Susie's Blog

This chilli crab place is in paramatta....thats about one hour drive from us. I haven't had them for a long time. This time we booked about a week earlu and travel all the way for it. Worth the trip indeed.

Sometimes you notice that  if you go out and eat with family or friends you don't really need to talk. It becomes so comfortable that each of us just does out own thing. So called comfortable eating. No need to talk or entertain. Rather good....

I ordered the whole box of taiwanese food including two packs of dumplings(50 each). then taro cake, pancake, meat ball....etc. All of these cost me $90 ($2250 taiwanese dollars) ....i think it's rather expensive considering these will cost about 225 in Taiwan. But we love to eat those......haven't had them for a long long time....

Someone i knew passed away this morning from lung cancer. Only 8 weeks ago he found out that he has lung cancer and today he is gone. I live my life everyday as if i drop dead suddenly i will have no regret. Whatever I want to do and want to eat I will go and do it. I will also go out during weeknights without worrying that tomorrow I have to start working at 7 am. I tried not to worry that I am single and everyone else is not and feel very loaded with money even though it might not be the case in rich people's eyes. But what if i live till old age? Then I should have a family, have a house and have a big business that other people generate my income. And that's very sad indeed if comes to think about it. I can't find a guy i like or we both mutually like and i can't see any houses I want to buy, and I love the working style I have. But this is not going anywhere isn't it if I happen to live a long life? I feel sad that he passed away and I suddenly feel very sorry for myself.

My computer is so slow....i can't upload anything anymore...RThis time when I go back in July, it's necessary to get a new one for sure....

Talk about going back to Taiwan, I really don't want to go. The thought of going back depressed me as the day comes closer. I want to go to somewhere far far away.....like Sweden, Finland South of Spain or Argentina....far far away. Away from everything.

I have been practicing yoga for a long time. In Taiwan a lot of people think yoga can help you to lose weight and treat it as an exercise. I think Yoga is indeed an exercise but it's more for the mind rather than for the body. You don't lose weight on doing yoga, you just get toner and stronger body, more flexible and calmer spiritually. I had great trouble doing yoga before because my mind was always so busy and yoga just felt so boring. Every yoga pose has a purpose for your inner organs and the breathing helped the mind. These days I go to gym and do two classes a week with everyone and on top of that everymorning I get up at 5:30 am and do 10 mins or yoga before going bed to sleep for another 30 mins. Today I finally realised how good it could be. I couldn't remember when was the last time I got sick. My body is always warm that I never need to wear much clothes. I sleep very well everyday and I will consider myself quite a happy person and able to control my emotion if I choose to. Maybe yoga is worth the try if you haven't tried it.

I feel very lucky to have a lifetime dentist for free (monica), eye specialist for free (dad), nurse for free (mum) and andy (i can't spell the anathesthe.....what the...Anyway those doctors that get paid with big money for pushing some mahcine and adding some drugs and putting patients to sleep. That kind. Also you really don't need his service unless you are dying with major trauma or surgery)....Anyway after my dental work today I am taking her for lunch (cheap ba...thats all i need to do for the rest of my life dental work payment yeah). So this is the organic cafe we went. Yum.

Can you believe how much was this master teacher charged me? He was the master teacher from speech level singing method. The one that all the hollywood stars learn from. These guys came from USA and Canada regularly and lots of contemporary singers, entertainers or singing teachers do private lesson with them when they come. I am also part of the team for their teacher training so I book 3 half hour lessons with him as well. Each 30 mins lesson costs me $ 120 US dollars. In other words, 1.5 hours lesson costs me around 700 Australian dollars. Plus the teacher workshop that weekend of singing lessons and workshop costs me $950. Very very expensive..... But I am open to all methods and love to learn more. my god. He was really really good. Now i really understand how to sing from chest voice to head voice smoothly in contemporary singing. I have since taught quite a few classical singers to sing in modern pop style. Next time I must show you the video clips of my voice singing classical and contemporary. it does sounds quite different. I have been listeing to all the recordings of lessons. The more I listened to it, the more I was amused by his teaching. Very very fascinating.

I think we are where we are supposed to be at this stage of our life no matter what the circumstances is. One thing I learn with age is not too chase what other people have all the time. Instead stop a sec and be very grateful of what you have. I used to get very jealous of what people have, whether its money, status and relationships and just think i never have enough. Now I think it's quite stupid. I have enough money to live in abundance. It's just in my state of mind. My status is high enough in my world. Everyday people pay me well enough to boss them around. I might not have one relationship that people think I should have, I would like to think myself a relative popular person in life. And most important of all, I leave all the people who ever try to make me feel like shit. I used to take shit and now I give the shit back to them. Maybe aging is not a bad thing, you learn to live life in a wiser way.

