Spasm

Everytime I experience muscle spasms on my shoulders and back, I always form a picture of my veins or joints all clasped and interlocked with each other making my body very stiff. No matter how much stretching I do in the office is useless.

Sometimes, I would extend my arms and try to massage my back and I can feel the spasm, sort of fluid-like bulge, at my back that I long so much to melt away. I hate to feel that fluid-like bulge on my back. Kneading that bulge is painfully relieving.

This afternoon, I finally decided to go and have a massage at my favorite spa center. Great! It feels really better to have someone do the kneading for you for one full hour. I felt as though my used-to-be tightly locked joints and veins are altogether released from prison. The masseuse even cracked all my major joints from neck to waist down to my toes. It's actually scary. I'm facing a big risk of the possibility of having neck sprain or whatever sprain for all those cracking. But after all the successful cracking, I felt like a total free woman and I thought it's all worth it.

Although my joints are finally released from wherever they were locked from, my pocket was sacrificed instead. I had to spend a whole lot of money for the massage fee and masseuse's tip. But as i've said, for the bail of my joints, I think it's all worth it.

I'm a massage addict.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Should I account secretly disliking a person for no valid reason as something bad? I know in a catholic or christian way of thinking, merely running that disliking-a-person thought on your mind is already accounted as a sin. While for a buddhist teaching (I'm more of a buddhist), There is no specific right or wrong but one shouldn't really feel a specific liking or disliking for something. All must be treated in a neutral way. Either way, I think I'm in the wrong direction.

I often find myself disliking a person for the most shallow reason. Sometimes by just hearing at someone speak or just seeing the way someone eat, or just by the way someone walk or even sing. I can strongly attach with my emotions of feeling that certain dislike, not exactly hate but just that dislike feeling.

As much as I know I shouldn't enslave myself to the physicality of one person, I don't know I just get annoyed hearing some peoples' voice. Somebody here at my workplace speaks in a... how would I describe it? she speaks loud and her voice is hoarse and her accent resembles one who's always in a debate as if she's going to hit you anytime. She talks as if all the people around her are arguing with her.. poise-less and Un-demure. Yeah I know I should mind my own business and that I shouldn't judge someone by her voice coz' who knows somebody might be annoyed with my voice too. I'm not a demure person too. I can be loud too. I have an accent too. I don't like myself for judging her. In fact, I know she's nice but then I just cannot escape from the fact that I don't like the way she carries herself. Is that bad or is that normal or am I just really bad?

I can go on and on with the other reasons I find for disliking a person. Some of them by just the way they strike up a conversation(especially men who tries too hard to act charming but obviously aren't. :s) and some of them by just the way they walk in front of me and sing out-of-tune. Though I wanted badly to try to appreciate things like that, my critic side of me is overtaking the appreciative side of me.

Somebody might be accidentally reading my blog and get annoyed with me too by seeing the way I write or complain about things just like I did to hoarse-voice girl. I shouldn't just judge a book by its cover. I shouldn't judge the girl by her voice. I hope nobody will judge me just by reading my blog or if they did (normal thing?!) like I did, I can't blame them. Everybody is prone to judge anyone anytime. In the meantime, I know I have trouble with myself judging other people. Another hopeless case trouble ticket!!! waaaahhhh!

I want to be a pure-blooded buddhist or taoist who doesn't judge anybody but be selfless... but with the way my mind is going, I'm pretty sure I have a long way to go.

Very Random: Denial girl, secret goal and progress ...

I'm never a good liar to other people but I'm a good liar to myself. I am so used to cheating on myself. I always look at myself in front of the mirror and recognize that I'm getting fat. Then after a series of diet and exercise failure, I'd usually end up comforting myself by denying the fact that I once recognized. It's so ridiculous to the point that I'd comfort myself by claiming that the extra weight I'm gaining are in fact coming from the muscles i'm gaining from weight-training and not really fats after all thus, giving me the alibi to don't take my diet seriously. I'm a good denial girl.

The other day one of my friends was complaining about her weight gain lately too and she said she's getting depressed having felt that her pants are getting tight. I told her my depression is in the advanced stage already... that I don't really feel the depression anymore. I'm rather tired of having to face the reality so instead of mourning for having tight pants, I'd choose to wear my loose pants instead. That way, I don't have to experience the feeling of being fat. I know this is such a sloppy attitude but that's how my laziness is conquering me.

Last night I was talking to my brother and I told him that one of my goals is to be able to get the size 4 pants that I've been eyeing from the department store. I'm a size 6 but now I'm not really sure if I'm still size 6.. I think I'm a size 8 already...:( But as a naturally denying person, I'd say size 6 would still fit me, just a little tight I guess. Alright, enough of numbers and sizes. My brother was quite harsh and he was so straightforward to tell me that I'm a hopeless case and that I shouldn't hope on getting the size 4 coz I'm a naturally big-boned girl. Huh! It hurts. Call me delusional but my goal is to get that size 4! Now that I've blogged it and told the whole world about it, I think I should make sure I put some actions on achieving my goal or I'll put myself to humiliation again.

