It's overrated

Musical Monday: It's a beautiful life, Ace of Base
Scroll down for Monday Mayhem

The truth is I am hanging in suspense right now and there is a cloud of worry above my head. I don't particularly enjoy it but I know I'll get through it and that's what I like about all this. A self-imposed dose of optimism today, I hope you like it.

Amanda @ Bloggin with Amanda hosts Musical Monday

XmasDolly of XmasDolly, Lori of Shewbridges of Central Florida, Larry of Cakeblast, and Callie of JAmerican Spice host Monday's Music Moves Me

Denise @ Run DMT hosts Music Monday Blog Hop

***********

Monday Mayhem: The overrated

1. Name a restaurant that is over-rated? Any restaurant you have to wait an hour to get into

2. What food is over-rated? That christmas party valenciana I tasted in 5th grade.

3. Name an experience that you have had that is/was over-rated? My marriage. Thank God it's over.

4. What celebrity is over-rated? Paris Hilton and all of them who claim they want privacy but whose faces are splashed across glossy magazine pages all the time

5. What movie is/was over-rated? Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

6. What famous person is over-rated? Sarah Palin

7. Would you rather be over-rated or under-rated? Just normal

8. What or who is the most over-rated thing in the world? Bought academic titles. God, these morons here can't even recognize a null hypothesis and they have the guts to expect people to address them 'Doctor'

9. Is there something that your S.O. (spouse etc ) likes a lot that you think is over-rated? Idealized concept of repeated procreation

Harriet hosts Monday Mayhem

Nobody knows the truffles I've seen

Our Weekend Memoirs: First things first

Scroll down for Sunday Stealing

A nasty cold was mangling my nose into a mound of peeling red on new year's day. I fought it with antibiotics and sneezed through the first day of 2011. Same old, same old except that I like to think this is the way I am saying goodbye for the first time to a favorite past-time.

Where Miranda Priestley would have called me an incubus of viral plague, C hang out with me in a resort town to see the day go by. This is my first coffee of the year.

C's first detox food

and her first dessert, which I pecked at occasionally. The nose was still stuffy. C was brave.

We proceeded to Hilton where we drank the night away listening to live music. If I didn't remember that I used to frequent Hilton twelve years ago, my margarita would probably have tasted new. Oh well.

Time to get back to reality. Face another year of crap. Until the next getaway then.

Ebie and Arlene host Our Weekend Memoirs

***************

Sunday Stealing: The Ace Meme, Part One

Today we ripped off a blogger named Ace of Hadeon from the blog My Heroes Have Always Been Scientists. Since it is 100 questions we will do it it in three parts. He stated he jacked this from Padme 18. But, it was probably stolen there as well. So, of course, that will be as far as we go. Tracing back our theft's thieves might take some time. Link back to us at Sunday Stealing!

Cheers to all of us thieves!

1. ONE OF YOUR SCARS, HOW DID YOU GET IT? I was too immersed in nautical dreams I held an iron too close to the side of my lap. At least it didn't look like frustrated suicide.

2. WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM? A painting I bought in the Thai-Myanmar border.

3. DO YOU SNORE, GRIND YOUR TEETH, OR TALK IN YOUR SLEEP? When I was a kid I was told I did all these except snore. Now I surf cyberspace in my sleep.

4. WHAT TYPE OF MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO? It depends on the mood and mode.

5. WHAT TIME WERE YOU BORN? Around 10 AM or I could mistake that for my son's.

6. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW? To accomplish efond by February 3rd.

7. WHAT DO YOU MISS? Someone's chest.

8. WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRIZED POSSESSION(S)? Right now, a tiny flash drive containing work that will determine where will I be in the next 3 years.

