This morning

he told me he is falling in love with me!

5 stages of relationship

1. COURTSHIP

‘Falling in Love’, a very passionate, very romantic, idealised relationship. The challenge at this stage is for each person to allow themselves to become vulnerable, to take the risk that by opening themselves to the other person they may hurt. Usually the partners are blind to any problems and there is no other reality.

2. HONEYMOON

The relationship is happy and stable at this time. The emphasis is on the couple’s ‘sameness’. They do everything together. The challenges are being able to separate enough from their family and developing the expression of their positive emotions, love and sexuality.

3. DIFFERENTIATION

Some differences start to emerge. The couple do less together and more as individuals. Each is able to see aspects of their partner that they may not have seen before. They no longer are perfect. It is a challenge for many people to be able to tolerate the decrease in the intensity of the relationship and an increase in the emotional distance will be perceived as evidence of the partner being selfish, stubborn, uncaring or withdrawn.

4. CONFLICT

It is common during this stage to feel quite disillusioned with your partner and to tend to blame them for any difficulties. ‘If only they would change, everything would be alright.’ There are many challenges to face during this stage, developing the necessary skills:

Express negative emotions to their partner; hurt, anger, fear
Communicate openly and honestly
Raise issues as necessary
Resolve conflicts constructively
Open themselves to self examination and to increase their self awareness
Take responsibility for their own part in the interactions of the relationship
The risks for this stage are that many couples lose faith in each other, lose their sense of hope for the future, deciding that they have ‘fallen out of love’ and decide to separate.

5. MUTUAL INTERDEPENDENCE

This stage is characterised by the following aspects:

Both are able to act independently, feel capable and competent in their own right
Both are able to provide support for their partner when needed
Both partners feel that their needs are being met both physically and emotionally
Both partners are staying in the relationship by choice – not because of expectations of others such as family or religious beliefs or to avoid the fears of leaving.
Both are able to take individual responsibility
The couple should now have increased respect for both themselves and their partner, increased trust in the strength of the relationship and increased hope for the future. The challenge now is for the couple to be flexible and adaptable enough to adjust to all of life’s changes over time. They should be able to tolerate closeness without fearing suffocation.

Happiness

is the state of mind that precisely describes my life today.

Montana

by Gary Johnson

A great many small failures have brought me to this
Dark room where, against the teachings of the church,
I lie in the forgiving dark with you and we kiss
And loosen our clothing and feel the hot urge
Toward nakedness, man's natural destination,
The slow unbuttoning, unclasping, until at last
We lie revealed. The fine sensation
Of you on my skin. A slender woman as vast
As Montana and I am now heading west
On a winding road through the dark contours
Of mountains and into a valley, coming to rest
In a meadow that I recognize as yours.
This is what I drove across North Dakota to find:
This sweet nest. And put all my failed life behind.

1. Trust and be trustworthy. Trust is the backbone of true love. You should never have to doubt him, nor he you. Do not cheat! What does that mean? Anything you wouldn’t want him to do with a third party.

2. Communicate effectively. Men are not from Mars, but there can be misunderstandings between the sexes. So don’t expect him to “just know” what you want; tell him. Don’t talk around your main point. Give him some time to absorb what you are saying. Don’t play passive-aggressive. Avoid giving unsolicited advice or criticism—ask first.

3. Be with him—but be yourself. It’s nice to be open to your man’s interests and opinions, but if you find that you don’t share them, let him pursue them on his own! Don’t start TiVo-ing the U.S. Open just because he keeps a tennis racket in his trunk.

4. Don’t overanalyze. A healthy relationship is organic. If you find yourself constantly analyzing what’s going on between you and your man, either you need to relax and lighten up, or something is amiss. Try the former first. If you find yourself plagued by doubt, suspicion or insecurity, you two might not belong together.

Nervous

I am nervous...

Since I sent out the email invitation this morning, I have been dreadful about the reply. What would he say? How would he respond? At this moment, I am telling myself, be calm, things will turn out to be how they should be.

Be calm. Be calm. Be calm.

was cleaning up the bookshelf, found a card dated nine months ago. remembered i was lookng through the entire apt to look for it. did not know it was hiding there for the entire time. things have changed so much, people have changed too. read the card again, tears dropped on the paper again.

Cartographer

Here is why I love about this town. My eventful Sunday ended with meeting an interesting guy: a world-class cartographer! Of course, shamefully, I learned the word cartographer for the first time. He does not have an outstanding figure based on my definition. But he did have a strong presence with his passion for map-making (obviously!)

