Five Tips to Feeding the Green-Eyed Monster in You

Here are five tips to make you feel like sh*t and want to shut off the world from your life:

1. FACEBOOK as much as much humanly possible - snoop, snoop, snoop. And if that wasn't enough, comment the crap out of everyone's photos, status updates, likes, dislikes, relationships, deaths, new friendships, fan pages, etc. Then start adding people from back in high school, middle school, elementary school, kindergarten, old neighborhood, market next door, etc. Wait until they ignore your requests and resend until they block you forever. Also, play and add any game possible, everyone absolutely loves getting Texas Hold 'em invites. Finally, the cherry on top of the frosting of the zuchinni vegan red velvet cupcake is create Events that aren't really events and send them out to everyone on your friends' list, such as, "Hey I lost my phone!" or "Please support my YouTube Channel!" Although they will ignore and block any event invite from you, it will successfully make people unsubscribe from update feed or add you to their little black list of blocked people.



2. Create a TWITTER account and have spammers follow you so you feel like you're tweeting to an audience and then follow as many cool people that you envy as possible, like celebrities that don't give a rat's ass about you and who will never meet you and who don't want to meet you (their personal slaves, I mean personal assistants, are probably tweeting for them anyway). Then start RT their witty status updates and reply to them as if you have some sort relationship with them. You will be left with your "RT@KimKardashianBooty OMG I love your purse, and those 70's style pants make your ass look like a bag-full of cellulite girl! We should workout together."



3. Visit all the popular CELEBRITY GOSSIP BLOGS AND MAGAZINES to get the scoop on all your favorite celebs that boost the green-eyed monster inside you. This will validate your life and you will realize how boring your life is compared to their lavish lifestyle with paparazzi and fans following them and smelling their farts everywhere. If Ryan Gosling could zippy bag his fart, it would go like hotcakes. If Beyonce takes pictures of her callouses, so will we! If a celebrity has a new tribal tattoo on his arm, so can we! Thank you gossip media, you allow to shape our self-identity and help us realize what was missing in our life all this time, was simply just having a life.


4. I gotta admit, YOUTUBE is one of the greatest websites in existence (I love you YouTube, please never leave us!)... However, it can also be a trap for the green-eyed monster... There are thousands of videos that are uploaded everyday and we can easily and shamelessly subscribe to any profile we want. Subscribing to the so-called YouTube "gurus" to listen to their rants and hauls and tags and get to know me's and... I'm sure there are tons of ands... But these feeds help in making you feel so uninteresting and poor. "Oh, so did Michelle Phan talk about her $$$$ skincare product that helps with having a baby butt soft skin on her face, well, I can afford Dove soap, that's fancy for my skin. Moisturizing with my natural oils and sometimes Vaseline if I have some extra is as much skincare as I'll get. But that's OK, I'll keep listening to Michelle Phan because she helps me remember I can't afford half the stuff she uses, Yipeee!"



5. And last but not least, SHOPPING!!! If you ever need to validate your self-worth, why not go shopping with money that you don't have! That's what credit cards are for, and bankruptcy will help clear debt (it's not very hard nowadays to declare bankruptcy, probably as difficult as divorcing), so of course anybody would go for some shopping therapy and seek ridiculous trendy outfits and shoes and accessories. Not to mention, expensive leased cars that can't be afforded but that's why it's better to leave in the ghettoest of the areas in a small crammed rented room so you can show off that amazing little beemer that is not yours. But wait, if you maxed out your credit cards and have no money to shop with, then continue browsing the Internet and magazines and celebrity gossip blogs and YouTube hauls, to help you envy the crap out of anybody else that is in a better financial situation than yourself.




It's time to go outside to breathe the fresh air in the dry and brown hills of Los Angeles (if you live in Southern California) and enjoy life the way we want to live our life. It's less suffocating than all the media we are bombarded with in our computers, phones, televisions, etc. etc. etc. And making an effort to keep that little green-eyed monster at bay and disconnecting from all these social media that is not good for the soul.

Finding Productivity and Avoiding Procrastination

So it's been over a year since I last posted and the whole Nikon camera, well, the camera has been collecting dust in the closet to say the least. I have been trying to overcome my lack of motivation for all things productive through Facebook, YouTube, browsing through a bunch of cute/funny pictures and videos on multiple sites, and I am not any closer to finding that sweet spot of productivity, just like how it was while I was still employed and it has been a year and half since I quit my public accounting job, or slave position at a Big Four.

Why is it that we are so accustomed to be told what to do and follow a structure that has been set by somebody else? I am exceptionally good at telling people what they are missing in their routines to make their lives more fulfilling and productive but when it comes to becoming self-aware and reflecting on my own laziness, it is such a challenge OR avoidance seems to be a much easier route. 

