Monday, September 29, 2008

What's new?

Ok. I'm guilty. shouldn't have named my page Ceciliatoday if I wasn't going to keep up with it right? The truth is, with all these sites - facebook, myspace, flicker, food blogs, etc etc etc.... who has the time to update all of them?

But my friend Mitch is right... it's time to update you.

The past 3 months i've been busy busy busy. I've been named after the movie "27 dresses" only because this year i've been going to one wedding after another.
(Thanks to the year 2008, which for most asian cultures it's an auspicious year).
Adding the baby showers, the baby 1 month celebrations, the bachelorettes, the pre-wedding parties, the after-wedding parties...it's been 3 months of lots of celebration!

In June I traveled to St. Marteen with 2 other girlfriends. It was the first time i stayed in the island. Other times, i've just cruised by it and walked around for a-couple of hours... a la Royal Caribbean.
We had an awesome time and some memorable moments.

I decided on that trip that life is just too short and I should start fulfilling my "bucket list" (Inspired by the movie). So I went parasailing. The taking off was pretty exciting. Not knowing what to expect, the guy instructed me to wear my gear, sit on the boat and wait till the wind took me off!
ok... so what was i supposed to do up there? hold on tight? wave? I had no idea. All i know is that the view was gorgeous. Unfortunately, i dont know how high i went, but everything looked great from above. Then the captain decided to dip me into the water. It was great the first couple of times until I saw a jelly fish and thought i was going to burn my rear end! All i can remember is screaming: "up, up, up, up!!!"

Another interesting tour was going to St. Bartholome. Apparently where the rich amd famous hang. So we put on our nice dresses and got on the "rapido" boat. So rapido that my food came out before I even had breakfast. Pretty nice start.
It was a pretty hot and sunny day. We walked around and shopped, well more like window shopped, and hoped to see a famous person strolling around. By the time it was noon, There was not rich or famous, it was still pretty darn hot and the freaking stores were not worth the walks up and down the hills! our smiles turned into desperate faces and our feet dragged. So we took a taxi, let out a loud "Ahhhhh!" and toured around the island. We ended the tour in an isolated beach... the "nice and must see beach" where we ate sand for 4 hrs! it was windy enough that the sand would end up in our faces, hot enough that we would dehydrate and well... isolated enough that it was a nude beach. - so, I added the last thing to my bucket list - Nude beach - checked.
By the time our taxi was scheduled to pick us up, we realized... St. Barth is where the rich and famous hang... only that they hang in their nice yatch and dont have to eat sand!

Back at the hotel After St. Barth. My friend M. suggested we should shower and shampoo at least twice, because the sand gave us a really nice more-than-we-wanted extra layer on our skins.
sure enough, i'm on my second shower run, and suddenly the lights go off. I yelled, "girls! stop playing is not funny", and then heard M. say "it's not us, the lights went off!" and sure enough the water stops running...
yeah, pretty nice, my hair was fully shampooed. The island had lost electricity and nobody knew what was going on! anyhow, an hour later, after rinsing myself with "smart water" bottles, the lights came back. Pretty funny.

2 weeks later, I went to Ecuador for a wedding. It was one whole week of partying and drinking. Yes, they sure know how to party. Every night I went to sleep later and later... starting at 6am then 8am, then 10am... we would sleep for 3 hrs, run wedding errants and then party again. till this day, I really dont know how our bodies lasted. I partied more than I have in the last 2 years. But it sure was some good times!

and so, after that, it was my friend M & D's wedding, Y & Y wedding, S. Baby shower, all of which were so nice and unique. I just have to say... kudos to these people for such an awesome production!