9. HOW TALL ARE YOU? Too short for my 6'2" prince

10. DO YOU GET CLAUSTROPHOBIC? No

11. DO YOU GET SCARED IN THE DARK? No

12. THE LAST PERSON TO MAKE YOU CRY? The X, bless him.

13. WHAT'S YOUR WORST FEAR? That I can't pull off this stunt I got myself into.

14. WHAT KIND OF HAIR/EYE COLOR DO YOU LIKE ON PEOPLE YOU'RE ATTRACTED TO? Jet black

15. WHERE CAN YOU SEE YOURSELF PROPOSING? Somewhere near some form of help. I don't want to cause chaos in the mind of someone whose orientation is different from mine.

16. COFFEE OR ENERGY DRINK? Coffee baby anytime

17. FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPING? Salami

18. IF YOU COULD EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE? A decent breakfast. I'm off to work in a few minutes. Yes, I'm working on a Sunday.

19. FAVORITE COLOR OF ALL TIME? Purple

20. HAVE YOU EVER EATEN A GOLDFISH? Maybe by mistake

21. WHAT WAS THE FIRST MEANINGFUL GIFT YOU'VE EVER RECEIVED? Some nice words

22. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH? I have them all the time

23. ARE YOU DOUBLE JOINTED? Sometimes I wish I were

24. FAVORITE CLOTHING BRAND? Not big on brands. As long as it fits, feels good on both skin and purse, shoot.

25. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE FEMALE/MALE CELEBRITY? T.L.

26. DO YOU HAVE A PET RIGHT NOW? Yes

27. WHAT KIND IS IT? Toy poodle

28. WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING? I've fallen in love knowing that the person was not even around physically. This is where I am perfectly insane.

30. SAY A NUMBER FROM ONE TO A HUNDRED? 9

31. BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Stereotyping is getting old

32. FAVORITE QUOTE? Nobody knows the truffles I've seen.

33. FAVORITE PLACE? A cottage with books, beautiful tea sets and calming music.

Bud Weiser hosts Sunday Stealing

Eat your words

Have you ever sat down reading something routine and suddenly you have to scramble to the dictionary? I swear I used to eat these words for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A four-year hiatus from the research lab and wait, what...? threaten to punctuate the flow. They are getting back to my diet again, but they are so obvious they are killing me.

1. theory
2. latent
3. variable
4. delimit
5. experiment
6. framework
7. philosophy
8. correlate
9. dissemination
10. cognitive
11. proselytize
12. epistemology
13. empirical

Megan and Janet hosts Thursday 13.

Like crazy

Music Monday: I Miss You Like Crazy, I Have Nothing
Please scroll down for Monday Mayhem

Songs of your youth - why does it sound so distant? (lol). I picked a song each from 1988 and 1993, years very significant to me when life was budding.

There's something I am trying to analyze nowadays. It turns out harder than the research project I am working on. How can you miss someone so much when all that connects you two in the past is a silly high school drama? Maybe that's why this Natalie Cole hit says like crazy because longing for someone you haven't even had communication with in 22 years does sound crazy. Modern technology enables us hours of talking and virtual dinners together. But merging that with the lives we lived without each other does not make sense to me. Crazy is the only explanation I can think of right now. Not that I'm about to operationalize psychoticism and neuroticism in my research. This thing going on is something else.

It amazes me how Whitney Houston emphasizes I have nothing, nothing... if I don't have you when she sings her Bodyguard soundtrack. I must have been this adamant that whatever I have is enough; that I don't need a man to say it's a beautiful life, duh. But maybe, well, I like the song; I will keep an open mind about female independence.

Either Sony has blocked playing in certain countries or embedding is disabled. This is the best substitute I could find.

Amanda @ Bloggin with Amanda hosts Musical Monday

XmasDolly of XmasDolly, Lori of Shewbridges of Central Florida, Larry of Cakeblast, and Callie of JAmerican Spice host Monday's Music Moves Me

Denise @ Run DMT hosts Music Monday Blog Hop

*********************

Monday Mayhem: Green

1. What is your favorite Green food? leafy veggies

2. What is your most hated green food? I can't think of any right now

3. What is green that grosses you out? excreted bile

4. What is green that you love? trees

5. What is green that you never want to see again? snake

6. Have you ever seen a green person? no

7. Have you ever been green? no

8. Do you try to be green? no

9. What is the best green thing in the world? vegetation

10. What green thing should we avoid?

O! beware my lord, of Jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock. The meat it feeds on. - Iago - Act 3 Othello by William Shakespeare.

