A Real Fish

After friends found out the real stories about my so-called winning fishing contest, they all called me pathetic!! This is sad, but in order to prove that with my potential I can win fair and square, I had to officially announce in my blog - I got a real fish!!

After my counselling training, I met up with friends for Salsa dancing! However, I was too whacked to do it, so I sat back with my coffee and watched and THEN... there was this Mexican/Irish/Scottish who came and chatted with me for almost an hour... :P

Okay, guys here is my little gift to all of you - How to make a girl give you her contact detail voluntarily without asking.

1. Ask her something that she couldn't give you in the instance, such as the address for rock climbing.
2. Give her your contact detail, such as your business card and tell her that you would really appreciate if she can find that info for you because you have been always wanting to do rock climbing.
3. Then, the next thing you know, she is contacting you voluntarily through either txt or email.
4. Mission completed!! You got her contact detail without even asking!!

(See! It's such a smart way. I shall put it into my own fishing practises!!)

I had only been to Salsa classes 3 times, but it was good enough for me to pick up all the move by just watching it and then danced with him fluently after my fish left. After dinner, a group of us came back to town for more Salsa party until 1 am. Hanging out on the street after midnight downtown isn't the most sensible or the safest feeling. I think I am just getting too old for the young lust night out.

Counselling Training

I was so whacked after 6hours intense counselling training. It was another amazing personal development opportunity for me to share my journey with others and to grow. I worked very hard to push my boundary especially in a large group situation. It's always easy for me to deal with a one-to-one based conversation, but to express my own believes/values/options in a large group in English has always be difficult. However, I was very pleased myself in the afternoon sessions to speak up my feelings to the whole group freely and even lead the whole group to thank the two facilitators for their wisdom and enthusiasm. I knew that the speech I did today was rather clumsy, but at least I did what I thought was impossible!!! It was a big step for me because last week, I really admired this gentleman who stood up in front of 75 graduates and gave a very appropriate thank you speech to the organisers from his own willingness. I remembered hearing myself saying, I wanted to do the same, but I wish I could have had his courage! He is actually the very one who made me very famous among all the graduates, HR and managers during the Graduate Orientation dinner. However, I was very inspired by him at that moment even he was still wearing my name tag!

Another interesting finding was about my comfort zone. I noticed how my body and mind react when I walked towards different genders and vice verse. My anxiety and tenseness shot up the highest when a male walking towards me, followed by walking towards a male, walking towards a female, and the female walking towards me. I always thought that in order to survive in this male dominated industry, I should have got so used to around males, but NO!! My arms, my chest were all tense and I couldn't breath when he walked towards me slowly. I also had to stop him from getting too close to me.

Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional! I like this quote and today I saw two living proof in our group. Especially this young man who is only 18 years old, but he was more mature than most of 25 years old boys that I know of. I am happy for him as he has such great potential to grow more!

Everyone was very exhausted by the end of the day, but I believe they are all as looking forwards as I am for the next 7 training courses with each other!

Unit Trust

After pondering for a week, I have made a serious decision to try some new things financially. I put some of my $pare money into a Unit Trust which enables me to invest a range of sectors from cash/fixed interest, property and shares in NZ and also internationally. It's risky, but I think I am at the best position to take one step ahead in learning how to manage money efficiently and the possibility of losses. My goal is to grow capital, but even if I end up losing some money, I'll just take it as a fee for a precious lesson for the future.

I actually have learned a lot about share, bond, trust, retirement, risk management, cash management, inflation, diversification, and investment strategies, since I took the initiative of finding a better way to manage my finance. It's always exciting to learn something which is totally out of your field, such as working at transportation while I didn't do civil engineering :P

Move out and in

They moved OUT and they are moving IN next week! So much of freedom and independence of my own! Oh well~ That happens! Let's just concentrate on what I can do this week.

I went to bought some significant essentials to celebration of being living alone again. The last time I have done that was 3 years ago in Europe.

• Knife: I need a good one to cut meat - Human if necessary :P
• Smoke alarm, Door bell and Timer plug: Again, for protection!!
• Bean Bag!!!: After suppressing my eagerness for 6 years since the first time I laid my eyes on it, I finally bought myself a Bean Bag to indulge myself. It's so awesome!! I love it! It's a TIGER so I am sure it'll protect me!
• Shoes: Err....how can I justify this? How about... I need one so I can run faster when I have intruders. Yeah~ See, it's necessary for my own safety!

