Monthly Archives: December 2008

Sleep

Posted by Leaf on December 10, 2008 None comments

Yesterday night, one of my neighbor’s car alarm kept going off. Every 5 minutes or so, just when I was about to drift off to sleep, the siren would start and I’d wake up. It was like some kind of sleep deprivation torture. The six cups of coffee I downed in the afternoon didn’t help either. So much for quitting coffee. And seeing as how giving up coffee isn’t working, I’m looking to get a burr grinder. May as well enjoy a proper cup of joe if I’m going to have it. So the pendulum swings…

And now, I understand.

Posted by Leaf on December 9, 2008 6 comments

wedding dressI went wedding gown shopping with my coworker, Ann. It was outlandish the amount of frouf, frills, lace, tulle, sparkles, and princess-land stuff, they had in such an obscure boutique store. Hello, they had TIARAS! People actually wear tiaras outside of Halloween!! Wheee! Ok I’m calm. Ann is going to wear a tiara as a matter of fact. I’m really glad I went with her too. This was an eye-opening experience – definitely not your typical shopping trip.  First, you have to call to make an appointment.  They’ll ask you when your wedding is so they can guage whether you still have time to order (which takes 4-6 months) or if you have to buy off the rack. Then you pick dress after dress after dress and try them all on.  It is a production. 

Good to know: wedding dress sizes are like double your normal clothing size. If you wear an 8 in street clothes, you’re a 14 or 16 in wedding gowns. Anyway, I’m bummed they didn’t let us take pictures.

 Some other things to consider which I’ve learned through Ann’s experience:

  1. Don’t rush to buy a dress.  She bought one a month or so ago and is now regretting it.  Which was why we went dress shopping again. 
  2. Keep an open mind about the way a dress looks on the hanger.  You may be amazed at how beautiful it looks once you have it on even if it doesn’t look like all that on the rack. 
  3. You must have SELF CONTROL!!  It’s very easy to fall in love with more than one dress.  They are so princessy and romantic and pretty.  Yeah.  Stick to one.  You only need one.  This is probably more for indecisive people such as myself. 
  4. Have an idea in mind, but no rules.  You just never know how certain styles look on different bodies.  Ann wasn’t digging the mermaid look but the dress she ultimately picked out was mermaid-ish and so flattering on her. 

Bob’s 66

Posted by Leaf on December 7, 2008 2 comments

Shaved IceIt snowed yesterday. First of the season that actually stuck to the ground and got snow trucks out on the highways. It was really cold too, highs in the 30s. But that didn’t stop our lunch group from ordering a huge mountain of shaved ice for dessert. It’s topped with melted brown sugar sauce and sweetened condensed milk along with mashed taro, red beans, peanuts, grass jelly, boba, lychee, and ai-yu jelly. No matter how full you feel after a big meal, there’s always room for this dessert. The food at Bob’s isn’t all that great but this, you can’t mess this up and it’s fun to eat with a group. It’s probably the thing I like best about eating here. The seven of us ordered the large which is supposed to serve ten. Turned out only six of us ate it because one person didn’t like it, and we still managed to clean it up! I should’ve taken a time lapse of this Asian snow cone. It disappeared pretty quickly.

Finally, something I’m good at

Posted by Leaf on December 6, 2008 6 comments

Step-by-step instructions on how to not complete your finance homework assignment.

  1. Download the assignment files.
  2. Read question number 1, “Estimate the value of a share by forecasting cash flows for the ten years.”
  3. Wha?!?!!
  4. Make a big pot of coffee, it’s going to be a long night.
  5. Blog.
  6. Read other peoples blogs.
  7. Open Excel and attempt to do a 10 year free cash flow chart.  Get stuck.
  8. Laugh at other peoples parents.
  9. Check email.
  10. Check Facebook.
  11. Chat on the phone to complain.
  12. Re-read the question.  Go back to the Excel File.
  13. Pick out wedding dress.
  14. Edit blog entry.

