i have a date tonight

So, I got a phone call at 6:43 AM from my sister telling me not to make any plans because tonight I'm going on a double date with her, her husband and a mystery person.

We're going to go watch Avatar which I was planning on doing anyway. I actually have no idea what the movie's about really but well it nearly became the highest grossing movie of all time didn't it? So there must be something great about it, right? Anyways, the mystery person isn't so mystery at all. My sister is transparent.....my date is the only main man in my life - my nephew! I'm sooooo excited! LOL! Well, I haven't seen him since December and I miss him and my two nieces like crazy. Can't wait!

NOTE:
Just realized, my sister really loves to give me early morning calls, it's kinda rude isn't it? Good thing I'm an early riser, anyways, even on Sundays :P

of experiments and failure

I'm sad and feel like a bit of a failure. I was experimenting with making a bell pepper, spinach, tomato tuna tart and everything else turned out great except the Fillo pastry isn't looking like it wants to brown to me.

Ok, so maybe I'm talking prematurely, there's about 15 minutes of baking time left out of the 25 minutes so it could turn out beautifully at the end but the early prognosis doesn't look too promising. I felt as if I smeared on A LOT of butter on each of the 6 layers of pastry sheets I used but somehow, it doesn't look golden to me just yet.

I dunno if baking it using a convection oven rather than a traditional oven is the difference but it shouldn't be cos I have baked a cake in the convection oven and it turned out fine.

UPDATE:



Lookswise, it's not the prettiest of tarts but the taste is good if I can actually say that about my own cooking ;P

my other shopping obsession

Aside from my newfound love affair with Amazon's Kindle store, I am keeping up an old romance with Strawberrynet. In the past two months, I've bought stuff from them three times. It's the promo emails that get me all the time. Plus they keep promising me more discounts atop of the discounts and discounted prices that it makes me go a bit nuts.


Not all of the stuff was for myself. The first and third order were bought as birthday gifts. Well, except for the Elizabeth Arden Green Tea 100ml EDP. That's just a lil something something for me. It's $17.50 with a 10%, 5% and then an additional 5% off, I couldn't resist. I am trying to polish off all my other scents and hopefully this is the last bottle I purchase till I can finish off at least either my Gwen Stefani L or my Lancome Oui.

I bought the Bliss Blood Orange + White Pepper set as gifts not only because of the fantastic deal price but because I'm using that particular bath set myself and love it. Just thought I'd spread the love to those girlfriends of mine that would appreciate the scent. I purchased the YSL Lip Twins for a girlfiend of mine who I think has the most luscious lips; completely enviable and these will only enhance their gorgeousness. The Bourjois Wish You Were Here palette is a birthday gift for my former colleague and roomie; the one who left "The Company" after getting married. I saw her in December during my sister's wedding where she was a bridesmaid and she was saying how low key her makeup stuff is right now so I think a nice cute makeup palette will perk her up :D

The Stila stuff is pure indulgence for me. C'mon USD7.50 for a stick of foundation? How could I resist getting two of 'em?!? I'm glad I got two cos the price for the Perfecting Foundation is back to normal and it's 29 bucks. The Eye Shadow Trio - Bronze Glow palette price has gone up as well to USD21. I can't believe my total for 2 Perfecting Foundation sticks and the Eye Shadow Trio in Bronze Glow is less than the cost of the normal priced palette! I received the Stila stuff when The MD came up for the Kickoff meeting and can say without a doubt that I'm completely in love with the Perfecting Foundation. I love how it lasts througout the day and doesn't leave my skin greasy. Haven't put the palette to use as yet but next weekend I have a colleague's wedding to attend so that's its first test run.

what's your weird fascination, part deux

Last year, I talked about how much I loved getting into stories about working girls. This year, it seems my interests have shifted towards tales of girls and the modeling world.

