Am I depressed or too stressed?

A very stressful day.

I woke up at 8:30 a.m., which was too late on my schoolday as I was supposed to get up early and get to the college by 9:30 a.m. If it wasn't because the flatmate left for work at 8:30 a.m, I might have waken up even later! I can't blame anyone but myself as I stayed up late last night to work on the anthology. I had to have breakfast, make lunchbox, wash up, get changed and get ready by 9:15 a.m. I also had to send an email (attaching the Chinese translation) to the funding body. Also my mobile phone was nearly out of battery and I forgot to recharge it. I managed to get to the college by around 9:35 a.m. but thinking that there'd be 3 days of F6 classes (including today), I already felt stressed. The tutor was a strict lady in terms of our attendance and revision, as mentioned before in this blog.

I started getting worried about my health again (oh no!). I looked at my skin and would think, 'Oh why are there more blood spots? Do I have any underlying disease?' =_=' (oh that reminds me of my mum, who also says the same things to me as she keeps worrying about her health. Is that 'like mother, like daughter'?) The doctors can't help (they always say I'm fine! Nothing to worry about!) I guess I think and worry too much again! Perhaps my worries about health are just reflections of my underlying fear & stress - fear of losing my VIP, fear of having no money, fear of having no job. Then there seems to be no one to talk to. Is that what people call 'mid-life crisis' as I have low self-confidence and low self-esteem? :S I should do something about it...

Lunch: roasted potatoes, broccoli, green beans with shredded pork

Oh, someone in my building wants to sell his/her car! 

Dinner: being a bad girl tonight by eating instant noodles

with tofu, vegetables, pork and beetroot (that dark red thing!) 

My friend from Reading sent me a postcard from Glasgow as she's travelling around Scotland! 

Lazy mode turned on every Sunday?

Household day. Very lazy.

I did laundry and cleaned the kitchen & shower room as usual. I was supposed to have finished translating some of the anthology into Chinese but was too lazy to work on it. Not motivated. Does my body automatically turn on the lazy mode every Sunday? :p

Had a lovely time with my VIP as well. :)

Lunch: pasta in tomato sauce with pork and vegetables

Dinner: rice with pork steak & roasted vegetables. Yummy!

The first time I roasted vegetables, based on the recipe from Jane of http://ricebowltales.blogspot.com/

The charlotte potatoes were really good! :) 

Happy gathering with friends

A rainy cool day. Happy to have a gathering with friends and do shopping and take a nap.

I had lunch with my ex-colleagues at a Korean restaurant. It was the first time we four ladies had a gathering together and we were happy to chat about different things, though most of all about my ex-employer, particularly the person who managed the accounts! The more we talked about their bad things and complicated inter-relationship (women!), the more I found how 'ugly' they can be and I should feel lucky not to work there any more. They let us know there're so many ridiculous things and people. But however many times we all have got 'cheated' and 'exploited' while we worked for them, at least we still keep our integrity..

After lunch, we each had different things to do - two of them were going out with their husbands and children. Another ex-colleague of mine was going to do shopping with her best friend. At that moment I did feel a bit lonely... Anyway, I had to do shopping too. I got a very long shopping list this week (which week do I not have a long list? :p). There were so many shoppers at Arndale Centre and at city centre. It wasn't fun doing shopping with so many shoppers while it was raining! My ex-colleague accompanied me to shopping for a while but to be honest, I'd prefer doing shopping on my own since I could take time to compare prices and choose things, whereas when I was with her, I tried to finish shopping asap since I didn't want her to wait.

 I had a nap for nearly two hours after going back home. I didn't feel like doing anything when the weather was cold and rainy outside. Still feel a bit upset about my health.

Breakfast: the cheese pretzel from Waitrose 

Quite nice, but apart from having a bit of cheese flavour, it didn't seem any different from other bread! 

Lunch at the Korean restaurant: potato pancakes - oily but tasted good! 

Vegetable dumplings. Nice.  

My all-time favourite: stone rice (beef)

Nice, but it didn't have much beef..  

Dinner: I steamed the tofu with 甜梅菜 & pork; the broccoli was fried with garlic.

I bought a pack of ready-to-eat beetroot. I think beetroot is good for health?  

