for at the moment (which speaks for itself). Bio is tomorrow night and I am really starting to freak because even though we get a double sided memory aid (which I have almost crammed all of my notes on), it's all short answers and that in itself is difficult, let alone problems pertaining to cell bio. Gosh I wish you could major and make a living on BS writing. Not even joking. I think I could flourish in that field but that field only. Boo who am I kidding. What am I doing? On top of school, life hasn't been the sweetest lately. Thanksgiving was fine, dinner went pretty well. Gramma bailed because guzhe's bf is in town and so we just made way too much food for popo and takyun and the kiddies. Bro was a little disappointed because the roast was a tad overdone but I like it. I made a chicken pie and kinda botched the crust but it barely made it over night. B made green tea lychee cheesecake and turned out gorgeous but not terribly flavourful. In her defense, it was well gorge; and you can't really go wrong with cheesecake. Last night however was went it all went to bits. Ticking time bomb waiting to go off you could say. Not something new but just hadn't had problems with in a while and made things shitty. gah. past my bedtime and I still don't know how I'm going to make it all the way through tomorrow. Good thing I've already let myself go out afterwards. Went to the new LA Grill across the street with Serena and Trevor last week and it was really nice to wind down. Tomorrow's reserved for sushi, Sapporo, and my personal LB. Not even excited for expensive sushi, I just need the beer. So sad because I broke my "sober streak" a long time ago already. Twas only a one month probation. =P

Started playing with movie maker yeterday because I downloaded it for a presentation (which didn't go terribly well either today). Didn't want to study last night so I threw my summer cam dump onto in and started editing. It'll pop up once finito.

xoxo
*repositioning targets

New Tunes

Hero

Family of the Year

Let me go

I don't wanna be your hero

I don't wanna be a big man

Just want to fight with everyone else

Your masquerade

I don't wanna be a part of your parade

Everyone deserves a chance to

Walk with everyone else

While holding down

A job to keep my girl aroud

And maybe buy me some new strings

And her and I out on the weekends

And we can whisper things

Secrets from our American dreams

Bbay needs some protection

But I'm a kid like everyone else

So let me go

I don't wanna be your hero

I don't wanna be a big man

I just wanna fight like everyone else

...

So let me go

I don't wanna be your hero

I don't wanna be a big man

I just wanna fight like everyone else

Your masquerade 

I don't wanna be a part of your parade

Everyone deserves a chance to

Walk with everyone else

azlyrics.com

It's Okay, That's love ost

Allan and Nancy's Wedding Aug 31, 2014

Pictures paint the picture better than words. And unfortunately at the moment, embarrassment has gotten the best of me. 

To be continued...

Eventually there will be the photo booth photos that pretty much starts off as classy and then goes white girl wasted. 

Still can't say I didn't have a good night though. Can't say I had the best morning after but that's besides the fact. 

Oh and I guess I should mention that I didn't win either diet bets. Wasn't even close. But it was eye opening and that's what's important. But both my uncle

And cousin won't take my money so the pool is just going to go towards good food with grandma :) maybe to make up for having riden home from the wedding with mr. Pukey. 

Another sleepless night

I'm Still staring at the ceiling

I can hear em fighting 

With her for no good reason...

- sleepless nights

Any one still speak of Faber Drive anymore? What happened to them anyway? Regardless, those first two lines pop into my head when I'm strung up on the day's caffeine and well, still staring at the ceiling, literally. 

Anyhoo, story of the day, wrote my last of two finals for the summer. Yesterday's was horrendously scary and I am honestly really really nervous about it still. Today's was actually better than I expected and way better than the final so I'm not worried at all. So glad to be done!  Time to have real fun for the next two weeks.... Or just watch a shitload of tv. I actually got really excited last night because my cousin is getting married at the end of the month and he had just posted wedding shoot photos on Facebook. They're gorgeous and it really hit me how soon the wedding is. On the other hand it's got me a little nervous. The reason why The Diet Bet idea came about was because I had bought a consigned dress for cheap for the wedding. Before you go all "ick, she consigns" on me, I had grabbed the dress thinking is try it on for fun. It's a small and form fitted so going in, I didn't think it would fit/ look good on at all. However, being form fitted and one shouldered, it's pretty stretchy and provided enough slack to fit my "curves". It fit, and it looked kinda hot. I had looked into dresses online (cuz who doesn't when they're supposed to be studying /:) and was looking for super summery, flowy, dressed with a full skirt to balance out my chubs. So this was totally a 180 from what I was expecting. Long story shorter, it was on sale and I thought what the hell, let this be motivation to get fit! It's not overly small for me but I decided to make it a big deal so that I actually aim to be more active and watch what I eat. Safe to say it's working but slowly and now that school is over I can focus on doing it right and making a difference. I want to try and maintain a good balance that I can keep up even after the wedding /bet but as time is ticking, I do want to push myself to make the deadline. I realized last week that my cousin (who actually also started a side bet with me) may be a little more self disciplined (when he wants to be) than me, but now that I think about it, that just means I have to get my game together and really work in order to win. I'm excited to be able to hang out with my friends again which also means eating out and drinking out more often but I now also have time to work my butt and burn it off. :) I think a slight problem may be my sleeping schedule as always. It's usually irregular and the red bull I had this afternoon is clearly not helping anything. -.-

Have plans to have sushi tomorrow night so I think I'll stop by the mall after babysitting to pre-burn some calories. Haha of only it worked that way. Mighty night!