I've always loved the allure and mystique surrounding fashion and girls in fashion. I don't believe that it's as frivolous as it's made out to be by the media. Shows like "America's Next Top Model" has shown that it's not easy-peasy to be a successful model. Basically, I've always had some kind of underlying interest but after reading Meg Cabot's Airhead books 1 and 2, I just can't seem to curb my curiosity in regards to the motivations behind girls who go into modeling. Honestly, the Airhead books are just frivolous stories, entertaining but hardly food for thought so I'm not quite sure why I'm so into the whole subject now. Perhaps it's the dearth of ladies-of-flesh stories that has me moving on to this new fascination.

In the past month the Amazon Kindle store has afforded me three model-related books. The first I purchased was the autobiography of America's foremost plus-size model Crystal Renn, Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves. It's described as "...an inspiring tale for women of all ages, Hungry is an uplifiting memoir with a universal message about body image, beauty and self-confidence...".


I finished her story within a day and a half. As these are true accounts of her experiences starting out and finally getting a foothold in successful modeling, it was quite an eye-opening read. Although I believe the issues she went through are nothing new; you hear about the body image issues and professional misconduct stories often enough to know that these things exist beyond the celluloid tales shown on TV, however, I truly connected with Crystal's struggles to accept herself for who she is. It is a good read.


After finishing Hungry, I got Robin Hazelwood's fictional story based on true accounts of her own experiences Model Student: A Tale of Co-eds and Cover Girls. I've had the paper version of this in my wish list for some time and was ecstatic to find the Kindle version for soooo much cheaper and available to me in 5 seconds (it's the speed of delivery that has me completely hooked to Kindle :D) This novel is described by Booklist as taking a look at young women trying to navigate the world of modeling and balance hot careers with the other priorities in their lives. Haven't really begun this properly as yet, just read the first few pages to get feel of the book and it does look to be a promising read.


I also got Model: A Memoir by Cheryl Diamond. An autobiography, although listed under Young Adult for some reason, Booklist notes this as twenty-year-old author Diamond's tale of the trials and triumphs of breaking into the New York modeling market, which she entered at 14. I do find it amusing when people who are barely in their twenties have memoirs but girls in fashion do tend to live very fast-paced lives, don't they? So I can't begrudge them their chance to tell their stories. I haven't read this one yet either but the book's product description promises a .....riveting, true account of Cheryl's triumphant rise, disastrous fall, and phoenix-like comeback in one of the hottest and most demanding industries in the world..... so I can't wait to sink into this one either. I do wonder if this might seem all repetitive since most themes revolving around the modeling world can't be too varying, right?


A book on my Amazon Kindle wish list is the effort borne from the collaboration between Amanda Kerlin and Phil Oh Secrets of the Model Dorm. Another fictional story of aspiring models but based on the real-life experiences of Amanda Kerlin, who is a former model, as well as Phil Oh's own connections as a DJ and music consultant. It's described as an entertainingly predictable read. I don't mind. Sometimes you need to balance the seriousness with the frivolous. It can get depressing to keep on reading about how young teenage girls are starving themselves to unhealthy porportions and doing practically anything to achieve the dream of being on the cover of the creme de la creme of magazines or the face of a major cosmetics brand.

The last model related story I'm waiting on is Meg Cabot's final Airhead book. So sue me, I like reading teenage fare :)

Disclaimer:
As per usual all images are courtesy of Amazon Kindle

so i was woken up at 6:30 AM.....

by a phone call from The MD/BigSis telling me that I have to catch a flight tomorrow morning back to the Homeland. For work. And yes, it happens often enough, the whole sudden orders to get my butt on a plane southbound. Usually to pick up stuff that needs to be picked up ASAP. Anyways, this gives me an opportunity to see my family, celebrate my niece's birthday on the 1st and perhaps wrangle a Crocs Rio :D

making his debut

in an official capacity for Citroen junior rally team at the 2010 Arctic Lapland Rally is my main man, Kimi Raikkonen, Iceman Extraodinaire. All in all, with the exception of a crash early in the first day, apparently he is doing real good. Though the accident did set him back quite a bit, however, all reports show that he'll be a force to reckon with once he hits his stride. It'll probably take a coupla races but I know we can get there. Explaining his crash to Finnish tv station MTV3, this is what Kimi had to say:

"I heard the note wrong and we drove into the snow bank because of it. There was a tree, about as thick as a leg, and we went through it.

