muscle and body conditioning through yoga and pilates
Cardio workout alone helps you lose weight and maintain the figure. However, it doesn’t tone your body, or make you feel strong and in-control.
Pilates does.
Personally, I’m a big fan of strength and resistance training, such as power sculpt and pilates, combined with various cardio exercises (such as Zumba!!).
Here are some quick steps to jump start on your own!
Adobe Illustrator resources
As a a starter of Illustrator, I gathered some resources for learning and inspiration, credited to my teacher Jenna Lucente from NYU:
Google resources:
http://webdesignfan.com/50-astounding-adobe-illustrator-tutorials/
http://blogs.adobe.com/infiniteresolution/2012
http://www.illustrationserved.com/
and the best for practice for the next 6 months……..
VIDEO RESOURCES
• color choices – color guide or Kuler
see color harmonies which you can then add to your swatches pallette
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/csinsider-design/the-adobe-illustrator-color-guide/
• make custom shapes with shapebuilder
why you may like this:
like the name says, you can build custom shapes in Illustrator on the fly
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs5-design-premium-feature-tour/shapebuilder-tool/
• make beautiful strokes in Illustrator
why you may like this:
create better dotted dash strokes
create variable width strokes
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/visual-design-cs5/beautiful-strokes/
• and its always good to freshen up with the pen tool
• color choices – color guide or Kulersee color harmonies which you can then add to your swatches palette
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/csinsider-design/the-adobe-illustrator-color-guide/
• make custom shapes with shapebuilderwhy you may like this:like the name says, you can build custom shapes in Illustrator on the fly
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs5-design-premium-feature-tour/shapebuilder-tool/
• make beautiful strokes in Illustratorwhy you may like this:create better dotted dash strokescreate variable width strokes
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/visual-design-cs5/beautiful-strokes/
• and its always good to freshen up with the pen tool
LINKS AND INSPIRATION
nice typefaces available here: http://losttype.com/
Jessica Hische http://www.jessicahische.is/illustrating
http://www.rockpaperink.com/index.php
http://imprint.printmag.com/featured/this-is-how-old-i-am/
copyright free/permission free symbols available for download and usage http://thenounproject.com/
adobe help http://www.adobe.com/support/illustrator/gettingstarted/index.html
http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-illustrator-cs5/
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/14.0/WS2BE9B3A7-44AF-4d86-AC08-912E2D9F1ECB.html
“Confessions of an Advertising Man” by David Ogilvy
Book notes as follows:
(1) I admire people who work hard, who bite the bullet. I dislike passengers who don’t pill their weight in the boat. It is more fun to be worked than to be underworked. There is an economic factor built into hard work. the harder you work, the fewer employees we need，and the more profit we make. The more profit we make, the more money becomes available for all of us.
(2) I admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great advertising agency without brainy people. but brains are not enough unless they are combined with intellectual honesty.
(3) I have an inviolable rule against employing nepots and spouses, because the breed politics. whenever two of our people get married, one of them must depart–preferably the female, to look after her baby.
(4) I admire people who work with gusto. If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, i beg you to find another job. remember the Scottish proverb, “Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead.”
(5) I despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates.
(6) I admire self-confident professionals, the craftsman who do their jobs with superlative excellence. they always seem to respect the expertise of their colleagues. they don’t poach.
(7) I admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. i pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferiors as their subordinates.
(8) I admire people who built up their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. i detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and i look forward to the day when that will never be necessary.
(9) I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings. i abhor quarrelsome people. i abhor people who wage paper-warfare. the best way to keep the peace is to be candid. remember Blake:I was angry with my friend;I told my wrath, my wrath did ends,I was angry with my foe;I told it nothing, my wrath did grow.
(10) I admire well-organized people who deliver their work on time. the Duke of Wellington never went home until he finished all the work on his desk.
19 Ways to Enhance Your Sense of Humor (RD)
What is the greatest reward of being alive? Is it chocolate, sex, ice cream, tropical vacations, hugs from children, a perfect night’s sleep, or the satisfaction of a job well done? A thousand people, a thousand different answers. But one supreme pleasure that spans all people is
laughter.
Little can compare to the feeling of a deep, complete, heartfelt laughing spell. No matter your age, wealth, race, or living situation, life is good when laughter is frequent.
Life is also healthier. Research finds that humor can help you cope better with pain, enhance your immune system, reduce stress, even help you live longer. Laughter, doctors and psychologists agree, is an essential component of a healthy, happy life.
As Mark Twain once said, “Studying humor is like dissecting a frog — you may know a lot but you end up with a dead frog.” Nonetheless, we’re giving it a try. Here are 19 tips for getting — or growing — your sense of humor, based partly on the idea that you can’t be funny if you don’t understand what funny is.
1. First, regain your smile. A smile and a laugh aren’t the same thing, but they do live in the same neighborhood. Be sure to smile at simple pleasures — the sight of kids playing, a loved one or friend approaching, the successful completion of a task, the witnessing of something amazing or humorous. Smiles indicate that stress and the weight of the world haven’t overcome you. If your day isn’t marked by at least a few dozen, then you need to explore whether you are depressed or overly stressed.
