Anjana’s blog

I watched this last night and was happy to find this movie enjoyable. Its been a long time since I've seen Sandra Bullock in a movie that I would consider good. In fact, the only one that comes to mind is Speed....there's got to be some others in between.
The story is fairly basic, Sandra Bullock's character is a bullish boss for a book company who faces deportation back to Canada. She manages to force Andrew (Ryan Reynolds, her assistant to marry her. To convince the Immigration that the impeding wedding is legit, they travel to Alaska to visit Andrew's family. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that the pair end up falling in love in the process and actually do tie the knot.Andrew's family and friends are a strange cast of personalities which adds to the movie's comedic theatrics.
Although I found this movie to be funny and entertaining, I am glad that I waited for the dvd. Its not worth the cost to see at the movie theater. But its a great movie to watch at the comfort of your home. 3 out of 5.

So I normally tend to flucuate my weight about 4-5 pounds on any given week. The past few weeks however, I've lost 7 pounds. Last week I went with a friend of mine who's a trainer and got the hardest workout I've had in years. We were just working on abs and mine hurt for close to 3 days straight. It made me realize that I haven't been working out hard enough.

So yesterday when I went to the gym, instead of increasing my reps, I increased the weight resistance. I'm a little bit sore today so I feel like it was beneficial to do that. My plan is to lose about 13 more pounds to drop down to 124 and get a flat stomach. I've also been eating more healthy and smaller portions.

I'm going to incorporate more cardio, whether its a few laps around the track or a bike almost everyday, weight training 2-3 times a week, 2 times a week with a trainer, and yoga 2-3 times a week. It sounds like a lot, but its probably only going to require about an hour of work each day.

I bought 15 shares of ABT today. I've been looking for a stock in the medical area and went ahead and bought this today. Apparently ABT is going to buy Solvey, a chemcial and rubber company. The only  basis I bought this on was that the 52 week price on the stock was quite a bit lower than their high in this time period. I'm working on balancing my portofolio out since I have a large amount invested in technology firms. With all the talk about the possible changes to the health care industry, I believe health care is going to be a huge player in coming months to years.

My boyfriend and I broke up last week so I've doing a lot of thinking and reflecting the past few days. I ended up learning a lot of important things but I'm only going to talk about one right now. I've come to realize that I have trained myself through previous relationships to be more concerned about that person's ability to "take care" of me than myself.
For some reason, I have been scared that I will never be able to be successful in life. I try not to take too risks and don't act on opportunities for fear of failing. People throughout my life, both personally and professionally, have always praised and admired me for my potential. It actually made me feel like I was somehow still failing, not living up to these expectations. I've come to the realization that the bottleneck has been me all this time.
But it ends now. I have what it takes to do great things. I can't rely on someone else or be upset when that other person has a different calling in life. Its time for me to take charge.

This book by Robert Sutton is one of the required readings for my Advanced Human Resource Management class. I finished reading it last night and thought I would share my thoughts. Undoubtably, there is someone we can think of who reminds of the "asshole" in our past or present workplace environment. We're always going to come across these people who demean those around them but that does not mean we have do sink to their level or become a walking doormat.
Sutton shows us how to spot these assholes(which I don't personally feel is really that difficult), cope and eventually put them in their place, what their costs are to an organization, and even how the "good" about being an asshole from time to time. The book decribes the TCA -- Total Cost of Assholes, which can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a company all stemming from one asshole! This book is a must read for those in the business/corporate world. I also found the tidbit on how displaying certain "asshole" behaviors on occassion can be useful for you in your workplace and personal life.
No Asshole is an fairly short and an easy read. Although the book is concise, I almost feel as if it would have been better if it was more of a mini-guide or publication journal. That is a personal preference as I like information that is jam packed and filled with as little unnessary jabber as possible. 4.5/5

I'm going to a "potluck" wedding the first Saturday of October and have been searching for a suitable dish to bring. After a few days of searching, I've found this recipe. Its got some of my favorite things (cheese, potatoes, and ham) so I'm excited to see how it turns out. Here's the recipe in case you want to try it out:

1  medium onion, chopped
2  Tbsp. butter
2  Tbsp. all-purpose flour
2  Tbsp. Dijon-style mustard
1-3/4  cups milk
1/2  of an 8-oz. pkg. reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufch??tel), cut up
1  cup Gruyere cheese, shredded (4 oz.)
1  Tbsp. snipped fresh chives or green onions
1-1/2  lb. Yukon gold or round red potatoes, cut in thin wedges
8  oz. sliced cooked Black Forest ham or country ham, coarsely chopped
1/2  cup coarsely crushed bagel chips
  Thyme and/or Italian parsley leaves
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 2-quart rectangular baking dish; set aside.

