The more I know about myself, the sadder I get

I realize that my life has been fast forwarded ever since I met my current boy friend. His life at work is fabulous; his work life is busy not to mention that his work social life has occupied nearly 80% of his personal times. I got introduced to a lot of his co-workers and we got invited to plenty of their social events, personal events, parties, celebrations and etc etc. Good thing is most of them are from different cultural, different backgrounds. South Americans are the majority in the group.

I know nothing about Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador, Romania, Israel and etc until I met the group. I listened to their accents, I learn their party styles (which is dancing non-stop, mostly salsa), their drinking habit, their friendliness, their affection towards love ones. I realize how less I know about the world after mingling with the group. This has actually open up my mind.

I am more open to listen and learn from others after knowing that there are so much that I don’t know about out there. There are so many countries, peoples, foods, cultures in the other side of the world that I didn’t even know they exist. Then, the more I learn about them, the more I want to see the world. I started to value the importance of life. I started to realize that living the fullness is not just about climbing up the ladder or getting a great impressive job with good pay to pursue my future. What is the point of working long hours but do not get to enjoy the beautiful weather in a nice summer day?

For sure I have to admit that majority of the Asian parents are very practical. To them, in order to get a good life; you would have to study hard, excel in school in order to get into a good college in order to land a good job. Climbing step by step will make you a better person, make big bucks then you will achieve success from there on. This includes the pressures of those parents on their children to become doctors, lawyers, politicians etc. Asian parents like to compare their children’s success among each other’s. In their dictionaries, a person’s career determines the pride of that family; bachelor degree is not good enough, they are pushing their children all the way to PHD. WHY? Because this will make them proud and it will be the family’s history. I personally think that part of the reasons is because Asia countries do not generally accept higher educations than any of the Westerner countries, therefore getting a higher education achievement is considered very scarce in the society. This theory might apply to some lower income countries as well.

Here comes the debate between working for a job that pay you well but you don’t like and working for your dream job but don’t pay you well. Unfortunately I get caught in this scenario. I have a decent job which pays me above average than what other company would’ve paid for a similar position. However I don’t like my job, I don’t like the environment, the company, the industry, the distance to work, the ….. the … the everything that I do for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I so looking forward to weekends because I hated my job so much. I shop around, looking for a better opportunity that attract me more, looking for a more creditable company, looking for a higher pay job, looking for a better working environment….looking for something that make my happy. I realize working for money is really torturing but working for passion is what makes me happy and is what leads to a person’s success.

I look at job offers almost every day. I join some professional clubs in the city to expose to more opportunities and get better connections within the city. Some opportunities did surface, but I didn’t get any of them. Of course I am blaming on the America legal working system; I need to have a legal working document to work in this country. There are too many competitors out there who don’t need this kind of paperwork to be hired. Why me??? Why hire me to go through all those immigration problems? As an employer, I wouldn’t want to choose me either. Primary reason is because I don’t have the skills that they couldn’t get elsewhere. I am not an aerospace engineer, I am not a mad scientist, I am not any doctors or Chinese teacher! I am just a regular person who can TALK! That’s what I can do. But when it comes down to talk, there are many restrictions too. I can’t TALK flawless English; I am not a native speaker. I can’t talk flawless, accent less Mandarin, I am not a mainlain China Mandarin freak speaker. I don’t know any cultures about China! I can communicate in Cantonese but who the hell cares about Cantonese speaker in business stand point, in Cleveland, in United States? Oh yah, forgot to mention about 3 other awesome languages that I speak – Hokkien, TeoChew and Malay! Yayaya!!! Those are garbage when it comes to business world/international trading. In a nutshell, I DON’T have solid skills to back me up. I am screwed!

The more I write about this, the more depressed I get. Why can’t I just do what I like and still be able make decent money? I want to be a public speaker, I want to write books, publish books, I want to be a tour guide or do some travel related business, I want to travel, I want to do sports business, I want to organize events, plan for activities, I want to be an actress, I want to perform………. Can you see the trend now? If I want to do what I want to do, I won’t be able to get them here in US easily. I really NEED a GREEN CARD!!!!! I want to be able to get a job freely without considering the fact if I am alien or not!!!

