to shower or not to shower

tonight, i fell asleep on my bed as i was surfing facebook. but then, an hour later, i woke up - i woke up to the anxious knot in my stomach b/c my body was saying, "stop sleeping mia. you have unfinished business. now get up and shower before you sleep!"

ah, the age old debate - what's better? to shower at night or in the morning? my whole life, i was a morning showerer. i felt like it wasn't morning unless i showered. i couldn't truly wake up unless i showered. i thought, ah, nice and clean for a new day.

but then, when i was a teacher, my mom asked me why i showered in the morning. she said that i could get more sleep in the morning if i showered at night b/c then all i'd have to do in the morning was just wake up, do my morning routine, and go to work. no need to shower, dry off, etc - and add a good 20-30min of glorious sleep.

after i tested it out, i discovered that showering at night had a lot of benefits!
1. i really did get extra sleep in the morning.
2. i woke up with awesomely voluminous hair! (ooh la la, hair model!)
3. i felt like i had washed the day's germs off me, and now my bed was a clean sanctuary to sleep in.

u know, i had never realized how gross it was to not shower at night - and what it meant for your bed. i think most ppl are like me, and like to lean their heads on the subway walls if you're sitting down. and if u really think about it, when u lean your head on the wall, a good dozen other people have probably done the same thing. what if they all didn't shower? then all their dirty hair germs are now on MY head!! what if the guy who sneezed next to me got some tiny water droplets on my arm? if i don't shower, then i'm just bringing his sneeze into my bed!!

the more i thought about it, the more horrified i got. therefore, i've now become a big proponent of night showering. i think it just makes good sense to wash the day off you, and to enter into a bed that has only been occupied by your clean body night after night.

but, i will say this - night showering is annoying. sometimes, man, all u want to do is just crawl into bed. i had such a long, draining day today, and i wanted nothing more than to just snuggle up in my blanket and sleep away the fatigue. but like i said at the start of this entry, my body knew that it was just gross for me to sleep like this, and nagged me into awakeness. stupid body of mine - just let me sleep!!

oh well. at least the shower woke me up enough to write this blog entry. =)

sporty spice?

i recently was chatting with a friend about how he wanted to have a gf who was sporty. in my head, i couldn't help but think -- eugh, typical. but in reality, i think i only feel that way b/c i'm so athletically challenged. i can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy when i see other girls who can hold their own in a game of whiffle ball or flag football. but u know, i wasn't always this way.

when i was in elementary school, i was the fastest girl in the 2nd grade! i could out-run all the girls, and i even almost beat the fastest boy in the 2nd grade! from 3rd - 5th grades, i was in gymnastics and performed in the annual gymnastics show. i did roundoffs, back bends, floor routines, everything! i was pretty darn good!

but then, something happened once i hit puberty. it's like adolescence replaced my pseudo-athleticism with jello for arms and stumps for legs. my god, to this day, when i think about that stupid yearly rope-climb. *shudder* that was the bane of my existence!! who can climb a rope with nothing but your arms to get you up there?? that's just mean! >=(

and so, i learned to replace my lack of sports ability with what i COULD do well - be a nerd and sing.

i often ask myself a lot now - would i rather have a child who was a musical prodigy or a superstar athlete? personally, i choose musical prodigy. i think it's such a useful talent to have. you're not limited to seasons/weather; you can entertain large crowds; you can use it to woo a love interest; and u generally don't need a whole team to make you shine amidst them. it's just more efficient! haha.

but, i will say, i still wish i was a little more athletic AND still sing. i'd love to be able to not be picked last for a team. i'd like to be the one to shoot the winning basket, score a touchdown, bowl a strike! oh well, i guess i'll just have to settle for singing the anthem. hahaha. =)

so readers - would you rather be a superstar athlete or a musical prodigy?

