in a blink of an eye i'm back in HK, even though my bottom is still sore from sitting down too much on the plane.

it feels pretty good coming back, winter this year is not as cold as last year. i haven't got a chance to look at the city lights yet but i'm dying to. skylights in HK are beautiful, bringing the city to life in the darkness. i caught a glimsp of the island while flying into the airport, and it's quite amazing how pretty this place i spent some years as a little kid is.

before i came back to HK i have a whole list down of all the things i want to do, to eat, to buy, to visit... but now i'm back, i feel that i just want to see all my family and relatives. it has always been tough to get the whole family together, and for once this opportunity is here for us to do so. somehow everything on my list seems secondary now...

Christmas is here. or at least all the shopping stores are bombarding the city with christmas trees and lights and songs and santa clauses and christmas decorations and sales which bring christmas to us much earlier than before. for once i'm feeling the stress many people are having right now, spending money to buy the right gifts.

it's actually quite a enjoyable experience. last week after work i met chia in downtown to go for christmas shopping for my family. it's been so long since i last saw them for christmas, i don't even remember whether i was old enough before to know to buy gifts for my family when we were still spending christmas together. but it was pretty fun, we were at banana republic picking out stuff for them even with the time constraint of the store closing hours. the thought of giving the gifts to them is funny... will i feel weird giving gifts to them? will they like it? i guess if they don't like it i'll take them for myself... haha. it's the thought that counts afterall.

but that means i'm going back to HK really soon. 10 days to go. yestereday i was talking to this other trainer who's about the same age as i am and so we were at that stage of transition between school and work, and i realized that this trip back home will decide a lot of things for me, the coming near future. what will happen next year?

i must admit i had a little fear tingling up my spine when i thought about that each time, but last night i received a christmas card from virginia which made me smile and surprisingly, calm those tingling fear sensations. knowing that someone is praying for me for God's direction in my life allows me to feel that i can handle anything that comes along my way. that's how it's always been, God directing my life. how can i forget? He has brought me to where i am today, and who i am, He'll continue to guide if i don't lose sight of His step... how can i forget?

Have faith.

the past two days i was faced with a challenge of giving an orientation to a member with a special need in exercise programming - she's conceived and in her second trimester. i got to know of this challenge on hand when i walked into the gym on tuesday, and it was such a weird feeling - i was both excited and freaking out at the same time, excited that it's so different from all the other orientations i have done, and freaking out because it's a completely different training situation i have yet to learn much about. so i engaged myself in some intense research, somesort like a self-learn crash course about pregnancy for the past two days, talking to different trainers and others so much that if felt as though i was the one pregnant. but it's so cool learning all the body's mechanics from a different situation and perspective. when a real life situation i have never experienced dropped on me like a bomb it just hit me all over and made me realize... how much more to learn each day. i'm gonna read alot more books on pregnancy from now on - my work helps me remember my need to keep learning. learning in my area of expertise, learning in simple things in life that many times try to whip me upside down, many times.

read stel's blog earlier on which made me realize the need to learn from stages in life. going through stuff and things like that. things like the past and the present and the future and happiness and anxiety and etc. somehow many times i feel that i think quite differently compared to others my age. don't know why. but guess it's not a bad thing cause the good and bad experiences i went through whipped me into who i am today, and i'm pretty happy about myself. if happiness doesn't come from within, then where else can you find it? you certainly can't dive into someone else's happiness hoping it will make you happy because it won't, it's not yours. happiness spreads around by sharing and in order to do that, you have to own it within yourself first.

sounds kinda deep but it's quite simple afterall. crap happens, so well just do the best. just do my best i guess, i'm really talking all these to myself, really. somehow i can see lots of things coming up for me to face when i get back to HK in... 18 days?

just finished dinner. not that great but good enough. and for once i'm so stuff that i can't finish everything. i think it's worth to be written down and recorded.

a slow day at the gym today, but i had a great time training my client whom i've not seen for 3 weeks. and i trained him well! he was telling me that he was doing some workout on his own while he was away but when i placed him through MY training he was feeling it... that difference of holding his abs in exhaustion at the end of my ab work out for him. i am no dumb trainer so i won't kill my clients but i love it when clients feel a difference when trainers bring them to the next level. yes!

