Chocolate Review: Bendicks Bittermints

I guess most of my friends know that I love chocolates. I don't remember exactly when, but I started to like Dark Chocolate more instead of Milk Chocolates as I grew older. And lately I'm so fond of this Bendicks Bittermints. It's like the top of the chain of all the Dark Chocolate & Mints combination I've ever tasted.

A friend bought it for me at Singapore Changi Airport 2 years ago. Then everytime I went or someone went there I asked them to buy a box for me. I love Dark Chocolate (say it again) and I love mints (including Peppermint Tea). My ideal Dark Chocolate is usually around 70% - 85% Cocoa, pretty bitter for some people but that's just perfect for me. Bendicks Bittermints' chocolate is 95% Cocoa which is too bitter if it comes in bars but this one comes with mints inside that gives an extraordinary sensation to my taste bud. Bitter in the first bite then comes the sweet and cool sensation of the mints. Love it!

Last week the little boss traveled to London where Bendicks originally comes from and or course I didn't miss the opportunity to ask him to buy me a box of Bittermints at the airport. Not only he bought me a box but he kindly also bought me a box of Bendicks Mint Collection!

So I got to taste all of Bendicks Mints line :) And after Bittermints, the Chocolate Mint Crisps comes second. The chocolate outside is not as bitter as Bittermints (tasted something like 70% Cocoa?) but there are sprinkles of mints in it that gives the crunchy feeling.

Anyway, I've been trying to find a friend who would enjoy it with me but so far nobody likes it LOL It's always too bitter or too minty for them. Ah, well... that just means I get to enjoy all of them by my self for a week. Lucky!

Makeover

So I finally dyed my hair RED. Yes, RED. After contemplating for a (really) long time, now I'm officially a red head.

Like I've always mentioned many times, there were two things that people was always mistaken about me: (1) That I dye my hair brown. Really, it's natural and my mother used to try hard to turn it black to no avail. (2) That I wear brown lenses. Again, it's my natural eye color, I couldn't even wear contacts cause I can't stop rubbing my eyes for many reasons!

And since I couldn't fix number (2), however I could always fix number (1). So this is the first picture after I returned from the hair salon last night. Please ignore the pimples T____T

Even though I have kind of imagined what it would look like, it still surprised me just how red it looked like! LOL When I got home, my dad didn't say anything, he just stared at me and sighed hahaha I didn't want to ask him anything though :p

As for my lil' brother... he told me: "Why don't you get a costume and take pictures with it? I kind of imagining you posing with a sword!" I was like, "Huh??"

If I was surprised last night, imagine my reaction when I looked at my self in bright daylight! The red hair even looked brighter! :) Again, ignore the pimples, I know they're not cute :(

Most friends were curious as to why I did this. I have several answers. First, my natural hair is brown, why would I dye it in another shade brown? I surely didn't want to dye it blonde and I didn't have enough guts to have candy color hair, but I think red is still manageable for me.

I also sent a message to my boss who's traveling now, "I dyed my hair red, I hope it's okay with you? :D" He replied: "Fine with me. Why you dyed it red?" My reply to him was: "Cause I promised to do it together with my close friend. Or maybe I just want to do something crazy for once in my life."

Just like my previous post, many people thought of me as boring or inflexible almost in everything and I humbly accepted that opinion since I realized that's exactly what I am.  I'm not trying to prove anything here, but I want to assure myself that I can be fun too. I can't dress up sexily with my figure, I still can't put up make-ups the right way to look beautiful, I still learned to change little by little everyday... but my hair color? I can change it NOW.

So here I am with red hair. And to tell the truth? I enjoy every single attention and reaction to it. Tell ya', I can be fun too ;)

OCD? OCPD?

For a long time my close friends have suspected (or accused?) me of having a terrible symptom of Obssessive Compulsive Disorder or better known with its abbreviation, OCD.

Why? After much observation on their side, they felt that I fit the description :) Don't I think so? Well, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to my habitual actions definitely! After all, they are habits, I do it all the time consciously and unconsciously. And then I started to notice the things freaked me out a little. Am I really having OCD?

Let's start to list down the symptoms or should I say, my actions?

1. I'm indexing all of my stuff. From CD, downloads, movies, especially books. I filed them in several ways. For books: Title - Author - Number of Volumes - Condition of the books - Box Number. Then I made the same list with the Author names comes first in case I forget the title but I know who writes it. Books like novels that I read and re-read many times, I put in the book shelf right in front of my bed. So I could get them anytime I feel like reading them. As for the others, especially comics -- as you can guess from the way I arranged them, I put them in numbered boxes. So when I want to read one, I only need to refer to my index list and won't waste time to look for it.

I consider this normal, apparently not so. How about you?

2.  All of my word files are using the same font size, same margins & same paragraph spacing. There were cases when my friends wanted me to read something that they thought interesting and sent me an unorganized word file (i.e: different margins from one paragraph to another, different font size in a page or excessive spacings because it's copied from an html page). Guess what? I wasn't able to read passed the second pages until I edited it according to my standard. Otherwise it gave me headaches and I'd just threw it away. Another reason why I'm highly annoyed to receive a file that I can't edit but have to read or review. Believe it or not, it stressed me out and will take a long time for me to finish.