Hannukah - what an ingenious idea!

so a couple of weeks ago, walter found me this great deal on slickdeals to buy 10 victoria's secret panties for only $25! that is a huge deal compared to the usual 5 for $25 crap they try to feed us. but anyway, as i browsed the site and put things into my shopping cart, i discovered that some of the panties i ordered were backordered and wouldn't be shipped until later.

at first, i was kinda bummed out. i wanted to get all 10 panties at once and not piece-meal. but in the end, i decided it was better to have 10 panties i really like at a slower rate, rather than 10 mediocre panties at a fast rate.

but i must say - it has changed my perspective! every few days now, i receive a new package from victoria's secret holding 1 or 2 panties in each bag! and honestly, it feels like hannukah! (granted, i've never celebrated hannukah, but this is how i imagine it would be!) what an ingenius idea! RECEIVING PRESENTS -- ELONGATED!!! who doesn't love receiving presents? and if u can get them every few days? isn't that soooo much fun?? =D

now, every time i see that beautiful email so eloquently titled "shipment confirmation" light up in my inbox, i get filled with joy! it means another package is coming! another goodie full of happiness is "confirmed" to "ship" to my attention! how amazing!!

u know, my love language is gift giving, and personally, i like receiving gifts too. sadly tho, growing up in a poor family, i rarely received presents. (christmas, birthdays, graduations - nada) so i never really got to enjoy my own love language. but u know, buying these panties, and receiving them one by one in the mail, has been such a huge joy and blessing for me. it gives me something to look forward to, and hope of knowing that another joy is on its way. what an awesome way to perceive life, no?

i received 2 more today. i only have 3 more panties left to be shipped. thank goodness walter bought me a random gift and i have that to look forward to as well. haha. this reminds of me of how my roommates think i'm crazy for getting so many catalogs in the mail. honestly - i like receiving mail! why? it makes me feel special! hey - a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to bring a little fun into her life.

so, in conclusion, i really encourage you guys to not lump all of your joy into one big bundle. it's so much more fun and literally life-changing when you enjoy small gifts in your daily life. it truly feels like christmas every day! =D

nap time

man, i almost failed my own experiment.

after walter and i stuffed ourselves silly with homemade kalbi (made by my mom, but perfectly fried by me! haha, i need to give myself SOME credit!) i started feeling super drowsy. walter started watching monday night football, and i began to fall asleep all snuggly in my blanket on the couch.

man... i forgot how much i love naps. i'm a pretty disciplined girl, and i don't allow myself to nap b/c it throws off my sleep schedule, but tonight, as i napped quietly and unplanned, i remembered the gloriousness of letting fatigue and relaxation take over.

remember when naps used to be a part of life? haha. i remember in college, naps were just scheduled into my daily itinerary. wake up at 10am to go to class. go to class, eat lunch with friends, come back to my dorm to take a little nap, wake up, get some dinner, go to practice, study at the library, do more hw/hang out with friends til 3am, then go to bed. without those naps, i'd never be able to stay up late to write papers and have girltalk to all hours of the night. ahh, i miss those days.

u know, in kindergarten, i was never able to fall asleep during naptime. i would just lay there on my mat jealously listening to the sleep sounds of all the other kids. finally, just when i'd start to get a little drowsy, nap time would be over, and i'd have to fold up my mat and get back to regular time. man, we had it good back then. then again, isn't that what europe does? universal siesta time?

haha. i dunno, i think i'm just too tired to write a coherent blog tonight. i almost just went to bed without blogging, but i forced myself to write at least something. sorry if you were terribly bored. =) i guess i learned a little bit about myself tonight through my unexpected nap. i never let myself get loose, or rather, i rarely let myself not be put together. and honestly, it's exhausting! but tonight, when i let go of my self-control, i felt the freedom of sleep, and the light yolk of not bearing my "perfect" self on my shoulders. it felt good - relief - to unbutton the stuffy collar shirt of life, and wear the loose, comfy t-shirt of indulgence.

