Right Where You're Supposed To Be

September 18, 2018

It's funny how life is sometimes. We all have our good days and our bad days. I learned that without balance, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You have to drown a little to learn how to swim. It all also depends on how you want to look at life. You can find sunshine in the rain only if you want to look for it. If you want to be depressed, you will be.

Shrinkle posted for her birthday earlier this year that two people can have the exact same things and one person could be miserable and complain about it while the other person is excited and so grateful to have it. It's so true about one person's trash being another person's treasure. It's all about perspective. And it's also so true about what people don't realize they have until it's taken away. Sometimes I wish some of my friends and family knew this. I want them to be just as happy as I am, if not more. But you can't tell people to be happy, they have to figure it out for themselves on how to be. I wish they knew that sometimes what you're looking for is right in front of you all along. You don't need material things, status, bragging rights, or being able to keep up with the Joneses to be happy. Rich is the man who has love in his life. As long as you have good company and good health, that's all that really matters. This is why they write songs like Lucky. The girl who has it all but still feels empty. You could have the world at your feet but if you had no one to share it with, what is the point? We are all human. We crave love and connection, even if we don't want to admit it.

I don't choose to chase wild dreams that aren't mine. And I don't believe I've "settled" either. I think I've just simply found where my happiness lies and it's pretty simple. My trainer keeps trying to think of get rich quick schemes to help me gain more money in my life and truth be told, I'm too lazy to put in the effort, lol. But it's not just that. Yes, life would be great if I had more money. I mean, I'd be able to pay off my bills, my house, my student loans and have more of the things I want without a care in the world. But where would I be without the struggle? I'm not saying I like to struggle, but the journey there helps you to appreciate the work you put in. When you're given something, you take it for granted and you don't appreciate it as much. I'm doing this all on my own and I'm honestly proud of that. I can't believe I'm still alive right now as I work to carry the weight of two people on my shoulders financially.
At the same time, I'm not in a rush for anything, I realized. Yes, it'd be great to have my house and student loans paid off and extra income in the bank, but extra money is just extra money. It's not like I'm totally unhappy where I'm at. I'm struggling from time to time, but I still set aside a little for fun and I'm still trying to live and experience life when money and time allows. Maybe I'd be able to afford having a kid and speed up the family part a bit with extra money but I'm still enjoying the journey right now regardless of that boost. I have the rest of my life for that and there's no rush for anything. I have a lot of what I wanted done in my life already done anyway. At this point, I just want to live for me and be happy. And that's what I'm doing.

And vacationing all the time isn't me either. I get cabin fever when I'm at home with no plans but I wouldn't like to be jet setting all over the place that often either. This is where balance comes in. I actually do enjoy working. I feel like a person who needs that work/play balance. I also find it easier to stick to my workout/diet schedule on days I work compared to days I have off. On days I have off, I find it harder to comply for some reason. The structure helps. And vacations wouldn't feel like a vacation if you did it all the time. I would probably gets stressed trying to plan out so many all the time too. Even one is a lot of work. I mean, I finally got it done, but I procrastinated and took my time putting a week together just for Paris. And then all summer I’ve been putting Disney together, piece by piece, rearranging so much around to fit my desired itinerary and bucket list.

The point is, I do feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be in life. And looking back, even when I didn't feel like I was, I really was. I had to go through all my hardships for a reason. If I didn't, would I have come out as strong as I did? You appreciate the light after being in the dark for so long.

I struggled with my own weight for a reason. I was being taught to not take for granted what I had growing up. I thought I had it easy, that I did not have to worry about my health, that I could eat whatever I wanted without consequence. Now I know that regardless of skinny or fat, it's simply not true. You have one body and you have to take care of it. I learned that exercise is extremely important and staying active, even if I don't like sports and that there are other ways to do so other than playing sports. I learned that what you put in your body is important. Of course, comfort foods are important too for your mental health and sanity, but you have to find that balance and learn to discipline yourself to keep that balance between healthy and indulgence.