Sand clock

I woke up with no trace of record whatsoever about the password for my blackberry. After 9 times of failure, I keyed in the 10th trial. Phone immediately went shut down. Light went off. As if the world does not make much sense to it any more.

I reboot the device. The sand clock sign flipped, flipped, and flipped. I was led to an unfamilar page. I was greeted with welcome message. I switched to the phone log page. Oh My God. It is showing my phone log back in December 3rd 2006. The day before his 27th birthday. The day he and I were much in love. The day before he whispered those three words into my right ear.

Now I know time could go back to the good days if we had an electronic sand clock to flip they days back, just simple like that.

Love is a losing game

For you I was a flame,
Love is a losing game
Five story fire as you came,
Love is losing game

One I wish I never played,
Oh, what a mess we made
And now the final frame,
Love is a losing game

Played out by the band,
Love is a losing hand
More than I could stand,
Love is a losing hand

Self professed profound
Til' the chips were down
Know you’re a gambling man
Love is a losing hand

Tho' I battled blind,
Love is a fate resigned
Memories mar my mind,
Love it is a fate resigned

Over futile odds,
And laughed at by the Gods
And now the final frame,
Love is a losing game

In the mid-night of March 1st 2008, I, shamefully, wet my pillow again. Is one year a long time? Surely it is not so to my memory. I asked: I feel you and I are so different when it comes to our hobbies, interests, etc. You said: so what? don't you enjoy being with me? A few months later, we had similar conversation, but we said the other person's line. The first time, I said I was thinking our relationship is centered around me and you while you added everyone else into the circle. Half a year later you said you think our relationship is just about two of us then I do not know what happened to the two of us.

At this moment, I could not stop tearing. But this is not right. It is March 2008 and I shall not weep.

Somehow I remembered a line in Jack Johnsons' song: Learning loving somebody don't make them love you

Stubborn moi

Finally, I watched the movie Persepolis. A couple lines are pretty funny: I survived the war but the failure in love took everything away. Fear lulls our minds to sleep.

My academic knowledge had grown very fast in my school years so I assumed my maturity and minds did the same. Now, I realized my learning capacity is as limited as everybody else's. I was just foolishly devoted that capacity to some science subjects.

It was not till a few years ago that I started to know how to voice an opinion and what my world view, value are. As much as I want to say not to take my life too seriously (like, right after getting a pay raise, the #1 thing I could think of is to go to f21 for shopping. Cheap woman!), there are strong values and views I do hold.

However, it did not mean mine are right and non-my views are wrong. I hope I can get to a place to let my opinions to cross over without getting into a place to negative the other sides. Still, I am not quite good at that. That is why I come across as a stubborn person.

Two

Today, a man told me I am lovely but he does not know my heart is not available.

I know two cities in this world that can be recognized by music: Paris and Shanghai

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own,

even if she never wants to or needs to...



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

something perfect to wear if the employer,

or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour...



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..

a youth she's content to leave behind....



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...

a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her old age....



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....

a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra...



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who lets her cry...



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family...



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...

eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems,

and a recipe for a meal,

that will make her guests feel honored...



A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...

a feeling of control over her destiny...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

how to fall in love without losing herself..



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

how to quit a job,

break up with a lover,

and confront a friend without;

ruining the friendship...


EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. .

whom she can trust,
whom she can't,
and why she shouldn't take it personally...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

where to go...
be it to her best friend's kitchen table..
or a charming Inn in the woods...
when her soul needs soothing...



EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

What she can and can't accomplish in a day...
a month...and a year...




Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect.
It means that you have decided to look beyond the imperfections

Anger

Here I am, to face the cause of my anger.

One seed of anger comes from that I want to stay single for a bit instead of rushing into anything new. What had happened was a huge deal for me, it weakened my physical being as well as my emotional being. I want to take my time off to figure out me and what happened. I know it is said you will never be able to rationalize about what happened. Nevertheless, I still think staying single for a bit is the wise decision to make...

Having rambled these much, nothing has yet touched the anger part. Here it is. I am angry because he jumped right back into his dating life right away. In a way, I see it as an unrespectful act towards me. My translation is that our relationship does not mean much to him. It is like going to one store, he could not strike a deal there, then closed the door, soon knocked on the next door. There is such a contrast to what I have been enduring. Again, basically, I could not accept the face he does not love me and care about me at all. I still remember his whisper into my right ear: I love you.

