genki nai

I feel ooogy. Someone help me.

Genki, ne!

I really need to change the picture. I'm not sure I like it anymore.

I'm still recovering from my sinus infection; I just have a sore throat now. It's lingered for a while. I was supposed to have a regular doctor visit in March but I put off scheduling it until I had my schedule and now the soonest thing that they have is April. Boo. I may call and ask if I should be concerned that the sore throat is still lingering. I think it's really just post-nasal drip.

Now that I've disgusted you enough with my health problems, let me tell you about the awesome party that I had. Yes, that's right! You heard right! Ginger finally had an awesome party.

After years of horrible luck with parties, I reneged on my previous vow NEVER to have another party and decided to have a Japanese theme party. This was an idea that I BLATANTLY stole from Kalpana and her husband. They posted pictures of a Japanese party that they had to which someone came as GODZILLA. Well, I wanted THAT! So I decided to try it.

Whadya know? People came. It was amazing. We had me, dressed in my taiko drumming outfit, Kati as Kungfu Panda (yes, I know it's Chinese, but she was too attracted to the prospect of being both awesome and attractive), Jason in his Thai outfit, John in a Chinese shirt (I think it was hemp), Cynthia as a Sushi Roll (very awesome!), Jillian as a Pokemon warrior, and Jessica in a full kimono with wig (wicked awesome!). Kristen, my new roommate, was there too, as an American tourist (yeah, she just wore normal clothes). Oh no, wait, Patrick, from my improv troupe, also came in normal clothes, but he claims he ate a Japanese man on the way over, so I guess it was some kind of Godzilla impersonation. I'm not gonna question it. The important thing is ... PEOPLE CAME! Amazing. Really it is.

I made teriyaki, tempura, and sushi rolls. I almost went over board. Sure I have lots of raw vegetables in the fridge now, but at least I didn't have to throw it away (just yet). We also had edamame (soy beans), wasabi peas (yuck), and Pocky sticks. Very Japanese.

For fun, I borrowed my mom's karoake machine. Believe it or not, this is super extremely fun and not just cause I love it. It's the kind of thing that people can really get into. And if you sing some of the songs in a Japanese or German accent, it's hilarious. Of course, not everyone is confident enough to do this, but those are the people who love Apples to Apples.

After hearing people rave fanatically about this game, I thought it might be just the thing. Well, people stayed til after midnight on a Sunday night playing this game. Good times. I drank half a (BIG) bottle of sake. Thank God, I live here. I was a little bit hung over the next day.

If you'd like, there are pictures on facebook. Enjoy. And if you're thinking of having a party, think Japanese.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, it's been a lovely vacation and it's shame that it's over so soon. I got to see Jen, Leanne, and Mesha. I decided to keep the friends' visits to a minimum, since I didn't have as much time this year. So I really should make an effort to phone anyone that I didn't get to see. Otherwise, I was so glad to catch up with everyone.

It was a little exhausting hanging out with my family. I guess there's a lot of personal stuff happening that just makes everyone stressed out. That's one nice thing about being so far away is that it's not a part of my day-to-day life but then when I'm visiting, I'm kinda inundated with it because they know that I'm out of the loop. What they don't know is that I like being out of the loop. On the other hand, I went to the gym twice with Kim. That was good because I got to keep up my workouts and I got to encourage Kim with it.

Today we did a birthday celebration that included a lot of food (per usual). Now I'm just trying to recover from the sheer volume of food. Prolly negates those workouts now. Oh well.

Even a caveman can do it.

I didn't get any snow, but I did use it as the perfect excuse not to go to the gym. Well, not really. I did have this nasty sinus infection.

It started out as just a flu that both my roommate and I picked up at Karoake. (new plan - require drug tests before you are allowed to karaoke with us!) Mine was made worse by a personal training session that led to me getting dehydrated and unable to get a Gatorade to make it go away. So I spent the night at work (as the manager in charge) feverish and slightly goofy. Example? Sure. "Ginger, I have a customer here who would like to return a shirt." "Sure, just add a little sauce."

