Bittersweet Christmas

I haven’t really been on social media much these days, it’s like I’ve grown out of them or have just lost interest in posting on fb, on my blog, or even stalking what other ppl are doing or saying on fb. My bf was just telling me that I got tagged on some photo on fb, so finally today, on Christmas Day, I went onto fb and looked through my feed.

Interestingly, within the top 10 posts, a third of them were about people getting married or engaged. I guess Christmas time is the time for people to put a ring on it! And I’d forgotten, but I saw a mutual friend’s post about my ex’s wedding in Singapore. He posted 5 group photos, with my ex and his now wife, at their wedding. I’d blogged about it once before, in January when I first learned that they were getting married, and the bittersweet feelings I had. So I wasn’t surprised, but I felt incredibly drawn to everything that had happened at their wedding.

I became somewhat obsessed, like I wanted to see, stalk, experience everything, so I went to my ex’s page and kept scrolling through all the friends’ posts, all the wedding photos, the music, the friends’ trips in Singapore. I couldn’t stop, and all the while I felt pretty neutral about it, quite happy for them too. But I think I’m just lying to myself, hiding away the negative feelings I have, which I’m about to tell you about.

I kept coming up with stories like - oh I’m sure they picked a Chinese song to play here, oh his mum must have planned all this part and made him do it, or oh all the primary school classmates probably thought it was so romantic that they’d stay in touch and end up getting married almost 20 years later. I realised I started feeling lonely, nostalgic, sad, lost, and like I didn’t matter. That people have all these stories and they’ve moved on with their idyllic life and I don’t matter anymore. I was telling myself all these stories, because somehow I wanted to make myself matter, like I’m important in this narrative, that I too, deserve a happily ever after. I was scared that I’ve been left behind, and would never have a happily ever after.

Then I thought, I don’t want to want a happily ever after! It’s a romantic ideal that isn’t even real. I know that weddings are just a show of happiness, doesn’t mean that everything’s perfect. In fact, no relationship is ever perfect. But a part of me just wanted to hold on to the romantic ideals - of a beautiful wedding, marriage, kids, loving husband who showers me with gifts and appreciation all the time, and the realistic part of me knows it’s not going to be all rosy. I know it’s too much to ask of a person to do everything romantic you want, all the romantic gestures. That I’m attributing way too much importance to all that. I should focus on what’s real, the little things that matter, that show our love for each other.

I started beating myself over it, berating myself - come on grow up! You know there are no happily ever afters in this world, life is not a fairytale story. I started an internal fight with myself, just different selves with different perspectives trying to convince each other of their truth, and coming to the climactic explosion of realization that - we will never be ok with this. We will always be struggling against what we’ve internalized as romance and love ideals, versus the very real lives we live in. So all of it doesn’t really matter. I just need to let go of these expectations and emotions and live in my present moment. And that’s enough.

But I’m just sad. I’m mourning, grieving the loss of my little girl self, the little girl who wanted to live like a princess, have a prince that would carry her to safety, the ideals of marriage and romance and things that society and books and tv shows and movies and the Internet and your parents and school and even your peers, constantly reinforce. This idyllic version of love and romance, doesn’t exist. So I just had a tough time this morning letting it go, and I don’t think I’ll ever completely let it go. Maybe as I grow wiser and older and more mature, this gets easier. But we’ll see.

I’ll be sure to tell my little girls that they should live life the way they believe is right, and not to live by these expectations that were created as part of romantic ideals. They should create their own romance, and not follow what everybody else says.

Sorry for this depressing post on Christmas Day. I hope everyone else is having much happier thoughts than me today, and not struggling with internal expectations and wanting to grow up without going through all the pain that’s necessary to make us stronger...and yes, merry Christmas to you too.

Parting ways with my longest roommate

I’m moving out, and moving on from yet another stage of my life. Yet another accelerated growth journey, moving on from another special roommate (also the longest one that I’ve had - 2 years and 8 months!!). Oh how I’ve grown. And it only makes me realise how much more I have to go!

Guess I’m done with the exploration phase in my life. Now it’s time to introspect and focus on the things that matter to me, and the person I love. I’m looking forward to the journey ahead 😊

Just published!

Hurray! My second article of the year (third article ever) just published! It’s a collaboration between me and my long-time manager / boss who is a subject matter expert in cloud infrastructure and is really good at this. I know it’s a lot of gibberish to most people, but I’m excited enough to want to post about it. Feel free to check it out and ask me questions anytime 😊

https://www.ciodive.com/news/enterprise-cultural-shifts-required-for-successful-cloud-adoption/532476/

How to be a good parent

I’ve been collecting all sorts of articles and books on how to raise emotionally intelligent kids, how to be good parents, how to help children succeed etc. I haven’t really posted any of them so I thought I’d do something different today and post some, especially since I have more friends who are having babies now or thinking about having babies.

I was brought up in a traditional asian household with what John Gottman would call “disapproving parents”, who disapproved of negative emotions and curbed any expression of emotions from us. I definitely want to be a better parent and raise my kids differently from the way I was brought up, especially since I’m so lucky to have access to all these amazing books and advice out there. I’m surprised to see that John Gottman did research not just on successful relationships and how to make them last, but also looked at parenting and how to raise kids with emotional intelligence! This is absolutely wonderful, he’s my new Esther Perel 😍.

I hope these articles are a good start for you, and let me know your thoughts!

How to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids according to John Gottman - https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2018/09/emotionally-intelligent-kids/

How to be a Better Parent according to Adam Grant - https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2016/01/how-to-be-a-better-parent-2

Birthday thoughts

Here I am, sitting on the plane, popping wasabi peas into my mouth and finally having a moment to myself to reflect and think. I just celebrated my birthday last weekend and up till yesterday - it feels like a super prolonged birthday celebration. In fact, it probably is the longest amount of time over which my friends have been celebrating my birthday!