goodnight world! it's time for bed for this little one! =)

a new experiment

just for this week, i am going to try out an experiment. i would like to see if i can write an entry every single day of this week. why? i'm not sure why... just felt compelled to. i haven't flexed my blog writing muscles in a while, and i'm hoping they haven't atrophied. despite my busy schedule, and how i'm always pooped, i'm gonna try to see what happens if i do blog everyday. will it be life changing? maybe. will i have fun? quite possibly. will i fail? hopefully not. but still, i'm gonna try. =) i hope you guys stick it through with me too! (and maybe root for me while you're at it?)

so anyhoo, today, after church, i had to go home to nj to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday. for some reason, my dad was in a really lecture-y mood and couldn't stop telling everyone how to improve their lives.

my lecture was about how i don't eat enough fruit. now, i grew up eating fruit everyday. every night, at like 10pm, my parents would call me down to the living room to eat some fruit with them, and then i'd either go back to what i was doing, or go to bed. but once i started living on my own, i stopped eating fruit everyday. it was weird to not have fruit served to me on a daily basis - just ready to eat on a plate. if my mom or someone else didn't do it, then i would not eat any fruit!

i'm ashamed to admit why... but here goes: I CAN'T CUT FRUIT. (i.e. apples, peaches, cantaloupe, etc.- all non-pop-it-in-your-mouth fruit)

i'm terrible with a knife. i'm just terrified of accidentally cutting off my thumb, or sliding across the skin of the fruit and serrating my top layer of skin, or even getting my own blood on the fruit.

i've tried to practice getting better at this. but sadly, all my apples turn brown (from time), warm (from my hands AND time), and salty (from my hands). hahaha. sorry if i just made u vomit.

but yeah, i don't really eat fruit anymore b/c it's so much labor and time to actually cut up the fruit, and i'm allergic to most fruit skins, so i have to cut it off - which i don't have the patience to do. thus - no fruit for mia.

i truly fear the day when i am engaged or married, and my mother-in-law is going to scrutinize my fruit cutting techniques, or worse, think i'm a terrible wife b/c i won't be able to cut my husband beautifully shaped fruit. ahhh! what to do?

my dad made me promise to eat more fruit from now on. i guess i'll try again, and i'll try to work on my fruit cutting skills. but man, i have to tell u, it really makes me sad when boys are better at cutting fruit than i am. it just puts me to shame.

check out these apples walter once cut for me in the shape of rabbits. man... that is talent.




Question to my audience:
ladies! how did you learn to cut fruit? please help a poor, pathetic girl out!
guys! do you really care if your woman can cut fruit nicely?
everyone! how do you get yourself to eat more fruit on a daily basis?

oyy, i bought 3 fuji apples like 3 weeks ago. i hope to try to eat them all this week. i'll keep you updated! =D

being a bad girl...

so, over my vacation, one of the things that really sticks out in my head as memorable, was when walter and i watched a movie on sat, and then snuck into another movie afterwards.

i gotta tell ya - it was THRILLING. i was sooooo nervous the whole time we were trying to sneak in. at first, the escalator going from the floor we were on, to go see "the goods, live hard and sell hard" was blocked off with one of those elastic lines. i thought, "oh man, we're never gonna get through this." but then, walter and i just went up to the teenager taking tickets and asked if we could go to the bathroom. i went to the bathroom to complete our lie, and when i exited the bathroom, there was walter, hiding behind the doorway!

we snuck into the auditorium, and put our stuff down. for the entire 15 min we had to wait for the previews to begin, i couldn't stop staring at all the entrances to see if that teenager would wonder why i never came back from the bathroom. what if he came looking for me? what would i say? i could show him my ticket stub, but that said, "julie and julia," NOT "the goods."

when the lights finally dimmed, and the previews began, i felt so victorious! like i had just performed something straight out of ocean's 11. haha. it was pretty awesome! and then, bc the movie was so bad, i was so glad that we didn't pay for it!