Harriet hosts Monday Mayhem

Fascination

"Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as the water from a fountain. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass the fountain"

So says ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tze. I wonder what could he have thought about musical fountains.

This one is.
Right below the skytrain terminal station in Mochit is Suan Sirikit. This fountain entrances people in the park. The water dances while the music, which is understandably Thai, plays. It does not stop the fascination I know though. And it might have ended right then at the start....

* Thanks to Gray for tagging and lending me this photo.

My World Tuesday is brought to you by Klaus and the My World Team Sandy, Wren, Fishing Guy, Sylvia

Random destiny

Musical Monday: Destiny
Monday Mayhem follows

Vanessa Mae. We share the same second name. Her biological father is Thai. So is my son's. I love violin music. The coincidence that fascinates me is Vanessa Mae's birthday which is the same as Paganini's. Her music style, the self-described violin techno-acoustic fusion, is a sassy alternative to my orientation: that somber air around my soprano mother's careworn solo part of Sanctus. It's the new year and it's great to have an alternative. The tempo moves me too. I hope you enjoy Destiny today as much as I do.

Amanda @ Bloggin with Amanda hosts Musical Monday

XmasDolly of XmasDolly, Lori of Shewbridges of Central Florida, Larry of Cakeblast, and Callie of JAmerican Spice host Monday's Music Moves Me

Denise @ Run DMT hosts Music Monday Blog Hop

************************

Monday Mayhem: All about random questions

1. Are you through with all of the stress associated with the Holidays and the New Year? I'm OK with being back to routine now.

2. What is the stupidest thing about New Year's resolutions? Making them over the incoherence of new year's booze. The resolve sparkles and exits with the belch.

3. We hear that Michael Vick has been given the use of a car in return for promoting a car dealership. Would you ever buy a car from that dealership? (in case you don't know about Vick, check out Wikepedia- you may need to scroll down a bit) Hmm I drink coke, I wear Nike, I used to drive Toyotas and ride on Mercedes Benzes, above all I LOVE DOGS. You can bet this canine killer's Nissan Armada I am going to buy that second-hand BMW when I survive PhD torture.

4. Do you think that eating too many carrots turns the skin orange? The thought did not cross my mind

5. Have you ever witnessed someone stealing from a store? no

6. What is the worst thing you can say to a bus driver? If there is any, I don't want to say it

7. What grosses you out about feet? dirt

8. The highlight of your perfect day would be what? Getting a positive feedback from some U's faculty of humanities

Harriet hosts Monday Mayhem

P is for Park Day

Sunday Stealing: The First 2011 Alphabet Meme
Scroll down for Our Weekend Memoirs

Today we ripped this meme off a blogger named Neil Turner at the blog Neil Turner from the blog Neil Turner's Blog (duh). Neil is from Yorkshire, England. He said he stole it from Troy. But, it was probably stolen there as well. So, of course, that will be as far as we go. Tracing back our theft's thieves might take some time.

Cheers to all of us thieves!

A is for Age: that age when they say life begins and it could be 1-90

B is for Beer of choice: I'm allergic to beer

C is for Career: procrastination

D is for favourite Drink: cold tea water

E is for Essential item you use everyday: lappy

F is for Favourite song at the moment: I'm not in love so don't forget it

G is for favourite Game: dreaming

H is for Home town: sleepy fruit basket at the foot of a volcano

I is for Instruments you play: point and shoot

J is for favourite Juice: mango

K is for Kids: yeah, got a handful

L is for Last kiss: in my dreams duh... it almost killed me

M is for marriage: aghh thanks for reminding

N is for full Name: H-A-Z-E-L

O is for Overnight hospital stays: of all stays...