2. For sauce, in medium saucepan cook onion in hot butter over medium heat 5 minutes or until tender; stirring occasionally. Stir in flour and mustard. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until slightly thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat to low. Whisk in Neufch??tel cheese until smooth. Gradually add 1/2 cup of the Gruyére cheese until cheese is melted. Stir in chives.

3. In bowl combine potatoes, ham, and sauce; toss gently to combine. Transfer to prepared baking dish.

4. Bake, covered, 1 hour or until potatoes are tender. Uncover; stir carefully. Sprinkle with crushed chips and remaining cheese. Bake, uncovered, 10 to 15 minutes more or until cheese is melted. Let stand, 10 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with herbs. Serves 6.

ATT announced this week the introduction of "A List", a copycat version of Altell and T-Mobiles My Cirlce and MyFaves. You have to have a higher rate plan in order to be able to take advantage of this however. I believe its $60 on a single line and $90 on a family. From my understanding, cell phone minute usage has been decreasing every year on average. I find these type of ideas as a way to entice people to pay more for their service than they really need to. Its just too bad the average consumer does not pay enough attention to really how much they use their phone to talk nowadays versus texting or data usage.

Not to be one upped, Sprint has introduced true mobile to mobile where you are free to call any mobile number that belongs to any carrier. Of course you have to be on their everything data plan which starts at $69.99 for a single line and 129.99 for a famiy ($20 more for each add a line). Its a pretty good gimmick overall, however experience has told me that I think Sprint is going to land on its bottom even with this. My family has had Sprint for about 10 years and dealing with them is always a hassle. They have continually made mistakes (sending multiple phones for one order, rejecting mail in rebates, not standing behind their word, etc.). I just don't really have faith in them being able to pull this off without a hitch

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I was a little hesitant to see this movie judging from the run time of nearly 200 minutes. My attention span for a movie grows short after about 70 minutes into a movie and there's no sign of an impeding conclusion. Inglourious Basterds kept me entertained the entire time in a way that I did not even think about when it was going to be over.
Its everything you come to expect from a Quentin Tarantino movie -- lots of blood, shooting, sick sense of humor, and random acts of madness. The movie takes place in in Nazi occupied France and is divided up into five chapters. It follows the story of a young Jewish woman who is the sole survivor of the massacre of her family that was hiding from the Nazis. She ends up taking over a movie theater that is the setting for a Pro-Nazi movie premire. Then we have the Basterds, a group of Jewish-American soliders whose sole purpose is to kill as many Nazis as they can, taking their scalps as trophy. They hear about the movie premire whose guestlist includes various high level Nazis, including Hitler.
The music is great at setting the mood for the movie. All the actors did a splendid job in their roles. Think what you what about Brad Pitt, (pretty boy, cheater, etc.) but this movie goes to show you that he is gifted in taking on his various film roles. 5/5.

My friend Jordan and I spent Sunday night watching five episodes of this anime. Its episodic in nature -- meaning that there is no overlaying storyline or plot. There are these creatures called Mushi which are neither alive or dead who have supernature abilities. It seems that their existence is mainly animalistic, concerned with keeping itself "alive". Sometimes in the way that it interacts with humans in order to exist, they cause suffering.

Ginko, the main character in this anime is a Mushi master and he takes it upon himself to help those who need help dealing with these mushi creatures. There seems to be no end to the kinds of troubles the mushi can cause to humans. Inablity to exist in any type of light, deafness, the list is just about endless. Ginko himself inadvertably attracts mushi, which is why he constantly smokes and never stays too long in one place.

The animation in this style is absolutely beautiful. A lot of light greens, browns, and natural colors are used. The music is very soothing and relaxing as well. The story is very unique and different. Personally I don't really enjoy animes that don't have a storyline underneath everything. I would make an exception with this one simily because of the art and beauty of the overall anime. I would recommend this to those who really enjoy watching anime. 4/5.

I am always freaking out about gaining weight. I think that's just one of the attributes to being female. One of the easiest things we can do to help maintain our weight is to chew your food slowly or if you want to break it down, at least 20 times before you swallow.

Simply by doing this, you will feel fuller and not feel like a glutton monster after you eat. Here's an article that goes into the subject a bit more in depth. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Chewing-Food-More-Times-Is-Healthy-103286.shtml