2011 - The year I find my six pack

Haha, so I have mentioned this idea to a few friends - 2011 is the year that I find my six pack. I know that it exists and that it is in there somewhere :)..

On a more realistic note, I've decided to try to be healthier this year, reduce my direct sugar intake by that I mean

1. Dessert can no longer qualify as dinner or breakfast items
2. I need to infuse more fruits in my diet
3. I need to drink more water and I need to ensure that I have water everyday
4. My goal is to shoot for less snacks during my busy days at my desk at work (Try to swap the snacks for fruits)
5. Will shoot for balanced meals per meal
6. And FINALLY, I want to hit the gym FREQUENTLY

It's no news that I hate the gym. It's not that I hate to work out but I feel like the gym is boring. I would rather go running in the park, play soccer every day, play badminton every week. For one thing, I like having the option to interact with other people and talk smack. I feel like with the gym, you have to concentrate, face your machine and do your thing. But considering how the snow and the cold weather have forced me to hibernate this winter, the gym would have to do.

It also helped that I got free a couple free day passes to LA Fitness. I'll see how the work out experience goes and will decide when to end my relationship with the gym. The goal is not to lose weight except belly fat weight.

Wish me luck

Salsa Night

I cant believe that it took me approximately 6 months to finally realize that I miss Salsa dancing. For some reason, I never was a fan of it during my undergrad days but somehow with my Latina friends from business school, I got into it. Anyway, back in B school, we would go salsa dancing about once in 6 - 8 weeks.

So as I am still relatively new in ATL, I have decided that I would shoot to do something different for every week/weekend I am in the city. I guess this weekend wasn't bad. Friday night was game night. For Sat, I somehow convinced SOJ and his Madrid friend to come salsa dancing with me. He ended up leaving us there but we had a blast.

Not sure why but I am a different woman when I go salsa dancing but for some reason I am not shy to ask Latin men to dance and I've learned that they appreciate it. Whether they can dance or not they would at least try. I've learned older Latin men love to dance and are great teachers. In any case, I ended up dancing with about 5 different people, the last 3 came to ask me to dance and the last guy was an awesome teacher. I think I now have a better handle on how to turn :).

I'm considering adding this to my every weekend schedule because I had so much fun and also because it is a work out :)

Friends Setting You Up

I've realized that as more people that I know get married, they feel the need to pair me and all their other single friends up with other people that they know. And for some reason it seems that every time someone has suggested a new guy to me, I've just never been able to picture myself with that person.

1) I wonder if this is because I have a strong desire to find someone by myself. I believe that things will and should happen at the appointed time. (Not saying that people introducing you to someone else is a bad idea but I feel like it could make the friendship with the introduced seem forced)
2) Or it's that my friend's have no idea in what my tastes are.

I thinks its more the latter than the former or maybe a good combination of both.

In any case, cupid wannabes have been so unsuccessful - I remember one situation where I couldn't figure out what in the world my girlfriend was thinking when she decided to introduce me to one of her husbands friends. During the first conversation, the guy started talking marriage and I knew that CLEARLY he just wanted to settle down with anyone.

So now anytime someone mentions that they think me and one of their guy friends will be a good fit I get really nervous and respond with a nonchalant attitude. Which is exactly what I did the other day when at dinner my girlfriend mentioned that she thinks I would be a great fit for her brother. Well to confess that scared me more because I am certain people over play the good and down play the bad in a sibling - I do it too so no worries. She mentioned that he is good looking and fun loving .. pretty much a handsome version of herself. I was nonchalant but mentioned that I am open to meeting said brother.

I get back home and facebook stalk to prep my mind and satisfy my curiosity and must I say... He is handsome... :)... Mmm.. maybe there are some decent and pretty accurate wannabe-cupids. So before I start day dreaming, I don't know anything about my friends brother but I am curious :)

True Friendship

Happy New Year!!!

Clearly I'm late but with month end reports and tasks due at work I've actually had pretty long nights in the office. I'm awake early for some reason hence I decided to make a quick little post before heading out.

So I guess I like surprises... good surprises I probably should say (like the rest of the world). My surprise came this week when a really good friend of mine surprised me with a Christmas gift. The reality is that we've never actually exchanged Christmas gifts in the past so as you can imagine I was caught off guard. It was a thoughtful gift - something I had jokingly commented about but I really wasnt thinking seriously about it and I really liked it. My excitement was not really about the gift but about the thoughtfulness behind that gift and in a weird way it made me really appreciate our friendship. This brings me to my point - Friendship.

My mom told me once that i am not the call on people every week to see how they are doing or the lets spend a whole lot of time with everyone type of person. I have my moments when I play catch up and then I keep track on random places - So with my gf MPB and AJ for example, we dont talk often, after all we have really busy lives and random schedules but when we do talk, we catch up for like hours (pretty much from the last place we left off) and whenever we can, we try to meet up too.

I have also learned that my different friends and I have very different things we like to share... some friends and I connect more with regards to finance, investing and saving, some just socially :), some academically, some for sports, some for a combination of things.

Just as I surmirized my relationship to a friend this week, I appreciate that I can talk about Sports, Shopping, Finance,Investments, Relationship, Faith/Religion in the span of 45 minutes and dont feel that I am forgetting anything. I guess I truly appreciate thoughtful people

Exploring the ATL

And to clarify, maybe I should title this - Eating my way through ATL. I got invited to a dinner with some other young women in ATL. It's supposed to be a supper club where we explore the city, talk about life post our MBA (I believe we all finished in May 2010), the dating/married/parental scene and just whatver. There must have been about 10 of us women and even though it was my first time meeting all but 2 of the ladies that work with me as well. I didnt have a hard time mingling. I've learned that you can always find commonality with people... I think my crazy consulting background has given me that :)...

Today was the first event and it was at a great location called JCT Kitchen. It was a trendy very classy restaurant with a great wine selection and my dinner was really great.

An added plus for me is that I got to explore a new side of town that I had never been to before... Absolutely enjoyed my evening...