Why are we even complaining?

Watch this and you'll never complain about your life ever again.





For those who are too lazy to even watch, in short:

Michael had been a diabetic since he was 4.
He lapsed into a 3 months coma at 13 when his blood sugar rose too high while he was partying

After the coma, doc advised him to start to re-gain some size and be physically active
It was a complicated process being diabetic, with high metabolism, ...but the point here is..despite all complications, Michael continued his struggle not only against his medical condition but pushed himself physically.

Between the age of 16 and 18 he worked consistently at the gym, gained body mass and doctors noticed his blood sugar stabilizing and insulin levels were lower.

It didn't end there.

He was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma cancer at 19 and doctors estimated that he only had 2-3 years to live.  He went through about 1-2 years of aggressive treatments of all sorts.

Doctors discharged him from the hospital to celebrate his 20th birthday, (possibly his last birthday), and/ then for him return to the hospital to recover.

At home, he forced himself to do sit ups and then at least one push up a day.  He started going back to the gym and regained his fitness.

He beat the cancer but is now struggling coronary heart disease developed after all the aggressive radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments.  Doctors warned that he may have a stroke or heart attack if he stresses himself.

His fight continues..

Michael Maldonado
His Facebook page (HERE)

Village Life

I'm weird.

While everyone was playing Diamond Dash, Bejeweled..I played City Ville, Trade Nations, Battle Nations..

Now everyone seems to be crazy about Candy Crush..I did try..but didn't see the point..may be I didn't try to understand the scoring systems..


I've stopped playing City Ville for some time.  Deleted Battle Nations from the phone too.  Still on Trade Nations..but not often.

Still playing Letterpress on and off for the sake of my vocabulary power..so to speak.


But..there's this new game that I'm really enjoying now - VILLAGE LIFE.

Short description of the game from the homepage:

The player starts with only two villager in an empty village, one pregnant with a child.  By looking after a pregnant couple who need food and shelter. The player then has to rebuild and repopulate a village to create a thriving utopia where every need of each villager is met by helping them harvest food and collect resources to craft tools, toys and buildings.

In this ancient world you'll name and care for each character, watching them grow from birth through to first date, marriage, childbirth and old age with all the fun of life along the way. 

In a uniquely social twist, villagers will also seek to have relationships and children with other villagers made up of other members of the Village Life Facebook community.

Key features:

• Build a thriving village
• Care for every need of your villagers through fully integrated quests
• Harvest food and collect resources to craft tools, toys and buildings
• Explore the land, and progress into new worlds building bigger villages
• Unlock new tools, resources, and more through using in-game currency
• Fully Interactive Social features: Date and Marry your Facebook friends' villagers!

So, I've been doing most of the above.  In my village now, the elder couple (Hayden and Ellie) with their twins (Emily and Benjamin), just had another baby (Abigail). The twins has grown up and could help around at the farm, etc.  There are these two other adults (Isaac & Samantha) who joined the couple earlier..they are are apparently yearning for LOVe..wonder why they can't get together on their own :D

I'm still begging my friends to join me in the game so I can find them partners!  Anyone? Please....



Check this out..I just took this screen shot.  I just got them a Yoga mat :D
And the little guy next to the yoga mat is playing skipping. Spot the fencing dummy in front of the yoga mat.

They don't sleep by the way, always asking for different kinds of food and entertainment :s  You'll see at the bottom right corner, Samatha's wishes in the white clouds -- she's wishing for a new house, knitting kit and love.

:D

I'm Self Employed but I Blog less

I used to blog a few times a day, then it became once a day, then few times a week and even less so recently due to the holidays.

The main difference between now and then was..I used to blog crap and now I'm kind of more topic specific.  So, when there are no relevant topics I don't blog.

Secondly, there were greater chances to come across something to blog/brag about when I used to spend more time driving to and from the office, my mind wanders creatively when I drive.