Yes, as you can see, I am a little bit apprehensive of looking after the big house by my own, but I am so excited about it at the same time especially I have my own Bean Bag now! Why has it taken me so long to realise it's totally worth it? Yeah! Bean Bag! The second best human invention after ear plugs.

Graduate Orientation

I was 30 mins late than normal (because my graduate orientation started later than my office hours) and my bus dropped me at an unusual place, but guess what? He and I still run into each other at this ramdon place which I have never passed normally to go to work! I started wondering whether or not he put a GPS device on me to track me down whenever he feels like!! Very spooky!!

The orientation was very informative and fun today. I got to network with a lot of ppl and I really enjoyed meeting different ppl from other offices around NZ and Australia. The dinner went spectacularly well especially after a couple glasses of wine, ppl were getting too friendly. The name tag swapping made my reputation over the top! Ppl had this astonishing expression on their face when they found out my real name. They all went "Right!! So you ARE the Anita Lin!!", which made me a bit worried. Meanwhile, the other Anita Lin was trying to kiss the other guy and introducing himself to everyone he met, including the doctors passing by our restaurant in Ponsonby! Everyone knows my name now, which I am still unsure whether it's a good thing or not. I really hope my name is not going to make the headline tomorrow. However, I don't really care, as I actually enjoy my 15 mins fame. It probably has something to do with me being tipsy :) I better go to bed now before I wrote down all the dodgy stories :P

Falling in Love

How fast can you fall in love with someone? For me, it only took one hour. I have never met a person so inspiring, so energetic, so upfront, so sophisticate, so loving, so gentle, so caring, so cheerful, and so full of amazing life experiences. I am running out of words to describe her, but I love her - spiritually! The weekend with her was an awesome experience. She is the person that I want myself to be and I am so inspired by her!

How fast can you fall in love with music? For me, it only took one second. The upbeat and melodic rhythms transformed me into a loving exotic dimension where I have never been before. I let myself go and started dancing so freely until I dropped.

Few ppl and I had asked myself how to define a friendship and a romantic relationship. To be more precisely, how do you know it's LOVE. After this Easter weekend and falling in love twice unexpectedly, now I know! The answer is "You will know!"
I know it's probably not the answer you were looking for and it sounds very lame, but it's true. Love always hits you when you are least expected and when it's right, YOU KNOW!! I know!

I just remember one of my favourite quote which would be perfect to finish off today's blog:

Dance like no one's watching;
Love like you'll never get hurt.
Sing like no one's listening;
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

- Anonymous

Desperate Lonely Single Woman

It all started with my fishing plan for species XY and I guess I deserved my new nickname from him - Desperate Lonely Single Woman.

Well, for those who are interested, here is the final score for fishing. *drum roll* *drum roll* I WON by quantity with two phone numbers, one free CD sample and being picked up once. However, the rest of group would argue with me quality-wise, as boys actually got one opposite sex's phone number each and she got the email address from a Brazilian guy. But..but, am I allowed to fool to myself that I won the contest still??? Come on! I am desperate!!

Anyway, my 4 days Easter weekend started with a flat warming which the conversations took a turn for the worse when geeks started talking about cricket. I decided to walk away as I wasn't in a mood of making a effort, but looking forwards to my weekend in Taupo and Rotorua. Fortunately, he came to rescue me out! I didn't have to drive, but keeping up all the nasty sarcasm from him until I lost my voice wasn't an easy job either. I enjoyed his company even the 4 hours road trip in a small limited space almost made us kill each other :P It has been a long while that I spent such a long time with him without feeling the uncomfortableness!!

The weekend in Taupo and Rotorua was very spontaneous and relaxing! We did a lot of walking around Lake Taupo, dancing like crazy during Jambalaya (a festival of rhythm, dance and carnival), doing all sort of gymnastic flips at playground, and soaking into nature hot spring...Mummm~~ even though all my arms, legs and abs were so sore the next couple of days. The highlight of the weekend has to be sneaking into the backstage of the Saturday Party 2 hours before it started. There was this fantastic Brazilian group rehearsing on stage. Their performers amazed all of us. We just can't refuse but to dance with the rhythm in that awesome carnival atmosphere! It was like we had our own band and we danced like no one was watching! Ironically, my freestyle was categorised as Samba by our group and I was told I was such a brilliant Samba dancer by nature!! I was almost out of breath after a song or two, but I had so much fun and freedom to do all sort of crazy things!! Another achievement was that I also completed my Trampoline 101 with basic bouncy rhythm and I can't wait to see my master next time to learn real flips!!

