Summer Workout

For the past month and a half, I have been mowing the lawn for James.

I started mowing lawns for people ever since I was in high school. One of my classmate’s family would pay me $10 per hour to mow their lawn. It was really nice of them to pay me that much, however, they have a huge lawn, too. I didn’t enjoy it that much back then because I hated bugs and their lawn (more like a little hill) wasn’t kept that well, I felt like cutting grass in the wilderness.

I started mowing the lawn for James when I was in college, for quite a while, it was a nice extra income and something to kill the time. James has a really nice lawn, and it became an enjoyment to look at it after I got done. It was very beautiful, and I felt good about doing it. Then class got busy and I got an internship, I had to quit. He then found someone else to mow it for him. But this summer, that student went home for vacation, I offered to mow the lawn for him again. He offered to pay me, but it just doesn’t feel right to take his money for doing something that I enjoy.

Also it’s more like a workout for me, a good opportunity to burn some fat and lose some weight. And I haven’t lost the touch, after each time, the lawn looked just gorgeous.

Anyway, I always wanted to take some pictures after I got done each time, today I took some with my phone, the quality isn’t the best, but you can get the idea. (click on the picture to get a bigger version)

Clean up day

About 3 days ago, after I came back home from work, I noticed there was a medium size cockroach on my living room floor!

People that know me, know that I hate bugs. When I was still in college, I lived in this old apartment complex, I am not gonna name it. For some reason, my kitchen caught on roaches. It’s the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. You probably don’t believe me when I say this, but I have never seen a cockroach in my life, until I came to the US. Every night when I went to the kitchen and turn on the light, those little things would just crawl away as fast as they could. I think I developed a phobia on those bugs, I always have this image in my head that when I am sleeping, the bugs will crawl into my mouth and lay eggs there, and next morning when I wake up, I will have a mouth full of bugs and their eggs! So you can imagine how scary that is!

So I moved out that apartment as soon as I could, and lived a bug-free life ever since, till recently…

I mean my apartment is pretty clean, I usually clean it every week, maybe sometimes once two weeks. But now the weather is getting hot, and the bugs are coming out, don’t even mention my apartment building is built in the 1960s, bugs love old buildings!

So this weekend, I decided to do some more cleaning, and after a day of hard work, I felt kinda good, so I went to Lowes and got 3 more plants for my apartment. I had 3 plants, Aya helped me to pick them out when I first move in here, but they just don’t seem enough anymore. I love plants, maybe because I worked in the Department of Plant Pathology for 3 years. When I was working there, I always enjoyed going to the Horticulture greenhouse to see what kinda of new plants they’ve got. At one time I even thought about taking some classes on Horticulture, so in the future when I have a house, I can do my own gardening (A garden with no bugs that is!).

I took some pictures after all these to show you guys. (click on the picture to get a bigger version)

My bed with clean sheets, looks quite comfy.

I have this shelf in my living room, I got from IKEA, never knew what to put on it, so today I kinda organized it and put some books and magazines, along with the plants, some pictures as well. You can see I have a rice cooker on the bottom, coz I haven’t eaten rice for a while, and I don’t have a place to put that rice cooker.

Plant #1, called the Money Tree, supposed to bring good fortune to you. Don’t get me wrong, I am not superstitious on this kinda things, this is a plant that requires low light, so it’s perfect for indoor.

Plant #2, called Fittonia Red Vein, also requires low light, and it’s actually quite unique looking – the vein on the leaves is actually pink color, very nice.

Plant #3, called Dieffenbachia Triumph. Don’t ask me what that means, I don’t know either. All I know is that it needs medium light and I love the color of the leaves.

Some of my books and magazines.

Lost

Have you heard of a TV show called “Lost”? I bet you have. And why is it called “Lost”? I just figured out why tonight!

Because it gets you hooked, and gets you LOST!

I have to say I am quite pissed at this show right now. I have spent more than 2 weeks, watching 2 seasons, 44 episodes of this show. Yeah it’s good, it keeps you going and going, and wanna come back for more, but then I thought after 2 seasons, at least they should tell you something, that what is actually going on in that show. And you know what? After 2 seasons, I still have NO clue what on earth is going on! So I have to wait, who knows for how long, for the third season to start, then watch a tiny bit per week, if I am lucky that is (they might just decide to skip one or two weeks between the episodes).

Besides Lost, I also like a show called “24″, and I watched the entire 5 seasons of it. It kept me satisfied because in each season (24 hours in the show), it actually lets me know what is going on.

If you are my friend and happen to also like TV shows, please do me a favor and warn me next time if some show like this comes along. Please warn me not to get into it, and just wait till the entire show is over, no matter how many seasons it lasts, then watch it all together and get a story out of it.