The second anger is that he still does not know what he wants. And that is the reason why he wondered from one relationship to another. I am angry because I did not know what about him attracted me at the first place with this hypothesis.

Either way, those are my angers. Maybe they are just another forms of disappointment.

I've struck a few deals with myself.

Deal #1: Every one minute that I think about the happy times between me and him, I shall spend the next two minutes in thinking about the happy times without him.

Deal #2: Every one minute spent on anger or sad, I shall spend two minutes in thinking about other happy things: flowers, plays, dresses, make-up, just those simple mundane things.

Deal #3: Continue to live my life without his existence.

tuesday moring

Last night, I stayed awake from 2:30 am to 5ish. Absolutely no reasons I shall be doing that: it was a Monday night, which means I have to go to work the next morning; i was not sad because of the relationship, because I watched my mind drifting from one random thing to another; i did not have any bills due or presentation due, hence I shall not dread about any of those and it is not like I dread about those errands usually either.

Interestingly, I woke up with ligh spirits. How could this be? I had only a few hours of sleep. I decided to treat myself with a half day off.

Sliding the curtain, then found it is a rainy day today. It did not cast any gloomy feeling on my heart. Instead, I found the view from the widow becomes much chic and romantic. Rain drops splashed onto my window and formed some crystal-like beaded curtain. On my newly acquired retro french table, sun flowers and some unknown garden blossoms dabbed some bright yellow color on the smuged watercolor painting like street scene. I know the tiny purple silky flower called Wang You Cao in Chinese. THe literate translation is No Worries Grass. Interesting. ANd it is the first time I know pine trees can also have flowers. 5 petals, pea size, dark pink/purple. It is amazing. I guess any strong masculine figures always have their soft side. Pine trees with 5-petals purple flower. Perfect combination.

I am sitting here, sipping decaf coffee from a cup saying stress is the confusion created when one's mind overrides body's basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserve it(am i that jerk), tasting the dollar green tea cake from a spanish serving plate.

Life could not be better than taking my time in a work day morning to write about these mundane things. I felt I found the pleasure of sneaking in and walking on the pebble stone path in a street-sdie garden while the path is not supposed to be a road leading anywhere.

- Go for help!
- Make your recorvery the first priority in your life!
- Find a support group of peers who understand
- Develop your spirituality side through daily practice
- Stop managing and controlling others
- Learn to not get "hooked" into the games
- Couregeously face your own problems and short-comings
- Cultivate whatever needs to be developed in yourself
- Become "selfish"
- Share with others what you have experienced and learned

He does not know how to define maturity till he experienced a lot of occastions in life. He learned how to control when he feels the urge to let out the feelings. Before, he was not like that. All he wanted to do is to destory, everything including himself. Now, he understands the urge is a monster. Even he wants to let out the emotions, he has to look at the big picture.

Curse

I wish I have the opportunity to throw his behavior to his face. He shall see what kind of person he really is. Why do I help him to see through who he is? He will always be that hairy, sneaky, emotional, untrustworthy, aimless human being.

Broken promises

I realized there are so many promises that will never become true in my life. The brunch place in Toronto that I will never get to know where it is at, the glamorous french chateau I will never get to visit, the trip to up North I will never learn how cold it will be, the Paneer dish that I will never taste again...

Apparently, it is such a big deal for me. Maybe that is the reason why I am not good with giving out promises. If I do, I am obligated to put in my heart to make it happen. Nevertheless, most of people are not like me. He gives out promises as blowing bubbles or throwing feather in the air. Bubbles, feather, right, that is how heavy those promises are for him.

Like my parents said, leave him, leave him to other girls, leave his feather-like promises, bubble-filled promises to other girls. My life should be more real, should be closer to the ground.

Lines

Suddenly, I see the two fine lines undreneath my eyes are somewhat "permanant". No wonder they love to live on my face, I almost drop some tears everyday without proper sleep. I am welcoming the wrinkles by all what I am doing.

I have to treat myself nicer. smile, good mood, no to be bothered by the past, not to be bothered by things that are irrelevant to my life. Focus on me, me, me.

when will the spring come?