I am missing that passion in pursuing something because I just don't know where to look and start. I admire all my close friends who are so passionate about something, like music, medicine, classic civilization, and managing. I am so proud of them and I feel left behind and wish I had something to give it my all to. I lack the consistency and dedication that a hobby requires but I have to start somewhere with baby steps. So no more Nikon camera and now I shall embark on a 30 day mission to becoming self aware and sticking to something for 30 days, so hello again blogspot :)

PS: On a good note, I have been sticking to the amazing Brazilian Buttlift workout for a week and I believe there is a slight lift on my non-existing booty and I have a long to go but I am determined to stick to it for a month! I have Belize to look forward to!

Here are my pictures pre-workout from back in November 2011. I will be taking new pictures and measuring again this week! And FYI, my goal is weight 105-110 lbs, so don't think I'm a crazy anorexic girl, just trying to get healthy and toned :)

 

 

I'm Still Here!

It's been over a week since I last touched the camera. I got distracted with helping my mom clean her entire house and now I want to make up those 15 minutes lost during the past week and my weekly photo venture. Unfortunately I didn't take any before and after pictures of my mom's house because I totally forgot since I was super focused on reorganizing and cleaning. Anybody that knows me, knows that I am a bit of a clean freak and I love to reorganize things. So one day of helping my mom turned into three full days! I was paid with my grandma's homemade food, which is priceless :)

Anyway... I have also been pondering about what to do with my life. I still haven't found the answer but I realized who are the people in my life that are positive and who are negative, and there is a lot more negative people sadly... But I understand that it's our nature to expect the worst but I have been feeling so positive after I quit my job three months ago and FREE to do anything I want, that I really dislike it when people just shut down any possibilities that seem unattainable now. I feel that I will get there someday and I am enjoying the process of exploring who I am.

Preparing for a Disaster

Today I am breaking my 15-minutes-a-day-photography streak because I spent the entire evening buying supplies to prepare for the family's emergency kit. The unfortunate current natural disasters are a wake up call of how unprepared I am if an earthquake or tsunami were to hit Southern California. We have so much to learn from Japan and how graceful they have reacted by helping each other and remaining calm. Your character truly shows in a state of chaos and Japan has been so exemplary, I keep them in my thoughts every day and I hope that everyone affected by these terrible disasters are able to overcome all the challenges. We are also being affected indirectly but definitely not to the extent that Japan is and I can only imagine how difficult it must be.

Remaining calm is probably one of the most important qualities to have when an emergency strikes. Otherwise, your common sense is clouded and your next action could mean life or death. I highly recommend http://72hours.org/build_kit.html to get acquainted with the how to's of natural disaster preparation. It is quite an investment in terms of money, time, and space but I think our survival is worth the investment. I spent a couple of hours at the 99 cent store getting a lot of these items and since I am preparing a kit of 7 days, it was the perfect place to head to as a starter. However, there are some items that are more efficient to get online, especially for the quality. For example, a multi-functional tool (think the movie "127 Hours"), quality flash lights, or protein bars.

I am probably about 40% done with the family's emergency kit and  and have so much more to go but hopefully by the end of this month I am better prepared if something terrible were to happen in the foreseeable future. They have been saying that the "big one" is coming to California for a long time but I never really paid attention to it until now. Anything can happen in a blink of an eye and it's better to be over prepared than not prepared at all. Reality sinks in when you have to include a photo of every member of your family in case someone goes missing. When I think of the suffering in Japan, I feel so heart-broken :( I wish everyone well and hope things get better...

Japan's Earthquake and Tsunami - 3/11/2011

My thoughts and prayers go to those affected by Japan's earthquake and tsunami that occurred approx. 12 hours ago in the middle of the day local time in Japan. This is a reminder of how minuscule and weak we are compared to mother nature's forces. We can build skyscrapers, cities, bridges, malls, etc. and it can all be brought to nothing in a matter of seconds. I urge all of us to prepare an emergency kit and discuss with our families what to do in case of emergency. 


We are not invincible and our time is limited. I recently watched Steve Jobs' commencement speech from 2005 at Standford University and it reminded me so much of The Alchemist. It was such an inspiration and I love the message: to reach for the stars and don't let anybody's noise put you down and to pursue whatever your heart tells you because the only thing you will end up regretting at the end is not failure if you attempt it but regret for never letting loose and leaving your comfort zone. 


As Steve Jobs said at some point, we should stop living somebody else's life. It's time we define what our life should be like  and strive to reach our goals every single day. I have left my comfort zone since December 14, 2010 when I quit my job as an auditor at a Big Four and it has been the happiest I've been in a while. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot through my 2.5 years at a Big Four but I knew after a year and a half of working as an auditor that it wasn't what I wanted for my life. A tragedy like the one that just occurred in Japan is an encouragement to live life to the fullest and don't be tied down by things that you don't aspire to.