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I decided to give acupuncture a go the other day. I felt like my inner chi was all outta whack and something needed to be done before an ugly self combustion happened.

So I made an appointment and showed up at the door late one day after work.

Now, I knew that acupuncture would mean to expect needles being poked into my body. I’ve seen it on tv, I’ve read about it, so I should have known what was coming. Unfortunately, for some reason, I also thought that the needles would be 1/10 the size of normal needles. I went in thinking the needles would be so thin, it would just slip through my pores and I won’t even feel a thing. Needless to say, my body literally jumped at the first prick, and continued to do so after the 7th needle and so on.

It was not long before I had needles poking out of my legs, arms and head. To be fair, certain points hurt more, while others hardly felt any pain at all. I was also told beforehand what to expect, so when I started feeling dull ache coming from certain points, I tried to logically explain my freaking out away.

I was told to lie on the bed for about 15 minutes for the needles to work its magic. It was an interesting experience. My right leg started to feel like it’s falling asleep, the back of my head started to ache like crazy, I felt a dull throbbing feeling come through my left hand and overall, my body felt like the feeling you get when you’re awake but can’t move (I freaked out less once I realized I could still move – just very heavily).

By the time the needles all came off, I was wondering whether it was still safe for me to drive back home. I had a heavy feeling of lethargy come over me and was ready to pretty much call it a night. I felt incredibly relaxed and chilled. I even made a lame attempt to conjure as much emotions as I could but all I could mentally muster was summed up in one single word – meh. So I guess ultimately, I did get what I needed.

Overall, my body did act a little funny over the next couple of days but nothing to be alarmed about. I felt pretty good, whether it was from the acupuncture or just the fact that it was over the weekend. I have another session scheduled in the week so will see what effects it’ll bring instead. Hopefully, now that I know what to expect, I will actually relax abit more instead of trying not to freak out.

Hm..I hope I didn’t freak anyone out from ever trying acupuncture with this article..

Occasionally, I am dumbstruck by some things people do, or certain things I see. So I thought I’d share some of the things that go through my mind sometimes, basically, things that make me pause and wonder.

Of course, these are personal opinions – some of you may actually disagree with my list here.

1. If you’re white and trying to hide in a foreign country, is Asia really the best place to be? I mean, sure, the cheap hookers are great, but really, shouldn’t your priority be to..you know..find a country where you can easily blend in with everyone else?
2. If there’s a perfectly fine coffee machine in your office, why do you still insist on buying a $4 cup takeaway outside? Admittedly, I don’t drink coffee so maybe it does taste different. But dude, that’s a $20 a week savings right there.
3. I’ve said this before and I will say it again – why do people stop by business class section and pause to look at their tickets as though by some error, it now says business class from when they last checked it 5 mins before boarding the plane?
4. When I was much younger and didn’t know any better, I always thought that in the olden days, everything was tinted yellow. You can hardly blame me. Old photos are all tinted yellow. Even today, for some reason, when movies try to show a flashback, everything’s tinted yellow.
5. On the other hand, when there’s a show on Russia or one of those communist, third world, freezing places, everything’s tinted grey…with a lot of smoke. Granted, I’ve never been to those places so I am still open to the idea that everything may actually be grey there.
6. Vegetarian/vegan people tend to have an attitude about them. Not a bad one, just a certain air that I can’t quite put my finger on.
7. White people who are sheltered but want to appear cultured always seem more excitable and in your face for some reason.
8. Who actually watches air crash investigation?
9. Why do people buy brand new books when they can get it second hand or borrow from the library? I do a mix of all three (rarely buy though but if I can’t find it anywhere, I will) but know people who strictly stick to new books only. And, why spend $35 at Borders when you can get it for $20 at Target?
10. Does anyone understand the concept of mens’ jeans that hang on the butt?
11. It’s not just the Chinese who will eat anything. I caught a cooking show the other day that features European food and they eat just about the grossest looking things too.
12. Why do people ask me if it’s gross to use communal laundry? It’s a washing machine! Unless the person before me just ran water without soap, shouldn’t it mean that it’s been washed through by the time their clothes are done? Who washes their clothes and end up with dirty laundry to hang?
13. Having a non Australian accent does not mean I talk funny – or that I am pronouncing my words wrong.
14. Is it because of sheer driving concentration that causes some drivers to forget they’ve got the wipers on even though it’s stopped raining? I’ve noticed a lot of my friends doing that…but they’re not particularly great drivers. Why is it that they don’t hear the squeaking wipers on the dry windscreen like I do?
15. Love follows when happiness exists. Alright, fine – I hit a mental block and couldn’t think of anything else to write…

I was recently diagnosed with an ear infection. It was quite a bizarre illness that plagued me for about a week after a bad bout of flu that saw me confined to my bed for 7 days.

