The song that plays in your head

You know sometimes you have a song playing in your head, and you just can't shake it off? Today when I was doing cardio at the gym, I had Jingle Bell playing in my head. Actually my mind seems to favor Christmas song throughout the year no matter where I am. The other song that I play a lot is this Cantonese commercial song: Kikkoman soy sauce for steamed fish. How sophisticated is my little mind?

On taking breaks

Can you think of the last time you took a break during the work day?

I don't know about you, but for the longest time, I don't take breaks during my work days. Even if I'm taking lunch breaks or coffee breaks, I may still be talking to people, watching TV, or worse, browsing the web.

In fact, that's not a real break for your mind, you're just taking a break from what you have been doing and replacing it with some other activities. Your mind is still taking in information and processing it.

Since last year, I started doing Yoga, meditation and pranayama during my work breaks as a daily routine. These breaks are 30 to 40 minutes combine with light yoga, stretches and pranayama. I feel that after my BREAK, my mind is clearer, and I feel more awake and creative. My mind off-loaded a bunch of information, and I was ready to take in more. The need for coffee to stay focused is significantly reduced.

There are days when I can't afford to take those breaks, and I can feel a big difference. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and restless at night. Other times there are less impact but still I feel stressed out at the end of the day.

So doing a daily yoga practice, even a short on greatly improves my productivity, and is becoming a high priority for me.

Look, there is a pig

Today we drove by the boat launch. From a distance, I saw an animal running on the green grass. I pointed it out to Jack and said,"look, a pig!"

Jack looked, then laughed and looked back at me.

"Oh, Is it a fat dog?"

Jack nodded, smiling.

Since I saw "Hollywood Doc" on TV last week, where the doctor received a pig as a gift for helping the mechanic, more animals are looking like pigs in my mind.

Aloha to the winds and the waves

We are here. Vegging with the ocean waves, the winds and the bird chirpings as our natural ambience sound; the blue ocean and the lush tropical plants as our backdrop art.

I read when I want to or I write, or I just stare at the ocean for an exteeding long time with my mind wandering around nowhere specific.

This is the time to discharge my energy and recharge it with something fresh.

Our guests asked what was our plan for the day, and when would us be heading out. It took us a while to talk it through, but we could not come to any conclusion. We were so relaxed and didn't want to take up responsibilities of grownups such as planning and following a schedule. So after some serious discussions, we decided that we would just leave when we feel like it, and go wherever is right for the moment. May I also point out that this exercise started yesterday, and we had the same results.

Here we are, midweek. We went to a few places to visit, tour and shop. But my favorite thing to do is just being and doing nothing.

Movies

I do enjoy being pleasantly surprised by finding good movies while channel surfing.

I watched a few good movies the last few days.

I saw:

• Mr. Deeds goes to town - it was added to the top of my favorite righteous movies along with Jimmy Stewart's "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington", and "Twelve Angry Men" starring Henry Fonda
• Inside job - got my blood boiling with anger.
• Hollywood Doc - light romantic comedy with Micheal J. Fox. It was fun to watch and heart-warming.
• Overboard - Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russel were such extremely goofy and funny pair. It's silly but cute. I enjoyed Goldie Hawn's great exaggeration of a snobby heiress.  It was very entertaining for when you just want something light.

Sick days

This week I had the worst cough and laryngitis I could remember. My throat itched, and it made me cough so bad that I felt like my throat was going to jump out of my neck.

 I had to cut my work schedule half and missed two events which I helped organized at work. Workout was totally out of the question. I tried different homeotherapy methods, but none of them help a speedy recovery. That's definitely the problem with the said science. I also took Vicks NyQuil which used to help but not this time.

I did what I could to work in the morning, and took it easy in the afternoon. My laryngitis got worse on Thursday and Friday after I took some expired cough syrup that was found in the closet, which did stop my cough significantly.  

Today I put my silver necklace with my jade back on, and I feel so protected.  I'm much better today, and even went have dim sum with my best friend.

Red Envelopes

Today I went to San Francisco Chinatown with my mom for the Chinese New Year street fair. We had a good time walking through the street fair and shopping. Here is a video I made for last year's street fair, which was cunningly similar to this year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee3B6R5s6T0

We bought a whole bunch of food and went home.

My mom asked me to help fill the red envelopes with money. These red envelopes are to be given to kids for good luck. This is a traditional Chinese custom for Chinese New Year. This is the first time I ever helped my mom with red envelopes and my second year to be giving out red envelopes. To tell the truth, I actually like the feeling, even though I had to give away some money. In our tradition, people who are married give red envelopes, aka lucky money, to kids and unmarried youth. In return, the kids would tell you lucky Chinese phrases, which could be translated to,

"Happy New Year,"
"I wish you will make a lot of money this year,"
"I wish you very best healthy and longevity."
...

It is a sign of separation of generations. Once you are married, you are an adult and independent.