This year, I feel really loved, surrounded by a bunch of amazing people who care for me. They gave me cards, gifts, birthday cakes, took me out to dinner, and even put on the most public display of a birthday celebration I’ve ever had (and probably will ever have)! My friend played my favorite La La Land medley on the piano at the Flower Piano event at the botanical gardens, and proceeded to get everyone to sing a birthday song for me. I was embarrassed and stunned and happy at the same time! Definitely the most memorable birthday celebration ever.

I also feel infinitely lucky and grateful for all the people in my life today, whether they’ve celebrated my birthday or not. As I told a friend, birthdays don’t mean much to me - it’s just another day - but it’s a day for my friends to celebrate me if they want to, to commemorate our friendship and reaffirm their love for me. I’ve stopped feeling as embarrassed or self-conscious about it, and started recognizing it as a day for people to do something special for me. If it makes everyone happy, why should I make things awkward by being shy about it? To me, the best way to thank my friends and show my appreciation is to enjoy the moment and be happy with the attention.

I also thanked my mum on my birthday, because this is the day she suffered the most while giving birth to me, all those years ago. Thank you mummy, if not for you and all your sacrifices, I wouldn’t be here today.

I’ve been having a really hectic life these days, with barely any time to catch a breather for myself. I’m perennially sleep-deprived, and somehow keeping up work and friends and social life and family and dating is becoming a tough juggling act. Oh and not forgetting my goal of reading 2.5 books a month, and volunteering and writing cloud articles and recruiting and everything else...I’ll really need to prioritize things in my life so I won’t get burned out. I think it’s also because it’s been a year since I last took a proper vacation, so I’m starting to feel the strain of life on me.

I was reading more of Tiny Beautiful Things, and found this quote to be so true for me. It’s been resonating with me and I thought I’d share it as part of my birthday thoughts:

What do you do when you don’t know what to do about something? 

I talk to Mr Sugar and my friends. I make lists. I attempt to analyze the situation from the perspective of my “best” self — the one that’s generous, reasonable, forgiving, bighearted, and grateful. I think really hard about what I’ll wish I did a year from now. I map out the consequences of the various actions I could take. I ask what my motivations are, whst my desires are, what my fears are, what I have to lose, and what I have to gain. I move toward the light, even if it’s a hard direction in which to move. I trust myself. I keep the faith. I mess up sometimes.

Wondering how long before I succumb to tears

I’m reading this book called Tiny Beautiful Things which is a compilation of letters by Cheryl Strayed, written when she was writing as the Dear Sugar columnist. I just read the first two stories and this book already had me tearing up. It’s overwhelmed me with the fierce force of a hurricane, inundating me with a torrent of sorrow and emotions and raw pain that I can feel with her words, as she painted story after story of struggle and terrible things and helplessness, and how she helped them stand back up again.

An excerpt of the story that made me want to weep - this is about a woman who had lost her baby girl 6 months into her pregnancy. She had called it a miscarriage, but did that really count as a miscarriage? To me, it seemed more like a premature baby that died, that she had given birth to a baby and lost her without even getting the chance to know her.

Here’s what Sugar wrote that resonated with me so much, that I couldn't help letting these tears well up:

 “You will never stop loving your daughter. You will never forget her. You will always know her name. But she will always be dead. Nobody can intervene and make that right and nobody will. Nobody can take it back with silence or push it away with words. Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal. Therapists and friends and other people who live on Planet My Baby Died can help you along the way, but the healing — the genuine healing, the actual real deal down-on-your-knees-in-the-mud change — is entirely and absolutely up to you.” 

This is such a good book - it’s rendered me so emotionally helpless and vulnerable that it feels therapeutic. That now I look with fresh eyes upon the world I live in and just can’t believe how lucky I am to be alive and healthy and loved and cared for, that my troubles simply pale in comparison.

I wonder how long before I succumb to this deluge of emotions, giving in to my tears as I read this book.

Microaggressions

Following my last post on diversity training, I came across this article on microaggressions/unconscious biases at work and thought it's worth sharing - take a read through and let me know your thoughts!

http://www.businessinsider.com/microaggression-unconscious-bias-at-work-2018-6

nonsense dreams and diversity training update

I had a dream last night that I was in an earthquake for over 2 minutes, the whole world was shaking constantly and I just stood there thinking, oh let me go to the balcony - there's open space. So I did, but when the shaking just didn't stop, I decided to walk outside and through a tiny alleyway and went to find friends. Eventually the shaking stopped but the dream went on - we came back through the tiny alleyway and we were testing every stair, brick and wall that we were passing by, just to make sure none of the walls or steps were going to collapse on us.

Then we came back to the apartment, which turned out to be an Airbnb I was staying at (no idea where I was, but it feels like Chicago), and then it turned out that the Airbnb host was a friend of mine! So if I had known, I could have just crashed at his place for free instead of paying him through Airbnb! Then I was rationalizing that there was an opportunity cost for him so it's still better that I paid him, though we could have gone without the Airbnb fees.

Anyhow, it's all an illogical dream. It's almost impossible for the earthquake to be shaking for so long with no damage to any buildings at all. So I woke up from my dream and realised it's all a dream, and went back to sleep.

This depicts my confusion upon awakening from the dream.

On a side note, I'm feeling kind of tired and haven't been sleeping well these days - like I'm fighting a flu bug. Maybe I am falling sick :(

For those of you who were wondering what happened with the Ally Skills training for my company two Fridays ago, it went better than I had expected. I was quite worried that there would be a lot more pushback, that more people would be challenging the trainer at training, but as it turned out most of the senior management were supportive and only one or two middle-management folks raised concerns or were passive aggressive in addressing the trainer. While I was happy with the way it turned out, I asked more folks after the training on their thoughts - and I realised quickly that the older senior /middle management folks were not bought in and were questioning Diversity 101. They didn't think there were certain biases or issues that exist - really that's something only privileged people would say because by definition, they don't experience the short end of the stick there.

