Little pebbles and jewels in Glenny's path of life

Nativity Scene Meditation

2011-11-24T12:47:00.001-05:00

As we put up our Christmas decoration, I challenge you to meditate upon the birth of Jesus as you put up each character of the Nativity scene.

I have 2 sets that I put up in my house, and as I was putting them up yesterday, I thought, would it be nice to do it slightly differently this year? I started to think about what the shepherd would feel, where they would stand and what went through their mind. I thought about Joseph, and how it feels like to have a newborn baby in a manger, with no family around to help.

I thought about the animals, and I wondered if they knew. I wondered if they knew that they are face-to-face with their creator.

I thought about the 3 wise men, about their seemingly odd gifts for an infant. No baby booties or diapers, instead, they chose incense, myrrh and gold. I thought about the journey that they had to make, what it means to travel back then, what a risk that they undertake, what preparation that they have to make, to travel so far away in a land with no hotels nor fast food chain, where travel means relying on others' hospitality.

I thought about Jesus..... He is finally here. As part of this earth, as part of the humanity.

As I look down to my nativity scene, I wondered how Jesus would feel 2000 years ago, to be looking up to the heaven from his cradle in the manger? Come to think about it, Jesus has the lowest view point in the whole nativity scene, everybody else's are taller than him, even if they're kneeling. Even the animals are taller than him, even when they lay down. A simple foreshadowing of being the lowest servant and yet the highest of King?

So, as you put up your Christmas decoration, and especially that beloved Nativity scene, have a moment with God, and ponder the wondrous mystery of His birth.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

~ Glenny

A handfull [sic] of quietness

2011-10-03T09:37:00.001-04:00

A song pops up on my Solo Piano Pandora radio station titled … "A handfull [sic] of quietness" from the similarly titled album.

The song itself is rather nice.

But I find it funny that the song, and the album, is titled 'a handfull of quietness' since by the mere act of creating and playing this song, we are destroying the quietness that existed prior to this song playing. :)

But if you play this song on a headset in the middle of a low hum of the office chatter, it did bring you a sense of quietness and tranquility …. :)

The hours of blessing

2011-02-05T04:17:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I have been pleasantly awake at 4am. I drank a tall glass of bubble tea right around midnight, yummers, but the high content of sugar kept me going and going and going and going .... :D

Since energy is very far and few in between lately, I'd rather enjoy this long stretch of energy, combined with the quietness of the early morning.

It reminded me of the wonderful times when I get to work on something that I love at wee hours in the morning. Back in college, I had to do it. I loved it, but it was out of necessity. Now it's pure choice and it feels even better.

So I did some prep for the Ministry in Motion practice tomorrow, looked up the psalm and figured out some sign language to help the kids. Sent out some notes that I've been meaning to send.

Tried to look for a pediatrician or come up with a birth plan, but decided to do that tomorrow...

Then I continued my homework from my Bible class, and I found that when I do have the luxury of time to really think about the answers, these homeworks are a lot more fun and inspiring to do!

I know I should sleep soon if I want to wake up in 5 hrs. But here I am, listening to the theme song of Forrest Gump that I happen to find after listening to psalms after psalms (Do you know that there are at least 7 arrangements of the psalm 'The Lord is Kind and Merciful'!), feeling very happy, blessed, calm and relaxed.

It's a happy moment ... just me, my homework and a nice piano instrumental. :)

I wonder if this kind of feeling will return when I have a newborn and I have to wake up at wee hours in the morning. I always love the time between 2am - 4am. I feel the best at that time, but I am rarely up at that time anymore ever since I am out of school.

I wonder whether when my baby schedules reacquainted me with that time of day again, will I love it still? I hope so. Anyhow, it will be a great time to catch up with homeworks.. :D

~ G

PS: I am in a 4-year bible class that reads the bible from the beginning to the end. I just finished Judges and Ruth and is now progressing through Samuel. If you get the chance, I highly recommend taking a class that goes through the Bible from the beginning to the end. Learning about the biblical stories in chronological order has been really really inspiring. I used to think that the God of Old Testament is a mean and distant God, what with all the laws and punishment and fire and loud voices. But the more I understand the stories, the more I realize, that it's the same God of the New Testament after all. It's always been the same loving God that I know now .... It's a strange comforting feeling, it's like finally realizing that the person that you used to think as a stranger is actually your old friend that you know very well, if only you take the time to take a closer look.

Funeral

2010-05-21T09:46:00.001-04:00

Not being morbid, but I just thought that I should put my funeral preference out there somewhere just in case ….

I've been thinking about it for a while, and I guess today is a good day as any to write it down. Besides, a lot of people plan their funerals in advanced, my friend who is a church musician got contacted by many *living* people to arrange their funerals.. And my choir friend has already planned everything to the T for her funeral Mass. She's also been to many many funerals, so she must have a pretty good idea of what funerals are like too.

I've never been to any funerals, although had my schedule permits, I would love to be a funeral coordinator in church. I am currently a wedding coordinator, and apparently the set up is very similar to a funeral set up. And it's just nice to be able to help people at their saddest time (funeral) as well as at their joyous time (wedding). And hopefully those two times are not flipped. :P

Anyhow, since I don't know what a funeral entails, this is my funeral preference:

1. A quote from "Baby take a bow" from Chris Rice: "The world is lovelier because you had your moments here, and I can see the friends of heaven in your eyes"

I really like the song, and would love that to be played too if possible.

2. "Do not let your hearts be troubled" -- I have the song sheet at home. This is a really pretty song, the refrain goes something like this: "Do not let your hearts be troubled, have faith in God and faith in me, I will go home to prepare a place for you, then I'll come back to take you with me, so where I go, you may also be". (It's written as a voice of Jesus).

3. I don't want anybody to be sad. I want them to realize that my happiest moments in life are when I am in Mass. And when I die, where I go, there will be Mass at all times there (hopefully) and I will be celebrating Mass with them still, just in a different place.

That's all.

When I actually go a funeral, then maybe I can start figuring out the readings, psalm, and any other things that they do in a funeral. :D

~ G

Tidbit home

2010-05-19T14:16:00.000-04:00

I realized about 30 seconds ago that I'd much rather have a messy home, but happy occupants, than a clean home with grumpy occupants.

People tend to be grumpy when they have to clean, and I'd much rather have a happy housemate than a grumpy one.

Mind you, messy does not mean unsanitary or really really messy. Just a slight mess from daily use, instead of pristine clean like the magazine homes.

Just a thought. :)

~ G

Warthog

2009-09-08T11:01:00.000-04:00

Random observation on the word "Warthog", inspired by "Hakuna Matata" the song from the movie Lion King.

For the longest time, I've always pronounced the word "Warthog" as "war" + "thog", and then as I was listening to "Hakuna Matata" today, I realized that I was wrong. It's pronounced (at least in the song and in the movie "Mean Girls", which I just watched the rerun on TV yesterday as I was ironing 3 batches of laundry) "wart" + "hog".

Pronounced "War" + "Thog", the word has a cool Nordic warrior kind of feel to it. I guess "Thog" sounds like "Thor", so I imagined a viking warthog with viking helmet, holding spears running down the coast from a viking ship, charging against an unseen enemy with thunders in the background. (Thor is the god of thunder (?) I think in Nordic mythology).

However, pronounced "Wart" + "Hog", the word has a completely different feel to it. A pig that's full of warts? Yikes.

If I were a warthog, I would insist that the word be pronounced the former. If you're a pig with warts, you should at least not be called wart hog. :P

Cheers,
G

Mall Cops

2009-08-24T12:48:00.000-04:00

I just watched Mall Cops last night, Kevin James' latest movie. It's funny, and the X-gamers stunts are kind of cool especially the free runners. But the movie overall is not as funny as I thought it would be. I have high expectation for Kevin James as an actor/writer and Adam Sandler as a producer.

What I found really interesting is that the DVD extras are so much better than the actual movie! The behind-the-scenes of the X-gamers are cooler, because you actually get to see their stunts clearer than if you watch the movie. And the mini clips and interviews are often funnier than the actual movie! Seems like it's more fun watching Kevin James and the gang making the movie rather than watching the actual movie. :D

So, after spending 90 minutes or so watching the actual movie, I spent an extra hour watching the extras. All of the extras. And the extra hour is so much better than the 90 minutes. :P

So there ya go, a somewhat upside down movie (in my opinion at least). The extras are better than the actual movie. :D

Nevertheless, it was a good way to spend a chilly Michigan summer night. :D

Cheers, G.

On why we love

2009-05-08T09:32:00.000-04:00

One phrase that comes to mind this morning, and one that I particularly like is:

"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you"

This is from a song "We have been told" by David Haas.

It's what Jesus said to us, but I think it can also be the answer to the questions of why we do many of the acts of love that we do, even though they might not be easy.

When asking myself why to the following:
- Why do I forgive?
- Why do I try to be understanding to others?
- Why do I hold my anger and control my temper?
- Why do I want to spend my time doing the ministries in Church?
- Why do I try (so hard) to accept and love just as they are?

In my journey, I found that these are the hardest things to do and yet nobody's going to recognize you or reward you for your tiny steps of successes. The moment when you are tested will come unexpectedly, and when you pass, there will be no fanfare to celebrate it. When you do your homework or complete a test, at least you get a grade.

They are the quiet things in life that most of the time goes unnoticed even by the person that you are trying to love, and yet they are so hard that sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying.

When I thought about it last night, that phrase comes to mind. Yes, nobody will ever reward us for loving. Nobody will keep score and let us know when we won the game. We might never know if anybody even notices our effort. But because the Father have loved us, and we have known His love, it is no longer about us and the person that we are trying to love. But it's about giving love that is so freely and abundantly given to us, and about hoping that maybe, just maybe, they can feel how beautiful Father's love is through our action.

By His grace, I am no longer loving with my love, but with the Father's love through me.

We are no longer dependent on our beloved, waiting for their approval and return of love to fill our heart back. We are free to love, regardless of whether they choose to love us back.

Maybe this is how unconditional love is possible, and how one more step is taken towards becoming the image of Christ in this world.

~ G

Gali lubang tutup lubang

2009-04-29T09:41:00.001-04:00

"Gali lubang tutup lubang" is an Indonesian phrase that refers to a person who is constantly in debt, taking a new debt to pay off another debt. The literal translation is dig a hole to close a hole.

Well, that's what I did yesterday! The literal meaning, thank goodness. :) For the first time in a long long time (since my bean sprout Biology experiment back in 3rd grade) I am gardening!

I've always thought of myself as having brown thumbs (I do have brown skin) since my pointsettia and cactus (cactus!!! The hardiest plant that requires no care whatsoever!!) died a few years ago.

The fact that my 2 attempts at caring for phalaenopsis orchids failed didn't bolster my confidence.

The one ray of hope is my purple plant that is still alive since December 2005. But then again, that's the kind of plant that could look all brown and shriveled, but with the slightest hint of water, perk up and look all fresh again. :)

So I thought, one of these days, I need to pick up gardening, or I'll be surrounded by weeds, wildflowers and dandelions.

Well, yesterday's my attempt at gardening. It definitely helps to actually have a garden (that's set up really nice by the home's previous previous owner). It helps a lot to have a fiance who's working around the garden, mowing, weeding, fertilizing and mulching along while I was working on my garden. Also, to have a row of lily plants and clemantis on my condo that pretty much grows year after year with absolutely no care at all. That's a confidence bolster, if they can stay alive on their own, they should fare much better with some care, shouldn't they? Oh, and the tipping point, the next door neighbor's a gardening guru, so I can talk to her with my gardening questions, which so far consisted of: When can I plant my bulbs?

So, mark yesterday's date. I planted 18 bulbs of Stargazer Lily on the backyard. I literally dig a hole, (and dig again because I dug it 4 inches deep, and it's supposed to be 6 inches deep), and close the hole, and repeated it 18 times. Met a bunch of worms, said hi to my Lily bulbs, begged it to grow, and mixed a heap of soil with top soil and… (eww) manure. (Don't worry, the manure doesn't smell at all).

It was back breaking, but now I have a heap of dirt with 18 Lily bulbs underneath it. Today or tomorrow, I will plant 8 more bulbs, and then off to watering and fertilizing.

If you happen to pass by around June or August, check out my heap of dirt! It should have 18 pink Stargazer Lilies bobbing their heads to you (in August), or 8 multi-colored Asiatic Lilies waking up from their slumber (in June).

That is, if I've done everything right!! :D Cross your fingers. :)

~ Greenish brown thumb G

PS: Why lilies? Well, supposedly they're hardy, easy to maintain and pretty much can grow on their own as shown by my row of yellow lilies. In short, brown-thumb-proof flowers.

Nice quote

2009-04-09T13:21:00.001-04:00

A quote that I particularly like and would like to record on my blog:

"He told me that I had a soul, how does he know?" - Jean Valjean, Les Miserables

The day I saw myself dance

2009-03-26T12:19:00.000-04:00

On March 10th, 2009. For the first time ever, I saw myself dance.

Yes there were mirrors and glimpses of recordings before, but I've never seen myself dance for a full song. The most I've seen so far is a few seconds of recordings that my dear friend and sister took of the Christmas Choir concert last Dec.

What I found interesting is that how significantly better the dance is when viewed as a whole.

Background story: I am in Ministry in Motion in my church, and we have several songs that we are preparing for the Holy week. One particular song is quite long and there are many different movements, making it a bit harder than usualy to remember everything. So one day, the director brought her camera and recorded our rehearsal so that we can look back at it to remember what we've done.

What she recorded was our 2nd time of rehearsing the movements, which means that we've done the song in total, oh about… an hour so far. So understandably, there are many many parts of it that one/more of us forgotten and therefore, there were many discreet (or not so discreet) glances and pauses where we have forgotten what we're supposed to do next.

During the recording, I forgot quite a few, and thought, hmm… we definitely has to record a new one once we remember everything properly.

Once we're done, and saw the recording together, quite amazingly it looked just fine! When one forgots what to do, usually the others remember and since there are 5 of us, rarely do we pay attention to only 1 person and notice when she forgots her steps.

