Post BSB symptoms

Now Playing : "That's All Changed Forever" - Embrace

I'm still giddy as heck from the aweeeesome Backstreet Boys concert two days ago. Not only do I have memories, pictures and videos to remind me about the best concert ever, my throat has become quite sore from all the screaming and off key singing that I did while at the concert. At least I still have my voice ;) to sing along the neverending looping BSB playlist in my car. Aside from that, my calves hurt like crap from the non-stop jumping, hopping and dancing that my body did involuntarily at the concert. Had to postpone a PT session today because I would simply die in agony if I were to force myself to hop on any machine at the gym. 

Seeing Nick Carter in person has also ignited my passion for writing (ahem! I'm not telling you why!) , which I have not done in over three years because of one very good reason ;). What a time to rekindle my love for writing, since I have until Monday to finish a 6000 research paper that I've been putting off for much too long. Still got another 4000 words to go, bleh! 

But yes, once my paper is written and other assignments tackled, I'm jumping right back into writing!

That's all for now, back to depending on adrenaline rush to finish a paper. :(

Update: BSB Concert 2008!!

Now Playing : "Back To Your Heart" - Backstreet Boys

Well okay. I know I posted a little something saying I'd update later with pictures just about a second ago, but I'm still very much hyped up from the amazing Backstreet Boys concert that I ended up Photoshopping all the pictures I'd like to share with you immediately anyway!

But first...a minor story of how it went. It was an amazing concert, no doubt about that. Before and after the concert however, was quite a different story. Galaxy, Axcess and Sunway Lagoon did a terrible job at organizing this event because there were multiple frustrations caused among us concert goers such as not having a clear picture of where to line up to go into the concert area and quite a traumatic experience involving people being sardine-canned between escalators and even to a point where people were falling off them. In short, I will never go to another concert Sunway Lagoon holds because their entry and exit points are death traps. I have a good mind to write to The Star tomorrow to tell them how Sunway Lagoon should not be used for holding large scale concerts anymore. 

Other than that, I've never been to a more exciting concert and I've never danced this much in my life before!! What an experience!!

Me in a bikini top that I wore to the concert. It turned out to be an absolutely good decision because...

...we were all forced to endure three rounds of rain, one of which was the heavy-thunder-lightning-cold wind sort. 

Here's how we looked after the terrible rain had subdued.

The rain ruined my tickets. *Sniff*

Hurrah for going barefeet!! We stood in shallow water throughout the concert, making it the first

and quite possibly the only concert we danced and hopped in water.

BSB singing while playing cards

BSB in fancy suits doing fancy moves

BSB with awesome showmanship skills

The one picture I am absolutely crazy over (and by far the clearest)--Nick Carter!!

*swoons*

See? I told you we had absolutely the best time of our concert-going lives!

*Taken right after BSB said goodbye :(

BSB Concert!!!!!!

It's official:

The Backstreet Boys concert was the bestest ever!!!

My life is now complete.

Will upload the good photos once I Photoshop them.

BSB Here I Come!!

I'm off to the BSB concert!!

Here I come!!

Huffin' and Puffin'

Now Playing : "Carmen" - Bizet

Exercise is addictive.

I've always known that, because I've read about it and living with gym junkies, I've seen it first hand.

But what I never imagined it would be happening to me.

You see, I had just set my alarm to 8am for my deliciously class-free Tuesday tomorrow in hopes when it rings in the morning I won't be too lazy or sleepy or both to get my ass to the gym. To do what? The treadmill. Oy. How's this again? I hate the treadmill! But then again, that was before I tried out the elliptical and found out I hated that more than I do with the treadmill. Heh.

But back to what I was going to say. This is highly unusual because a) calling me a morning person is like saying the Chinese invented the fortune cookie and b) who in their right mind sacrifices sleep throughout the morning on days you don't have classes?? 

But here I am, planning to go to gym to specifically jump on the treadmill and possibly ending up reminding myself why I hate treadmills.

Another proof that exercise is addictive; I WAS JUST AT THE GYM TODAY FOR THREE FUH-REAKING HOURS. It doesn't make any sense. I'm tired as heck and my body is screaming "no more!! no more!!", besides the numerous other reasons not to go burn another gazillion calories so soon like no more patrol lah, it's too early in the morning lah, I hate the treadmill lah, nobody's going to go with me lah, etc etc.

