Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I have been suffering from some mysterious symptoms! I prey to God I will find some answers soon!

Hi guys! i am sorry for not posting for such a long time! I have been sick for a week now. It was really bad over the weekend and not its getting better, but not nearly good. This past Saturday I had a bout of tachycardia to a point where i couldnt walk half a block . It started a week ago but gotten worsened over the weekend. I have spasmatic pain in my stomack area when its happening and then heart starts racing. i havent been eating much lately and lost 10 pounds. I think its a combination of some bug plus anxiety. i started taking beta-blockers and feel a bit better , at least I can work now, but i still cant work out or do any meaningful physical activity. I will update soon. i have been mostly on lower carb diet, but I do eat few fruits and a pice of whole grain bread here and there.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Since it is a food blog, I felt a need to be a bad boy and break the rules!

I felt compelled to share this very letter that i sent my boss. She started having a more informal conversations with me to understand me better so we can move on to a better work environment! I feel few of you guus might indeed appreciate this story as it describes me a bit and where i come from. BTW I am fully back on a low carb wagon and intend do blog about it very soon!

You are generous with compliments! How else did I gain almost 30 pounds in the last year, lol? I should be able to work day time. I will have to reschedule few of the projects I am involved, but it should be no problem. My schedule is pretty much flexible right now. I am working on my issues now that are slowing me down on all levels. I had solved few of them already so hopefully by the time you go on maternity leave I am shooting on all cylinders instead of just one. My machine has been running low on fuel, but I am working hard to fix it. As far as my intelligence goes, you are greatly exaggerating. Yes, i did score 130 on IQ test and I did graduate in 10% of my class or was it 2%, well not important, but if i had a brain with those numbers I would be dangerous! I am suffering with identity issue according to the psychologist I am seing now. She said I want to be free and independent and not to conform to society rules and yet I still have to just because I live in one. But if you ask me that's bunch of frog's testicle fluid. I think unless you are Oprah or Hugh Huffner , you do have some kind of identity issue. But she insists I do have identity crisis at the moment. Well, her IQ is 129 so I dont think she knows any better, lol. She does say i am horrible patient and a very dismissive one, even though I make her laugh. I think time to stop seeing psychologists. They do find more problems tha solutions! But to be frank I am struggling with identity issues. I dont know who Vadim is at the moment! It freaks me out a bit but thats life. When I was younger, I was a go getter, kind of go grab life by its balls kind of guys. But it was way too much as my extreme personality shined through with flying colours. I never took no for an answer. If I was pursuing a girl and she said no, it was yes in my opinion but hse didnt know it. I was stubborn and never gave up. If I knocked on a girl's door and she didnt open, I would get through the window. if all windows and doors were closed I would knock the house down, build a new one, put the girl there and start all over. I have many stories that are both funny and educational, may be one of these days I will write a compilation of essays. For example back in my school years, I was very good student yet never worked as hard or nearly as hard as I could. In Russia, education systemsomeone's is completely different than USA. There were no multiple choice, every test was a verbal one in front of the whole class. So the teacher would assign homework and scroll through the roster to call on someones' name to get in front of the blackboard and answer her questions. One time Russian Literature Teacher assigned for the whole class to read Mother by Gorki's, who was and still is my favorite writer. It was world's soccer tournament and naturally no-one read anything. Given the fact that I was called upon a day before and gotten an A, I figured my turn was not yet near to be called. She asked if anyone wanted to volunteer and go in front of the blackboard to tell the whole class about Mother written by Gorkiy. Noone read it and everyone in the class was hiding shamefully behind other's backs. Silence was the name of the game. I was the only one looking ever so proudly in the direction of the teacher. I was