Over dinner, I thank her for guiding me certain principles in life; which I thought it’s simple yet very hard to practice. It is not many from her. Just simple 3 words. Her 3 words repeatedly over years actually imprinted in my head. It guided me through years of working life and it is handy going through a phase of work, life, etc.

She is going through a period of tough times, myself likewise. I could tell we have some unspoken chemistry, which we never think of exploring. She poured out some aspects of her life…love life mostly. You know some people always play the role of giving more devotion than the other party. Some people give themselves away too easily. Some people admittedly are soft hearted and not assertive enough in love.

I exchanged my heart aches, problems and stresses (I am currently going through) with her … I am in situation where I am no longer needed. Not that I need that sense of belonging, I can take care of myself. 

This stage of life really is a puzzle for me that I am no longer needed to play a role in any decision making. Supposed it is a big chunk of life lost. All these big changes happened so fast, I have no chance to react but I took them at stride. With the background where I come from, it gave me the instinct to handle things.

My friend’s life took a turn, in which she wants to explore and get to know other people. It’s regretable that her potential partner lied about his profile. I can’t imagine it but it’s true.

As the conversations went on, I realized; similarly to her, I am not assertive enough, we give ourselves in too much, we have shown more devotion too much, we are too vocal at times, we should not even be talking this right here in this entry …

I thought it is healthier to be more vocal in a relationship or want-to-be-relationship. Guess, it’s not. Instead I received silent treatments, "I am walking away from you" signals, "you’re too pushy", "it’s conscience", "not gonna be free any time at all", etc. May be I am thinking too much. However, I thought it’s more gentle or mature to talk it out than walk away with signals as such.

While she devotes too much and found out it’s not the right one. When she walks, she didn’t make it clean because she is too soft when it comes to matters of the heart. I could tell she does not know anything about love. The defintion of love terminology comes up during our chat, I have to define it. It’s clear that she seems lost.

Love is about 2 unknown people coming together, getting to know one another; they see if they can fit each other, how the way they live can accommodate each other… if it all fails, we move on; we voiced out, we moved on.

It takes 2 hands to clap. Nothing works without a pair of hands. A mistake in relationship or a certain fling simply won’t work without 2 persons.

In certain circumstances, solutions simply won’t work at all without the other party genuinely showing their interest (to work things around).

We can only advise each other upto a certain steps. It boils down to us taking the bold steps and walk the talk.

As for myself, another day goes by, another weekend goes by.  Same ol’ cycle round & round. It remains unsolved.

Drink up … sun goes down, the night is young. Drink til drunk do us part.

I wish her good luck and we end our dinner & talk right then … we’ll meet again, I’m sure.

Incline DB presses @ 95lbers and Incline Bench Press 225lbs, yes I hit it finally after back injury late last year.

My workout is improving, I feel. Poundages have been slowly increased from week to week. Not a significant jump. I am not the kind that tends to sacrifice form & muscle feel for high poundages. Consider my working hours, diet, very very humid weather make it worse. Lethargy from water loss (due to high humidity) is terrible.

With water loss, you basically feel sleepy and to drink coffee to spark yourself up, it only makes you more lethargic due to its direutic effect. I have to substitute it with water or tea. Tea helps to spark my energy without the feeling of lethargic. That’s me.

My next target is to increase the reptitions for incline DB Presses, Incline Bench Presses; that’s for chest.

I’ll update my short term targets next few weeks.

Just by looking at a person, you have a gut feeling that he or she is married or not.

Well, I asked this simply because I have been mistaken for few years that I don’t look like a married person.

New colleagues, new friends, new business contacts, new customers commented the same thing.

Perhaps, I create the "I am not married" vibe around myself.

I find this comment very weird to me.

People are just plain weird.

For an Asian in Asia, I do attract some praises from ladies, lesbian or straight.  But I feel very much uncomfortable with their compliments. 

Of course I do thank them out of correctness.  However, deep down inside I feel very uncomfortable.

Personally, I have a wide ass nose, a flap flap ears, receding hairline, poor skin texture, etc. Personality wise, I doubt I could attract any opposite sex.  Sometimes, those more ladies tease me, the more uncomfortable I feel.

I need to shoot a photo with bunch of kids…may be people will think I have many kids and they will stop all these teasing nonsense. LMAO!!!

:-D

In Asia, doing business means giving small favors unlike in America. Small favors simply mean socializing, dinners, snacks such as local delights, etc.

The company receives many local delights, snacks almost 4 out of 5 working days per week. 

It’s unimaginable that we can stomach so much snacks.

Out of courtesy, I entertained our company service people once a while (that means eat their snacks). Believe me most of them snacks are high sodium, high carbs, high fats & high sugar content. I give them a miss 9 out of 10 times offered to me.

I can’t skip dinners though. Snacks are alright to skip. 

It’s unimaginable for me to eat muffins while I can have a cup of oats and 1 protein shake. or simply 1 zero impact bar would do my snacks better.

You can’t change the people sometimes. People love snacks a lot, I let my colleagues eat whatever snacks they like. sometimes I would buy snacks from overseas for them to munch.

They appreciated my gestures. I skip it though. LMAO!!!

Here comes the problem.

Apparently, the internal system as well as the management of the gym club “denied” the request for transfer. The possibility is high such that the training sessions could be cancelled.

We were obviously upset and angry. The training costs a US$58 ~ 60bucks per session. That is a total US$840/= bucks loss.

Definitely, we are going to lodge a complaint to the club. 

I wanted the training sessions so bad that I have preplan what I like to achieve. This hiccup is not going to ruin my plan.

More and more, I feel this gym (California Fitness) is pissing off with the way they handle clients. It is increasingly favoring more and more NEW customers with special package and free gifts.

Regulars like my friends and I hardly get any free gifts. We have to “beg” for free tshirts. To us, it is not the tshirts we craved for. It is matter of treating your regular clients better. It seems to us, we didn’t get our good share of fair customer service at all. A friend of mine has to pay for the club membership at a much higher rate than newbies.

He left the gym and no one bothers to retain him as a client. What the fuck is that all about?

Recently, I joined a new gym (Planet Fitness), which allows me to talk to a few competitive bodybuilders whenever my rest time permits. The rest time is usually short – 20seconds or so.  If I were rest longer than usual, I will kill my bodyparts with 6 sets back-to-back exercises at a go prior to resting.

So far, I was lucky that a fellow competitive bodybuilder is share training advices with me.

You can always decrease your reps, increase slightly the speed of motion, decrease the negatives, whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Today I lifted to the 90% of my max weights thus far. E.g. what I did today was a superset of leg presses vs. Box jump.

It’s the first I attempted 12inch above knee height for a box jump.  Damn, it was hard. LMAO!!!

A typical 8inches above knee height, I could box jump 18 - 21 reps. Today I could not! I hit the max 8 - 10 reps for 12inch above knee height.

It was hard but it was worthy. I perspire a lot after those box jump sessions.

Try it sometime. Box jump helps to lose weight. It worked for me.

What I did was gave myself a little rest something like 40seconds rest. My usual rest time is around 20seconds.

Gave it a shot of 10reps but failed at 9.5 reps. LMAO!!!

Going forward with my lifting scheme, I will lift heavy with small increments per set but emphasizing on the slow motion especially negatives.

I read that negatives build power……whatever. Experience taught me so however, negatives build strength and muscles.

Never cease to experience and change your workouts as frequently as you like. Focus on your objectives, short term changes are necessary.