These things happen. That's why we came here, so that we could screw up everything that can be screwed up and learn from that. We also want to prevent the same mistakes from happening in the upcoming rallies."


Anyways, at the end of the first day, he finished second to Citroen team-mate Dani Sordo, the man at the top of the standings at this point, on three of the four remaining stages but is more than 30 minutes behind, due to the crash, in the overall standings.

The hard thing for me in all this is I just don't understand rallying rules. At all. Even after wikepedia-ing it, I just don't get it. The no international cable coverage also does not help so I am currently relying on Google News for info (yea, we're back to that), just not quite as fanatically as before. Photos are courtesy of rallybuzz. Have a great second day, Kimi!

thoughts on things i'd like to own

I've been thinking quite a bit of what to do with my money. Well, aside from continuing the responsible stuff (i.e: insurance, savings, study loan repayments), I've been contemplating the more frivolous things I want to do with my money.

First up is, I want to buy a projector. For my poor Wii which hasn't been touched since the company projector which I had been using to play with was taken away from me in May of last year :P It's a $650 investment, I've been thinking long and hard about it and have finally decided that this is definitely the year that I'm getting one.

Next on the list of frivolous things I want to buy is the Wii Rock Band game set. I want to emulate my pretend boyfriend Rob Bourdon. I want, to quote Bourdie, "beat the shit out of the skins". I'm still hesitating because well, I don't particularly feel like playing on my small TV. So, projector needs to come first before the rawking can commence.

I've been on a complete shoe bend. I just keep seeing all sorts of shoes in magazines, on the Net, on other people's feet that I just seem to covet. Currently on my shoe craze list is a pair of oxford platform booties, a nude platform pump; simple round toe or peep toe style, Crocs Rio Wedge in black (which is proving to be such a sellout) and a pair of motorcycle/riding/rain (yes, I want Hunter's wellies) knee-high boots. I don't really need any more shoes so I might just contain myself to the Crocs cos I did try them on sometime last year and they made my feet look fab. Plus, it's got major height and it's a wedge. Gotta love the height with minimum heel pain.

Fourth on my list of wants is the perfect long boyfriend blazer. I know the perfect one. I just don't seem to want to spend the nearly $60 it'll cost to own it. It's the boyfriend blazer from the label "Necessary Objects". It's been recommended by a number of style maven blogs and I know of a site where I'd be able to get it but well, the price makes me think about it a couple times.

What's my list without some handbags that I want to put in my collection. Number one on that list is Marc Jacobs Stam. I figure, I've seen a quilted Chanel up close and personal and was not swayed but I swoon over the quilted Stam. I want the Stam; either in electric blue or basic black. I also want the Foley+Corinna Mid City Tote in Butterscotch. I've loved it since....I can't remember when but it was definitely sometime in early 2007. The ultimate in my bag-buying wishes but is as yet too out of my price range to consider seriously is an Intrecciato hobo from the covetous Bottega Veneta. That weave just sets my heart aflutter. They're just soooooo beautiful. Honourable mention also goes out to the Balenciaga City and Chloe Paraty. I LOVE the version of the City officially known as Balenciaga Arena Giant Maxi Besace that Taylor Jacobson of "The Rachel Zoe Project" fame carried in season 2. Am also bananas about the Chloe Paraty which I did manage to try on my shoulders in London; it's mucho heavy as is many of Chloe's creations. If I had to choose, I'd go for the Balenciaga. Lastly, I covet a range of handbags from YSL. The Muse, Muse II, Rive Gauche and Roady are my faves but alas, like the BV's; too pricey. I'd settle for the YSL envelope purse but even that is not accomodating on the wallet. Out of all the bags I listed, which ones are realistic gets? Well, for this year, I'd say none but in the future, I could definitely see a Stam and the Mid City tote in my collection.

Speaking of purses, I need (ok, want) a new long wallet so that I can give my poor pen marked Coach Hampton lilac purse a much needed break. I'm pissed at myself for making that pen mark that has marred the surface of my beloved. I'm not sure what I'd like to get in lieu of my Coach though. I just know I want one in a dark hue.

