I am leaving this blog, for good. I just grew tired of the skin and the title and everything. Besides, I feel sorry seeing my web statistics mislead people who are looking for Object Oriented Analysis resources land on my blog.  I cannot afford to carry a deceptive title.

I am going to start a new blog life, change my identity, develop a blog amnesia. I don't know. I just want to completely erase harriene. So long to you all...And thank you for listening and sharing with me.

For those of you who will miss me, drop me a line at harriene79@yahoo.com. I'll just send you my new blog url once I come up with one.  :)

Harriene

Jumbo Guy and Me

There is nothing more invigorating to end a day than finishing a total energy-sucking workout. The kind where you push yourself to your maximum limit while dangling your tongue out and can hardly even catch your breath while counting your repititions. When this happens, I can feel from the deepest of my heart, in fact a hundred and one percent sure to be more accurate, that all the tiny knots and ribbons bottled inside my ironically flat but rather spacious chest instantly unravel like magic, back to its loosest form. I don't know if this is a psychological thing but I do become a few multiple notches happier, that no matter how much nagging I get from my mom or sarcasm I imbibe from my brothers at home, I still feel fine and nothing can ruin my good mood. As a matter of fact, a good workout makes me more charitable that I even reach the extent of using up my hard-earned money to street peddlers, buying stuff from them even if I don't have the need to.

Unfortunately, with the apparent sluggishness I'm carrying everyday, this kind of workout barely happens to me. Sometimes, I feel like I'm just dropping by the gym out of obligation. Just because I paid for it. I stop by the gym because frankly speaking, I don't have anything more useful to do at home. Between binge eating while wallowing myself with loads of self-pity and basking myself with a fake glory at the gym working-out, I'd rather choose the latter. Makes me at least a better person to some street peddlers I reckon. As i've said, a good workout is something of an achievement to me. Of course I do get a good one at times. Maybe when I'm out of my mind or when I have a new pair of rubber shoes or when the gym fees suddenly increase. At any rate, it usually happens once in every... let me see, friday the 13th? Last friday, albeit it not being a 13th, I am proud to say, surprisingly, that I am on the verge of acquiring a quality good-mood-generating workout. Yes, I was kinda out of my mind. I was finishing all my sets deftly and I totally felt that I've conquered myself. Until the arrival of this one guy.

I cannot remember in exact details how he looked like except that he's big in size. Jumbo big. Stomping big. Ground-shaking big. It doesn't really matter how big he is. I know everyone is entitled to choose their size and if he's fine and not depressed with it, who am I to say anything? I say I'm fine with it too. No, I take back my words. I'm lying. I'm not fine with it. With what he just incidentally passed onto me, I cannot get over it. If he were a vehicle, he'd be a bus. If he were a bird, he'd be an ostrich. If he were a chair, he'd be a rocking chair. If he were some advertising medium, he'd be a billboard. If he were a book, he'd be the hard-bound one heavy and thick. That big. Clear enough?

It all happened so fast that I cannot provide a blow by blow account of the incident. Or shall I say I cannot provide a blow by blow account because nothing really happened. He didn't do anything. The only grave thing he did was to walk past behind me. In that duration, roughly just about a blink of an eye, three major things consequently occured. 1.) My soul almost faint ejecting out of my physical body that if I have the ability to sense my soul, I have to catch it and put it back to its position. 2.) I forgot the number of repititions I have been doing. Is it 4,5 or 6? I got so distracted that I have to start from zero and disregard the previous set. 3.) I wished I didn't have two holes in my nose. Having said all these, I shall assume that anyone reading this must have figured out why. If you reached this point however and still haven't figured why. 1.) You're probably that big jumbo guy. 2.) You don't have two holes on your nose and do not know what smell means.

Clearly, jumbo guy possesses a combination of all kinds of bad smell in him. Please don't ask me to describe further. The thought of it makes me want to cry and puke and sigh.  Suffice it to say, I almost faint. I wanted to go directly to him and tell him outright, "Hey big guy, you stink and you spoiled my workout!" but that is not a nice thing to do by a sweet girl like me. Besides, he looked nice and friendly. It was just his smell that messed him all up. With all due respect, I stayed quiet, pretended nothing happened and did my workout. But I cannot lie either. I have to be honest at least to myself. Jumbo guy, wherever you are, I suppose you know what smell is. I assume too that you know how you have greatly affected the people around you and that includes me. Next time you go to the gym, please give due consideration to your gym mates. You are hanging out around a public place and although you have no obligation to impress anybody, not even me of course, you have a minimal responsibility to smell neutral at the least. You don't want someone fainting at the gym because of you, don't you? Thing is, there are things beyond and within our control. I don't have control with what my nose can sniff. But you, you have total control over how you smell. I don't care if all your bulges and flabs overlap each other causing the odor to accumulate. I don't care if you hate taking a shower at home. But at the gym, where everyone perspires and smells a little bit more terrible than usual, it won't hurt to exert extra effort. Especially you. You have to do something. A deodorant will help. A body talc too. Something. Anything. Change your shirt. Wipe yourself. Just do something. A deodorant doesn't cost much, does it? How about reading a blog entry? It won't hurt much either, does it?

