Cheat Work Thursday

... though sometimes I do think spas are totally a waste of money. I mean, why am I paying this lady to squeeze me for an hour? I have no idea. If I were to write about 'soulmate' next time, I'd try to write something deep and meaningful. Have a good weekend. Image: "Soulmate", created on Polyvore

Sleep has not been very good this week. But instead of fighting myself to sleep, I spend the night tuning in to MTV, snacking, and finishing some work, or stuff. So last night, I was lying on my bed, thinking of things to do for the night, and saw my Twilight books on the bookcase. I grabbed the book and got to the page where Edward thought 'bachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to leave their bachelor life'. If that's not eyeroll-inducing enough, he is a 17-year-old boy. I scanned through the series and it was a sudden revelation: Edward Cullen is annoying. Why Edward Cullen Is Annoying and Possibly Creepy : 1) He can't help it, he needs to kill the girl that he's 'drawn' to. 2) He skips school as he likes because he's above all this. 3) He reads people's minds. He got bitten, isn't dead and suddenly has superpowers? 4) He has superpowers. How is super fast, super strong attractive? 5) He drives expensive cars with the mon...

I've been looking for Sidney Sheldon's The Other Side of Me for ages. While I was hoping the book would be about Sheldon's life and writing career, most of it is about his Hollywood career -- thus the title, of course -- which I'd never heard of before. But it's still a good read. Sleeping Arrangements is one of Sophie Kinsella's earlier novels when she was writing under her real name: Madeleine Wickham. It's a story about two people with a shared history who accidentally meet again on a holiday after many years. It does feel like this book and the Shopaholic series were not written by the same author. I guess practice makes great writing. Sophie Kinsella definitely writes more adorable characters -- and characters and stories that we can easily relate to or root for. I had a good weekend. I hope you did too. (Currently listening to If We Ever Meet Again and Telephone .)

Contrary to popular (?) belief, I don't only read Stephenie Meyer's books, I also read the news. I haven't been watching local TV news for ages, though, because I can just scan them online in five minutes. Ok, this isn't really an effective way to keep up, I must say. More than once, I've had to put on my wide-grin-blank expression when clients bring up an obvious current event that I've never heard of. I can go on defending myself more on this, but this is not the point of this post. So, scanning the news, I feel like blogging some thoughts: 1) I can't recall if we had this many movies or TV shows portraying Muslims as terr*rists prior to September 11. It's almost a popular culture. Or do I get this wrong? As September 11 was like nine years ago, I may have forgotten or never really given much care about the issue prior to the date. So each time you hear sh**ting or b*mbing news nowadays, you'll be kind of expecting that two days later an Ara...

I was doing laundry and cleaning my room this afternoon. That was when I found my old photo albums. (Not found like, "Here you are photo albums. I've been looking for you for years." No. They are just on my top shelf. I can see them every day.) And yes, Kodak film was awesome. So, from Kodak film photos -- already ditching my broom at this point -- I moved to the digital ones on my computer. 1) There are photos from my walk alone at night in Vietnam with only a map and a make-believe sense of direction, looking for this particular shopping street. The journey to the said street and asking for directions were equally challenging. I headed back to the hotel via a different but just as confusing route. On the way back, on a very quiet street, a motorcyclist stopped and gestured that he'd give me a lift. Great. In the middle of dark, nowhere. If I remember it correctly, this guy was pretty old and looked harmless. I can believe that he just wanted to help. Don...

Is it only me, or do others have this problem too? Unless I’m on vacation, I have trouble sleeping if it's not in my own bed. It wasn't so obvious before, and it only gets worse these days. This includes sleeping at my parents' place, which one place I love so much. Now it has come to a point where I'm thinking of getting some sleeping aids. Not sure what to get, though. It makes me nervous and feel guilty knowing that I'm going to babysit my nieces tomorrow and probably spend a three-or-four-day weekend in my hometown two weeks from now. Isn't it supposed to be a trip that I look forward to? (Note: I once had no problem sleeping in a train station.)

I've tweeted some of these and deleted them a few hours after that, telling myself: Alright, these have passed. Why put in more time and energy on them? If we were to rank all the issues in the world, these would sit at #3,456,329. So, that settles it. Only that, I've been fortunate enough to meet these types of people on more than one occasion. Lucky for you who didn't get the chance to read the tweets, I'm going to blog about them now. So, instead of a short 140 characters, let's dedicate a long blog post to the six people I'm possibly obsessed of: 1) People who feel the need to be self-righteous between 98% and 100% of the time. Ok, you meet this person from time to time in your life. You don't totally hate them, but they do breathe attention. You compliment their choice of healthy food on Monday, they judge your fried chicken on Tuesday. It annoys them deeply if they are not recognized for their deeds, principles and lifestyle. They are obsessed wit...

Seven continents by size: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, Australia. Oceans from left to right: Pacific, Atlantic and Indian (and Pacific again). Arctic in the north and Southern in the south. (I always get Arctic and Antarctica confused, the same way I do with con cave and convex, or east and west, so I'm putting the map here as a note. Also as a reminder to go out and see the world. ) Map: Wikipedia

I love The Pacific and its amazing opening credits. The rolling and breaking charcoal is really a beautiful work of art. HBO, Saturdays, 9PM. About: Eugene Sledge and his memoir With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Robert Leckie and his memoir Helmet for My Pillow Sidney Phillips and his memoir You'll Be Sor-ree John Basilone