Finally, I Love Exercising!

I started exercising and eating healthy about four months after I began working. 

Working decreased my activeness and the hawker food was going to my hips. I knew I had to change my lifestyle in order to stay healthy, so I began working out and packing my own meals.

The exercising routine began with a set of Nicky Holender videos, which were effective for a while and helped maintained my weight. But, I never really enjoyed his program. In fact, I never really enjoyed working out. I do Pilates on Saturdays (my mum is an instructor so I join her class), but I don't enjoy Pilates either. I know it's good, so I do it, and the same rule applied to my daily dose of Nicky's workout.

I use a USA Pro skipping rope.
The rope eventually snapped from
the handles. Not a great pick.

Working out was more of a chore for me, until... I decided to buy a skipping rope.

I don't know why, but I love skipping rope. I love it so much that I pushed myself the first week and was down the week after that because of minor injuries. But once I got back on my feet, I trained myself for two weeks, perfecting the normal double leg skip, before I customized my own workout routine. 

So, here's what I do with the skipping rope:

- 100 side-to-side/front-and-back skips

- 50 single right leg skips

- 50 single left leg skips

- 100 running skips

- 10 single leg push-ups

- 15 sets of renegade rolls 

- 10 sets of plank oblique twist

That whole combo is 1 set, and I do 4 sets, 6 days a week (the day I rest, I do Nicky's recovery workout). This routine takes me about 40 minutes to complete, depending on how much breather I take in between. It also makes me drip sweat, and we all know how satisfying it is to know you've sweat it out for the day.

I still do Pilates and some extra TRX on Saturdays, but I make sure to do my own combo too. Why? Because it's fun. I don't know why... but it's very fun.

Right now, I just can't wait to get home to workout!

Prayer Does Not Work

On Wednesday, I had inkling that I had caught the flu bug. So I prayed to be healed. 

On Thursday, I thought I was feeling better. But when nighttime came, I wasn't. 

Early this morning, about 3a.m, I woke up because it became rather uncomfortable to sleep. So I walked around.. yes, like a sleepwalker, and then laid back down and forced myself to rest.

Now, I'm all teary eyed with both a stuffy and runny nose. I would have taken a sick leave, but I'm not sick enough... I guess. I've only taken a sick leave once since I started working, and as much as I would like to, I always end up going to work anyway. 

So, during this short period of time, I began to wonder.

I placed this image here as sarcasm.

Why is it, that when I pray for healing, I don't get healed? Is the common flu too common for God? Why does God bless me in other ways, but does not lift a finger when I fall sick? Does my prayer for healing even work?

Now, they are just random thoughts. I don't blame God if He chooses not to heal me. He is God, He doesn't have to answer to me. But today, as I was making my rounds in the blogosphere, I stumbled upon a post titled, 'The Power(less) of Prayer'.

The blog post talked about how useless prayer was and that we shouldn't rely on a divine being. It also questioned how and when God answers prayers, and whether or not they are useful. Naturally, such an interesting topic required me to leave a comment... and my comment was the answer to my own questions.

Prayer is not a platform to request for things. It is not the place where you ask God to do things for you. Prayer is communication. Often times, we use prayer as a customer service help line; my computer isn't working, help me fix it. And when the help line is not 'helpful' we start to question if prayer works. We forget that prayer is a communication gateway between us and God. It is the place where we can talk to God and just spend time with Him. Sure, we can bring forth requests, but just like requesting your friend to do something, they are not obligated to do as you ask.

So does prayer work? That question is like asking, 'Does talking to my friend work?' It doesn't make sense to question whether your talk with your friend 'works'. Hence, it doesn't make sense to question if prayer works.

Prayer only does not work when we choose not to communicate with God. A powerless prayer is an unsaid prayer.

6-Day Trip To South Korea!

I suddenly had an urge to start a new blog, and then I thought, "Why not use the one I already have?"

So here I am, blogging about my upcoming trip to South Korea!

I've wanted to go to S. Korea since last year, mainly after I became a Running Man fan, but S. Korea always seemed a little off budget. So last year, my family and I went to Guilin China instead, which was no doubt a very relaxing holiday.

This year however, we decided to up our budget to RM3k per person and see if we can actually make it to S.Korea. Surprise, surprise, we can!

You're probably going, "RM3k? Only?" Yes, it might even add up to less, but I can only tell after the trip. The answer to a cheap holiday is the word, 'plan'.

As a family, we dislike following tour groups. You have to wait for people, you can't choose where you want to visit, AND it's expensive. Since Guilin, no.. since my parents were caravan-ing around the world, we have always planned our trips. This round is no different.

We will be spending 3 nights and 2 days in Jeju Island, and 2 nights and 2 days in Seoul. The rest of the hours are spent on the planes. It might seem rather short, but we've planned to captured the best of S.Korea... and 4 full days is enough.

For Jeju Island, we will be getting a taxi tour guide. Not much planning needed as we would just go with the flow and take the 'professional' suggestions of the taxi guide. However, we do have a list of a few places we would wanna visit, but it might change. The taxi guide is also rather cheap, so you might want to check them out if you're planning to visit Jeju Island.

For Seoul, the planning is much more taxing, especially on my brain since I'm doing it. Unlike Jeju Island, we do not have a guide in Seoul. We found a hotel which is a 5 minute walk to a subway station, so we'll be using the subway to get around. Through Google maps, I've managed to get a rough estimate of the traveling time, but that excludes the number of hours we would be on our feet. I'm not complaining though, walking is good for you.

The places we are visiting in Seoul are; Namsangol Hanok Village, National Museum of Korea, Myeongdong Shopping, Namdaemun Market, Changdeokgung & Secret Garden, Insa-dong, Cheonggyecheon Stream, N Seoul Tower, Namsan Park.

I will post the itinerary and other details later on, since the trip is only in September. I'm just so excited right now! Maybe I'll blog when I'm there, we'll see :)