I got a cold and started to cough yesterday. I actually felt worse today with sour throat and running nose. It is not a bad cold, but I haven't had a real cold for a couple of years and this is a real one, so it seems as if all the strength was drained out of my body. Of course, I still had to manage to get my stuffs done at the same time .
Being single and living by myself is not so great as it usually is when I am sick. To cope with such "emergency" time, I always have a stock of "the stuffs". The list of "the stuffs" starts with
Gatorade,
soda crackers,
water,
canned chicken-n-noodle soup,
... Oh well, I need to finish the list when I feel better so that I can replenish the stock. You can imagine how panic I was when I found out that I had no Gatorade at home last night. LOL~~~
P.S. I don't know why I am writing this. Probably because I feel disappointed of not being able to go not for the count-down. And yes, I am whining.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Did?! Did not?!
The past Friday night, I didn't screw up my part too much. At least it seemed to be so. That is not because I was very good (I was getting better), but because I was never given the chance to screw it up. LOL~~~
Of course, still a pumpkin, but definitely a happier one.
Of course, still a pumpkin, but definitely a happier one.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Friday resolution (as a pumpkin)
I am afraid that I will still be a pumpkin this coming Friday night. It is okay. If I will remain a pumpkin for a while, I want to be a cute and happy pumpkin.
>100
I just realized that my profile has been viewed more than 100 times. Given that I started the blog less than two months ago, I am really surprised. The number means that my blog and/or my profile has been viewed, stumbled upon, laughed at, sneered at, and/or applauded by a few people. I would like to say thanks to all of you, even what some of you might be accidentally stumbled upon this. Thanks for making the number increasing.
I believe that some of you have read the posts and I don't think that any of you (except you, HW, the happily pregnant lady) knows me in the real life. I find it really cool. I am picturing in my head: one day someone I know in the real life comes to me and says, "You are J, right? I read your blog". I would start to sweat and try to deny it. "Er, what J? What blog?" Oh, that would be so funny. LOL~~~
I believe that some of you have read the posts and I don't think that any of you (except you, HW, the happily pregnant lady) knows me in the real life. I find it really cool. I am picturing in my head: one day someone I know in the real life comes to me and says, "You are J, right? I read your blog". I would start to sweat and try to deny it. "Er, what J? What blog?" Oh, that would be so funny. LOL~~~
Blogging therapy
After writing the last post, I felt really relieved. I have been wondering if that is because I wrote my feeling down in an honest way. I don't like to reveal too much emotion, especially those negative ones. If I have some negative feelings, I will dwell on them for a while and try to forget them. As a result of such personality, I have never kept any diary in my life so far. (Well, of course, I will be whining from time to time about small stuffs. That's simply because I simply don't whine about the real issues.)
I always try to pretend that I can handle all the negative feelings. I guess that I have tried so hard to "brain-wash" myself that I almost believe that it is true. However, from time to time, when the feeling is triggered again, I will laugh at my ridiculous "yes-I-can-handle-it-myself confidence". Then, I will feel that I need to do "something" that will help. But what? Now, I think that I have found at least one of the things that I can do: write it down in the blog, honestly.
I always try to pretend that I can handle all the negative feelings. I guess that I have tried so hard to "brain-wash" myself that I almost believe that it is true. However, from time to time, when the feeling is triggered again, I will laugh at my ridiculous "yes-I-can-handle-it-myself confidence". Then, I will feel that I need to do "something" that will help. But what? Now, I think that I have found at least one of the things that I can do: write it down in the blog, honestly.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Thank you for being strong.
A friend/co-worker of mine, Ms. MB, was diagnosed with breast cancer this October. I was not able to really handle this until now. Now I feel like that I can, sort of, handle it, talk about it, and let out the feelings.
Since my dad died of cancer, the word "cancer" sounds like the summon from the Death. He was diagnosed with cancer when I was nine and passed away in less than a year, a couple of weeks before my 10th birthday. People might think that a ten-year-old kid would not be affected as much as a grown-up because I didn't like to reveal too much of my emotion (I don't like to do it now as well). However, I know that something has changed since then. Biomedical or clinical journals for lay-people used to be my favorite reading as a kid. Even after I got to know the diagnosis for my dad, I read, actually with fear, a lot about different therapies (especially some from the traditional medicine) and cases of cancer patients. However, I couldn't read anything like that for quite a while. Even now, sometimes I read about cancer-related articles, I still feel somewhat uncomfortable.
What is worse, after the death of my dad, I found it hard to deal with the situation that someone surrounding me is diagnosed with cancer, but I have never told this to anyone else. This year is particularly bad. A very close friend of our family, someone who witnessed my life since I was a baby, passed away in January. She was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, suffered from the recurrence of the cancer, and suddenly died of the complication of heart attack. Later, my aunt, one of my mother's younger sisters, got a tumor removed from her brain a couple of months ago. Fortunately, the pathological check showed that the tumor is a benign one. However, because of the position of the tumor, she has been on chemotherapy since the surgery and suffered a lot from it. The third one is the friend I mentioned at the beginning. She has been through two surgeries so far and cleaned up all the tumor tissues. Her tumor hasn't be spread so that she doesn't have to go through any chemo- or radiotherapy. However, she still got a couple of plastic surgeries for reshaping and will be put on close watch from now on to prevent the recurrence.
