My Blue Heaven

Die spammers die!

Ok. I finally got around to implementing an extra security check for comments. I’m using that cool image code thing you see around sometimes. So now before you submit a comment, you must enter the code you see in the image. It works too! But whether it will successfully completely block spammers… we shall see…. Feel free to test it out and let me know if u find any bugs.

Reinstated health kick

I’ve decided that I don’t like what I’ve been doing to my body. In the past 3 months here, I’ve gained about 5 kgs due to lack of exercise (and discipline), laziness, snacking unhealthily at work and emotional comfort-eating! This is just NOT ON. I am better than this.

So I decided to do something about it. I’ve been kicking my lazy butt into shape this past week or so. Went to 4 dance classes in the last 5 days, plus a half hour jog around the park. I felt soooo out of shape and fat last week… BUT by Tuesday this week in my jazz class, I actually started to feel a difference. My body just felt stronger, fitter, more limber. The hardest part was over!

I’ve also decided to discipline myself and eat healthier. No more snacking on fattening biscuits and choccies at work. I gave away my choccies and biscuits, and have been *trying* to (not 100% successful here) cut back on tea/coffee and resist the temptation to snack on the constant supply of free biscuits in the kitchen. (I think I should just not even open the biscuit cupboard to check what is there.) To help reduce my cravings, I’ve been snacking on carrot sticks and fruit instead. It really does help. Though one day I was so hungry I ate 4 bananas in a day! Is there a limit to how many pieces of fruit one should have in a day? The carrot sticks were a bit ordinary to start… but you get used to them… and they’re good if you have the munchies whilst working. Just something to crunch on. They’re quite filling too. 🙂 Now I don’t get as hungry as often as I used to. Strange how that happens.

So, combining the healthier eating, eating less and exercising/dancing more… I’m starting to feel and see the effects already. Yay! Just gotta keep this up and not get complacent. I was in such good shape before leaving Sydney – I had promised myself I would not lose that. And that is a promise I intend to keep!

I’ve also gotten back into reading “7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. I need a kick up the butt in my personal effectiveness. I’ve re-read habit 1 (Be proactive) and now have started on habit 2 (Begin with the end in mind). This book is pretty good. I was sinking into a directionless self-pitying rut… was getting lazy, unmotivated, depressed, and lethargic. I think the reason I had so much energy before I left Sydney was because I had a clear goal to work towards – preparing for the move to London. I felt motivated – I was disciplined, organised, and effective. I think it’s even more important to maintain that here, because I have much more to look after now. I need to take care of everything myself.. I need to be responsible. To learn from Mr Covey.. I choose to be responsible. I am able to choose my response to any situation.

It all seems related. The healthier eating makes me more energised… and exercising more makes me more energised… being energised makes me more effective and motivated and happy.. which in turns helps me continue to eat healthier (no emotional binging), and exercise more…. it’s an upwards cycle! 🙂 As opposed to the downwards spiral of eating unhealthily which gives you energy lows, not exercising makes it worse, you feel more lethargic and tired, less effective, unhappy with self… leads to emotional binging… etc etc.

Anyway its Friday today! Woohoo! 🙂

Current listening :: “Goodies” – Ciara (I got her album recently… I likey!)

Frankfurt pics

New pics finally uploaded from my last visit to Frankfurt! Being the financial hub of Germany, it’s an interesting city combining the old and the new. And germans are interesting – they truly don’t understand the meaning of the word sarcasm. Some pics below, or clicky here for more. Still lots more pics to come from Paris, Canterbury, more of London, and various gigs I’ve been to etc.

Weekend Update

I had a fairly uneventful weekend. Just spent the time sleeping in, tidying up my stuff, washing clothes, went to 2 dance classes (jazz and zoonation), did some exercise/jogging, watched Fantastic Four (Jessica Alba is HOT! I’ve always liked her… ever since Dark Angel. Movie was good too.. quite enjoyed it!), and went to Fruitstock music festival. Unfortunately all done by myself, but hey, you get that sometimes. Back at work today.. bleh.

Got some good news. I found a place to rent!! It’s a really pretty mews house in Marylebone/Baker Street. Zone 1 – which means it’s pretty much walking distance from the West End and central london. It’s a very lovely area to live, quieter than other central london areas, and right near Regents Park which will be nice for weekends. The rent is actually quite reasonable too, esp for a place in such a great location, in Zone 1!