Those folks were questioning the context and were rules-lawyering (e.g., what if there's this one case in that one instance where this doesn't happen instead?), and were saying I don't do this, in fact I avoid biases and treat everyone equally / fairly so I'm all well and good! Well....the issue isn't about them, it's really about seeing someone who is a target of oppression being treated in an unfair manner - as people with privilege, how can we step in as allies to help? I can see why these folks were taking it personally, they think that the training was about their own behavior instead of society's behavior in general. It is unfortunate that they took it this way and got defensive about it; it seems like there needs to be a Diversity 101 training of sorts to help them see these issues, or somehow make it more real for them.

If I were talking to someone one-on-one, I think I would be able to get through to them more easily by bringing up real examples (e.g., what if this happened to your daughter? how about what if the client did this to you?). I'm not sure how much I should push the envelope though, given the power dynamics here (me being at the bottom of the totem pole), but I'm glad the Ally Skills training opened up the conversation. In the week since then, everyone has been talking about it and ruminating over it. If all we've done is raise awareness and consciousness about biases in the workplace, then we've already succeeded.

what's in a name?

More than once, people have asked me about my name and whether my personality has been influenced by my name.  So...my name was given to me by the doctor who delivered me - apparently I looked super happy and like I'm enjoying myself! I'm also super bubbly, optimistic, outgoing, etc. which matches my name, and hence the question.

My answer is a strong adamant yes - I definitely feel more expectations from others that I should be a happy person by virtue of my name, and being an Obliger, I constantly seek to fulfill external expectations. I'm pretty sure I've also internalized the expectation (since it's positive and really helps my growth too) to be an optimistic and happy person, so that's how I've lived my life and how it's shaped my personality.

Despite my bouts of depression and sad moments, I realise that I do have the ability to be resilient and bounce back from setbacks. So...I guess thanks doctor for giving me this name!

I read this article yesterday about how your first name shapes how others think of your personality. Hopefully my name is a warm and competent one, but if not, at least it's a warm name xD

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2169622-how-your-name-shapes-what-other-people-think-of-your-personality/

I wonder how these names would be rated outside of the US though, it could differ by culture and society. Anyhow, I hope I'll give my kids warm and competent names! ^^

glass half full or half empty?

I've been subscribing to this newsletter "Barking Up the Wrong Tree" by Eric Barker, and this article they sent me today is super interesting: https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2018/05/ancient-wisdom-2/

Life Isn’t The Problem. Your Interpretations Are.

Your flight is late and you have to sit around the airport, bored. And that makes you angry. Or...

Your flight is late and you get to sit down and rest for a minute instead of shuffling onto a crowded plane. And that makes you happy.

Guess what? Flight being late isn't the issue. What made you angry or happy was your interpretation of what that neutral event means.

Both Stoicism and Buddhism feel that the world is what it is. We get all riled up because of how we interpret those events. And, if we choose, we can change those interpretations and change our feelings.

I totally agree with this quote. In the past few years, I've been reading a lot of random books, articles, newsletters and listening to podcasts around psychology, meditation and mindfulness - generally information on how to be happy. Of course the common theme is that you shouldn't be chasing happiness, that you should seek meaning in your life, and enjoy the process independent of success or failure. There's a lot of discussion around mindfulness and how we interpret events that occur in life - how by reframing situations and changing our perspectives, it make us so much more accepting of what gets thrown at us.

It also gives us control (ie. power/freedom) in the way we think about things and approach events, and makes us more secure in our relationships as well. It's something I'm striving towards, really trying to learn more and grow in this area. I guess that's how we become wiser and more mature xD

I noticed that the two things I've improved on this past year are focusing on the present and loving people no matter how ridiculous they may be. It's definitely helped me in the way I view the world and my feelings, making me more accepting and genuine in my life.

Things I'll need more practice with are stepping back and accepting my feelings. Situations that get me riled up don't arise as often as we think, so I don't get too much practice dealing with them in a meditative way haha. My daily meditation these days have been really straightforward and easy because I haven't had too many troubling thoughts! Guess it's definitely a good problem to have ^^" #firstworldproblems

I recently also read that in the face of fear, one way to counteract that is gratitude. If you think about what you're grateful for, what you have that you don't want to take for granted (e.g., the opportunity to do this presentation and challenge yourself!), then the fear is significantly reduced. That's such a great way to approach things that you might be afraid about!

About Friendship

Ok this will be a really long post. One of my readers (yes it’s you) has given me feedback that they prefer to read posts like my older ones, the longer / deeper posts so they can learn more about my thoughts and who I am. I found inspiration (and time) to finally write this down on the plane, so here you go!

Recently I’ve been thinking deeply about friendship - who are my close friends? Who are my best friends? Who are the people I can count on? These days, I have wayyy too many “friends” on facebook (1855 of them, but hey who’s counting), and how many of them do I really care about? How many of them do I even know? >.>

Growing up, my dad always told me to ask small favors of my friends, in little ways like asking them for a ride home from school, or asking them to change the date or time of a hangout to accommodate my family’s schedule. He wanted me to “test” the friendship, and he told me it’s important to find out who my good friends were, by seeing who would do these favors for me. I remember feeling terrible about it; I’d always resisted and said they’re my friends, I don’t want to be testing them! I would end up fighting with my dad over it.

But really it’s because I always wanted to be seen as the nice girl who wouldn’t trouble others, so I felt bad having to ask these friends. Worse of all, deep down I know that they’re not really close after all, and we were just superficial, fair weather friends. I used to think that there’s no need to “test” it, I know we’re not that close so I should save up the social capital until I really needed it. Haha cynical much? Or maybe just being realistic.

