My battle with insomnia

Yes, I am being a little dramatic with the title of today's post but life is too mundane if I don't exaggerate the few small or minor tragedies in my life.

If you suffer insomnia from time to time, you get a little worried the first evening you are unable to sleep.  The worry intensifies if you are still unable the sleep the following night.  During your insomnia episode, you would want to talk to somebody but everyone is asleep.  You feel very sad and angry at yourself that you cannot sleep.

During the day, you try to function but obviously you don't function as well.  You get irritated easier.  Yet, you cannot really let others know because you don't want their pity or hear about their solutions.  It is not that you don't value others opinions or thought.  It just gets confusing because that person may make your body work more than it can handle.  My body I mean every single part of your body, including your mind.

Luckily, now that I am experienced with insomnia, I am able to find out what is wrong with me and what I need to do to get to sleep.  I slept very well as a result of listening to my body and attending to its needs. Like finding an environment where I can get to a resting stage.

If you are not well, get yourself to a place you are familiar with and feel safe in so you can attend to yourself appropriately.

End of Second Month

Yesterday, someone said to me something along the line of "I know, you needed to vent".  That made me very angry because I was not venting, I was giving you a valid complaint or feedback but by that time I have lost my patience and is speaking with a raised tone.  It is sad when what you are saying is sort of automatically dismissed when you are slightly louder than usual.

Basically, my office has repeatedly contact your office multiple times on the same request and have repeatedly told your office that our request is urgent and why it is urgent.  Yet, your office did not meet your own timeline.

Before my last telephone conversation with them, I believed that they would meet their own timeline but to come into the office and see that my resubmission was probably missed by your office was extremely upsetting especially since I called the day before yesterday in the afternoon about it.  The day before yesterday, I told your office, you would miss your own deadline in about ten minutes or so but I am not sure if they heard what I was saying.  You see, I was scared that I might get another letter saying once again I missed something because if it did, I have to wait another one business day for a reply.  Luckily, I submitted everything they needed in my resubmission so I got everything.  My resubmission was probably missed because I did not provide them with the newly assigned request ID number in the body of my email.  Prior to that, I have been corresponding on another number and so I didn't even see this newly assigned number.  That number also was not set out in their letter telling me why they cannot complete my order which was attached to the email with the new request ID number.  In my email I gave them the number we have been corresponding with, clearly let them know it was a resubmission, confirmed I have paid and most importantly included that piece of information you wanted.  I was telling them that the issue was that your office did not meet your own timeline on a resubmission.

I was mostly upset at myself because I would not have to resubmit if I was more careful with my first submission.  Anyhow, I have dealt with situations like this in the past.  I can definitely present myself in a more professional manner in the future in a similar situation.  My preferred method is actually to not have to resubmit.

At the end of the day, when I finally had a chance to breath and work on everything else I have put on hold, I finally realized how much work I have done.  I just realized I've reached close to the end of one of my piles, I am at the middle of another pile, there is still another hidden pile and there was still more work coming.  Each time, I look at work I completed I was happy and they were not bad so I should not dwell too much on this one thing which is now OK.

It is nice to go into the third month with this feeling.  I think we know what we need to work on next because I am clearly showing some of my weaknesses which I want addressed.  Once addressed, it will no longer be a weakness.  After that, I can finally gain some new skills and knowledge.

Princesses I loved

As a millennial, I grew up watching many classics that millennials would watch, like Disney's Little Mermaid (1989) and TVB's The Duke of Mount Deer (2000).  Being born a girl, brought up as a girl, and, definitely, feeling like a girl, I can't help but identify with some of the princesses I saw in all of the magical fictional stories I've watched.  Some princesses or girls, I liked more than others.

The two princess I present to you today are Princess Ariel and Princess Jianning.  Both of them are witty, adventurous, loving and courageous.  As they are princesses, they are both a bit spoiled and sheltered which made them more rebellious and brave as a result.  I collected a collage of the expressions of these two princesses.  When I look at this collage, I see happiness, curiosity, playfulness and excitement.

