Zombies! Run Season 2

When I was living in Saratoga New York, once the snow melts in April, you'll see people wearing shorts and flip flops sitting on the campus green. I never get that, yes, there is no snow, but it's still roughly 50 degrees! Unfortunately the same happens in San Francisco, if we are lucking we get a nice 70 degree afternoon. But we always get steady 55s in mornings and evenings. As my body has no tolerance for cold, I really do not see a chance in wearing a sun dress to work :( 

Despite of that, summer is still exciting, my co-workers were talking about camping trips and hiking, travelling to nearby cities or even Mexico. Ming and I are planning a little fishing excursion... All this sun and fun is just begging me to get into shape. 

Without snowboarding the next sport inline for me is running, people who know me probably know I am obsessed with this zombie running simulation app. But this time motivation to run came from something else:

A couple weeks ago, Ming and I saw a video about a 95 year old skier. I don't think I need to explain anymore. He is sharp, athletic, agile, and he exercises an hour a day to keep himself fit, so he can ski more. After I started working fulltime, regularly exercise seems like a luxury, and maybe it's psychological but I just feel my energy level drop. I sleep longer hours, laze infront of the TV in the evenings... and pretty much that's it. Well, I don't know if I'll be healthy at 95 if I continue to live like that.

So last week, I decided to wake up at 7 to run before work every morning. And, the day I decided to start this new routine, Zombies! Run Season 2 came out! Yes, in case you don't know it's a game you play with headphones on while running with your iphone, and the game makes you sprint away from zombies in intervals. Throughout the game you are running as Runner 5 for a town in a post-zombie-apocalypse world. Season 2 unfolds a whole new chapter to our community, and I can't wait to run the rest of the episodes. 

And best of all, I feel great! Running helps me sleep earlier and better at night, it also energizes my day. That was also related to my decision of keeping the TV off in the evenings. Thanks to the steady exchanges of emails with my Skidmore buddies, they constantly remind me that life has to be lived. Although it feels pretty good to let your brain die for a while watching TV in the evening, there's other things to do: Cook, read, draw, listen to music... That reminds me, I really want to go to the movies.

Last weekend on Granite Chief

It's been a while since I posted anything... Roughly two weeks has past since our company's rebrand launch and slowly I feel I am getting my life back. I can make dinner again, the occasional breakfast, and sometimes pack lunch. Do the laundry in the evening, and kind of tidy the house a bit... 

Although the feeling of insecurity still looms around my work, I think I'm learning to cope with it. Trying not to think about my inexperience, my lack of business/marketing degree, my not so perfect grammer... even if I do suck, working twenty-four seven would not completely make up for it. So mind as well, not, I did my best Monday to Friday, the weekends are MINE! 

This is the last weekend our ski resort, Squaw Valley will be open. Most of the snow has melted away and the mountain looks sadly brown, but we will make the most of it. Snowboarding is always fun, I love the fact it is a sport that's technical and mental. (maybe that's every sport, but I was never involved in any, only hiking I guess) We hiked all the way up to a great run with lots of soft snow, only to have my legs turn to jello when I was about to go down...

What a waste! Hiking with all my winter gear on when the spring sun was piping hot, needless to say snowboard was heavy too. All that hard work, and my legs won't move. All that was going through my head was, this is steep, and Ming and Skye were cheering me on in the back. Eventually I got down, not as gracefully as I imagined. I was so angry about wasting a hike, I hiked it and snowboarded down again :P

So it is this constant challenge about snowboarding that I like, if I was afraid of riding on a feature or going down a run, I try to tell myself how happy snowboarding makes me feel, and do it. It is a lot like life, there will always be risks, uncertainties, and fear of something, but as long as you remember how fun and happy living is suppose to be, then it's okay. Granted there are times that you choose to give up, not every battle is worth fighting, you got to live to snowboard another day. Who the heck invented the word "Comfort zone" anyways? It doesn't really exist.

Summer :)

This week is go-time at work, we're at the end of a long term project: a complete rebrand! New logo, new packaging, and new website. I think the team has mixed emotions, we are definitely excited, but in the meantime, tired, sometimes frustrated, nervous... It's a great time to get to know each other better, and personally for me, a good time to learn how to inhale stress, and make it disappear :) 

The bottom line is, work is work. Even though I enjoy every second of it, and would not trade it for anything else, I often wonder was there a possibility that I stuck with the non-profit food justice sect. With my current job in the chocolate industry, my free time goes to reading chocolate news, learning about tastes, food pairings, and visit other chocolate shops. We can't have everything, I tell myself, it's not that I've forgotten what I care about and ultimately want to do, I'll just have to be patient. 

Last week, I went to the Annual Chocolate Salon, and there was a presentation regarding fair trade chocolates and cocoa bean processing. The presenters are two chocolatiers in the industry who constantly travels to South America where the beans are grown, and work directly with their farmers. I literally jumped out of my seat in the middle of the presentation. I forgot about work, and I have so many questions for them. It seems so simple, there's food justice issues everywhere, I'm in the chocolate industry already, mind as well get involved. So I asked for their contact with the intent of volunteering for their cocoa sourcing group.