Speaking of actions, I think blogging is making me a better girl. Normally I would just blog out some complaints like teasing guy and slip-of-the-tongue girl but I won't do anything about it. But later I reckon it's useless complaining about stuff if you won't do something about it then allow it to happen again. It's a never ending cycle when you think of it. Gradually I did something. The last time teasing guy joked on me, I didn't hesitate to show him I was furious. Maybe it also came to a point when my patience has reached its limit already so I bluntly told him he's annoying me. Harriene is making progress... :D

I was also able to tell my slip-of-the-tongue friend about my dilemma of being a man-hater through e-mail and everything was cleared up. I found out that she didn't mean anything she said and that everything she said to me was meant to be just a joke.. I don't know if she just wanted to clear her way out but at least I was able to voice out my side to her and that is what's important for me. Now i'm viewing my blog as not just a place for my ranting and raving.. I think I'm using it more to log on trouble tickets that I have to solve one by one. Now the size 4 trouble ticket is quite difficult to solve really...

Red

Last weekend I attended my grandfather's birthday. One of our traditions for celebrating happy occasion like this is to wear bright red clothes as a symbol of celebration and good luck. Chinese people are very pertinent with good luck stuff as I've already mentioned before. Seeing the entire clan having dinner at the same time wearing all red , It actually arrived to me as more distracting to the eyes than anything else. It doesn't really symbolized anything good luck to me.

Personally, these are examples of little hassles creeping on me that make me want to turn my back from being chinese. I'm proud of being a chinese don't get me wrong. I know chinese people are very hardworking and intelligent people and we have a vast and rich culture so to speak. Just the history of China is enough to make me proud of my roots. But I also want to be honest at least here in my blog to say that there are certain things in being a chinese that I don't like.

The problem with this belief is that we people are so attached with what we're seeing. For me, a color is just a color. It doesn't represent anything. It doesn't mean that when something appeals to our eyes as flashy, bloody and bright would automatically equate to good luck. Likewise, seeing something dull or pale shouldn't be necessary tagged as bad luck. Don't you think so? Colors are just visual images. Why are we trapping ourselves inside the world of what our eyes are seeing? Why can't we see beyond it?

I sometimes would joke with my mom and tell her that I would wear a black shirt on my grandfather's birthday and she'd start to freak out. Do you want people to say you're a disrespectful granddaughter blah blah.. Geez...Yeah, I forgot. We are afterall members of this society where people have the tendency to judge you for the color you're wearing on your grandpa's birthday. I can't find the relation between wearing a red shirt with respecting my grandfather but just because people would look me as disrespectful, then I have no choice but to wear red.

I have no problem with red. It's a nice color but if it something that one will impose on me for certain reason like this, I can't help but feel sorry for myself and our belief system. I don't need to wear red to prove something in the first place. However at the end of the day, I still surrendered and bought a red shirt. There's nothing I can really do about it or is there? The least thing maybe would be that in the future if I'll have my own kids, I won't require them to wear red for me on my birthday.

PS. By the way, I think it's so bad of me to have bashed my own culture so in order to compensate for my bad attitude, I turned all the fonts to red for good luck. As they say, if you can't beat them, join them.

Character Evolution

She used to be a meek, worry-wart dependent girl. She likes it all done for her. When we go out at the age of 21, she can't even talk to a saleslady or a waiter in the normal manner. She'd sway like a nervous kid and speak or rather stutter words in a very soft voice. She's indecisive and fickle-minded. I hate her for that. I thought she was a hopeless case and too weak a person.

Three years of having separated with my best friend, She's now living with a relative outside the country. The last time she visited me, she changed so much. The used-to-be meek girl I know is now a fighter... A total opposite of herself. Leave her alone in a restaurant and you'll find her later arguing with the waiter about their poor service. I told her not to stoop down over small things like that as it's not worth her anger and time. Besides, being shrewd isn't something people would like to see from the usual sweet girl in her. She replied back and told me to never allow people to step over you and let it pass just like that. Don't ever let people feel you can be taken advantage of or they'll abuse your kindness was what she adviced me.

I know she has been through a lot of rough times outside the country. Being away from family and friends is what changed her to the way she is right now. Her kindness has reached its maximum limit and now she says whatever she feels like saying and does whatever she feels like doing. Funny how a once weak girl can turn into someone totally different from what she originally was. I'm not really sure if it changed her to a better person but I'm glad for her. She might be kind of war-freak now but I'm glad coz I know she likes herself better now that she's more independent and outspoken.

I wish I could learn from her.