Since I couldn't handle it, I tried to run away from it. I relied on my mom to send my greetings to our family friend and my aunt because I couldn't do it. Now it is my own friend, so I have to by myself. Although we are not very close friend, she is still one of those around me and we used to see each other on a daily basis in the past. She is very nice and helpful to me, but she is a tough person as well. This actually makes the situation more difficult since I know that tough people won't be whining about what happens to them and won't want others to be over-concerned. Actually, it was already really hard for me to handle the news that she had been diagnosed with cancer. As a result, for almost two months after I knew her diagnosis, all I could do is to send her emails that didn't sound encouraging even to myself though I tried so hard. I know that, as a friend, I should have at least called her, but I couldn't.
I hadn't seen her until two weeks ago. She had already finished her first surgery which was not a big one. However, the results from the pathologists were very discouraging. The surgery didn't clean up all the cancer tissue and she would need a second surgery to have more breast tissue removed. It was a very hard time for her, or any woman. She mentioned in the email that she was crying a lot at that time. I would rather postpone meet her but I was supposed to help her with her field-trip in Seneca, so the meeting was inevitable. I was a little relieved at the first sight because she didn't look like a patient. She also said that she really enjoyed the trip given the weather giving us so much trouble because she needed a little escape before her second surgery. Naturally, we didn't talk much about her cancer, and I tried to behave as if it had never happened.
I went to visit her on Wednesday, the day after her second surgery, with a couple of other friends/co-workers (I was still intimidated by the idea of visiting her all by myself). Although she was still recovering, she was in a high spirit. She showed us the nice gifts (a lot of pink, of course) from others, talking about the following plastic surgery, and making fun of her surgery vest as "the most trendy bra". I was laughing at her jokes. All of sudden, I realized that I was relieved and laughing.
I will still have a hard time dealing with the situation of people surrounding me diagnosed with cancer, but I know I have taken my first step away from the shadow of the past. Thank you, MB, for being strong for yourself and all others who care about you. Thank you.
Since my dad died of cancer, the word "cancer" sounds like the summon from the Death. He was diagnosed with cancer when I was nine and passed away in less than a year, a couple of weeks before my 10th birthday. People might think that a ten-year-old kid would not be affected as much as a grown-up because I didn't like to reveal too much of my emotion (I don't like to do it now as well). However, I know that something has changed since then. Biomedical or clinical journals for lay-people used to be my favorite reading as a kid. Even after I got to know the diagnosis for my dad, I read, actually with fear, a lot about different therapies (especially some from the traditional medicine) and cases of cancer patients. However, I couldn't read anything like that for quite a while. Even now, sometimes I read about cancer-related articles, I still feel somewhat uncomfortable.
What is worse, after the death of my dad, I found it hard to deal with the situation that someone surrounding me is diagnosed with cancer, but I have never told this to anyone else. This year is particularly bad. A very close friend of our family, someone who witnessed my life since I was a baby, passed away in January. She was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, suffered from the recurrence of the cancer, and suddenly died of the complication of heart attack. Later, my aunt, one of my mother's younger sisters, got a tumor removed from her brain a couple of months ago. Fortunately, the pathological check showed that the tumor is a benign one. However, because of the position of the tumor, she has been on chemotherapy since the surgery and suffered a lot from it. The third one is the friend I mentioned at the beginning. She has been through two surgeries so far and cleaned up all the tumor tissues. Her tumor hasn't be spread so that she doesn't have to go through any chemo- or radiotherapy. However, she still got a couple of plastic surgeries for reshaping and will be put on close watch from now on to prevent the recurrence.
Since I couldn't handle it, I tried to run away from it. I relied on my mom to send my greetings to our family friend and my aunt because I couldn't do it. Now it is my own friend, so I have to by myself. Although we are not very close friend, she is still one of those around me and we used to see each other on a daily basis in the past. She is very nice and helpful to me, but she is a tough person as well. This actually makes the situation more difficult since I know that tough people won't be whining about what happens to them and won't want others to be over-concerned. Actually, it was already really hard for me to handle the news that she had been diagnosed with cancer. As a result, for almost two months after I knew her diagnosis, all I could do is to send her emails that didn't sound encouraging even to myself though I tried so hard. I know that, as a friend, I should have at least called her, but I couldn't.
I hadn't seen her until two weeks ago. She had already finished her first surgery which was not a big one. However, the results from the pathologists were very discouraging. The surgery didn't clean up all the cancer tissue and she would need a second surgery to have more breast tissue removed. It was a very hard time for her, or any woman. She mentioned in the email that she was crying a lot at that time. I would rather postpone meet her but I was supposed to help her with her field-trip in Seneca, so the meeting was inevitable. I was a little relieved at the first sight because she didn't look like a patient. She also said that she really enjoyed the trip given the weather giving us so much trouble because she needed a little escape before her second surgery. Naturally, we didn't talk much about her cancer, and I tried to behave as if it had never happened.