Now, both of these princesses are not without flaws.  I can probably write a whole essay about their flaws but I tend to remember things I love about them which overshadows the little flaws they may display from time to time.  Humans, mermaids and princesses are not perfect. Deal with it.

For those of you who don't know, the first Disney Ariel was created by a man.  I know this from a documentary I watched.  One day, the artist talked to the person in charge of the Ariel project and said something along the line of "oh, please please please, let me do the character design for Ariel, I see her in my head!".  What he saw was so right!  I believe after he completed his design, all artists followed the design and put in expressions for Ariel based on his design, the story and etc.  I cannot imagine the 1989 Ariel in any other way or in any other shapes or forms.  She was truly mesmerizing and out of this world.  I think the artists who drew and gave life to Ariel truly observed all of the girls they have come across in their lives.  While collecting images of Ariel, I saw many different expressions a girl may elicit.

Today, I was re-watching a soap opera I loved and still love.  I am only on episode 2 currently and I couldn't help but feel like the actress, Ruby Lin, who played Princess Jianning could have easily played Ariel. Too bad she is now in her 40s and can not compete for the role of Arial, not even a Chinese version. 

------ end of princess talk ------

Originally, I wanted to write about The Duke of Mount Deer (2000) but after collecting images of the two beautiful ladies on the world wide web, I couldn't help but write about them.  I have re-watched it many times.  No matter how many times I watch this show, I am still laughing, the jokes never get old.  I am really looking forward to following Wei Xiaobao again on his adventure in Qing Dynasty lasting forty episodes, each of which is forty-five minutes long.  There is love, romance, actions, jokes and more!

Rainbow Umbrella Team

It has been raining since I woke up to around 1ish pm.  I decided to walk and run around with my umbrella in the rain.  Unfortunately, I don't have a group of people I walk or run around with on a regular basis.  If I did, I could call them up and form the rainbow umbrella team!

Each of us will have to pick a rainbow colour will have to stick with.  Every raining day, we will gather up and run in our rainbow colours!

It's quite fun to run with a sturdy umbrella.  It was windy today too.  If we were to race on foot on a rainy day, it will be quite easy to spot the winner!  The umbrella that crosses first will be the winner.

Obviously, we have to have matching raincoat and stuff.

See my colour illustration for reference.  You are welcome!

The flaws with Search Engines

I grew up at a time when the "search engines" were being developed and "perfected".  I sure miss Mr. Jeeves.  Google is now widely use, but I think a search engine can only be improved with people asking the right questions or searching for new discoveries. 

Lately, I really dislike using the internet.  I think my search history or whatever has made the internet source one way to me, whatever interests me and whatever I seem to repeatedly like to see or something similar in that nature.  I miss going to school where I was learning everyday and presented with things to learn.

When I use a search engine, like Google, I really have nothing new I am searching for.  In fact, everything I am searching for I sort of already know and am just looking for information to confirm what I already know.  Similarly on YouTube, I am fed with videos that makes me angry or annoys me sometimes even from channels of official news channel.  Perhaps, the content of news and news reporting need to be revisited.  I now scroll my feed and am wary before I click into any videos, all of which are less than 20 minutes.

As I lay in my bed, I thought the best search engine is still the library.  You walk into a sea of books and can stumble across something you are not looking for as you walk around freely in the library.  A book contains a lot more information than any articles you read on the internet or any videos you watch.  In fact, the content of the internet derived from past knowledge.

So, thank you but no thank you.  TEDx Talks, to me, is just a 20 minutes advertisement by people to entice people to listen to more of their lectures.   I watched a bunch of TEDx Talks videos the other day, I didn't really feel inspired to delve deeper into any of the topics covered.  I did, however, had a desire to deliver a public speech. Afterall,  I've been a listener most of my life and I am tired of being told to listen to things on repeat (which I have heard many times from many people already).  It would be interesting to see how I fare at public speaking, a task I hated in elementary school.  The problem is I don't know what I want to present on so I'm putting it off. Actually, is there a TEDx debate?   Every single video I saw was a presentation followed by applause.  The crowds at the presentations are always very supportive.

