Making my way through Asia (and grad school) one adventurous step at a time.

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Adventures in Regrets...

I've been thinking about regrets this week.  Not big life-changing things. Not even smaller live 'n' learn things.  I'm talking about "Oooooh, drat. I knew better than that" things. On most days, if you asked me if I have any regrets in life, I'd say  'no'... I'd also probably be lying, since I might regret having posted this photo online, and telling you how it came to pass. 

I'm sure I won't regret this...


But, for the most part, I've (eventually) learned from my mistakes, and am pretty regret free...or at least I was until this week.  This week, I found myself adding 2 new regrets to my list.  Two regrets in one week?  How could that be?

#2 - Burpees.

At some point in the distant past, I agreed to join the 100-day burpee challenge.  That's 1 burpee on the 1st day, 2 burpees on the 2nd day, etc. until the 100th miserable day.  On day 8, as I waddled, jumped and flopped through my 8th burpee, and my indolent body was still complaining about the previous 7, burpees had made it onto my regret list.  However, since my sister's also doing the challenge, it gives us a reason to send each other messages every day.  Since I like my sister, and since burpees are good for me, and since #1 on the list is way worse, burpees will eventually be relieved of their regretful status.

#1 -Bugs.

I check everything  for bugs here.  I shake out my shoes before I put my feet in them, I peek in the kettle every morning before I plug it in, I check my helmet every time I put it on...but I didn't check my mango bag. A few weeks ago, I wrapped some of the mangoes on my tree in little paper bags, to keep the bugs, birds and squirrels off them as they ripened.  On Monday, I picked a bagged mango and brought it inside. When I opened the bag, I was left standing with a beautiful mango in one hand, an empty bag in the other ... and 2 dozen little baby cockroaches scattering across my counter.  Since then, I've been finding a disturbing number of adolescent cockroaches partying it up in my pantry.   

That is the kind of regret I'm talking about this week!



  

5 comments:

Jodi said...

Ewwwwwwwwwww.

When I was in China, my roommate and I used to see who could come up with the most creative way to kill the ever-present cockroaches. Our favourite way was to boil the kettle and chase the cockroaches into the bathroom and down the drain with the scalding water. Cruel, but effective. And strangely satisfying.

Debie said...

oh, I'm so sorry. I had never seen a cockroach until this apartment. now I've seen 2, but Scott won't tell me how many he's seen. for good reason. both that I have seen have been pretty small. hopefully, that's as big as they grow here...

had to look up a burpee. now I know. I'm sorry... :o)

Jen said...

The only cockroaches I've ever seen have been in museum exhibits. I hope it stays that way!

As for the burpees, there's no way I'm going to manage 100, but I'll do my best for 100 days. Is "No Regrets" our new motivational phrase?

Janice said...

Debie, I understand! We have effective roach killers here...but for the first 2 days, you wake up to a bunch of dead roaches, and after that nothing...but I don't want to use them, because I really don't want to know how many there are! :-)

Sally said...

Okay, so I had to Google search burpee. Apparently Americans call it a "squat thrust"... although, honestly, I'd have to Google search that too.