2. Treat yourself to a comedy festival. Rent movies like Meet the Parents; Young Frankenstein; Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; This Is Spinal Tap; Animal House; Blazing Saddles; Trading Places; Finding Nemo. Reward yourself frequently with the gift of laughter, Hollywood style.
3. Recall several of the most embarrassing moments in your life. Then find the humor in them. Now practice telling stories describing them in a humorous way. It might take a little exaggeration or dramatization, but that’s what good storytelling is all about. By revealing your vulnerable moments and being self-deprecating, you open yourself up much more to the humorous aspects of life.
Plus: 5 Ways Love Makes You Smarter
4. Anytime something annoying and frustrating occurs, turn it on its head and find the humor. Sure, you can be angry at getting splashed with mud, stepping in dog poop, or inadvertently throwing a red towel in with the white laundry. In fact, that is probably the most normal response. But it doesn’t accomplish anything other than to put you in a sour mood. Better to find a way to laugh at life’s little annoyances. One way to do that: Think about it as if it happened to someone else, someone you like — or maybe someone you don’t. In fact, keep running through the Rolodex in your head until you find the best person you can think of to put in your current predicament. Laugh at him, then laugh at yourself!
5. Read the comics every day and cut out the ones that remind you of your life. Post them on a bulletin board or the refrigerator or anywhere else you can see them frequently.
6. Sort through family photographs and write funny captions or one-liners to go with your favorites. When you need a pick-me-up, pull out the album.
7. Every night at dinner, make family members share one funny or even embarrassing moment of their day.
Plus: 20 Secrets Your Waiter Won’t Tell You
8. When a person offends you or makes you angry, respond with humor rather than hostility. For instance, if someone is always late, say, “Well, I’m glad you’re not running an airline.” Life is too short to turn every personal affront into a battle. However, if you are constantly offended by someone in particular, yes, take it seriously and take appropriate action. But for occasional troubles, or if nothing you do can change the person or situation, take the humor response.
9. Check out the Top 10 list archive from David Letterman. You can find it at cbs.com.
10. Spend 15 minutes a day having a giggling session. Here’s how you do it: You and another person (partner, kid, friend, etc.) lie on the floor with your head on her stomach, and her head on another person’s stomach and so on (the more people the better). The first person says, “Ha.” The next person says, “Ha-ha.” The third person says, “Ha-ha-ha.” And so on. We guarantee you’ll be laughing in no time.
11. Read the activity listings page in the newspaper and choose some laugh-inducing events to attend. It could be the circus, a movie, a stand-up comic, or a funny play. Sometimes it takes a professional to get you to regain your sense of humor.
12. Add an item to your daily to-do list: Find something humorous. Don’t mark it off until you do it, suggests Jeanne Robertson, a humor expert and author of several books on the topic.
13. When you run into friends or coworkers, ask them to tell you one funny thing that has happened to them in the past couple of weeks. Become known as a person who wants to hear humorous true stories as opposed to an individual who prefers to hear gossip, suggests Robertson.
14. Find a humor buddy. This is someone you can call just to tell him something funny; someone who will also call you with funny stories of things he’s seen or experienced, says Robertson.
Download the free Jokes & Funny True Stories iPhone app.
15. Exaggerate and overstate problems. Making the situation bigger than life can help us to regain a humorous perspective, says Patty Wooten, R.N., an award-winning humorist and author of Compassionate Laughter: Jest for the Health of It. Cartoon caricatures, slapstick comedy, and clowning articles are all based on exaggeration, she notes.
16. Develop a silly routine to break a dark mood. It could be something as silly as speaking with a Swedish accent (unless you are Swedish, of course).
17. Create a humor environment. Have a ha-ha bulletin board where you only post funny sayings or signs, suggests Allen Klein, an award-winning professional speaker and author of The Healing Power of Humor. His favorite funny sign: “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
18. Experiment with jokes. Learn one simple joke each week and spread it around. One of Klein’s favorites relates to his baldness: “What do you call a line of rabbits walking backward? A receding hare line.”
19. Focus humor on yourself. “Because of my lack of hair,” Klein says, “I tell people that I’m a former expert on how to cure baldness.”
Learn more about the healing power of laughter.
Useful career tips from”Career Warfare”
“Career Warfare” might not be the most enlightened nor the best-versed career guide that’s ever written. But if one believes in the utilitarianism in the capitalistic society, you would like this book, as it’s a handy tool aiming to help advance career, especially if you work in the corporate America world.
After going through the fluff, I stripped out some handy tips for the future reference, and to share with you:
-You have to view your own actions in the same way that the people judging you will view them.
-Everyone has a natural tendency to make excuses for their behavior. Don’t make excuses for yours. People will decide who you are on the basis of the things you do.
-Don’t flatter yourself. You can’t build a good personal brand if you can’t see yourself as others see you.
-To get noticed, turn whatever particular qualities you offer into something that is of value to the higher-ups.
-When you are young, getting access to powerful people is the name of the game.
