Author Archives: Christine

Elim woke me up and wish me happy birthday this morning.  I forgot this is my birthday #1.  It cheered me up right away.  Went to Fox Den and hit a couple of buckets of balls.  The sun is shining and not very many people were there.  An older man in the next booths over came over to talk and wanted to give me some pointers.  I welcomed his help.  He stayed with me till I ran out of balls and I bought him a beer afterwards.  I was able to hit a few balls to 100 yards or so.  I was very happy about that.  Most balls curved to the right though.  I hope I haven’t built up some bad habits already.  Carman is his name.  I’m sure if I don’t write it down now, it’ll escape me forever.  He can hit the balls straight and far 95% of the time.  But his stance and technique is not conventional.  I don’t think I really want to learn from him the way he does it.  I want to learn the traditional way from the beginning.

Went to Borders and found the two books by Catherine Myss and bought a couple of cute little pens and a bookmark.  Oh yeah, and book light.  I never have enough light to do anything any more.  I know it’s my eyes and the old age.  But hey, I’m not going to let it stop me if I can help it.  

50 seems to be the magic number for me.  Since I turned 50, my life has been going up and up in every aspect.  I quitted the job that did not motivate me any more and thus killed the source of my depression.  The most wonderful man came into my life and he is spoiling me rotten I have to say.  We moved into a spacious brand new condo, we have a great neighbor, I danced better, I learned to do new things like golfing.  Man, it’s a wonderful life!!

Lately, the metaphysical is calling again.  I went back and listened to “Eat, Pray, Love” again, I got the “Interior Castle” out and reading it again.  I bought Catherine Myss books to get into it more deeply.  I want to go on retreats.  I want to start meditating again.  

Life is full, life is full of interests, fun, challenges and most importantly peace.  I am so fortunate and grateful for everything in my life now.  God has once more showed me his/her mercy and I am immersed in the grand love I have not experienced till now.   I want to shout “THANK YOU” and yet there is really no words to describe the wonderful feeling for the life I have now.

I am so pleased with myself.  I found the age-old secret of cleaning the soap scums in the shower.  Ammonia!  There are some brownish colored stuff at the base of the sliding shower door track.  I thought it was rust and was resorted to accept that it is set in and couldn’t be removed.  But lo and behold, I spray the ammonia solution on it and with a scrub, it dissolved and came off right away.  I am so amazed.  Yeah, sometimes a little thing amazes me.  I loooove these small hidden knowledge that makes your life so much easier.  Now, I’m off to find more things that ammonia can do.  Along that line, what vinegar can do.

Now a tech find.  I installed Simplify on my mac and PC and my iphone.  And without planning about it, I have two ways to listen to my music.  I have all my ballroom music in playlists on my mac and I have my own music collection in the playlist on my PC.  Now, I can use my iphone to either listen to my music for fun or practice to the ballroom music.  Ha!  Unexpected benefit.

Knitting.  I have finished the shetland shawl last night.  Going to block it today.  And I also wound the yarn for my next shawl with the umbrella yarn holder and a manual yarn winder.  It’s so cool! I did all 8 skeins in no time.  Wow!  I was very pleased again.  he he.

Got to listen to this Bourne book again.  I can’t remember the names!!  And there are so many threads along so many people, I sometimes don’t even know what the thread is.

Got to move now, blocking the shawl.

I went and did a little of cleaning supply shopping yesterday, when I got home I felt really tired and odd.  Almost didn’t have the energy to make dinner.  I thought I was just hungry and tired, but decided to stay home instead of going to Tim’s Tuesday night classes.

This morning, I woke up with a slight headache and my nose has not stopped running which had me running to the kleenex every few minutes.  But I decided to do some cleaning.  Started in the bathroom with the vinegar solution that I learned from reading the how to sites.  

I don’t normally like to clean, but once in a while, I’ll get in the mood and do a marathon.  Maybe that’s why I don’t like it.  I probably wear myself out and that prevents me from wanting to do it for a while.

I was browsing on the Border’s site yesterday and found a link to a book club that Elizabeth Gilbert appeared on and they have videos of her talking about her book and her journey on lots of topics.  Man, that’s a gold find.  I remember I enjoyed her book when it was first out and not so popular yet,  Maybe a year later, I hear people talking about it now all the time.  And watching the videos, I have the urge to go back and read it again.  In fact, I will.

I feel very bad that because of the cold I can’t take Connie to the treatments maybe for a few days till this passes.  Hopefully it won’t get too bad so I can continue my house cleaning spree and get closer to be a home body.

Just watched the women’s Beam final.  It’s very hard to watch the 2nd place lady who did a flawless routine but still ended with the 2nd place.  What’s worse is what happened to her yesterday when she had the same scores as the Chinese lady and yet still ended up with the 2nd place at the end.  It’s heartbreaking to watch her.  She was very brave and maintained her composure but everybody knew it’s killing her inside.  It’s hard to watch it.  They put in so much effort and time, all the athletes, but only 3 people make it to the stand.  