Another thing that I find really nice is that for the first time, I can finally see how the movements looks like in a group. The synchronous, staggered and group movements look so much better viewed as a whole (as opposed to viewed from the corner of my eyes).

So, I am glad that I can finally see myself dance. I've been wanting to do that for a long long time (not that I dance that often) … and I think it's really nice to be able to see myself to know what kinds of improvements can be made.

So there, I figure I'll record the date in my history. :D

Let's go Pluot!

2009-03-17T09:29:00.001-04:00

So I finally updated my iPod Playlist and this French song that sounded like "Allez Pluot" is playing … The song sounds like a dramatic love ballad that's a duet between Tina Arena and Pascal Obispo. However, due to my lack of understanding of the French language and my familiarity with this fruit called Pluot (Kind of like a flat plum .. Not sure why the bio engineers decided to make a flat plum), the song sounded like a these two singers trying to get a pluot to follow them. "Allez" --> Let's go.

Let's go Pluot! Come on, let's go Pluot!! I know it's hard to walk without legs, but come on Pluot!!

Hmm.. There goes the romantic vibe of the song. :P

Maybe one day I'll understand what the song meant, and then maybe, just maybe, the pluot imagery can be done away with.

Good morning to you all and have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day! (One of my patron saint by the way)

~ G

Multi-lingual

2009-02-20T16:08:00.001-05:00

I am currently: writing a document in English, listening to a French podcast and thinking/corresponding with e-mail in Indonesian.

Hmm.. It has been a long Friday… got to finish this long document by Monday 9 am… cia yo!!! Ganbatte!!

~ G

Of faith and fate

2009-02-16T15:09:00.001-05:00

I have been reading Amy Tan's pseudo-memoir called 'The opposite of fate'. Like other Amy Tan's works, this book is very good, full of her thoughts and musings about life. (It's pretty much how I aspire my blog entries to be)

Yesterday, I had my own thought regarding faith.

Amy Tan wrote that one of the differences between faith and fate is that with fate, you don't have any control, but with faith, you have the sense of control.

While singing in the choir last Sunday, I thought about how it seems that Indonesian Catholic Mass has more protocols to follow than that of a US Mass. In fact, it seems that Indonesian version of the liturgy (Baptism, Mass, etc) seems to have more protocols in general. More bows here and there, certain clothing to wear and certain mannerism in performing things.

It seems to be a more respectful way of doing Mass rather than the more casual way that I am used to do here.

Then I thought about how comforting it is to have many protocols to follow. Similar to the many (intricate too, I must say) Chinese engagement protocols.

Protocols give us the comforting feeling that we are somehow in control of the situation. If only we follow all of the protocols, we will be fine. We will have good relationship with God, receive His blessings and our Chinese marriage will go well. If anything goes slightly wrong, we can pinpoint the one protocol that we didn't execute properly and lay the blame on it.

In a way, it becomes like the Pharisees and their love of rules and protocols.

However, there is something to be said of receiving undeserving blessings.

I thought about the time when I wasn't so sure about what I should do. When I didn't know which voices I should listen to and which manual I should follow to be a good daughter of God. When it seems that all teachings are good, and yet at the same time, they are somewhat contradictory with each other.

Little did I know that those were one of the best times in my faith life.

In the midst of all the confusion, I tried hard to listen to the voice of God, but it seems like it get mixed up with all of the audible messages that I heard from the people around me. So I "froze", and tried to do my best to make my way through this jungle called life. In a time like that, when I wasn't completing my long checklist of to-do things that's required to be a good person, I was showered with God's blessing.

I didn't remember what the exact blessing was, or even when it happened. But I do remember how it felt. It felt so liberating, and I felt so secure in His love. It taught me that God is bigger than my to-do checklist. And that in the most undeserving time, He called upon my name and remembered me. I got a glimpse of what it felt like to be one of the lepers that Jesus touched 2000 years ago. In a world where many people ask 'What's in it for me' before doing something for others, it felt very humbling to be be touched when you have absolutely nothing to offer back. It taught me that God's blessing is not tied to how many points I accumulated from my to-do checklist. And most importantly, it taught me that God is not tied to a person, event, place or situation. God is truly everywhere and it has always been between you and God.

There is a danger that when somebody does many things to serve Him, they started to lose sights on what it was originally for. And that when they receive His blessings, they feel that they somehow deserve it. After all, they already did all of those things.

At least once in your lifetime, I hope that you will experience the joy of getting God's blessings when you feel you least deserve it. When it happened, it could be a small thing that passes by uneventfully. But in the hindsight, it would be one of the most powerful lesson that you would learn.

I know that all of the things that I learnt were cliches. Those are the things that all religious education teachers teach their students. But nothing drives home the lessons like your own experience!

Time and time again, I kept being reminded that no matter what, unless by my own will, I will never lose God. And I am grateful for a patient Teacher who never loses faith in His students.

~ G

End of year musings

2008-12-12T17:46:00.000-05:00

As customary (or at least once before), here is my end-of-year reflection.

I hereby proclaimed that (at least in my life), year of 2008 as the year of new "things".

So, this is the year of new "things" because there were several things that happened that I kept saying "oh, I'll only do that when the world turns upside down" …

So here are the new things:
1. I finally took a step in learning Chinese (this is the first upside down world thing)
For the longest time, I always thought that Chinese would be the last language that I would ever learn, simply because it's tonal and I tend not to do well with tonal language since I like to be able to say my sentences in my own melody. I finally realized how useful Chinese last year when both me and my friend Hendi can get around in France using French (me) and Chinese (Hendi). But come Italian cities, and my French becomes useless, yet Hendi's Chinese remains relevant. So, I finally decided to take a Chinese class and did some study on my own from the web. Unfortunately the class conflicted with my schedule, and I didn't take it this year. BUT, the motivation is there and one of these days I will learn Chinese!!! :D

Ok… the rest is to be posted later….

To be continued….

'Tis the season to be .... Married!

2008-11-20T10:17:00.001-05:00

Yo ho ho!!

It seems that everybody's getting married nowadays!! Within 1 month, the following happens:

- My high school best friend got married in Australia
- My college roommate announced that she's getting married next January in Jakarta and Bali
- And I learned that my graduate school classmate is also getting married soon

- Plus my choir's piano player is getting married next month (and the choir's pooling together money for a secret wedding gift.. Hush hush!)

- And my choir's sound engineer just got married a few weeks ago

I think that's it…. Oh, and did I mention that now I volunteer at my church as a wedding coordinator? Now I volunteered to run wedding rehearsals, set the church and coordinate the wedding on the wedding day!

To close this entry, a few weeks ago, on one of the Tuesday daily masses, we celebrated a couple's 64-year wedding anniversary. 64 years!!!!!!! I haven't even lived half that long!! 64 years!!!!! It's really sweet to see that old couple lovingly celebrating their 64-year wedding anniversary.. :)

And they live happily ever after….

~ G

Things to do while 25

2008-11-03T13:08:00.000-05:00

Copying the tradition of one of my friend, I created a list of (supposedly) 25 things that I want to do while I am 25. Except that I can only come up with 8. I created this back in… January '08 I think, before I turned 25 and then I sort of forgot about the list.

Well, I just stumbled upon the list again, and here is the update:

Things I want to do while I am 25:
1. Watch "Wicked"
- Done. Chicago Ford theater, Memorial weekend. I still like "Les Mis" better.

2. Complete half of my learn Piano
- Not done, and I don't think it will get done. :P

3. Read the Sisterhood of the Pants (in French) to completion
- Working on it. I am halfway through the book so far. :D

4. Get a manicure
- Done. My lovely boyfriend got me the spa gift certificate that includes a manicure and pedicure. :) I concluded that I am not a mani/pedi-type of girl. The manicure actually bothered me because I am not used to long nails, and then I proceeded to spend the next 3 days watching for signs of chipping. So, after the manicure I decided that I like my nails trimmed and short as they are right now, better for typing blog entries anyway. :D

5. Be in some kind of dance production where I get to learn some choreograph and dance with other people
- Surprisingly, done. When I wrote this, I was thinking about a play of some sort. But it turned out that coincidentally, I joined a Ballroom Rumba group dance showcase. I get to learn a group Rhumba choreograph, and danced the routine with 3 other ladies in a Ballroom studio's showcase night. I didn't realize it until today that I have actually done my no. 5 wish list! :) yay.

6. Sing with a decent volume
- Kind of done. I think. My choir director put me in the 'loud singer' section a few practices ago, so I guess now she can hear my voice.

7. Sing the songs with the proper breath, i.e. not cheating on breath
- Kind of done, depending on the song. On most songs, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I can actually complete the entire stanza (?? Sentence ??) in one breath as requested by the choir director.

8. Not be hoarse after singing
- Done. Most times I am less hoarse after singing that last year. So I will mark this as done for now.

Phew! What a year, and it's only November! :)

~ G

The end of the tree saga

2008-11-03T12:53:00.001-05:00

So, with great relief I can announce to the world that my tree saga has finally ended!

It all started when the tree on my front lawn died on a fateful Fall 2 years ago. Since then, it has been a neverending nuisance to try to get the tree back. You can read all about it on my previous blog entries.

Anyway, finally, the landscaping company came and planted my tree!!! I got a Crabapple tree as the replacement tree, which totally made me think of Bart Simpson's teacher. They planted it last September, and so far it has been faring well. The first frost has come, and the tree has been standing tall for 2 months in its new home. So far it hasn't died yet. Good. :)

Hopefully this tree will last, and maybe (dare I hope?) even bear fruit!

Happily living in a house with a front lawn with a tree,
Glenny

A tribute

2008-07-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

So I just found out that the lead engineer of my car died back in January 2006 due to overwork. His name is not released due to privacy. Well, to Mr. -my car- Lead Engineer, I tip my hat to you. You have built a good, well-built piece of machinery. Thank you for all your (and your team) hardwork and attention to details. As a customer, I thank you, your good name lives on through the great product that you built.

Also, condolences to his wife and daughter.

I feel sad for his wife and daughter, having a husband/father who passed away at the age of 45. I am guessing that they didn't spend much time with him, since he logged on average 80 hours of overtime per month. I hope that in the future, quality products do not come at the expense of personal and family life. I hope that worklife and family balance will no longer be a luxury, but a way of life. That quality work product and quality family time will no longer be mutually exclusive.

- moment of silence -

To garden or not to garden

2008-07-07T12:50:00.001-04:00

I know that I don't like gardening. I told myself that I should like it, because it seemed that all cute grandmas do it, and one day, God willing, I will be one myself.

My first foray into the plant world is my <free> Poinsettia plant (died 6 months later with fungus), and then <bday present> an orchid plant (died 8 months later even with special orchid food), <self bought> bunch of potted cilantro from Meijer (died, .. Or eaten, I forgot), <free> a random green plant (died from being forgotten outside on the deck through winter) and lastly <gift from a coworker who got laid off> my still-alive The Wandering Jews plant (although my friend told me that it's *very* hard to kill that plant).

With my purple Wandering Jew plant going on its 3rd year, I am feeling confident that my brown thumb had changed into… light brownish hue.

So, when my boyfriend bought a house with a garden that's wedged in between two beautifully manicured garden that are kept by two retired couples who are avid gardeners, I decided that I will help him gardening.

Lo and behold, I really enjoyed gardening! I spent my last few Sundays gardening and felt quite surprised when I actually enjoyed it! Just as I thought that I am well on my way into becoming one of those cute grandmas with beautiful flower beds, I realized that it's not gardening that I am fond of, ... it's quite the opposite of it.

You see, I have been trimming hedges, shaping bushes, trimming tree branches and pulling off weeds. Sounds simple, but believe me, there are a LOT of hedges and bushes to be shaped. And they haven't been trimmed for 2 years! So you can imagine that I chopped down a lot of branches, leaves, dead branches, dead roots and defiant weeds.

So all in all, turned out that I like to kill plants… not grow them. So my brown thumb is still brown, and I still don't like gardening. I just had a lot of fun using the power trimmer tools to whack, chop and shape. :D

Sigh…. :)

- <not-so> Gardener Glenny -

My Lion King Theology

2008-06-30T12:27:00.001-04:00

So I have been spending my morning listening to the Lion King Broadway recording, while typing a giganticly long user screen document, when suddenly a thought crossed my mind and lingered there.

Yesterday, on a young adult meeting with Fr. Pat, we talked about what faith means to all of us. And today, in 'He lives in You (Reprise)' song, Rafiki said 'Have faith…' when Simba looked into the water and cannot see anybody but himself.

Rafiki's implied words are similar to what I said about faith in yesterday's meeting, trusting that He is there even though at times we cannot see Him.

Just like Simba who found his father's reflection on his, we too find God's reflection on ours. After all, in Genesis it is written that we are created in His image.

"Into the water, into the truth…. He's watching over, he lives in you" said Rafiki..

We find truth in God, God lives within us and we are each a reflection of God.

That's my thought on the Lion King Theology this morning … :)

~ G

iPOD plastic cover

2008-06-13T14:47:00.001-04:00

Just want to record that after about 3.5 years of owning my iPOD mini, I finally remove the its click wheel plastic covering.. After 3.5 years, I finally know the texture of my iPOD mini's clickwheel!!!

Hmm.. And I used to make fun of my friend who kept his laptop plastic covering for months after he got his laptop.. :)

Hi Lau, thanks for the note… I should start making updates to my blog … :D

- G -

2008 Lenten Resolution

2008-02-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

Hey, it's Lent!

My favorite season of the year!! :D

So this year, again, I am trying to figure out what to do for my Lenten resolution. During last Sunday's Mass, while singing the Kyrie (An especially good and moving version of Kyrie, I really highly recommend you to listen to it if you can. I don't know who compose it, but I can find out. I can sing it for you if you want.. Oh, and for instruments, we had organ (rarity), violin and flute for accompaniment, really pretty combination!).

Anyway, while listening/singing Kyrie, I saw the procession of the priest coming in to the altar. Suddenly I remembered the lenten days of the past and I missed them terribly. I missed the days when I know people in the church, when I was actively involved in the church, when I know the stories of the RCIA candidates who were with me in the Mass, when I was a reader and when I know that I will meet my friends in Mass.