A sleepy me feels awake by the bargains at Waitrose! :p

Back to class after 3 'free' days. Felt sleepy. Lack of energy!

I almost got tempted to skip the morning session of the class today, when I was in such a rush to get back to the college after making lunchbox, washing dishes, washing up and preparing my backpack. The tutor for today's class is a strict lady in my eyes and I didn't want to get late as she had requested. Later I found that a few of my classmates were late for the class but the tutor still allowed them into the class. Anyway.. Today's class was quite boring; we were taught about how to calculate the profits of a company and what to be included in the calculation. We were supposed to have revise the previous lessons so that we could understand what we were taught today. But I didn't revise and so it was a bit difficult for me to catch up; also I felt quite sleepy. I did sleep for about 7 hours but it seems these days I need to sleep 8 hours to feel energetic!

When the class finished, I felt relieved as the weekend is coming as well. My skin allergy seems to be getting better after I have started taking anti-histamine tablets and stopped using that shower gel with perfume. It's like a blessing when I can feel 'ok'...

As I was out of bread for breakfast, I went to Waitrose around 7:30 p.m. to see if I could get some bread at reduced prices. Yes I did! I got 2 olive buns, 1 cheese pretzel, and 1 raspberry brioche. Altogether I only needed to pay 28p! Too bad my favourite blueberry muffin was still not at a reduced price...

Lunch: a very lazy lunchbox today - 

I only shallow fried the vegetables and reheat the leftovers from last night's soup..

Dinner: Another lazy meal - vegetables and tofu + sausage roll!

Plus last night's soup..  

My bargains from Waitrose! :)

The bottom one (raspberry brioche) is for my VIP! :p 

A bowl of soup is what we need in a cold, rainy weather!

Being a bit 'productive' today.

I did a bit of translation on the anthology before going to gym in the morning. With the same amount of time spent on the same machine, I seemed to sweat less today. Is it because the weather got cooler and so my body needed more time to warm up? After gym, I suddenly felt like having some soup today - probably the cooler weather made me need something warm. I remembered there were some carrots and a potato at home; so I bought a green 'carrot' from the Chinatown to make soup together with other ingredients.

Nearly half of the anthology was translated in the afternoon - I actually didn't need to translate the whole anthology but I just wanted to see if that'd help me to decide what the anthology should be like.

I didn't like the poor weather - cold, with showers every now and then.

The headline today was the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, passed away. I'm not a fan of Apple (too expensive for me to afford! :p) but I do like his philosophy:

"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love."

"Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Lunch: simple & healthy

Broccoli fried with chicken breasts & green beans + omelette with garden peas

Dinner: pasta with meatballs :)  

I won't give up. 再接再厲!

A sound sleep with another weird dream last night. I dreamt that I changed to study 'media & communication'!

I wanted to be more 'productive' today. I tried not to turn on computer when I didn't need to. When I checked email, I read the email from Boots about my job application. It was unsuccessful. :( Quite disappointed but to be honest, I didn't think I answered those scenario questions well and so my unsuccessful application was not very surprising. I'm a bit unhappy and upset but that's a natural response, right?  Never mind. I won't give up. Maybe I'm not a kind of customer service type people. Anyway I have to work harder...

I started working on the anthology again. It's not easy. But it's a good experience and practice for me.

Don't know why I seem to feel a bit tired (even when I do nothing at home) these days but doing gym and someone's massage do help me feel energetic again!

Lunch: Scotch egg + pork minute steak + vegetables :)  

Dinner: McDonalds. The cashier 哥哥仔 was absent-minded. We ordered big fries & double cheeseburger but he gave us medium fries & Big Mac.. 

Hmm, the food seemed not enough; have I got a big stomach these days? :p  

fruit & GBK burgers are what it takes to make me happy :)

It seems these days I can be asleep till around 8 a.m., which is a bit different from before when I kept waking up around 5 or 6 a.m. Also I tend to dream more often. Not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. I think I had such a sound sleep that I didn’t know if my flatmate had gone to work; normally if she goes to work, I’ll hear the sound of the door opening and closing but this morning I wasn’t aware of any sound. I was a bit lazy at the beginning. 