but other than that, things were still slow at the gym today... but this guy who's in his late 40's was there again and man, i'm starting to get annoyed with him. not that he's a jerk or anything, but just someone who needs a little more... attention. a few weeks ago while i was on my shift, my boss asked me to go to the floor and interact with members and especially this guy who didn't seem to know what he's doing, just to make sure he doesn't kill himself yanking on the weights. yes that's him. so i went up to him and said something like "hey i've never seen you around before, i'm connie and blah blah blah..." blah blah blah were probably the last three words i said because the rest of the conversation belonged to him. and he talked and talked and talked and laughed and talked and i don't know what for an hour...! he was basically pouring his whole life out infront of me and i really didn't know what to do. couldn't turn away someone who said was going through depression but i didn't really want to know about his nights at the bar and days getting drunk to get over his ex and wanting to work out to get more attractive and stuff like that. arghh. in the end i was able to round the conversation back to working out so i survived. he came back a few times at different days to the gym after that and i'm glad i was busy with clients, because he seemed to want to talk somemore with nothing much related to fitness. he was leaving the gym today and i was at the front desk helping out and he stopped to chat nothing with me, but he popped in a "we'll eat together sometime eh?" out of nowhere. OH MY GOSH i almost puked except there's no food in my stomach. instead i said "ha-ha see you next time you come in!" can't believe it! and even if he's slightly un-ugly looking i'll still have shivers down my spine. bleehh.

oh gee saying all that is not helping my stomach, especially now it's stuff. tea needed.

using the IBM laptop right now. my unrealiable compac has finally died on me, at least that's how it seems to be reacting whenever i try to switch it on. it was going crazy for awhile, freezing and hanging for whatever reasons and whenever it likes, just plainly driving me nuts. but the past few days it was doing more so and i finally thought it's good to start transferring my files onto my pen drive, just in case. i had most of my pictures saved up a few days ago and today, when i decided to transfer the rest of the stuff i have on my compac laptop, it won't even let me into the system. and i'm no computer genius, so pressing hard on "on" and "off" a dozen times doesn't help much, just a sore finger that may need taping up later. oh well. at least i saved the pictures, which i am extremely happy about. the rest of the stuff are mainly my kin classwork, i guess i can live without it? just an excuse as lame as "my dog ate my homework" but well, will still figure out how to retrive them back.

i can't believe how relieve i am to know i still have my pictures. pictures from the different events i was involved in in the past four years or so. pictures of my life here in the U.S. and other places i've been to. each picture tells a moment of my time spent, and losing any one of them will probably feel like losing a tiny part in me.

the funny thing is, i don't have a program here to view the pictures. someone, help!

woke up to the sound of rain hitting against my window sill. today the sky does look grayer than usual, and outside it is raining cats and dogs. learn that from primary school in singapore, and i've not used this synonym for a long time. never quite understand why cats and dogs? why not squirrels and bunnies? or lions and tigers? and translating to chinese will sound even more weird - xia gou gou mao mao yu - maybe i don't have enough understanding, but english can be weird.

the rain does help me enjoy the comfort of being in my little room staying dry, and warm. for the past few years i live out of my room (different ones as i move along) which i consider everything to me, like a little place i set up the way i like so i can wake up and come home to each day feeling homely. it's a place where i can call mine, even though yes, i rent it. but whatever. it's the feeling yeah? and living out in a small place allows me to be more sensitive as things get accumulated, and in turn analness strikes in to throw them all out. and today my roommates are not here so the house is even quieter, and i feel i'm owning the whole house. the rest of the house are not totally set up, even though it's been about five months since we first rented this place. i feel foreign whenever i step into the living room, which turns out to be a resting place for my bike and some cardboard boxes. and so i creep back into my little room.

living with not many things i own here made me realize that i can actually live possessing fewer things. well not quite, but fewer than i used to have back home. have been reading october's national geographical magazine about travelling. and i realize i want to go to so many places. from cities to country sides, i think i can enjoy travelling light, and travelling everywhere. people of high maintanence kills me. if someone goes to the playground and complains that sand is getting into her shoes, i'll SCREAM. if someone goes to the riverside and whines about frogs hopping on the water, i'll feel like pushing them down for a dip. conclusion i reach - people of high maintanence - don't travel with them!

oh geee i can't think all of a sudden. i know what i need: food!

listening to the clay aiken CD right now. so cheesy but somehow it's in my cd player when i pressed "play". and maybe just plain old laziness to get to my car and dig out my cd holder. a softer switch from avril and pink, which is a good transition to slow down alittle. it's good to have the music going on in my room, has been such a while that i actually didn't know i miss it till i play my stereo once again.

a good day at the gym. not too fast, but not too slow either. like the beats of the music, it was of good rhythm. trained my client with a different and more challenging workout and it sure was challenging for her. but it was really good. i think i'm really loving this club. not the building, but the experience itself i'm going through. the learning. the people. the stuff i'm doing. and another experience that makes my heart fall for san francisco.

hung out with my brother the other day, and we found it funny that our positions seemed to be switched. he has his heart for back home. he knows more places in hong kong than i do and he's not even born there. but i love the fact that he loves it and he knows it. how can someone loves somewhere so much?

it must be because there's something special at that place. and moving around so much allows me to gain some and leave some things each place i set foot on. and finding something special everywhere i go. and san francisco has alot of special things i've come across and gone through and experience over these few years. especially this past year. ups downs good bad sun rain they brought me to where i am today. and who i am today. can't lie, my heart has fallen for san francisco.