So hard to go Green...

From my house to work is a mere 15-20min drive. With the gas prices so high these days, it definitely gives one more incentive to go green. But look at how long it will take me to go to work if I take public transportation trying to make it to a 9am meeting. About 2 hours!! I have even thought about substituting the walking part with biking but that's still a good 1.5 hours commute. Plus, I might have to bring a change of clothes and leave my laptop at work... I guess it's just not a very viable "go green" solution. :-(

I miss taking well-connected public transportation!!

A Day at Santa Cruz

Lost and Found

Reading, reading and more reading. I feel I am constantly reading something; work email, technical specs., blogs, news, reviews, articles, etc. Though I learn a lot from those things I read, it's nothing as enjoyable as reading a children's book. Above is a wonderful book that I plan to buy. It's a simple, short story with wonderfully drawn pictures. I truly envy those who can create and publish such brilliantly delightful children's books!

This is another book I want to get:

It's about how the rabbit is able to "see" many different things about an ordinary box. It's a must buy.

These books are about $10.00 each and they can really add up fast. Maybe I should set aside a budget for them every month.

My baby!

Someone shared this picture of my daughter with me taken with a cell phone. For some reason, I found it extremely interesting to look at. The photo reminds me of that baby seal まめゴマ San-X character.
Or could it be some other character I am thinking of?

It's that time again!

I am talking about The Annual Performance Review at work. Today C.O.B. is the deadline and I still have not even started on it. My husband and I have the same attitude when it comes to this Performance Review thing, even though we have been through this so many times. Some people are good at exaggerating what they have done in terms of the efforts required and the overall outcome. They can write non-stop, repeatedly on the same small task making it sounds like it has a great impact to the rest of the company. For us, we just do our best job in line with our business goals delivering everything on time as expected, nothing to be advertised. So the performance review for some will be a 25 pages long publication versus a reasonable 6 to 8 pages long summary report. If you happened to have a good manager who knows exactly what you did the past year, then you are in good hands for he can discern what is real and what has been blown way out of proportion. The really good manager will ask you to trim it down if it's a 25-page report. A bad manager will just sign after reading 1/4 of the report. Anyway, all in all, it's just a report to summarize what you have done the past year and the outcome. It's not a tool for you to build a fictional image like some people tend to believe it can do.

Then we also have to cross review people you have worked with over the year. This is especially bad for people like me who is involved in multiple projects directly or indirectly. It translates to getting tons of review requests in the mailbox. Either people think I am an easy reviewer or I am too friendly to think of them negatively. I get really a lot of review requests even from people I hardly remembered working with. For those people, I just replied with - "Not enough professional interactions to provide any useful performance feedback." For those whom I think negatively of, if I know his reputation is already bad, I don't mind providing improvement suggestions and leave it as that. For those whom people think highly of but I had a negative experience with, I just ignore the review request. For those whom I think positively of because they are technically strong and had shown real interest in what we do, I will write a strong positive review with improvement guidance, regardless of the person's reputation in the company. It happened to a person one year whom everybody was saying he is too dumb to be hired in the first place. I worked with him and I like his "can do" and "will learn right away" attitude. In fact, even though his knowledge was not good to begin with, he was able to complete the required tasks faster than an average engineer. His manager requested a meeting with me on him as everyone was quick to give him a bad review and asked me for details on why my review is positive and encouraging. Anyway, in the end the guy was asked to prove his technical strength by having to pass a certain technical exam by certain date or he will be put on 3-month probation. He did it and decided to move on to other opportunities. Good for him!!

今日の感想

I have decided to start going to the gym at work this week. It must have been 2 years since I last visited the gym. We have 2 good size gyms for our local employees of maybe around 30,000 people (?)

My original plan was to go everyday and do this 45-60 minute routine:
* 15 minutes bike
* 20 minutes treadmill
* 10 push-ups
* 10 girly push-ups
* 20 sit-ups

But for day 1 (Monday), I was so tired after 15 minutes on the bike covering only 3 miles, burning some lousy 82 calories with maximum heartbeat at 158. Later that night, I did the push-ups and the sit-ups according to plan before taking the shower.

Tuesday, I was too busy and completely skipped going to the gym. But was feeling guilty all day. And completely passed out after dinner ...

Wednesday (today), I went to the gym at 11:30am (30 minutes earlier than Monday) and finally saw some treadmills available. I did fast walking for 35 minutes covering 2.2 miles burning a good 220 calories with heart rate only at 132. Then I took a long shower before heading to the big network conference. They were serving tri-tips, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies and salad for lunch. Whoo hoo!! I skipped the dinner roll and soft drink. And listened to the presentation on Data Centers.

Anyway, these are the things I realized:
. Don't use the "men" bikes in the gym. It hurts. Use the girly "chair-seat" bikes.
. Remember to do stretches before starting on any equipment
. Get the room temperature bottled water instead of the ones from the fridge.
. I should try the gym outfit at home first to make sure it still fits. The ones in my gym bags are for the pre-baby body. :-(
. Don't wear the outdoor jogging shoes to the gym. Or wash them thoroughly with soap before using them in the gym. (It just does not look right to me...)
. There are always going to be way more guys than gals and hence some sizing stares from the men are inevitable. Get over it.
. The treadmill is cool. It has the fan, the bottle holder, MP3 holder, magazine rack, etc. I must have not gone on one for the last 5 years, or I will not be so amazed today.
. Lunch time is the busiest time of the day. Try to go around 10:30 or 11:00 if possible.
. I burnt 1 calorie for every 18 fast large strides I made. (Gradient 1.5 (?) Ave Speed: 3.6)
. Pack the gym bag more sensibly. I am not traveling for the weekend!!