Do you think it's too much? Are you able to read any unorganized file?

3. Everything has to be planned ahead. Abrupt changes will change my mood drastically. I usually know on Sunday night what I want to do for the next week, when I think I want to go out, what to read, what to wear. Unless the changes happen naturally, then it's doomsday for me. Let's say I promised to meet someone since a week ago and that person cancels one day prior to the meeting. I would be a in a terrible mood! Like I don't know what else to do with my tomorrow when we're supposed to meet and I'll be sulking the whole day. Another example that annoyed me most was when I went to a restaurant with every intention to eat something. I ordered, wait for 15 minutes, then the waiter returned saying that it's not available. In most cases when I'm with friends, I would bear the disappointment and tried to order something else that I wouldn't enjoy. But when I'm by myself, I just looked at the waiter in the eye, paid for my drink and left without a single word and ended up not eating anything almost the whole day.

Another downside to this is I can hardly enjoy impromptu trip or activities. Once or twice when I'm really in a superb mood then it can turn out to be an amazing experience. Hardly. More than myself, looks like it annoys my friends more cause they think I'm inflexible. Even on holiday, I planned it day by day down to where to eat and what time I should return. Natural changes are acceptable, i.e: the train is late, thus we arrive late at our destinations and have to re-arranged the rest of the schedule. Or suddenly it's raining, so we have to switch to a less wet place. Fine. Acceptable. But "Let's do this since it's more interesting and I think we can do what we wanted to do another day." is totally unacceptable. I'd rather go separate ways then throwing a tantrum that will only make me miserable.

Beginning to sound like a lot of trouble, don't you think? And this is where I get being called a 'perfectionist' T____T

4. I arranged my money in my wallet in a very specific way. From the smallest nomination to the biggest one, from the worst looking to the better one, faces on front - buildings on backs, right side up. I have a lot of trouble with this when paying at a cashier with a long line. I rushed and just put my changes inside, but I couldn't help thinking about what a mess the inside of my wallet is :( At the next possible moment (usually when I was ready to leave the parking lot or when I sit down to eat) I just have to re-arrange my wallet first before I feel happy again LOL

This shouldn't be a problem right? Cause I hear a lot of people do arrange their money in a similar way.

5. I don't shuffle my playlist. Let me repeat that again: I don't shuffle my playlist. If you check my ipod, tablets, and handphones, all my playlist are arranged by singer - album - track list. So if I want to listen to Jay Chou's songs, it's definitely will be from the 1st album to the last and according to the album track list. Unless I want to listen to a specific Album, then I will skip the others and play the album that I want. According to the original track list. Again, no shuffling. Then I have another playlist of Jay Chou's song separated into BALLADS & FAST TEMPO.

Don't I have a mixed playlist where all kinds of genre and tempo and singers are included? Of course I do. But (again, I'll keep saying it) according to my arrangement. I put the songs in the playlist according to how I feel when I arrange it, so when I play it I know exactly what song comes after another. There was once when my beloved cousin Sarah, shuffled my ipod's playlist intentionally, because she was getting bored of my arrangement. It took me less than 10 minutes after it played to yelled at her to put it back to normal because "I don't expect this "A" song comes after "B" when I arranged it after "D" song!" ROFL

Some people told me I'm boring because of this.

6. I have to wear my clothes from the left side to the right. Yes, you hear it right. From left to right. Meaning: when I want to wear pants, I have to put in my left foot first before my right. And when I want to wear a shirt, I have to put in my left arm first before my right. I guess this is the worst symptom that I could think of and also the one that won't annoy anyone by myself. What if I'm in a rush, I wouldn't realized whether I wear my clothes from left right or the other way around, right? No. I'd feel it. I'd feel that something is wrong and after recounted everything from the moment I wake up until I get out of the house and don't find anything wrong; the only conclusion I can get is I must've worn my clothes in the wrong way. I've experienced this before and I just have to find the closest toilet soon, undressed my self and wear it the right way. And tadaaa! Everything's cool again for me :)

Nobody elase has the right to be annoyed with this but myself.

7. I can't stand to see something out of place. When I go shopping and see a clothes fall off the rack, I automatically pick it up and hang it at the right place. When I see a book fall out of the shelf anywhere, I just have to put it back on. When I see a row of chairs and there's one that's located a bit outside the line, it's an eyesore until someone (more likely myself) put it back in line. When I sit in front of a table and it happens to have a DOT that doesn't belong to its pattern, let's just say I'd be pissed without a reason and will keep looking at it, wishing that the dot will disappear.

This also, more annoying to myself than others. Everything just has to be in place.

So what do you think after reading all of my so called 'symptoms'?  Some that I've heard are BORING, CONTROL FREAK, PERFECTIONIST. Wanna add something else?