Anyhow, I really disliked one of the TEDx talk I watched so I didn't finish watching it.  At that moment, I thought about university.  I thought about how in university they train you to be critical so that you are ready to answer hard questions or to welcome new ideas.  Eventually my train of thoughts led me to wonder how hard it is for someone to obtain a PhD.  Let me take you back to the beginning when I felt annoyed by the presenter and had to turn the video off.

My first thought, I cannot listen to this presenter anymore and I disagree.  My next thought, imagine if this person was a university lecturer and I have to listen to such person's research for an entire semester. No way!  I cannot even take 20 minutes of this presentation which should be the highlight of such person's research.  When I was younger, I never looked at university classes this way.  What if the dropping rate of courses was not a reflection of people not understanding the material and being scared of receiving a failing grade but instead a reflection of disagreement with the information being presented?  That will be very problematic.  When I was a student, I would not drop any courses because of the financial penalty.  Luckily, I learned in all of my classes.  I was young so I was more teachable and open minded.

Now, I don't want to go back to school because I am old and am out of practice when it comes to studying.  My brain is no longer wired to be constantly memorizing.  It takes me longer to read now because I read differently now.

I feel #old.

Garage

While playing the piano, I don't know why I thought of Garage Gyms.  Recently, I watched a few videos featuring garage gym and then I thought wouldn't it be funny if there was a garage gym and then the garage next to it was a rock band garage and then another one beside it was tropical groove garage and so forth and so on.  Can you imagine living across from them and you are in control of the opening and closing of the garage door. Imagine this, you open the first garage door and people walk into the garage from the inside door and proceed to do whatever is appropriate given the setting of the garage.  You now, open garage door number 2, the same thing happen and etc.

I have yet to see something like this in real life but I have a feeling maybe it exists somewhere and I just don't know.

Sharing your Newspaper delivery route

I have posted previously to indicate that I used to deliver the local newspaper.  While I was unemployed, I decided to pick this job up again.  It is very easy to get a job that no one wants.  I am close to being a volunteer and I definitely get pay below minimum wage.  Luckily for them, I don't mind this modest pay but I don't think I would do it completely free of charge.  Afterall, I am required to deliver the local newspaper once a week and to provide two weeks notice before I go on vacation or quit.

The job is easy but very time-consuming.  It is funny that an adult and not a kid is doing the delivery.  I even dress up like a child to fit the part of the local newspaper delivery kid.  Being the kid is easy, when many residents around the neighbourhood are older than me; some are seniors.  When compared to a senior, I am sometimes called a baby.

HOWEVER, there are a few elementary schools around. Therefore, I propose bringing the important task of delivering the local newspaper to the local elementary schools.  The fund raised through their delivery efforts could be used to purchase Pizza for Pizza days or burger for Burger days or for field trips or whatever.

Each route I deliver, consists of about 48 houses.  Class sizes I believe are around 20 to 30.  If the newspaper and inserts are delivered to the school, the school can then distribute them to the classroom.  The teachers can set the classroom up like a buffet and each child is in charge of one newspaper only.  At lunch time, the local crossing guard can set up blockage to block off the whole road where the children are delivering to their specified house.

This is just a thought.  It will be much faster than me assembling the paper for every single house.

Dreamy Thursday is Dreamy Thursday.

Pages 48 to 51

A while back, I saw online promotion to Will Dean's It takes a tribe building the tough Mudder movement.  I never buy books until I have read them or if I know I want to read it because I have classified them as classics.  I always buy used books.  Don't let those bestsellers trick you, they might be purchased by people who don't read but love giving books away as gifts.

I'm currently on Chapter 2 of Dean's book and it is a easy read.   I find it funny that he mentioned the rival event, Spartan Race.  From my reading, he seems like a bitter rival.  Not a bitter loser but bitter that there is competition. 