That was when I got my Lenten resolution this year. Instead of yearning for the past Lenten days, I want to make the present Lenten days to be as meaningful as the past years'. I don't know what to do yet, but I want to get to know more of the people in my current church, and be more active in it. I've been working on this for the past year and a half or so, and it's been not easy. But then again, miracles do happen during the Lenten season, and I figure, if I start from myself, and have a new outlook toward this, something good will happen.

So, that's my Lenten resolution.

Oh, I made a progress too! I asked the Lector coordinator whether I can lector during the Triduum Mass, since I won't be in the Triduum choir, and she is considering me!! Yay!!! If I can lector during one of the Triduum Mass, that would mean a LOT to me…. And if I can't lector, I will volunteer as a greeter (they're looking for greeters for Triduum Masses). I figure, that will go well with my Lenten resolution! :D

So, have a good Lenten season, friends!

Remember, you will always have hope, because Jesus Christ rose from the death. :)

<huggies, from a supercold girl in a supercold Michigan day>

Cadence of life in US vs Indonesia

2007-12-11T09:39:00.001-05:00

Random reflection from a conversation on a gloomy and rainy morning commute:

(Disclaimer: This is pure generalization from my own personal observation, not backed up by any scientifical research whatsoever.)

Elementary (pre-college) Education:
Indonesia -- hard (lots of memorization, drills, suffering hours)
US -- easy (more focus on concepts and applications)

College Education:
Indonesia -- easy (rumor has it…)
US -- hard (the time where I work the hardest in my life so far -- a quote in 2000 MIT recruiting brochure also says the same thing)

Work life:
Indonesia -- hard (rumor has it that they require long hours, like, staying 'till 2 - 4 am long)
US -- easy (relatively … work-life balance is respected)

Of course, all these really depends on the person, location, where you work/study, etc.

But in my very broad stroke of generalization, it seems to be this way for me. What do you think?

~ G

Hip hop vs. grammar

2007-12-10T17:01:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I feel that the more hip hop I listen to, the worse my grammar is becoming.

I've been to listening to a mixed song online radio station while at work, due to shortage of new songs for my iPod. Most of the songs are ok, but then now and then there are hip hop songs with wrong grammar, like 'Just the way I are'. :( The worst is when one of the refrain says 'Just the way I am are' to rhyme with 'the way you are' … :(

Hmm..

The other alternative is Josh Groban's Noel Album, which is just decadently wonderful. But unfortunately, there are only 10 songs there to tide me over until the end of the year. :P

Have a wonderful Advent!
~ G

Response to comment about oatmeal

2007-11-30T10:03:00.001-05:00

You can't really stir it if you fill your oatmeal cup to the brim, or it will spill out. Yes, you can fill it partially full, but the bowl (rather, cup) is really small, so you will get very little oatmeal that way! :P Yes, you can buy the larger bowl, but then you'll be paying extra for the extra space. :)

~ G

How to build your Oatmeal

2007-11-21T09:04:00.001-05:00

On some mornings, I eat oatmeal from the cafeteria for my breakfast. They served it in a gigantic bowl, and you take however much you want into your smaller bowl.

However, putting the brown sugar, cinnamon and granola at the top, will make your top oatmeal too sweet and your bottom oatmeal tastes bland.

So, you got to do it in layers:
First, lay the foundation of brown sugar, and granola. Just put a bit, since there will be more layers to come. You don't want your oatmeal to taste too sweet (or do you? :P )

Add a bit of oatmeal, and put more brown sugar and granola on top of it.
Continue all the way until the top of your bowl.
For the top layer, leave a bit of space for the last layer of sweetness.
Put a thin layer of sweetness, and this time top with cinnamon powder for your taste buds as well as olfactory senses (nose)

Voila! Healthy breakfast (relatively, cinnamon is good for you too!) with just the right amount of sweetness and it doesn’t require mixing your oatmeal at your desk, which can be messy.

A random posting especially after a long hiatus from posting, but oh well! :)

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!

~ G

On my mind

2007-10-10T11:24:00.001-04:00

This weekend I watched more movies that I usually do in a span of 3 months, so I figure, I'll list the entertainments that recently passed by my mind. Just because.

Movies:
- Volver (I like the small down-to-earth style of the movie. The plot is kinda horrifying, although believeable. Penelope Cruz is georgeous in this movie btw)

- The Whole Wide World (Renee Zellweger; weird and I don't really get it, but Renee apparently really liked this movie as said in the Special Features interview)

- Elizabethtown (Orlando Bloom is quite feminine in this movie, and Kirsten Dunst play the same type of character that she always plays in her movies)

- The Cat and Mouse (Andy Lau and Cecilia Cheung; reminded me of all the kungfu movies I grew up with. The settings is surprisingly old and dreary, or maybe I am just used to Holywood blitz?)

Books (on CD):
- Prep by Curtis Sittenfield - A really good book. The story is simple, about a girl's experiences during her years in a boarding school in East Coast. But the small details that are in this book are delightful. :)

- Man of my dreams by Curtis Sittenfield - I figure if the first book is great, then this one should be too. So far it's a so-so book, with wavering plot and ok narration.

Music:
- Soundtrack of Wicked, the musical: I've been meaning to watch this for a while. In the meantime, I am listening to the soundtrack. I must say, the first time I heard the first song (on random order) from the soundtrack, I liked it right away!

- Everything, by Michael Buble: Heard this song while in Italy, loved it for its simplicity and cuteness.
- Bubbly by Colbie Caillat: Simple, light, airy, made me think of riding in a countryside with the window down (which of course, never happened to me)

~ G

Flyin' colors!

2007-10-08T16:33:00.001-04:00

Yay, I have my life back!!! <leap and dance>

I am finally done with my big exam! I took CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional - 250 questions - 6 hours of drudgery) 2 Saturdays ago, learnt that I passed this past Friday, and now I am all partyin'!

I didn't realize how much this exam is taking a toll on my life until I realize that now I no longer have to head straight to the public library to study after work (although I kinda enjoyed being a quasi student for a while, with my backpack, cup of mocha and laptop), read 10 - 30 pages of material every night, sweat about whether I have enough material covered, worry about the wrong questions that I got on the practice tests, be paranoid that I will be sick and the worst of all, feel that I should be studying when I am out living my life.

So nowadays, I go home, and I still feel that I am supposed to quickly use the downtime that I have to squeeze in a few more page or reading, only……. I am done with the exam and I can finally rest!!! Now I can go to parties, eat dinner with friends, cook more food, watch movies, clean the house, do ironing, go shopping, go back to my choir practices, learn to dance, look at houses, … anything!!! I have my life back yay!!

Small print: Only, now I have to speed study for this networking class that I am taking whose final exam is this Thursday. :P I haven't been studying for this class for the past 3 weeks to prepare for that big exam. :) Oh well, after Thursday, I'll get my life back!

~ Happy Glenny

Best choc chip cookie ever!

2007-09-26T13:26:00.001-04:00

I found the best chocolate chip ever!! I like chocolate chip cookies, in fact, that's the only kind of cookies that I eat, chocolate chip cookies, no sugar nor M&M cookies for me. I used to like the soft-baked choc chip cookies, until I feel like I am eating cookie dough. Store-bought cookies are too dry, and homemade cookies are good, but they are not readily accessible (Unless, I guess, I made them myself). I never like specific chocolate chip cookies as much as I like this one.

It is ……………….. <drum roll>

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies from Potbelly

(baked fresh daily) $4 or so for a small bag.

They are super yum!! Just the right amount of chewiness at the center and soft crunchiness at the side, the perfect 3-bite size, the perfect center thickness and the perfect amount of chocolate chip. Plus, you got the (minuscule) health effect from eating oatmal, not to mention the chewiness!!

The homemade cookies that comes very close to this cookies are the ones made by Maggie (Kat's sister)…. Yum yum yum! :)

So excited!

Api = fire

2007-09-06T19:41:00.001-04:00

While studying for my exam, I was looking up information about sprinkler system (the difference between wet, dry and preaction systems), and bumped into API Fire Protection Group website. It provides the information I needed, but even more interesting, API means 'Fire' in Indonesian, so it's a very appropriate name for a Fire Protection Group. So I was thinking that this must be an Indonesian or at least Asian site of some sorts. It turned out that they only have offices in US, Canada and United Kingdom! Now I wonder, how did they get that cute/clever name? What a cute coincidence! :)

~ G

Books on CD

2007-09-04T11:18:00.000-04:00

I figure, since I have 30 mins (+/- 10) of commute each way every day, I might as well do something with those times.

I used to listen to books on CD for my commute, and learn foreign language too, but then it became boring, that listening to radio is more fun than listening to the books. So I stopped.

But recently, I started listening to books on CD again. It all began when I serendipitiously found 'Freakonomics' on CD in my company library. I've been meaning to read it for the past year, but never had the time for it. So, great! Now I can 'read' it because I can do it on my commute!

Then, propelled by the 'Freakonomics' successful experience, I listened to 'Tipping Point' (by Malcolm Gladwell, author of 'Blink'). Unfortunately, this book is not as interesting as 'Freakonomics', and I am slowly slipping back to the era of boring books on CD.

So I decided to go to my local library, and borrowed fun chick novels that I never get to read (or feel guilty reading, since I feel that I should be doing something else instead, i.e. study or clean the house or read my piling Time magazine subscriptions). I borrowed 'In Her Shoes', a chick-flick novel (the movie starred Cameron Diaz), and been 'read'-ing it since 2 weeks ago.

Now I see my commute in a completely different light! Now I really don't mind traffic jam; no more stressful feeling when my commute takes 40 minutes instead of the usual 21 minutes, no more antsy feeling when I got stuck behind the left-turn light that only blinks green for 2 seconds, and I feel just fine and serene when my lane is not moving and the other lane is speeding by.

But wait, there's more! I also started looking forward to my workdays, because that means I get to know what happens next in the story. I got up in the morning, and the thought of wanting to know what happens next in the book motivates me like the carrot in front of a donkey. Once, I even cleaned up the whole interior of my car, just so that I can keep listening to the book and know what happens next.

So…. When your commute starts to get annoying, try 'read'-ing a fun book that you never get to read!

- Book worm Glenny -

Days of sleepiness

2007-08-24T13:58:00.001-04:00

So I have been really sleepy at work these past few days, and I stoop to a new low level in the kinds of food that I eat in a futile effort to stay awake. Here is the chronicle:

Day 1: Went to the shop for hot coffee, came back with Good Humor Ice cream cone.
Verdict: Not bad, the walk to the shop wakes me up more than the ice cream. Especially since the ice cream fell down to the floor due to me trying to lick hard frozen ice cream with too much strength, leaving me with the crunchy cone.

Day 2: Chewy candy, the chewiness will wake me up, so the theory goes.
Verdict: Success. I chose Starburst, and the sweet-sourness mix plus the chewiness provides me with the chewing activity that keeps me alert, as well as sugar mini high.

Day 3: Beef Jerky - for the chewiness and hard to eat factor.
Verdict: No no no no way! Not only that it doesn't taste that good and is unhealthy for you, this snack also fails to keep me awake.

So for now, I am just going to shower myself with Starburst. Man, look at what I do to my body in the name of staying awake at work…. ^_^

- awake - for - now - Glenny -

Lost in translation

2007-08-20T09:23:00.000-04:00

Heart (the card symbol) is translated to 'hati' in Indonesian.

They use 'hati' symbols for Valentine and other lovey dovey stuff.

Heart (the human organ) is translated to 'jantung' in Indonesian.

'Hati' (the human organ) is translated to ….. 'liver' in English.

Now, for some unknown twisted medical reason, some sappy poems sometimes say that one's lover is one's 'jantung hati', which, when loosely translated, means liver's heart.

Confusing.

- G -

Swimlane diagram

2007-08-13T14:59:00.001-04:00

In the absence of MS Visio, MS Excel is the best tool to create swimlane diagrams, or any other diagram for that matter.

It has most of MS Word's flowchart capabilities, *and* it can span multiple pages seamlessly (very important for long diagrams). Excel doesn't have a keyboard shortcut for center alignment though.

The resulting file is not as big as MS Powerpoint, and you can still do the same styling that you can do in Powerpoint.

Hope this is useful for those who are deprived of Visio but need to create charts and the likes. :)

~ G

Random thought - dance

2007-08-08T15:56:00.001-04:00

Here I am assigning values into my mini database, and a random thought went into my head…

I've never seen myself dance!

I've seen pictures, I think a total of 3 pictures total. 2 swing dancing and 1 worship dancing. That's about it.

I guess I just don't rehearse in places that have mirrors, or have my dance routine videotaped. Back in highschool, I took dancexercise as my afterschool activity, but the gym floor has no mirrors. When I did ballroom dancing, sometimes I practiced in studios with mirrors, but I am partner-dancing, so I can't see myself dancing. And when I do worship dancing, we practiced in racquet ball court (shhh!), conference hall, and my living room, again, no mirrors.

There is, however, a tape of me dancing (oooooh!). I went to my friend Ryan's wedding, and I think my friend Jim taped me while I was swing-dancing there. I never see the tape though… Hmm… Come think about it, there's also a taped worship dance session during ASM's anniversary celebration, but I don't think I was in the tape, it was mostly Yolanda, and it was like 3 seconds long.

So yeah, random thought, I've never seen myself dance. :) So I guess I'll just stick with the picture I have in my head about how I look like when I dance… Might be better that way too! :P

~ G

Me and the chair

2007-08-08T15:24:00.001-04:00

I feel silly….

After 3 days in the new job…. (and new chair) …. I finally figured out how to configure the back support of my chair! The back was very straight before, which doesn't really bother me, until my back, shoulder and neck started hurting today…

I was shifting left and right, adjusting my monitor, the angle to which I sit on the desk (the desk is curvy), but alas, no luck. And then… while on the phone, complaining about the very chair to my boyfriend, I finally found the 2 knobs that I didn't see before.

Ahhh…….. Paradise….. Well, not quite, but still pretty nice. :)

My chair's back support can finally recline, and the resistance can be adjusted…. <happy sigh…….>

I hope my back problem will go away soon now. :D

PS: Now I can relate to Miu and my other friends who have back problems…. :(

~ G

Growing pains

2007-08-08T12:57:00.001-04:00

Growing up is hard to do… that seems to be the theme of my past 2 weeks.