I always wondered why others had such high expectations of friends; I never really did trust that friends would put aside all else to do things for me, so I had pretty low expectations. I wouldn’t necessarily do the same for them, so why should I expect them to do it for me? I am scared of being hurt, so I keep a safe distance from friends so I don’t let myself get hurt. The only person I’ve really opened up to hurt is my ex. I guess that’s the only time I felt vulnerable and betrayed - and truly the only time when I grew exponentially stronger.

Now that I think about it, I’ve always asked my family to accommodate my lifestyle and schedule, and I inconvenienced my parents without a qualm just so I can hang out with my friends and make them/me happy. Back then, my priorities were definitely a lot more focused on being well liked and seen as the nice girl.

I feel bad about my parents now - is that the life of being a parent? Your kids end up taking you for granted because they know that no matter how many tantrums, how much trouble they put you through, how many requests to send them to school or piano practice or meteor shower watching sessions, they know you’re still going to love them the same, they know you’re still going to be there for them. I was being kind and nice to others, but I forgot that I should have been kindest and nicest to my parents instead.

Anyhow, back to friendship. To this day I remember very clearly an incident that illustrates my desire to be well-liked at the expense of my conscience. When I was 10, everyone had to pair up in boy-girl pairings for physical education class, and we had to hold hands. I saw that this chubby boy had no partner and no one wanted to hold his hand, so I went up to him and held his hand. He brightened up immediately, and I remember how happy he was that I wanted to be his friend. I thought I was being so nice by befriending this boy, but oh man I regretted it in the upcoming weeks. I almost wished I had been mean like the other kids, so I didn’t have to bear the burden of making him happy. I know this sounds so selfish, but that was definitely how I felt back then.

He started to follow me around, wanted to join my project teams, and play together during breaks. I started to feel uncomfortable with it - I had my clique of girl friends that I hung out with, and I was pretty popular back then. We were the teachers’ pets, the smart and popular girls in school, so it wasn’t doing me any good to have this boy, who was seen as an outcast of the class, around me. I remember he was a very odd and awkward boy, quite immature/insecure and would throw tantrums easily, while loving to act smart and show off. That was why the other kids didn’t really like him, and they took every chance they could to make fun of him - the way he waddled as he walked, the fact that he had to wait for his mum to pick him up from school every day, and how during tests he would always disappear to the bathroom for 15min! My classmates were calling him “mummy’s boy” and joking that he was running off to call his mum for answers to the test. Now I suspect he was always nervous during tests and so would have to do a number 2, but back then even I had doubts and would wonder if he really was calling home for help. He did always get really good test scores...

I recall that I was succumbing to peer pressure and would play along with the other kids. I would never say the same mean things or repeat what they said about him, but I was a passive participant as I never stood up for him, nor did I say anything about it. I was afraid of being lumped in with him as an outcast, and I started to feel ashamed of being picked up by my mum from school as well. I was so scared that my friends would turn on me and make fun of me too, so I started to distance myself from him (like ghosting in today’s terms, but in real life). Yes I was learning how to ghost at age 10!

I ignored him whenever he wanted to join in, and I told him I was already part of this group and there’s no more space for him. I couldn’t bear to be completely mean to him so sometimes I still talked to him but other times I would avoid him. It was a very stressful time of my life as I had to navigate peer pressure, while battling my unease and guilt in treating this boy the same way the others were treating him, plus my own shame in being in the same situation of being picked up from school but not made fun of (yet). I would listen to him tell me about his mum and his sister, and let him rant or show off or say whatever he wanted even though I didn’t like it. I realised back then that I had no idea how to stop being friends with someone, that I couldn’t even put it in words how I felt about him. Now I think I probably felt sorry for him, with some annoyance, dislike, sympathy and empathy mixed in.

In fact, his mum knew me as his friend so she would always be very happy to see me, and would come over and talk to me when she picked him up from school. I would always feel sooo bad talking to her, because I’m pretending to be his friend when really I wasn’t feeling it. I would be nice to him in front of his mum, but it would kill me inside. I couldn’t reconcile this - how to maintain distance from a friend I didn’t want, while remaining nice to him and his mum!

In the end, after my sufficient ignoring and avoiding (passive aggressive much?), he got the message and stopped hanging around me. I breathed a sigh of relief, and felt a load off my back. I’m still in with the popular crowd, I’m still well liked and I didn’t have to deal with the outcast anymore. Wait, doesn’t this remind you of Mean Girls?

Yes, that was the power of peer pressure, of tying my identity to the social pressure of being liked by others as a kid. It’s also my first taste of what bullying was, and while I didn’t directly bully him, I felt like I was probably the cruelest of them all by befriending him and then passively rejecting him.

I know it is no excuse, and to this day I still don’t have a good idea of how to tell someone - hey I don’t want to be a close friend with you, please stay at the distance of an acquaintance friend, etc. The only way I know is by not meeting up with these friends, by seeing them less and less, and being less responsive. Haha somehow this sounds a lot like dating!



This relationship accountability chart is from my favorite author and relationship therapist Esther Perel. I’ve been reading her book “Mating in Captivity”, and listening to her podcast “Where Should We Begin” (it’s really good, you guys should check it out if you haven’t heard it before!) I agree with so many things she’s teaching, and I aspire towards her values. I want to embrace the freedom to love and be myself, to power part instead of ghost or ice people, to treat people right even if it’s difficult. We have all been on the receiving end of it before, it sucks when someone is leading you on and stringing your feelings along. I would respect him/her so much more if he/she tells me straight up how they feel about the relationship. I crave honesty, vulnerability and openness, I long for effective and kind communication. It’s what I want to be able to provide to others, and it’s also what I’d love to receive from those I care about.

I know that this is a 180 change from the way I was brought up and from the way my family is, but I shall strive to break the chains of my traditional upbringing and become who I want to be. This shall be my constant challenge, and this is how I will continue to grow on my learning journey.