We came back on Sunday afternoon and I went tutoring the kids. This week's challenge was how to break up and parenting skills (Me?!?!) I must had given at least an hour extra counselling session for the teenager and the Mum. By the time I came home for dinner, it was 9 pm and I was starving and exhausted!!

However, there was no time to be lazy, so I went to do my two hours coastline tramping with him from Mildford to Browns Bay. Fortunately I didn't get too wet, considering it was Easter Monday which according to Slovakian tradition, all the girls are receiving buckets of water from guys for blessing! After the tramping, we had some lunch at this recommended cafe to reward ourselves for all the hardwork we did that morning. I couldn't help but showed off my latest passion for Latin music when he drop me back home (Yeah, I know! Can you believe it? I actually bought some CDs at Jambalaya) in return for his Easter eggs.

After my grocery shopping and cooking, I was finally able to sit down with a cup of tea and my book after this energetic long weekend! I am now so ready to go back to work tomorrow!!

The Joy Luck Club (喜福會) in Parnell

After a year working in Brazil and leaving her boyfriend behind for a year, she came back to New Zealand and worked. This year, she took him with her to Brazil to experience a totally different life style with major culture shocks. It was a very similar story with mine, except their love is getting stronger after three and a half year.

She broke up with her 7 years boyfriend when they were both in their homeland. During her one week extending stay, something amazing happened - she fall in love with another guy unexpectedly in 5 days. They were engaged the rest of their lives together on the day she left for New Zealand. She is flying back to get married this July for their first kiss at the wedding! THAT is the story of the year!

He has always been her mentor for years. A few days coincident travelling together oversea had brought them closer to each other ever. It was going to be another long distance relationship, but he decided it's time to move back to Auckland and start his own business.

Then, there is the poor little me with a broken heart!

However, I have never felt so loved by three beautiful women. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard! Thank you, Ladies! It's a pity that they can't go fishing for guys anymore coz they are all taken, so in return to their loving-kindness to me I'll have to take ALL the fishes for them. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. A vivid plan was established outside of the patrol station for all the possible fishing locations :

• The flat warming on Friday
• The road trip down to Taupo and the Jambalaya Festival at Rotorua on Saturday/Sunday
• The tramping that I organised on Monday
• My colleagues? Nah... you don't screw the crew! However, colleagues from OTHER company are acceptable. *Wink* *Wink*, *Nudge* *Nudge*
• All my clients. Humm...except that I have none right now, but how about Truck Drivers? They are the closest thing that I can get
• The 'man of the year' whom she met and had a crash on this year
• Her Tango teacher
• The black humour guy who I kept bump into in the street
• Youthline training group (*cough**cough* I am not taking the advanture of those vulnerable poor teenagers. That's just immoral!)
• Flatmates

Yeah, yeah I know what you are thinking. Am I that desperate? Let me quote something from last week.

"Hey, I am taking Anita as my date for tonight's dinner. Is that alright?" She asked her fiance.
"Sure!! But, will you take a picture for me, if you two make out tonight?" He replied with his typical smirk.

"Yeah! I got a date!!! I got a date~~" I was singing with my little dance.
"Sorry sweetheart, but I am not a guy, " She continued and waved that ablaze diamond on her finger "and I am taken."

"Well, I am not exactly that picky these days!!" I said. Then, everyone in the room crack out laughing!

What's Your True Color?

I have just done a What's Your True Color? test and my true colour is orange. I am sorry if that disappoints ppl who thought my colour was going to be red. I was quite surprised how my colour changed from Blue to Orange in the last 4 months. I am definitely more confident than I was ever before, so in that sense, this test is quite accurate :) I think I probably have both colours in me and it just depends on which colour shines more on different ppl around me at different stages of my life.

Let me know which colour do you think is more me and also what's your true colour :)

You're a bold, confident orange. A warm, powerful color that indicates a strong, welcoming personality, orange is the mark of people who are social and extroverted by nature. Vibrant, with an upbeat attitude, you have a bright, inviting demeanor. Energetic and fun-loving, you're a real friend-magnet. Your easy charm and unassuming manner make you the sort of person people want to meet and get to know better. Well-rounded and fun to be around, you enjoy helping others, so it's no surprise that orange also symbolizes attraction. Orange is an extraordinary color — for an extraordinary person.