In the past month, I have been thinking of what I want to do… In life, professionally and spiritually. Nothing big happened really, it's just that we have to pick a job rotation 3 weeks ago, so I went about thinking of what I want to do for my next rotation, which leads to what I want to do professionally, which leads to long term planning, which leads to thinking about my life in general. Grr you job carousel! :)

So, why is it so hard to figure out what I want?

I live a life that I considered privileged. I am given the ability to choose what I want, I might not get everything, but the option is there. I can choose what to major in school, where to go for my job, even what I do in my job (through the rotational program).

So, why is it, after 5 years of schooling and 2 years of cube-dwelling, I still don't know what I want to do for a living? Something techie, something people-oriented, some problem-solving, and something that involves continuous learning. That's about what I figured out so far. Not much, but it’s a start.

Why did I say that growing up is hard to do? Well, after pondering about what I want to do in my job, I got to pondering what I want to do in my domestic life. I was thinking about what kind of person I want to become, and what kind of relationship I want to have with my sister. How I can be stern and instilling discipline on her, but loving at the same time. In short, I am learning the art of parenting, kind of, in the nano-scale. And let me tell you, it's hard.

That's all. Only 2 things really. Job and sister. But I feel that these 2 issues brought me into many intersections of life, where I get to decide into what kind of person I will become.. Much like the little chips that a sculptor makes in the process of creating a sculpture.

The mini decisions that will differentiate my ideal view of Glenny, and my reality of who I am. :)

~ Pondering Glenny

Note to Law, Herry and Scott

2007-07-27T08:38:00.000-04:00

Hehehe… ^_^

Actually the post was inspired by Herry's recent blog post… I got an e-mail everytime he updated his blog, so I thought, hmm.. Maybe I should update mine too! :)

To Law and Herry, see you soon!
To Scott, talk to you soon!

~ G

Glenny vs puzzles

2007-07-24T14:45:00.001-04:00

I'd like to think that I am a simple person..

However, I really like puzzles. :) I buy 1 puzzle every year from this booth 'Toys from the Times Past' in Ann Arbor Art Fair. This year I bought one that consists of 4 cubes and a box. You're supposed to put those 4 cubes into the box, but the cubes are not exactly cubes, some of the sides are slanted. Hence, they won't go in easily. :)

I like jigsaw puzzles… By chance, I have been working on the Disney photomosaics 1000 pieces puzzle series. I got 4 done so far, and 1 on the way.

I like brainteasers…. I used to gather some for my highschool's Math Club bulletins.

I like wooden puzzles… and to some extent, the wire/bended nail puzzles.

I like optical illusions… does that count as puzzles?

I like the logic questions in the old GRE… those are kind of like puzzles. :)

I like my life to be simple, but Iike my toys to be puzzling. :) The nice thing about puzzle is that the problem is contained within your puzzle. With puzzles, most of the time, you have all the resources, information and problem statement, right there in your hand. The problem is within your control.

And when you made that logical leap that allows you to look into a problem in a different way, you suddenly discovered the answer that has been there all along. The jigsaw pieces go together, the cubes assembles into the box nicely, the 2 nails separates and the problem is solved.

It makes you wonder, what will you find in life, if you look at it with a different angle, a different perspective, a different expectation?

Hmm…
~ G ~

Growing pains

2007-05-11T14:42:00.001-04:00

This week I learnt quite a bit about myself.. My poor little sister is sick… and I've always joked that she's like my kid. My coworkers talk about their kid, I talk about my sister.

Went home early to take care of her, worked from home to make sure she's ok, took her to the doctor and et cetera. What I am not prepared for is how it affects me psychologically. Doing "mom" chores is only a small part of the equations, what's going on inside is a larger part of the equation.

I am discovering things about myself, and learn to cope and deal with it.

Maybe one day I will be ready to be a mom… It is much more complex than diapers and discipline. I really appreciate moms a whole lot more now. I used to appreciate it from the angle of what they have done for us, but going through my 8 months or so with my sister made me appreciate moms from a different angle. And I don't even have my own kid yet…. :)

Happy Mother's day…..

On a different note, for some reason, people at my workplace has been quite stressed out lately. Some because of a rough patch, some because of extra work, and some because some domestic thing that I have no business of knowing. That, combined with my sister being sick on the back of my head, kind of affects me. Some thoughts mulling over in my head… Growing pains… in learning about yourself and moving forward, you discover things that you don't quite want to admit. Realization that you might fall a bit short of your original goal, and how you've changed over the years.

I guess I am growing a bit more this week… finding out who I am, finding things to straighten out in my life, and learning how to take just another step into this crazy funky thing called adulthood.

Cheers,
~ G

Tree oh my tree (cont'd)

2007-05-08T17:11:00.001-04:00

Now how could a receptionist say "You have reached the after-hour number where we can only take emergency requests. I cannot route you to anybody, I can only take emergency request. However, I cannot tell you what the business hour of the office is."

The least she can do is tell me that the office is closed. Sigh….

Doesn't seem like I am getting a new tree, the new condo management doesn't want to take care of the problem. Telling me to contact the builder directly. The problem is, I have been in contact with the previous management company in dealing with my tree problem, hence I don't quite know the contact info of the tree company. Grrr….<angry>

I want my tree!!!

<sigh……>

~ Tree-less Glenny

Closure

2007-04-29T23:20:00.001-04:00

Never really thought about closure until I watched the one 'Friends' episode when Rachel said that she finally got closure over Ross.

Funny how your mind tells you that you've got closure over a past relationship but your heart is just isn't ready yet. Your brain and rational thinking will say (and try to convince you quite rigorously, I might add) that you've got closure already... But when it got manifested in an action a few days, months, years later, it caught you by surprise, because you thought that you've already closed the case way back when.

In my case, it came in the form of listening to sappy love songs and no longer be angry and cynical about them..

It came in the form of finally being able to look into a person's past (blog) and not take it personally...

It came in the form of peace... knowing that the decision to break up is the right one, and that it was nobody's fault. It's just as simple as finally realizing that you are just not the right person for each other and decided to part ways instead of forcing something that wasn't meant to be.

It came in the form of acquiescing that (maybe) mom was right, even though I still respectfully disagree with her... That she does have some valid points that I would so idealistically write-off because, well, I was young and idealistic....

It's funny how all at once it hits you in the face. All the pieces of the puzzle finally interlocked together, and all the missing pieces fall into place. The cases are closed, and now it's time to begin a new chapter in my life. No bitterness and no hard feelings. Just some personal thoughts and (I hope) a bit more maturity.

~ G

Simple joys in life

2007-04-29T22:34:00.001-04:00

Many little things in life give me such joy...

One of it (that happens to be happening right now, hence I decided to write about it) is laying here in my bed, working on a homework, listening to soft jazz/pop, with the late Spring wind breezing through my window.

My favorite Glenny time: To curl up with a nice book, warm and cozy, with soft classical jazz music playing in the background.

Too bad I didn't get to do that too often...

That's why, even though I am doing work instead of fun reading, I still treasure this wonderful unexpected Glenny time... :)

~ G

From my desk

2007-04-27T14:51:00.001-04:00

My quote from my chat with a coworker today, he really liked it, so I figure I'll post it here:

"Back about overtime: last year you might need to do it, and you might know that it's not a permanent thing. You are the best judge of a best way to spend an hour of your life... and if I know that your family is important to you, then I trust your judgement in how you spend your time in relation to overtime vs family time"

~ G

Paranoid Glenny

2007-04-26T10:59:00.001-04:00

Due to recent readings regarding ID theft and personal information disclosure and all the hullabaloo surrounding that, I became a paranoid person. :)

So, here's the deal with my blog (most of these are implemented already):
- I won't use last names when mentioning other people in my blog
- I will be rather vague in mentioning names of places
- No picture posting (sadness… I was about to post my first picture on my blog too!)

Effect on you:

If you want to know more detail about something, shoot me a comment. I am more than happy to share my stories with you. If I know your e-mail address, just leave me your initial or something. Most of the time I can recognize who you are from your writing.

If I don't know your e-mail, you can post your e-mail on the comment, and I can remove the comment afterwards.

If you feel that any posting on my blog reveals too much of your personal information, let me know.

This is done so that I don't have to limit who can read my blog…. Trying to strike the balance of free-for-all blog postings, letting you guys know what's up with miss Glenny and keeping personally-identified-information safe at the same time. :)

Lastly, feel free to post comments making fun of me for being so paranoid…. ^_^

Cheers!

~ G

2006/2007

2007-04-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

Quickie entry that is long-due:

If I have to sum my 2006 in a sentence:
"In true love, there is freedom"

If I have to sum my first quarter of 2007 in a sentence:
"Things are not like what they seem to be"

Maybe one day I will finally elaborate these sentences, as well as post my "2006, year in review" posting. :)

~ G

Italian?

2007-04-16T12:48:00.001-04:00

Seems like if you're speaking Italian, no matter what you're saying, you sounds like you're asking a question. :)

Branching off from my regular French podcast to learn bits and pieces of Italian. :P Vorrei quello? <sp> --> I want that one.

With my luck, my sentence will begin with a bit of German, continued with some Italian in the middle, and will always end with French's "s'il vous plait" (English = Please)

Potpourri of European language. :P

~ G

New cell phone

2007-04-16T12:24:00.001-04:00

For a person who doesn't really care about updating to the latest and greatest cellphone (or any other gadgets for that matter), today's a Kodak moment for me.

In my purse, there are 2 (not one, but two!) brand new cell-phones! And one is one of those cute smart-phone.

Let's see whether they actually increase productivity. :)

Cute, two shiny new gadgets (actually, they both have brushed-satin finish) hanging out in my purse, like ebony and ivory, T-Mobile and Cingular.

~ G

A little note

2007-04-16T09:15:00.001-04:00

Met a friend last weekend where I can finally not feel guilty about being me.

It's kinda nice! :)

~ G

Note: "Guilty" is not necessarily the right word, it's kinda strong, but due to lack of knowledge of a better word, "guilty" will have to do for now.

It's different in France

2007-04-11T13:14:00.001-04:00

In France, they measure internet speed with Octe (sp?)

1 Octe = 8 bytes.

1MO = 1 Mega Octe = 8 Mega Bytes in the US.

c'est interessant, n'est ce pas?

~ G

Spookies

2007-04-09T23:16:00.001-04:00

After a long deliberate dry spell of horror movies, I finally watched a horror movie this weekend. On my own accord, can you believe that?

For those who don't know, I don't really like horror movies because I am really jumpy (maybe that's why people like to watch jumpy movies with me, but that's another story). Yeah yeah yeah, I know that those creepy crawly stuff are made up and not real, but I still get spooked. :)

So, last weekend, it was a Kodak moment. Out of my own accord, I suggested a horror movie to watch and actually watched it.

I watched The Reaping.

As far as movies go, it's not that good. It's kinda artsy, but not quite there. And it kinda forces you to be scared. It has all the classic tricks that you can find in a horror movie knapsack. And it's a jumpy movie, of course. :)

I wanted to see the 10 plagues that were mentioned in the Old Testament. The frogs are rather gross.. yikz, and the first half an hour reminded me of my former roommate's homework (she's in Environmental Science, and has to go through lakes to get water samples and duckweed samples)

So yeah, just thought that I should record this momentous moment, I watched a horror movie.... most of it at least.... :)

~ G

PS: Did I mention that there were a bunch of highschool girls who sat behind us? Yeah... great scream-y stereo sound..... :)

My tree, oh my tree

2007-04-09T15:39:00.001-04:00

So, there's this cute little tree in front of my front door.

Unfortunately, it died.

Fortunately, it's still under warranty.

So winter 2 years ago, I called and asked for the tree to be replaced. They told me to wait to make sure that the tree is really dead on not just being dormant, and to tie a ribbon on the tree to indicate which one it is, and for the next few months, people asked me why I tie a nice ribbon on my dead tree. Finally, they came and took the tree out...... on Spring. Then I proceeded to wait for the new tree to be put in. They said that they can only plant the tree during Spring. Sadly, my phone calls to my condo association fell on deaf ears, or blown-by-the-wind post-it notes maybe? And then, the management company changes last year, and I think my one tree plea is lost in the shuffle. So, I just called the new company, this being theoretically Spring and all, and asked them about my tree. The new person has no clue about the tree, and told me to that the request is recorded. We'll see..... I hope I will have a new tree soon. :)

~ G

Lenten resolution -- finale

2007-04-09T03:11:00.000-04:00

Final scorecard for my lenten resolution?
1. The no meat thing was holding up pretty good until the end. I was feeling under the weather, and we were eating a nicely prepared Seder dinner, so I figure, better stay healthy than getting sick. Yeah, I won't do the no meat thing anymore next year. It doesn't really help me in my faith, I did have to control my craving for meat at times, but it's not that bad. Gotta find something better next year. :)

2. The "I left my dreams to die somewhere in 2006" thing? I neither left the dreams, nor picked them back up. I came to a neutral place where I can finally let God do His thing. I finally gave them to Him and trust Him with whatever He wants to do with them. I no longer try to guess what God's thinking nor try to argue why my way is the good way. I sit back, relax, and realized that I finally did what I wanted so hard to do last year, and failed. (Actually, I just realized it as I typed that sentence). It's a new feeling, one that I never thought I could have. Just as I thought that this resolution will either go one way or the other, it surprised me by taking a route that I didn't foresee before. I guess life is like that too! :)

~ G

Easter musing

2007-04-09T02:56:00.000-04:00

Easter is a gift.

Yes, indeed it is.

Jesus gave his life for us so that we can join Him in the heaven, and that is indeed the most wonderful gift that could possibly be given.

However, the privilege, the ability to celebrate Easter is also a big gift that is given to us year after year. Being able to go through Lent, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and then celebrate Easter at the end is such a great gift for us. For 40 days each year, we get to experience such journey that molds us, gave us humility and cleanse us. For 3 days, we get to feel God's love so great that we wondered how we could ever forget such love a mere month, or even days, later. Through this experience, we are allowed to face our sins and fears, empowered to turn our backs to them and raised up fresh and new in Christ.