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow

I am sweet. Zhen thinks I'm sweet and I'm taking her every single word for it and please nobody object. I am sweet. Although I rant and curse a lot, I am still sweet. Sometimes, although that happens rarely, I think I'm pretty too and that makes me not only a sweet person, i'm pretty too.

While walking my way to the office this afternoon, I closely watched my shadow for the first time in my 25 years of life. I never had the inclination to take note of my shadow dance around even if it's just inches away from me. I don't know why but this afternoon, maybe an effect of me being lonely and bored and have nothing else inspiring to do, I took the time and I realized, to my utter surprise, that my shadow is not that bad looking at all. In fact, she looks nice and sweet and innocent and harmless. She's good enough. It dawned on me, in quite a painful manner however, that I have been taking her for granted all these years. I never exert any effort to like her. In fact, I always consider her as some useless and floating fat balloon taunting and tailing me all my life and though I don't find her annoying and have long accepted her existence, I never like her. I never make it easy for her. I'm more used to bashing her to pieces and ignoring her like nobody and letting her feel unloved and alone despite the fact that she never does anything to hurt me.

But I am sweet and that's not a nice thing to do to your shadow if you are sweet and pretty and I realized, I should treat my shadow more compassionately the same way I treat the others. She is really nice if you just try to look at her closely and why can't I recognize that? Why can't I make it easier for her? Why can't I accept her for what she is?  Why do I always have to make her sad? Oh God, this is lack of serotonin and endorphins creeping through me again. I'm really sorry shadow. I took you for granted.

The Quest And A Confession

BAD NEWS:
An inexplicable nagging urge to purchase Nick Horby's book entitled High Fidelity came knocking on me last Saturday. The stirring of desire was so intense that come Monday, I scurried off to the nearest bookstore to find a copy of the said book. After a desperate account of scrounging from the array of bookshelves, a hope-shattering awakening just hit me like a neck-wrecking thump on the head. Succinct yet penetrating. It's the kind of thump that your stepmom will probably hit on you in the middle of the night upon discovering that you just broke her favorite chinaware despite your dire effort to please her. It's the kind of thump that affronts you to the fact that things aren't and will never be as beautiful and easy as you may imagine and that sometimes, things are beyond your control. Yes, I found the book. Yes, it is very much available. Yes, my effort to find the book didn't go futile at all. But No, I didn't buy the book. It costs too expensive, way out of my budget for a paperback version. Given the fact that I'm stingy.That explains why.

GOOD NEWS: 
Did I say I have that nagging urge? Whoever thinks that I am going to give up easily is a moron. This is what happened that same day: I went back to office, did a few clicks on the net, found an online version of the book, downloaded a copy, grabbed a stack of papers from the box, clicked print document button. Tandadadann!!!! My coverless 8x11 book. 140 pages. With some typographical errors. For Free. In less than 15 Minutes. I saved money for stealing company resources. And the bonus? I have something to blog about.

THE VERDICT:
Nope, I AM NOT GUILTY for stealing company resources. I'm not. I swear. This entry is not a confession. It's simply a statement, an announcement. I reckon I deserve it. After all the headaches and depression they've been causing me, I deserve more. Damn it! Let me see, I have Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code's and Nick Hornby's About A Boy e-books on my hard drive. What should I do?

1. Write an email to God and ask for forgiveness then print. 
2. Do not print. Waste of paper. Just read during office hours.
3. Print it.

Of Gold Bars and Rude People

 "A person who's nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person." ~Dave Barry

I figure I have that insurmountable aversion for rude people whomever they are and regardless of how much nice they treat me. I just cannot fathom seeing people step on others' toes just because they know these people have nothing to throw back on them. The friend that I broke up with last year is such a person - unscrupulous, obnoxious, selfish, primadonna. A rich aunt who visits our house almost everyday is such as well. I couldn't imagine myself maintaining a close relationship with them. I don't want anything to do with swelled-head people. I'd rather cut off all means of communication with them than being identified as their friend or relative.

My mom always scold me for being that insolent niece that I am to my aunt who has a bad case of superiority complex. Mom says no matter what my aunt does to others is none of my business. She is still nice to me and is still an elder to me and that I shouldn't treat her disrespectfully just because of her bad attitude. Last night, my mom tells me that my rude aunt has been keeping a few gold bars inside her treasure chest and that my aunt has secretly told my mom that she decided to spare one for me in the future. Mom says that I should stop being the bitch to her coz she likes me that much and she's giving me a gold bar and that the next time I see her mistreating a waiter, I must try hard to overlook it. All because of the gold bar.

The next time I see her mistreating people. I will close my eyes and breathe deeply and think of the gold bar and I will suppress all my thoughts about trying to make this world a better place and equality and all that. I am such a disappointment, huh? Really, I don't care about the gold bar. All these just make it so hard to dislike a person who's really nice to you.