Surprisingly this chinese restaurant at old fashion north league clue was in such good value. Cheap too considering we were having beking duck ( we paid around 22 dollars each person). Our usual family dinner on sunday night when Yi ching and Andy were not working. Good dinner. We like it.

I took Katy for her birthday at Alhambra tapas bar in Manly. This restaurant used to be fully packed all the time. This was Friday night and you could see how quiet it was (bad economic time....)!!! Even the flamenco girls came out to dance for the show couldn't warm up the place. I knew all those girls (been in flamenco theme for too long). So the girls dragged me on stage to dance with them. Really fun indeed!

Rose and I went to our sunday lunch at tea2 in macquarie center. Tea2 is quite expensive for its herbal tea but we were surprised to know that their high tea was quite cheap. $30 for two people with so many things. If you go high tea at any major hotel it will cost us at least $80-100. We had such an awesome time following by ice skating session and big W shopping for coffee machine!

Coffee machine is finally on sale. I have been wanting to get one for a long time.....Considering I bought take away coffee at least 4 times a week. I think I need one. So I got one. No idea how to use it yet. Will figure it out soon. Give me a week and you can come to me for fresh brewed coffee....maybe I need to do a barista course for next hobbie. 

These are some of the happy gorgeous faces I see everyday...they are never worried, always happy and everything is always exciting. They teach me how to live like that. 

What an awesome job. We went yesterday to test out the banquet menu that Yi ching and Andy are going to have for their wedding in a few weeks. I circled four choices for each entre, main course and desserts. Also the wine. Then out of those we will be picking two. So the guests will have alternate choices. Orso restaurant looks beautiful on a wednesday night. We were sooo full yesterday.

This one is now the most popular food in Chatswood area. People are willing to wait for a long time for it. I tried twice and never got to eat it. This time we did finally. Very juicy. Cheap too. Only 8 dollars. No wonder it's so popular.

My friend Austin got pissed off seeing the massive Chinese festival happening in Sydney. So he decided to do a Taiwanese one. Showing them that we are different from them. Taiwan is not recognised here so i guess no official group will sponsor it....(not as easy as the chinese ones anyway). Therefore he gathered 15 friends and did it themselves. The only one to advertise is via facebook. Nevertheless it was a great success. Much more than he expected. There are 300 people turning up that day (90 percent is second generation taiwanese). It was a wonderful event. The movie was by Jay Chow. Really good. I never watched asian movie but this one, I enjoyed it very much. You should check it out!

Myc omputer is sooo slow. This time when I go back in July I will buy a new apple laptop. The one I have now took me at least 30 mins just to turn it on.....so lots of times I just couldn't be bother to turn it on anymore....I can do anything from i phone straightaway (except writing blogs though....) Thats why long time no see la. I bumped into Anita yesterday and she asked me why didn't i write anymore. I didn't even know she was reading it. I thought this blog probably just my family, vicki, my god brother Richard, bestfriend Selina and best cousin Amy read them. Now at least there are more people than i think....so here I am back again.

My friend and family thinks I don't meet or date any guys. To tell you the truth I do. I meet them everywhere. In the gym, plane, friend's friend, on the street, skating or dancing. I just never talk about it because there is nothing good coming out to talk about. Something really was quite upsetting happened two weeks ago. People around me probably don't have a single clue. I also stopped writing diary now because after a friend of mine died suddently i realised that if I drop dead suddently I will not want anyone to know what sort of things have been going through my mind. Life is funny though. When you are really single, all you feel is boredom sometimes but most of the time you are really happy. When there is a guy or two involve, your happiness starts to depend on how it goes. Today my studen't mum came back from trekking in Napal. She had just gone through a very painful divorce (remember that dad (who is her ex husband)that has girlfriend's naked photo on family computer?) . She told me that the trekking was the best experience she ever had. Just one step at a time and there is nothing else she can think about apart from one step at a time. After 10 days she finished the whole journey. I like that. Life's lesson is just that at the end.

Apart from little kids and teenagers I also have some older clients/students who come and see me once a week. Some we carry on like normal music lessons. Today I have one lady who is in her 50s. Very timid small voice and amazingly she works for lifeline. So all the depressed people call her. That kind of volunteer work. Isn;t she amazing. She gave me great inspiration. Today I contacted lifeline and asked if they offer any trainings. I would love to do it too. Such a challenging thing to do.

Another lady is 62. She has a brain tumour and that affects her gradually. She also starts to have dementia. depression is gradually sinking in too. Every session I make sure she walks out happy. music therapy works in many different ways, with her i use lots of songs to make sure she maintains the memories. Also for self expression. It's very hard to explain what we do but the effect is very powerful. Today i have her husband here, her daughter came (I taught her granddaughter dancing and singing as well). I don't know if you know the song "perhaps love"? That's a very powerful song in situation like this. I had everyone crying with joy at the end.