How do these top athletes prepare themselves for the biggest event in their lives and maintain their calmness to perform a flawless routine?  I really want to know.  Why some crumble under pressure and others excel.  

I need whatever that is for my ballroom competitions.  My nerves always get the better of me and impedes my performance somewhat instead of propels me to the next level.

It’s a great day, blue sky with white puffy clouds so we decided to take a bike ride on the trail today.    We spent some time strapping the bike rack on to the car and mounting the bikes.  Man, I hope there is an easier way to do this.  Then the bikes hung wider than the car and you need to be careful not to cut too close to that side of the car.  But after conquering these obstacles, we had a good time riding to Puncho N Lefty’s for lunch and a beer.  It’s the longest ride we’ve done so far and we were both tired in the end and had to spent the afternoon resting and napping.  

While Leo’s snoring away next to me (hee hee), I fixed a few things in WordPress and was able to setup email posting and finish porting the email from gmail to the macbook.  Still can’t decide which email to be my main one, gmail, me.com or my own site.  Maybe the one that’s the easiest to keep a local copy of all my email would be the winner in the end.  Gmail has lots of features and tons of storage and you can access it anywhere that you have internet but it’s on someone else’s server and not so private.  Hmm, what to use.

The Olympics is in full swing and I’m glued to the TV like thousands others every night staying up too late.  The thing that amazes me is the determination and motivation of these athletes in their process of training for the competitions.  I compare my own inability to stay motivated and to grit my teeth through my own meager training sessions.  It takes days and calls from the trainer to get me back to the gym for another session while these people go everyday for much more grueling training sessions for hours and hours.  What determination and courage and perseverance!!!

More and more every day I feel lucky to be doing what and when I like to do .  Having a wonderful husband is certainly one of the reasons.  BTW, it’s our one year anniversary yesterday.  He sneaked home at lunch time and brought roses and a card when I took Benny out for grooming.  He’s such a sweetheart.  I can’t say how much I appreciate having such a wonderful person finally in my life.   I still love to do web stuff, getting wordpress to work was very satisfying and having an iphone to play is so much fun too.  I’m so blessed!!

Finally installed the new version of WordPress and enabled the email
posting, iphone posting in it. So far so good. Everything seems to
be working. This is fun playing with applications and making them
work for my own site. It’s not under a deadline or requested by
someone else. I can do it when I have time and ready. Retirement is
great!!

The showcase was here yesterday.  Elim also came home from Taiwan yesterday.  So the day started really early at 5am.  Thank God for Leo.  He got up and walked Benny while I got myself out of bed slowly.  I made coffee with the vacuum pot and just poured it into our mugs before they came home.  I was probably only half awake, so as I reached over for something, I knocked the vac pot down and the top part shattered into pieces right in front of my eyes.  There was a split second time that I saw it in slow motion and know that it’s going to break but I had no time to stop what’s going to happen.  At the same time, I knocked my mug down so I lost half of the coffee at the same time.  Well, that was the beginning of the morning.  I prayed that it won’t be the sign for the day and it actually wasn’t.  

We made it to the airport fine, we got Elim and Brandon fine, we went to breakfast and came home with some time to rest a bit before we got ready for the studio.There were lots of people there already when we got there.  I managed to change in the teacher’s room and also locked the door on our way out.  So no one was able to get in for a while till Tim announced not to lock the door if we use that room.  Ha, I didn’t even realize that he was talking about me till he came over to tell me that I did it.Things went pretty smoothly actually and quite on time.

 Before I knew it, it was my solo time.  I was a bit nervous but it turned out pretty well.  Lots of people came and gave me compliments.  I appreciated one of them the most.  I don’t know his name but I have seen him around with his wife/partner.  Very good dancers.  He said you did very well, there are certain things in dancing that you cannot teach, you either have it or not.  And you have it.  That was very kind of him and very encouraging to me.  I always have this anxiety over performing.  But I know I like to dance and I like to perform, it’s the nerve that I need to overcome to a point so it won’t impede on my ability to make the muscle obey my command.  But hearing something like that was very encouraging and gave me a lot of confidence.

Another lady came over and told me that someone standing by the entry way was watching my solo and said it was the best one so far.  That was also very nice to hear.  So all in all, it was a good day.  Dinner was good and we came home at 9pm.  Leo had to walk Benny again.  Without him, I don’t know how I can make it really.  As Elim always said, I’m royally spoilt.  Well, I do think I am very blessed.

A week has passed very quickly.  Last night, we went out with Denke and Peter and a few other colleagues of theirs to a Korean restaurant next to Lotte.   They have both short tables where people sit on the floor to rooms you take off your shoes to dine around a regular height table.  We chose the latter.