I am glad that we go through this whole journey, instead of only celebrating Easter on Easter Sunday.

The gift of Easter would not be complete without Lent, Holy Thursday and Good Friday that preceded it.

I am glad that we have that gift, every year.

~ G

Happy Easter!

2007-04-09T02:32:00.000-04:00

Easter has been my favorite time of the year for the past few years. I get really excited come Ash Wednesday, and the closer it is to Triduum (the 3-holy days - Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday), the giddier I get.

For the past few years, Easter has been a time of renewal for me.

Easter marks the beginning of a new year in my life. Not New Year's day, not Chinese New Year, and not even my birthday. It's Easter.

It feels that during Lent and Good Friday, and old part of me died, my hopelessness and my pain all died and get left behind. And with the coming of Easter, I am risen again with Jesus, all new and fresh. A chance to start over again, a chance to feel what it's like to be a new person, freshly redeemed.

Somehow, this past few years, some big things happened in my life. I call it my Easter gift.

This year, my Easter gift is to be able to attend Easter Vigil mass as a sponsor.

Throughout the year, I cannot participate in the RCIA program (both in St. Mary nor Beckett) due to my choir schedule. Besides, the Beckett RCIA people comes with their own sponsor. As the Triduum draws near, I feel a pang of sadness that this year I won't be able to participate in the Easter Vigil.

I've always participated in one way or another since I get to MI. As an usher, lector, sponsor, RCIA team, sometimes in more ways than 1. Triduum, especially Easter Vigil, has been a very special time for me.

I didn't want to be in the Triduum choir, because I really want to be able to feel the Mass and not have to worry about whether I hit the right notes or whether I am out of breath.

But a few weeks before Easter, Irene called me, saying that she wanted to get baptized..... and she wanted me to be her godmother.

I was very very happy, for several reasons, one, of course, that Irene will be baptized... and two, I get to participated in the Easter Vigil!

That was a very special gift that Irene and God gave to me this year.

It is interesting how the Triduum unfolds every year. I would think that it highly depends on my faith-state that year, and how much effort I put into it. This year, I scaled back a lot, and yet, it is still an impactful time for me.

I thought it will have something to do about the church I go to. This year I went to Christ the King triduum, and while I do miss St. Mary's song, I get to appreciate other "flavor" of Triduum. Like I said to those who asked which one's better, "Different church, different style, different people". Different styles, same God.

St. Mary is more contemporary and Christ the King is more old-school. CTK is more solemn and majestic. The CTK Easter Gloria was really awesome! I thought I could just burst out out of happiness right then and there... it was really wonderful and my heart and body can barely contain it. I felt like an inadequate vessel being poured and overflowed with joy and happiness. St. Mary's Holy Thursday and Good Friday are more impactful liturgically, because of the procession to the basement at the end of Holy Thursday and the big crosses on Good Friday. Also, because the altar in St. Mary is simple, it is glaring when it was stripped out of its usual altar cloth, so it was a striking difference on Good Friday. CTK's church has marble and gold theme, it's pretty much a vision of heaven.

All in all, it was a wonderful Triduum.

:)

Happy Easter everybody!! Jesus Christ is risen!! :)

~ G

Random

2007-04-08T02:55:00.000-04:00

I asked for a proof-of-concept, and He gave me a proof-of-concept. Now it's my turn to remember that it is only a proof-of-concept, and not the final product. But, boy is it good!!!

Added friends' blogs

2007-03-31T13:48:00.001-04:00

Just added some of my friends' newfound blogs... It was nice, now they're all displayed neatly on the right column over there, with one problem, some of them are from different places that requires you to be a member of that site in order to post a comment. Why, oh why? I want to leave some comments, but I don't quite want to create several accounts in different places just to do so... Hmmm..

PS: If you have a blog, let me know!

~ G

Lenten resolution

2007-03-29T01:18:00.001-04:00

My Lenten resolution this year:

1. Not to eat meat on Wednesdays and Fridays: This doesn't mean that I will have a sushi-fest on those days, I will try to eat cooked veggies. I figure this is good since it requires some effort in me cooking, and some self-control in me not eating yummy meat and yummy sushi.

2. Resurrect my dreams. To borrow a quote from a song that I've never heard - "I left my dreams to die, somewhere in [2006]". It was rather sad, those dreams are very much a part of me, a big part of how I see the world. In the beginning of Lent, I was praying in the chapel, and I figure, if anybody can resurrect those dreams, it would be God. And maybe, this Lenten season would be a good time to trust Him with those dead dreams and just surrender faithfully with what the outcome might be.

Mid-End Lenten review:

1. I ate meat twice on those days: the day I donate blood, and today when I am sick. So far I am good in this resolution, ate sushi for dinner once on a Wednesday. But in general, I am keeping the spirit of the resolution. Getting myself to cook veggie turned out to be much harder than I thought, especially since I have to go to Ann Arbor to get the veggies. >,<

2. I didn't have much hope for this resolution, seeing that there's not much thing that I can do to resurrect my dreams. But since I gave those dreams up to God, things have been surprisingly taking turns for the better. Several things happen during the season, big and small, that made me think that it might be possible for me to accept those dreams again. Puzzle pieces slowly fall into their places, and I am starting to see the big picture in a new way. I am still not fully ready yet, but then again, I still have 2 weeks 'till Easter. :)

~ G ~

Pitter patter of rain

2007-03-29T01:04:00.001-04:00

Just realized last Monday that I don't think I've heard the sound of rain since I moved to the US, say.... 8 years ago or so.

I am talking about the sound of rain hitting the roof or the ground on a long rainy day, that lulls you to sleep. I think this is because:

1. My highschool dorm is a big stone building and I lived on the second floor, hence, no sound.
2. My apt in college is either half underground, facing a grassy hill or in a lofty 3rd floor, hence, no sound.
3. My condo is pretty quiet, I should be able to hear some rain hitting the deck, but still, no sound. (Could it be because I have awesome windows? )

So, after chatting with my coworker who didn't sleep the night before due to listening to rain all night long, I decided to open my window a bit last night. It was raining the whole night, and I can finally hear the rain drops on the ground. Aaah... such a nice calming sound, I love rainy days.

...

Except that this morning I woke up sick and has to stay home. >,<

~ Sick Glenny

How to cure a hiccup

2007-03-29T00:58:00.001-04:00

I thought that hiccup cures are just whimsical invention by people who wants to make their friends do silly things. Turned out, there really is a potent cure for hiccup:

- Sip a little bit of water
- Tilt your head forward (like you're bowing to the hiccup God)
- Swallow the water in that position
- Repeat 3 times or so

I didn't believe it, but it worked. I had to get rid of a hiccup in 5 minutes before the Mass started (I am in the choir), and it worked!!

~ G ~

A wonderful little weekend

2007-03-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

This has been a really nice weekend. Nothing super big, just a series of small events that warms my heart.

It started with a nice Friday at work, with a big-hearty-gotta-stop-before-I-hurt-myself laugh courtesy of playing with ettercap with my partner in crime. :) Biggest laugh at work ever!

I then spent early part of Friday night doing a geeky thing, working out the ethical hacker challenge of the month puzzle and submitted my answer. Good times with my Friday night date ^_^

Then around 11, my longtime friend from Ohio arrived. I showed him my geeky puzzle, and then he showed me this Indonesian puzzle site. So of course, us being geeky dorks, we just have to start working on it together... :) We got to level 19 that night, not too bad... :P It feels nice to have a friend who likes puzzles too. It was really good times, a night of working on puzzles with a good friend.... :) Being dorky together... figuring out annoying clues ... reading the funny postings from people who are frustrated with the puzzles... :)

On Saturday was the ASM Anniversary event. I felt that God was teaching an important lesson this year, and 1 more piece of the puzzle falls into place during the Anniversary event. The revelation struck a chord in me, and I grew as a person from it.

Sunday morning, I went to RCIA. Turned out that Fr. Ed's the one who gives the talk that day. He is a really good speaker, and I wanted to stay, but I have to leave early for 12 Noon Choir at Beckett. I was really sad, and as the clock's hand creeps in to the time that I have to leave, I become sadder. The talk was really good. I was thinking and weighing my options, when right at the time that I had to leave, a person came in and told Fr. Ed that since the priest for the current Mass is a no-show, he will have to give Mass in 5 minutes. Now, it's not a good thing to happen for the RCIA people per-say to lose their speaker mid-speech, but at that moment, my jaw just dropped because it is as if God heard what I was thinking and basically said don't worry about it, I'll take care of it.

I went to choir practice feeling like I am in seventh heaven. Lo and behold, the percussion people came! Usually I don't see them unless it's a special occassion. I love the percussion, especially for this song "Tree of life", it gave the song a whole new depth. I had goosebumps singing it with the percussion. :) For meditation, the choir director sang "Our Father" which is written by our cello/bass guitar/harmonica/piano/guitar player, and the ministry in motion did a sign-language-based dance to it. It was a really beautiful song..... Beautiful choir Sunday....

The day rolls on to my friend's 80th birthday party, where I thought it will be not so fun because I will not know most of the people there. What do I know? When I got there, I had fun playing balloons with the 2 little girls, and I chatted away with most of the guests. Who knows that I connect well with people twice thrice my age? It was surprisingly fun, and I even gave them a mango demonstration! :P My sister and I left with new friends and finally meeting the people in the family tree that we heard so much about. :)

Then comes dinner, my friend cooked me shrimp alfredo .... Yumm!!!! Really really good! Got a great salad, shrimp alfredo, Riesling (that one's from me), a little candle and some good times with a good friend. My sister loved the leftover so much, so I think I have to ask for the recipe now. :) It was really nice, it has been a while since I hang out with a friend and just cook food and eat together...

Then....... (a few hours later) I found out that I got an e-mail from my idol!! Apparently he read my puzzle submission, and wrote me an e-mail!! Within a day!! Yay!! So exciting...... ^_^ Turned out that we both graduated from UM, Go Blue!! :)

Then I got a ride home from my friend in his nice sporty car. I used to carpool with him for a month and I rode with him several times before, but luck has it that I never rode with him in that car through a highway, so that's exactly what we did!

And... as a little cherry on top to close the weekend, I got to have a nice conversation with one of my good friend, who's kinda down at the moment (or is hopefully asleep by now), but a nice chat nevertheless.... :)

So, that's my nice little weekend, full of tidbits that makes my heart all warm and fuzzy... I was smiling throughout the Mass today, just enjoying the feeling of God's love... :)

Thank you to all of you who made my weekend a wonderful little weekend! :)

~ G

ping

2007-03-17T22:05:00.001-04:00

I just learnt that ping stands for "Packet Internet Groper" ...... now that I know that the 'g' stands for 'groper', I feel a bit hesitant in ping-ing computers. Makes me feel a bit like a pervert, groping the internet and all....

G

Mother of three

2007-03-17T20:35:00.001-04:00

Hi all,

I am a mother of three, soon to be four.

.

Seriously........ :)

I am a god-mother of three wonderful ladies. :) Over the past few years, I have been active in the RCIA program and participated as a sponsor, hence I became a god-mother. :) This year, I am not participating in the RCIA program in St. Thomas Beckett, mostly because the RCIA participants there come with their own sponsor, and also because the time clashes with choir practice.

But.... I just found out that Irene's getting baptized this Easter, and she wants me to be her god-mommy!! :) (Long history, we actually did almost a year of RCIA together in the past...)

So I am so excited to have the honor to be her god-mother this Easter! :) It's going to be a wonderful Easter Vigil! ^__^

Yay!! So, finally, after all these years, I will be going to Christ the King Church for Easter Vigil! :)

Happy St. Patrick's day! :)

~ Totally-sober-and-not-wearing-green-Glenny

Chivalry's not dead

2007-03-17T01:14:00.001-04:00

Apparently chivalry's not quite dead yet... :)

Went to a friend's birthday party, and then went to a bar with the group. Since I didn't quite feel like driving, I carpooled with my 2 friends to the bar. On the way back, the snow has fallen and my car was covered in light snow. After saying bye to them, I walked to my car. I was surprised to see one of my friend (the driver) walking to my car as well and proceeded to brush all of the snow away from my car. Rear, passenger, driver and front windows...

All of the snow, from all of my windows.

He told me to get in to the car so that the snow won't get in, as he went around my car brushing the snow away.

I was just so surprised and awed... that was just sooooo nice! I was really taken aback...After he brushed my car, he just got into his car and left.. he didn't wave or anything. That was really nice.... I didn't expect that at all.. wow.....

I guess chivalry is not quite dead yet...... come think about it, he did dropped me and his friend in front of the bar, so we didn't have to walk in the cold. Apparently, chivalrious guys are not extinct yet.

You might argue that the guy might be interested in me or something, but I can assure you that he's not. He was with his really good bud, and I was pretty much the third wheel in the car... He didn't talk with me much or shown any signs of interest throughout the night. I guess he's just a nice chivalrious guy.

So there you have it, chivalry's not dead yet...... at least not tonight. :)

~ G

Glenny's back to school! :)

2007-03-15T18:21:00.001-04:00

Last Tuesday (2 days ago) was my first day of school!! :)

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am back to school!

Not full time though, basically I take 1 class (CCNA) through my office, in fact, a bunch of us take it, including my supervisor. ^_^

But still, the excitement of school is there. :) I got a folder with blue Hello Kitty papers for the class. :P I never use fancy papers when I was in college, and one of my friend was throwing away her Hello Kitty papers, so I got to use fancy papers for this class. :)

The night before, a combination of me being excited and day light savings time screwing up my Circadian rhythm, I couldn't quite sleep. I lay in bed wide awake, and I did what I used to do back when I was in grade school, teasing and pranking my little sis, who was trying desperately to sleep. ^_^

Going to class was exciting, also walking in corridors, finding our classroom, meeting new classmates, and the whole 9 yards of schooling. I forgot how I used to love school, grad school totally ruined it for me. :)

Taking a class while I am working brings a new perspective to studying. Finally, I can study for the sake of learning the material. Finally, I don't have to study for the purpose of acing the exam, I can just study for the heck of it, and for curiosity sake. It was liberating.... finally I don't have to play the guessing games on what's going to be on the exam.

