What did I accomplish for the past 2 years?
2009:
March- IRC Singapore
April - Graduated
June - Double A Thailand trip
October - CPA
2010:
February - Mead Johnson, Philippines
March-September - Teaching in Vietnam
October-November - FPHC, Philippines
and I met Steve! :)
Saturday, November 27, 2010
From the internet
From somewhere in the internet on love & relationships:
You can't promise to love someone for life, because you either do or you don't. But speaking from experience, sometimes it's not the idea of marriage. It's who you're involved with. He may say he loves you & wants to be with you forever. But until you meet that one person who you don't want to risk losing & you back it up with action, those are just words. I told every guy I ever dated that I had zero interest in marriage. Until I fell in love with the man who I wanted to truly hold onto in love for life. When you're passionately in love, you want to seal the deal & start your lives together. You want to take it to that ultimate level of commitment. If someone doesn't feel the way you do, you have a choice to make. And you're not entitled to resent him or her if minds don't change, and you've wasted years hoping it would.
Posted by Glenda Wed Nov 24, 2010 10:36am PST
In the end, it doesn't really matter what his thinking is-he has you exactly the way he wants you, so there is no reason for him to get married. I am married; I didn't marry until I was 27 (I am now 53), and I dated many different men before I met my husband and married him. I was engaged twice before him; I wasn't ready and both men pushed me into the engagements, so of course thay didn't last. I will tell you this for a fact-it doesn't take very long for a man (or a woman) to decide if you are the one they want to marry; the hard cold truth is this-this man will most likely never willingly marry you, and if you somehow push him into marriage neither of you will really be happy and you will never hear the end of it.
Nine years is way too long to wait-you deserve a man who wants you and has no problem letting you know it; a man who will marry you and show you off proudly to the world as his wife. Don't "settle" for what this man is giving you-you deserve so much more! GO OUT AND GET IT, GIRL!!!!
You can't promise to love someone for life, because you either do or you don't. But speaking from experience, sometimes it's not the idea of marriage. It's who you're involved with. He may say he loves you & wants to be with you forever. But until you meet that one person who you don't want to risk losing & you back it up with action, those are just words. I told every guy I ever dated that I had zero interest in marriage. Until I fell in love with the man who I wanted to truly hold onto in love for life. When you're passionately in love, you want to seal the deal & start your lives together. You want to take it to that ultimate level of commitment. If someone doesn't feel the way you do, you have a choice to make. And you're not entitled to resent him or her if minds don't change, and you've wasted years hoping it would.
Posted by Glenda Wed Nov 24, 2010 10:36am PST
In the end, it doesn't really matter what his thinking is-he has you exactly the way he wants you, so there is no reason for him to get married. I am married; I didn't marry until I was 27 (I am now 53), and I dated many different men before I met my husband and married him. I was engaged twice before him; I wasn't ready and both men pushed me into the engagements, so of course thay didn't last. I will tell you this for a fact-it doesn't take very long for a man (or a woman) to decide if you are the one they want to marry; the hard cold truth is this-this man will most likely never willingly marry you, and if you somehow push him into marriage neither of you will really be happy and you will never hear the end of it.
Nine years is way too long to wait-you deserve a man who wants you and has no problem letting you know it; a man who will marry you and show you off proudly to the world as his wife. Don't "settle" for what this man is giving you-you deserve so much more! GO OUT AND GET IT, GIRL!!!!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Vicious cycle
"Because we work harder, we reward ourselves by eating more—especially fast-food fare, which is laden with trans fats, smoking and drinking more. That leaves us less time to exercise and give our mind and bodies enough time to recover from its daily load of stress. The end-effect is a more financially affluent, but obese, overworked and stressed Asian who finds it necessary to calm his nerves by smoking. In China, three out of four men smoke. In the Philippines, more than half of men are smokers. Younger people, including the so-called adolescent “tweeners,” are smoking more."
http://business.inquirer.net/money/features/view/20101119-304170/Asean-cardiovascular-disease-challenge
A rather vicious cycle. We reward ourselves with fastfood, junkfood, smoking, and other stupid things because we worked hard and we earned a lot of money. And later on in life, we'll use the money we earned to reverse the "rewards" we treated ourselves to. Kinda like working a lot and stressing ourselves out just so we can afford to get a really nice spa.
http://business.inquirer.net/money/features/view/20101119-304170/Asean-cardiovascular-disease-challenge
A rather vicious cycle. We reward ourselves with fastfood, junkfood, smoking, and other stupid things because we worked hard and we earned a lot of money. And later on in life, we'll use the money we earned to reverse the "rewards" we treated ourselves to. Kinda like working a lot and stressing ourselves out just so we can afford to get a really nice spa.
