I Lost my Toenail

Surprisingly it didn't hurt as the nail was pulled back from the bed. The nail had already been separated from the bed for a while. This happened after a Big Sur backpacking trip. I think the strain of the hike caused pressure on the nail.

Hopefully it grows back soon. I'll miss it while it's gone. And pedicures. And open-toed shoes.

The Way Things Ought to Be

Had a conversation with a friend today that made me think, it's ok not to live every day like you're out to change the world. That's too ambitious.

Live your life in a way that is bigger than yourself.

And be grateful. Always be grateful. The power went out for a few minutes in my neighborhood earlier, and the minor inconvenience had me thinking about how terribly intolerable the entire situation was becoming as more time passed.

Living too well these days.

It Can Move Mountains

I was talking with my Dad today and he nonchalantly mentioned that he was taking my mom to the doctor on Thursday. I remembered she had visited the doctor earlier this month...
Me: Why is Mom going to the doctor?
Dad: *Long pause* [My dad never pauses when talking] Well, your mom told me not to tell you, but she's going to have surgery to get a growth removed.
Me: WHAT
Dad: The doctor said it's benign but they want to take preventative measures so that it doesn't become something more.
So there it is. Moms don a cape and become superheroes. My mom didn't want us to know this was going on because she didn't want me and my sister to be worried. The selflessness of it makes me want to cry. Even as grown adults we are continually shielded with love and giving. I also thought about my coworker, who relentlessly is helping her son with ADHD plan his next steps for college, even as he lashes out at her with frustration. The giving - it's unconditional and pure and the most infinite there is.

If I could wrap my mom up and protect her with an unbreakable shield so that nothing could ever harm her, it might start to resemble the cocoon of love she's built for us.

Relationship Advice from my Cube Soulmate

M: problems that are not problems can be problematic in a relationship

Yes. Just trust.

Work Life Balance: Still a Very REAL Dilemma for us Ladies

This Linkedin post by entrepreneur Inge Geerdens really irked me when I read it the other day. Basically she expresses a mild level of exasperation in having to field questions from people about balancing her work and home life that her male counterparts don't have to deal with. As she states,

"Being a female entrepreneur has its upsides, but also its disadvantages. Like having to find an answer to the question I - contrary to my male colleagues ? - get asked a lot. “As a mother of three children, how do you balance your work and your private life?”"

Um, hello, Ms Geerdens? In case you didn't notice, this is a very real issue that characterizes the very being of working mothers. People wouldn't be asking these questions and highlighting this imbalance if it didn't exist. She goes on to reveal the true reason that having to balance work and home life has never been an issue for her:

"At some point in our life my husband and I had the feeling we weren’t around enough for our children and we had to make a choice. And we did: we decided I would expand my business, while my husband became a stay-at-home dad helping me as well, but mainly during school hours...My husband and I make a great team. We found a way to live the life we love, without feeling guilty. So the answer is: I never have to think about a balance. I work with the people I like, I live with the people I love and I love the job I do."

Is this a footnote? An asterisk? No, it defines - and is the sole and key reason - her situation and experience are unlike that of other ambitious, family-loving women. And she inserted it in there breezily, giving it a lot less credit than it deserved for why she was able to have the "great life" any right-minded, hard-working woman would want. Her post would have been tons more helpful if she described how she was able to snag a man like that. Sadly her experience reinforced the fact that to make it to the upper echelons of the corporate world, there have to be career sacrifices made by one party of the relationship if children are in the picture. More often than not, that ends up being the mother.

Unfortunately Ms Geerdens, you are the exception, and not the rule.

?

Hi blog,

What do you do when you start having doubts about the thing you thought you were most sure of in your life?

Ronald Davis

The video I watched today struck my core in a way no emotion-inducing event has before. I can't remember the last time I felt so sad.

3:12 PM ckswong008: that link is sad

3:13 PM me: i started crying at work

 ckswong008: lol shut up

 me: i did

3:14 PM ckswong008: reminds me of those project angel food

  and this volunteering thing i did at pasadena

  its crazy how different it can be

  maybe all he needed

  was a shower

  one set of nice clothes

  and he would be on his way

  to getting a night shift job

3:15 PM me: it's so true

  how can they move up in the system when everything is working against them?