My weather forecast shows a week with drizzles. At least, it is better than the freezing rains in the last 2 months, right? Winter is here, it won't be soon I shall see the spring.

two

I find the commute from the metro station back home is my weakest time of the day. I was sitting in the train, and thoughts brought me back to a year ago. It is like I could see him and me sitting across the aisle from me, hugging, talking to each other with occasional laughter. Happy and so into each other. Tears dropped on handbag of the real me.

Seriously, I should carpool with Ran and his roomates to come home more often. At least, they make me laugh.

I remember when I was in the middle school, my father took me out for a walk in the afternoon of the chinese new year's eve. Most of time, he talked about family history, my grandma, and how he grew up. There was once he told me that even I look tiny, I shall never let others to look down on me. People will get to know you by your acts eventually. The words you can put up can only last temporarily.

Ever since then, I ask myself if I have done less than I claimed. I am afraid that people who know me by my acts later get disappointed. After seeing so much of talking in the air around me, I am glad that I have more to offer than what I said I can. Of course, soon I will ask myself the same question again.

From a poor family's daughter to today's me.

He is probably pleasing some other girls now. quick and active.

Why cannot I move forward with my life? Emily told me it takes time, time, time, which is in proportion to how much devotion and love into the past.

I am telling myself to take my time to make myself feeling better. It is the time I should indulge myself, try anything I want to do that I did not get a chance to do, sleep a lot, go to museums, concerts, watch any shows that interest me, buy myself flowers...

Last night I could not sleep. Somehow I remembered that freezing December of 2007. What happened? Why? No answers. I was swallowed by the darkness and the strangeness in the hotel room. My head was spinning. I felt I was re-living those moments. Pain! Sad! Tears!

Yesterday, a person whom I barely got to know for 30 minutes, threw a serie of bomb questions on me, "why do I not have a boyfriend"? -- recently broke up; "whose fault is it?" --%&*(*&*()%&* my lips are moving but I do not know if I want to prounounce a word starting with M or H. I looked away, trying my best to suppress the formation of eye liquids, gaining control over my facial muscule. In the end, I mustered all my courage and firmly uttered a few words, just like in the movies, "he moved away and long distance is hard"...

Remember that episode of Sex and The City, in which Carry went to cali and met Matthew Mcconaughey for a movie script? He asked whose problem it is. She was like she traveled from the east to the west just for him to ask her that question!!!

Happy New Year!

I have pretty much decided on the piano keyboard I'd like to buy. Will wait for another week or so. If no better deals show up, will just get this one: Yamaha digital piano

Just made an offer of $600. Will see how it works out.

Things are getting slightly out of hand now. My head is heavy. The past just crept back to me more often than usual. I hope all of these are going to be temperary. Anger, sadness, being cheated, being fooled, being betrayed. One day, eventually, they will all go away. They are just temperary illusions.


--- 10:03 AM

It seems the morning emotional wave just passed. Things around me appear to be 80% normal now. I wrestled the thoughts of calling or emailing someone. The other half of me insists that I will go through. Let me try this self dealing approach first and how things work out that way.

--- 10:41 AM

I am so pissed off.

I was simply worried after seeing the worst is over. I wondered what happened to him.

I shall mind more about what happen to myself.

My head is crowded as usual. Could not stay calm for one second. Keep on telling myself this condition will end soon and very soon. Tried my best to fill up my calendar with activities. Hoping in a way I can be keep away from the pain.

Spoke with dad today. Glad bro and dad could come home safely. 15 hours of non-stop driving. Ning-ning has grown up. Somehow I thought about taking things for granted. Ning-ning staying with ma and pa is something I should learn to appreciate more.

52 days after the break-up. I threw up after lunch and still bothered by the thoughts.

It is easier to say I am smarter than what I've done for myself. I know the reason he would say that is because he was probably never wholeheartedly involved in the last 13 months of the relationship.

I still have anger and saddness in side of me. Knowing he is not a perfect man did not help. People say he is selfish, people say he is immature, people say he is not a kind man, people say he is not independent soul, people say he is too emotional, people say he carries way too much of baggage, people say he is going through waves of relationships only to invent himself...

But I know he is the one who's cried like a baby; he is the one who laugh like a boy; he is the one occasionally stood in front of me like a man, he is the one that through my own eyes I've seen every inch of his body and soul in the last 13 months.

I pray God to bring me peace of mind, to settle the anger and hatred.

Hot spring and Love

She said falling-in-love is fairy-tale-like and short-lived. The intense and devouring nature made it hard for us to live in the moment forever.