Humiliating Love and a Bad Temper
There are problems you want to get over by focusing on something else. Some hurt or pain will heal over time. But if they are questions you are trying to ignore and forget, later on they will confront you again and you’re back to square one.
Were they cowards? Who is braver? Is quitting (as to outsiders) and facing your inner demons (inside) braver or more cowardly than its opposite – going on like before while dying inside?
Women with their hormones, moods, and emotions-based thinking are more prone to feeling depressed. Ha, humiliating love and a bad temper - as from another woman in a book I'm reading. Is that all there is? A lot of women have been through the same thing as mine. I am not gonna hide and escape with career. I'm going to face this head on. Because time is fast and before I know it, months and years will pass by. Time would have passed, and I haven’t grown a bit.
My former boss said if she's presented a choice between marriage and career, she wouldn't have second thoughts and choose marriage with all the traditional concepts - plain housewife, raising children, stay-at-home, etc. And she still thinks about it. Maybe with regret, with what-ifs. But she looks happy, that you'd think she's living a charmed life.
I wonder how she's feeling inside.
Were they cowards? Who is braver? Is quitting (as to outsiders) and facing your inner demons (inside) braver or more cowardly than its opposite – going on like before while dying inside?
Women with their hormones, moods, and emotions-based thinking are more prone to feeling depressed. Ha, humiliating love and a bad temper - as from another woman in a book I'm reading. Is that all there is? A lot of women have been through the same thing as mine. I am not gonna hide and escape with career. I'm going to face this head on. Because time is fast and before I know it, months and years will pass by. Time would have passed, and I haven’t grown a bit.
My former boss said if she's presented a choice between marriage and career, she wouldn't have second thoughts and choose marriage with all the traditional concepts - plain housewife, raising children, stay-at-home, etc. And she still thinks about it. Maybe with regret, with what-ifs. But she looks happy, that you'd think she's living a charmed life.
I wonder how she's feeling inside.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Dual personality
I think all of us have that dual personality, or an awareness that somewhere inside us is a person quite the opposite of what is generally on the outside. If we are the happy, gay, cheerful, helpful person...then there lies inside us also a quiet, reflective person with a few demons battling for attention.
And the change is triggered by certain unexpected and unpredictable scenarios, but the effect is oftentimes fleeting.
Which one do you like better? How much do you dread the other person? The opposite...and i suppose, other people call it yin and yang?
And the change is triggered by certain unexpected and unpredictable scenarios, but the effect is oftentimes fleeting.
Which one do you like better? How much do you dread the other person? The opposite...and i suppose, other people call it yin and yang?
Men, not Boys
I want a man of character - someone who can make decisions on his own, and can take risks, based on his principles, desires, and passions. It is, therefore, necessary that he knows himself as he can recognize those three when they appear, and build those into his personality that in the end, he has made himself whole.
A Single Woman's take on Love, Marriage, and Divorce
With my current state of mind occupied 24/7 by thoughts of my relationship with my boyfriend, this is the only topic I could write about at the moment. Wait, boyfriend? Ex. Repeat, Ex. In a few weeks’ time, our status fluctuated from “In a relationship” to “Single” to “It’s Complicated” to “In a relationship” again, and now it’s back to “It’s Complicated”. As an accountant, I’m predisposed on prudence and conservatism, which is why I’m more likely to label our relationship as Off rather then On. Why the complicated status (pardon the pun), you might ask? Mainly because of the geographical distance between us.
I was an NBSB (No Boyfriend Since Birth) for a good 23 years, when I met my first boyfriend in Hanoi 3 months ago. Initially, I thought a relationship is either a Yes or a No, and nothing in between…until now. Well, it’s one of those things a person has a hard time understanding until he/she personally experienced it. So I won’t bother explaining it to those who haven’t.
A year ago, I fell in love with a book. It’s a collection of 14 short stories – “The Stories of Edith Wharton”, Volume 1, Selected and Introduced by Anita Brookner. Five of them are my favorites, and they delve into the hearts, minds, and souls of the protagonists about the three matters I stated above. I will borrow excerpts from these stories, as I couldn’t express my thoughts better than the authoress herself.
