An update on nails.

First off, this is a picture of my nail after ten days of wear, with five days of work.

Notice the gap between my nail bed and the actual polish? That was one of the reasons of me taking off the GelColor. The other reason being boredom. I was ready to see my real nails again after a week and a half. One thing I've never really realized was just how slow my nails grow. There was this the one time when I was on a trip for a whole month and had hardly needed to cut them whereas my friend who was with me had to cut hers twice in that same time period. I just chalked it up to hers growing abnormally fast, now that I've looked it up and with evidence right in front of me, the abnormal one seems to be me and not her. In my opinion, the GelColor wore like steel. As promised there was no chipping whatsoever. I was quite surprised. The shine, as well, lasted through the whole time.
Now, onto the taking off process. Because of how well it stayed on, it was a bit difficult to take off. All in all, it took me about an hour and a half of soaking and scraping to get them all off. There are supposedly easier ways to do it. For examples, go to a salon and have them take it off for you. But I opted for the home version, and here is what I did.
Step 1 - Soaked cotton balls with acetone based nail remover (100% acetone works better and faster, but I didn't have them on hand).
Step 2 - wrapped my cotton balled nails with tin foil.
Step 3 - wait 15-20 minutes.
Step 4 - Removed the foil and the cotton ball, use a blunt cuticle pusher to push the polish off.

Here is a picture of Step 2

I only managed to snap one picture of the removing process, but let me tell you, the aftermath on my desk was not pretty. It stunk of lavender laced heavier with acetone (my nail remover was lavender scented, why? I couldn't tell you.) With tin foil and cotton balls, along with pieces of soaked and scraped off polish strewn everywhere. I recommended laying down a piece of newspaper or plastic cover before attempting it at home. I certainly would the next time I do this.

I do intend to get the GelColor again in the future. Perhaps in some subtler nude color over the dramatic dark color. I figure the growth would be less obvious, and maybe I won't get bored with it as easily.

Games

I am a gamer, and a bit of a geek. I love games, it's one of my most time consuming hobby. My first memory with the new generation of game consoles was on a gamecube. My then boyfriend introduced me to Super Smash Bros on the Nintendo system. I had watched people played it before but had never played it myself. My then boyfriend(let's call him Sam for simplicity's sake) pitched me against another complete newbie, our friend's girlfriend(now wife). Since I have watched them played before, I cheated and took the easy route of picking Kirby. If you are familiar with the game, then you'd know Kirby was pretty buoyant, and kind to newcomer. My opponent, who had far less insight into the game, picked the pretty princess Zelda. Zelda, or Sheik, would later became my go to character in that game. But she was slower, a bit clumsy, and compared to Kirby, practically laden with lead. Before long, she was falling down the side and getting kicked to oblivion by my big footed pink ball of a character.
I had access to every popular consoles available at the time. From the Nintendo Gamecube, to Sony's Playstation 2, and even the much used but lesser liked Xbox from Microsoft. I played the charming prince in Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time, fought Hayate and Hayabusa(damn that Hayabusa and his special moves, and my friend who kept pulling them off) with Kasumi and Ayane, killed a lot of covenants with my Master Chief on the Xbox. I've since only brought the Nintendo Wii, and the Playstation 3, never coming around to the Xbox 360.
I don't exactly have a wide interest in games. Mainly I play the most popular, the Uncharted series, some Call of Duty here and there, there was the Prince of Persia series and now the trilogy on my PS3, Assassin's Creed (I still prefer Altair to Ezio, for one reason or another), and then there were Bioware's games. I think they are my favorite, Dragon Age was a great RPG, then of course the famed(or infamous, considering how it ended) Mass Effect trilogy.
The original Mass Effect was not released on Playstation, only on Xbox360 and PC. It finally came out on the PS3 around Christmas. I was struck on another playthrough of Dragon Age to play the Mass Effect series from start to finish. Now that I am near the tail end of Dragon Age 2 (in my humble opinion a far inferior game to Origins), I think I am going to pick that up next. Although I still have Assassin's Creed 3 and Call of Duty Black Ops 2 sitting on my shelf staring at me, asking to be played. I do think a Mass Effect complete playthrough is long overdue. I am looking forward to recruiting Garrus, and talking to Wrex about his family armor.
Photo Credit: Dawanda

Shellac Nails

I went to a tiny little nail salon, in an obscure little mall with the most complicated non floor plan yesterday. The place was like a maze, with a jumble of shops both local and chain alike side by side. There were counterfeits and legitimate goods right next to each other. Certainly very different. My sister took me there, and if it wasn't for her I likely would never found my way around. But I digress, the thing I wanted to talk about is nail color. CND shellac, or OPI GelColor, or similar system by different brand in different names. I was told they are essentially the same thing. I am sure people who've paid any amount of attention in nail lacquer trend at all would have known about already. But just in case some of us are like my sister (who didn't even understand the difference between gel nails and simple polish), I am just going to run through it.
Basically, it's a system that utilizes UV lamps to cure (is that the right word?) the special polish. It promises fourteen plus days of wear with no chipping, and super fast drying time. I have been wanting to try it for some time now, since with my line of work it's difficult to keep nail polish on. I have actually accumulated a pretty impressive array of bruises and cuts, all of them relatively minor, ever since I started in my current field  of work. So with this little tiny nail salon I decided to try it. I think mine is actually not CND, but OPI. I am not even really sure about it. I have another three days off work, so I won't really see how it fares at work for a few days yet.
Here is a link to Lisa Eldridge having her nails done with CND Shellac.
Here is a picture of my newly done nails -

Dark nails for the recently cooled down weather.