It seems that it was this infection that was causing my very drunk like walking ability. I had problems balancing and everytime I stood up, I fell back down because I couldn’t seem to hold myself upright long enough before feeling like the room was spinning around me.

The easiest part was going to the doctor because all I had to do was say that I’ve been feeling dizzy like as though I’ve been drunk off my face. Well, at least, that was just one of the symptoms. I must have sounded like a major hypochondriac while at the clinic, listing out everything that I think is wrong with me.

In the end, I had three different opinions and each concluded the same so I decided to take that as a fair diagnosis for what I have been suffering from. After a bout of antibiotics, I feel much better albeit still some leftover balancing problems which I assume are normal. After all, I have always had problems balancing whenever I look up in the sky. For example, after about 5 – 10 seconds, I tend to lose my balance even if all I’ve been doing is stare upwards, both feet firmly on the ground. But that’s normal right? Right?

Anyway, as some of my friends here are doctors, occasionally, I tend to casually tell them the problems I may have, be it dizziness (which did end up being an actual illness, HA!), flu, headaches etc. The problem is, one of them has started to categorize me as a hypochondriac. pffttthh…

Admittedly, I do tend to think I fall sick quite easily but it’s not like I go to the hospital every single time for a check up. They happen to hear it more because as doctors (or rather, as my friends), I feel that they ought to know what I think may be some slight cause for concern in case it ends up being something fatal that could have been picked up real early!

I do tend to get headaches (dull pain, not migraine) all the time which I have concluded could be either a) bad posture b) not drinking enough water c) hormones d) a ticking bomb in my brain waiting to explode. Until I can tick off any of these as not being the cause, I can breathe easy again.

Since moving to Melbourne, I have also discovered a newfound ailment called hay fever. In my first year here, I sneezed so much, by noon, I was ready to call it a day. My eyes were puffy, my body hurt, my nose oozing and blocked at the same time, and overall, I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, if not for the heaviness I felt in my head. Of course, eventually, I found a drug called antihistamine so at least that put a stop to that.

The saddest reaction I have to allergies is the one to alcohol. I turn bright red (ok, fine, I break out in rashes) after a certain limit - embarrassingly, half a glass of wine. It does work gradually (at least, in a space of 10 minutes) though. First, my cheeks turn pink. Then, my ears get red, then my cheeks turn red, then it kinda spreads down to my chest. Before you know it, I look like I’ve been out in the sun way too long. If you threw cold water on me, I’d probably sizzle like those annoying Asian hot pan dishes white people love to order so much.

But what can I say? I used to be a sickly child. I remember there was a time when I was so sick, I had to take 8 different pills at a time. I never saw the point since each time I took them, I just puked them right back out. It got so bad that my ma heard bout the miracle of egg white and decided anything was worth a shot. Before I knew it, I was lathered on with a layer of egg white on my skin to bring my temperature down. I was way too sick to protest anyway. My Ma got lucky on that one.

Anyway, long story short, my friend better be right in instances when he just pooh poohs my illnesses to nothing less than overreaction to a case of indigestion or I’m gonna come back and haunt him every day til I can finally say “I told you so”.

For the past month, I’ve been having a major chocolate craving. I don’t quite know what it is. I usually have it once a month and it passes within a few days but this has been an ongoing phenomenon that I can’t seem to explain.

and, no, I am not pregnant.

In the last two days, I have been chomping through 2 blocks of chocolate. I am on a roll! Let’s not forget, I am finally getting my daily recommended nuts intake too.

There have been some theories as to what brought about this incessant need to fill my mouth with this wondrously crunchy sweetness. The closest I can think of which may make the most sense would be the whole ‘chocolate works like an antidepressant drug’. Admittedly, I have been feeling rather low lately but voila! – after two blocks of chocolate, I feel like I’m in some sort of a high.

The chocolate goodness wins supreme! – yes, a line I have no shame in stealing from Iron Chef…

I have written about being fat and skinny in the past. I have to admit , when I do say that I have gained weight, I don’t mean I have put on 10kgs onto my tiny frame. I just mean that I have put on a couple of kgs and on a tiny frame like mine, you can see the difference. The thing that bothers me the most about gaining fat weight is the fact that it means I’m living unhealthily rather than the fact that I have put on weight.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t end up looking fat, but because of the body shape I have, the fats tend to settle around the mid region (and not, unfortunately, the mid (boobs) and bottom (butt) regions). So, yes, even tho I do put on a bit of weight, overall, I still look kinda skinny – especially when I wear loose fitted tops – but honestly, the muffin top and spare tyre look just doesn’t do it for me.