The Letters
As her husband advanced up the path she had a sudden vision of their three years together. Those years were her whole life; everything before them had been colorless and unconscious, like the blind life of the plant before it reaches the surface of the soil. The years had not been exactly what she had dreamed; but if they had taken away certain illusions they had left richer realities in their stead. She understood now that she had gradually adjusted herself to the new image of her husband as he was, as he would always be. He was not the hero of her dreams, but he was the man she loved, and who had loved her. For she saw now, in this last wide flash of pity and initiation, that, as a comely marble may be made out of worthless scraps of mortar, glass, and pebbles, so out of mean mixed substances may be fashioned a love that will bear the stress of life.
Charm, Incorporated
‘But, Katinka, if Bellamy’s so gone on you, he ought to marry you,’ he said severely.
Katinka nodded her assent. ‘Certainly he ought. And I think he will, after I have lived with him a few months.’
This upset every single theory of Targatt’s with regard to his own sex. ‘But, my poor girl – if you go and live with a man first like…like any woman he could have for money, why on earth should he want to marry you afterward?’
Katinka looked at him calmly. Her eyelashes were not as long as Nadeja’s, but her eyes were as full of wisdom. ‘Habit,’ she said simply, and in an instant Targatt’s conventional world was in fragments at his feet. Who knew better than he did that if you once had the Kouradjine habit you couldn’t be cured of it? He said nothing more, and sat back to watch what happened to Mr. Bellamy.
Again, what is Love? Is it initial attraction thereafter sustained by Habit?
The Other Two
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his sensibilities. If he paid for each day’s comfort with the small change of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and set less store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling propinquity with Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole man who had lacked the opportunity to acquire the art. For it was an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations, and embellishments; of light judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to trace the source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which had combined to produce his domestic happiness: he perceived that Haskett’s commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while Varick’s liberal construction of the marriage bond had taught her to value the conjugal virtues; so that he was directly indebted to his predecessors for the devotion which made his life easy if not inspiring.
Friends are always asking me how many girlfriends my boyfriend had before me. I never asked, and never bothered. If it made him a sweeter person than before, then I’m fine with it. To how many girls do I owe such favor? Were they thinking that maybe our relationship was based on lies? I always felt his sincerity and genuineness, and he’s thoughtful in ways I would only realize afterward. He’s a gentleman in the most traditional sense, a warm person, and he knows how to treat people in the most endearing way appropriate.
The Reckoning
‘The law?’ she echoed ironically. ‘When he asks for his freedom?’
‘You are not obliged to give it.’
‘You were not obliged to give me mine – but you did.’
He made a protesting gesture.
‘You saw that the law couldn’t help you – didn’t you?’ she went on. ‘That is what I see now. The law represents material rights – it can’t go beyond. If we don’t recognize an inner law…the obligation that love creates…being loved as well as loving…there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered…is there?’ She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. ‘That is what I see now…what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he’s tired…but I was not tired; and I don’t understand why he is. That’s the dreadful part of it – the not understanding: I hadn’t realized what it meant. But I’ve been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me – things I hadn’t noticed…when you and I…’ She moved closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze which tries to reach beyond words. ‘I see now that you didn’t understand – did you?’
With a predominantly Catholic society, we tend to look with disapproval the people who are publicly known as separated or divorced. Sometimes, it is ignored that an obviously unhappy-for-a-long-time married couple are such. It is seen as an obligation, and that the law is unbreakable. Even if they seem like they were suffering and had no hope of marital happiness, and their children as their only excuses for staying together, as they fervently placed all their reason of happiness on their children. We judge by official announcements, and external actions. We ignore the obvious, albeit not declared, declarations. How about the private thoughts, as well as the actions they exchanged as a couple? Do those not count as being unfaithful? These are details privy to the persons involved, but are they not treated as actions of unfaithfulness? Shouldn’t happiness be the first priority, as long as there is neither harm nor offense being inflicted on other people?
The Long Run
‘She summed it all up, you know, when she said that one way of finding out whether a risk is worth taking is not to take it, and then to see what one becomes in the long run, and draw one’s inferences. The long run - well, we’ve run it, she and I. I know what I’ve become, but that’s nothing to the misery of knowing what she’s become. She had to have some kind of life, and she married Reardon. Reardon’s a very good fellow in his way; but the worst of it is that it’s not her way…’
FYI: My boyfriend is Caucasian, 16 years my senior, currently lives in another country other than his hometown (and mine), and has no religion. With differences in age, language, culture, religion (or lack thereof), and yes, height too, we face all the stares and the glares, the smirks and the vicious comments about any of those aspects. We do not look like the conventional couple, but we are in love. And do we care about these critics? No, we don’t. I don’t think we offend them in any real way, anyway. Are we interested to learn more about each other’s background and make the necessary adjustments? Yes. And I’m thankful that the stars blessed us with an open-minded family and friends. We lived in our own little world, and we learned that sometimes, a little Ignorance is Bliss. There will be more challenges to come. But if we can weather the remaining 9 months with long-distance relationship until our first anniversary, then I suppose we can face any obstacle head-on after that. Will our 2-month actual romance fuel us with passion to last the trial period? Are we willing to finally decide for ourselves (vs. letting ourselves go where life takes us) and take risks that will affect us for the rest of our lives? We had plans even before we met. Our meeting together was not a part of our respective plans.