It is funny that Joe De Sena's book came out before his.  I have finished reading Joe's book a long time ago and I feel that Joe is a lot older from the writing alone.

Maybe if Joe wrote his book at Dean's age, Joe might sound like Dean.

Anyhow, I'm enjoying Dean's book very much and I like the Tough Mudder event he has created.

Below is photo of page 48 and 49 only partially.

Edit:. I originally wanted to blog after reading these few pages because as a participant, I actually find the people attending Spartan Race and Tough Mudder to be very similar.  Dean said Tough Mudder is different from Spartan Race but if you read my blog on Spartan Race, you will notice the amount of people that helped me whenever I asked for help during Spartan Race.  The punishment of Burpees is sometimes motivation for you to succeed because you really don't want to do the punishment.  I am actually starting to not mind the Burpees now, I have learned how to do it properly which create less strain on the body.  If you are doing it on grassy area, suck in the oxygen.

Fun at the Pool

As you may know, I used to go on rigorous swimming training every summer.  From time to time, my mother would bring me to one of my favourite pools where I actually get to play instead of being trained to swim effectively, efficiently and build stamina at the same time.

I have been to community swimming pools in the Greater Toronto Area as well as in Hong Kong (where I was born).  The community swimming pools in Hong Kong are a lot bigger than the ones I have visited in the Greater Toronto Area.  For example, the length of the swimming pools are much longer in Hong Kong also when you pay your admission fees, you have access to four swimming pools instead of one swimming pool with two little specialty pools (ie. kid pool, therapy pool).  Maybe the pools seemed a lot bigger to me because I was a child in Hong Kong.  I am not too sure, I have not swam in Hong Kong since childhood.

Let's not think about the size of the swimming pools because what I miss in a community swimming pool is not the size of the pool.  My favourite swimming pool in Hong Kong was in Chai Wan.  When I was a child, one of the pool had a lot of playground playset in it.  I remember pretending to be a frog and hopping across lily pads.  I remember sliding out of a tongue of a crocodile. I remember swinging across the pool over ropes like a monkey on vines.  This was a swimming pool I frequented.  It was definitely an affordable community pool and not an amusement park like the waterpark in Wonderland (which is very fun).

I am writing this down because I hope some developer, architect, urban planner will come across my blog and be inspired!  It is lovely that I have memories of playing in such a fun swimming pool.  I remember my commute to the swimming pool wasn't that bad at all and it was so much fun.  I have yet to see a swimming pool like this in a community swimming pool in the Greater Toronto Area.

The other day, as I was driving around my community, I saw a playground that I thought would work very well in a swimming pool.  I did not snap a picture but I manage to find one online so I will post that picture.

Today, while thinking about this swimming pool that I miss and sort of want to recreate my own version of, I thought about how you could start a non-for-profit organization with a mission to bring new elements to new swimming pools being build in new communities.  Maybe the first task would be to visit existing play areas and play grounds as well as swimming pools!  Once you are done with your research and development, now you can start thinking about the additional cost it would take to add this new element in then maybe you can start fundraising and try to convince people that your idea is a good one and be appreciated by generations to come.

The creative process is a fun one though because it is cheap and almost free of charge.  Let your imagination run wild and see how much you can get away with in reality.

When marketing works

If you are a part-time worker, like myself, long weekend is basically every weekend; however, many temptations appear during an official long weekend, like sales and promotions.  It is very hard to resist a promotion to a "product" that you like.  That's right Spartan Race has suckered me into buying into another Spartan Race event with their "limited" time offer.  Forty percent off is forty percent off.

The promotion worked because there are still many events remaining.  All within traveling distances.  I opted for an event that was only two hours away from home.  It is also helpful to know that the terrain of that area is quite flat.  I have previously ran there before so it would be nice to go through all the man-made obstacles while running/walking through a flat terrain.

I chose a Spartan Super event because I want 2018 to be superB!  Blue looks better than lime green anyways.  Also I want to complete my trifecta medal.  I could have signed up for the Beast as that course is not too draining on the body.