Leah’s Cafe

Even my uncle who usually damn serious was making a passing joke about me getting rounder this days, looks like it’s time for me to go on a weight loss venture!

Having put on at least 20 lbs (10 kg) in the past five years, boy, it’s hard to get rid of the extra baggages as we age. Have been trying to control the diet and exercise, as I am too chicken to try weight loss pills. But, laziness and indiscipline often get the better of me. The weight loss plan hasn’t been working.

As the big boy is so much taller and bigger than me, I still look “petite” beside him, one less incentive for me to lose weight. :-) My only motivations left will be to fit in those trendy and beautiful clothings again, on top of getting healthier.

Thank you for your wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, my apologies for the late New Year’s greetings. I spent the Christmas nursing a cold, then the internet connection has been down for the past few days, which has been very very frustrating. Though it was a good break since it meant I had to take my nose out of my desktop, ha, ha…

Happy New Year to all! May 2008 be the year you get to have the time to do all the things you want to do. My wish on the top of the list is to clean out the “stuffs” in the house that I’ve been unable to do for the past two years. I either have to give away, sell or just dump many of the stuffs to prepare for the big move in spring.

Caught a flu on Christmas eve, it really dampen the spirit. Didn’t feel motivated to get up or get out of the door. So ended up spending the entire Christmas day on the couch, nursing the cold and feeling terrible.

Didn’t feel like talking, so I hang up the phone and switched off the computer, took a break from blogging and had a pity party with myself. :-) Feeling better yesterday, got up to cook some comfort food and went for a walk in the neighborhood. Finally I am feeling normal !

Many of my friends are planning to leave their motherland for greener pastures. Many of them cited the recent political chaos, their worries of the safety of their loved ones, the rising crime rates, the rampant corruptions and of course the better education opportunities for their children as the main reasons for them to decide to uproot themselves.

They kind of told me that I am lucky to be married to an American and could migrate without going through the loops. The thing is, it’s not my first choice to live in the States. True, it’s a great country to live. But, it has also a lot of restrictions of what I can do or cannot do as an alien who speaks with an accent. It’s not easy for me to change the way I speak though it’s not impossible to get rid of the accent with immersion.

Leaving my motherland also means uprooting myself from a culture that I am familiar and learning to adapt to a new culture, getting to know new friends and establish a new social circle. I won’t say it’s an easy thing to do, but it’s probably a necessarily step to keep the marriage going. I just don’t see how the marriage can survive with two people living apart for long term.

Ever since we folded up the preschool and let go part of the tutoring business, the stress level has gone down tremendously. It was the first time I learned stress can change your normal routine or health. Through this episode of my life, I learned that after all the flexible working hours in my previous jobs, it’s difficult for me to be tied down with a schedule. Dealing with tasks that need much organization and meeting people is not my cup of tea.

I love the current arrangement, teaching 3 days a week at the center. After weeding out parents who wanted nothing more than teaching to the tests in the last two years, I now have a nice bunch of children who are pleasant to have around. With that I don’t mean they are “easy” to teach, it’s the opposite, half of them are children with some forms of learning difficulty and were not able to read despite the fact that they are highly intelligent.

The flexibility of the current situation also allows me to volunteer at the after school care for children of single parents once or twice a week. All this are possible thanks to the opportunity to make money online. The best thing is, I just have to pack up the laptop to change the location of work. I love that, and I wonder how come I never thought of doing things with the Internet since I have been an avid user since the early 90s!

I am still stuck with no phone and internet access at home, and a messy kitchen that I can’t start tidying up until the remodeling done.

I stopped by the sales office of the service provider, signed the one-year service agreement yesterday. The sales clerk said the installation crew will come to install the phone within 3 days. I am keeping my fingers cross about that.

As for the kitchen remodeling, the guy who is supposed to come back to me with the cost estimation hasn’t called me. I have called him twice in the last 10 days, he gave some excuses that he hasn’t got the list of my tiles selection. (How come?) I didn’t want to have to complain to my uncle whom he works for. But, he is a little inefficient to take more than a week to come out with a cost estimation, don’t you think so?

With such a bad start, I doubt he is going to stay on schedule for the work, and I really don’t know when his workers can “start work”. I prefer the other older man who works for my uncle, he is much more efficient. When we did the tiling for the tutoring center, he was able to give us a cost estimation on the spot, the workers and tiles also arrived the next day after we picked the tiles and everything was done within a week. Now, after two weeks, nothing has been done!

Saturday is my busy day as I teach a few classes on Saturday. As much as I enjoy teaching, it can get really exhausted having classes back to back.

If I have a choice, I would have scheduled the classes on weekdays. But, nowadays, the school keep the children until quite late and the children have multiple classes to attend in a week. It’s a headache trying to accommodate everyone.

In the past two years, parents who want teaching to the tests were weeded out, the present students in the class are quite nice and pleasant to teach. They don’t feel the pressure and they like the multi-sensorial kind of learning environment. They do not just sit there listening, they get to participate and play games.

We have decided to do a little renovation at our house and remodel the kitchen. We are going to add a wet kitchen, replace the broken kitchen cabinet and add a drying area. The workers should be here to start work next week. Until then, the house will be in total mess with dining table, refrigerator and appliances lying in the living hall.

I went to pick the tiles yesterday. For some reason, the guy who is supposed to give me a price quote hasn’t called yet. Though I am not worried of being overcharged as he works for my uncle who owned the tile dealership. My cousin always gives me good discount for the tiles and get his best man to do the job. But, I would like to know whether the total cost comes out to be within our budget or we can change the tiles if the price exceeds the budget. I must call to find out today.