Taking stock of who my friends are today, most of them are friends from work or school (all the way back to as early as kindergarten classmates in hk!). Most of them are people I grew up with and were connected by virtue of vicinity (studying or living in the same neighborhood), by common interests (science, astronomy, track and field, chinese orchestra, Japanese culture, etc), or by being in the same class. However once we left the context in which we met, we started to drift apart and move on with our lives. Especially as we grew older, everyone started pairing up with boyfriends or husbands and started to pay less attention to our friendships.

For me, I left home and so created distance (both physical and emotional) in all my friendships. Yes I may be keeping in touch with my closer friends over Facebook and WhatsApp, but it’s still not the same. When I need help or comfort, they’re not always the ones I can rely on or turn to anymore. They’ve changed, and I’ve changed so much that I can barely recognize myself. How can we expect to go back to being as close as we were before, when now we’re almost like two new strangers? We have to re-learn everything we knew about each other, and that’s why I’m so grateful that you, my readers, my dear friends, are reading my blog posts.

Yes I’m talking to you. You are reading my deepest and innermost thoughts, and I’m baring my heart to you because I want to believe that this is your way of keeping in touch. This is your way of staying up to date on how I’ve changed, and your approximation in maintaining a close friendship while we’re miles apart. I really appreciate you for putting in this time and effort to getting to know me, and grow and learn alongside me. I only ask that you can do the same for me -- please share your innermost thoughts with me and maintain the connection, rebuild the friendship. I want to see you for who you are as well, and let this be a two-way conversation.

When I left home, I had to start over with a blank slate. I was always good at making friends -- so I did, over and over again. I made close friends in undergrad, then started anew at Stanford with a new set of friends. Then I moved to DC and started over again. After making good friends there, I moved to South Bay and yet again, I had to make new friends. I disappeared under a rock when I was in a relationship, so while I managed to make lots of acquaintance friends, I never had time or energy to get close to them. When I emerged from under the rock, I moved up to SF and had to rekindle all my old friendships and make new friends again.

Again, and again, it wears me down.

Who am I left with now that I’m alone in the US? I’ve left my closest friends behind, I don’t have family here, and while I have made new friends in my adulthood, it isn’t quite the same. I felt like  adult friendships have barriers and the baggage of past hurts, which are very different from the carefree friendships of my childhood and youth. Worse still, we have to always be wary and cautious about people getting close to us with an ulterior motive, whether it is for networking, or a guy seeing me as a potential love interest.

Is it this difficult to build and maintain friendship as adults? We needs to put in a lot more intention, care and effort in order to make it work, especially now that we have different priorities clashing with friendship - work, family, dates/boyfriends/husbands, and kids in the future. How can we juggle all that and still stay close to our friends?

I don’t have a good answer, but I think it means I’ll have to whittle down my friendship group and figure out who I want to be close to or not. I’ve been rereading waitbutwhy’s post on friendship about the tiers of friends that we should have, and it makes me wonder if I even have any in the Tier 1 group. If you haven't read it yet, I highly encourage you to at least check out the first few paragraphs of it.

I was just thinking a few weeks ago, that my closest friend now is my roommate, and the people I hang out with are my housemates - mostly because we are all in close proximity to each other. So if my house burned down, who can I turn to for help? Who do I feel comfortable enough with to ask for a place to stay?

I have two friends that I thought of, but they live with their parents in the east bay so it wouldn’t work well for them (or me). I have a few friends in the south bay that I can ask but it’s far from the city. Within the city, I realised I didn’t have any close friends other than guy dates! I can only think of two girl friends that I had just met at a Meetup end of last year - we aren’t that close yet, but they would be willing and able to help me out.

The irony is that the only people I got close to in my time here were guys I went on dates with that I really liked, that somehow didn’t work out. I don’t have close guy friends as I inadvertently create emotional distance to avoid developing feelings for the guy, but also build up a barrier to keep the guy from liking me. Otherwise it builds romantic feelings, and a close friendship would no longer be sustainable. We’d either be dating or become so uncomfortable with being close that we’d have to recreate the distance.

Also, open-minded as I may seem, I’d still feel super uncomfortable staying over at a guy’s place even if we’re friends. Given the choice, I’d rather crash with the girl acquaintance friends than guy friends haha.

I guess in the worst case, I would go home. When my heart grows weary, my body lacks vitality, and my spirit needs replenishment, I shall return home to family. The family that I don’t want to take for granted anymore, and the very people who will love me no matter what.

Diversity and Women in the workplace

I was at dinner with my coworkers yesterday, and I was excited to share with them that I‘m bringing in a third party trainer to conduct diversity training for our company’s June training. It's a first for our company, and took us 1.5 years to plan, conduct an RFQ, downselect to 2, then 1 trainer, negotiate, get approval, funding, etc, and I'm so stoked that it's finally happening! It’s called the Ally Skills workshop (more info here) and it really teaches actionable steps on how we can support targets of oppression (i.e. minorities) when we see them being treated unfairly by the privileged group.

Ok it's a lot of jargon here, but essentially how can we stop bad behavior in the workplace, and step in to help as an ally? We all have different situations where we are part of the privileged group vs the oppressed minority. For example, I know I’m privileged when I can walk into a convenience store and not worry that the cashier is watching me - he/she doesn’t think I’m there to steal, or that I don’t have any money. I know that as an Asian female, I look harmless and likeable / trustworthy, so I can get away with a lot more than a black guy would be able to. I can easily walk up to women I don't know and make conversation with them without fear, but I can’t do that if I were a guy of color.

Yet I am a minority when it comes to the workplace - I’m young, Asian, female, and international with an accent; clearly I don’t belong in a room full of white middle aged men. So I would also have situations where I’m a target of oppression, and the power dynamic is skewed the other way. I was telling my bosses about this and how we will learn to use the right language and avoid negative terms in order to be sensitive about diverse backgrounds. We will also split up into smaller groups for discussion around customized scenarios and how we would approach these uncomfortable situations. Some scenarios will include only asking junior women to do office housework (e.g. taking notes or fetching coffee), or being a consultant in a client meeting where the client is making sexist or racist remarks to another client (true story).