You can argue that I need to play the guessing game on what's going to be on the certification exam. But my take on it is that, this certification is for helping me to do my job better. If I do my job better as a result of studying the material, then I achieved my goal. If in the mean time I passed the exam as well, then even better. I had this mindset when I studied for my GCIH certification, and thankfully, I got both objectives accomplished.

Anyway, now I got homeworks and exams to worry about, yay!! :) So exciting! :)

PS: My sister says hi. :)

G

Glenny's Idol

2007-03-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

So I was never a girl who swoons over movie stars or rock singers… (except when I was a big fan of Devon Sawa back in …… dinosaur era)

If pressed for favorite actor, my actor of choice is Josh Duhamel, but I don't really care much about him…

If pressed for favorite singer, my singer of choice is Josh Groban, mm… I do care much about him. Beautiful silk velvety voice….. Good quality singing... Dark brown hair … hmm…. :)

But…. My idol… (whom I never seen, not even his pictures) is Ed Skoudis….. Yeah, if you don't know who he is, be happy, it means that you're not a dork like me. Although, you might want to know who he is, since he writes interesting articles.

I first knew about him from a recording of his class, he really made the class interesting. I used to listen to the recording while exercising, and I'll be smiling, supressing laughter and making weird faces while running on elliptical and lifting weights. Just now, I bumped into one of his article while browsing, and was having fun reading it. It's a subject that can easily be dry and boring, but he made it fun to read and learn about. :) ---> (It’s about wmic, if you're curious)

Oh, and it's cute, he has a link to his other articles, but instead of linking to a page, he made the link to a Google search of his articles. Interesting way to link I guess…. You won't have dead and obsolete links that way. :P Unless Google got DoS-ed, which is rather unlikely, I hope.

Anyway, so yeah, that's Glenny's Idol…. At least for now. :) Fun stuff…… :)

From the desk of Glenny -- who smelled like jasmine because I spilled my jasmine tea.

Congrats!

2007-03-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

Just found out that my high school best friend just got engaged to the girl of his dream……. :)

Wow…… Congratulations!!!!

Wow….. Time flew by so fast…. Now you're getting married?? Does that mean that we're officially adults now?

It was funky when my childhood friend, whom I will always remember as a little girl prancing around my neighborhood with me, got married last year. It was really surreal looking at her wedding pictures, can't believe that we've grown so fast and so soon…..

My best wishes to you….. And I am really really happy that you found the girl of your dream…. :)

Gotta write a long e-mail to you now… :P

Old Glenny

2007-02-05T14:42:00.000-05:00

Come think about it, I am kinda like an old folk….

I like suburb's peaceful, serene and calm life

I like to be at home, cuddled up in my couch, listening to jazz and reading my books/Time magazines

When I go out, I would like to go to Jazz bars (Never done it though :P ), or latin dance clubs….

I like to watch Musicals….

I don't really watch football, nor go to live sports events… (I went to the Big House once though! :P )

Maybe I should pick up on knitting and crocheting, that would complete the picture… I already have the glasses to go with it… ^_^

PS: I am way way way far from retirement age, for those who don't know me. :)

2007 New Year resolution

2007-02-03T18:48:00.000-05:00

Long due blog entry (as well as "2006, a year in review" entry).

So, back in 2006, I have 2 New Year resolutions, 1 is serious, and the other is non-serious. Ironically, I failed quite miserably on the serious one, was holding up pretty well until the middle of the year, and then just completely failed. Sadness... oh well.

The non serious one was that I want to be more girly. That I accomplished pretty well I think (see "Midyear PR review" blog entry)

So this year, my resolution is:

To pick up all of my phone calls (if I can) and to check my voicemails in a timely manner.

This might sound kind of funny and non-serious, but ever since T-Mobile changes its voicemail feature (circa January 2005), I almost never check my voicemail right away. Usually it takes me 2 weeks to check my voicemail.

They added some stuff to the voicemail menu that makes it take longer to check your message. They say their welcome to voicemail greeting <pause> how many message you have <pause> first message <pause> Time and date <pause> message <pause> menu <pause> .....Aaargh!! All the pauses!!! So I figure it's quicker for me to just call the person back and figure out what he/she wants.

That results in voicemail that is obsolete since I talked with the person already, repeat the process 5 times, and by the time I got a voicemail that I really need to check, I didn't really feel like checking it because there are already 5 voicemails on top of it. >,<

So this year I will be better, I will check my voicemails more often.

And I will pick up my cellphone if I can help it (This means, remembering to turn the ringer back on after Masses, Choir practices, work, etc. Most calls are not picked up because I set the phone to vibrate and left it in my purse)

So there, that's my 2007 New Year resolution. So far so good. :)

No quitting smoking, no dietary plans, no exercise goals. Not for me. :)

Happy New Year folks!

Diamonds are forever

2007-02-03T18:33:00.000-05:00

When I passed !-94 today on my way to my dealer (to get my poor car the oil change it needed since 2K miles ago), I saw a billboard that says "She says YES!" in pink, with a picture of a diamond ring next to it.

It's an ad for diamond stores of some sort.

That ad, and countless other diamond stores ad kinda annoys me. Oftentimes, they portray it that because the diamond ring is so perfect and beautiful, the girl says yes to the proposal.

Forget the countless wonderful hours, days, months, years that the couple spent together,

Forget the love that bonds the couple.

Forget all the good qualities of the guy.

It's the ring that will make her say yes.

As sweet and pretty as the ads are, what does that imply about women? That we (women) are so materialistic? That the diamond ring makes/breaks the engagement? That the diamond sparkles so brilliantly that it obscures the man who holds it up? That no matter who the guy is, as long as he got the perfect diamond, we will say yes?

Now, I know that that's not what those ads really mean (or do they?), but you can't help but see the implicit message that they have there.

Truthfully, the ring doesn't matter. It's the man and woman's decision to spend the rest of their live together that creates the reaction often portrayed in the diamond ads. But what could those stores do, right? The focus has to be on the ring and the diamond, hence the ads. :)

In some other parts of the country, they don't even use diamond rings. Well, in mine, they use it, but the engagement itself usually happens 2 days before the actual wedding date, kind of like rehearsal dinner here. A time for the families and friends from out of town to get together. In some culture, they use gold necklace, or a bracelet.

So, it will be nice if diamond ads stop implying that women are materialistic, But I guess I am not sure in what different way they can advertise an engagement ring. :)

Just my thought,

Reply to (bah)

2007-02-03T18:14:00.000-05:00

Thank you!! ^____^

It's pretty smart of you to identify yourself with (bah), I wouldn't be able to think up a good anonymous-yet-recognizable identifier for myself if I were you. :)

G

Just ranting

2007-02-01T13:09:00.000-05:00

In a relationship, I don't want to think.

There are so many aspects in life where you have to think, plan, craft strategies, anticipates other people's moves and such.

But relationships with your loved ones are like a safe harbor. When you can just sit back, relax, and be who you are. Where you will be accepted, your good, your bad, and your quirks.

I don't want to have to think about fallback plan, contingency plan, nor crafting strategies on how to play this game.

Because this is not a game. It's a dance in a ballroom called life.

It's a place, where love is freely given and accepted.

I just want to be.

I don't want to think.

I am safe here.

- Idealistic Glenny -

PS: This is my view on relationship with loved ones (family, sig. other, and good friends), which is why I don't play games when it comes to dating. Which I think will bite me at the end, but oh well, I am a hopeless romantic. At least for now. Until my heart is shattered and can't be pieced back together.

Roast duck

2007-01-28T17:35:00.000-05:00

Honest to goodness, in Canton, MI, there are 3 Chinese restaurants, and none of them sells roast duck. One does, Peking Duck, and you have to order 2 days in advance (to their defense, Peking duck does take a long time to cook and most restaurants require at least a day notice).

What happen to restaurants like TK Wu, Ann Arbor, MI, who sells roast duck and even Peking Duck everyday?

I want my duck... :(

Gotta go to Ann Arbor, or Garden City to get them though...

Sad ducky.....

Confusing logic

2007-01-26T15:02:00.000-05:00

I miss my blog, work and life has been crazy lately, and there are so many entries that I want to put in. And my laptop has been colonized by sister. :) So no online time lately, except to pay bills. :)

Really quick entry: Life is rather confusing.

I just found out this rather odd/ironic situation -- in my (circle of) life, people cannot do A because they don't want people to do B.

But skip ahead a few years, and you find yourself that you cannot do A, because you do not do B. In other words, you have to do B in order to do A.

Complicated life.

Sigh…. :)

Yay, my blog is back!

2007-01-11T12:15:00.000-05:00

So the reason why I haven't been posting for a while is that because everytime I post something, I got an error message. I was denied by my own dear blog T_T

But…. Since apparently now the problem is solved, and I can post the posting that I wanted to post weeks ago, look forward to more blog postings from me!! :)

One week before Christmas

2007-01-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

'Twas one week before Christmas... when all through the week Glenny was hustling and bustling... :)

On Fri night, I went to Windsor, Canada with a bunch of friends from work. One of my good friend lives there and wanted to show Windsor to us. :) So we ate at Bubi's eatery (pronounced: Buh-by, not Booby!), went to Casino Windsor and then danced the night away at 29 Park club. It was a fun night! :) Finally, I got to visit Windsor! (After passing by it everytime I went to Toronto)

Sunday night was Christmas Choir Concert time! :) Lots of fun, and we nailed the songs, even the hard one! From my point of hearing, everything sounds great, since the sopranos hit the right tunes. Upon more careful review of videotape, the kids choir sounds kind of loud, but that might be because the videotape-r sits by the children choir. :) Talked with Michael the percussion guy (The second "Michael playing percussion" that I met this month) and found out that he has an original drum (bongo?) from Ghana. That the drummaker actually killed a goat and a tree especially for his drum. Poor goat.

Monday was yummy work Christmas lunch, found out that one of my coworker is also a musicals nerd. :) We talked about Les Miserables and other musicals throughout the way home. We totally geeked out the two guys in the car. :) They were convinced that Les Miserables are about miserable people, which according to me is so not true. But anyway... :) Sang a Christmas carol to our boss, and gave him Christmas present, which results in us being dismissed from work early. Yay! Shopped like a guy (1 hr, in and out of a mall, bought Christmas presents for my sister), which worried me for a bit, but at least I got my Christmas shopping done in an hour! :)

Went to Greg's last 2006 Margarita Monday, played Scene It while evading the multiple tickle attacks coming from newly found friends (or foes?). Watched Clerks II, and then dashed home to celebrate my sis's end of first term by watching 'The Devil wears Prada' while drinking Strawberry bubble tea.

Tuesday - Friday was a blur of studying-wannabe. Buried my head in the books, only to realize on Friday night that I won't be able to finish all of the materials in time. Sigh... oh well... Next year, baby :) But it was fun, got to spend hours in the library with hot tea and walking around perusing books as a break. Sigh.......... the good ole days of cramming in the library near Christmastime... it's just all too familiar. :) Thursday night was choir Christmas Party, drank a really good Chennin Blanc wine, too bad that it's from the couple's private reserve. I guess I can't quite get that from Meijer. :) My knowledge about wine keeps increasing as I stay longer in choir…. Hmm, I hope my knowledge in singing is keeping up. :)

Fri night: Celebrated sis' grades by eating in Bravo! Cucina Italiana! in Livonia, it's also a kick-off to our Christmas celebration. :) We got all dressed up for the dinner... ^_^ and it was her treat.. yay! :)

Sat: Spent the whole day in Frankenmuth, went outlet shopping, became J Crew Girl in an instant due to the number of sweater and one white bubble jacket that I bought there. :) (Funny, I was never a J Crew girl, and usually don't even shop there...but their sweaters are warm!) To those who knew my last year burnt white bubble jacket incident, well, this new one, is almost exactly the same as the old burnt one. Isn't weird? We then ate chicken dinner (but of course!) and have enough left over for another 2 meals. We then drove around Bronner's to see the mile-long light display. When we came back home, we decorated our Christmas tree until the wee hour in the morning!! :)

Sun: Christmas eve! Went to 4 pm Children Christmas Mass, due to me singing in the choir. It was a really nice Mass, almost cried on some parts of the Mass.... ^_^ Yay, Jesus is here! The beginning of the fulfillment of the promise has started! :) After Mass, we went home and planned for our trip to Montreal, booked our hotel with French-accented hotelier (which totally makes me happy!). Watched Polar Express (finally!) and pack up some stuff for our trip. When the clock hits midnight, we opened our presents! :) Merry Christmas everybody!!!!

All in a day's work

2006-12-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

From a conversation with a coworker:

Glenny: I am a nut now.... this thing is driving me nuts.
Coworker: Wecome to the shell. The rest of us have been nuts for a while now.
Glenny: <Picturing a team party inside a nutshell, with a bunch of nerdy dancing nuts>

….

"Our server solution lies on the pink paper" (no, not pink slip, pink paper with scripts on 'em)

….

Got a bouncer shirt (a black shirt with the word 'SECURITY' in white emblazoned in it. Now I can finally moonlight as a bouncer! (It's a free shirt from a vendor)

….

Learning about the different names of M&Ms characters, what they represents and which one is not named after a color (Crispy - orange).

…..

Raked a sizeable Zen garden while reading a Zen book and mulling over words of wisdom. (I was pretty stressed out at that time too, and the raking helps! Or rather, talking with my coworker who has the Zen garden is what helped release the stress) Oh, and apparently I raked the 'water' over the 'mountain', a first in my coworker's experience of Zen garden raking.

….

Throwing plushy squishy basketball around the suite, aiming at coworker's head. One poor coworker keeps getting hit on the head with it. (sorries! You should've ducked!)

….

Arm-wrestled with a coworker… (I didn't lose!! ^_^) Hmm… I should've earned $2 from it… :) My team got a kick from it though, and it was fun times putting the bets and cheering me on! :P (One of the bets is that I only lasts for 2 sec, ha! He lost that bet! )

….

Our gentlemen formed a 'Barbershop quintet' in the hallway. :)

….

I ate a fish dish named Scrod, which, surprisingly, tasted good! So for a day, 'Scrod' became my jack-of-all-trades word. :)

…..