P is for phobias: misplaced kiwis

Q is for quote: I'm gonna do it all

R is for biggest Regret: not taking that helicopter tour over Angkor Wat last week

S is for sports: golf - they serve crocodile casserole and serpent curry at the country club

T is for Time you wake up: when the sunrays hit my head board

U is for colour of underwear: gold and gray stripes Calvin Klein

V is for Vegetable you love: cauliflower

W is for Worst Habit: gravitating towards a playboy's romantic attacks

X is for X-rays you've had: those have never been necessary yet, thank you

Y is for Yummy food you make: sweet and sour tuna

Z is for zodiac sign: virgo

*Bud Weiser hosts Sunday Stealing

******************************

Our Weekend Memoirs: Chatuchak Park

One Sunday last month broke out cloudy. We were at the park for a friend who was honing his SLR skills. The following photos though are from a point and shoot pink Samsung.

When we ran out of bread crumbs, my palm got a peck

The willing, happy subjects

It says "Calabash Tree"

Hours in, the sun started showing up at last. And so did some spirit.

Taxes are high. We might as well enjoy expat life to the max.

*Ebie and Arlene host Our Weekend Memoirs.

Goal goalie

Mommy Moments is where Moms muse about motherhood and show off their kids. Joys, worries, disappointments, hopes, challenges and successes are shared. Chris hosts this meme every Friday at The Mommy Journey.

Goals. What are those?... Seriously that crossed my mind. For the life of me I am probably too benign with goals. If I didn't accomplish one, I could get so hard on myself. But goals. I play them by ear and you can bet your apron strings this will be simpler than putting on lipstick in the steering wheel while the light flashes red.

* Home school or something else
In May this year, CJ's developmental pediatrician suggested normal schooling. I had that followed. But my learner forms his own ideas of how he acquires education. I need to sort this out.

* Budget
Gone are the days of sitting pretty knowing money is not an issue. Four years have flown by since I signed those divorce papers and CJ got wiped out of his Dad's bank account. There's my appetite for travel, household name concerts, and luxury dining over dwindling cash. Last year I breezed through 5 major cities in 3 countries. No debts and I am proud of that. The goal here is to be willing to give up expensive tastes if the budget threatens to keel over.

* Emotional stability
Has life taught me anything yet? Excitement, terror, optimism, boredom are quite a handful of mix to manage. Now where is that useful thing called presence of mind?

No sense, no sensibility

I usually try not to begin my very first sentence with I. In blogging. The title of this post is borrowed. Now isn't that desultory? Today I ramble.

1. Burlesque is coming up on the big screen. A genius integrated my idol into the trailer.

2. I frequent this cafe in front of my workplace because of its English magazines. Beside my iced mocha, a recent Reader's Digest issue features the best universities in Asia (University of Hong Kong is top) and quotes the Microsoft chairman, "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

3. "We are two of a kind, Hazel - ying and yang, but beautifully blended into one," wrote someone to me an hour ago.

4. Youtube user Niva20011 commented on a Khmer Rouge clip, "can you smoke (Pol) Pot?"

5. You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one. Yoko Ono's husband's voice plays in my head when I remembered that I have forgotten to review The Killing Fields.

6. Last week I watched one sunrise at the world's largest religious site, Cambodia's Angkor Wat.
7. To a travel companion I mentioned one of the reasons why I divorced my husband: he didn't care that I wanted to date history with him by my side.

8. Little things, little moments when ignored could have disastrous consequences.

9. New year's eve: a friend and I were riding the skytrain when the clock struck 12. The plan was to witness countdown 2011 at Central World. At least the air was still smoking from the fireworks.

10. Both the Grand Hyatt and Intercontinental have closed for drinks. My consolation was going home to chat with someone I have not seen in 22 years. God I miss him.

11. On 1.1.11, single ladies at beachfront Hilton Huahin were treated to a night of lovely music.


12. That and then an asian kiwi drifted to our table. An old maid was pissed.

13. I drink to a good balance of sense and sensibility. Happy new year!

Megan and Janet host Thursday Thirteen