And while we are on the subject of accessories, I do want to buy the Oliver Peoples Sofiane. If my sis doesn't tire of her black Sofiane soon and pitch them my way, I think I will just go and get the tortoiseshell version for myself.

Which also leads me to jewelry. Now this I'll definitely do. I want to buy either a nice ring or bracelet for myself. Preferably in gold but white gold will do as well. I saw this white gold ring in a magazine which isn't too pricey, about 499 bucks. It's a modern design and has three diamonds. At that price, I'll bet that the diamonds are miniscule :P Or low clarity. On the bracelet, I still want that Tiffany bead bracelet. That's too much out of my price range to be paying cash for so perhaps it'll wait till I visit the States again. Whenever that'll be.

And of course, since Kindle has managed to weasel itself into my life, I have a ton of digital prints I want, want, want. Fourteen Kindle books to be precise. Fourteen Kindle books retailing at an average USD9.99 a piece. Times 14 that's going to leave me with an estimated 140 bucks of credit card charges for electronic books. Still can't get over the fact that I can't touch the books physically. Small doses of Kindle spending doesn't remind me of the fact too much but if I were to drop 140 dollars in one go, well, that'll probably make me cry a bit about the lack of paper between my fingers.

So that's about all I can think of at this present moment. Not like I haven't practically listed a very long set of wants. Let's see how many can come true :)

i'm not happy i'm right

Ok, it's not that I'm completely correct in my assessment of her situation prior to her wedding but well, my sis is quite strained after just about a month of wedded (part-time) bliss.

After the ceremony which occurred early December, I now have to hear her tell me about making the matrimonial jump before turning thirty. And to just forget about getting married after that point. Firstly, I'm nearing thrity as it is. In a year or so. That doesn't particularly leave me a lot of time to find someone even if I was desperate to :)

I don't like to think that my feelings and thoughts on her abrupt change of marital status is in any way on the mark. I want my sister to be happy with the decision she made. She tells me to do it early so that my partner and I can grow together instead of trying to integrate two seperate lives into one. I can see why she says this. At her age (she was 37 at marriage time), she's set in her ways and so is her hubby. To then, have to unify these different lives, I can see how stressful it gets. The fact that my new bro-in-law is a complete control freak, which she knew about before getting married and said she could live with, does not help. I feel suffocated by all the phone calls checking up on her. He calls like every 15 minutes. Where are you now? Why is it taking that long to reach that place? How many kilometres is it from Point A to Point B? Shouldn't you have reached there already? Who is sitting next to you? Why is Zlena sitting where she is? And on and on and on and on. He even called the office number to make sure that the number was a working number.

Oh, if it isn't clear as yet, I work for my sister. She's one of my bosses, the MD of my company. It's been a year, I figure I can let the cat out of the bag already. Trust me, it ain't easy working for family. I'm held at a higher standard than everyone else and that is a complete and utter pain in the ass, neck and any other body part you can think of. So, anyways, back to my sister's husband. On and on he yaks for the duration of our drive from the city to the beach town we were to have our Kickoff meeting. Dude, chill and get a life. If you need to check up on her so badly, plant a chip on her and track her on the PC.

At one point during the Kickoff weekend, he was calling for the umpteenth time and before answering she started yelling at the phone, "OMG, what the hell is wrong with this guy? Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone!!!!!" I was quite shocked to witness this but smartly kept my mouth shut. When she tries to talk about it, I just tell her that she knows he's like that so she shouldn't be surprised about his crazy behavior. My mum finds him odd as well. She says he's immature. I don't disagree. I mean, when we were in Paris last year, he kept calling at all times asking her where she was. At one point, her status on Gtalk read "Gone to the Eiffel Tower" which was for the benefit of my other sis, in case she needed to find her, and he immediately called and berated her for telling people on her Gtalk list where she would be because he was uncomfortable (read: irrationally afraid) knowing my sister's Greek ex-boyfriend who is in Greece, would magically appear at the Eiffel Tower to stalk her. LOL! What a nutter!