-You are also less likely to be fired or laid off if you are a hunter. That’s why there are so many obnoxious salespeople in the world who are retained even if their personality defects are numerous.
-To quickly elevate your personal brand, make bold promises and deliver on them. -You have to develop a reputation for leadership, because at some point your ability to do things yourself becomes meaningless. What counts is whether you can get other people to do them.
- It’s about the people, not the theory. Know what you don’t know.A reputation for fairness is must-Do not develop a reputation for sycophancy. Do not allow yourself to be thought of as someone who is afraid to speak his or her mind. It will brand you as mediocre, and you will never rise high.
-The real question is whether or not you are smart enough to use them as well. And what you want to use them for is to develop a reputation as someone who is destined for higher things.
-Early in your career, experience is more valuable than money.
-Family is a dangerous and inaccurate metaphor to use to describe that closeness which people develop working together. The right metaphor is military.
-When you stop learning from your boss and your experience and stop adding to your reputation, it is probably time to move on. And if the organization is not willing to move you up, it’s time to move yourself out.
Some of above tips may seem like shortcuts, not really corresponding to my philosophy either. This book does offer an interesting perspective. After all, we have to understand the mentality of all types of winners, (yep I’m very result-driven) in order to stand out in the modern business world’s ferocious competitions.
When love’s right, everything’s right
Today is my 25th birthday.
There was a party held for me at one of the most beautiful spots in NYC. Lots of friends of past, present and future tense showed up. It was amazing.
“Friends forever; passion never ceases…” To some of them, I really wish this become true.
I talked with parents for hours on the phone call afterwards; and I got messages from old childhood friends. Our hearts are still connected; human’s emotional attachment is just incredible.
With my heart completely filled up with love, this is how I feel today in retrospect. It comes from an old classic movie “American Beauty”:
“I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die.
First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time…
For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars… And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined our street… Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper… And the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird… And Janie… And Janie… And… Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me…
But it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…
And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life…
You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry… you will someday.”
Last but not least, I want to state an important fact that holds true for me at all times:
When love’s right, everything’s right.
That includes family, relationship, and friends whom while you think of, bringing the kind of indescripable soft warmth beyond any human language… Thank you for appearing in my world.
Loves,
Wendy
Optimizers are almost never happy
Once start working, everything falls into a pattern. Usually I hate repetition, especially mindless stuffs, but as long as it’s work-related, I am dedicated to pursue with 100% energy, cuz… well, people pay me money for doing things that they don’t want to do; therefore, those boring tasks become my responsibilities. Moreover, I love my boss and my boss’s boss too much to let them down: given the maximum possible length of time that I could work for them in my career, I would definitely cherish this fate and relationship. Working for respectable people is the most important driving factor for me right now.
Yes, most New Yorkers of our generation strive hard to be at the top of their field. Ambitious and competitive people are everywhere. But looking around, I feel like most people are seriously overestimating themselves. In reality, having a consistent record of strong performance versus being a predator just to prove oneself is better than others are completely different story.
I can’t say that I am happy all the time. But really, happiness is a relative term. For people like me who constantly look for something better, somewhere to improve themselves, we are just never complacent. By comparison, merely liking the status quo leads to stable happiness.
You see the tradeoff here? It’s all about the mixture and the balance of when to move forward, when to stop, to reflect and to enjoy what’s around.
Being slightly uncomfortable is probably the best state of life: it pushes you to acquire more awareness rather than feeling as if you already know everything.
However, optimizers who are always looking for the best of everything are almost never happy. They usually get greatness in their lives in many aspects, but they care too much.
As Penelope Trunk once pointed out:
“What you really pay for with the exorbitant cost of living and the hard lifestyle is to be surrounded by strong performers, huge ambitions, and constant need for change and innovation. To live in New York City, you have to trade happiness for this. To most New Yorkers, it’s a no-brainer. They would take that trade any day. To most people outside of New York City the trade-off is crazy.”
Do I value an interesting life over a happy life?
Absolutely.
I guess I am at the exact right place during this period of my life.
Zara 2011 Spring Fashion
I randomly came across the set of pictures below. Original source is unknown, but it was indicated as from the Zara 2011 Spring Catalog.
The color combinations are well-diversified, and I love the mix-and-match, half-casual half-work style.
Hope you, my dear reader, find it inspiring as well.
Nude Color Fashion this spring
This spring and summer, it’s all aout NUDE COLOR fashion.
The good thing thing about wearing nude means you can accessorize with any color or pattern you want. Get some pop of color in with your shoes and accessories on the nude colored outfit and then it would stand out.
I thought I’d give you some great examples of ways to wear nude color with some style.
Rainbow Rose
In 2004, two dutch companies, River Flowers and F.J. Zandbergen, experimented and successfully grew a rose that had its petals rainbow colored. As petals get their nourishment through stem, the idea is to split the stem into several channels and dip each one in a different colored water. This way all the colors will be drawn by the stem into petals and resultant rose will have all the colors in it. The same method can be applied to other flowers especially to Chrysanthemum and Hydrangea. You can use the same idea to color any flower, anyway you like. So cool!