Coffee

Posted by Leaf on December 5, 2008 3 comments

I’m trying to quit drinking coffee. Again. After a long period of not drinking coffee (all Spring & Summer – yay me) I started drinking it semi-regularly again because I’ve been acting like a narcoleptic lately.  Plus, it’s so freezing cold that I need it to warm me up after having cold cereal in the morning. Speaking of cereal, I made another Trader Joe’s run to pick up a few more boxes on Wednesday. What what?! It was just 5 boxes this time. I’m totally toning it down. Besides, I can only quit one thing at a time, and right now the focus is coffee. Like really, I’m going to resist as much as possible. Maybe drink hot water instead. At least for this week. *sigh* I can still recall the last cup of hot coffee I had. It was last Saturday. I had dimsum and was suffering from food coma. The coffee tasted like dirt, but I am reminiscing about it still.

*Update: I should not have blogged about coffee because it just made me think about it all day long!  I’m sipping on black coffee spiced with cinnamon. Soooo good!

Winters

Posted by Leaf on December 4, 2008 2 comments

It’s not yet winter but, temps in the 30s and 40s? It’s winter according to me! I taped up some windows on Monday with that plastic insulation sheeting. They’re the notorious breezy windows in our kitchen eating area, which is like the Siberia of our house it’s such a cold corner. Those thin plastic sheets may look like nothing, but they make such a huge difference. I should’ve done it in October. I guess new windows would work too. I’ll have to look into that (meaning, not anytime soon).

I’m morphing into a bear. My body is in full force hibernation mode. I am so super sleepy all the time, I’m not even hiding about sleeping in meetings with my boss anymore. Yesterday I was on a conference call in my boss’ office. He was driving back from another meeting and was showing up any minute but I just sat back, took my shoes off, put my feet up and just semi-zonked and listened in on the meeting. He walks in and goes, “make yourself comfortable!” Heh, woops. Anyway, we had another meeting in the auditorium and it was so warm and dark that I kept drifting off while my boss was sitting right behind me. I am such an awful employee. If he gives me a bad rating this annual review process, I wouldn’t even argue it. Besides all that sleeping, I can’t seem to fill up enough on food. I literally non-stop eat all the time. I mean, I eat like I haven’t had a meal in 5 days when really, it was more like 5 minutes. And even though we’re allowed to wear jeans on casual Fridays, I’ve been wearing my usual work clothes to work anyway because, my jeans don’t fit OMG I’m having issues. My work pants are snug, but I’ve been managing to squeeze into them in the mornings. Plus, I don’t feel like going to the gym anymore. Remember the sleepy thing? I need this winter to be over. I’m so tired of the darkness and cold. All I have to do now is stop dehairing and my bear transition will be complete.

December at work

Posted by Leaf on December 3, 2008 None comments

The month of the holidays. You’d think we’d be in semi-shutdown mode at work, but it’s like suddenly, we’re actually busier. Or at least I am. My ineffective boss threw yet another project on me because he can’t get the crazy non-performer to perform. Grrr… Not that it’s really ever that busy in my office, so I shouldn’t even be complaining, but like what gives right? She makes more than our boss and she doesn’t do anything. My boss tries to give her projects and put her on different teams/projects but she drags her feet about things, pawns work off on teammates, and has a bout of crazy and then she’s off the hook.

So a week or two ago, our whole team was in my boss’ office for a meeting about succession planning. For some reason, she kept bringing up the fact that me and our new hire got to go downtown for some meeting with people she considers important. So she was basically complaining that she was getting shafted by the boss for all the worthy work and was getting assigned stupid stuff. Stupid me, I open my mouth and tell her it was a dumb meeting; she didn’t miss anything; it was poorly run and way disorganized; and people were frustrated and confused. She interrupts me saying people were confused because they were the wrong people to go. They didn’t know what was going on. Blah blah! In other words, me and the new hire did not have the knowledge and background to be attending such high level meetings. She was the better person to attend. Whatever! It was such a waste of my breath to try and explain anything to her. All she heard was opposing view! Why are you contradicting me?! This is a conspiracy, you are all out to get me! So my boss kept telling her to listen as I was trying to explain how insignificant that meeting was and how it was just them assigning more work on us. Work which she, of course, had no interest in contributing to anyway. But she just kept going. Then my boss told her to shut up and listen. Then she stood up and said he was acting like a jerk. Then he says, “no you are!” Then she gathers up her things and storms off back to her office. The end.

She plays the dumb card a lot too. That one is pretty effective. To her credit, she’s a great shopping and beauty products consultant. Speaking of shopping, uh, I didn’t go Black Friday shopping but was there anything even worth picking up? I got The Devil Wears Prada at Target for $4 on Saturday and that was it. I’ve already watched it twice.