Also, the dude is always paranoid that people are talking smack about him. The night before their wedding, we were all hanging out at the hotel and some embarassing misunderstanding (for me, that is) occurred while I was talking to my sis so I was shushing her up and doing that pointing two fingers at my eyes and then at her eyes thing signalling it's between you and me so that she wouldn't spill the beans and embarass me in front of everyone. Seeing this, he asks what it was about and I expressly told her to keep mum. He grew huffy and then stormed off to his room. My sis chased after him and after a brief heated discussion, she came back and told us he thought she and I had been talking about him. He also said he did not like at all the whole two-fingers-eye-pointing thing my sisters and I are fond of doing. I just gave up at that point. Whatever dude.

So, yea, I guess the point of this post is somewhere in the long anecdotes I've talked about. Can't be bothered to surmise though.

who loves a raise?

I DO! Yes, the company PA period has come and gone. I'm happy to announce, loud and proud, that I received a 15.++% increment and my 13 month bonus. So, WOOHOO!

This year's PA came to pass a lil late. We did it sometime in the third week of January 2010. Usually it's done in December but this year, too many things were going on for the bosses to make it up (and down, depending on which country they're in) to this lovely land where I work. Plus, we had to have our 2010 Kickoff meeting first where our respective teams had to do presentations of our analysis of the 2009 working year as well as some additional task as assigned by Management. The added bonus of the meeting being held at a beachside resort was completely fun, capital F. Though it did get us thinking about why "The Company" enjoys taking us close to the ocean and then making us stay indoors doing powerpoint presentations and boring the hell outta each other. I caught one boss napping through parts of my presentation :P Nonetheless, I'm glad to say that that passed with flying colours as well. And we did manage to jump into the hotel pool for a bit. At 3 AM in the morning. Margaritas and Pina Coladas, albeit non-alcoholic ones in my case, were involved.

This year's PA was absolutely pain free for me. It lasted less than 10 minutes where my bosses and moi just practically agreed on all points of my PA. For our targets this year, well, aside from acquiring new projects, the bosses are making it mandatory for moi and two other colleagues to get this industry certification. God, at this (relatively still young) age, my brain's kinda mushy and totally not in study mode. There's about 8 tests to take and that's a whole bunch of reading. I have till the end of 2010 to complete 'em all so I really got to get started soon. My first course of action? Buying myself a notebook. As in a paper notebook. I can't seem to find inspiration from just reading the material from the online tutorials. To make sure I successfully pass the rather expensive exams which will be paid for by "The Company", I need to get my study mojo back on. Thus, doing it old skool.

Asides for the certification, all else is A-okay. Thus the wonderful and completely unexpected larger-than-what-I-thought-I'd-get bump in salary is, to quote Tony The Tiger of Kellogs Frosties fame, GRRRRRRRREAT! And I sure do need the extra dosh cos I've got quite a bad Kindle habit to support now. Damn you, Amazon and your Kindle digital content that is TOO easily accessible!

so i'm procrastinating.....what else is new?

Yes, I've been completely remiss in my blogging commitments. I don't deny the fact that complete and utter laziness has been the driving force behind the absence of anything these few weeks.

Not that there haven't been happenings.....there have, I've just been too damn lazy to jot 'em down. I think this is perhaps my third post in the last six months lamenting my miserable blogging habits eh?

At least i'm taking the time to actually call myself out on it :P

reading.....Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy

So I caved. Once you start Kindle it just becomes an obsession. I've bought up to 50 bucks worth of books from the Kindle store since trying them out back in November.

In a post last year I talked about Lauren Conrad and possibly getting her debut novel L.A. Candy. I had read the reviews and some are just not flattering but I can't tell if it is bias because she's a former reality TV star or that the book just sucks. The price of the book was a lil steep for me and I waited for it to go on some kind of special discount.

And recently, it did. On Kindle. I figured this was a good thing since the book was only published in hardcover and even if the price went down to below 5 bucks I'd still have to pay around about 13 dollars for shipping. The Kindle version was $9.99 which I still considered pricey for an untried author but then Amazon marked down the price to $7.19 and that seemed affordable enough to me.