Is Love a game, then? Did I lose? Or was it a game where both parties may win? We created a love story regardless of other people’s definition of love, sweetness, and thoughtfulness. We took it to a whole new level, as we dealt with it as it is on our own time and in our own ways. It was without basis on a chick-lit’s drama, Nicholas Spark’s movies, and societal assumption of gender-based roles. So what if you knew more of domestic and household work than I do?
As I was getting all emotional with our then up-coming separation as we were both leaving the city where we met, and flying to different countries after:
Him: We had a great time, didn’t we?
Me: Yes!
Him: So, it’s nothing to be sad about. It’s something that we should be happy about.
All these stories were stuck in my head for months. And by the Law of Attraction, I might have attracted circumstances that are similar to my thoughts. If I knew that a few of the tragic scenes from these stories will happen in my life, I should have read all the fairy tales and all the happily-ever-after ones.
I was an NBSB (No Boyfriend Since Birth) for a good 23 years, when I met my first boyfriend in Hanoi 3 months ago. Initially, I thought a relationship is either a Yes or a No, and nothing in between…until now. Well, it’s one of those things a person has a hard time understanding until he/she personally experienced it. So I won’t bother explaining it to those who haven’t.
A year ago, I fell in love with a book. It’s a collection of 14 short stories – “The Stories of Edith Wharton”, Volume 1, Selected and Introduced by Anita Brookner. Five of them are my favorites, and they delve into the hearts, minds, and souls of the protagonists about the three matters I stated above. I will borrow excerpts from these stories, as I couldn’t express my thoughts better than the authoress herself.
The Letters
As her husband advanced up the path she had a sudden vision of their three years together. Those years were her whole life; everything before them had been colorless and unconscious, like the blind life of the plant before it reaches the surface of the soil. The years had not been exactly what she had dreamed; but if they had taken away certain illusions they had left richer realities in their stead. She understood now that she had gradually adjusted herself to the new image of her husband as he was, as he would always be. He was not the hero of her dreams, but he was the man she loved, and who had loved her. For she saw now, in this last wide flash of pity and initiation, that, as a comely marble may be made out of worthless scraps of mortar, glass, and pebbles, so out of mean mixed substances may be fashioned a love that will bear the stress of life.
Charm, Incorporated
‘But, Katinka, if Bellamy’s so gone on you, he ought to marry you,’ he said severely.
Katinka nodded her assent. ‘Certainly he ought. And I think he will, after I have lived with him a few months.’
This upset every single theory of Targatt’s with regard to his own sex. ‘But, my poor girl – if you go and live with a man first like…like any woman he could have for money, why on earth should he want to marry you afterward?’
Katinka looked at him calmly. Her eyelashes were not as long as Nadeja’s, but her eyes were as full of wisdom. ‘Habit,’ she said simply, and in an instant Targatt’s conventional world was in fragments at his feet. Who knew better than he did that if you once had the Kouradjine habit you couldn’t be cured of it? He said nothing more, and sat back to watch what happened to Mr. Bellamy.
Again, what is Love? Is it initial attraction thereafter sustained by Habit?
The Other Two
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his sensibilities. If he paid for each day’s comfort with the small change of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and set less store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling propinquity with Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole man who had lacked the opportunity to acquire the art. For it was an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations, and embellishments; of light judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to trace the source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which had combined to produce his domestic happiness: he perceived that Haskett’s commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while Varick’s liberal construction of the marriage bond had taught her to value the conjugal virtues; so that he was directly indebted to his predecessors for the devotion which made his life easy if not inspiring.
Friends are always asking me how many girlfriends my boyfriend had before me. I never asked, and never bothered. If it made him a sweeter person than before, then I’m fine with it. To how many girls do I owe such favor? Were they thinking that maybe our relationship was based on lies? I always felt his sincerity and genuineness, and he’s thoughtful in ways I would only realize afterward. He’s a gentleman in the most traditional sense, a warm person, and he knows how to treat people in the most endearing way appropriate.