It is like a hot spring, extremely soothing and relaxing, but one cannot stay there for long. Otherwise, one leaves out what real life is to offer and gets dehydrated by the heat. Once a while, one wants to find time to visit that feeling for some joyous moments here and there, so to refresh and warm one's body and mind, in preparation for the coming journey ahead.

Guilt

What is the best way to forgive yourself, especially it was me who behaved wrongly? The sense of guilt is suffocating. Is the recipient of the wrong doing willing to see an apology from me?

I found myself is the one I feel the most difficult to find peace with.

Eyes are all puffy from crying last night. A nice chill day is reaching me through the newly curtained windows. I gazed outside and wondered what is happening in that top floor unit just two blocks down the street. Is there also a girl...

sad. angry. devasdated.

why? why? why? why so soon?

Dave Gorman dumped me during fifth period of sixth-grade math, in a pencil-scrawled note his friend passed me when the teacher wasn't looking. I went to the bathroom and cried, but by seventh period, I was fine. Email Print HuffIt --> When Steve and I finally said goodbye in late August of my junior year in college, I drove my car to an overlook on the George Washington Parkway and cried until a police officer came by, made me walk in a straight line, and told me to move on. So I did. In fact, until recently, I'd never really had a problem breaking up and moving on. Sam and I broke up this past fall -- amicably and mutually -- and I was more or less doing fine. Then Sam sent me an email that said: "Just wanted to let you know that I changed my Facebook profile to incorporate our current status." He was referring to Facebook.com, an online social network for college kids. He was actually being a good guy, too, letting me know that the personal information part of his profile no longer read "in a relationship with Ashley Parker," and I should probably change my profile too. But for the first time, I felt oddly crushed. Sam was no longer "in a relationship with Ashley Parker," and I was no longer "in a relationship with Samuel Reeves." Innocently enough, Sam had cemented our break-up for the entire world -- well, online world -- to see. In the click of a button, everything suddenly seemed more permanent, more tragic somehow. Finally I admitted to my best friend that breaking up on Facebook was almost harder than breaking up in real life, expecting her to laugh. "Oh, changing your online status is the most devastating part of a break-up," she said. "Absolutely." Then a friend of mine from college confessed that he'd cringed when he saw that his old girlfriend -- who he had dumped -- had changed her Facebook profile from "in a relationship" to "looking for whatever I can get." Whatever she could get? Really? Of course, this phenomenon is not totally new. Stalking our exes, I imagine, is as old as exes themselves -- steaming open letters in the days of Jane Austen, and calling in to check his voice mail in the early 90s of Bridget Jones -- and this latest itieration just allows us to use quicker and better and smarter technology to create a virtual map of our ex's life without us. But for me, the obsession started innocently enough on Facebook. Did Sam change his relationship status to "single," I wondered, or did he generously leave that slot blank? (He left it blank.) Had he added any new female friends? And were they cute? You could even browse through digital pictures of these girls and, if especially desperate, have your friends browse through them too, for a reassuring second opinion. "See," I would explain, "If you look in the back corner... yeah, very closely...and squint, maybe... you can see a girl in a black tank top..." "You mean the girl reading a book? Who's barely even in the picture?" came my friend's incredulous reply. "I'm hanging up now." But I was hooked. And Sam's Facebook "wall" -- an interactive space where his friends could post messages -- offered yet another outlet for my probing neuroses. I scoured his wall, reading and rereading his messages in my search for clues about any interloping suitors. Just who was that bikini-clad girl, writing "I had fun with you!" Oh, that was his younger sister. But what about the cute blond from Texas, wishing him a happy birthday. I repeated the message aloud, trying to gauge tone: Did she mean happy-birthday-we-went-to-elementary-school-together-and-I-just-want-to- say-hi-happy-birthday, or did she mean happy-birthday-Mr.-President-happy- birthday? MySpace.com was even worse. This networking site forces you to choose a relationship status -- single, swinger, in a relationship, married, or divorced, but you have to choose one -- making that "on a break but not quite broken up" stage particularly awkward. You could also check the last time someone had logged on to their own MySpace account, and I checked to see if Sam had been on recently. Had he been on too recently? Or too frequently? What if he also was tracking someone else? I realized I was cyber-stalking someone to see if he, too, was cyber-stalking someone. I'd reached an all-time low, I thought. Things could only improve from here. But things, of course, did not improve. In stalking Sam, I had realized how utterly stalkable I was -- and, in looking at my own profiles, what a dull and un-stalk-worthy stalkee I would make. Suddenly, the