Okay, I'm not doing a very good job at following my own advice. I was planning on having a quiet night at home last Friday. But then Basil called about a small going-away gathering...so after a (free) massage at my gym, I dashed home to change, met up with Eric (who's in town for two months on a consulting project) and his two co-workers at Shintori, and then met up with Basil and Chris at Carnegie's. A Long Island iced tea later, I was home at 2:30am...and was up by 7:30 to re-hydrate myself and get ready for a full day of paint-balling out in Tamshui. This was my first time going paint-balling, and I think I'll do it again...after I recover from my bruises. Came home from paint-balling and quickly showered and headed out to meet Jonathan to see "Kill Bill." I actually quite liked the film--the gurgling sounds of flowing bodily fluids aside--especially the visuals (the final scene between Lucy Liu's O-ren Ishii and Uma Thurman's "the bride" characters) and the soundtrack. Anyways, after "Kill Bill," I finally got to see the renowned 70s Airport Love Palace via a Halloween party the residents were hosting.

Sunday was a quiet day of sleep and recovery. Monday night I really exerted myself at the climbing gym (and now have injured my left shoulder muscle, sigh), Tuesday night I went with my co-worker Walsh to check out the Taiwan Society of Investment Professionals happy hour (I plan on taking the CFA exam next spring), Wednesday night I was up till 1:30am discussing with Christine and Joann ORIENTED, Inc's structure, and last night I caught up with Doug over dinner and got a foot massage along with Christine and Rose at the night market while waiting for James to re-connect with his mobile phone so that I could go over and borrow a sleeping bag and mat for this weekend's hiking trip to Da Ba Jian mountain. So, not much rest this week, but the adventures continue...

Whiff. This week has been rather exhausting. I know I must seem like I'm chronically pooped, but this week was really a doozy. Note to self: do not go out on weekends. Stay home and SLEEP. Nothing is worse than starting off a workweek tired. I had one good night of sleep, on Tuesday, wehn I got to bed at the delightfully early hour of 11.

Last night was the ORIENTED Taipei happy hour at the American Club. I must say I thought it was a rather successful event. In any case, I was ready to go home at 11 and collapse, but Christine and I thought we should go down to Sigi's and check out how many folks were left. Of course, Christine spotted some old friends, who were very charming people--and whose names I cannot think of at the moment because of the above mentioned fatigue--and we all a nice chat, but these pleasantries happened way too late in the night for me.

I can't complain. We just finished the last stretch of earnings season. One of my co-workers was at work till 1:30am, and my boss and two other analysts were apparently still going strong at 3am in the morning.

Over and out, the party girl with a 30's Shanghai look today.

Today's session with my trainer--my second session--has convinced me I have found the perfect one for me. Besides being approachable, knowledgeable, and ENCOURAGING, I learned today that he's not interested in the traditional gym routine of cardio and weights. He's also into mind-body movement methods. Today taught me some core-strengthening and flexibility exercises I haven't already done--which I find impressive, since I've taken a number of fitness classes. Apparently my lower spine is a bit flat, and that, coupled with my really tight hamstrings and lower back muscles, has caused a number of back problems.

Hmmm, as I read through this, I realize I'm probably boring you terribly. But in any case, I'm rather excited about all of this, because I'll be learning something new that makes me feel good. Improving my flexibility has long been a desire of mine since I have the worst flexibility; despite stretching regularly, I still barely make it past the bottom run of the "needs work" scale at my semi-annual fitness evaluation (although, I have gained 12cm of flexibility in my back in the past year and a half). Eventually, eventually I hope (keeping my fingers crossed, although I supposed I should be doing the downward facing dog instead) to be able to move up into the "fair" scale.

Wow! I just published my blog! The reason why I've been posting so infrequently these past couple of weeks (besides being busy at work) is that I thought I could no longer publish from work. After one day's futile attempts at publishing, and an email to Blogger Help, I was told my my work's FTP settings no longer worked with Blogger and that I should ask my ISP to change their settings. Yeah, right, like the IT folks will make a change so that I can blog at work. Not that I blog all the time at work, obviously. But being able to snatch moments to get out thoughts on my mind is a great outlet.

Thanks to Felix for rounding up a gaggle of us to participate in the Terry Fox Run last Sunday. Bonnie and I were feeling pretty good after what we believed to be the first half (we were told there were 3km and a 6km runs), so we embarked upon the second part. Gosh, we agreed, the run seems a lot longer when we aren't darting between crowds of participants. Of course, later we found out the first part was only 2.2km. Thankfully, the twice-weekly runs I had taken at the gym in the couple of weeks leading to the Terry Fox Run ensured I wasn't sore the next day.

However, I've been feeling really tired. I think it's the change of seasons. Plus, I tend to run myself ragged during the summer, dashing about here and there, doing this and that. Autumn is a time of recuperation. The weather is really quite beatiful now: today the sunny skies are blue, and there's just a hint of crispness in the air.

Yesterday was a day of reconnecting with friends I haven't heard from in awhile. At lunch, I was sad as I realized that I haven't really talked to Galen since he left Taiwan. While he was here, we'd talk nearly everyday. Now that he's finishing up his last semester of school at Berkeley, we rarely talk. Joy, then, when he got online in the afternoon and we had a satisfying instant message chat. Galen always makes me laugh.

Later, I thought to myself how unfortunate I missed meeting Andy on one of his business trips to Taiwan, as I had been to Hong Kong. I'd hoped he'd still be here when I got back, but I hadn't heard from him. Lo and behold, as I was walking back from the CAPT EC meeting, Andy called--he had missed the clearly written line in my email reply to him that I had changed my mobile number, and had called me on my old number. Thankfully, he re-read his email and caught me on his last night in town.

What else is a girl to do but to meet up with her bud? So good catching up--Andy remembers all my life's minutae from the last visit and asks for an update--but as I arrived home at 1:30am with my eyelids drooping, I knew I'd be hurting in the morning when my alarm rang at it's usual time of 6:30.

random acts of kindness

It's moments like these that make me so thankful that I live in Taiwan. This afternoon, I thought I would take a break and get some blood flowing into my legs by scurrying out to get a mango smoothie from my favorite juice place. It's just down the street, so I figured I would not heed the changeable weather we've had lately as fall blows in and just bring some cash and my phone.

Of course, the sky always rains when I forget to bring an umbrella. No matter, I thought, as I was sprinkled with a drop here and there. As I approached the intersection, though, the rain began to come down more determinedly. A young woman next to me offered to share her umbrella. Serendipitously, she was going to buy some fruit at the stand across the lane from the juice place. After I purchased by juice, the proprietor lent me an umbrella for my trip back to the office.