Lifestylez: August

Since weigh in #1, I've been trying to track what I put into my system and the amount I burn throughout the day. I started off using an iPhone app called Lose It! but have since swapped over to My Fitness Pal as it seems to have a larger database of foods.

I feel like it's doing a really good job of making me conscious of what I eat and when however, it hasn't helped drastically change my diet. The first week after The Diet Bet (let's call it that), I was very motivated to get out more and to get moving. But since summer has been rolling on at full throtle, it's been hard to keep my food choices healthy and in check. I think the two things that I've been a sucker for are cold beers and popsicles. I don't usually have either super often but I feel like the summer heat has me craving them all the time. Another thing that puts me behind is coffee. I'm not a crazy coffee addict like some may be but I do really really enjoy my Caramel Machiatto's. I let them slide mainly because with non-fat milk, they don't take up too much of my calorie quota. This week has been a little difficult as my summer school exams are lurking closer and I haven't had as much time to be out and about. Going to work is a good excuse to get me on my bike but since I don't work all that often, the days in between get a little lazier. Along with having more free time, I've been drawn to try new resturaunts and eat out more making it even harder to watch what I eat. Tried out Craft Beer Market a couple days ago and having had biked from work, I splurged on a beer paddle and crab cake sliders. That lunch felt a little too lavish to skip the beer and have a salad. I've got to make sure I make up for that soon. 

This week, my aim is to focus on eating at home again. It's easier to control what and how much I eat but it takes a bit of effort and time. We've got some veggies again in the fridge so hopefully that will be a good start. I also would like to get back into running because goodness knows when my last run was. I'm thinking of trying to mix running and maybe some workout videos together to see how that goes. I feel like I'm not mixing enough strength training into my (barely there) workouts to be as productive as I could be. 

I met up with my cousin in the bet today and it got me a little worried. Because of our difference in lifestyles, cutting large amounts of junk food seems easier compared to refining a relatively nutritive diet into some thing better. I don't know if that makes sense but in the short run, I think it's a little harder for me to lose the weight as fast as he can. Haha I feel like I either just called him a fatass or made myself sound like it's hard for me to lose weight. *Disclaimer: I am in no way trying to make losing weight sound like a game or anything; we just all really needed the motivation* Hopefully I can treat this as extra motivation and move my butt in time to make it count. Regardless, I want to make this an experience that will potentially make changes to my diet and activity and well my overall lifestlye. 

Last two weeks in activity:

07.25 - 08.04 

friday: biked seawall

saturday: biked seawall

sunday: biked seawall

monday: ultimate

tuesday: walked langara trail

wednesday: n/a

thursday: biked granville island

friday: n/a

saturday: walked downtown (fireworks)

sunday: biked to work

monday: biked to work, to Craft

hiatus since tuesday

School ends after this week so hopefully that will give me more time to plan and move and get fit! Been meaning to get some Blogilates in the mix and just discovered BeFit! on Youtube so hopefully I can incorporate those at home.

I talk about a lot of random things all the time but everything I don't own is linked. Click to see more :) 

Life...styles

Ack, was thinking of posting this to document it of some sort but I almost forgot about it

07.24.14

Weight Loss Bet 

Ended up setting this up easier than I expected. I wanna say blogilates or someone has a weight loss pool but I always thought it'd be kinda difficult with so many people. So it started off with me and my cousin hanging out for lunch and then chocking out 49th Parallel Brewery for beers. We stuffed ourselves full at both places and while it was great and fun, we realized that it probably wasn't for the best in the long run. We both complain about being fat and other than extreme ish dieting, we've never really done anything about it. I know for a fact that he's in better shape/ has the potential to be in better shape than me but he's likely also a touch lazier than I am (questionable). Since we have mutual cousin getting married in a little over a month, (and I've been worrying over new my size small fitted dress), we decided to put money on who can lose the most weight between then and the night before the wedding. Winner gets the pot and beers from the loser. At the moment, stakes have grown as my brother and his dad are also in on the bet. My family being full of trolls, my cousin opted to keep the initial bet with me and I have (stupidly) ageeed to potentially lose $100 and a pay for a round of beers. But, I've biked the seawall three times on the last three days and hopefully I can fix my eating habits before the month is up and life will be good.😃 I was already super excited for the wedding since I picked up my dress, but this has recharged the energy. Need to go green grocery shopping stat. I think my breakfast situation needs working on because between breakfast and lunch, I usually get lazy and skip one of the two. The attempt to sleep early has failed tonight because I didn't want to forget again and naturally, I wanted to finish the ending of The Greatest Love. I think it was airing on the Chinese channel last summerish and I had known that people really enjoyed it. I tried to start it a little whole back but because it's a rom com about celebs, it didn't quite appeal to me. However, it stars Cha Seung won (who has a sexy sexy) and Gong Hyo Jin (who I really liked in The Master's Sun) and so tonight, I went ahead and went through the last three episodes. Happiest tearjerking last three episodes I've seen. Nuff said. Will try to keep updating about the attempt to be healthy. I have been trying to keep my calories in check but have been cheating along the way already. Was hopefull that biking would deviate the problem but it hasn't shown great results just yet. However, I know my cousin and his dad went for beers today and my brother was eating out of the ice cream jar so I can't be doing so bad. Till the next checkin, anyeonggaseyyo.