More recently, I acquired through shopping for other things online a selection of perfume samples in those little 1 oz. bottles that changed my mind about perfume. A list:
Lolita Lempicka
BCBG MAXAZRIA Within
Lacoste Inspiration
Lacoste Pour Femme
Hanae Mori
Burberry Brit

Maybe I will come back later to this list to write about what I think of each one, but what I discovered through experimenting is that I like a subtle sweet scent. So far, the sample that I keep coming back to is Hanae Mori, described as “a rare blend of berries and flowers, with a distinctive tone of strawberries and almond, giving an impression of vanilla. Notes:Strawberries, Bilberries, Black Currant, Bulgarian Rose, Jasmine, Ylang-Ylang, Sandalwood, Almond, Praline. Style:Spontaneous. Modern. Festive.”

The two perfumes that I have ruled out as being “me” are Lolita Lempicka and Burberry Brit. Lolita is a bit too sweet, and Burberry Brit is a bit too …citric? I will write more about the other ones later because I will actually use them now that I’ve finished Hanae Mori.

I think perfumes are personal, frivolous, and fun. But it can also be serious: it can be used to make a statement about yourself and your current frame of mind. I don’t think that I am a sophisticated enough perfume user to do the latter, but the perfume that characterizes me would be understated and natural, and I think I found that in Hanae Mori.

Wanted to share this short but great Pilates work out (best viewed on IE and Firefox). I have been doing it on average about three times a week for a month and I feel like my legs and tummy do look better. It’s excellent for the couple of days after you eat a big meal, at least for me it flattens the stomach. Besides, it’s only 20 minutes and it’s easy to memorize. I wrote down the sequence and just listen to NPR or something while I do this.

I took a Pilates class last semester, but I feel like I do not have the motivation to do so this semester. Also, I do not enjoy running-it hurts my knees; I do not enjoy hour-long exercise sessions-they take too long and extended exercise hurts my shoulder. This is great because I just do it in my room when I need a break from the computer.

I think Phipps is one of my favorite places in Pittsburgh. The conservatory is having an orchid exhibit and I went to check it out and to take some pictures. The flowers were absolutely gorgeous, I hope they change out the Frabel glass collection soon to another exhibit.

I cooked a lot this weekend,  Friday for Yang’s bday, yesterday helped Chris make a ton of chili,  and today for myself.  Mung bean with tofu was a hit.  I made that because there were a couple of vegetarians at YY’s party, but I wasn’t  sure if they actually got any because I didn’t make much, and the mung beans shrunk.

I can’t believe it’s the end of January, where did time go?

I had the thought last night that there are at least 40 years which I will spend working. In those 40 years, my skills and interests will change and I will probably change many jobs. I probably shouldn’t freak out that much. There’s a lot more to come.

I started another Tumblr blog to share things found online that I like. Visit and be amused if you’d like: dividebyme.tumblr.com

At least the FS was faster than GAO in response…

Onward with life.

Maybe it’s winter, maybe I am just sick of school, but I  have been extremely unmotivated to wake up in the morning.  I was listening to a TED talk on how some people live to be 100 and came across the idea of ikigai, which the speaker translated as “something you wake up in the morning for,” and honestly, most mornings I would really rather stay in bed. For that reason, I am glad to be graduating at the end of April, but the cause for lack of ikigai may be that I haven’t found the next thing I can look forward to waking up to.

Today, I ponder the question of if whether I made the wrong choice in studying what I study. Should I have chosen journalism? Would I be have been been off studying photography or something? Would I be more passionate about these things? I don’t think that my choice was wrong, it’s just that I do have interests in many things and I like the interdisciplinary nature of IR. It may also be so that I am not really excellent at any one thing, but just good enough at some things to satisfy my interests.

The looming graduation is scary. Mediocrity is also scary. I guess the upside is that a large percentage of population that is mediocre does get by.