afterwards, i asked walter if he felt nervous at all throughout our whole "mission impossible," and he said no. and i wondered why i was so enthralled by it. and i realized that it's bc i've always been a "good girl" my whole life, that i've never really experienced what it's like to be bad.

i've always been the girl who played by the rules. i didn't cheat, i didn't copy my friends' homework, i didn't drink in college, i never tried any drugs. i've only been drunk once in my life- and i think it was tipsy at best.

i gotta tell ya - it felt pretty good to be bad. there's something so blood-rushing about trying not to get caught, and trying to get away with something that you don't deserve. it's like i put on a costume of a different mia, who did wild and crazy things. for once, i was not vanilla - i was phish food.

so i started thinking, how can i make my life this exciting all the time? i don't want to keep doing illegal things, and i generally am not a risk-taker. but u know, through this whole thing, i think what i can take away is that i need to just try new things.

over my vacation, i DID do a lot of new things.

1. i had my first hot stone massage - which btw, the stones are really hot! haha.
2. i tried my first egg sandwich on a croissant, and absolutely LOVED it. it was like paradise in my mouth!! i don't know why i was so nervous to try eating eggs on a croissant!
3, i tried a greek chicken souvlaki for the first time, and it wasn't bad!
4. walter and i walked across the brooklyn bridge for the first time, and it was beautiful and fun.

but alas, on my vacation, i also did NOT do some new things. i went to the beach, but was too scared to try to jump the waves, and now i regret it. i wish i had tried it.

in closing, i encourage u guys to try to do something new as often as u can. at the end of my life, i want lots of memories and not monotony. =)

risky business

so i'm just gonna be vulnerable.

a couple of weeks ago, the sermon at church was about how we need to pray "risky prayers." the pastor talked about how so often, we pray these safe prayers of just, "Lord, please be with her... etc" that we never pray the big, risky prayers that believe in how powerful and mighty our God is. the pastor encouraged us to pray things like, "Lord, let the cancer be gone tomorrow!"

so i did what he said. i prayed a really risky prayer. i prayed for something that i desperately need/want to happen, and gave God a very specific timeline to make it happen within. and honestly, for a few weeks, i had a definite peace in my heart with the full faith of knowing it was going to happen.

my heart had begun to feel lighter, my spirit was high, and i felt optimistic for the first time in a while.

this past week was supposed to be when it all happened.

and it didn't. nothing i prayed for came to fruition.

and now i'm left confused. what does this mean? i don't doubt for a second that God is not powerful enough to make it happen. and i understand the whole "God's timing vs our timing" philosophy. but what confuses is me is how the risky prayer plays into all of this. what's the point of praying the risky prayer if God is going to do what He wants on His time anyway? i understand the importance of prayer in general, but i'm starting to wonder if risky prayer is just one big disappointment.

bc that's how i felt sunday night. as the week came to a close, and a new week began, i felt the world back on my shoulders, my spirit was low, and i was a sad girl again.

oddly, the same pastor who preached about this risky prayer sermon, came back this sunday. and i felt like this was my chance to ask him what happened, what went wrong. in the end, he gave me the answer i expected to hear - it wasn't what God wanted for me. i wanted to punch him for getting my hopes up. i wanted to tell him that he should give this sermon with a disclaimer to sign. bc u know what? people like me found hope in it - and now i'm just let down.

ultimately, i am trusting God that He hears my prayers, and He feels his daughter's tears everytime another one rolls down my cheeks and falls onto the floor as i pray. but i have to admit... i feel a little let down.

u know the line from that praise song, "where a little faith's enough - to see mountains lift and move"? it always gets me. i always cry when i sing that one phrase bc it's so hopeful - so encouraging to someone who feels so hopeless. and yet - this time - i couldn't help but wonder if my little faith wasn't able to lift and move this mountain.