Now my direct boss is very open minded; he heads the SF office and is well versed in these issues - he’s a proponent of women and diversity! However the other boss is from the DC office and while he is relatively open minded, he still questioned things like the use of pronoun “they”. He also made a slippery slope fallacy - he said that if we allowed people to use all kinds of pronouns and allowed different sexualities, where does it stop? What are the boundaries then? Would bestiality be ok then? (Here is where I think - ah it’s also a false analogy fallacy! Thank you good old philosophy teacher from middle school xD)

My direct boss jumped in and said, well how about if aliens existed and came to earth, would it be ok if humans and aliens fell in love? That would be interspecies love.

I said that interspecies love is something that is popularized in today’s pop culture - shape of water, twilight, city of bones, and other vampire/human or werewolf/human pairings. However what makes it uncomfortable for me isn’t the fact that it’s interspecies or not, but rather the fact that the animal cannot give consent, so it’s an unwilling party in bestiality. If the animal is on equal terms, is able to communicate with humans and express its love / willingness to date with the human, then yes I’m all for it! Hence the false analogy - it’s not an apple to apple comparison with interspecies relations.

Anyhow, I know this is only the beginning of an uphill battle. I’m preparing myself to be comfortable with being uncomfortable at June training, because I will definitely be a minority in the discussion and I will have to speak up in front of senior management. These are men who are quite different from me and have more seniority / power in the company, so I will have to be sensitive and tactful. It will be both challenging and exhilarating, can’t wait for it!

I recently spoke with a bunch of very smart men and women in SF about women’s issues in the workplace and how men can help. While I felt some resistance/discomfort, it was still a breakthrough for me. If we don’t open up the conversation, how else can we drive change in society’s mindset? Men make up half the world and pretty much run all of the world, so we need to enlist their help and buy-in to encourage diversity.

If any of you are interested to learn more about this, feel free to reach out to me for a chat anytime. I have a bunch of books and articles to recommend, as well as a presentation I made to my company with statistics and information about the problem, benefits of diversity, the impact on our work, how we can help. It’s an all around interesting issue that I’m still learning about, so feel free to send things my way as well!

Quote for the day

I came across this quote in my bit of news today, and I really liked it. It so eloquently stated what I’ve been thinking in the past few years, totally true! Thought I’d share this as quote for the day:

You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine but not health; knowledge but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel." 
– Arne Garborg, Norwegian author

Money can buy most things in life, but not the things that matter.

And of course, you’d always have fun when you’re with joy ;)

Achieving greater things

I did a headstand!!! The last time I managed to do a headstand was in sec 1, back when I was 13. Wow I felt this rush of adrenaline and sense of achievement, especially since I tried it two years ago and gave up. I'm so glad I persevered this time and really did it hehehe.

This gives me hope that I should try other things that I may have been too uncomfortable with, or things I gave up on before. I'm currently doing meditation everyday for 5 min, and keeping up with my meditation streak using the Simple Habit app (for those of you interested, add me as a friend!). I'm trying to keep up doing blogilates again everyday (I stuck to it for a few months and then gave up...), and eating healthier / less carbs. I'm also trying to get back into dancing (west coast swing, salsa, zumba, kpop, hip hop, etc) at least once a week.

This is actually not easy, but given that I know my tendency as an Obliger (see The Four Tendencies here), I have been trying to create more external accountability for myself. Any friends want to join me in living healthier lifestyles / doing these things with me? :D

As for my reading challenge of 30 books a year (2.5 books/month), I've been more than on track - I finished 11 books as of yesterday! I also noticed that I've been reading a lot more books on relationships and understanding dating styles, such as "Attached" and "Mating in Captivity", and now I'm reading Aziz Ansari's "Modern Romance". These are all great books, and I've learned so much more about my own personality, people's preferences/desires, and how people communicate. Definitely looking forward to applying it with my future dating and relationships.

A lot of exciting news too, my brother is visiting next weekend, and I have a few other friends visiting Mother's Day weekend. It would be a lot of fun hanging out with all these people and eating yummy food. I'll also be going to NYC in June for a weekend so I'm excited!! Definite looking forward to catching up with my east coast friends and watching some broadway musicals ^^

My strengths

I've been doing an online Coursera class on Positive Psychology and Resilience, and we had to do a Values in Action (VIA) survey to figure out what our character strengths are. If you're interested, feel free to do the survey here, it took me around 10 minutes.
https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter

Make sure to look for VIA Survey of Character Strengths, and you'll need to create an account in order to do the survey. There are other surveys in there around optimism, authentic happiness, meaning in life, etc. All quite interesting!

Turns out my strengths are:

Your Top Strength

Forgiveness and mercy -

You forgive those who have done you wrong. You always give people a second chance. Your guiding principle is mercy and not revenge.

Your Second Strength

Leadership -

You excel at the tasks of leadership: encouraging a group to get things done and preserving harmony within the group by making everyone feel included. You do a good job organizing activities and seeing that they happen.

Strength #3

Love of learning -

You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.

Strength #4

Social intelligence -

You are aware of the motives and feelings of other people. You know what to do to fit in to different social situations, and you know what to do to put others at ease.

Strength #5

Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness -

Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

I'm pretty amazed to find out my #1 strength is forgiveness and mercy! Learning, social intelligence and critical thinking I agree with, but #2 leadership is surprising for me. I see myself more as a good follower, or perhaps a key enabler in getting things done. I guess the description here sounds more like a compassionate/encouraging leader rather than the traditional macho/confident type of leader. Guess that's a strength of mine I should use more often and leverage at work!