After I made the list, curiosity got the best of me. I browsed the net to get to know what actually OCD was. To my surprise, I didn't think that it fit me no matter how people said so. You can read the descriptions HERE and HERE.

Instead, it led me to another condition called Obssessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder of OCPD. From what I have described above, I could say that I do show symptoms of OCPD but reading this page, I feel better for getting to know myself more even though it described OCPD somewhat as problematic as OCD. I do realize my inflexibility to things, my way of having to be in control most of the time and doing things "my way" and I'm still thankful that my close friends were pointing them out to me no matter how many times I chewed them out with my words of denial.

So there you go. OCPD. Not OCD. But I still have to change.

Relationship

Entering the 4th day of 2013, and yet again I'm faced with the same challenge that I faced in 2012.

There were so many things happened last year, I had to say it's very bittersweet. Traveled places, experienced new emotions and so on. But my biggest challenge in 2012 would be MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS.

Yes, you heard me correctly. And relationships are not limited to friends or family, it's including our relationship with GOD. I found a hard time to keep an intimate relationship with God, I had to admit. There were a lot of struggles and some self-pity in my part, but HE is greater than everything. HE showed me little by little that to maintain a relationship with HIM, most of the time HE just wants us to talk to HIM and quietly let HIM do the work instead of trying to so everything by ourselves. I learned my lesson, and I pray that I'll have a more intimate relationship with HIM this year, to experience HIM every single day.

Surprisingly, maintaining human relationships or perhaps friendship is a better term to call it, was just as hard. I built new relationships (meaning: new friends), upgraded some, fixed some and sadly failed one or two.

Since I didn't get a lot of holidays last year, the little spare time I had I used to reflect on myself. Why things happened the way it did, how did I fail on maintaining something that I used to be capable of doing a good job at? I thought I would never find the answer of those but right at the beginning of the new year I finally found that it's all back to my relationship with GOD.

As I struggled with my relationship with HIM, I lost patience, I lost tolerance and I became someone who lost trust in a lot of things. I became selfish and preferred to tend to myself first before others. I broke off relationships that I deemed "won't work anymore" and forgot that God could also do the same to me, yet HE kept me close and helped me fixed our relationships.

So I took time to list down each relationship that I failed to maintain. There's one thing in common, NEGATIVITY. I failed to try to understand why people were suddenly turned negative towards practically everything, I just cut them off from my circle of friends in my excuse not to taint myself with it. But guess what? That didn't make me happy either. I couldn't stop thinking about them nor stop caring. And I realized, there's a fine line between protecting your heart and ignorance. I was not protecting myself from negativity, I was being ignorant to those whom I called "negative friends."

By failing the most important relationship, I fail more of those. One cannot work without the other.

So I promised myself to love more, to do more, to learn more, to give more. I might have my heart broken by my earthly relationships, but my heavenly one will patch me up even more beautifully. And by fixing my relationship with GOD, I know I'll have the strength to rebuild the friendships that I have failed. I hope you can do the same.

Matthew 22 : 37 - 40, King James version

Jesus said unto him, Thou salt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou salt love thy beighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Being the only one

The only one of what?

The only girl in the office :)

Yes, sometimes being the only lady among the (supposedly) gentlemen really had its perks.

Scene 1 -- lunch

The office boy was on out, it's nearing lunch time and I was hungry but I couldn't leave the office. The little bosses didn't bother much about opening the doors when the bells were ringing.

Text message from Big boss: "Have you bought lunch?"

Me: "No, I haven't."

Big boss: "Don't buy lunch, I bring you some."

Hooray! In the end I ate too much but nevertheless I had a great lunch served on my desk :)

Scene 2 -- birthday

Little Boss 1: "Happy birthday!"

Big boss: "Oh s**t! I was supposed to say it first! Happy birthday!"

Me: *blush* Thank you boss... thank you...

Big boss: "Oh no, I had arranged a lunch meeting and the other boys (little boss 2 & 3) are out of town! Why don't you take the girls from the next office to celebrate your lunch? I'll pay."

Me: *reluctant* That's okay, no need to arrange anything.

5 minutes later, email from Little Boss 1:
"I don't want to get in the way of any plans you may have already made with your friends. But just n case you haven't I would love to take you out for lunch for your birthday on the condition that you pick a nice place :)

My reply: "I have no plans, let's have lunch at THIS place."

His reply: "Great! Let me know when you're good to go."

Then I got my luxurious birthday lunch in that Japanese Restaurant that I liked but hardly went because it's expensive LOL

Scene 3 -- today, after lunch

Little Boss 2: "Hey, I'm going downstairs. Do you want @%93L#090@(2@#?? It's really good?"

Me: "Huh?? What's that?"

Little Boss 2: "Doesn't matter, just say YES!"

Me: "Yes?"

Little Boss 2: "Ok."

15 minutes later a glass of fresh juice was delivered to my desk. Carrot and orange. Just the way I like it.


Being the only girl in the office is cool... LOL