Also another uncool reason is that I haven't gotten a sports bra for myself. Did an aerobics-disguised-as-dancing-class today and while I was veeery, uncoordinatedly, trying to follow the insanely fast dance steps, my boobs were doing their own dance. 

*Boingboingboingboingboingboingboing!!* 

Aiseh. I swear all the men in the class were gawking at chest level. Not cool. Plus, my face may be a little offended. And I usually charge.

Eh hello, I'm not that ham sap ok!

Digressing seems to become a habit now. And it's raining. There hasn't been rain for many days....

Oh well...if I do end up sweating it up on a treadmill tomorrow, at least I'll be able to wear that sweet new dress sooner without having to squeeze into a pair of tights and into some fugly sweater to cover them large arms. Ish.

Fun

I had so much fun last night!

God, I love you. ;)

Unresisting XD

Okokok...I gave up. 

I finally finally finally went ahead and bought tickets to this Wednesday's Backstreet Boys concert at Sunway Lagoon. And now I'm on cloud nine!! I don't know why I was so stupid to not want (well ok, I was dying to, I just didn't really have the cash nor time to) to go in the first place and if I had remained stupid and not actually ask how long the showcase was--which infact, did not turn out to be a showcase but a full-blown 2.5 hour concert--I would have stayed home this Wednesday being all pissed with myself for not going to the one boy band that dominated my entire kid-preteen-teenage-life.

OMG

I've just realized something...

I'm actually going to finally see Nick Carter in person!!

The one celeb I obsessed with the entire 90s!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

LMAO after this concert, my BSB fandom life will be complete. XD

You're Fat!

LOL this is hilarious!!!

1 2 3

It's 3 years today.

Happy Anniversary.

Banned!

(Me 13 pounds ago--gawd I looked awful!)

No no no no no!! 

I don't care what you say!

I absolutely REFUSE to wear

polo t-shirts and super baggy jeans

EVER AGAIN!!

(or for as long as I can help it)

Class Picture

It's a little late but woo hoo class picture!!

(Picture courtesy of Izyan)

Getting back on track

Alright, that's it.

Chinese New Year is over.

No more excuses about snacking.

No more grabbing cookies.

No more drinking shandy.

No more invisible calories.

No more of mum's good CNY cooking.

No more "little extras" and

absolutely no more thinking that a little bit of this and that won't hurt me

because eventually they will and I will regret it.

Pure dumb luck will only get you so far.

Gotta get the head back in the game.

Chili's

Now Playing : "Citizen Erased" - Muse

I'll try my best to not make this post another rant about dieting. 

If I had a list of restaurants that I should never go to again, Chili's would be on top of it. Then again, I really should have that list by now and after rethinking it, Chili's wouldn't be number one because TGIF, Italiannies and the Brazilian churrascaria in Damansara Jaya would be top three because they don't have a low fat option unlike Chili's. But then again, Chili's perhaps could be number one on my list because it was the most frequent place I would visit once upon a time.

Once upon a time. That really wasn't long ago, in reality...but I am very, very glad that I am able to say "once upon a time" now because you see, tonight while dining at Chili's, I had a sudden realization that Chili's is not only bad for people who are trying to lose weight, but for people in general, regardless if they have health problems or not.

I don't think I need to mention how this restaurant is bad for people trying to keep a low-fat diet (noun and verb). Eating at this place will put some serious strain on people's organs because of tremendous amount of salt in their dishes! For example, Ian had a fajita beef quesadillas dish and again while I'm trying to overlook the fact that it has 1900 calories and 99 grams of fat, 5000 grams of sodium is just too much even for a skinny person. I just can't imagine all the strain people's hearts and kidneys go into overtime processing all the salt, desperately holding on to whatever water the body has to make sure the excess salt don't make our bodies dry up. I'm not even going to start about cholesterol.

Of course one can argue that health conscious people and people with health problems should not eat at places like these and I absolutely agree. Then again, despite knowing that some people can afford (health-wise) to eat at places like Chili's and the like, I just think that people ought to stay away from places like these for the sake of health because it just downright isn't healthy...at all. Not fat wise, not sodium wise, not cholesterol wise and certainly not calorie wise.