The Reckoning
‘The law?’ she echoed ironically. ‘When he asks for his freedom?’
‘You are not obliged to give it.’
‘You were not obliged to give me mine – but you did.’
He made a protesting gesture.
‘You saw that the law couldn’t help you – didn’t you?’ she went on. ‘That is what I see now. The law represents material rights – it can’t go beyond. If we don’t recognize an inner law…the obligation that love creates…being loved as well as loving…there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered…is there?’ She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. ‘That is what I see now…what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he’s tired…but I was not tired; and I don’t understand why he is. That’s the dreadful part of it – the not understanding: I hadn’t realized what it meant. But I’ve been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me – things I hadn’t noticed…when you and I…’ She moved closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze which tries to reach beyond words. ‘I see now that you didn’t understand – did you?’
With a predominantly Catholic society, we tend to look with disapproval the people who are publicly known as separated or divorced. Sometimes, it is ignored that an obviously unhappy-for-a-long-time married couple are such. It is seen as an obligation, and that the law is unbreakable. Even if they seem like they were suffering and had no hope of marital happiness, and their children as their only excuses for staying together, as they fervently placed all their reason of happiness on their children. We judge by official announcements, and external actions. We ignore the obvious, albeit not declared, declarations. How about the private thoughts, as well as the actions they exchanged as a couple? Do those not count as being unfaithful? These are details privy to the persons involved, but are they not treated as actions of unfaithfulness? Shouldn’t happiness be the first priority, as long as there is neither harm nor offense being inflicted on other people?
The Long Run
‘She summed it all up, you know, when she said that one way of finding out whether a risk is worth taking is not to take it, and then to see what one becomes in the long run, and draw one’s inferences. The long run - well, we’ve run it, she and I. I know what I’ve become, but that’s nothing to the misery of knowing what she’s become. She had to have some kind of life, and she married Reardon. Reardon’s a very good fellow in his way; but the worst of it is that it’s not her way…’
FYI: My boyfriend is Caucasian, 16 years my senior, currently lives in another country other than his hometown (and mine), and has no religion. With differences in age, language, culture, religion (or lack thereof), and yes, height too, we face all the stares and the glares, the smirks and the vicious comments about any of those aspects. We do not look like the conventional couple, but we are in love. And do we care about these critics? No, we don’t. I don’t think we offend them in any real way, anyway. Are we interested to learn more about each other’s background and make the necessary adjustments? Yes. And I’m thankful that the stars blessed us with an open-minded family and friends. We lived in our own little world, and we learned that sometimes, a little Ignorance is Bliss. There will be more challenges to come. But if we can weather the remaining 9 months with long-distance relationship until our first anniversary, then I suppose we can face any obstacle head-on after that. Will our 2-month actual romance fuel us with passion to last the trial period? Are we willing to finally decide for ourselves (vs. letting ourselves go where life takes us) and take risks that will affect us for the rest of our lives? We had plans even before we met. Our meeting together was not a part of our respective plans.
Is Love a game, then? Did I lose? Or was it a game where both parties may win? We created a love story regardless of other people’s definition of love, sweetness, and thoughtfulness. We took it to a whole new level, as we dealt with it as it is on our own time and in our own ways. It was without basis on a chick-lit’s drama, Nicholas Spark’s movies, and societal assumption of gender-based roles. So what if you knew more of domestic and household work than I do?
As I was getting all emotional with our then up-coming separation as we were both leaving the city where we met, and flying to different countries after:
Him: We had a great time, didn’t we?
Me: Yes!
Him: So, it’s nothing to be sad about. It’s something that we should be happy about.
All these stories were stuck in my head for months. And by the Law of Attraction, I might have attracted circumstances that are similar to my thoughts. If I knew that a few of the tragic scenes from these stories will happen in my life, I should have read all the fairy tales and all the happily-ever-after ones.
From the diary of a 15-year old girl
February 18, 1918
...A passionate joy comes over me when I look into the distance; there, beyond the houses, the towns, the people, all is radiant, all is full of sunshine...Then it dawns upon me that my life will be different from theirs...bright, interesting...
Then I see young girls, such as I shall become in three or four years' time. They live, like every one else from day to day, waiting for something. They live drab, dull lives...Probably they too had visions of a bright, happy future, and gazed into the golden distance...But now...where is that golden distance? Did they not reach it? Can one never reach it? Does it exist really, or only in our dreams?