3:16 PM even "nice, regular" people, like our friends

  treat them as invisible

  i was thinking, do i look a homeless person in the eye when i give them something?

  it's like homeless people are seen as 2nd class/less-than-human in the eyes of mainstream society

3:17 PM ckswong008: in all societies

 me: they are deprived of many things but the most important thing they are deprived of

  is dignity

3:18 PM ckswong008: its easy for ppl who has always been spoon fed

  to ignore the tough times these less fortunate people go through

  because they cant even fathom in their perfect little life

3:19 PM whats it like to have nothing

 me: yes you can tell just by reading FB

  "i killed a spider today"

3:20 PM "look at these flowers my bf got me"

  random shot of food

  so absorbed in their own puny circles and nothing beyond themselves

3:21 PM ckswong008: yeah

  its sad

3:22 PM its also the perception

  of them being lazy and self inflicted

  ppl have never interacted with them

  its easy to assume that they are just purposely living that way

  theres gotta be menial labor jobs around

  at least

3:23 PM theres gotta be some structural changes

  but the problem is that

  homelessnes has always been aroundme: that form of existence is nothing a decent human should ever experience, yet it happens around us all the time

  we live among it

3:36 PM i don't know which is more sad

  the form of existence

  or our apathy

 ckswong008: apathy

  is the worst

Talking About Myself

I feel like I've spent a good part of this weekend meeting new people and talking about myself. Talking about yourself consecutively about the superficial, factual aspects of your life kind of makes you feel like a broken record after a while. I live in South San Francisco, I moved to the Bay area for work, I'm originally from LA, I work in IT, I live with my sister, etc etc.

Through this exercise, I realized I'm kind of boring. I haven't been to many far-flung exotic places, I haven't gotten a PhD in anything, I don't have an extreme hobby that would make people go ooh, nor do I have great/fun/exciting/interesting stories to tell about myself. After all the introduction hoopla, I find myself kind of just settling back and letting others take the driver's seat in terms of steering the conversation. I do discover that whenever I have a conversation with others who I've just met or don't know so well, I ask them a lot of questions. I think it's a way for me to discover facts and commonalities about the other person I can latch onto and keep the conversation going with, and then I find out a lot about them during the process.

So do people end up not really knowing me well? Is that possible, to "know" someone, after one conversation? I suppose I don't mind people not knowing much about me, but I like learning about others. In the delicate dance that we call conversation, I suppose I'm content with being led, as it's the best way to learn the dance quickly and be able to complement my partner's moves as we sashay back and forth.

Are Sea Turtles Happier?

I was sitting here, ironing my work pants tonight, when it dawned on me that it is the 4th day of March. In 2013. Didn't I just wake up hungover yesterday after a night of drinking and celebrating the New Year? And then I felt the slightest bit of uneasiness that I couldn't just stand up, right then and there, stomp my foot, and make time come to a standstill. It wouldn't stop moving. It was moving as I was ironing. It was moving as I was feeling anxious. Heck, it's going to be so smug this weekend when it takes an hour away from me and makes us move our clocks forward. This obvious fact of truth made me wonder what I was doing there, mundanely ironing my pants preparing for an utterly predictable and most likely uneventful next day. Shouldn't I be creating much more unique memories? Shouldn't I be doing something major with every minute of my life? Shouldn't I be LIVING, BREATHING, INHALING, ABSORBING, RETAINING, every single second that ticked by before my very eyes?

I think I've been having something of a quarter life crisis lately. Maybe it's not a crisis, but a period of rediscovering myself. Discovering that I have the vitality in me to do and try things I didn't find interesting before. Is it driven by a sudden realization that there are a lot of things worth investing time and energy, and sometimes money, in around me? Is it my irrational fear that I can't pull back each second that passes by, and instead, must helplessly watch it go without a memorable moment to brand it?

I feel a mixture of optimism, anticipation, fear, and uneasiness about my future and what I will achieve. Sometimes--more than anything--I wish I could relish every moment in my life worth living for, present and future, as my 26-year-old-self. I have the physical strength. I have the emotional maturity. I have the cognizance. But I suppose the moments you remember most fondly in specific parts of your life are imprinted in your mind so, because you were meant to have it then. It was the right moment, in the right time, at the right part of your life. I'd like to believe that to be true.

A response I got recently about my life being UN-amazing 90% of the time, was that maybe the 10% was worth everything else. What a comforting and beautiful thought. If I am lucky enough to live that long, my 75-year-old self won't remember ironing her pants for work the next day on that March evening, but she'll remember the moments of her life that welled up her eyes and took her breath away.

