10 Good Reasons For Not Attending Your High School Reunion

High School was the best years of my life. We studied, laughed, played, sang, watched movie, ate, partied and travelled together for 3 years. My days were filled with people I truly liked. I'm not that pretty or popular, but I made lots of friends that I enjoyed being with. If you ask me 5 years ago, of course I would love to see those old faces and rekindle those feelings again.

Unfortunately, due to some recent events, my perspective of high school reunion has completely changed and I'm reluctant to go.

Here are 10 good reasons for not attending your high school reunion:

1.       You Live Overseas

Even if you want to go, you cannot just leave your current commitments to fly miles away from home to attend the reunion.

2.       You have Facebook

With every single high school friends are on Facebook, everything you want to know about them is already available. You know how they look like and what they are up to. So there’s just a little mystery left to catch up in the reunion.

3.       You are still connected with your best friends

The main reason to go to the reunion is to see your best mates, but if you are still in touch with them, everyone else doesn't matter, so why go.

4.       There are too many reunions

Reunion should be like 10-20 years apart, not every 3 years. In this case, we can see the difference in people. If there are too may reunions, you would probably see the same faces and same old stories. What’s the fun?

5.       You want to avoid awkward moments

There would be some awkward and unpleasant moments when you don’t know what to say anymore.  The air is filled with awkward silence and part of you just want to go away.

6.       You want to remember high school memories the way it was

Your memory of high school is very sweet when everyone is just so nice and friendly. As time goes by, people might change their appearance, attitude and status. Some people have become skinnier, fatter, bolder, nastier, nicer, richer or poorer. You are reluctant to these changes and want to keep high school memories the way it was.

7.       You don’t want to see the jerks

One bad apple could really spoil the barrel. There are some jerks that you could run into in the reunion and destroy your mood. Why risk it?

8.       You have some old scores that has not been resolved

Events that happened back in high school or even after which makes you reconsider if this is worth going. It’s better to resolve this issue before you decide to attend the reunion.

9.       High School is the thing in the past

What you were in high school is totally different from what you are now. You have moved on and high school is just the thing in the past.

10.   You think you are underachieved

You don’t want to listen to you classmates talking about his/her successful career or wonderful family while you are just an ordinary stay at home mum/dad or unmarried/divorced. 

So, if those reasons don’t apply to you, just go and have a jolly good time. Good luck!

Orange Sorbet

I made a lot of sorbet last summer, they are perfect in the hot days. With all of the choice of summer fruits that we had, my freezer would never run out of them. I will make them every other day, depending of what fruits I got from the shop.  And the weather continued to feel like summer in the first month of autumn, so I still have excuse to make sorbet.

I will start with this simple recipe for orange sorbet. The taste was so refreshing with its glorious orange colour, and it's so easy to make.

Orange Sorbet

Orange juice from 2 kilos orange

Zest from 1 orange

2-3 tbsp Sugar according to taste (none if the juice is sweet)

Mix all the ingredients in a blender until sugar dissolved. Transfer to a bowl and chill them in the refrigerator for 5-6 hours or overnight. Freeze in the ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instruction.

Put in a freezer safe container, cover and freeze for 2-4 hours until firm. Enjoy!

One-Stop Horoscope Source

Horoscope has been a part of my life since I can even remember, it is always exciting to find out the future, whether it will come true or not. But over the years as I get older, I also find horoscope as a guidance to make decision, some key alert of what might happen and even if it's not come true, a reading source of what's happening in the universe. It is good to know that Saturn is in your fifth house, or Mercury is retrograding, or the new Moon will bring surprise, and so on.

I also enjoy reading prediction for Chinese Horoscope, mostly yearly, to alert me of what might happen this year. As the Year of the Snake is coming nearby, there are a lot of yearly predictions on the net. Most of them will tell you what is your animal signs, your character, compatibility to other signs, and of course, this year's prediction.

Here, I'm going to share some of the horoscope sites I used to go to, I like them because they are somewhat accurate and spot on. They can also help you in making important decisions in your life. Hope you like them, here they are:

1. Astrology Zone - monthly

This wonderful website brought to you by astrologer Susan Miller is one of the many horoscope sites that provide monthly predictions. She will explain what happen in the month in detail and summary, providing important dates whether it's for career, money or love depending of what is going on in your horoscope. I find the prediction is quite accurate and enjoyable to read.

Read this month prediction here.

2. Feng Shui Queen - yearly

When I lived in Singapore, around Chinese New Year  my colleague used to email me the slideshow of Chinese horoscope prediction from Feng Shui Queen Lynn Yap. She will explain the prediction for this year in general, what year and what to expect , what you should do and don't,  then she will provide the prediction for each of the animal sign of the Chinese Horoscope. I enjoy reading it every year and it is nice to know what happen a year in advance. Read it here.

3. Asia One - daily

The website provides the daily horoscope for both Western and Chinese Horoscope. You can also find out the prediction for tomorrow and yesterday.

Find the daily Western Horoscope here.

Find the daily Chinese Horoscope here.

4. Moonslipper - yearly

I was introduced to this website by my meditation coach and find it quite accurate and interesting. It tells you what is your flower, stone and color, and detail prediction of each animal signs.

Find it here.

5. Yahoo - weekly

If you want to get a weekly prediction, this is the site to go. I like the US version better not just because of the layout but also because it provides more predictions like daily, daily extended, weekly, monthly and even yearly.