No matter how, I am still going to try! Try hard to achieve what I want, at the same time to obtain happiness as well. I get very agitated when I see people love their jobs. I am jealous!! I am sick! I am not psychologically normal because I envy and jealous at people who have better lives than I do. This is so wrong……I am discouraged….I am disgusting….. I am a criminal…..

AMEN…….

Are you a sprinter or a marathon runner?

Myers-Briggs personality test said that I am an Extrovert, which I can’t agree more with but I have sometimes got myself confused!

I like people, I love to talk to people, I care for people; but I can’t be a social butterfly who can just simply open her mouth to any persons, in any places, for any topics or any conversations. Sometimes I got very nervous in front of people, sometimes I feel extremely timid among the crowd and I just want to be invisible and hope people won’t spot me at all.

It reminds me on some friends that I’ve recently met. They are so friendly and chatty. They open their arms, their mouths and their hearts to you first time when you met them. Is this what we call an Extrovert person? Or this is just a sales/social skill? I would be very impress if this kind of person still remember my name after they made a round in the room and if they will still keep in touch with everyone that they ‘friend’ with on that night. As for me, I am so much opposite from persons like this.

I take it slow but steady. Slow but steady. I look, I observe, when I find a the opportunity, I get in to the circle. Just like the phrase “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (I come, I see, I Conquer); instead of I come and Conquer. I do not try to impress people on the first meeting or first time when we met. I won’t stripped to show you how nice my body is until we finally develop a relationship or trust between us. Which I think this somehow has got me in trouble because I am not extrovert enough to people that I first time meet, or to a group of strangers.

A similar situation just happened to me at a speedy career expo. It was so speedy until each person was only allowed for 3 minutes to talk about yourself, why you like the company, the position, why they should hire you. Then you will see they wrote down what you have said and they yell “NEXT”! To me, it seems like you just have to get the person’s attention, make a strong impression and sell yourself to them in 3 minutes before he yelled “NEXT”. Which to me, is like standing in front of him, count 1 to 3, take off my clothes and said I am beautiful, hire me! This seems to be a challenge to me because in most circumstances, I am more like a marathon runner than a sprinter.

You would notice that marathon runner will stick around longer than the sprinter. The sprinter will make the greatest impression to you at the first time you met him, but then, he will be gradually disappeared or he is really just not as good as first time when he said he was. However, as for the marathon runner, you will see him might be struggling at first, but after he observed and learn what’s around him; he will gradually improves himself and keep impressing the rest of them.

Again, are you a sprinter? Or a marathon runner?

Babies babies...more babies

So many of my friends have becoming parents recently. They either got married early or get married in a rush to welcome the new born. Thanks to the social networks which can easily connecting people from around the globe that allows me to see friends’ pictures all the time. One funny thing is, baby pictures have dominated most of my front page photos. All of the news feed are mostly friends’ wedding pictures, pregnancy pictures and then babies pictures, babies pictures then more babies pictures.

I started to get the fear of being a parent after seeing and hearing how much a woman has to go through the labor process, carrying kids, nurturing the kids, and finally raising them. I have to admit that I love children. I love to have my own too, but when it came to how to raise a good kid, I started to doubt at myself. I don’t think I can be a good parent. I am not talking about those bad habit such as gambling, smoking, drinking etc that make me a bad parent, but I am referring more to the upbringing for the children.

As we all know, babies are the purest thing in the world. They came to this world like a sheet of blank paper. We, the parents and the society are the one who paint and color on that sheet of paper. I am not an artistic person, I don’t know how to paint nor draw; therefore I am scared.

A day before I wrote this blog, a good friend of mine called. She just had a baby, a one month old baby boy. Then she kept going on how painful the process was, how many stitches she has to get and one month of ‘hell’ experience after the baby was born. This one month of ‘hell’ experience basically is a traditional believe of Chinese people on do’s and don’ts on the month after you gave birth. They believe that woman gets very weak after they gave birth, in order to get enough nutrition, to have a healthy body in order to produce enough milk to sustain, the woman has to eat only certain high temperature, high calories, high protein food every day. Not to mention that, she is not allowed to take shower and to expose to any water, rainfalls, wind, air-conditional and etc. They believe that these will cause her body weaker and effect the woman’s future health if she doesn’t follow those methods. Therefore Chinese celebrates the full moon, one month after the baby was born because they are also celebrating the freedom of the mom getting out of the ‘hell’.

