Something Nice

My stomach looked like a balloon when I was five. I could eat five bowls of rice when I was ten. When I graduated from the elementary school, I was only 129 cm tall. You can imagine how I looked. A perfect rolling ball, with just a slight push with your finger tip you could roll me anywhere. I was still healthy, you know children's metabolism run fast. Trust me I wanted to find a way to tie my stomach or at least tie my shoes, and curb my appetite badly. Did I make it? Sorry I didn't have enough horses to give me that kind of will power.

Food is my weakness. My mouth was not used to talk, it had only one purpose - how to get as much food as possible. I was very quiet when I was small. Do you know why? Because I found it was a good way to hook food. All my uncles wanted to cheer me up and get me to talk by luring me with bananas as if I were a monkey. My mom stored a lot of fruit in our fridge so that I wouldn't absorb too much starch and became a real elephant. That's how I fell in love with fruit.

When Chinese New Year came, my mom would buy a lot of candies because it was the tradition of her family. I alone would eat up all the candies before others laid their fingers on the jar. Candies became my 2nd favorite food. After the new year I had to beg my mom to buy candies. I was close to my big brother despite the fact how bully he was because I got rewards for running his errand, candies.

During Junior high, I had to peddle my bike to school. School was far, far away from my home. My mom was mean, she got me a very big old ugly bicycle. I had to stretch my legs very hard to touch the paddles, and I had to use a lot of energy to get the bike run fast. Miraculously I grew very fast like the bean tree in the Bean Stalk story, and I lost weight and shrank like a balloon does when it is stuck by a needle, too. Still I ate a lot. Sometimes my mom gave me money for lunch and snacks. I used most of it to buy food and ate it soon after I arrived at school. I had nothing to eat for lunch and kept an empty stomach for the whole afternoon. When riding back home after school, I would stop at the food stand and used the left money to get myself a pc. of bread or cake and a big cup of papaya milk. Pastries and papaya milk became my 3nd favorite fruit.

My forth favorite food is eggs. I ate all kinds of eggs; scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, fried eggs, salty eggs, steamed eggs, three-color eggs, thousand-year egg, braised eggs, etc. I could eat five or six eggs for a meal.

When I entered the college, the smell from the bakery after lunch was so luring that I had to buy two or three breads to eat even I already had had lunch. I gained about five kg. the 1st year and my face looked like a fat moon. No boys asked me out. The next year, I just ate bread for lunch. I had to dump some weight. A round moon is beautiful, but not a fat face.

Eating so many pastries, eggs and fat, I was examined high cholesterol when I was junior in the college. It didn't bother me. You might as well kill me if I had to give up my favorite food. But recently especially these two years, everybody is talking about healthy food, eating healthy, don't touch junk food. I feel like a rebel fighting the whole world. Well, I think I am addicted to junk food and it may not be possible for me to quit.

Anyhow, I started to wonder why I can still survive with junk food. The only explanation is that I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables and I exercise. Except all the junk food, I love fruit, my number one favorite, vegetables and exercise. Somehow they make up a little bit my bad eating habit.

You want to live longer? I think it's more practical to live happily with a smiley face and clearer mind. Fruit, vegetables and exercise is my advice. If I can't convince you, just remember fruit and exercise can never be wrong.

Trini

It's in My Blood

Ref. http://tw.image.search.yahoo.com/search/images?fr=yfp&ei=UTF-8&p=blood+type

There are four members in my family. All of us are blood type B. Every day we point at each other pushing our blood up to make our face bloody red and our head like a bomb on the brink of explosion. To stay away from a possible WWIII, I joined T/Ms. It really helped me excel, and I found the best in me. My T/Ms friends say that I am cheerful, energetic and passionate. In another words, I am noisy, showy and excitable.

Why do I act this way? The explanation lies in my blood. Blood type is what I am talking about and what we should do for a better interaction. A, AB, B & O. These simple four letters divide us into four big groups. They decide our personality. Maybe I have put it a little bit simple and there are some other factors included to make each one of us unique. Good or bad? It’s not up to us and our blood types stick to us the whole life that if you want to change your personality, it would like changing our parents or changing our blood! Can we? It's absolutely out of the question! The only solution is there are ways we can learn

Back to my personality, some characteristics are pleasant like optimistic, lively and flexible, and some are simply annoying. No matter how hard I try to oppress them sometimes, they would just jump out unexpectedly that ruins all the reputation I have gained over time like elegant, graceful and amiable, and return to the shallow and pushy woman I was.