I'm glad to be able to take a step back and reflect the fact that I used to be a frequent patron of such a place and now appalled at how much damage I was doing to myself. If only I knew better at that time, I wonder if I would have frequented the place less. I honestly wouldn't go back because I have a chock-full of information just how unhealthy Chili's is...not just for my sake, but I would not want to feed my family such garbage. I still don't regard myself as a health freak since I do still like certain indulgences, but some things are too damaging to be eaten. 

If you want a comparison, even fast food is healthier than Chili's. Unbelievable, but what doesn't surprise us these days?

Kitchen Misadventures

Dinner

Now Playing : "The Nutcracker Suite" - P.I Tchaikovsky

Well, I did make the parfaits. And I did cook dinner for three prior to that.

Did they taste good? On the whole, I thought they did.

But there were conflicting opinions. 

And as for how they looked...

the parfaits were unanimously agreed that they looked utterly ugly.

But you know, it's okay. It was my first time cooking something like that or doing something kitchen-major and everything was edible, just not as good as I thought they would turn out to be. My salmon were kinda overcooked, my veggies were quite tasteless and had too much pepper, the mussels were a no brainer to cook so that was just fine and my parfaits...sigh...if only they came out looking as pretty as the picture which was included with the recipe.

I was quite disappointed at first, especially since I spent something like three hours in the kitchen making dinner and dessert as a Valentine's Day gift to everyone. I suppose if it's anything, the only consolation is that the food tasted better than it looked. *sweat!*

Still, despite this not so sweet (pun!!!) experience, I was glad to hear my mum offer to take a look at the recipe and help modify them for me plus planning one day in the future to re-do these dishes to see what went wrong. I felt that was awfully nice of her. 

I'm already dreaming up recipes in my head. Next dish I'm going to tackle is teriyaki pan fried salmon slices!! Shouldn't be too hard, methinks.

Parfait Surprise

Photo from Epicurious

I will make this as a Valentine's Day surprise for my family.

Wish me luck!

Reaping Rewards

Now Playing : "Maria" - Oscar Peterson Trio

(This is NOT a brag post)

I've received a lot of compliments from family and friends about how I've lost weight and how much better I look now and even encouragement such as "keep it up!"

But today, one of my best friends gave me the best compliment thus far. He came up to me and announced out of the blue that "he lost 1 kg and said THANK YOU for showing him what rewards motivation can bring and my results have motivated him into trying to lose weight and get fit again".

I'm really not used to getting compliments and usually feel really shy when I do, but when he said that I felt not only flattered but I felt SO PROUD that I was able to help people who want to change, start. In all of our 11 years of friendship, we have gone on countless weight loss attempts, all failed and last year we both threw in the towel and gave up (He's a tall, big guy as opposed to short, pudgy me :P). Well now I'm really glad that I decided to give it one last try. Who knew that I was going to help the both of us!

Thanks for listening, I couldn't wait to share it with everyone!

Coooooookies!!!!!

The insanely yummy butter cookies

AUNTIE GEAIK HONG aka JULES' MOM!!!!!!!!!!

Your butter cookies are absolutely FAB FAB FAB!! I took half a piece, put it in my mouth and like magic it MELTED so I had to take the other half :P :P and eat that too and OMG it's soooooo good that I just had to faster RUN away because if I stayed and looked at your cookies I would eat more and more!! Wahahaha!!

Also hor, you can TOTALLY bukak a butter cookies business because it rivals the Danish-butter-cookies-that-comes-in-a-tin-which-you-can-find-at-Giant-I-think. You should sell them because I'm sure people would buy lots and lots of them and I'll tell everyone to buy from you so that I generate business for you so that I can get some FREE cookies! Right? XD No lah, just kidding.

BUT, thanks for letting Jules bring some back for us to try, I love the cookies and my brother loves the cookies too but hehehehehehehehehe can not tell Jules to bring larger quantities back because I know for sure if she brings pineapple tarts and all the cookies she says you are FAB in and her godmum's muruku (OMG) then I'll sure put on weight again! :P

Mmmm...

On a totally unrelated note...I've really begun to enjoy cooking! See, I made that for dinner tonight woot woot!

Halfway there

Stolen from this link

Now Playing : "83" - John Mayer

I just wanted to announce some great news (well, at least for me) that would quite possibly make the previous entry seem quite redundant. So here it is...