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

I came across this jarring article on my Facebook newsfeed and I had to share it here. It's about a nurse in palliative care who documented the final regrets of the patients she had taken care of over the years. This must mean something, as I can imagine if you're on your deathbed, that's the best time than any other point in your life to tell the truth. I can sadly see why these regrets would be common among dying folk. It really made me contemplate about what the priorities currently are in my life. Have I made choices that 1) make me as happy as I possibly can be and, 2) put the people I care most deeply about in my heart, at the top of my priorities as well? I think life is not too short, but so long that people so easily fall into complacency. Complacent to give attention to the things that don't really matter to you and brush aside the things and people that do (or should) matter to you. Life is so long we lose sight of the bigger picture, why and what it is we really live for. My family can wait. My deadlines can't. Taking a vacation to a place I've wanted to visit for so long can wait. All these issues at work can't.

I reflected on each of these and how I've scored, so to speak, at this point in my life:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
So far so good. I wasn't so courageous in high school to be non-conformist, but in regards to the major life choices I've made, I can say with certainty were due to considerations of my own happiness and others I love in my life (which amounts to just as much as my own happiness).
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I can see this as a big regret of many when we now live in a world of work-centered life. You can blame capitalism and the rat pack. If you don't work hard, how will you pay for that vacation that you probably will not get to take for a year because you're too busy at work? I do work hard (at times). I have so far in my life, been able to keep work at bay so that work-life balance exists. It hasn't kept me from going on trips with my family, my friends, and experiencing a sense of general well-being. I can see it becoming harder to maintain as I work longer, become promoted, and really may face a challenge in achieving work-life balance. But I will continue to fight for that balance and remember the true purpose of work. It is a means to an end.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I'm bad at this. It takes many forms. An awkward smile. A bitten tongue. A volcano of feelings and thoughts that don't erupt. I am so lucky in the fact that the man I love so much overcame my utter lack of expressiveness and decided to make the first move. I would have harbored deep, deep regrets had I carried my feelings for him alone, unshared, unknown, for the rest of my life. I need to tell my parents, brother, and sister that I love them more often. [Even as it is completely due to my parents' childrearing that they don't hear the 3 lovely little words from me to them nearly enough.] I hope this is something I can work on and improve at as I mature.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Ah, talk about weaknesses. Even with the aid of modern technology, I am notoriously bad at keeping in touch with people, so much so that I literally forgot this person was an integral part of my life for X period of my life. This person will never hear a peep from me as long as our paths stop crossing. Shameful, yes? Unintentionally rash. Can you believe my luck though? People still send messages wishing me well and requesting to catch up, as horrible a friend I might be for forgetting they existed or not making the effort to reconnect.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I'm not really sure about this one. I don't think I've ever intentionally deprived myself of happiness. I suppose there is always room for improvement in making oneself happier. A lot of it is achievable internally. I should let the smaller things go. Be more patient. Do more of the things that make me happy. Like sleep. I know some say you can sleep all you want when you're dead and in the ground, but as a living being I derive happiness from it. I can't tell for sure but I think I'm pretty happy when I sleep. I'm about to make myself happy now and hit the sack.

In all seriousness, once in a while I think we need to check in with ourselves and ask 1) am I happy? Am I truly, uninhibitedly happy? and 2) What am I living for? Who am I living for? If you're not satisfied with those answers or can't answer, then a third question--what can I change, that's within my control, in order to be happier? One thing is, if you can even get to the point to contemplate those questions, then you should be happy, because you're blessed in more ways than one over so many others.

Lesson #2 on Becoming a Grown Woman

Rebalance and reassess your 401(k) account often.

Lesson #1 on Becoming a Grown Woman

Spend a few extra dollars and don't get trinkets that try to pass as jewelry from places like Forever 21, as I learned tonight while organizing and pulling apart one of my necklaces. I will invest my money in items I can wear over and over again and that are of reasonably high quality.

Year of the Snake aka Brenda is 24 aka I'm Old

I was browsing the 99 Ranch website (don't ask why) and I came across this ad for a Lunar New Year feast. I was thinking, man, I don't know how to make 75% of the dishes on this menu...which led to, my mom is so good at making all these dishes look effortless each year...which led to, I miss my family and wish I would be there with them this Chinese New Year.