Rhapsody in Blue!

So I just went for a Groupmuse music event last Sunday, and it’s definitely a more chill, casual and intimate setting than I was expecting. It’s not like a full blown concert, rather it’s more about sitting on cushions and couches and hanging out with your friends with food and drinks while you enjoy some classical music - piano, chamber music (strings) and opera singers. It was quite magical and I really liked it! The only thing was that I felt super uncomfortable sitting on the floor - got to practice more meditation sitting on the floor...

The last song they played was “Rhapsody in Blue”, and little did I know that that’s the song that United has been using in all 3 of their safety videos! This means I’ve been listening to this song  twice a week almost every week for the past 4 years!! Wow. Here’s the latest United “Safety is Global” video so you can understand what I listen to every week hahaha...I’ll never see the video the same way again.

How I have grown

Happy International Women Day folks! I don't agree with celebrating women only on one day - we should celebrate us and address women's issues every day. But still I recognize the meaning of it and how it starts conversations, so that's great.

Ok this post will be about the woes of online dating, and kind of shows you why I've been feeling so jaded about it, but I also realised I've grown so much since I started. I've stopped feeling as affected by guys / other people, the things they say or do to me, though I still need a lot of conscious re-thinking to make sure I don't let other people's negativity get me down.

Yes I'm back on the online dating scene. I've re-installed all my apps (that I've been off of for the past 6 months)...and it didn't even seem like I've been gone. In fact, I think the quality of guys on the apps just went down! Gosh, just when I thought I'm a veteran at this, you guys keep surprising me, and NOT in a good way. And somehow I'm not surprised anymore...

This isn't looking good you guys, come on I know you can do better than this!

I went on a date last week and I felt quite sad...yet another case of amazing-in-texting-but-terrible-in-person date. I gave him a chance and even re-engaged in talking with him over text after meeting him, and talked to him over the phone. Again - texting is good and he's super responsive, manages my expectations etc, but on the phone he was terrible.

He sounded like a self-absorbed, presumptuous and arrogant guy who didn't care much about the other person's feelings, though he tried to do so. He really did try, I can tell, but it took so much effort for him. And because of that he was emotionally guilt tripping me to do the same things for him, but I just felt defensive every time I heard his voice or thought of him.

I have no idea how he even got all his past girlfriends, it's like he says things that are all the right things, but his body language and tone didn't mean it - like saying "I don't ever brag about those things, I hate people who do" and then he goes about subtly bragging about those things (without meaning to).

What the heck? But really he didn't mean to. Right....

Anyhow I just told him we're not a good match and best of luck in his search, and he asked me to pay for half of the meal that he treated me. Umm...on the date I asked to pay half and he insisted on treating, and then now...what? He's burned all the bridges lol, don't think I'd even want to talk to him again.

He actually reminds me of my ex (in terms of the lack of sensitivity/communication) but a much worse version of him, one that is also super cynical, insecure, and more picky among other issues. Goodness...I don't even know where to begin. If I don't conform with his ideas, he would be making me feel bad and terrible about it. Even seeing him once already made me feel this way, can you imagine if it really were everyday??

I am so glad I'm a much stronger person now and feel less affected by these sorts of things. No matter his sweet words or actions, I won't be duped by such superficial things, and I don't need a negative influence in my life that brings me down.

Oh and another online date tried to ask about sex in our first -text- conversation (yes not even in person) but he was so awkwardly bad about it I just laughed. And he wasn't even that good looking...I told him sorry don't think it's going to work out. 

Goodness what has this online dating scene gone to - guys who are just so bad with women that they think they can get women by asking for sex? hahahaha

Happyy

Yay I'm so happy! My mentee (she's a junior in high school) got accepted into a summer program at Boston U! I feel happier than if I had gotten in myself hahaha, and it's not even college acceptance yet. I'll look forward to that experience next year xD

Ok that's it, just posting here to say that.

Jaded

I woke up this morning and realized that I’m sad. I’m feeling hurt. I’m mad, I’m upset, and I feel used.

I’ve been going on dates with this guy that I thought was a nice guy, perfectly normal and even though we don’t have much in common, we still liked each other. He would say these funny nice things to me and make me so happy. I decided to give him a chance because he’s different from all the other guys I’ve dated before - he’s “simple, basic” (in his own words), he’s not complicated and doesn’t overanalyze or overthink things the way I (or everyone else around me) do. I thought we could date for a while and see where things go, get to know each other better. I thought he would make a good companion and emotional support, without us being in a long-term relationship. That’s a pretty good deal both ways, isn’t it?

However, he turned out to be just like every other guy here. He started to pull back and text me less frequently, and stopped asking me out. I’m the one who had to keep trying and asking to see when we could see each other again, when we’re both next free...I understood that we were both busy, but if you like each other you’d make it work right? After 2-3 weeks of trying, I realized he just wasn’t that into me and he probably didn’t want to see me. So I asked him if he had a moment to chat on the phone. I’d hate to do it over text, given that we’ve been seeing each other on and off for the past 3 months. He called me back and sounded so happy to talk to me that I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question I was going to ask - I think you don’t want to see me at all. Should I stop trying?

I guess 我还是心太软.

Following that, I didn’t think I would be hurt because I rationalized it to myself logically. I’ve prepared myself for the worst / inevitable and started to detach myself from him, thinking - how would I feel if we don't ever speak again? I thought I'd be sad for a little while, but I'd get over it quickly. We finally saw each other again for a date yesterday - little did I know it would really be our final, last one.

It seems like I got hurt after all. I did like him, at least the him who liked me back and was nice to me. I was infatuated with the idea of love, of someone who could care for me without needing all that intellectual discussion or thinking. I thought that we could have 简单爱. I thought I'm the cold-hearted one, that I’d be the one to break things off with him and walk away from this first.