Sort of cute eh?

snail

Things I enjoyed about Cancun:
1. Our lovely hostel
2. Beetle cars all over Cancun
3. The little square where a Christmas performance was held and had wonderful taco stands
4. Little parks within neighborhoods
5. Talking to a traveling photojournalist in the hostel. He’s traveling across Central America on a motorcycle. What a badass.
6. Warm day
7. Night walk on the beach in the hotel zone and sneaking into a hotel through the back to sit underneath the cabana and clean in their hot-tub

Otherwise, I found Cancun itself to be rather unappealing. Too much attention from people and taxi drivers that charge too much. Walking across the street probably endangers your life, though probably not as bad as some places in China.

cat

hostel

Day 2
We headed to Valladolid using the second class bus that picked up beggars and food vendors along the way and crawled at the pace of approximately 30 mph, picking up and dropping off random people periodically. What I thought was a two hour trip turned into four hours. Alas. It was interesting to drive through the countryside and just look, though of course I fell asleep for a couple of hours. Valladolid is a colorful city, what travel books described as a colonial town. All I know is, the food there is great. We ate at two hotel restaurants in the main plaza and had Yucatan food like pork pibil and vinaigrette chicken with delicious horchata and juice. Yum.

We visited the local cenote (called Zaci) that we did not get to swim in and Ek Balam, a ruin nearby that you could actually climb on top of. Climbing up and then coming down the pyramid was an intimidating and slow process. There were lots of dogs around there for some reason.

We stayed at a place called Candelaria, a pretty hostel with two horny chiuhuahuas, two cats, hammock, and colorful exotic plants. After walking around Valladolid, we had a drink on the hammocks. I almost want a garden exactly like it in my future home.

valladolid

hostel

ek balam

Day 3
We woke up early in the morning for Chichen Itza, a site with giant Mayan ruins. The secret to building a Mayan ruin by the way is to decorate pyramids with skulls, serpents, jaguars tearing out hearts, eagles and lots of columns. The complex was impressive in size. There were lots of vendors selling masks and blankets and other goodies, I only bought a pair of earrings because the prices are still pretty high. After Chichen Itza we went to Cenote Ikil and swam there. I donned a life jacket of course and Chris patiently helped me to float and somewhat swim. Looking up to the round opening of the cenote from the blue-green water was beautiful. The roots of the trees on top of the hole hung down to the water and little black fish swam around us. So delightful.

After taking a couple of dips into the cenote, we changed and I caught sight of two cleaning women who were sharing oranges (really green but really sweet) and putting some sort of paste on the orange. I asked one of the women what the paste was and the woman busted out an orange from the drawer and offered us one. Orange with chili paste is delicious and this led to our hunt to find the formula a day later.

After the cenote we headed to Playa del Carmen, about four hours away. After we arrived we walked along 5th Avenue in search of food. The street is really charming with nice bars and restaurants with beautiful light decorations. Per the tour book’s recommendation we ate at a placed called Jaguar and I got a caviche and a drink that’s like mojito without the mint. The drink was delicious but it was a bit chilly for caviche mix.

We walked around some more after dinner and found a wonderful wonderful chocolate cafe called Ah Cacao with absolutely to die for chocolate drinks. We had small cups of warm pure chocolate goodness that night, and went back the next night for Mayan chocolate drink. Why can’t we have chocolate cafes in America? *Tears.

chichen itza

cenote ikil

Day 4
Today we went to Rio Secreto, “an underground river with thousands of dramatic stalactites and stalagmites.” It’s a cave-like cenote discovered only in 2006 and is about 800 km. We only toured about one mile of the 800 km. I’ve been into limestone caves in China, but this had an “untouched” feel and the water was pure, the stalactites and stalagmites have been growing for like a million years and are still growing. Our tour guide was this patient French man with nice accents. For parts of the tour with deeper water, I couldn’t move forward so Chris had to shove me from behind, haha…

After Rio Secreto we took a taxi to Akumal and I snorkeled for the first time! There were rumors of sea turtles and stingrays in Akumal but we didn’t see any on that day. I was too busy concentrating on learning how to snorkel and my shoulders chaffed from the life jackets. The fish at the Akumal restaurant we ate at was delicious though.

