Summer Clean

I think I’ve been too ambitious this weekend. In an attempt to make an effort for my father coming back from a month’s long business trip tomorrow, I set myself the task of cleaning the entire house in mum’s absence. The weekend has been and gone and I’m nowhere near achieving the model Bree Hodge, Wysteria Lane home. I washed and changed the sheets, did a load of washing, vacuumed and cleaned the master bedroom and two bathrooms and I was too exhausted to do any more. I have new found respect for disciplined and domesticated mothers, I have somehow got to find that stamina! Well, thankfully I’ve kept the house relatively tidy so at least Dad won’t notice anything out of place on the surface. Will get round to the other rooms later in the week. I’m taking note not to live in a place that has more bedrooms than people in future!

Out of all domestic chores, I enjoy cooking the most. However, now Dad is back I’m going to put in extra effort with what I cook. For some reason, I’m most nervous cooking for family. Still, Dad’s opinion will be good practise when I cook for grandma when I take care of her later – her critique is unrelenting. For breakfast tomorrow, my plan is to make the the perfect congee (plain or seafood TBA). Best to start from basics!

&£*(&*(^%$”&*^$!

Stupid WordPress.

I edited some of the CSS and wasn’t until I was done that I realised I can’t change it permanently unless I purchase an upgrade. Grrrrrr.

Well at least they let me change the image header to my photo of Shanghai. Boring white background it is then.

I’ve Moved

I have decided to restart my bloggy again and move it to wordpress.com. Blogspot was annoying me with image formatting issues so hopefully there will be more photos in the future. Still finding the ropes around here. Not 100% happy with this template but it was the only one I vaguely liked. I’ll fiddle around with the CSS later and hopefully change the header image to a photo I took of Pudong, Shanghai.

Why does ’sex = sales’?

My mission was to find a new yoga DVD. I went into a rather large Zavvi store and was rather disappointed by their health and fitness collection. Trawling through the many D class celebritiy endorsed fitness DVDs, not only was there little selection for yoga, but there were so many ‘Dirty Dancing’ and other fitness regimes with a sexual connotation. There were barely any yoga, pilates, tai chi DVDs at all. Does everything revolve around sex so much so that exercise can’t even be a distraction? I just want to stretch and relax in peace without being made to feel sexually frustrated!

In the end I had to settle for a Louise Soloman Yogalates workout. Believe me, if you heard this woman’s Australian accent, you will understand why it wasn’t my first choice. ‘Tack in your bellay and relax!’.

If you represent China, get your Chinese right!

I just sent this email to BBC’s Points of View:

Dear Sir/Madam,

As a young British Chinese woman, I am very annoyed by Ching He Huang’s representation of our ethinicity in her programme. Her knowledge of Chinese is clearly very poor, so much so that her pronunciation of the word ‘tomato’ in Chinese was completely wrong. The correct way is ‘xi hong shi’ and NOT what she said – ’si hong xi’. I was shocked that the BBC could allow such an obvious mistake to happen.

Yours faithfully,
blahblah

This woman is quite possibly the most annoying Chinese woman alive! Her mannerisms make me want to smack her with her wok. See for yourself here. She makes the pronunciation error in the middle of the film whilst making the rice. Moreover, her Chinese dishes are far from authentic – one would never find popular ‘English Chinese takeaway’food in China! The pineapple sweet and sour sauce is disgusting. Who uses pineapple in cooking in China? No one!Her cooking is so mediocre I swear I can do a better job myself.

Keeping the Faith

I’m watching this film right now – I’d forgotten how much I love it. A love triangle between a priest, a rabbi and a high powered career woman?! Admittedly, the woman is rather annoying but the relationship between Edward Norton (priest) and Ben Stiller (rabbi) is heartwarmingly funny. There are some classic moments and hilarious exchanges. I think I love Ed Norton’s witty and sarcastic humour the most. He and Ben Stiller are a comedy duo that should have been paired in more films. Hollywood missed out.

Seriously, you really should watch this film if you haven’t seen it already. I promise you won’t regret it. It’s one of my most favourite comedies.

Love in London

The subject of this post pays homage to an old episode of ‘Sex and the City’ episode I’m watching right now. I am afraid of power-mad, fashion-enslaved, New York-type women. Or rather, perhaps I should be afraid of becoming one in the future. Do they really exist? Over-psychoanalysing every minutia of their love life? Right now they’re discussing how many different ways they can change a man. Charlotte has just made someone get circumcised for her. Seriously.

Can you really change a man? Probably just as difficult as changing the habits of a lonely, neurotic woman. Does being single for too long, having money and a labelled-filled wardrobe make you less likely to tolerate less-than-perfect people? I really don’t believe that we can change who we are, let alone make another person change to our satisfaction.

‘Sex and the City’ may be the role model of many designer-following powerwomen, but I think I’ll take note of what not to become.

Still, who knew watching crazy, neurotic, rich women could be so entertaining?

Safe trip, Mama!

I took my mama to the airport today. She has gone to visit my grandma in her home city of Shenyang for a while before Dad and I meet her in Beijing. I can’t wait to be there during Olympic season!

In the meantime, I have to occupy myself. I thought of a list which became quite substantial once I came to break it down:

1. Buy some new medical books and do some preliminary reading.
2. Play the violin.
3. Play the viola.
4. Attempt to play the piano again.
5. Play my Erhu so that the lessons I took last year weren’t a complete waste of time.
6. Improve my Mandarin Chinese by completing a self teaching course with listening tracks- 3 volumes.
7. Do yoga twice a day.
8. Go for a walk on the beach each day (weather-permitting), remembering to look at tide tables the night before.

That’s it. Three simple categories – swotting, music and exercise. I have a propensity to start summer projects and never finish any of them (so much for my learning Italian and Czech). Let’s hope I can fair better this year, especially as most of the things on the list are long standing pastimes.

Quiet Reflection

I have finally been able to close a difficult chapter in my life. I would like to think that I have grown in maturity and become stronger in the presence of self-doubt.

I purchased a cute Hello Kitty journal (left) to jot down my thoughts on the go. What I love the most are the little HK mood stickers I can use. Today, I opted for a green ‘positive’ HK. I wish I could give a sticker to everyone.