Having had my breakfast, I started to think about what kind of things I needed to do today or this month. I went out for gym around 11:20 a.m. The free shuttle bus didn’t come till 20 minutes later, thanks to the Tory conference which made the bus change its route. I did my ‘running’ machine as usual, had a shower, then went to supermarkets to buy some foodstuff. I wanted to buy fruit and vegetables mainly, as I feel like I haven’t eaten enough of them. But the fruit that I wanted to buy, e.g. blueberry and raspberry were so expensive; I guess their peak season has gone. I think if I didn’t control myself, I could end up buying loads of fruits and vegetables, which were good for my health, but not good for my purse and for carrying them home! 

I had lunch late. Then I started doing the online assessment for my Boots Christmas job application. As expected, those questions were scenario ones that tested one’s customer care skills. To be honest, I struggled a bit..  

I should do my ACCA revision but looking at the piles of notes and textbooks discouraged me. I wanted to work on writing but there wasn’t much time left before I had to go out again. I guess both ACCA revision and writing require me to have a lot of time to focus on them or I better not start working on them. 

I saw the locum again. This time I asked her to prescribe me some anti-histamine tablets. Hopefully I won't have any more rash and itchness. Actually my skin seems to be getting better over the past few days; I'm not sure if it's because I stopped using the shower gel with perfume ingredients. I've never thought I'd get allergic to anything; maybe I've taken things for granted that I didn't notice the little symptoms I may have before?!

Happy to had nice dinner at GBK tonight. :) To be happy can be quite easy and simple...

Lunch: last night's pork minute steak + vegetables

 Dinner at GBK: oh a new burger that's so tempting.. 

Back to routine in a crazy city centre

Back to class. Back to routine.

I prepared lunchbox as usual soon after I had woke up this morning. I walked to school instead of taking a free shuttle bus as I was not sure if the bus route had got affected by the road closure for the conservative party conference. So many policemen at city centre. The class (Performance Management) today was about doing a lot of calculations (lots of 'variances'). I can see some of my classmates busy playing with their mobile phones, or iphone and even ipad (wah!).  I went to the Chinatown to buy noodles after finishing my lunchbox as the room was air-conditioned and so cold that I needed some fresh and warm air!

I seem to keep having the same kinds of dreams these days - I dream of either my ex-employer or my dad. Are they the people/things that have been making me unhappy or a kind of 鬱結?

Lunch: shredded pork with green beans & broccoli

Dinner: noodles with pork steak and mixed vegetables

The pork steak from Aldi was really good! :)  

What a better way to spend Sunday than staying home!

Usual household work at home. Also there was a protest march while the conservative party conference started today and so I think I better stay at home and take a good rest! I heard a lot of police and police vans were at the city centre. That's crazy! While they have been making massive funding cuts, they wasted money just to protect themselves?! *Sigh*

Lunch: pasta in miso soup with mixed vegetables and raiders chicken :) 

Dinner: spinach & ricotta cheese tortellini in cream of chicken soup plus chicken breasts :)  

Princess' Wedding

While today's the National Day of China, it's also become an anniversary day for a friend of mine who's got married!

'Princess' is a lucky girl in some ways. Though her parents are not with her any more, she's always loved by all the people around her and she's got very few obstacles/difficulties in her life. She's always wanted to get married and finally she's met her Mr. Right! Her wedding looks like to me a princess wedding as she claims herself as 'princess' :p

The wedding ceremony and reception took place at Bramall Hall. Last summer another friend of mine got married there too. I enjoyed her wedding by being the photographer. This time I also took the chance to take photos, but 'princess' has also hired a professional photographer. Every time when I was invited to a wedding, I'd struggle with what to wear as I haven't got any dress that that kind of occasion..

We were told that the ceremony would start at 4 p.m. and so we set off around 3 p.m. Though I had been there twice before, I still couldn't recognise those roads and I wasn't a good 'Tom Tom'. We almost got lost! Fortunately we arrived there around 4 p.m. My princess friend - the bride - looked beautiful. There were not as many guests as I had expected. The ceremony didn't take long and the guests were trying to take photos with the bride and groom. Since I knew only a few people there, I tried to occupy myself with photo-taking, following the bride as much as I could. :p The weather was so wonderful today and it's perfect for photo-taking outdoors. While I was trying to follow the princess and her newly wed husband, I paid attention to the photographer's cameras and lens. Oh they're my dream ones! :p I think photographer is a wonderful job but I don't think I've got the skills and experience to be a professional one (also it's quite stressful!); I just hope maybe I can use my photography skills in my future job/career...