And all these happened on one of the more stressful week of work! Usually work is not stressful, but for some reason this week is… but when I looked back at it, it was a fun week after all! And we do work hard! :)

Cheers,

Christmas Choir

2006-12-14T23:26:00.000-05:00

Today was the dress rehearsal for Christmas Choir... I forgot how much I love dress rehearsals. It's not often that I am in a play or performances, but when I am, I really love dress rehearsal time. It's a time when everything finally comes together, all the pieces got put together and the big picture started to emerge.

Today's dress rehearsal was really cool, all the instruments are huddled together in a corner, the kids choir are grouped together, and for the first time, we got to hear the hand bell choir.

It is so touching to see all the hard work that all these people do, all the practices, finally comes together.

I got teary eyed when I was listening to the hand bell choir, and when we sang our hardest song.... and when we nailed it!!! It is soo hard to hear everybody's part all at the same time! There are so many parts and cues, so if you're coming to see the concert, enjoy it!! I so want to be able to hear everything at the same time, but most likely I'll just hear the soprano part. :)

So here're the cool things that I like about the concert:
1. The last song is AWESOME.... we got everybody in this song... I mean, everybody, including the handbell choir. And the descant's part goes unbelievably high. I just thought of them as a flight of angels, flying high above everybody else. And, I hit my highest note in this song! Yay! :) This song made me leave the practice all happy and in cloud 9. :)

2. That complicated song? We finally master the end.. yes! And all the 10 varieties of how to sing the song... :)

3. The first song is really cool, because every parts (children, soprano, tenor, etc) takes turns of singing the melody and being the background vocal.

4. Everybody, coming in together, with whatever talents they have, and combining it to make something beautiful. Watch especially the hand bell choir (they're cool like an octopus), and it's nice to see that a bell might sound nice by itself, but combined, it made a beautiful symphony . :)

- Tired and croaky Glenny, but a happy one indeed! -

I am not dead yet!

2006-12-08T09:56:00.000-05:00

As you can read from previous blog entry, I donated blood last Wednesday. And for the first time ever, they don't say that I have non-existent vein and have problem with finding where it is. Usually I forced myself to drink lots and lots of water so that my vein will show up at the opportune time i.e. blood donating time, but this time, due to my lost water bottle, I drank normal/less amount of water. Worse, in the morning, I was drinking tea... caffeine.. oh no!

So when I went to donate blood, I was expecting the usual lecture about drinking blood, a little scavenger hunt to find the vein on my left and right arm and a mini board meeting to decide which one is bigger.. or actually exist.

So yeah, I wonder why this time they can find my vein... the nurse just took a glance to my arm and said that the vein is good...

Could it be... can it be..... because I've been exercising my arms??? Ooooooohhhhhh........................... :)

- G -

My long lost shirt is found!! :)

2006-12-08T09:49:00.000-05:00

So, great news from a few days ago.. Turned out that my long lost shirt is found! What's so special about this shirt?

Well, first, I made it myself. It's a shirt that resulted from my art class back in high school, that one year where I had a cool art teacher. Ms. Arimbi. :) So we made a shirt, pottery, tile art, pet rocks and some other stuff that totally beats regular water color paintings that we do the year after with a less-interesting art teacher.

Second, there are only 2 of them in the world!! And since they're hand-made, they're still different. Give me the other one, and I still can point the subtle differences between the two.

Third, the other shirt is given to a special friend of mine... So it's like one of those lockets, you have half and your best friend has the other half. So, it has a high sentimental value! :) And yeah, the better quality shirt (the one I actually submitted for grading) belongs to that special person.

Fourth, the design has a meaning... it's like an iconography kind of art. :)

So yeah, so happy!! My lost shirt is now found... finally.... thank goodness for people who clean out their closets!!! I can't believe that it still exists... :) Now, the question is.... is the other one still around too? :-)

- G -

News flash...

2006-12-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

Lots of things happened this past 2 weeks, so I will do what I normally don't do in my blog: Tell you about what happened in my life!

- Got a wisdom tooth pulled out unexpectedly. I thought the dentist's just setting up initial appointment to check my tooth, it's only a 40 min. appt. But when he started putting the local anesthesia in, I was thinking 'uh oh.. Should've eaten my lunch…'. I am fine and happy now though! Less wise, but still as happy. :)

- Finally got my car!! Violet Gray 07 Mazda6.. Love the car, love the ride, love the interior, love it!! :)

- Got my computer geek movie nite, watched Sneakers and learn how to be sneaky sneaky. :P Ate chex mix --> closest thing to binary snack that actually tastes decent. :)

- Went to rehearsal for ICC Christmas celebration and met a guy who can speak really good French, yay!

- Went to Bronner's to show my little sis the biggest Christmas store in the world

- Went to Becket Christmas tea, really awesome experience. Reminded me how it feels to be a woman.. (Hey, wherever I go, I am usually the minority in every aspect except for my college major)

- Got my Christmas tree!! It's Scotch Pine this year… super cold weather to get it, but now it's happily sitting in my living room! :)

- Went to Christmas choir rehearsal, and for the first time, they put all the adult parts together! So pretty! :)

- Tuesday choir was cool, we sang a song that's going to be our Advent theme song, and each person got a tune. So I have to hold my soprano while Pat's singing the alto and Brandon singing the tenor. Yay, I can hold a tune! Or… like.. 10.. It's a Taize song, not that many tunes in it… ('Wait for the Lord, whose days is near. Wait for the Lord, be strong take heart -- we sang this during lent too sometimes). Plus, I actually saved the day. Pat made a mistake and I actually did the right thing and saved the choir for that 1 song. Score: 3 messing up, 1 doing good. Getting there… :)

Work wise: It's been a whirlwind!!! Donated blood yesterday, feeling faint the whole day… :P Got some FCG stuff done… whew!! :) It's fun though! :)

- G -

The most complicated song I've ever sing

2006-11-27T21:48:00.000-05:00

Oh... my... goodness!!!

Wow!

So I joined the Christmas choir here in Beckett, and when I first listened to the CD of the songs that we're going to sing, I thought, how complicated can Christmas choir be?? Silent Night, Hark the Angels, Christmas carols, we've all heard those, in different versions even!

So when I popped the CD and drove to work 3 weeks ago, I was in for surprises. I've never heard the songs, they have many parts, harmony all over the place, really cool percussion, solo, and alternating voices coming in at different places. With each new songs, my eyes grew bigger and bigger in the horror of learning the new and hard songs. And just as I thought that this is too scarily hard, the CD stopped. Turned out that here are only 4 songs in the CD. Not too bad I thought. So I listened to it dutifully and learnt the songs.

Today was the first practice that I go to. (I missed one) I thought that we're going to sing the simplified version of the songs. After all, we don't have children choir, male/female duets and a soloist, right?? Wrong! The choir is pretty big, about 30 - 40 people total (hey, I am used to my 3-person choir on Tuesdays!), plus, we will have the children choir together with us (which we will practice together for the first time at dress rehearsal!!), and we have one of the choir director doing a solo and the pianist filling in for the duet for now.

Wow, tonight was totally awesome!! These are by far, the most complicated songs I've ever sung. They have parts for: children, soloist, soprano, alto, tenor and bass. So, 1 sentence has like 4 - 6 set of notes and words each. We all sing different parts, coming in at different parts, sometimes staggered, sometimes silent, sometimes blending in with Altos, sometimes blending in with the guys. It has parts for the percussions, and some other notes that I don't really get.

And... the most complicated song that I've ever sing: "Children go where I send thee", by Matthew Haugen (I think). It's a recursive song!! It's like 12 days of Christmas thing, but every 2 items or so, we changed the entire way of singing it. Sometimes by a lot (which helps), sometimes subtlely, which is really hard to remember. PLUS, every once in a while, it changes key and keeps going higher. I love it when a song do a transpose and gets higher, so pretty! When I first heard it on CD, I was terrified as it keeps on going higher and higher with no sign of stopping. Thank goodness it stops at 10. :) A breath of relief.....

So yeah, I am not very musical.. can't quite read notes and barely understand what fermata and staccato is.. let alone sight reading... so, can't get quite technical in the way I describe the songs.. But it was really really awesome... it's really cool when all the parts mesh in together, and the percussions were added.

So excited about the Christmas concert!!!! Yay!!! :)

G

Thanksgiving discovery

2006-11-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

Random things that I learnt during this Thanksgiving weekend:
1. I was made really happy when this old grandpa that I was eating Thanksgiving dinner with said that he uses Firefox, yay for technologically savvy old folks!!! :)

2. I really love Really Woolly, a line of cards by Dayspring. I was adamant in finding Really Woolly Christmas cards that I am delaying my Christmas card writings and risking my uncles in Europe not getting their cards in time, all just because the store that I went to ran out of Really Woolly Christmas card. >,< Plus, I learnt that you get many confused looks when inquiring about Really Woolly Christmas cards, even though they have their own shelf in the store for the line of cards. Luv Really Woolly!

3. Turns out that I *do* like turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce. In that combination, no more and no less. :)

4. In this one exercise machine in my gym, the weights that got worn down the most is 30,40, 50 and.. 130 lbs. I wonder,.... how come none in the middle got worn down? (I actually scrutinized them closely)

5. My guy friends are better at shopping than me. Four of my guy friends actually went shopping on Black Friday, and apparently one got really great deals on clothings, so he got some (expecting you to look sharp and handsome next time I see you!! The pressure is on! :P ) and one bought this clutch for my other friend's bday present from the group. And get this, he actually got one that is stylish *and* adored by the bday girl. Now, how on earth did he know how to pick clutches??? No, he's not gay, and yes, he is single. Me on the other hand, just listened to the conquest stories, and stay at home putting some early pre-Advent Christmas spirit to my house per the request of my baby sister. (not really a baby, but she's always a baby to me)

6. I can be awake and not realize it. One night, I thought I was dreaming about figuring out how my team can decrypt my message if I encrypt it with this algorithm (yeah yeah.. I got weird dreams sometimes), and I accidentally knocked over a cup on my nightstand. How I did it, I wasn't quite sure. Then I realized that I had been awake all that time and *thinking* about the encryption thing, instead of *dreaming* about it. Now that's weird.... I wonder how many other times had I been actually awake but think that I was dreaming.

7. Ooh, and that I really love the movie 'Love Actually'. I usually don't rewatch movies, but I catched it on TV by chance, and I immediately drop my plans for the night, curl up on my blanket and give it my fullest attention. I also wanted to watch this movie on my birthday this year (didn't pan out), and I purposely rented this movie again this summer (watched it last summer too) and was sooo happy to find somebody to watch it with. Didn't realize that I like this movie so much, until this weekend. :)

I think that's all for now! :)

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
Keti Yeti Stroberi, Ms. Bock and Felicia, we missed you!! :)

G

Cinderella Glenny

2006-11-25T11:58:00.000-05:00

Nope, not in the glass slipper sense... but supposedly Cinderella got her name because she has to clean the fireplace and hence covered with cinder, so she's called Cinder-Ella... Although I am not really sure how true that is, since supposedly glass slipper is a typo from the German word of fur-slipper, which makes more sense. :)

Anyway, it's Cinderella Glenny because I spent this weekend trying to fix my fireplace, and.... I succeeded!!!! Woohoo!! (You truly have no idea how happy this makes me, I was dancing around the fire when I lit it... sounded quite tribal)

So after much research, manual reading, forum perusing, e-mailing strangers, looking at friends' fireplaces, asking random friends about fireplace info, turns out that my fireplace is a woodburning with gas logs in it. And the pilot light went out, and won't turn on. All the instructions about how to turn on pilot lights either doesn't work or involves some kind of hardware that my fireplace doesn't have. Buying spare parts is hard because I can't locate the brand of the gas logs. Calling a fireplace man costs $150, and just to light my pilot light? Yeah... no siree... at least, not if I can help it.

So... here's what I did: I sprayed the thermopile and gas pipe with one of those concentrated air that's used to clean your keyboard. Wait for a little while (because O2 is quite combustible, I learnt), turn on E! news, and hold the pilot light for a minute or two. (Yeah, the E! News is for something to do while you're sitting there holding the pilot light button for 2 minutes)

The O2 cleans the pipe, because any bits of dust can restrict the flow of gas, and fireplace is a really dusty place! And holding the pilot light for 2 minutes allow the thermopile to heat up, and open the gas valve to let the pilot light stays on after you release the button.

Now, my fireplace is on and running!!! Yeah, baby!!!! High five!!!

- happyglenny -

Reply to commenters

2006-11-25T11:48:00.000-05:00

1. War and peace into a date field: No...not related to Iraq at all.. I am a much simpler girl than that. :) It's about trying to jam a really really really really long text field into a 6 chars long date field and see what happen... :) Btw, if you do really know what the rest means, I am quite impressed!

2. Dora - I went shopping with my buddy for Operation Good Cheer, and the kid that she sponsored really like Dora stuff... Hence we looked high and low for everything that is Dora, and pay the marked up price for it!! :)

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

- G -

2006-11-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

To borrow a friend's style of blogging:

Apparently now I am R2D2, sidekick to Mr. C3PO

Went from very special to unspecial, on the "for sale bargain bin" … :'(
At least, it felt that way.

Why do people make fun of my poor lettuce?

Slept for 13 hours inadvertently, and missed lost of quality time with 8lbs weights, and instead, dreamt about weird things involving Dora pajamas and Hydrogen cars.

Trying to jam 'War and Peace' into a date field.

2 weeks 'till Violet Gray bundle of joy to arrive here and save me from starvation dangers… at least so he said.
-----------------
All right, going back to my old style of blogging for next post. :) This style is kind of confusing…. ^_^ Even for me…. ^_^ And I don't think anybody who reads this knows what all these sentences mean (Except for the sleeping part). If you do, let me know! I will be very impressed. If you want to try, let me know too! I will then reward your effort by telling you what they really mean. :)

- G -

Broken Chinese Porcelain doll

2006-11-14T13:53:00.000-05:00

I am a broken Chinese porcelain doll today.

Why?

