Restaurant City: Chiroru

There's been a new craze going on the office lately.

Thanks to Jaz, I've been hooked on playing Restaurant City, and I'm happy to say my restaurant has made the top 3rd spot in my friends list~! Ahaha~ Although Chippy is really chasing after me..! ;~; Wah!!!

Anyhow, Restaurant City is a flash application/game on Facebook wherein the objective is to run a successful virtual restaurant. You start off with only 3 staff members and a tiny restaurant, and when you earn enough experience points, your restaurant becomes bigger and you get to hire more people!

Sounds simple? Well, guess again. Customers will not wait to be served, so you better be careful in adding chairs and tables to your restaurant. Your staff, like regular people, get tired, so you have to let them take breaks or feed them.

Did I mention your restaurant runs 24/7? Even if you're no longer online, your restaurant will continue to serve its customers, so it's up to you to decide whether you'll work your staff to exhaustion or close up for the night.

You also need to level up your dishes so that the customers will give you a higher rating. The higher the level of the dish, the higher experience points you get, the faster you level up.

It's a nice casual game though I think I've grown out of it a little. Mostly because it's extremely difficult to get the ingredients you need, so leveling up your dishes can be time consuming! And I am no food expert, so the daily food quiz that allows you to get new ingredients can be difficult.

Maybe, like Jaz said, I reached my "restaurant nirvana".

Gotta admit though, it's easier to run Chiroru than a real restaurant. :D

Yes, I named my restaurant after Chobit's Bakery... Ueda is such a cutie~! *heart*

Energy Medicine: The Aftermath

I came upon a 7 day challenge from Empower You regarding positive living. This is actually a long overdue post that I had been to busy to sit down and write about.

The idea was to change some typical routines in one's daily activity to have a more positive output. I thought it would be easy to do so, given that I was bored with my routine.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

I missed 2 days out of the 7 due to some issues I had no control over. It was a full moon on the week that I took up this challenge, and despite my doubts, I have noticed how the full moon can affect people's moods.

Being irritable when a problem comes along is never a good thing.

Let's not focus on that for now. Let me get to the challenges:

1. Be thankful for what you have.
This seemed fairly simple at first, but it was extremely difficult to be thankful for anything when you're pushed in a corner. Negative thoughts came to mind easier at the start of the day when the first thing you get is a nice helping of blame from your own parents and siblings. Admittedly though, the day goes by a little easier when you remember the good things, even the little ones.

2. Laugh for 5 minutes at the start of the day.
This just felt silly. I mean, as I expected, my mom thought I'd completely lost it, but at the same time, she said she was happy to see me smiling again. I honestly wouldn't do this on a daily basis, unless I can pretend I'm talking to someone on my mobile phone every morning, but it was fun.

3. Don't read the news.
My work deals with being up to date with current events... thankfully, not with your typical news. I've never been interested in politics so I was able to do this on a daily basis with no problems.

4. Look for good news!
Same with 3, I get to look for nice news and none of the violent variety. However, it's difficult to be happy for other people when you feel like the world is against you...

5. Find positive things to say at work or at home.
I completely went "are you kidding me?!" when I was in my 2 day slump. Honestly, I'm not the talkative type. You can hardly hear me say anything since I had met a nun who told me "speak only when it improves the silence". However, I forced myself to have lunch with colleagues to just... talk. And well, let's just say, laughing with others is better than laughing alone.

6. Watch some comedy shows.
The first thing that came to mind was that I should catch up on my Onegai My Melody episodes. It made me happy and feel nostalgic about the fun times I had role-playing and writing fan fictions in the past... This exercise did make me feel more creative, and it was a nice way to get away from trying to solve the issues that I could not control.

7. Give thanks and look forward to the next one.
On the second day of my slump, I broke down. I was angry with God for many frustrations I had in my heart. I could not understand what His plan was and at this point, I still can't. However, I realize too that nothing will change if you don't continue walking the road called life.

Overall, I don't think I got to accomplish the 7 Day Challenge as best as I could have. Perhaps the timing was off, because even though I saw how it positively affects my life, there were days when I realized that being and staying positive cannot be done when you're alone in the attempt.

I remember Yumi Omura from Chobits describing herself and I have to agree with her... "I'm human, and everything I say is affected by my moods. I lie, and I probably hurt a lot of people, but that's because I'm not perfect."

Is it ok for me to be angry and negative in some days in my life? There's no way for me to control everything in the world as it continues to change, but one thing I found to be true in this exercise..? Is that life's too short, and laughter? Well, it might actually be the best medicine after all.