The house is a 3 double bedroom, newly refurbished house. Quite nicely designed with exposed brick walls, over 2 floors. Two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and 1 bedroom (with ensuite) downstairs. Also downstairs is the living/dining area (leather couches and hard wood dining table) and fully equipped kitchen (with dishwasher!) and wood floors. The living room has lots of light coz of this really cool huge skylight that you can open up. 🙂 The place is small, but not that bad, esp for a zone 1 house. The rooms aren’t too bad, better than many I’ve seen. So me and my friend are going to move into this place after 1st Sept. We just have to find a 3rd flatmate in the meantime – otherwise we’ll be forking over that 3rd persons rent, which would make it a little bit pricey.

Current listening :: “Brave New Girl” – Britney Spears

Very busy bee

Man life has been hectic lately. I’ve suddenly turned into Miss Super-Flat-Hunting-Machine. The clock is ticking, and my time is now very short. I’ve been requested to vacate my cousins place by end of August (as they have friends staying with them in Sept). Which really doesn’t give me much time coz I am going to be away the last 2 weekends of August! Ideally I’d like to find a place to move into by the weekend of 13/14th Aug. Which means I really gotta get my act together! Eeek!

I’m now going with the option of moving in with a friend I met here in London, who was looking for someone to move into a new place with. This way, neither of us has to move into an existing houseshare. I’m looking at 2 bedroom houses/flats around Clapham/Battersea as I’m quite fond of the area now. I think we should be able to find something really nice after combining both our budgets. And the places will mostly be new or newly refurbished, which is really nice. I hate living in old places.

So I viewed a nice top floor Edwardian conversion flat last night, and am viewing a modern Victorian conversion tonight. Tomm night I’ll be looking at an old warehouse modern industrial conversion – apparently the apartments are really cool in this place. Here’s hoping I find something soon!

So, other than flat hunting, I’ve been pretty busy with work. Plus I went to Frankfurt again on the weekend, which was really really nice. I love it there. The weekend markets are great, esp the freshly made crepe stalls.. mmmm.. and bike riding is the easiest (and coolest) way to get around. Everyone gives way to a bicycle over there – cars and pedestrians, the bicycles rule the roads and you can go literally anywhere on them – roads, footpaths, malls.. everywhere except on trains and trams. Oh and would you believe, I discovered an AUSTRALIAN ICE-CREAM cafe!!! Yes.. Australian Ice-cream.. as in like the one in Pitt Street mall in Sydney. How wierd is that!! Anyway, I took my camera this time and will upload piccies when I have time. Ugh I have soooo many photos to upload now. 🙁

I also did a spot of shopping whilst in Frankfurt, and in the airport. They had a special sale on at all the shops that weekend, and duty free shopping is great too. 🙂 I bought myself a new pair of Nike airmax runners for quite cheap, and 2 pairs of Tommy Hilfiger combat pants (a black and a rather “bling-bling” white! :P) which are really very nice – the material is so silky smooth, and were a bargain! 🙂 Also stocked up on some hair conditioner/products and face moisturiser that I was running low on, coz its just so much cheaper to buy stuff in Europe than it is in London, esp with the stronger UK gpb. 😉

Starsailor live

I went to the Starsailor gig at the Somerset House on Tues night, which was great. 🙂 Again, I went with Ai (we really are getting our fill of gigs over here!!) The support acts were ok. The 2nd support act, a band called El Presidente has to be the most well-dressed, best-looking band I’ve seen in a while. Hahah. And even more.. they have an ASIAN CHICK as a drummer! Singaporean girl – not bad looking either, wearing a pretty strapless yellow dress. Yeh.. what the!? Hehe. As a band, they certainly put effort in their appearance. I found them to be rather poser-ish. Starsailor was cool. And they played my favourites… Alcoholic and Fever. Yay. 🙂 The venue itself was really nice too. Outdoor venue, in the courtyard of the old Somerset House. Pics to come.