I am halfway there!

This morning, I had stepped on the weighing scale and found out that I've dropped a further two pounds! This comes as great news because it puts me at 32 pounds lost since I embarked on this mission back in October 2007 and now I have achieved in dropping half of the weight that I needed to lose, with exactly

33 pounds left to lose by the time graduation comes. 

Oh, I am so happyyyyy!!

I never dreamed that I'd come this far and seeing results like this only motivates me more and more in reaching the end goal.

Food, Gloriously Delicious

Well, I am pissed.

At myself.

Because for the last couple of days, I seem to have very little will power to control how much or what goes into my mouth. I always start each day saying, "OK, today I must stick within my allotted calories and fat grams requirement but nuuuuuu! Today, I had Carl's Jr. and Japanese food (nearly all of the fried, mind you). Yesterday, I had Mexican food. Then before that it was Chinese New Year goodies.

Bah!

I really must put a stop to this. I would be mega-pissed if the past couple of days are going to undo some of my hard work at losing weight! As I've told Su Lyn just prior to this, it's pure dumb luck that I haven't gained a single pound from all this!

So I really must limit what goes into my mouth...tomorrow. Again.

Well, today I amazingly forgot to take pictures of the luncheon. So you guys won't be able to see all the food there was for my relatives to chow down on. Here's some that were taken today and they're here for your viewing pleasure ;)

Goodies!

Me and Darren having lunch!

Puddles : "I've got ang pows too!!"

Freshly baked homemade chocolate cake!

*Droool!*

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year to my dear friends!!

To those celebrating I hope yours is just as merry as mine and are surrounded by family, friends and great food! Below are some pictures from tonight's reunion dinner, more to come from tomorrow's luncheon!!

Enough (awesomely delicious) food to feed an army

Lo!! My favorite part of Chinese New Year--Yee Sang!!

People posing for the camera while *I* dig into some yee sang (mmm)

Always present at our home during CNY are fortune cookies!

Normally inaccurate, this year my fortune is sooooo apt!

Cornflake cookies : Once you pop, you can't stop! (And I haven't!) :P

Ironic

I lost one pound yay yay! I lost one pound yay yay! Ban chang kueh, here I coooome!! Ah, it feels so sweet to have reached my short term goal of losing 5 pounds by CNY *grin*

But the most ironic thing is, I think I may have eaten back that one pound today. I really wouldn't be surprised if I did! Even though I spent the whole day on my feet and I burned about 2800 calories (cuz CC+ said so!), I also popped in numerous things into my mouth--consciously! 

The CNY treats are soooo damn good! I've shoved cornflake cookies and fried pork rolls and bak gua and chi kok cho (sp?) and Shandy!!! Eeeeee!! And I haven't yet had my ban chang kueh!!

Who wants to bet that I'll gain back at least one pound after CNY??

>_<

PS : Sorry the post is uber short, I'm still needed in the kitchen--hopefully not to keep on tasting things. ;)

Maybe

I think...I dropped another pound...I think...

I reached my goal of losing 5 pounds by CNY...I think...

I'm not sure...I'll have to weigh again tomorrow...I hope...

that all the house chores I have to do today will make a difference...

Maybe...

Switchfoot Concert '08 Photos

OK folks, I've finally managed to upload yesterday's Switchfoot concert photos. These were the best of the heaping lot that I took (most of them were blurrish or had too many hands blocking *fume!* the lens). Most of the pictures below are gonna be of Jon Foreman but hey, you normally take 80% more pictures of the frontman, right? :P 

The video I took of them performing "On Fire" is too large, and as soon as I can squeeze that into a smaller size, I'll upload that.

Freaking long line...!

And so we waited...

And waited...

And waited. 

We were lining up since 3:50pm and only got to go inside at 6:30pm

and Switchfoot only came on stage at 8:30pm!

Switchfoot

(left stage)

Switchfoot

(right stage, Jon Foreman dividing the members right in the middle)

Jon Foreman

Freaking cool shot of Jon

Another freaking cool shot of Jon

Major uber awesome shot of Jon in the crowds

Best picture of the night!!

Eggh...some lucky prick got Tim Foreman's guitar pick!!! X(