For, surely, I am not the only dreamer. Are they not dreamers too? Shall I live on as they do, following the pattern woven by routine on the canvas of life? Waiting for some one?
There will be nothing...No, no, not that! I am frightened. Given me my golden horizon. Let me live a full life, with all the strength of my soul.
October 14, 1918
...I shall arrange it, so as not to depend on love, let alone wait for it as so many girls do. I shall live. If love comes I shall take it; if not, I shall regret it, wildly regret it, but I shall live all the same.
I see in my imagination a small flat, furnished with exquisite comfort...Beauty everywhere, softness, cosiness. And I am the mistress of it - a woman and a personality at the same time. I live an interesting life: writers, artists, painters forgather at my house, a really interesting circle, a close, friendly community. I know no picture more attractive than this. I am free, independent. In these surroundings, in which there is even no place for it, I shall not regret love. Life is full without it. It is only the dawn of love which I should miss...those moments, the memory of which beautifies all the life of man.
-Nelly Ptaschkina
...A passionate joy comes over me when I look into the distance; there, beyond the houses, the towns, the people, all is radiant, all is full of sunshine...Then it dawns upon me that my life will be different from theirs...bright, interesting...
Then I see young girls, such as I shall become in three or four years' time. They live, like every one else from day to day, waiting for something. They live drab, dull lives...Probably they too had visions of a bright, happy future, and gazed into the golden distance...But now...where is that golden distance? Did they not reach it? Can one never reach it? Does it exist really, or only in our dreams?
For, surely, I am not the only dreamer. Are they not dreamers too? Shall I live on as they do, following the pattern woven by routine on the canvas of life? Waiting for some one?
There will be nothing...No, no, not that! I am frightened. Given me my golden horizon. Let me live a full life, with all the strength of my soul.
October 14, 1918
...I shall arrange it, so as not to depend on love, let alone wait for it as so many girls do. I shall live. If love comes I shall take it; if not, I shall regret it, wildly regret it, but I shall live all the same.
I see in my imagination a small flat, furnished with exquisite comfort...Beauty everywhere, softness, cosiness. And I am the mistress of it - a woman and a personality at the same time. I live an interesting life: writers, artists, painters forgather at my house, a really interesting circle, a close, friendly community. I know no picture more attractive than this. I am free, independent. In these surroundings, in which there is even no place for it, I shall not regret love. Life is full without it. It is only the dawn of love which I should miss...those moments, the memory of which beautifies all the life of man.
-Nelly Ptaschkina
Realizations
It's been such a long time. I bought a book today at my favorite bookstore with all the second (or third) hand books. It's about diaries of women, with excerpts to show their feelings. It's mostly about emotions, and I was moved. I haven't finished it yet, but I intend to. I love my weekends! I have plenty of time to think, and to read! And I love reading, and thinking and reflecting about what I've just read. And these women! They have real emotions, with depth and breadth and with no attempt to pretend or conceal any of it. And I recognize most of them! The dreams, the loneliness, the tempers, and all the little peskiness "normal" people would dismiss as petty.
I wanted to write this entry here, and not in my Steve blog. That was for him, and I have to have my own identity. I longed and still do, long for someone to be able to share my thoughts with. I usually imagine myself talking to someone explaining my side of the story, with my conjured up scenarios wherein I'd prevail as the one more experienced, more interesting, more exciting of the group. Just to be able to think! It makes me think of reasons I would have never thought of just thinking on my own without imagining conversing with it with someone else. And I do long to have a real person whom I can share those imaginary conversations with, with a resulting enlightenment and happiness on both sides. But with Steve, our relationship is still quite new. We are just starting. It may seem as if we have fastforwarded some events as a couple, but I suppose with the distance we are learning how to slow down and get back at the start. So we are starting anew each time, and discovering more about ourselves I hope. I want to learn more about him, but I'm quite afraid that if I bombard him with my personal thoughts, he may be overwhelmed and he may think he should respond in the same way. It might cause him to shut down and remove me completely from his system. And I know I cannot go on without him...at this point, that is. So for now, we'll take it slow. As I am not a person of subtlety and gradualness, rather a person of extremes, with no comprises in between - this is a rather taxing occupation.