Minor segue with my weight loss update:
I’m back on my weight loss journey to lose another 5 lbs and I forgot how ridiculous of a waiting game it is. It’s only been 18 days so I shouldn’t expect a lot of results but for the first week I struggled to lose the rubberbanding weight I had all summer. I finally just got down to 110 last week and have been able to maintain it so I’m finally feeling motivated. It took a bit to get adjusted back to smaller portions and eating healthy 100% of the time since I haven’t cheated since Sept 1. I was sooooo hungry for the first few weeks, it drove me insane but I fought through it. I have to remind myself that this journey is not a quick and easy one, otherwise everyone would do it. I have remember that it took me about 5 months to fully lose the 20 lbs so I should really relax and not be so impatient with these last 5 lbs I want to lose. Although getting back to my college days weight would be absolutely amazing before I leave for vacation! But anyways, I do feel amazing right now, now that I’ve finally started to see results come through and trickle back down to 110. I just have to be patient for the next 5 weeks and stay focused.
I also started training for my half marathon slowly. I’m running outside to try and build endurance and stamina so I can actually finish the half marathon when I have to cross that bridge. It took about 2 weeks but I was able to slowly train myself to finish 8km in an hour again. I’m not trying to finish by a certain time, but I do want to be able to keep up, be able to run at a steady pace without having to take too many breaks or slow down too much and finish the race.

I’m really proud of these results, as slow as they may be. If you’re out there struggling with your diet and fitness goals, remember, consistency is key. Make sure you’re challenging yourself, hold yourself accountable and push though. Nothing in this world that's worth having comes easy.

I also learned from this journey that in order to be a happier me, I simply just need to choose to be a happier me. It goes back to the perspective thing. When I’m doing really good with my gym and diet, I’ll have a really awesome week, simply from the high off of my successes of my weight loss. Nothing could bring me down. My work week wasn't any worse or better than any other work week. The difference was that I chose to not let anything get to me. I let the good outweigh the bad. And that's what I want to learn to do more of in my life. Like how you could receive 100 compliments but just one mean comment can bring you down? I want to be able to be that person that drowns that out. The good thing is, in that situation I'll always win. I rarely care about what people say or think of me regardless, lol. I care more about my own opinion and what I think of myself over what others think of me because vain as fuck.
But the point is, I want to start living my life more like nothing can bring me down. I want to be able to channel my happiness and control better what upsets me and not let it affect me at all.

Nine Eleven

September 11, 2018

Do you remember where you were? Were you born yet?

It's crazy that this year marks the 17th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. For me, this is a memory, but for today's youth, it will be a history lesson.

I remember exactly where I was. I was in 8th grade, William Paca Middle School, watching all the other kids get pulled out of school mysteriously. No one really knew the gravity of what had happened, or what really did happen just yet. We heard the that the towers had been hit, and that parents were panicking as they frantically came to sign their kids out of school early. My mom didn't drive at the time and my dad was at work but being Asian, I don't think my parents knew that's what you would or could do.

I came home from school regularly and saw my mom staring at the tv, trying to make sense of what had happened. It still felt surreal even when I saw it replayed on tv over and over. Why did this happen? How did this happen? What's going to happen after this? Is this real life?

And before this, I had never known about terrorism or grasped the idea that other countries out there may hate the US. I mean, why would they? I had been raised in this country, believing that it was the great land. How could you hate it? But this is before US and European history classes which would come later in high school. I wasn't aware of it all. I was also only 12 at the time. Naive and young. So seeing other countries celebrating what had happened to the US was very confusing and sad. Why would you cheer at someone else's tragedy? I didn't yet grasp that there was evil in the world. That some people just want to watch the world burn. And that some people would hurt others, especially innocents.

In the years to come, I would learn that there has been much history of terrorist attacks on the US in prior years. This was not the first, and since then, it's certainly has not been the last. But it has been the one that resonated with me the most because it was so close and I know and have encountered so many people involved in 9/11. In my retail pharmacy days, I had filled for many who were suffering from the aftermath of 9/11, the pain, the trauma, and other long term physical and psychological illnesses that came from it. A lot of friends and colleagues had parents, brothers, family members who participated in the search and rescue teams.

And today, I asked my followers if they remembered where they were during the attacks and found that a lot of them were very close to the scene when it happened and saw it happen. It's crazy. And a lot of us were in school at the time. Now we're adults looking back on this piece of history.

I stopped by the Oculus earlier this summer, but I haven't had a chance to actually explore the World Trade Center area yet. I would like to visit the Freedom Tower and the museum one of these days. It's so haunting but beautiful to see those two beams of light at night too, beaming up into the sky.

I wish I could understand why people do what they do and why they would wish to harm innocent people. It still happens today through school shootings, bombings, gunmen at nightclubs, movie theaters, concerts, etc. There is just no safe place anymore. It's really unfortunate in this day and age the things you have to worry about going into public spaces. Where you think you'll be safe in a crowd of people, may not always be the case.