The food was good.  Both Leo and I had fish and we shared a beef rib soup.  They came with the regular side dishes and a bowl of rice.  Peter ordered some barbeque beef intestines.  They cooked it in the barbeque right on the table.  It looks pretty good but tasted kind of bland.  In the middle of the meal, Denke left.  He was not feeling well and felt dizzy.  He went to the hospital the day before for the same thing.  I don’t think the doctor found anything even though they performed lots of tests.  I hope he is ok.  He thought it might be a middle ear infection.  Hope he’ll find the Korean student to go with him to the doctor’s and get some medicine today.  We leave tomorrow, so he needs to be well to travel.

He has been on the roard for a month now.  I don’t know how he could handle that.  It’s all business for him too, no slacking or touring.   The trips may sound good but not as glamorous as they seem.

We’ll be leaving Jeju tomorrow and go to Taipei to visit mom and do some sightseeing and eat some great food.  I am looking forward to the food and I’m sure mom would be glad to see us.  But I worry what kind of impact it will make on her this time after we leave.  She was not talking or eating for a couple of weeks last time I visited her.  It makes me worry a lot.  I also hope that I’ll be able to find the places Leo wants to go too.  I’m just like a tourist in Taiwan now.  I don’t know how to get around and have very poor sense of direction.  It’ll be an adventure I guess.

I’ll be happy when we get back home.  Other than traveling in the US, I feel very out of place and stuck.  Even in Taiepi where I grew up in and can speack the language,  I used to just stay in the hotel and watch tv when I was not visiting mom.  I don’t know how all of them handle the day to day life without a car and have to take buses or subways to go anywhere.   Every time I go back, I feel the body getting older each time.  It would take longer for me to get over the jetlag, my body would ache, and my legs can’t hold me for the long walks I have to take every day. 

Hmmm, and people like to travel!!!

This is the 5th day on the Jeju Island. Leo has been working his 2 hour shifts every day at the conference. And I have settled into kind of a routine. Working on my site, finally, and knitting while listening to the audio books.

The weather is not as we thought to be nice and warm. It’s actually kind of chilly and lots of days we woke up to heavy fog that lasted at least half a day. But when the fog disappeared, the scenary is pleasant. Our room has an ocean view which is very nice. I always like to look out to the sea and this 6th floor room didn’t disappoint me.

TV programs have their challenges. We can’t understand 95% of the shows cause they are in Korean. And there are lots of golf, baseball, and soap opera or korean drama shows. So the TV is usually on for sound effects than entertainment.

Food is very good and very, very expensive. The other day, we ordered two coffees in the lounge and the bill was $9.50 per cup. Wow. But we are kind of the prisoners of the highly priced meals since there aren’t very many eateries around here within walking distance. But we enjoyed every meal we had so far.

I went over to the ICC conference center with Leo yesterday and sat at the registration desk with him. I plugged my notebook in and got on the internet and worked while he wandered around a bit and sat at the desk a bit.

The only thing that is not perfect in the hotel is the lack of internet connection in the rooms. We have to haul our notebook down to the lounge to get on the internet. That presents another challenge, there is no outlets for us to plug our notebooks in. So we have to hurry up and do the internet stuff in a couple of hours while the battery lasts. If we have internet in the room, I would have a ball just browsing and working on the site all day. Note to self, have to have free internet connection in the hotel rooms when travelling. I can see that it’s essential for me to always have my notebook and the internet wherever I go now. The PC is my entertainment and where I work. I don’t need to go on the tours to man-made attractions or go to the Teddy Bear Museum or to walk around to look at big hotels. But I would be at a loss if I don’t have my PC and my connection to the world through it.

Thought I would blog more while I was in Taiwan, but I didn’t. It was kind of depressing cause I was there the first week, and depressing cause I was leaving the second week. In any fashion, Taiwan trips have never been happy ones for me. My memories about that place have all been sad ones, or ones with a tint of negative feeling. Maybe it’ll change in the future, hopefully it will anyways.

The last few days since I was back, I’ve been sleeping a lot. Part of it is to rest up from the tirp, part of it was to mentally leave the depressing ones and readjust back to the life I am used to. I guess part of the depression came from couped up in a dark hotel room having no means of transportation to get out and afraid of being exhausted if I venture out and not able to visit mom and spend time with her.

When I called her after I got back, she was sleeping so I told them I’ll call back. She called last night and after we talked, Mary said she hasn’t spoken since I left. I felt bad, really sad again. But I managed to make her laugh on the phone and Mary said mom didn’t want to eat still so she fed her. I am very grateful for her to be taking such kind care of mom. But she’s leaving in July. I don’t think we’ll have another kind caretaker like Mary again. Wish she could stay but her family beckons her and they deserve to have her back after 3 years.

Life is full of unfulfilled wishes. Although my life has been on the rise since I met Leo and quit my job, every time I think of mom, I feel sad and quilty. Yet, there is no good solution to the situation.

Back to my dancing. I went for the lessons the 2nd day after I got back. And my legs have been sore ever since. Just being away for 2 weeks made such a difference in my physical condition. It took a long time to build it up but only 2 weeks to lose it all.