The dinner (reception) started at 6 p.m. The food was very nice - tomato soup as starter and I chose salmon as main course; the roasted vegetables were amazing! They made me think about making dinner like that on my own! :) The wedding cake, which was coated with a thick layer of white chocolate, was so so; I simply don't like the white chocolate and the cream.. Throughout the dinner, I concentrated on eating since I didn't know the people sitting at my table and I didn't know how to fit in! As I got nothing to do, I kept drinking and I thought I drank a bit too much of the champagne, as I started feeling headache and dizzy before the dinner finished. I had to go to bed soon after going home!

Wish Princess and her Prince happy ever after! :)

Good day

Nice weather, nice gatherings, nice people, nice food...

Life is as simple as that.

Too enjoyable to have any ideas for writing more here? :p

Wah, 紅燒豆腐飯呀!! :p

Dim sum lunch!!

Oh my favourite rice rolls..  

Very nice dinner! The haddock from Waitrose was of good quality; the beef stew was good too! 

Doctor-phobia or obsessive about seeing doctors?

Another day with very nice weather. My mood was ok good...

I think I'm a morning person in that if I wake up late, I seem to be lazier for the rest of the day, whereas if I wake up early, there seems to be more time and I like to finish my 'tasks' in the morning. Like today, I woke up around 9 a.m. (which is actually a bit later than before! :p) - had breakfast, read some news and checked email, then went out for seeing doctor and gym. Then in the afternoon I did a bit of acca revision and do a bit of writing before going out again. But waking up early means I better go to bed early...

Yes, I saw a doctor AGAIN! I had been hesitant about it and asked myself many times if I did 'need' to see the doctor - not my GP but the Chinese doctor that I had seen before. I guess I need more reassurance from the doctor about my little recent skin problem. It seems seeing doctors is more than just about getting information (facts) but also about how to feel better psychologically. In the past, I rarely saw a doctor because I didn't like to see a doctor; even when I didn't feel well, I'd try to let my body rest and recover by itself. Now, I still don't like to see a doctor, but it's because I've seen the doctor so often that I wonder if I'm over reacting. I guess my self-image is also poor!?

Anyway, the Chinese doctor did make me feel better by telling me more about possible reasons why my body had those symptoms (itching, rash) and how I should treat it. According to his 'instruction', antihistamine is used to help stop those symptoms and help me (indirectly) identify what might lead to the allergy; last time the female doctor did tell me to take antihistamine but she didn't tell me what to do after taking it - it sounds like antihistamine would be the answer to my skin problem and I don't need to do anything further after that..

I think I do need to be more hardworking and determined, and make the most of my time...

Lunch: I was lazy again - scotch egg (炸蛋) + mixed vegetables 

Still tasty! :p

Finally the diffuser for my flashgun has arrived! 

Can't believe such little plastic thing could cost as little as £2.39! 

Can you spot the difference between the following two photos? 

Hmm, I'd prefer the second photo..  

Dinner: Subway £5 deal + meatballs! 

This Chicken Temptation was quite good.  The bread was soft and the chicken was 'soft' too, not '鞋' at all!

Is summer back again?

What a nice weather again today!! Sunny, warm, blue sky! But I didn’t go out till later in the afternoon. I didn’t sleep well last night because of the itchy skin and I woke up for a while in the early morning in order to do some downloads during unlimited download hours! So I slept till 10 a.m. and didn’t feel motivated to go out then.  

I did a bit of revision for acca and worked on some writing before going to gym. Surprisingly I felt quite energetic when doing gym; not sure if it's because I got more energy in the afternoon? Or because of the warm weather?

Finally the o2 dongle for mobile broadband arrived this morning. What a long wait! Home phone was also transferred to plusnet successfully today! :) Can't believe the whole thing (broadband & home phone) could take so long (2 months)... 

Lunch: It was a vegetarian meal - no meat but mushroom omelette & mixed vegetables! 

The red spots last night frightened me a bit and I decided to eat simpler to help the body recover

Dinner: It cost no more than £2! 

A chicken & mushroom pie from Waitrose at a reduced price + sushi (not in the photo)

Pie and rice were perfect match! :)