I went to visit her on Wednesday, the day after her second surgery, with a couple of other friends/co-workers (I was still intimidated by the idea of visiting her all by myself). Although she was still recovering, she was in a high spirit. She showed us the nice gifts (a lot of pink, of course) from others, talking about the following plastic surgery, and making fun of her surgery vest as "the most trendy bra". I was laughing at her jokes. All of sudden, I realized that I was relieved and laughing.
I will still have a hard time dealing with the situation of people surrounding me diagnosed with cancer, but I know I have taken my first step away from the shadow of the past. Thank you, MB, for being strong for yourself and all others who care about you. Thank you.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
What a coincidence!
In my previous blog post (yeah, the day when I finally got something intelligent to say), I wrote down my thoughts after a long day of work, "Something that starts with a stupid reason will very, very likely end up in a miserable way". At that time, it was merely the feeling towards a bad day due to my own mistake.
Now I am reading my previous posts. Ironically, it occurs to me that this sounds like a prediction of the destiny of this blog and the whole story behind it. And I dare to say that the prediction is very likely to be correct.
I forgot to mention that "the deadline" is no longer the end of this year (see here). I probably got one more semester, but not quite sure. So what? Perseverance is great only when you know or kind of know where you are heading and how far you are from the destination. Yeah, you may say, "If Winter's Here, Can Spring Be Far Behind?" Oh well, yes, winter is here, literally. However, it is only December now and spring won't come until March. LOL~~~~~~~
Now I am reading my previous posts. Ironically, it occurs to me that this sounds like a prediction of the destiny of this blog and the whole story behind it. And I dare to say that the prediction is very likely to be correct.
I forgot to mention that "the deadline" is no longer the end of this year (see here). I probably got one more semester, but not quite sure. So what? Perseverance is great only when you know or kind of know where you are heading and how far you are from the destination. Yeah, you may say, "If Winter's Here, Can Spring Be Far Behind?" Oh well, yes, winter is here, literally. However, it is only December now and spring won't come until March. LOL~~~~~~~
I should take FULL control.
I am not quite an adventurous person. One of the things that I really hate is the feeling of no control over something that I am involved in. This doesn't mean that I am trying to be bossy to others. For me, I like everything in my own world (fortunately and unfortunately not a very big one) to be, to some extent, under my control. You can imagine that I would be really pissed if I lost control of my own behavior.
As a result, for the years that I have lived, I have been practicing so hard to keep control of my own world. I won't stick my toe out of the line if I do not have some sort of idea about the consequence. After years of practice, I assume that I am pretty good at this. Although others suggest that I should let go a little from time to time, I find it hard because I know I would do stupid things if I did. Unfortunately, I found that I had tended to lose such control more frequently during the last couple of weeks. "Aha", I said to myself,"maybe I can try to 'let go' this time." Apparently I was wrong. Because I lessened the control over myself, I put myself in the most embarrassed moment since... Well, I really can't think of any more embarrassed moment than this one. I felt like and still feel like as the biggest idiot in the world.
Anyway, it seems to me that the impulsive "let-go" feeling can only bring me disasters. It may be too late to make up for the thing that has happened, but not too late to focusing more on FULL control over myself all the time. (It's hard, though.)
As a result, for the years that I have lived, I have been practicing so hard to keep control of my own world. I won't stick my toe out of the line if I do not have some sort of idea about the consequence. After years of practice, I assume that I am pretty good at this. Although others suggest that I should let go a little from time to time, I find it hard because I know I would do stupid things if I did. Unfortunately, I found that I had tended to lose such control more frequently during the last couple of weeks. "Aha", I said to myself,"maybe I can try to 'let go' this time." Apparently I was wrong. Because I lessened the control over myself, I put myself in the most embarrassed moment since... Well, I really can't think of any more embarrassed moment than this one. I felt like and still feel like as the biggest idiot in the world.
Anyway, it seems to me that the impulsive "let-go" feeling can only bring me disasters. It may be too late to make up for the thing that has happened, but not too late to focusing more on FULL control over myself all the time. (It's hard, though.)
Behold! I brought to you, the GIANTEST PUMPKIN EVER (I mean, so far)!!!
Yeah. It was me, again. I was okay most of the time, but there are a couple of moments when I jumped to someone's face and used my movements to tell them,"I-I-I know t-t-that you don't really know t-t-this so far, but I-I-I AM a giant p-p-p-pumpkin".
Is it like what they said "once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin"? I hope not. I will take care of it.
Is it like what they said "once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin"? I hope not. I will take care of it.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Coming back from the coldness
I came back from Seneca Lake last Friday evening. The schedule of the trip was changing all the time, but as a whole, it was okay. I was also lucky to have the chance to take a few pictures of the lake. It is really beautiful.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Up at Seneca Lake
Yes... It is freaking cold, windy, and it will get worse later this week.
Yes... I am on a trip now and $#@&! I will miss the magic Tuesday night this week...
Yes... I am on a trip now and $#@&! I will miss the magic Tuesday night this week...
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