so sure she wouldnt call on me as I was sure the sun was going to rise next morning. She did call on me before after all. And usually teachers dont call on the same students twice in a roll unless your name is Vadim or you look both cocky and confident. But my confidence was all for the wrong reasons. See, not very intelligent! She said " Vadim, you look like the only guy in class that is ready to surprise me today" Or was she ver right about that, it was a surprise to her, more like a shock if you ask me. I was doomed! I hadnt read it , I was busy watching soccer a day before. But I couldnt just say " Please spare the embarrassment and excuse me today as I havent read it. No, I was way too creative to just do that. I walked in front of my teacher, stood by the blackboard and started yapping away! I was on a roll, and noone could stop me. All my fellow students were rising out of their shameless shells to hear me speak ever so eloquently about Mother. The more my fellow students were astounded by me, the more my teacher was looking pale. After i was finished the whole class erupted in applauds. They were all so proud of me. After all i was the only one who read Mother by Gorkiy! After my teacher recovered from a mini stroke she had suffered, she quietly said " Vadim, who's mother were you reciting? It surely wasnt Mother by Gorkiy! She then said " I will give you C for creativity but everyone else who was applauding your nonsense will get an F! People still swear that the Mother I was telling them about was better then Gorkiy! It is still the story that mothers tell their kids in my school! When I was growing up all that knew me would tell me how gifted and talented i was and how one day i would change the world. And I believed them. Vanity is indeed a big sin! So coming to this country I was certain to be destined for bigger and better things. Then my life would start shaping up like any other person's would. Going to shcool, studying useless information just to fit it, to conform. All my dreams of doing better and better things were fading away. I simply felt like a Zombi, a robot that was programmed and shaped by someone's else beliefs. materialistic women that would tell me how wonderful I was and how much fun they had being around me to only drop me for another guy who was a bit more well off financially. I started developing complex after complex, questioning everything i once thought i was capable of doing. I was fed bunch of lollipops, hence gaining weight. Food had become my refuge, my only true friend and so were cigarrettes. I said, what a heck if there is all there is out there for me, i might as well just go with the flow and be like everyone else. Then I started studying La Tzu and Taoism. All of a sudden I become humble, peaceful and reserved Vadim. i was more like a palm tree, flexible, yet strong. I was adopting to a theory that my life is not an accident and everything was there for me already predestined. I believed that no matter what I did, it was the right thing to do! So somewhere between feisty and stubborn Vaidm of the past and laid back and philosophical Vadim of the presnt, I got totally lost! I am trying my hardest to figure it out, the sooner the better! I dont know why I had to burden you with this story. But once i started i couldnt stop. BTW, I was typing it on my break, lol! I have tons of other stories that i wouldnt change for the world. Those memories are priceless! I always wanted to tell the infamous story to everyone at the staff development event but had no time. I told Liam this story and he literally stopped talking to me for a month! It is indeed wild, may be one day I will share it! Just to preview it, I once was offered $100,000 dollars to sleep with a beautiful call girl by a major leaguer on drugs! I challenge his ego and he wanted to prove to me that everyhting in this world has a price tag! Well i proved him wrong. Damn, was I dumb! You see another instance of my lack of intelligence! Regina, I will be forever thankful to the Student Center no matter what. I own my smoking cessation to it, thats worth more than I will probably know or appreciate. And I do understand the rules of the game! I love sports, amnd in sports they say you are only as good as your last at bat! I just felt compelled to share few stories about me stories about my life to have a better understanding of how complex my gemini personality is. Can I use this looooooooong letter as a staff development tool? I promise I wouldnt do it anymore. And i honestly hope my performance and your expectations are met sooner than later. And if not I will fully bear the consequences! In no way, shape or form I feel above the rules, and I know you are very fair!