instant message I put up when I was away from my computer took on grave importance. Sam might see it, after all, and I needed to affect that perfect combination of nonchalant fun or carefree casual. My actual activities now seemed horribly mundane -- "Reading the Sunday Times" or "Just beat the roomies in a marathon Scrabble session" would no longer suffice -- but I couldn't skew to the other extreme, either. "Wine with the new guy across the hall," and even "Dinner and a movie" both fell into the trying-too-hard camp. Not to mention they were more than a little dishonest. I generally opted for cryptic song lyrics, and am forever indebted to the Grateful Dead's assorted musings ("Every silver lining has got a touch of gray.") As it turned out, the MySpace stalking was just a minor blip in my actual all-time low, which occurred a few days later, when my boss called me one Saturday afternoon with a quick question. She was horrified to find me sitting at home, flipping between newspapers and Instant Message Stalking Sam. "Instant message stalking?!" she asked, still sounding worried, but now equal parts intrigued, as if I'd just discovered a novel way of keeping tabs on the confounding men in our lives. "What's that?" I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't that cool, that I was beholden to a machine, perched and waiting for the cling of a new instant message. Nor did I want her to realize that her dutiful researcher and fact-checker had also become a wee bit unhinged. But against my better judgment, I tried to explain. "Well, let's say Sam-- er, I mean, Someone -- put up an away message at 9 p.m. on Friday night, saying he was going out," I began. "Instant messaging lets you tell when that person is back using their computer again. So let's say he put up an away message on Friday night, and now it's, oh..." I checked my watch. "...and now it's 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, and he's still not back at his computer. That clearly means he went out and met an amazing girl and stayed over at her house and then to make matters worse he probably liked her enough to go get brunch with her the next day which is the only possible reason he's not back at his computer yet and they're probably right now running through a park while 'Brown Eyed Girl' plays in the background." "Hypothetically," I added. My boss cut me off. "Maybe he slept late," she said. "Maybe he's just not using his computer. It is 75 degrees and sunny -- he might just be outside." I could tell she was really worried when she offered to go to some wonky soiree she would never have considered just hours before. "Look, on Wednesday we'll go to that book party," she said. "I bet there will be lots of guys your type there -- smart, dorky, awkward." That was the moment I realized I needed to make a change. I declared a technological moratorium on Sam. I stopped checking Facebook and MySpace, and I deleted his number from my phone so I could no longer text him, just to see what he was up to. I also took him off my Buddy List, so I could no longer tell when he was or was not instant messaging, or how long he'd been away from his computer. A friend even offered to rig my Gmail account so that all of Sam's emails landed directly in my junk folder. At some point, finally, I began to recover, and was able to laugh at the other hapless souls, bound to their computer screens by a person distinctly not on the other end. I spent a day outside, wandering through Dupont Circle with a friend. I used the time I would have been stalking to reread Katha Pollit's piece in The New Yorker, an homage to "Webstalking" from early 2004. I still understood her pain, but I no longer felt it. Moreover, her essay wasn't relevant anymore -- neither to myself nor to any other would-be stalkers. Not yet three years old, her essay is, in the hyper-speed of technology, a bit like binary code -- ground-breaking for its time, but almost painfully simple at second glance. After all, Pollitt was just Googling her former lover, albeit frantically, and in every available search engine. But still -- how simple! How philistine! How utterly cyber-stalking 1.0! I wanted to shake her. Didn't she know this addicting pastime had progressed to version 2.0, if not higher. Didn't she know about SingleStat.us? SingleStat.us is a now-defunct service that, for a mere $3.95, would email you the very instant any of your crushes changed their MySpace status to single. (I imagine that first flirty email would require an icebreaker like, "Now that you've been single for, oh, three hours, 39 minutes, and 22 seconds or so...") The website, however, struck me as a bit silly, and reflected depths I was no longer willing to plunge. Besides, I had better things to do with my time. A few days later, I happily accompanied my boss to a book party at a storied D.C. haunt. The guys weren't quite my type, but there were books and wine and friends. And, thankfully, no wireless internet.

I am not an atheist.

Love the girl with a planner book!

Just a few thoughts worth of taking them done:

I am drawn to portraits: either photo or painting. People's facial expressions always make me wonder their life, their experience, their love and anger. Relatively, I am less attracted to the cold glamorous lifeless objects unless it is tied to human experiences. With that being said, the futuristic arts are definitely not my type of art.