I've been thinking what I have done so far since last year. You see, 2009 - I graduated from college, took the CPA board exam, and went to Singapore and Thailand. This year, 2010 - I started and ended 3 jobs, and went to Vietnam. At present, I've come to realize life has been moving so fast. That if I'm not careful of being at "present" and holding on to my dreams, if I'll just let society (not life) move me - I will go on forever living in the office cubicle. It would have been by far, the MOST CONVENIENT way to live life, isn't it? With a nice cubicle, a good job, good environment, steady pay and long-term benefits so you won't worry in the future? Was I living on a payday-to-payday basis then? Working just to pay my bills? Was it all it meant to be an adult? Keep a job to pay the bills, and manage your temper. Days just zoom by, and before you know it, it's been weeks...and months! What have I accomplished these past several weeks? I don't think I have enjoyed the working days half as much than my weekends - where I felt free and limited at the same time. Free to do anything I want, but limited as to time.
Did I quit? Was it considered quitting? I would like to think more if it as Pausing. Trying to stop time for a little while, just to think and see how far I've gone and chart my future. I can't go on just because. I want to be able to dream again, and believe in my dreams. I may be naive, honey. But imagination keeps me alive! I wanted to have and feel that passion again - the passion to do something, feel the love for something. Office job makes me feel dead. It's killing me. Other people are fine with it, some even bloom I suppose. But I don't. It's just not me. I would like to start my mornings with coffee and newspaper, do some reading and writing, and then do (not work as it implies something dreadful and grueling) something I really want to do! Something I'd wake up for!
I don't want a job with only the end in mind. To feel rewarded and happy upon achieving something, and be totally miserable and stressed the whole time on the way to that goal. I heard that Life is a Journey, not an end in itself. I want to enjoy the way, like traveling. It's not just from point A to B. It's the whole trip! Of course we can't have happy moments all the time, as I've also read that you can't differentiate happiness and sadness if you're just feeling one emotion all the time. But we can Choose our general disposition.
And about Steve, have I been making illusions of him as my knight in shining armor? Someone who's gonna take care of me so I won't have to work? I've got all these disney fairy tales in my mind - prince charming and happily ever after. It's like there is a fork in the road leading to 2 narrow paths - 1 successful independent career, and 1 happy romantic marital bliss. Can I have both? Independence as my own person, and Marriage (or Companionship) with my soul mate. Would it be compatible? I have been thinking lately they are quite exclusive of each other, and to choose one would be to ignore the other. Maybe it will work, as soon as I find and develop my own person.
I want to work - doing something I know adds value to the human society, as a whole, as the net effect to everything and everyone in general. Not limited to the family, the country, or whatever group society has demanded service for. I commute to work everyday, and I see the faces of my fellow commuters. They are dead, retired as someone else said. Some are pretty and wear makeup, but most are plain and dull and boring...as if they live a boring life. Because oftentimes a face is a reflection of your soul - with your eyes and the smile. But they look like zombies just going to work because they have to and have been programmed to. Maybe they appear so because they're using the travel time to reflect and think about that day or other issues? But the end matter is...they don't look happy. They look totally devoid of life.
But I want life. I want emotions, passions, expressions! Fine, even tempers! Those goody two shoes girls I met makes me wonder if they have really experienced enough in life to have the depth and breadth of human emotions. Why are they so limited, so controlled? ...so narrow. It's not good to judge people, but it's not bad to reflect about their lives so I'll know what I want and don't.
I like Steve precisely because he's got character, and his own personality. And he reads. He isn't afraid what people might think of him. He's got his own mind, and I think that's what makes one a Man or a Woman. Though he's happy when I take the lead sometimes, with his permission of course. It makes him relaxed. But still, he's his own person and he won't bend for anybody. And neither of us can claim having controlled the other. With guys my age, they seem captivated by me and my mind and whatever it is I've done or planned to do. I have conquered them, and they haven't even conquered themselves.
Quite ironic now that I'm hearing a lot of young women wanting to marry their Prince Charmings, stop working, and live in their castles forever. And this after decades of women fighting for freedom and equality. :)
I wanted to write this entry here, and not in my Steve blog. That was for him, and I have to have my own identity. I longed and still do, long for someone to be able to share my thoughts with. I usually imagine myself talking to someone explaining my side of the story, with my conjured up scenarios wherein I'd prevail as the one more experienced, more interesting, more exciting of the group. Just to be able to think! It makes me think of reasons I would have never thought of just thinking on my own without imagining conversing with it with someone else. And I do long to have a real person whom I can share those imaginary conversations with, with a resulting enlightenment and happiness on both sides. But with Steve, our relationship is still quite new. We are just starting. It may seem as if we have fastforwarded some events as a couple, but I suppose with the distance we are learning how to slow down and get back at the start. So we are starting anew each time, and discovering more about ourselves I hope. I want to learn more about him, but I'm quite afraid that if I bombard him with my personal thoughts, he may be overwhelmed and he may think he should respond in the same way. It might cause him to shut down and remove me completely from his system. And I know I cannot go on without him...at this point, that is. So for now, we'll take it slow. As I am not a person of subtlety and gradualness, rather a person of extremes, with no comprises in between - this is a rather taxing occupation.
