New Apartment, New Me

Next Saturday I'm finally moving in my new apartment and I've decided to try to add some changes in my daily life to get a little bit healthier.
    About a year and a half ago I had lost nearly 15 kilos within a year and to this day I've managed to keep my weight still but now I feel I should try to lose weight again since I'm not normal weighted yet. So I've set as my goal that this time I want to lose about 5 kilos before June and within a year at least ten kilos.
     Here's my plan to achieve this goal. I hope that it could be a bit of help to those who also are having troubles with their weight.

My new apartment is located right next to a gym so first thing to do is to start going to gym regularly. I really enjoy going to the gym and I can't make excuses anymore since the gym is going to be right next door to my apartment.
     Partly, I'm dedicated on going to the gym again because of my poor knees (problems with the joints). I really need to work out my legs so that I would have stronger knees. Also, I'm still attending to taekwondo and dance practices also so I'm not sure yet how often I'll try to go to the gym but I'm sure I'll find the balance.
     To have enough energy to go to the gym I need to change my diet. The Christmas ruined completely my diet and I've been eating way too many sweets lately so I'm going cut off all the candy except chocolate. Also I'll try cut down a bit the carbs I consume on the daily basis. So, a little bit less bread and pasta, and more salad, tomatoes and other vegetables.
      Plus, I'm adding more protein to my diet. The bigger the muscles the more one burns calories when not exercising. Good source of protein is found in the dairy products like cottage cheese and quark.
     I've also noticed that it is important to plan your meals before and in order to loose weight so I need to change my current diet. First of all, it is important to eat as regularly as possible. So no extra snacks between the meals and to avoid getting hungry there should be no more than 4 hours between the meals. The lunch should be the greatest source of the energy during the day and include more cabs than the dinner to keep you going through out the entire day.  Dinner should be rich in protein because it releases the energy slowly and so is enough to keep one full through the night.

Naturally the most important thing is to actually keep up with the plan. :)

This is for now what I've been up to. Hopefully, after getting used to my new apartment I can get time to add some content to this blog by posting pictures. We'll see what the future holds for us. Till next Monday!

Tips for Moving Out

Within couple weeks I'm going to move out from my current apartment and I thought I could share some tips I find useful.

Firstly, start packing early.
     It can take surprisingly long time to pack everything so you should start quite early. If you have to attend to classes or go to work on daily basis I'd recommend you start packing few weeks before the time to leave the apartment.

     First pack the things that aren't necessary to your daily life: books, CDs, DVDs interior decorations and for example unneeded seasonal clothing. For heavy objects, like books, you should use boxes that are easy to carry.
     Label the packages; write on a piece of tape with a permanent marker what the package includes. You'll have it easier once you start unpacking them. And it is really important to mark the packages that include fragile objects. That way the person moving the package knows to be careful with it.

Secondly, plan the layout for your new house or apartment.

     You should check the floor plan and then, accordingly, plan where to place your furniture. It is a waste of time to start placing them on the moving day.

     Write on your packages where do you want them in your new house/apartment. This is useful if there are multiple rooms in the new apartment, otherwise it is naturally unnecessary.

Thirdly, have everything ready to go on the moving day!

     Once I've been helping out my friends who did not have everything packed by the day they were supposed to move out. By the end of day we managed to have everything moved in their new apartment... However, last packages were huge plastic bags full of surprises - they had just thrown everything remaining into the bags.

     Believe me, if everything is ready on the moving day it is much easier to start unpacking the packages in your new apartment. Some times being organized is extremely helpful.

These were the few tips that occurred into my mind recently and hope you find them convenient. Of course, some might this information is way too obvious but I've seen people having problems with their moving out.

Friendship?

Recently I've been emotionally suffering because of a friend. Relationships are complicated for sure but it is confusing when a person you regarded as a friend turns out to be "just someone you know".

She's actually my current roommate. I thought we were friends that could talk face to face...
     Right before December she told me on the phone she has been offered a new rental apartment and she will move out in January. Due to this I have no other options than to move out too because of multiple reasons, first of all I don't have the money to pay the rent of our current apartment. And, since it was such a short notice finding a new apartment was extremely stressful. The rents are too expensive, there are not many available apartments for the students... The list could go on and on. Luckily, couple days ago I was offered a rental apartment.
     The worst thing is she said we should sit down and talk things through about some issues related to the moving out... That never happened. All she did was to send few text messages.

This has made me think about friendship. and what it does mean to me. These moving out news made me realize that the person I regarded as my close friend is actually as a distant person as an acquaintance from the university. Who waits till you leave the house to send you a text message to inform you about something? Now that I think about she started avoiding me about a year ago: Sending me text messages only when necessary, trying not to come out of her room when I wasn't in my own room.
     Friends aren't like that, right? At least I don't think friends should be this distant. Naturally one is not equally close with all of their friends but there is a great difference between being friends and acquaintances. I think that when interacting with people there is this sort of a barrier that makes one to keep their distance to acquaintances. With friends this barrier doesn't even exist.
     I'm not sure how to explain how I see the essence of friendship. I have many friends I see/contact extremely rarely (every couple years...maybe?). But still, they are my friends, though naturally with different friends we share different interests. It is easy to talk to them; even after long time I feel I don't need to think what I should say.
     In conclusion, friends are friends and they will always be there for you and you don't need to keep up the invisible barrier.

My apologies for the blabbering. I felt I needed to get these thoughts on paper and I'd be glad to hear your thoughts about friendship and I you've ever had a one sided friendship do feel free to share your story.

Starting the Year 2015

Hello to everyone!

I wanted to start the year by finding new hobbies and so here I am, starting a blog without having a single clue what I should write.

    Last year I actually tried keeping a blog on Tumblr but soon I realized it was no good. Starting tomorrow I'll start moving the posts from there to this blog. By the end of January I hope I have been able to have successfully customized the blog the way I've been planning to. To give a small idea of what How's Minna Doing? could be in the future I'll introduce you the few of my favorite hobbies.

First of all I spent way too much time on the Internet - were it in social media or watching various videos on YouTube or finding new Korean TV series to watch. During the last two years I've been completely swept by the Hallyu phenomenon also know as Korean Wave. 2013 I started learning Korean and now I consume even more and more Korean music, movies and TV shows.

    Despite the fact of spending most of my time on the Internet I do exercise regularly Taekwondo and show dancing. Though I'm overweight I do love exercising and since I haven't lost any weight for a year I've been planning to start going to gym to get some more muscles. I'm not sure whether I should say losing weight is my hobby or not. However it's been an important part of my life for about few years now. I found a good path to my weight loss but then I got some stress due various reasons in my life and it stopped. So now I've decided it's time to fix things and get back on track.

     Thirdly I'm a starting amateur cosplayer and thought this blog could be the stream to share my own experiences and maybe get some feedback in return.

This was a quick introduction to the topics that I'd love to write about in the future. Let's see how this goes! Thank you for dropping by though there's not much to get out the blog yet! :)