Snorkeling, by the way, is exhausting and every time that we snorkeled we had to take a two hour nap afterwards. After this nap, we walked around Playa del Carmen and bumped into a Wal-mart. We went around Wal-mart to find supplies to protect a hanging paper that he bought earlier that day in Akumal and oranges and that amazing chili. Our purchases: three different chili pastes/powders, six oranges, a floating tube, a knife, and holiday wrapping paper. T’was a fun Wal-mart trip. We then went back to the hotel to experiment with our orange and chili combo.

cup of chocolate from Ah Cacao cafe

playa del carmen

Day 5
We started the day with Tulum, a beautiful ruin on the Carribean. Unfortunately the camera’s battery died and we resorted to taking pictures with the underwater camera. The water was a beautiful shade of indescribably awesome aqua. The three ruins we visited had really different characteristics, Ek Balam was great in that we could actually climb up, Chichen Itza was just big and impressive, and Tulum seemed like a little ancient village that has been left behind.

After Tulum we headed back to Akumal for more snorkeling. After a few attempts we finally spotted sea turtles! One was chewing on the grass in the water and a littler one was swimming around. Seeing the littler turtle, we sort of chased after it like we weren’t supposed to do, but it was pretty awesome. I saw a stingray flowing around and many fishies and the reef. So cool. I now love snorkeling.

sea turtle at akumal, image stolen from online

Day 6
Today we rode the boat to Cozumel, an island about an hour away from Playa del Carmen. We got sick on the boat because we were in the lower deck with no fresh air and lots of freaking people. Got to our pretty and very nicely decorated hotel and rested for an hour or so. Then we were off snorkeling in Dzul Ha. It was cold and sort of rainy. Cozumel’s pretty but the underwater wasn’t as impressive as I saw at Akumal, so we thought that we’d give it another go by going with a tour tomorrow.

We went back to the hotel and it rained/stormed all night. But after the storm, we went to a delicious restaurant called La Papelita and had freaking delicious fish and pina colada. Yum.

dog at the hotel

Day 7
We went with a tour to take us out to two reefs to snorkel : Chaankanaab and Dzul Ha. Honestly felt like we would’ve been better off snorkeling on our own. The reefs were nice but then I felt nauseous from the fumes blowing from the boat’s engines. There were many cool fish though and schools of them surrounded some structures that fell into the water from an earlier storm. Maybe Cozumel is better for divers.

We headed back to Playa del Carmen and caught a bus back to Cancun. It was an exhausting day. We walked around, then ate more orange and chili and I found guavaba, which unfortunately wasn’t as good as big guavas.

dive guy who took us out to the reefs, cozumel

Day 8
Guayaba became better after sitting around in plastic for a day. I went to Isla de las Mujeres today. The Isla is totally relaxing and laid back, very different from Cancun. I walked around, photographed, and ate. I found a place just beside the beach which had sand, palm trees, and hammocks and hung out there for a while. Super nice. Then I went to a Turtle Research Center on the other side of the town and came back to the palm tree and hammock spot to sit for a while and listen to the ocean. Then I found a nice little café called Manana and ordered a very delicious large fruit shake and read a book from its shelves. Nice relaxing last day.

playa norte, isla mujeres

isla mujeres

motorcycle

Day 9
All day of endless traveling. I woke up at 5 a.m. and took the bus to the airport. Then I was either in the airport or on the airplane all day. After I got to the airport in Pitt, I took the bus back. Nice vacation though! 

I really like that dress.

As you all should know by now, I’m going to Cancun on 12/16 for a week! Whee. Plane ticket to Cancun was cheap, but the hotel costs and such are adding up, especially since it’s the holiday season. :-/ But it shall be fun. I will not be stay in Cancun itself much, but will be going to Cuzumel (snorkeling!), Chichen Itza (Mayan ruin!) and a little colonial town nearby Chichen Itza called Villadolid, the Mayan Riviera (with eco-parks) and cenotes (underwater caves). I am very sad that I cannot swim, but oh well, it will still be beautiful.