I've been thinking what I have done so far since last year. You see, 2009 - I graduated from college, took the CPA board exam, and went to Singapore and Thailand. This year, 2010 - I started and ended 3 jobs, and went to Vietnam. At present, I've come to realize life has been moving so fast. That if I'm not careful of being at "present" and holding on to my dreams, if I'll just let society (not life) move me - I will go on forever living in the office cubicle. It would have been by far, the MOST CONVENIENT way to live life, isn't it? With a nice cubicle, a good job, good environment, steady pay and long-term benefits so you won't worry in the future? Was I living on a payday-to-payday basis then? Working just to pay my bills? Was it all it meant to be an adult? Keep a job to pay the bills, and manage your temper. Days just zoom by, and before you know it, it's been weeks...and months! What have I accomplished these past several weeks? I don't think I have enjoyed the working days half as much than my weekends - where I felt free and limited at the same time. Free to do anything I want, but limited as to time.
Did I quit? Was it considered quitting? I would like to think more if it as Pausing. Trying to stop time for a little while, just to think and see how far I've gone and chart my future. I can't go on just because. I want to be able to dream again, and believe in my dreams. I may be naive, honey. But imagination keeps me alive! I wanted to have and feel that passion again - the passion to do something, feel the love for something. Office job makes me feel dead. It's killing me. Other people are fine with it, some even bloom I suppose. But I don't. It's just not me. I would like to start my mornings with coffee and newspaper, do some reading and writing, and then do (not work as it implies something dreadful and grueling) something I really want to do! Something I'd wake up for!
I don't want a job with only the end in mind. To feel rewarded and happy upon achieving something, and be totally miserable and stressed the whole time on the way to that goal. I heard that Life is a Journey, not an end in itself. I want to enjoy the way, like traveling. It's not just from point A to B. It's the whole trip! Of course we can't have happy moments all the time, as I've also read that you can't differentiate happiness and sadness if you're just feeling one emotion all the time. But we can Choose our general disposition.
And about Steve, have I been making illusions of him as my knight in shining armor? Someone who's gonna take care of me so I won't have to work? I've got all these disney fairy tales in my mind - prince charming and happily ever after. It's like there is a fork in the road leading to 2 narrow paths - 1 successful independent career, and 1 happy romantic marital bliss. Can I have both? Independence as my own person, and Marriage (or Companionship) with my soul mate. Would it be compatible? I have been thinking lately they are quite exclusive of each other, and to choose one would be to ignore the other. Maybe it will work, as soon as I find and develop my own person.
I want to work - doing something I know adds value to the human society, as a whole, as the net effect to everything and everyone in general. Not limited to the family, the country, or whatever group society has demanded service for. I commute to work everyday, and I see the faces of my fellow commuters. They are dead, retired as someone else said. Some are pretty and wear makeup, but most are plain and dull and boring...as if they live a boring life. Because oftentimes a face is a reflection of your soul - with your eyes and the smile. But they look like zombies just going to work because they have to and have been programmed to. Maybe they appear so because they're using the travel time to reflect and think about that day or other issues? But the end matter is...they don't look happy. They look totally devoid of life.
But I want life. I want emotions, passions, expressions! Fine, even tempers! Those goody two shoes girls I met makes me wonder if they have really experienced enough in life to have the depth and breadth of human emotions. Why are they so limited, so controlled? ...so narrow. It's not good to judge people, but it's not bad to reflect about their lives so I'll know what I want and don't.
I like Steve precisely because he's got character, and his own personality. And he reads. He isn't afraid what people might think of him. He's got his own mind, and I think that's what makes one a Man or a Woman. Though he's happy when I take the lead sometimes, with his permission of course. It makes him relaxed. But still, he's his own person and he won't bend for anybody. And neither of us can claim having controlled the other. With guys my age, they seem captivated by me and my mind and whatever it is I've done or planned to do. I have conquered them, and they haven't even conquered themselves.
Quite ironic now that I'm hearing a lot of young women wanting to marry their Prince Charmings, stop working, and live in their castles forever. And this after decades of women fighting for freedom and equality. :)
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