Disclaimer: This letter is not a way for me to sweeten my boss's relationship with me! lol. I just love to share my experiences, especially with those who can appreciate it. Sorry for the spelling mistakes and grammar. i was just flowing! Thanks for your kind words when I deserve it!

Monday, April 6, 2009

A house of 10,000 matches! At times we need to destroy an old destructive house to be able to build a new, more fundamentally sound and healthy one!

When I was a little boy and even more like a teenager, one of the most fascinated thing to me was power of distraction. My mother told me stories that when I was about 3 years old I would patiently wait for hours on te beach to get a chance to destroy sand castles that other kids built. I would quietly watch boys bring small buckets of water to girls who were building up sand castles. Then I would wait till they were a bit distracted and sneaked in on them to put it down. It would always fascinate me how fast and hard it is to build something and how it easy it was to destroy it. I have a huge scar on my left hand, more like an attached flap on my finger from glass hitting my hand, I almost lost my hand when I was about 12 or so. My sister is 7 years older than me, and she was one of this girl that did everything right, by the book, so to speak! She was a straight A student, community leader, pride of the family! I was, well...... not so much pride of anyone when I was growing up. Denise Menace so to speak. All my teachers told my Mom that I was way more gifted than my sister but never cared enough to realize my full potential. I and my sister used to collect different things for hobbies. I was also collecting sport memorabilia. I was a huge sport fanatic, still kind of am. She used to collect color matches and build up houses out of it. She won many prizes for it. One day my family had a big family gathering for my sister's birthday. It was a day that I hated. Everyone would give her millions of compliments and told her how proud they were of her. She was this and she was that! I would sit quietly in the corner of the room until it was over. I never liked adults much when I was younger. They were mean and fake in my opinion and very old. At the end of the night one of the geniuses would remember a little kid sitting in the corner and said " Oh Vadim you will accomplish something too, dont feel so bad. You will just have to work as hard as your sister''. I wasnt jealous or anything but couldn't understand why adult had to give fake compliments or console the kid who they managed not to see all evening. Was it a way to compensate for their lack of attention to a kid who wasnt so perfect according to society ways? Its like here suck on this lollipop and when you do better come and talk to us, otherwise just sit in the corner and be quiet. Since that day I always have hard time with big, official corporate like events. Many adults, many lollipops. Going back to that eveneing when my sister got all her prized compliments. When the event was over she passed by me and said " See, brother, when you do well in school and work your hardest, many respect and adore you. So stop being a menace and be like me, arent you proud to have me in your life so you can emulate! I do now, not then! I was pissed at her for being such a brag. I couldnt wait for the evening to go over. But before it was indeed over, there was one more compliment for her that broke a Camel's back! It was on my sister's house that se built with 10,000 matches. It was a piece of art! My uncle was a captain of the big ship and traveled extensively around the world. He would bring my sister many big wooden matches fro her to build her houses. This particular house of 10000 matches won many awards and countless praises and compliments for her! The house was magnificent and colorful. Roof was made of mixed red and green matches, more like renaissance times. Windows of made out of yellow and so on. So after the evening was over and I finally could have my quite moment, a bad thought came into my mind. I wanted to rebel against compliments and rewards, against society so to speak. Do you know what I did????????????? I think you do, lol!

I burnt the house of 10000 matches! I never felt so free! That house stood as a symbol in my silly haead at the time of fakeness and many compliments I couldnt stomach. Little did I know at the time that it was indeed a symbol of hard work and perseverance! I do now, lol. what did my sister do? When she came home and saw the house being burnt that took 6 month to build match by match, she temporaryu lost her mind. She grabbed a knife and ran after me. I ran into the kitchen and slammed the glass so hard that a piece of glass cracked and took off my left finger. I was taken to the ambulance and my finger was saved but a flap and a big scar still remains as a reminder of my destructive ways. She still claims today that she was trying to cut my fingers so I couldnt destroy anything any more. If you ask me, I think she went for my head, lol! We are , by the way, are best friends now. I swore that day that for the rest of my life, I will try to create and build instead of demolishing. May be that's why I still cant stand compliments. I havent built much or creatwed much since. But I havent destroyed much either, lol, I think! So when I try to create something, even on a miniature stature, like a Green board, expectations are so high in my subconscious mind, that's its hard to match unless its Leonardo De Vinci kind of board. Sorry for the long story, but i had to sort of expain a history so u can understand. And I dont tell this story often.Its just when it hits the right cord I do, and when I start telling, its usually a long story. Like I once said ''To make a short story long""" But i cant help at times. If you read this far without deleting, you have a lot of patience. Anyway, thanks for the compliments but I honestly think I could have done much, much better. It was just ok . May be good enough for one compliment, lol! But I guess I am hard at myself at times. May be because I still haven't delivered that promise that I gave as a young boy and its bothering me! Anyway, I am working on it and have a little more time, I hope, to achieve!

I am still working on it. Not hard, not hard enough. But I know, I know and I do know it will happen. So help me God!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Whats the difference between a pregnant woman and a fat man?

I totally let it go tonight! I ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and then......... I ate and ate and ate and ate and ate.....and then I couldnt eat any more, so I ate no more!

But its ok! Yes, you heard me right, its ok! I fell hard on my face but while I was down a big lightbulb came on. And while the light bulb came on I saw the light! I got it! I got it, I got it! I am back in the loop! I found the answer I was looking for all this time that I was gaining weight. I must go back to the roots of the low carb life, basics so to speak, fundamentals so to write. And while I was down guess who came to mind? Harry! I saw his menu, his wonderful variety of low carb wholesome food and consistent resolve. I need to eat wholesome and real food. And that requires preparation, planning and imagination. So back to induction. For the first time since I started doing low carb I truly want to go to induction. May be because it symbolises a new beginning, a new step toward hope for better results!

I am sick and tired of being pregnant for so long. My boss was having an emotional day at work. i caught her in a wrong moment and she yelled at me for no particular reasons. Well, I gave her the LOOK. I give her THE LOOK every time she pisses me off. She said, listen, wrong day to get on my nerves. I said " I know how you feel". She asked me sarcastically " Do you really? " I said ''I do really! But unlike your pregnancy mine has been more than 9 months! She gave me THE LOOK and went back to her office! I love women!