I guess it is really hard to imagine or even think about it until you experienced it, isn’t it? Oh boy! What a process…

I forget to say "I love you"

I am having trouble justify when is the right time to say the three words. Was there a procedure telling you, you are allowed to say the 3 words after you've spending certain time in dating? Or you can only pop these words only when he said them first? Or you can only say them during the special occasions? The more often you said it, the less meaningful they are? I have so many questions in my mind which I don't know who can answer. Therefore I went with what my heart told me. I said it when I feel like telling him "I love him." I said it when I am in loved and when I adore him. ------------------------- Time after time, I notice that he also said the words; but instead of the 3 words, he uses 4 words now - I love you too. My curiosity struck me, so I had to ask why he did not say the 3 words to me anymore? He said " I am sorry, sometimes I forget. Please remind me if I forget next time......" ..................................

Save the best for last?

Save the BEST for last!

Have you ever wondered if you are the "save the best for last" type of person? Have you ever save your favorite type of food on your plate for last? Will you enjoy your favorite delicious, greasy, crunchy slice of bacon only after you finished the omelet, toasts, fries on your plate? Or you are the one who will eat your favorite food on the plate when it was freshly served to you?
When it comes to food, I think I like to enjoy the first bite on my favorite food and also finishing the meal with the last bite of the favorite food on the plate. But when it comes to relationship, I will not save the best for last. I will enjoy it at the very first moment till the end.

A guy that I know - Carl, likes to give his loves and passions to his love one until the very last moment of his day, week, month or year. He likes to smell the roses on the way home, he likes to sit down and experience life or share stories with people around him and last thing he would do is to come home to his favorite person.

Deep in his heart, he loves his wife a lot; but it is not the first thing he would express or do when he thinks of her. Because in his philosophy, he thinks he should save the best for last. He should go out and experience life, he should go mingle with people, help others, learn something; then when he is done with his "routine social networking life" he will certainly remember to come home to the comfort zone, he would like to cuddle and share all of his ups and downs of his day with the love one. Unfortunately, most of the time when he came home, it was already passed midnight or he was too tired and felt asleep on her arm while he was started to tell her how his day went.

Next morning, they repeat the same routine and he came home either exhausted or drunk. But he did some sweet things to his spouse, he kissed her good night, he hugged her and tell her she is the pretties woman in the world and said he was so lucky to have her in her life. Next thing you know, he happily felt asleep on her arm again.

Sadly, they don't really talk. She normally know about his stories from his friends and co-workers. This is because he save too much of the "BEST" for the "LAST".

Sometimes, I think a relationship is not about destiny; it is about the process. If he brought her in to the journey of smelling roses along the road, that would have done a different impact to their relationship.

Half & Half

I have recently learned that one of my brother's friends has just got married! What's so interesting about this couples is, he is half Irish and half Korean; whereas she is half Japanese and half Latino.

That was a beautiful mixture of her. She has got a healthy tan, a slightly high bridge nose, silky dark hair and beautiful eyes. He is tall, has fair skin color, nice black hair and with beautiful smiles. (Luckily both of them do not have the Asian kind of single crease eyes!)
I guess the next thing people are waiting for is to see the product of the Ireland-Korea-Japan-Latin huh? Which will make the baby a 'super' multiracial! Wow! How cool is that?

This reminds me on a book that I have finished reading a while ago. The title of the book is called Half and Half. It is a book that features the stories of writers on growing up biracial, multiracial, bi-cultural and multicultural. It is a very insightful book to read, I highly recommended it. Some people hated their biracial identities and tend to hide their backgrounds, some people take it as a benefit and advantage of them to succeed in their life. However some do not see it as a problem at all.

I guess the freedom of cross cultural and cross racial marriages has become more and more common in United States. That is what makes it a melting pot, a place where you can get everything you want! And soon to be, the word "American" will never be that "American" that we thought it was anymore.

Another thing to share which is related to cross cultural is a cooking program that I was watching the other day. There was this very thick South American accent chef, featuring how to make a refreshing authentic American salad. And guess what was the main green that he was using for the salad? It is baby Bok Choy! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cabbage) Oh well....I guess that really is an American Salad, isn't it?

Lastly, let me share a short clip about mixed backgrounds by Steve Byrne, who is a half Irish and half Korean. Enjoy