P.S. Congratulation on Tito Vilanova's so far speedy recovery! He had returned to training with FC Barcelona.

Be Strong, Tito! Anims Tito!

If you haven't heard already. Barça coach Tito Vilanova had a relapse of his salivary gland cancer, or parotid  gland cancer. He had undergone surgery on Thursday, and will have radiotherapy and chemotherapy in the coming weeks. We wish him a speedy recovery!

His surgery went fine. That's good news, and we'll see what happen in the following weeks.
Anims Tito!

I hate to turn this into a football blog, or a FC Barcelona centric blog. I do have to do this. I also apologize for being completely MIA in the past weeks. I have no excuse other than having no inspiration and my own laziness.

Photo credit: FC Barcelona Official Website

El Clásico

We drew. Messi and CRon both scored a brace. We played with no central defense, no el capita, no Piqué. We did show up and play tiki-taka when we were not losing the ball. We drew, and I am quite happy about the result. We are still on top of the table, and we can do better. I am trusting my team that we will do better.  Meanwhile, we'll take that one point against our arch-rival. 

Update on my caffeine progress.

So, about the whole no caffeine thing. It lasted three days, then on the fourth I decided that life wasn't worth living anymore, and had one cup of the best instant coffee I could find. The next day, actually, it was almost as soon as I finished that cup of coffee that I realized my mistake and started over again. It continued for another three days. At the end of which I had decided the whole thing was getting a little out of hand. It wasn't cause by the caffeine deprivation, not primarily. At least I didn't think that caffeine was the major reason for what I was going through. I was beginning to get quite paranoid, mostly about my health, and I was definitely in an emotional slum. The tiniest thing would tick me off, things that I usually wouldn't even notice, and I would freak out. That was when I decided it was time to go see another doctor. That decision ended my week long caffeine free journey.
Now, I feel the need to clarify that I am in no way downplaying any sort of substance abuse and the difficult process to quit. I did not feel that my experience had made me understand what people have to go through. What I am trying to say is that this gave me some insights into something that I have never really put too much thought into.
I've never thought about coffee other than where I am going to get mine. I would thought about it, brought it, drank it, and then not thought about it for the rest of the day. Instead of doing that, I thought endlessly about coffee throughout the week. I would wake up, realized I couldn't have coffee for breakfast, and so I drank some water instead. I would get a little frustrated at that point, but nothing too much. As the day went on, however, I would find myself thinking about it more and more. I would be standing in consultation and thought: I can really use a coffee. Or I would be doing some lab work, trying to focus but feeling not quite fully awake and thought the same thing again. By lunch time, I would get a bit twitchy and grumpy. Then by evening I would feel a little better. Just a little, and the thought of coffee never really left my mind. It went on, until I finally broke down and had that first cup in three days. As I was drinking that cup of semi decent instant coffee I felt content, yet at the same time I also felt guilty about it.
I've never put much thought into the process of quitting any sort of addiction previously. I don't personally know anyone who is addicted to any kind of substance. I do have a brother that I have always felt had a game addiction, and a co-worker that drinks a little too much occasionally. My family had talked about getting my brother professional help, but had never gotten around to it. My sister in law had pretty much just chalked it up with him being immature. And surely, as he had gotten a bit older, his gaming habit had gotten far less problematic.
In the past week I have started to think about it. It was a truly horrifying thought. Since I consider my dependence on caffeine to be nothing more than that, over dependence. I knew how long my self imposed break would last, and it was only a short period of time. I was already struggling, and failing half way through it. I can't imagine what it would be like quitting a real addiction of any kind must be like. I think that was a very good motivation to not start developing a habit.

My days without caffeine

I am very much a coffee person. I complain about Starbucks even though I lived around Seattle for years. I order caramel macchiato at Starbucks even though I complain about their coffee. I know about some of the lesser known coffee spots in the city, and when given the chance, I try to avoid Starbucks. Because their coffee tastes more like milk with a dash of coffee than actual coffee. (See! That's me complaining about them, even though I just had a coffee from them yesterday and know every barista at the stall near my work place.)
But this post isn't about my coffee habit, it's about how I have to do without it for the next few days. For some medical reason or another, since I do not feel like divulging my medical history on the internet, I have to refrain from having any caffeinated drink for the next week or so.
My initial reaction was that it would never happen, and so I promptly asked my doctor a multitude of questions. Can I have one a day? Does that even count? Maybe I can just skip the milk in the latte and have an espresso? How long does it have to be? Can it be five days instead of seven? When all those questions were answered with less than favorable answers, I changed tactic. What about tea? Maybe just an English Breakfast with a dash of milk and some honey? Really, not even tea? Then again, the answers were not what I wanted.
Thus began my days without my daily cup of coffee. I also have to keep my diet generally bland, but that in comparison was a lot easier than the lack of coffee. I didn't even count myself as a caffeine addict since I always thought that because I only drink one cup a day, that can't be count as an addiction. I am beginning to  realize how wrong I was.
We'll see if I last through the week, and if I do I'll do an update of how it went.