Unfortunately, work has been so overwhelming lately, I'll have to get to it next week :P

And as time flies, summer's here already! I am so excited, I'm hoping for a good bike trip, some good hikes, and farmer's market adventures!

A morsel of sugar, a morsel of sh**

Believe me, the title of this post is a legit Canto saying. A very wise and graceful way of describing life. And in a way, I think it accurately describes how I feel in the past couple of weeks.
I have always interpreted everything around me as brightly positive, even though I know there are always ups and downs, Friends who know me understand what I mean. Elaine and her stupid grin on her face. By the way, Animee, it's great to know that you read my blog, thanks :)
But I can't say that for myself for the past three weeks. Something just doesn't feel too right. As always, time flies, there's lots to do at work, sometimes I feel healthy and sometimes not, sometimes I laugh at jokes and sometimes I get angry at things. Everything seems pretty normal, but I don't get that brightly positive aura surrounding me, and I don't know why.
I even burned incense in the house to try clear the negative energy (what? it's worth a try) and challenged myself on some more technical moves on the snowboard (adrenaline might help)
But I still feel pretty gloomy.
Then lately my college friends started chatting about the topic of adulthood on our email exchange... and I think I figured out the source of my gloom
Adulthood: we have a general consensus that we should have... a job, a steady relationship, a brain, an air of maturity... success?!
And on the surface I seem to have it all: hell, I'm the first to get married, I found a job, I rent a house, I have in-laws?!
Yet, I don't think my actions fit any of the adult consensus: I leave the stove on, starved my husband because I have work (don't get judgemental, he was waiting in the car to pick me up, Ming can certainly and willingly cook dinner), abandoned the laundry, careless mistakes at work, say stupid things in front of my boss, barely took care of my sick spouse... but I tried so hard.
How we feel all comes back to the question, are we meeting our expectations, well, I guess I expected once I got married, I'm happily ever after, once I got hired, I'm already rocking the job, once we rented that house, I know how to keep a house. WRONG, I don't. I don't know, and I have to learn, and adapt. My living patterns still very much resembles college, and it's one step forward three steps back. But one day when I look back, I hope I can see that I've moved forward, at least a bit.

Apple pie for the sick and wounded

Ming and I are part of a CSA Program (Community Supported Agriculture), and we get a box of groceries delivered to our door every Monday. The great part of this farm is that they also let us exclude certain vegetables if we wish to, for example, we excluded butternut squash after eating it every week all winter. There is another item I also want to omit from the list. Apples, we have been eating apples since we joined the program.

But Ming insisted we should keep apples on our list, and promised me he would eat them. He missed the part that he will eat them only in the form of apple pies. Well, who's going to make them? Ming said he would, but he did mention once he sees how much butter is in that pie, he might never eat apple pie again. I think that's too big of a risk to take, so I rolled up my sleeves...

Never made pie growing up, but I have a great friend who taught me how to make strawberry rhubarb pie when I came to the US. So apple pie's not that hard.

Unfortunately, once the pie was made, Ming got taken away by this flu that was spreading around his office. And pie-eating was out of the question for him. Luckily I needed that pie... last week was accident galore for me. I scratched my cornea, stubbed my toe, my lips are cracked and in pain... pie sounds really good right now.

March 5

Ming's been busy lately, in the middle of some big projects at work. More or less, there's pressure, there's less play and more work, there's frustration. However, in the end one of his co-workers said, "But it's kind of fun, isn't it?" And he totally agrees, nothing feels like facing a challenge and giving your all to it.
And while that's been happening, his birthday's coming up. For some strange coincidence, my husband and my only brother share the same birthday, scary right? That's actually good, less dates to remember; unless you forget, then you get into double trouble :)
So cutting this week's post a little short, need to catch up on some chores.
By the way, guess what I got for Ming as a birthday present? The Run! Zombie App! It's a fitness app that simulates deadly zombie chases so you can run faster. I think as my husband, it's never too early to start training for the zombie apocalypse, right?

Talking to Myself

Last week in the middle of a work day, my co-worker turned to me and said, "I'm glad I'm not the only one who talks to myself." 

I have been talking to myself ever since I can remember, and it comes so naturally that I thought everybody talks to themselves too. Obviously, they don't. And I do felt slightly defensive when someone comments, "Wow, you talk to yourself a lot." Yes, because that's usually how I think: sometimes my voice and my brain would have a healthy debate, sometimes they have a calm discussion, sometimes my voice tell my barin what to do, and my brain would follow word for word.

So as you imagine, when my co-worker and I are in the office, we would seem to be having a conversation with each other. But once you listen closely, we are actually both talking to ourselves, figuring out work.

I'm glad I found someone with the same quirky habits :)

On a side note, Ming and I ate Indian food for dinner tonight, we haven't had Indian food for a while so I was really excited! Long story short, BEST Saag Gosht I ever had! I like saag gosht but I never order it because there' ten thousand delicious things to order. This time it was love at first bite, all the spices and flavors exploded in my mouth, turned into fairy angels and danced around me throughout my meal. And if you guys want to try it, you should visit me :)