What I would like to write today is about how society keeps telling everyone now that being skinny is BAD. Wtf? There are people out there who are naturally skinny. I think it’s so unhealthy to tell people how they should look like or what they should eat or how they should live their life. Shouldn’t moderation be the key message here?

There are constant media coverage on how certain celebrities are too skinny etc without any thought as to whether they are naturally that way as how I’m sure there are some people who are naturally big boned. I think it is ridiculous that now, instead of telling people to live healthily, society seems to be in the mind set where everyone should be a size 10 to be considered ‘normal‘. What utter nonsense, no?

If I was a size 10, I would be incredibly unhealthy. I calculated my BMI the other day and surprise surprise, I’m supposedly underweight. I eat well and healthy (well I try to eat healthy but , sometimes, that darn choc bar just refuses to be ignored), I exercise, and I try and surround myself with positive people. At the end of the day, I think that is what matters.

I find it quite ridiculous that because there are so many more overweight people than skinny people, when someone happens to be naturally skinny, they get attacked instead. Sure, I get that there are people out there starving themselves to look skinny, but how is that our problem? Why should I be made to feel guilty just because I have a tinier frame than the average person? The thing that bugs me most is how people always tell me I’m way too skinny like it’s a bad thing. What am I supposed to do? This is what I am! And truth be told, I look alot more normal now than I did 15 years ago. Imagine if I had met these people back then, I would be a complete psychological wreck today. Thank goodness my family and friends are incredibly great people.

I think society should come down from their high horse and realize that people are made out of various shapes and sizes.

The next time someone says that shite to me, I’m gonna look at them in the eye and say, “I know! aren’t I lucky?”, give them a top to bottom checkout, followed by, “Not everyone is, I know”, ending with a ‘such a shame’ look.

..BOO YA..!

All my friends are gay. True story of my life.

I hear you ask how and why. Well, let’s start with the how.

4 years ago when I moved to this wonderfully gay friendly city, I only knew one other person here. He happened to be gay. The thing about gay men is that they can be awfully friendly. Usually a good thing, but sometimes, you worry that your group will be thrown out of restaurants (because we’re too noisy) or bars or worse – get gay bashed (because we’re so openly gay). You know they ain’t gonna be able to protect themselves that well with shirts cut so tight, you wonder if they’re getting enough blood flow to their arms and fingers to begin with. They can’t kick either for fear the wedgie they already have might cause actual damage to their crowning glory.

Anyway, from 1 gay friend, it felt like my social circle expanded exponentially overnight. After a couple of parties, I feel like I have known them all my life. We hang out, bitch, laugh, whine, perve, drink, eat and basically just have the time of our life before throwing air kisses and saying goodbye.

Gay men are a hoot to hang out with. When all you want is great companionship and fun, gay men are the way to go. Unfortunately, when you need a shoulder to cry on, their ever so wise solution to everything is – sleep with as many men as possible and eventually, you’ll get over it.

And so, for all of you girls out there who have always wished for a gay best friend, I have to say, as much fun as they can be (ala ‘my best friend’s wedding), there are sides to them that drive me up the wall too.

So, here are my top 5 best and worst things about having gay friends:

Best

1. Party party party! You think you’re dressed like a slut? Look at that guy up on stage moving his manboobs in those incredibly tight fitted skin colored shorts.
2. “omg, look at what she’s wearing. It’s like she woke up with puke all over herself and decided to dress to compliment that look”. Gay men can be so incredibly mean and bitchy. The key is to be on their side and not the poor soul walking past them while they’re people watching. Then, it’s just F-U-N. Besides, they’re the ones going to hell. You’re just accompanying them to purgatory. Might as well enjoy it while you can.
3. Food. Gay men know how to cook good food.
4. They also love to compliment you and when it comes from a gay guy, well..to quote those annoying (and obviously working) McCain’s ads, “you’ve done it again!” Although sometimes, you have to be wary as to what circumstances you’re in when they do compliment you. If it’s followed by a “who’s that incredibly hot guy you came in with? can you introduce us??”, then you know it was a dud.
5. Gay men are always up for a great time. They do day trips, dinner parties, spas, massages, and basically anything and everything just for the hell of it. If you give them enough reason (there will be plenty of hot men), they will come.