=(

A Simple Wish--Can my Mom and Dad Just Ask How My Day Was?

I was reminded tonight when I called my parents of why I sometimes dread calling them. It was a conversation that quickly turned into my dad nagging me about finding a "special skill" in my work so I wouldn't be eliminated from this cruel, realistic world. He even suggested doing a CPA. I don't know how to describe my line of work to him and what career plans I have for myself, but I think it's more trouble than it's worth.

Then my mom chimed in in the background, in a very serious tone, about keeping my eyes open for a boy up here and to let the long distance thing go. She told me not to be so dependent on something that's hundreds of miles away. That's when I realized how tired I was and went to take a shower.

So in our 10 minute phone conversation, we covered these 2 topics for 95% of the time.

I feel like the high school me. They're still trying to live my life for me. The difference is that now, they've become lame ducks.

Playing Catch Up

Oh golly, has it really been 4 months since my last post? I think I let work get the best of me. There's something so disdainfully mind-numbing about work that discourages introspection. Even if the work is stimulating, I have less time (and motivation) to reflect on things I read (I'm doing less of that in general), and the ideas I encounter. The New York Times used to be one of my favorite sites to browse and read articles about things I knew nothing about and consequently learn slightly more than nothing. I visit the site (which is also the browser homepage on my Mac) once a week now, if lucky.

Many moments, in this year alone though not a month has passed, I've gotten to a point in my train of thought where I wanted to go to my blog and start writing. But then work got in the way. Making lunch got in my way, or preparing for the next day in general. I'm glad I've finally dragged myself here, once again, though unfortunately those thoughts have now escaped me, and it probably doesn't make much sense or for much fun reading to conjoin all the ideas I've failed to get into a post into this post now. It'll become too scrambled and disjointed. I will try to take that extra step and get thoughts into the wonderful world of the blogosphere as best I can. Anyway, it usually makes the most sense to list recent items that have preoccupied my life in trying to catch up after a long hiatus. Many of these take the form of obsessions.

Downton Abbey: First world problems for the early 20th century. Not to belittle the seriousness of war, women's rights, political turmoil, and social inequity, but there are more worthy things to preoccupy myself with and cry over than a rich aristocratic British family worrying about having to sell their castle-like abbey and moving into a smaller estate (as they woefully call it), or how to preserve the ridiculously gigantic fortune for the eldest daughter instead of allowing a third cousin to inherit it. But it can't be helped. I am glued to this show. And it doesn't seem like it'll let up soon, given that PBS has already started season 4 (at least in the UK). I'll be following.

Farmers markets: Yay for fresh fruits and vegetables! Yay for eating healthy! I've made a list of SF's notable farmers markets open on Saturday and Sunday and made a point to visit a different one each week as time allows. I have my favorites, but I'm still exploring. And my absolute favorite thing is to see the different offerings of all the vendors and be among other San Franciscans. Along the same note of eating healthy, I've also been trying to do more chicken and fish and less pork and beef. I've been at it successfully for a while (I definitely eat less of the latter 2 now than before), but I let myself fall into a relapse this weekend (had 2 hamburgers, a wrap with meat that I couldn't identify, but certain it wasn't chicken, a Coke, a butter-infused ice cream bar, chips, and empty calories via the ever sinful vehicle of alcohol.). I am embarrassed that in a post on this very same page, I lamented and "put my foot down" on my sugar consumption habits. Need to stop. Need to be more disciplined. I can tell it's adversely impacting my body, this ingesting of unhealthy food, and it doesn't make me feel any better psychologically either. Must remember: yes to wholesome, nutritious food. Big NO to junk!

Yoga: Still in my life. One of the few steadfast and constant things I love.

Yelping: managing to maintain Elite status baby. Yeyah.

Leo, spending time with sister, candles, homeware, spring wardrobe, spring cleaning (I'm early this year), anticipating my first snowboarding trip of the season. Missing my family and dog, as usual. I thought about when the next big phase of my life would be, and that led me to thinking that by the time my dad retires (in about 2 years' time) it will be time for me, also, to move back to Socal. I haven't really told anyone this except my sister, but I think the 2 milestones will coincide nicely. Regardless, I am always wishing for my parents' happiness and healthiness.

As always, grateful to be typing this in the comfort and warmth of my own bed.