So I was out of work for a couple of days, thinking it was just a virus and would go away, but it did not. This led me to go to the doctor's (finally) and she said it was a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics, which started curing me promptly. Feeling better now, except I'm all husky-voiced, which can be good up until you start hacking up phlegm.

Meanwhile, loved ones are experiencing record amounts of snow. I texted my brother Nathan and the exchange went something like this.

Me: Hows the snow?
Nathan: If I were (to) play it low key I could only say there is enough snow here to cause the extinction of man ... that doesnt even make sense?
Me: But ur not xtinct yet?
Nathan: Actually I had problems writing the txt since I just thawed out of a block of ice, and this technology scares me.

He's so funny.

How to occupy a whole weekend by doing nothing

Still doing very well with my workouts. I took a couple of days off, although I hadn't meant to. I came home from work one evening, fully intending to go to the gym and, do you know, I fell asleep on the couch. I had no idea that I was so tired. I think that's actually a side effect of working out.
Anyhoo, I went back to the gym last night to do my strength training. I went today to do my cardio. I'll go back tomorrow to do my strenth training again. And then back on Tuesday to do my cardio. And then Wednesday is my next training session with Rich, my hot-ex-marine personal trainer. It's gonna be a fun-filled week. I can't wait.
Meanwhile, I have this weekend off. I don't know what I'll do with myself. As it is, I wasted all of today. I could have gotten some cleaning done, although I really should have worked on the script that I promised Casey.
It's almost done, it just needs some tweaking. While I like our idea, I'm getting a little annoyed now, because I feel like he's adding ideas to the mix a little late. It's almost like over-seasoning the soup. We just need to let it simmer. I guess it really comes down to a difference in our creative styles. I get all my ideas in the beginning and I try to cram them all in. Towards the end, I start editing down. But Casey seems to be the opposite. He started out saying he wanted it simple and as we've gotten more in-depth, he's adding more and more and more. It's a little exhausting. But we gave ourselves a deadline and I think it'll be much less after that.
I guess the other thing I could have done was study for the GMATs but I think I'm so much more occupied with the working-out. Enh. Last week, I lost a pivotal pound. Just one pound, but it was the difference between 200 pounds and 199 pounds. Woohoo!
Meanwhile, I'm gearing up to go home in February. I'll be in Virginia Feb 16 thru 21. Let me know if you're interested in getting together.

Gymawesome!

I'm awesome! Why? Cause I keep going to the gym, that's why! I deserve a freaking Olympic gold medal for going to the gym a requisite number of times! Woohoo! I rule!

Keep it up!

So I had my third session with my personal trainer this week. We're going to be meeting every other week, for a total of 8 sessions. That's what I've signed up. He and I agree this is a good amount of time to see some real progress. So in each session, he'll be giving me a strength training routine and a cardio routine that I'll follow until the next session. It's pretty effective. I did my first strength training on my own today. It was surprisingly easier than when I did it with him, which made me worry that I wasn't doing it right, but I know that I did my darndest to do it right. The cardio is actually the hardest part because I have to go often enough to do it and then when I'm there, do it for long enough.
I'm really liking this. I'm glad that I've signed up for it. And my mother can stick it as far as "taking time to find a husband" is concerned. I like my personal trainer too. He's motivational and keeps my focused, but also can distract me from how difficult it can be. Well, when he's not being motivational. The last time that I was there, he used the whole time that I was on the treadmill to talk about how great I was doing, and "keep it up," and "you can do it!" and all that pep talk sort of stuff, and ... (I never thought I'd say this) I gotta kinda sick of it. I really wanted to say, "Can we not talk about me and how great I'm doing?" Because all it does is focus on how much longer I have to go on the treadmill. So I'm going to say something at the next session.
The other good thing that I'm hoping for is pick-up volleyball games. When I joined, they said that the gym was trying to get that started. I hope they do because that would be wicked awesome.
Meanwhile, what are my plans for Valentine's Day? none.