You're blue — the most soothing shade of the spectrum. The color of a clear summer sky or a deep, reflective ocean, blue has traditionally symbolized trust, solitude, and loyalty. Most likely a thoughtful person who values spending some time on your own, you'd rather connect deeply with a few people than have a bunch of slight acquaintances. Luckily, making close friends isn't that hard, since people are naturally attracted to you — they're soothed by your calming presence. Cool and collected, you rarely overreact. Instead, you think things through before coming to a decision. That level-headed, thoughtful approach to life is patently blue — and patently you!

Alcohol

I really don't enjoy the aftereffects of alcohol i.e. pounding heartbeat, the flushing, the itching, nausea, loss of vision/speech/balance/voice, hypothermia and being sleepy. However, hypocritically I have been having little drinks consecutively in the last three days. Doh!

Yet, it did help me with a good night sleep without dreaming about how a 2 lanes roundabout model should look like, but some sweet dreams which I can no longer have in real life. Nevertheless, when the reality hit in the morning, I felt very disorientated and disappointed to wake up.

I am having the best time of my life - albeit at my sorest time.

Re: 我希望你好好的

心    總是隱隱地痛
血    還是汨汨地滲

於我    那累累的傷痕
依舊清晰如悉
時間    空間    仍然太近

他    傷我傷得太深
但希望有一天
我能    跨過那曾經不可原諒的錯
圓滿自在的好好愛個人

P.S. The English translation could be avalible on request

A 14 years old girl's wisdom

I went to my weekly Math tutoring a.k.a teenager counselling as usual today. This week, I was in need of time management skill, so I went through Stephen Covey's theory of time management matrix and did a daily based exercise together with her. She was very amazed that there was such a practical tool available. I think if I have more time, I'll go through the rocks, sand and water theory with her next week.

In the end of our class, she was shy of sharing her view of life, but I encouraged her.

"Every one is like a book and there is a giant reading all our stories from above!" She hesitated for a while and then continued.

"Every page of that book is a year of human life. The more splendidly you live your life, the better the book is! So, I want to enrich my life as much as I can and make sure the book I am writing is as unique and commendable as possible!!"

I was stunned by her vivid metaphor and wisdom. Suddenly, what I had taught her on that day was so insignificant compared to what she had just taught me!

A beautiful Day

I went shopping with the expert today and between two of us, we had 6 pairs of shoes, 2 tops and a pair of trousers. Surprise! Surprise! My booty was twice of hers!! I was only aiming for ONE pair of comfy working shoes and end up with THREE pairs of uncomfy but essential for every beautiful woman like me, according to the expert! How could I argue with that!

After the shopping, I met up with a friend in a very cozy cafe in Kingsland for an ice coffee (except that there was no ice coz they run out of it.). I didn't know I had so much melancholy energy cumulating inside me until I cried beautifully in front of her. Ppl keep telling me that I am a very strong person. However, I had fooled everyone including myself. Sometimes, I wish I wasn't so stubborn and I could just show my suffering/heartache/weakness freely like most girls. For me, it's an extravagancy/indulgence to be looked after, but I could really get some hugs these days. I was relieved after I faced myself truly at the coffee shop. It was fortunate to have her to witness that beautiful moment! I felt very safe and loved when I was with her. Thank you my friend.

She showed me some of her stories for the national television and I was very touched by the one she made about Taiwanese's identities in NZ. My trip to Taiwan last year has taught and make me understand WHO I AM. Once you live in more countries, it could get more confusing who you really are. I realised that I had been living in my own nutshell based on my own assumptions and generalisations, but forget to update my knowledge from my previous lives. I was very lucky to have that reflection and refind myself again. I also saw the story that I was in it. It's very uncomfortable and embarrassing to see myself on TV. Coincidentally, in the show I was enquiring about Youthline at the Auckland volunteering center 4 months ago and now I am about to start my training course for Youthline this month!! The weirdest thing is I hate dealing with teenagers. I am more a kid person, even though I know I will be a good consulter for teenagers!! We will see!

It was a beautiful day

Don't let it get away

Beautiful day

Touch me

Take me to that other place

Reach me

I know I'm not a hopeless case

What you don't have you don't need it now

What you don't know you can feel it somehow

What you don't have you don't need it now

Don't need it now

Was a beautiful day

- U2, Beautiful Day