Mount Everest?! You’ve got to be kidding!

My friend, Alma and I were having dinner in the only Italian restaurant in the city where I lived here in China (restaurants like these are hard to come by). I looked at her with all seriousness. “You know, I’ve always wanted to climb Mount Everest,” I said.

She choked on her coffee. Her eyes couldn’t have been any more wider in shock. “What?!”

“The base of course. As soon as I’ve taken one or three steps, I’m done.”

We had a good laugh after that. I’m not a serious athlete. I moan at the slightest notion of climbing or hiking a mountain, especially if it had those man-made concrete steps like those in Hong Kong. I even complain at walking for 10 minutes from the bus stop to our school. I was thoroughly exhausted after half an hour of climbing one of those mountains in Java, Indonesia. Now I’m thinking of climbing the highest mountain of the world? Let it be known I just wanted to have a tale for my future generations.

“Seriously, grandma? You climbed Mount Everest?” His dewy eyes were open with open admiration and wonder.

I would look at my soon to be very much in the distant future grandson. This is done with all the grandeur and wisdom bestowed to me in my old age. “Yes. It was hard work and took 15 minutes. You had no idea how tough the bottom part of the mountain could be! And that’s why I just chose to stay there.”

Free!

At last have found a way to thwart this country’s firewall and blog and surf wherever and whatever I want. FINALLY! It has been more than a year that I’ve lived in cyberspace prison here. It just takes a little longer though.

New set of goals for the week is to wake up at 6:40 am for 6 days. This is going to take me closer to my ultimate 2008 goal which is to wake up at 5 am. It might take me 2 months before I can accomplish this but this year round, I’ll be doing baby steps, the slowly but surely method. For 2 years, I’ve labored in this goal, always did it in a rush and often failed. I would say to myself, “I’ll get up from 7 am to 5 am in one month.” I’d start it with lots of motivation bursts then gradually, lose it and give up –not because of lack of commitment but it came too damn hard. Now it’s been 2 months since I started anew with this goal starting my way from getting used to waking up at 7 am then when my body was used to being an early riser would shave off 10 minutes from that time –6:45, 6:40, 6:30, etc. If my body can take it, I will shave off 15 minutes but not now.

I’ve been able to get up 6:40 am now but it’s been hard. After completing the 7 am trial, I’ve been sleeping in through the rest of my vacation in bali (it’s a vacation, dammit!). And when I got back in China, it’s been a chilly 5 degrees Celsius and all I wanted to do was bury myself underneath the warm thick sheets. But I’m now back on track.

Waking Up Early -Ending the 30 day trial in Bali

It’s been a busy rollercoaster week but I’ve been proud to end the 30 day trial here in Bali (which sounds so sweet). It was hard at first keeping it up traveling from Singapore to Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Probolinggo Java Islands then all the way to Bali but it’s been worth it cuz I get to do a lot of things if I get up early. Unpredictability is a big factor of course but next time I wouldn’t do any sort of personal development trial when I’m traveling.

Now I’m off to enjoy the rest of my vacation!