Worst

1. They perve way too much. Within 5 mins of arriving at any destination, iphones are whipped out and they’re on a mission to find the closest hot guy from where they’re standing.
2. “Yea I’ll come shopping with you”. next thing you know, “hey does this tie look good on me?”, “What bout this shirt? Does it make my boobs pop?”, “Do you think this color suits me?”. Before you know it, he’s got 5 bags of new clothes and I’m running out of time to shop for my stuff before the shops close.
3. They pike when a better deal (hot guy) comes. “Sorry babe, I can’t make it. I gotta have brunch with my ‘aunt’” = read: they got laid and now they’re having brunch. At least it wasn’t a complete lie.
4. Gay drama. Yes, they have their own groups that sometimes don’t get along. You stay clear and on the fence at all times and always check to make sure you don’t invite the wrong people to the same party
5. Me: “Omg, that guy is sooo hot…what? he’s gay???? so unfair!!! ”
   Them: smirk

I have a tendency to keep track of how many visitors I get on this blog. I always feel like a sense of accomplishment when my readership this month has gone up by 1% from the previous month. The problem is, I only have access to basic information when it comes to this. I’m sure I can get a more high tech, fancy type of program to track the statistics but honestly, I can’t quite be bothered and I’m just so bad at it it’ll probably take me ages just to figure out how to do it.

Unfortunately, with basic information, comes alot of confusion. Honestly, I have no idea why most of my ‘readers’ are from Russia..I don’t quite know what US Commercial means either. Also, does anyone know what “network” is? It’s really not very encouraging when these are the top three ‘usage by country’ according to my statistics.

On the other hand, I know that most of my readers access my website via RSS feed. So that should sorta tell me that the statistics I am getting are from real people visiting my website, right? Out of the many numbers and tables my hosting company provide me with, I only understand half of what they mean. Most of it just looks like a whole load of scribbles of random words, alphabets, numbers followed by forward slashes to me.

So, I am often left wondering who it is who reads my blog. I know that my number of readers have grown over the last year. Of course, it could just be the same people clicking on my blog a couple of times depending on the number of posts I put up. I know for certain at least 10 people read my blog. So unless all of you have been going clicker crazy in the last few months re-reading my posts, I’m guessing there should be other readers out there too.

On the other hand, if I do have more readers, you’d think that I would get more comments on my posts. The fact that I rarely get any comment at all makes me think that the ‘readers’ I get are mostly spam.

Ah well…whatever it may be, I’d like to think that I have that many readers even if it may not be true

I’ve been wanting to write this for a while now but hadn’t had the chance to, so here goes.

As most of you know, I have a Chinese name. But, even though it’s Chinese, it is still spelled the English way, with the May spelled, well, ‘May’. Since moving to Australia and being called May way too often, I decided to join my first two names to make it easier for people to call me by my complete name. The reason behind this is because in my family, all the girls have May in their first name. Each time someone calls me May, I feel like they’re calling my sister.

So these days, I go with my two names joined. Now, you would think that it is easy enough to pronounce. It is as it is. There’s a ‘may’ which is followed by a ‘ni’. But yet, when people see my name, they have a tendency to ask me how it is pronounced.

As baffled as I am with this, I also have a theory. I think it is because I am Asian. Racist? meh..maybe a bit – but since this is sorta a ‘I don’t want to offend you by saying your name wrong’ kinda thing, I let it go. Back to my theory – I think because it’s an Asian name, white people tend to think it ought to be pronounced harder than it is spelled. Most times when I tell them you say it as how you read it, they almost look disappointed. I feel like I ought to tell them to call me miearinay or something just to cheer them up.

Now, that’s just the reading my name part. Next is the battle of getting people to hear me right when I tell them my name. I am not sure if it it’s my accent (after all, the Aussies tend to say A as ‘ah-ae’ rather than ‘aye’) but they almost never get my name. In fact, I might as well just call myself either Amy or Megan just to make life much easier to myself. Oh, and let’s not forget Mamie and May Ling (that’s right, because all Asians with the name May has Ling followed by it).

Sometimes, to spice life up a little, whenever I order stuff over the counter that needs a name to go with the order, I give them various names because heck; rebecca, mary, amanda, emily, andrea etc are so much easier than battling with them to write out my name correctly.

As a matter of fact, years ago when I was in Uni, I got to know this Aussie girl whom I hung out with occasionally. One birthday, I received a card from her. I opened it and there it was:

“Dear Mai Neigh”

I think it must have been her thick accent because I never even realized she had spent the entire year pronouncing my name wrong.