I got the book on Saturday night and just completed reading it. First thoughts are that it's an enjoyable fluffy read and she does give us a glimpse into what being on a reality TV show is all about. There are things that I did not particularly enjoy such as how the main protagonist Jane Roberts' whole self-effacing demeanor can be quite grating. Gaby, the other girl featured on the show also is someone I can't quite make out. She's portrayed to be this ditzy girl but is she a lovable ditz or a catty one? Sometimes she's sweetly silly, other times she's nasty. Scarlett, Jane's BFF, can also be annoying with her "I'm-better-than-thou" attitude. And Madison is your basic arch-enemy, always looking out for number 1.

Jane's romantic interests in the book are.....interesting :) I liked how LC portrayed Jesse's personality as different from his public persona as I always believe that what we see is not always what goes on behind the scenes. I liked Braden as a character too and understand the conflict but I wished LC had not made Jane hook up with Braden. It seemed predictable, she could have achieved the scandal without having them actually get together. Photos can be suggestive without truly portraying the real situation.

Overall, it was a good read. Like I mentioned, it's a fluffy story, your basic chick lit. I did wonder if she had help writing the book because she never struck me as much of a literary type but perhaps good writer is just one of the many hats worn by the likeable Ms Conrad. Anyways, I would not mind finding out what happens next in the sequel coming out in March, L.A. Candy, Sweet Little Lies.

Disclaimer: Image of the eBook does not belong to me and is courtesy of Amazon.

kindle-ing the fire

I've been going on a Kindle buying binge. Since my first purchase of Legacy and Pretty In Plaid, I have further paid for 4 memoirs and a chick lit. Retail Hell by Freeman Hall, Crystal Renn's Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves, Where's My F*king Latte? by Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, Cindy Guidry's The Last Single Woman In America and last but not least, Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy.

I'm still feeling a bit wary of the fact that I'm paying for digital content but I'm slowly getting over the hangup I have about not being to physically hold the books. I find that I really do enjoy reading electronic versions and I definitely can't complain about the delivery time which is basically as fast as your Internet connection allows. And because of this, I can easily foresee Kindle being the undoing of me.

sometimes you just marvel at the heinous nature of humans

So I'm just lounging in bed, was actually reading my old blog posts and thinking of doing a write-up on epi 11 of Season 2 "Dollhouse" when I get a phone call from my eldest sis.

Her house got broken into last night. Her jewelry, gaming consoles and other valuable as well as sentimental possessions were taken. It's awful that someone willfully made the decision to enter someone else's property for the sole intention of taking things that do not belong to them.

The person who broke into the house hurt themselves and bled on my sister's white chaise lounge. I'm glad the person got hurt but that's just insult to injury. Couldn't even break into the house mess free, you had to bleed on her expensive white chaise lounge?!?

I'm just sad for my sister because this has happened to her. She always has the worst luck as this isn't the first time she's been in a situation where things have been taken from her. Some of the major incidences include being mugged at knife point, had a snatch-theft incident and now this.

My religion teaches us to think of 50 good thoughts about a person before you condemn them but I'm kind of finding it hard to come up with one. I do not care if you were stealing to put food on the table or you have a loved one dying of some kind of life-threatening disease. Instead of focusing on your own pain, think about the pain and loss you are inflicting on the person you're taking from. Think about how that person will lose their sense of safety/security, think about how that person will possibly doubt the intentions of everyone in the future. It is besides the point that my sister is financially well off enough to recover from the theft but she will never recover from having her sanctuary invaded by an evil, thoughtless and cruel act.

I pray to God that your soul will be saved, Thief, because if you continue down this path, all you'll be accumulating is years in purgatory.

UPDATE 1:
My other sis just texted me to say that she's watching our local CSI at work, dusting for prints to be specific :) Not that it's anything to be gleeful about but it's pretty cool to see life immitate art or art in action. Whichever way one chooses to look at it.