Alrighty… I will endeavour to make an effort to upload at least SOME of the many photos back-logged on my laptop tonight. I’ve taken these few evenings off to devote to flat-hunting, and just relax at home. I realise I’ve been trying to do way too much and my body just isn’t coping very well. I’m exhausted for work from sleeping late, trying to fit in too many dance classes or exercising and travelling. Amazingly enough, I haven’t actually gotten sick yet – I’ve had other health issues, but no cold/flu type sickness! Thats pretty amazing for me coz I used to get colds really easily back in Sydney! Even during summer! Maybe there are less bugs here. Anyway, I’ve taken a bit of a break from dance classes *sniff* over the next week whilst I flat hunt. Once I get settled into my own place, I can resume the dancing and exercise regime. But there are just too many different dance classes I wanna do – I can’t fit it all in, and it gets a bit pricey! I wanna keep up my new-found salsa, plus there’s hiphop, zoonation and fusion funk classes, and then there’s good ol jazz that I’ve gotten back into again. I’ve forgotten how much I love jazz dance. *sigh* So much I want to do.. not enough time and money

Yikes this has been a looong post. Lots to update eh. 🙂 And I promise there will be visual updates tonight. 🙂 Well I’m off soon to that flat viewing appointment. Any hints on renting and dealing with real estate agents?

Current listening :: “Coming Down” – Starsailor

It wasn’t hard, to get the party started..

No, not for The Cat Empire. They have this remarkable ability to be able to rock out the house. A full house at that. You just can’t not get into their music when you see them perform live. You can’t sit down at their gigs… the whole packed out venue (all four floors) were up and hands-in-the-air dancing. There was an amazing vibe and energy at the gig.

Me (Myself) and Aileen *cough* had an excellent view at the front-most spot on the 1st level – we were practically overlooking the stage, from a side-on vantage. I forgot to bring my camera, but I did have my pda which takes not-too-bad photos, albeit at a fairly low resolution. I even took some video, which, admittedly has fairly crap sound quality compared to the gig, but hey better than nothing! I’ve uploaded pics in my gallery (snippets below) and also might put up a vid or 2 (tho quality isn’t very good, and the camera was shaking a bit coz I was trying to dance whilst taking video.. haha).

The played about equal amounts from old and new albums, which was great coz I hadn’t heard much of their older stuff live before. I enjoyed classics like “Hello”, “The Chariot”, “Days Like These” and “The Rhythm”. Ooh and they even played “The Crowd” too, which was cool. The new stuff included opening with “Sly”, and also included “Lullaby”, “Sol Y Sombra” etc.. in fact I think they played most of the songs on their two albums, as well as a number of improv sections – very cool, like suddenly breaking out into the opening act of The Lion King… which they did rather well, harmonies and all. Haha. They pulled in a freaky variety act mid-concert too – some guy who stuck two sharp swords ALL the way down his throat into his belly?!!!

Anyway, it was great to hear some awesome aussie music again (though it did make me feel slightly homesick.. *sigh*). Bit funny calling them “aussie music”.. their style is so hard to describe.. a fusion of funk, jazz, latin/cuban, with a smattering of rock, laced with some hiphop & rap. It’s just music, and it’s clear they are all incredible musicians, the band is really tight, and the pianist/keys guy Ollie is particularly awe-inspiring. His solos are just amazing! 🙂 And if you can get over the aussie accent, there’s few reasons not to love Cat Empire’s stuff! Gee it sounds like I’m promoting for them huh.

Definitely will be seeing them again at next opportunity – ages away as that may be.

Current listening :: “Two Shoes” – The Cat Empire

The Potter addiction continues

I bought the latest Harry Potter last week (£7.96 at Asdas!) and caved in to start reading it on Thurs.. now I’m almost finished – and I’ve even been trying to not read it too often. Booo. I read books too quickly. But they sucker me in like a pensieve and I can’t help myself.

But I’d just like to say… [spoilers]I predicted Harry and Ginny getting together a mile off. Ever since they first met in book 2, I knew it would happen. A gir’s sense perhaps. Most of my friends (GAVIN!) were all “No way.. As if”. But HAH!! I was right!!! *smug satisfied look*[/spoilers] Only one more book after this one apparently…. *sniff*

In other news. Tis a miserable day today. Been 15 degrees, rainy and grey. At the height of summer too! Grr. I pulled out my cream wintery zip-up coat for today.. and am very glad I did. So tomorrow night I’m going to see The Cat Empire.. for the 2nd time ever. Yay for aussie music! And for aussie bands travelling all the way out to London! 🙂

Current listening :: “White Dove” – Starsailor