可愛い

These are the cutest and most functional shoes for babies. It's very hard for infants to keep their socks on and most shoes are just too stiff for their soft thick feet. Whoever invented these should be an instant multi-millionaire. With these, infants can keep their socks on, their feet clean and being adorable at the same time. They are everything the tiny feet need.

*Founder of these shoes and the interesting story.

Strollers

Buying a stroller definitely requires some research. They might look the same but actually they are very different. If you look under Amazon.com, which gives a good list of different types of strollers with descriptions and user reviews which really helps new mom to learn what things to watch out for when you want to buy a stroller.

We have 3 strollers already, all from my older sister who is expecting her second child this Fall. My daughter will outgrow the current one which is convertible to an infant car seat and only good until 6 months old. The other one is a heavy duty jogging stroller with huge wheels good for rough terrain but not so suitable for traveling. The 3rd one is a light-weight sturdy stroller for traveling but for older kids with deep seat for longer legs. So for our upcoming travel plan, not only do I have to research for a light-weight stroller for an infant, I also have to look for a car seat to take along. The car seat was easy and it took me only 1 week to decide. But for the stroller, there are just so many features you have to decide on.

1. Comfortable seating and leg position
2. 5-point harness for safety
3. Height of handle bar and distance of the rear wheels for easy pushing and walking
4. No cheap, breakable parts
5. Durable swivel wheels with front suspension
6. Easy to fold and light-weight under 15 lbs
7. Removable & washable parts will be a big plus
8. Cup holder and storage basket
9. For kids up to 45 lbs
10. Price vs. features desired

I have been looking at strollers for the last 3 weeks and I still can't decide on it. One big reason is because it would be best to actually bring my daughter to try on some of these strollers, but unfortunately most of the models are only available online and not in stores. Arrrggghhh, return will be a hassle! :-(

*I just went to Babies R Us Japan's website and saw strollers are almost twice the price of US! What gives?

保育園

Here is a glimpse of the daycare center when we went to pick up my daughter on Monday after work.
I chose this daycare center after touring 4 different facilities because it is newer, cleaner and more professional looking. My daughter is the one being held as she lucked out being one of the younger ones who can not sit on her own yet.

今日の感想

Today I came across a blog of a new mother with twin boys. Like myself, she did not have the Chinese names ready for them until recently when they turned 8 months old. It's interesting to me because knowing that I am not the only mom who can not decide on a Chinese name for my girl until she was 4 months old is just a slight relief. In fact, I think it's always better to give the baby his or her Chinese name later when you get to know him/er more so that the name will be a better match of their temperament. Another way to pick a name is to find a name that balances with the baby's birth time. This involves knowledge of the old Chinese learning of the 5 elements (gold, wood, water, fire, earth) matching the birth time so you know what Chinese characters to pick that will carry the right elements. Yup, picking a Chinese name is a science which also involves good knowledge of the Chinese words and not a random act of your own liking.

So I think unlike English name, which pretty much goes more by how it sounds than for its meaning, you can pick it early on based on what you would like to call your kid.

Here is a website that gives you a score on how good your Chinese name matches with your birth time.
http://name.5721.net/

G.I.Jane

Two weeks ago we shaved her head so that her hair will all grow out at the same length instead of some very long and some part completely bald. It turns out looking ok. Some people said we're crazy to shave a little girl's head but take a look for yourself. It's really not so bad!

What is important?

I am never a very girly person and I don't usually like pink. So it's not surprising that my little girl is wearing a lot of white or yellow color like above. (Here in US, everything is PINK for little girls and BLUE for little boys. There's just a lack of interesting varieties here.)

Anyway, I ran into a co-worker this week at work, whom I have not seen for the last 3 years, during our product training to the support teams. She also recently gave birth to a baby girl (2 months earlier than me) and we so quickly hooked up and shared baby pictures on our laptops during breaks. Unlike me, she completely dresses up her daughter in different floral print dresses with headbands (is that what it's called?), cute outfits with fancy hats, while my little one is always wearing her onesies and peasant-style home clothes with only comfort in mind. That leads me thinking ... am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing justice to my wonderful little girl? Am I not taking the advantage of dressing up my daughter while she is still young and cute and does not has a mind of her own? Then I look at her wardrobe - it's jam packed with new clothes all on the hangers and a lot of them still unwashed with the price tags attached. What am I doing here? The fact that I want a down-to-earth little girl does not mean I have to keep her dressed in humble sleepwear 24x7. I am a bit confused... Maybe I have been lazy. She is starting to turn 6-month old so it's still not too late to start dressing her up, I guess. But should I be doing it just because my co-worker is doing it or is it really the RIGHT thing to do or I'll regret? Anyway, I think it's always good to talk to other moms (especially those whom I think are doing a good job) from time to time to make sure I am not just thinking about what I think is best, but what's best among all the options.

So the key question here is not whether to dress up the kid or not, but rather to take the opportunity to take her out when the weather is nice to experience new things and take pictures and create memories. The right clothes will come with the occasions!