Irene is Engaged!

Irene, my little cousin that I grew up with, is engaged! This is so exciting and so strange because she is forever etched in my mind as this little girl that I moved away from in 1991. I still see her in my mind with soft white cheeks and a mischevious smile! And she's always 9!

But wow! Now she's found the love of her life and she's going to be married. She's going to be the first one in our generation to tie the knot. :) It's so strange wondering about these things when I was little. Who's going to get married first? Who's going to have a baby first? All the stages of life...and slowly, I'm living out the things that I wondered about. Should I feel old? Because I don't. Today, I'm optimistic...so I feel like life is so new and interesting and fascinating and colorful. And...strangely...I want to hug the little cousin I once knew...I wish I could go back in time and tell her life is going to be good...because then we wudn't have had all the other hard conversations in the middle about all the boys that suck that you have to put up with to finally be with the good one...when you don't know what it's going to be like...it's hard to reassure people. Now, it's all smiles....the search is over for the two of them...they've found each other..congratulations Irene!

And no...ladies and gentleman, that does not mean that I'm in a rush to get married...I'm too busy thinking of how romance is in the air!

Speed of Life

Sometimes I feel weird competitive with people...like:

1. You're only ten and you wrote a screen play?
2. What you have a boyfriend and you're in first grade?
3. You've travelled to xy and z and you're not even done with college?
4. You've found the love of your life and married him before you even started college?
5. You had two kids by the time you were my age?
6. You read how many books each month?
7. You eat how much and you don't gain any weight? (See dessert from above)
8. You only run like once a week and you can still outrun me every friggin week?
9. You never have to study and you're just naturally smart?
10. How do you balance *all* those things in your life and still be so poised and relaxed?

I don't get it.

Sometimes I wonder what is important about life.

Tonight...while I am sitting at Espresso Royale downtown....(one of my favorite coffee shops from my college days) and proscrastinating in regards to studying...I'm wondering and thinking again about the course of my life.

What would I have given up to change the distance I could have covered thus far? I could have finished college a year earlier. I could have started working a real job right after college. I should have spent more time preparing for the CFA with my down time instead of running, working out, getting my pilates certification, fantasizing about travelling, eating, doing research about eating, playing, and thinking.

But what about the grounds I have covered? And the time I've spent with the people I love the most (check out picture of Eric, my dad and I hanging out at the Peninsula in HK) and the stories that I wil never forget? And then I think...hey...I have come a long way. I think of all those times I've spent looking out the window at blinking lights that caress the leaves of the trees. I think of the leaves swaying in the night breeze and how very romantic it is to be sneaking peeks from my vantage point. I think of the story my dad told me of this girl who was dying...and she looked at a tree outside of her window every day...and she said out loud to herself...when the last leaf falls from this tree...I'm going to leave this world. And this artist happens to walk by and overhears. He then goes and paints the most realistic leaf he can and hangs it on the tree. So every day this girl looks at the tree and the leaf the artist painted never fell...so she didn't die and she eventually got better. When she did, she went outside and saw that the leaf her life was resting on was really a painting! The artist revealed himself and they got married and lived happily ever after. My dad said the moral of the story is that the artist's talent saved the girl's life. And no -I'm not being dramatic - I just thought of all this at once.

I've decided all these itty bitty small things also make my journey worthwhile:

1. Drinking cold chai in the summer and hot chai when I'm cold
2. Pouring cream into coffee and watching the colors mix
3. Drinking horchata at night hmmm hmmm
4. Dark chocolate with a sip of wine
5. My dad's home made sponge cake
6. When my dad swears in Chinese
7. When Eric and I can talk with Cantonese movie lines and laugh all night
8. Seeing my handwriting on paper (bonus if I have a sparkly pen!!)
9. Making fish faces and seeing pictures of myself with the fish face
10. Laughing really really hard...until I can't breathe and my face hurts

Here's a picture of me and a tree. I was mad b/c I had a skirt on and couldn't climb it like Eric. This is what I like to do too...explore cool trees where I can hang on it or climb on it. I especially like trees that have stair-like qualities. I feel like I'm an adventurer!!

ME Below - The ULTIMATE B-O-R-I-N-G POSE

And here's Eric. The ultimate I'm young, agile and can still climb trees unlike my boring sister photo:

So ok there's this formula I know from the GMAT and life in general Distance = Rate X Time...so maybe maybe maybe the rate doesn't matter so it doesn't matter how much distance you cover...it should be the quality of the time...how come I can't tell the business school admissions people that? It's not what I've done so far...it's all those other things...but alas...that doesn't cut it in the practical business world. So torn....so torn.

30 Boxes

Go check out 30 boxes. It is a must. It is soooo cool. I am especially fond of the new webtop feature.

So don't look at the gCalendar anymore...Nicole and I have all our activities listed here now.

Another cool link I found off of 30 boxes is www.upcoming.org. You can find out all about local events that might be of interest.

Webtools are so cool.

Or maybe it's web community that I find so cool. I like being connected even when I'm sitting by myself in the dining room.