UPDATE 2:
Ughhh. Hate the damned Thief even more now. My Raspberry Mulberry seems to be a casualty of his thieving hands! That bag was kept at my sister's place because she has a special place for all her designer handbags and I wanted my Mulberry to be stored in a good place but now, my poor baby's gone :( I hope he never got to do anything with it. I hope the rain storm last night ruined that bag!

UPDATE 3:
Ok, Raspberry Mulberry is safe after all. Sis moved her handbag collection to her new husband's place to sort through what she was keeping and what she plans on selling off. I guess once one owns a Chanel 2.55 and a Chanel Jumbo, all other purses pale in comparison or something to that effect :P Thank god, my beautiful pink baby is safe. Mummy totally loves you! (Yes, I do realize I'm talking about a handbag but well, I prize them all the same!)

i shouldn't be so bothered

but I am. First, let's get the whole new year thing out of the way. Yay, 2010! First post of the year, woohoo!

Now, on to the rant. So I'm not the most fussiest of eaters but I do try to watch what I eat and as long as my weight isn't any higher than 127 lbs and I can still fit into all my clothes, I'm ok with my body. Like many other women out there, I'd want certain parts of my body to be tinier but overall I'm happy as long as I'm healthy.

Back in November, after coming back from Europe, I fell ill with the most awful viral fever. The only good thing that came out of that episode of sickness was that I lost some weight. Which I knew I'd gain back once my appetite recovered. During this time, my male colleague, who we'll call Y, made a comment about how slim I was looking. I, of course, attributed it to the fever and said that it'll most likely not last.

And it didn't. Whatever weight I lost during that time, I naturally put it back on. I was fine with it as well. Until today. We were sitting at work and it was just myself and Y. It was about 3-ish in the afternoon and I was feeling peckish. That morning I had had one chocolate cupcake for breakfast and lunch was home cooked fried noodle with one sausage, egg and I got one piece of fried chicken. I'm thinking that it's not too bad. So I open up my biscuit stash, Pepperidge Farm's Mint Milano, and offered it to my colleague. He took one and I took one.

Then he started laughing. I asked him what was so funny. He said that he found it amusing that we are both starting off the new year fat. FAT! He called me fat to my face! What guy doesn't know not to tell a woman that she's gained weight??? So I demanded he explain himself. I have not gained any more weight, I'm at the exact weight I was last year in January. At the end of 2009, I was at the weight I was at the start of that year. I figure that's accomplishment enough. But here I get this dude telling me that I'm looking fuller. Oh, he tried to weasel his way out of the verbal mess he got himself into but he didn't make it any better. All the while he keeps glancing at my stomach, which ok, may not be the flattest but stop making me feel even more bloated than I already am. I'm having my period, so I'm retaining water, gimme a break ass! He used fuller, round and went as far as to say that this is all only 'to his eyes'.

Ok, buddy, too late to try to save yourself. I got a bit pissy with him and just asked him to be direct. If he thinks I'm fat then just spit it out. So he comes up with this gem, "To my eyes you look fuller. If you think that you look fuller then you should take care of yourself, do something about it. If you think you are ok, then...." His face said it all, he thinks I should exercise. Look, you're not the perfect example of healthy living yourself! You wanna talk about rotund, let's talk about your pot belly there. That's what I wished I had said but I'm tactful so I just kept quiet and just went back to what I was doing.

He's been getting on my nerves of late. Offering me his pearls of wisdom. You're just a coupla years older than me, don't try to be such a wise old sage. He's been advising me about keeping my mind sharp and having a routine and even telling me how much more religious I should be. I find it offensive but I don't know how to tell this guy to back off. Dude, I keep my mind sharp by reading. A lot. Last weekend alone I finished 3 books. So I'm not on a regimented exercise plan but every other night I put on music and dance for around an hour to and hour and a half. Sigh.

Right. Rant over. First one of the year! Looks like we're off to a great start. Woohoo 2010!!!!

UPDATE (05/01/2010):
Not sure if he did it to placate me but today Y says he was mistaken and that it was most likely the outfit I had on for work yesterday which led him to think I had gained weight. Today he says I look as per normal. I just took it at face value and told him it didn't matter as long as I was healthy.