Aside from all these events, I've been training at the gym since Feb.
My trainer D. is a really tall and bulky guy. He is a weight lifter and competes very often. His mean face is pretty intimidating and his dry and cut way of saying things makes you run away even faster. - that is only until you get to know him - He is a teddy bear!
My goal is just to be healthy, so we've been doing different things, including those scary and heavy things called "weights".
I have to say, working out on your own is pretty different. I've learned a lot over the months and know how to feel my body and what position make a right or bad move.
This past Friday I broke record... for the first time I lifted 105lbs! Romanian dead lift... I could have never imagined! - still those are the big, heavy and scary things.
I've been jogging more often and hope one of these days I would get the courage to run a 5K. - we'll see.

anyhow, this is enough for today.

I'll continue to cheers, and i'll update you pretty soon.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Great Music in Union Square

Where else other than NY can you find great spontaneous music?

On my way home after having a lovely dinner at Japonais I saw this jazz band 'baby soda'. They got all riders dancing on the spot!
So i couldnt wait to run home to find them and share it with you

for more info about them check out http://www.myspace.com/babysodajazzband

Friday, January 25, 2008

Who is right and who is wrong?

The other day I was riding the subway and saw something very particular. It really made me see things from a different perspective.

It was a crowded morning. Everybody was rushing to work. Like any other rush hour day on the subways of NYC, everybody was crowding at the entrance of the wagon, leaving a huge space right in the middle of the cart.

As it is expected, more people would try to get in by squeezing every part of their body before the double doors close right in - their faces (ass, arm, purse) whatever that is sticking out.

Of course, everybody starts screaming - "stop pushing!!!" "You don't fit" "Ah!"
and some faces start turning left and right, some eyes start rolling...

In the mean time, the same people who are screaming, are the ones who are just standing in front of the double doors, and who are not moving into the empty area for others to get in...

So, who is right and who is wrong?

Sunday, January 13, 2008

The Celeb in me

Happy Birthday!


This was my birthday announcement. Clever eh?!
Needless to say, i'm not getting any younger - but the party was great and i felt 21 once again.

Thank you all for coming - I had a blast!

Happy New Year!

Nothing beats spending the holidays in Vermont snowboarding your way down the slopes of Stowe.

We were a groups of 14 people. We stayed in a beautiful cabin. Lots of snow, fire in the chimney, and plenty of wine to sip... it was definitely a White Holiday just like those they show in movies.

The first day we all went up the slopes. It was perfect. Not too cold, and just enough real snow to help cushion the falls. Those who endured went up the second day. The others stayed in the cabin and build a sled trail and played tag football - in the snow?!

The third day - my scariest day.
I've always been superstitious about saying, let's do a last run... because all the people that have said that, got hurt on that last run. So, it was the third day snowboarding, putting my legs into fire... I was tired. It was also 2pm. Way pass my lunch time. I was starving. The 4 of us - the masochist who despite the pain forced our bodies to snowboard one more day - decided to do a run - in my mind the "last run"- which i was JUST doing to have a yummy waffle that only Vermont makes. Obviously, i dared not to say the cursed sentence out loud. (Talk about gluttony).

The four of us decided to take the singles lane for the gondola ride. My girlfriend and I went up first. The other 2 guys were right behind us waiting to get on the next one.
It was a long ride up. The wind was getting stronger. So strong that as soon as the doors opened and i went out, the wind pushed me 2 feet back.
As luck would have it, the Waffle house closed!!! and the guys did not make it up. They had closed the gondola and our cart was the second to last. We were caught in a windtunnel!!!

It was so cold and windy that my gear had frozen. By the time i finished putting on my gear, 10 min after, everybody had disappeared. It was only my girlfriend and I up there.
My gloves were hard as a rock, my eyelashes were starting to freeze. The wind was blowing in every direction, mostly upwards so you could not see past 2 feet. The snow would stick to our goggles and the only way to have some sort of vision was to scrape it every minute. Sometimes the wind direction would shift and would push you away to whatever direction the wind was going. It was scary.
Needless to say, we were on a cliff. I had to concentrate really hard just to keep my tired legs and my inexperienced boarding body to keep myself in the middle just so that i would not fall down into the woods.

45 minutes later, we made it! We took a deep breath and then I Thanked God for letting me live 2008.

So cheers to that and Happy New Year!