Take a good look of how noisy, showy and excitable I can be. I’m noisy like a chatty bird that don't know when to stop; I am showy to prove I'm more confident, not shy anymore; excitable? I can fight just for a free cookie! Talking about food I really feel frustrated. Do you know that in general people of blood type B is crazy about food? I especially! Don't ever put food in front of me if you don't want me to enjoy it. If you pay attention, you will find me always standing by the food with my mouth full. I was humiliated all the time when I was small. My uncles always made fun of me using bananas to lure me to speak as if I were a monkey.

I believe some of you find these characteristics annoying because your blood type doesn't approve them. We can be friends, but probably not close friends. Some people just don't get along together because their blood types contradict each other. B and AB may drive each other nuts, they are the most incompatible types. The best solution for them is applying positive thinking and encouraging words. A and O are ideal for AB.

These two years I’ve used blood type for ref. to study my students. At the beginning of this semester, while getting to know my students I realized I was wrong about a lot of things that I was so sure of. For instance people with Blood type B is just a little bit more than blood type AB, in some classes, even less. "O" is the most popular blood type, then A. In a class "A" is even more
than "O". When two students kept fighting or dislike each other, I would check their blood type to see the possible explanation.

Today, the situation has changed for me. I no longer worry about my weakness. With friendly people like T/Ms, I can feel comfortable with my personality. Especially after I made some lady friends who are either type "O" or "B", I no longer feel helpless. Blood type O people are decisive, eloquent, generous, and humorous with a lot of more lovely features. All these features help blood type B people relax and make them feel at ease. With blood type compatible people like my lady friends, I can just be me. Every minute with them is a blessing. I enjoy a blast, a pleasant chat, a fun gathering and especially when they all share their food with me.

Knowing me knowing you is the best we can do. Knowing others blood type helps us interact with them. My family is happy now that I pick on them less and less. Whatever is in our blood, we can always enjoy it as long as we can simply adjust a little bit when necessary. Just tell me your blood type and let me deal with the rest! I’m blood type B. What’s yours?

Trini

My Very First Birthday Celebrated with Friends

It takes a long time to grow young. - Pablo Picasso
When I was young, I didn’t feel young, I was eager to grow older to be on my own. Maybe all children think this way. Now after my children became grown-ups, I gradually enjoyed my leisure life more and more and noticed a lot of things I overlooked before. I felt I was growing younger and younger and having my lady friends played an important role. How true it is that “Age is a matter of feeling, not of years” by Gerge William Curtis

This year, my lady friends insisted to celebrate my birthday though I tried hard to talk them out of it. I can’t explain why I didn’t feel like celebrating my birthday. Maybe I was trying to avoid the fact that I was one year older again? Or maybe I had been celebrated all my family members’ birthdays that I simply lost interest in celebrating mine?

A few days before my birthday Pamela brought it up again. All the goldies seemed determined to make it happen. What could I say? Well, thinking it from the other side, we got one more chance to get together while enjoying a nice meal. I better not disappoint them again.

Pamela booked a table at “糖朝” restaurant that serves Kontonese style food. I had tried the food there twice and loved it. DienSin is my most favorite food and they have a big variety of flavors for me to choose.

Kate, Gina, Irene, Lydia, Michelle and Pamela dressed up that night putting on their favorite clothes. Sherry couldn’t make it due to a T/Ms meeting. Linda was still on her long leave from goldies. Still, we had a blast. The restaurant is full of classic Chinese culture, the food was scrumptious, the waitress were professional, and the atmosphere at the restaurant was just right for us to make unavoidable chat noise and laughter. The only pity was that I forgot to bring my camera on this very exceptional day. I had to use my cell phone to take pictures which I must say not even close to satisfactory. Still they shows that everyone was joyous and smiling
happily.

We hanged on in the restaurant till the latest hour we could and were reluctant to leave. Upon saying good night to each other, I thanked all goldies from the bottom of my heart. This was the first time I celebrated my birthday with my lady friends, and it was truly a sweet and memorable treasure.

Trini