Man I am so lost…

Farewell #2

It’s been a week since my last farewell, now another friend is leaving. James is going to Cali for his internship, for 6 months.

Sometime I wish I could leave this place too. Maybe one day I will.

Farewell

Irma’s leaving us next week to go to work in the chocolate factory. Goodbye Irma!

I am a boring person

I used to be an interesting person, have many hobbies, and was passionate about life. Well, I guess I am still passionate about life, but somehow I turned out to be this boring working guy now. I was reading my old blogs and realized that. Is this sad? I am afraid to think of it. Maybe people change after they get a job, for one thing, you don’t have the time to walk around and see what’s interesting around you any more. I still remember when I worked for the department of plant pathology; I would go to the horticulture greenhouse once in a while to see what kinda cool flowers they’ve got.

Now when I think of something, the word is “used to” do what what, be what what, think about what what. Seems that nowadays all I think about is work. I don’t think I am a workaholic, because I don’t usually work overtime nor take work home. I still have a strong belief that work should be done at work and only at work. But then all those cool things that was in my life are gone now, at least it seems like.

Come to think of it, I am still a happy person, feeling fulfilled and satisfied with where I am today. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe when I was in college, my future is unknown, and I have so many wonders about life, maybe I’ll become a photographer, maybe I’ll become a graphic designer, maybe I’ll become a …

Well now that I am a computer engineer, seems like that I’ll always be a computer engineer, no matter what company I work for, which country I go to. Maybe later on I will get promoted and become a senior engineer, or an information system consultant, or maybe even a manager (I don’t really wanna be a manager), it would be good, and I would get more pay to support my family…and you see, how boring are those thoughts! You see what I mean now? Perhaps that’s part of being mature? I used to tell my friend that I wanna open a coffee shop and also sell books, and maybe has a small bakery as well (I would hire Aya for that). How cool would that be? But then she called me childish and immature. Yeah, I am a man now, no longer a teenager dreaming of future. Maybe having those thoughts right now is a sign of immature, oh well, once in a while I gotta let it out.

Maybe because I am alone right now, all my time is used up by working and cooking. Last night I was telling James and Melinda that I started reading Real Simple magazine, while it’s a really cool magazine, I started to feel feminine just by reading it. How to cook this, how to cook that, how to do a house make over in a weekend, how to… I know it sounds gay, but I can assure you that I am not gay, and in fact I cannot even stand gay people.

Maybe when my girlfriend comes back, things will get better, sometimes I think. But then doesn’t it mean that my happiness is depends on her? That doesn’t seem right, I am supposed to bring her happiness, not depend on her as a source of happiness. I need to have a life so that when we get together we’ll share lives, otherwise I’ll just be living her life, isn’t it? At least logically it’s sound.

What about other working people? Are you guys all like me? Am I childish to think of these things? What is your source of happiness and source of life? I am not talking about religions here, I mean what adds joy into your life? Your family? What if one day you lost your family, the source of your joy, could you still go on? What then would you look for? Seems like dumb questions here, and I know as a Christian I am not supposed to doubt about that. My joy comes from God and I shouldn’t be depending on earthly things.

But we do think of things sometimes. Things we are not supposed to think of.

Several years ago I was wondering what life is about, then I found my answer in the Lord, and now I am wondering about that again, except this time I know what the answer is.

Maybe I should pick up photography again, I always think when you pay attention to life, life will also pay attention to you.

The end.

Early Bird

Normally I start work at 8am.

This morning I am having training at 7am. So I had to spend extra effort and resources to get up one hour early. And that’s not the best thing yet. The best thing is that after I get to the training room, no one is here.

So the Calendar on my PDA is messed up, I guess the time zone is set wrong somehow. Sucks.

So I am stuck here on a training PC. Drinking my McDonald’s coffee. You know their coffee is not bad. I remember their coffee used to be REALLY bad, but then they started a gourmet coffee thingy, and since then, the coffee is getting much better. Still not as good as Starbucks, but then Starbucks don’t open till 9am, and I guess maybe only housewives can have the pleasure to have a cup of Starbucks in the morning.

Last night I went to dinner with James and Melinda, at Acropolis the Greek restaurant. I had the Ultimate Gyro Platter with a Greek salad. Pretty good stuff. We went to B&N after that to have coffee and James and I got into some discussion about the racial profiling and stereotyping in the US. Then we got off tracked on some topics about illegal immigrants. A good movie about this is “Crash”, worth a watch, and it happened to be this year’s Oscar winner. Great movie.