Find the weekly horoscope here.

5 Android Apps for Managing Your Finance

My first blog in 2013, Happy New Year! It's new year and it's time to get organised. Have you ever wanted to keep track of your spending but never really have time to look into it. Now that we have Android tablet and phone, entering all those receipts should be as easy as breeze.

So my quest is to look for the best free Android app for managing your finance which have features such as tracking expenses, managing multiple accounts (cash, credit card,  debit card, etc.), producing an easy to understand reports, and transferring them to excel (CSV file format).

5. Droid Accounting

This app has a clean looking but I find it rather dull to use. I'm afraid if I continue with this one, my receipts will be left untouched again. 

Google play store: Droid Accounting

4. Easy Money

This app by Handy Apps Inc.  is so great, I fell in love straight away! It has multiple accounts, ready to use expense & income category that you can customized with parent and sub categories, bill reminder, you can even take picture of your receipts or invoices to keep a digital record. The downsize is that it's not free after 30 days! So I have to ditch it (with great pain).

Google Play Store: Easy Money

Website: handy-apps.com

3. Toshl Finance Expense Tracker

This app by Toshl Inc. has fun interface with colours and cool graphics. I was so excited to use it. You need to create an account with email and password, and you're using their web service. Whatever you input in your device would be saved online and you could access your data anywhere, either in your pc, tablet or phone. Sounds  promising, isn't it?  But when I have started to key in my expenses, they can't create new account, only cash! Feel sorry to leave that toshl monster and have to search again.

Google Play Store: Toshl Finance

Website: toshl.com

2. Money Lover - Expense Manager

This app has very impressive amount of downloads, operates in many languages, works with over 45 types of currencies and multiple accounts, add customized categories for income and expenses. It also has a lot of great reviews, what could go wrong? I hope my search is over. But, I was wrong, it asked me to input code when I tried to use the feature like add new account, and asked me to buy the premium version. So I have to ditch this one also.

Google Play Store: Money Lover

There are great apps like Mint and Pageonce but they are not available in Australia, why? I felt  frustrated and almost gave up until I saw this app and thought I should give it a try.

And the winner is:

1. Financisto

This app made by Denis Solonenko is so wonderful, it can create multiple accounts, multiple currencies, payees, parent and sub categories with custom attributes, place an exact location of your shop, projects, attach pictures, filtering and reporting, automatic daily backups and QIF/CSV import/export. Wow! It has everything I want  and does everything I need! I ended up feeling happy when I input my receipts, not boring at all. Kudos Financisto for making it free! Would definitely recommend this to everyone I know.

Google Play Store: Financisto

Website: financisto.com

Have a good one!

Spinach Dip (Reindeer's Nose)

Christmas is coming.. I'm inspired to do this healthy and tasty dip for a Christmas party and make it like reindeer's nose. The cream cheese in this dip was from Happy Cow and the ricotta cheese was from Perfect Italiano. As mentioned in my 5 Cool KitchenGadgets under $12, I used the stick blender to mix ingredients in one bowl, simple.

Spinach Dip (Reindeer's nose)

250g baby spinach/frozen - washed and drained (for frozen, thawed  in microwave)

150g ricotta cheese

1 portion of cream cheese triangle

1 clove garlic

2 tbsp parsley

2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

1 punnet cherry tomato - for garnish

Put all ingredients in a bowl and use a stick blender to mix (you can also use food processor). Serve with your favourite crackers and top with cherry tomato. Enjoy!

Beef Salad

I tried this salad in Evia Yoghurt for the first time and fell in love straight away. The smell of coriander, succulent beef and tasty vegetables are the treat you'll get in one bowl.  Then I tried to make my own with little twist and modifications, and the results had always been great, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Here it is:

Beef  Salad

2 pcs cucumber - diagonally sliced

2 pcs tomatoes - cut into wedges (you can also use 250g cherry tomatoes)

3-4 leaves lettuce - coarsely chopped

1-2 bunch coriander leaves  - coarsely chopped (use the stalks for dressing)

3-4 stalks spring onion - diagonally sliced

1/2  red capsicum - thinly sliced

300g grilled beef steak - thinly sliced (you can also use leftover beef)

Dressing:

2 cloves garlic              }

1-2cm ginger                }put in the food processor

coriander stalks           }

1/2 stalk lemongrass  }

lime juice

soy sauce

palm sugar - diluted with lime juice

sesame oil

Garnish:

a handful of toasted peanuts - coarsely crushed

Combine the ingredients with dressing and garnish with toasted peanuts. Enjoy!

Bean Salad

This lovely salad is so refreshing, you could eat this by itself or with your favourite meal. Here I use Aldi Five Bean Mix, they includes red kidney beans, green baby lima beans, great northern beans, small borlotti bean and small chickpeas.

Here is the recipe:

Bean Salad

2 pcs cucumber - seeded & diced

2 pcs tomato - diced

3-4 leaves lettuce - coarsely chopped

3-4 stalks continental  parsley - finely chopped

3-4 stalks spring onion

1/2 green capsicum - diced

a quarter of Spanish onion - finely diced

some mint leaves -  finely chopped

a can of Five Bean Mix - drained & heated (in the microwave)

Dressing:

2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

lemon juice from 1 lemon

salt & pepper - to taste

Mix all ingredients and dressing until all well combined.