Because:
1. I am broken - due to gym-ing after 3 weeks of idle living
2. I am blue - figuratively only, thank goodness.
3. My eyes are puffy - so my small eyes are extra Chinese today
4. And I have that blank gloomy smile that porcelain dolls have

Unrelated note: 2 days in a row, I got ignored by waiters. Yesterday, our waiter forgot that he has our table, and today, I waited for 1 hour for our food to come, with no avail. Ended up going to Wendy's to grab food. :) Yikes.

Unrelated note 2: Should watch 'Finding Neverland' for my sis in the future. Should have Computer Geek Movie night - with hacker kind of movies and cheerios & chex mix for snacks (binary… 01001101 snack, get it? Tee hee) Maybe I should have it on Nov 30th, to celebrate Computer Security day. :)

French mag!

2006-11-11T23:29:00.000-05:00

Random thought from yesterday: If Glenny's in charge of building heaven, it will look a lot like Barnes N Noble or Borders. With more comfy couches and warm green teas in a big comfy mug.

In short: I L.O.V.E bookstores.

Anyway, this post is about yesterday. I was skipping along to Borders, looking for 1-hr parking validation for the parking structure. Thinking that maybe if I can find something to buy, I might as well go for the 1-hr parking validation. :)

So I was traipsing along the bookstores, looking at all the goodies and the cute children books, when I suddenly realized that I do have something that I want to buy!! A French magazine!!

I love the language French, and reading anything in it (including Canadian custom rules, since they're written in English and French. :P )

So in the past, I got simple French books, but they're too hard for me. :(

Then my friend bought me scientific magazines in French, great, but still a bit too hard for me :( He also bought me a Mickey comic book in French, and for some reason, that is the hardest one to understand among all the French books that I have. >,<

Then my other friend bought me Vogue and Cosmo in French. Well, Vogue is mostly pictures, so not too helpful. But Cosmo is more understandable. Funny thing is that my French is just enough to know that I am reading an article that has juicy information/gossip/confession in it, but not good enough to know what those juicy tidbits are. So I got to understand the suspenseful opening of the article, but never understood the fun part. :P Yikes... (think of all the Cosmo knowledge that I am missing.... :P )

So apparently, Borders carry a lot of magazines in Spanish, but only Vogue and Glamour in French. Naturally, I chose Glamour, for its' sheer superiority in word counts from Vogue. And, what a delight!! I read it last night and I understood most of it!! I don't know how I can understand Glamour articles, but not Cosmo... but at any rate, I am just happy that I finally find something in French that I can understand!! :)

Note: I almost never buy girlie magazines in English. :) I subscribe to Time magazine, and used to subscribe to National Geography & National Geography Travel.

- G -

PS: Last week I was on training to use this tool that can create reports, and the report has an option of generating it in 7 different languages. So of course, I have to generate mine in French! :P

PPS: Hey Al, if you're reading this, I saw your entry when I logged in again at 3.31 pm that day. I guess I can just check the refresh rate, but then again, conducting 'research' and gathering empirical data to figure out the refresh rate sounds like a fun way to do it too... (not really. :P )

Reply to Hendi

2006-11-11T23:13:00.000-05:00

Re: Christmas present post

Hen, I agree, Christmas is such a commercialized holiday, but it is also a meaningful holiday. Therefore, I resolved to not succumb to the commercialized side of it, and celebrate it for what it is. The birth of Jesus to the world. :) Just because it's such a commercialized holiday, doesn't mean that it should lose its meaning. :)

Interesting thought #1: Arranged marriage

2006-11-11T23:09:00.000-05:00

So, I realized that sometimes my friends said something that's very simple to me passingly, but it stayed with me because I think that's an interesting thought to have. So here are two of them that I got recently... got me thinking for a bit. :)

Glenny's thought about how Indian arranged marriage works:

- Parents find a girl/guy for their son/daughter -- through social networks or personal ads

- The couple meets and dates for a short period of time (1 day, 3 days, 1 month or 3 months)

- The couple liked each other and get married.

- They bring their new husband/wife to the US and live happily ever after

In the past, me and my friends were quite amazed at how some of our Indian friends will suddenly get married to a girl that they just met and know for a few days. But I guess the culture and background are quite different and it worked well for them.

Now, my friend told me passingly that Indian arranged marriage is not quite that different from US marriage.

My friend's thought about some US marriage:

- Look for future spouse through online dating site

- Dates for 3 days - 1 year

- If they liked each other, get married and live happily ever after.

Come think about it, they are indeed quite similar. Although in the Indian arranged marriage, most people get married to the girl given to them by their parents. So the iteration is usually just 1. In the online dating scenario, most people go through more iterations as they dates more people before finding one that they eventually marry. But still, it's an interesting thought. Are Americans moving towards Do-It-Yourself arranged marriage through online dating site? And instead of caste, birthdate and family status, we look at race, age and socio-economic status as a measure of our compatibility?

- G -

Interesting thought #2: Twisted mind

2006-11-11T22:48:00.000-05:00

So, while conversing on how people have different thoughts about life issues, I mused to my friend and said, 'Hmm... that is a quite twisted way of thinking about it..'

Then my friend said that actually, *everybody* is twisted....

Interesting.

Her argument is that right now, everybody has a veil in front of their eyes, and they can't see clearly, only through their veils (there's a biblical reference to this, 1 Corinthians 13:12). Therefore, we all have twisted minds, until we meet God and he lifts our veil and then we can see clearly.

The way I see it, is that everybody grew up with different sets of ideas and life experiences. Therefore, what one person thinks is 'normal' might be the abnormal thing for others. (i.e. French ppl eat snails, but Americans don't quite like snails). Therefore, everybody has a twisted mind depending on who's viewing them, and also, most likely, it won't be the entire mind, just some ideas/concepts.

I think that person A has a twisted understanding of a concept, because I don't understand A's background and train of thoughts. To A, he/she's perfectly normal and I am the one with the twisted understanding.

Simple concept, just the one that never dawned on me.

I guess it's because a 'twisted mind' always have a bad connotation for me, like pedophiles and serial killers. Some twisted minds are just twisted no matter how you see it, but there are a greater variety of gray areas in other matters.

So now the question is, which one is the "right" way of thinking about a concept? I guess then you can say that there's no such thing as the "right" way of thinking about a concept, it depends on you and your life and your beliefs. And... when two people with different ways of thinking collide, what will happen?

One will think that the other is twisted, and vice versa.

In such situations, wouldn't it be nice to have the veil lifted up so we can see the truth? Then it's like given the solution to a puzzle.

But then again, does such solution exists in life?

Christmas presents

2006-11-05T17:44:00.000-05:00

Last year, I posted my so-called Glenny's new Christmas tradition ...

It's kind of early for Christmas, but I have some thoughts about Christmas presents. You see, my family is on the other side of the globe, so unless I went home that year, I don't buy Christmas presents for them. And if I do go home that year, I'll just use all the stuff that I bought for them throughout the year as the Christmas presents.. :) So not too hard...

But then, there were times when I bought Christmas presents for my then-boyfriend, his mom, his dad, my roommate,and several of my good friends. Then it started to become a bit stressful, because I need to find something that's not general, something meaningful, useful, nice, and that the person would like. Coming up with the perfect Christmas present is really hard... and after a while, it become the dreaded part of Christmas for me. >,<

So I kind of enjoyed it for the past few years that it just so happen that I don't have to buy Christmas presents for people (or if I do, I already got a good idea what to give them, so no thinking involved).

So starting with last year, together with the inauguration of Glenny's new Christmas tradition, I decided that I won't let buying Christmas presents to be a stressful part of Christmas, so I didn't buy any Christmas present. The media gave so many things that people 'should do' during Christmas that it became such a stressful holiday. I wanted to go back to the basics and celebrate Christmas for what it is, the birth of Jesus into the world, and enjoy it with loved ones, stress-free-Glenny style.

Well, turned out that last year, I got a surprise Santa for the girls who spent Christmas with me, so we got presents for everybody. So my decision didn't really affect anything. Well then, this year, I already got a good idea of what to get for people that I want to give Christmas presents to. So, again, this will be a year with presents. :)

But, to keep everything clear, here's my Christmas presents policy:

1. I don't expect to get Christmas presents from anybody. And this is a true statement. Don't feel compelled to give me a present just because I get you one.

2. I won't buy Christmas presents if I don't know what I should get for that person.

3. BUT, if I already have an idea of what to get you, I will get you a Christmas presents.

So, whether a person gets a present or not, it depends on whether I have a good idea of what to get for him/her. So one year I might give a present to A, and the next year I might not. Therefore, don't feel that you have to get me a present just because I get you one. :)

- G -

Techie Christian... wow!

2006-11-05T17:24:00.000-05:00

So whether they admit it or not, my friends can be loosely grouped into 2 categories: Techie people (Engineering/computer science related) and Religious people.

I tried to come up with people who doesn't belong to any of these categories, but after a few days, I give up. So if you belong to none, let me know! :)

So here's the thing, when I am chatting with people, I realized that I feel most comfortable around these two kind of people. My conversation, will have either geeky jokes/references in it, in which, I need geeky people to understand it, or it will involve some thoughts sharing about God and religion in general, in which case, a religious person will be a great sounding board.

And when these two groups intersect, it became a stellar combination!! I get to talk about God, use my myriads of geeky references, and still have the person understanding what I say!! Isn't amazing?

So 2 weekends ago, I met such rare creatures in Ohio.... and I was so happy!!! :) So to you Techie Christians, you get to see the rare combination of my geeky + religious side of me all at the same time! :P Yup yup, so happy to finally meet these rare breed of people...

And my Venn diagram is finally complete... <happy sigh> ... :)

Blog postings

2006-11-05T17:12:00.000-05:00

There are so many blog entries that are formed so well and nicely written in my head but never made it online. Sometimes I wonder, what it takes for a blog entry to get posted?

1. I have just enough work at the office so that I won't feel bad taking 2 minutes to write up a blog entry, but not too much work that I felt burnt out and not want to stare at computer anymore. :)

2. Access to laptop at home, and some free time to actually write it. Instead of having to pay bills, clean up the house or help out little sister. :)

I haven't been spending much time with my laptop and desk at home this past few months... and while my sis's away, I can write all the blog entries that I always wanted to write, so let's see how many I can write today. :)

New lunch partner

2006-11-02T13:55:00.000-05:00

So today I find myself without a lunch partner/event/extravaganza…. So I figure, I can read something while eating lunch to keep myself company. I am also feeling quite sick and under the weather, so I am looking for something kosher (i.e. not msn.com or gossip column) but entertaining and not too boring….

So I found this nice blog out of quite randomness from reading another article forwarded by my supervisor:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/
I heard his name multiple times before, got his blog recommended to me by multiple sources, but only got the chance to read it now.

It's a pretty good blog! Fun to read, nice funny style of writing, and it gives you a bird's eye view of general security topic.

On a bit of other things: Now I feel like a pie… divided up to several functions during my workday. It's kind of fun, learning a lot of new stuff, but unfortunately, my brain and bones are not quite cooperating, them being under the weather and all. I can't post more specific things about my workday, since this is a public forum after all, but if you want to know more, talk to me… I will be happy to talk about it with ya!

PS: If you're in the physical vicinity from me, stay away… I am getting sick >,<
G
Note: Good as this blog is, it won't replace my lunch partner/event/extravaganzas though…. :)

13 hours of sweetness

2006-10-22T10:35:00.000-04:00

(This post was posted yesterday, but Blogger's server was down, so it got reposted today)

Happy Sweetest Day guys!

For the longest time, I never knew that Sweetest Day is a travelling holiday. i.e. it's the 3rd Saturday in October, instead of a specific date. Oh well... :)

Yesterday, I went to my first Haunted House trip... wasn't too bad..wasn't too scary, although for a split second, I thought that the guy with the chainsaw actually uses real chainsaw :) I dressed up as Japanese schoolgirl.. ^_^ I went with a work group, and it's funny, the costumed people were worried about dressing up and looking weird eating dinner at Olive Garden. But then, after the haunted house, we went walking around to bars in Royal Oak, in costume.. and nobody has any problem with that.:P We ended up eating at Mexican restaurant, a chipmunk, a cat, a Japanese schoolgirl and the rest of the normal folks. :)

And today, is the best & sweetest Sweetest Day I ever have.... :) ^___________________^

Cheers

Reply to Alderwood

2006-10-18T09:37:00.000-04:00

I will try to remember to bring a copy of it next week…. :) You're coming to retreat, right? :)

Garage door opener

2006-10-16T09:05:00.000-04:00

Responding to comment: Providing that you can be around when the garage is open, and I am not looking, and there's a step ladder nearby (although, if you're really tall, you can reach it without a step ladder….)

But then again, if you find yourself in that situation, there are other more useful things that you can do, such as stealing my car or breaking into my house…

Although, plausibly, you can plant a backdoor by changing the code and hope that I don't notice it until you use it to gain access to my place while I am away. But if I change the code every so often, then the chance of that happening will be slim.

Yes, it is easy to change the garage door code.

But then again, most people cannot get in to my garage without my supervision to change the code.

Craftsman garage door code reset

2006-10-14T18:10:00.000-04:00

Yay!! Finally I can reprogram my garage door opener!! Dude, it's totally so simple. I looked online for manuals, but I can't find any. The manufacturer does not have a website, and I can't find the manual at Sears.com. Moreover, the usergroups that I found hasn't been very helpful either (they either commiserate with each other for not knowing how to reprogram the code, or give a complicated instruction that other users say doesn't work). And the manual that I have at home? Well, it conveniently say that the wall-mounted keypad is an external product that should've come with its own manual. But sadly, it didn't. So sad and dejected Glenny (not really) was scrounging the virtual world one last time to figure out how to reprogram her keypad, and turned out that it's soooo easy.

Press a button on the machine (there's only one button) and go to the keypad, enter the code and press enter.

Just like that.

And yes... my little step ladder has been my most useful purchase this past 3 months. It brings me to new heights! :P

Yaaay.... (You have no idea how happy I was to be able to successfully do this!! I was doing a mini dance outside my garage. :P)

Man, there are so many blog postings that I wanted to post, but lack of computer time has prevented me from doing so.. >,<

Anyway, yay for garage door opener code!!!

G