Similarly, as an employee I had more time on a work desk sitting in front of the work station - supposedly working, regardless of whether there's work or not, hence, the difference with my current setup is -- when there's nothing urgent that requires me to be desk-bound I'd be away from the desk doing some other things like preparing a meal or some other work or non-work related matters away from the desk.

In short, being self employed, work doesn't have to be sitting at a desk for 9-6 pm on every weekday.  As long as I respond to mails, and meet my deadlines and expectation, I'm "working".

So, to reply to the main reason why I'm blogging less now is..I spend less idle time on the work desk..you know...as a 'writer' you need peace-of-mind to be able to come up with something, unless it's something that I really wanna talk about, and easy enough to trash out.

Like now..I'm blogging cos I'm suppose to start "work" on something but it's Friday and we just had a long CNY break....bla bla bla.. so I'm kind of cheating myself..sitting here typing away but not really working.


Now..now, before anyone starts to envy the life of being self employed..there's a price / cost that comes with the flexibility.

1. Yes..it was a drag having to be bound by a full time job, having to be at the office every weekday but remember that we are being PAID for all that. Regardless of whether you work or deliver 100% or 50% or 200%, we get paid every single month without fail.

2.  Being self-employed, Yes, we spend less hours working, we may seem to earn more per hour spent working, BUT, there is no guarantee that we will get paid every single day or month.  There are no EPF neither.

So..it's a matter of choice.  There's no perfect solution..we just have to make the best of the choices we made..after all Life is short..

Source: bitsofwisdom.org via elifesl on Pinterest

CNY 2013

Attempted to make sticky chicken wings..

Sitcky chicken wings on the left, appearance failed.  Luckily had back up plan, normal fried chicken wings on the right.

Reunion dinner was at bro's place, checkout the spread and spot my chicken wings.

Cute ang pow from my younger cousin.  Hmm..may be I should stop accepting ang pows next year onwards.

Had a great time at a good friend's place on the second day.  Went ot with one bag for the host, and came back with three bags.  Hmm..these girls are too nice..next year must prepare more.

Got Raya green packet too...too nice.

Lou sang!

Have a great year ahead!

Which one are you?

This is quite fun..and yet true to some extent.
The visual is so huge..I'll have to change my blog layout after I post this.

I can't really find where I belong to...

May be Mr Nice Guy eh?  Heeee.....


What about you?

Lizard Pose

Still having problems with my groin/hip/leg.
Stopped going to painful massages, too costly and not worth it for the pain I had to endure for the little bit of improvement.

As mentioned earlier, there were significant improvements but it's not totally cured.

He was right though in saying that it's a vein injury and it's more complicated and takes much longer to heal compared to muscle, ligaments or tendons, etc.  This is confirmed by an instructor in the gym.
At least now I know..there's such thing as vein injury.

All that I gather from the massage guy is that..sometimes our veins become twisted, retracted, knotted, etc, thus we feel pain or uncomfortable.  One of his advice is to rest for at least 30 mins after an activity before going into shower or washing up, not necessary an exercise..even when you come back from a shopping trip, work, etc
The idea is to let the body cool down..before applying water..not even warm water.

Sounds familiar? My father said that a billion times since we were young..but of course we never listen.


Similarly, my instructor advised me to stretch as much and as long as possible, especially after a work out when the body and muscles are warm.. it's very beneficial to lengthen the veins.  The main idea is to stretch and lengthen the veins..

If we piece the two concepts together, it makes a whole lot of sense.  What the massage guy does is apply extreme pressure to straighten or lengthen the veins.  Stretching does the same, if we understand and know where and how to stretch.

My instructor explained and showed me some very useful positions..so I do it after each work out, and each time I feel good.  The rest is up to me to trial and error and feel.

I recently discovered that this Lizard Pose is very good in releasing the tightness in the groin.  Normally I do this (if I remember) after a work out .

http://www.browseyoga.com

This morning I woke up feeling some pain and tightness after a short run yesterday, so I did the lizard pose..it was quite painful in the beginning, but after sometime..I felt a significant relief.


Looks like..I gotta be a lizard more often :P