This is also another reason why I'm so afraid to have kids. You can't always keep them from everything. Or if you shelter them from too much, what kind of life is that as well? There's just no winning.

I hope one day we can live in a world where these things don't exist.

Candytopia

September 10, 2018

I visited Candytopia a few weeks ago, another ‘museum’ type pop-up experience with candy as its premise this time. I’ll cut to the chase - this was a total IG trap, and unfortunately, not a very good one. After all its advertising, promotion, and social media influences, it was a total let-down.

It’s definitely a place to take cute photos - if you have enough time and room. Unfortunately, with this pop-up, there were a lot of flaws hindering you from getting the best experience. It starts off with the entrance gate. Too many people are crowded around it upon entering so I couldn’t get a nice photo of the gate - no one is really managing this well for people to get the best shot. I should’ve known from the start this was a bad sign. They don’t even limit the number of people entering at once. They simply put you all in a group and space it by time intervals but not by quantity of people so it’s the luck of the draw if the group you’re entering with is a big crowd or a small group. At other well done pop-ups, they limit how many people can go in at one time to not take away from the experience and overcrowd it so you’re waiting too long for a photo op or get rushed because you have to move on with your group. I got rushed at a lot of areas because the group simply had to move on because the doors were closing. And this was a one way pop-up, meaning once you have left a room, you can’t go back, only forward.

Next con, there weren’t really that many rooms in my opinion, at least they weren’t memorable enough for me to think there were a lot of rooms. And in the beginning that little hobbit-like “town” you walk though, is rather quick so you don’t even get to take any pictures there either so there’s a lot of wasted potential from being rushed through rooms. And the rooms seemed poorly put together like there wasn’t a lot of thought put into it or behind it. A lot of it felt really random, there wasn’t much really stringing the rooms together to make any sense of it. It felt like a cheaply put together Willy Wonka wonderland. Like I don’t really understand what Katy Perry’s statue was doing there. And a lot of the exhibits is wasted on these weird candy statues, candy paintings, and a candy car. I mean, I get it, Candytopia so everything’s made of candy, but it was all the same gummy mushy candy so it was kind of gross. There was no sealant or anything over the sculptures so basically everyone’s germs writhing all over the sugar confections. The sculptures weren’t that interesting either, to be honest.

The candy they gave out wasn’t really anything great either. It was all regular candy you can get yourself at the local grocery store. It would’ve been more interesting for them to give out different and unique candy from all over the world or something. Or at least rarer candy you don’t see often. I could probably get better treats during Halloween, actually. But I would say they gave out ample treats throughout the exhibit. There’s about one treat per room and you’re supposed to only take one per room but I’m pretty sure I saw people grab more than a few in each.

I found a lot of guests rude too. Some would take too much time on one photo op so it would take forever for you to have your own turn and in turn, other guests behind you get frustrated too. The workers there did their best to try and move things along but I don’t think they have much experience in handling this. They were nice and helpful as best they could but some people were just downright too rude for them to handle properly as well. You do get a decent amount of time in the marshmallow pit, which was basically the crowning jewel of the experience, but not enough time so that everyone can use the photo op that takes your photo for you and emails it to you. They didn’t have a lot of those either, actually. Like how Color Factory had photo op stations you could scan a QR at? Well, Candytopia only had 3 and they all had extremely unbearable lines so it was hard to get them.

Another thing to note, was the lack of ventilation in this space. It was in a big area but felt like they were skimping in AC. My sister started to feel sick from the lack of proper temperature regulation and had to sit down a few times because she didn’t feel well.

Candytopia is located at Penn Plaza on Penn Plaza at 145 W 32nd Street and tickets are priced at $34 a pop, but in my opinion, this is an experience you can skip. Spend $10 on a big bag of variery Halloween candy instead. There’s not really anything “interactive” about this pop-up and the waiting in line for everything didn’t really seem worth it for the photo ops. I’m not really in love with this place after walking out of it as well but it may have been from having a long hot day walking around the city as well, to be fair.

I would probably place this lower on the list of pop-ups I’ve visited, with the Egg House experience. I mean, go for the experience if you’re curious, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Before I went into it, my Californian friend even told me it wasn’t as great as she expected it to be from the California version and she said MOIC was much better. After my own experience, I would say I agree and that she was spot on. It’s okay but the Museum of Ice Cream was still much better. Disappointing since MOIC has been out forever so Candytopia had every chance to one-up the mother of all pop-ups.