I prefer to dress up tasteful within the budget. Mixing and matching are so much of fun.

In this life, I will learn one kind of musical instruments. It is definitely a pleasure to have musical notes flowing out of my finger tips.

I am a drama, independent films and discovery channel person when it comes to movie and tv. My favorite work-out is city hiking and dancing. I do not sing much but I enjoy plays. I love the intense feeling of those work.

Intense. My love is intense. Burning, desiring, and sharing.

I have a high tolerance towards the imperfection. That is the reason why i am not great but I am good and I am on my way to great. That is the part I like about myself.

I want to have a pet, a dog to be precise.

I want to be on a volunteer project, out in Africa, living in the wild for at least three months.

I want to eventually work for a non-profit firm, even just distributing penciles, used computers and water, to be a not so glamerous person, but to see my work is doing something good in people's life.

I do not want to ever see DT and RK in my life forever. Some people are born with predatory nature. I know having a good distance between me and them work for me the best. I would never imagine how I could turn such an ugly side of self to a even friend-used-to-be.

Somehow I was thinking about Wei. The one who was the closest friend of mine in the graduate school. I found she has a lot in common with those two. Pretty good presentation layers yet an empty hallow inside. It does not matter how pretty they look from the outside.

"One of the biggest challenges I face is how to keep a discussion focussed on the issues at hand rather than the personalities involved. The best debates (and the most passionate ones..) happen when the individuals involved can argue diametrically opposite points without any risk that the personal equations might get affected. In my last job this is one aspect I enjoyed the most - we will have raging discussions on a particular topic within the engagement team but will go out for a beer after that .. the next morning everyone is normal till we get into our next set of debates. Good ideas and output are very often not a result of a situation where ideas converge but clash head on. Let me elaborate on this - if four people in a group think alike all the time, the group is wasted. On the other hand if there is a clash of opinions, points and counterpoints are made and accepted in the right spirit - the best group outcomes emerge.If the above is true, why is it so difficult to come to such a situation. There are multiple reasons but to me some of the most prominent ones are:1. Inability to separate the "opinion" from the person. We often judge a comment based not on the merit of the comment but based on who is making the comment. In some sense we "personalize" the opinion and miss the wood for the trees.2. Inability to structure the discussion. Random thinking is often passed of as creative thinking and inputs. Opinions and viewpoints need to differ within a given framework - if they do not, conflicts emerge and the "discussion" often breaks down.To achieve the balance is very difficult - something I keep struggling with. However there are individuals on campus who are good at this and some of the best discussions I have had are with such inviduals. VB, YE and U are some people who I can think of ... I will keep trying ... insulate the opinion or the argument from the person ..shoot the message if you have to .. don't shoot the messenger !!! this comes from practice and reflection... will make sure that i find time for the later as i practice it quite often anyway...Apologies if some of this sounds a little convulated... i write as i think .. there are not too many filters in between."

Chinese wisdom

If you got bitten by a dog, you shall not try to make it right by biting the dog back!

Oooops

I just realized I may have made a mistake to keep someone unnecessarily posted about this blog. Shit! Shit! Shit! Done is done! Just I sent him an apology and I pray he will be a bit of generous to accept my apology. It was not meant for him whatsoever!

I am back!

I am back to my blogging!

I read my old posts again and realized turning into 30 did not make me immediately emotionally smarter. I failed, yet I learned, although I had blindly trusted and unnecessarily exposed myself to a "not-so-great" guy over and over again. Done is done. I just realized he is the second person that has disappointed me as a human being in a 30-years-3-months-11-days life of mine. I am not sure if I coped with the situation better than last time. In this secrete and sacred world of mine, I shout on the top of my lung to admit: nightmare, throwing up, the worst being the fear of the third, the fourth, the fifth.

The good news is today I am calm and I think straight and I am blogging positively. I mostly appreciate people in my life who stand so strongly behind me now. It is their love reminded me of the worth of my humanness, the value of my traits, and the preciousness of my ability to trust human beings in the past, today and future. Stood naked in front of the mirror, I still see the charming, attractive, precious self and the little free spirit inside of me :-)

A geeky note: in this website, how-to-tell-if-a-guy-is-a-jerk, the anthropologistic view of that category of men does make a little sense to me: the animalistic, primitive side of human being.

I shall really look into the opportunity to sign up for the UN mission with Leo :-)