I was wrong. I wasn’t prepared for the worst after all - the worst is when the guy is being indecisive about it. It’s not that he doesn’t like me, he finds me really smart, attractive, nice...he likes me and wants to keep hanging out with me. But...wait for it: he’s not ready for a long term relationship, he was in a 5-year long one and it’s not what he’s looking for right now. Wait why is this sounding so familiar?

That’s fine, a super long-term relationship isn't what I’m looking for either, but I definitely want something more committed, even if we’re seeing other people at the same time. But he wants to set “parameters” on the relationship so I won’t get hurt or disappointed. Uh so what does that really mean?

He suggested for us to see each other when we want to see each other. That's super vague - how do I know when he wants to see me? How do I know when I want to see him?? There's inherent imbalance and a lot of hand-waving that I don't like here.

I didn’t think too much about it, just that over the course of this final date I felt less and less into it, and at the end I told him - you tell me when you want to see me, I’m not going to ask you. I was getting really frustrated because I didn’t know how exactly I was feeling, and I didn't know what to make of this fluffy hand-waviness.

I think that means we’ll never see each other again.

This morning when I woke up, my brain finally caught up to my heart. Oh crap. What he is looking for is someone he can keep around for emotional and physical intimacy, someone he can hang out with whenever he wants to without the commitment of a relationship. What's the difference between that and a friend?

It's a friend with benefits, that's what it is. Wow, that hurts. Big time.

So I started to compare my relationship with him with this other guy I really liked but never kissed or had any physical touch with, and with another guy who actually did want friends with benefits and was really clear about it. All 3 of them were essentially looking for the same thing, but I think the other two were less cruel than this one indecisive dude, who made me believe for a moment that there are nice guys in this world who actually would be decent enough to want to date me, and not keep me around just for comfort.

I guess I’m just jaded about dating, love and relationships now. I'm starting to feel disappointed in the dating scene here, and I feel like I will never really find someone I love, who will love me in return.

Where do I go from here?

Up in the Air

Yes, let’s talk about being up in the air, yet again. I’m reminded of it because United showed me my flight statistics in 2017 - and I’m happy they collated all that info for me! The only flights missing are the Singapore Airlines flights where I flew home to Singapore and back, and my Southwest flights to and from Cabo over Christmas. So while United says I’ve flown 4x around the world, it’s really more like 5x around the globe! Here are screenshots of my stats -

I know I’ve been flying a lot - every week actually, between SF and Chicago these days. I was starting to feel burned out with all that flying almost every week for the past 3 years. I know lots of people are envious of my high-flying (no pun intended) lifestyle, and heck yeah even I’m quite envious of me! Collecting all those flight miles, hotel points, credit card points, and essentially getting paid to travel, stay at nice hotels and eat at fancy restaurants...imagine that!

However, having done this for 3 and a half years now, I’m starting to feel drained. I have so many friends in SF and I’ve started building a life and routine so it feels like a home base there - otherwise I just feel like a floating person with no real home. In fact at one point in Denver, I started thinking of my hotel as home - I’d been staying there for a year and a half then and knew the front desk folks well, almost like friends. That was when I was still commuting back and forth between DC-Denver-SF-Denver-DC...I was spending more time in Denver than anywhere else!

Now I’ve built a comfortable and homely life in SF...regular dance classes, volunteering every Saturday, meeting friends, going on dates, etc. I almost wish I didn’t travel as much so I can enjoy more time to myself, in my own place, with my friends or with my date, but then I immediately start missing the travel. It’s like I’m addicted, like I’ve caught the travel bug! I miss taking a plane and having a short (non-existent) commute from the hotel to the client’s during the week, I miss having a per diem so I can spend on food and not worry about it, I miss gaining status with airlines and hotels. What I miss most is having my own room, bathroom and a daily cleaning service so I never - I repeat NEVER - have to do any household chores or cleaning at all! That’s the absolute best part about travel - it’s the ultimate luxurious lifestyle which is great for lazy people like me xD

I almost wish I could live in the lap of luxury all the time; but then I’d just take it for granted. So I guess my ideal situation is if I can continue to travel, but maybe every other week or three weeks out of a month. We’ll see how things go.

On the fun update side - I’ll be going on a wild cross-country trip (flying, not driving) for the next two weeks for site visits with the over 10 folks from the client! It will be a crazy lot of flying (yes more than I already am doing now) - 8 flights to be exact - I’ll hopefully get to know my clients better and learn a lot along the way. Also it doesn’t hurt to gain some miles and get to see Tampa (beaches anyone?), Dallas, and Indianapolis among other cool cities! I’ll be flying SFO-ORF-DEN-ATL-SFO and then SFO-TPA-DFW-IND-SFO.

Here’s my upcoming trip in flight maps:

Wow. That's a total of 13,437 miles in 8 flights in 8 days. Let's keep our fingers crossed that none of these flights get delayed, or at least not enough to miss any of my tight connections! (e.g., that 49min one...)

conflicting feelings

My ex of 2.5 years (also my first boyfriend ever) just told me today that he’s getting married. I was shocked, surprised, happy for him but also a little sad that I haven’t found someone special that I want to spend the rest of my life with, the way he has. I don’t have any romantic feelings for him anymore, but I still have nostalgia for our good old days, and it reminded me of the hopes and dreams of my younger self, believing he was the one that I was going to marry. I wonder if I’ll ever find someone I can feel that way about again.... I’ve become so jaded about love and relationships that I don’t expect to find someone that special so easily. I definitely have my own doubts about how my heart would work against my logical and overanalytical brain - maybe they will give up and just see what life throws at me.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I really don’t know how I feel about this news. I know a part of me is really happy for them (especially since I know both of them - they are really a great match!), yet a part of me feels bitter. Bitter because none of the guys I’ve met or are seeing made me feel like I want to marry them. I wish I had that happy naive and loving self back so I can feel that way again, and yet I know that self would also be the most hurt if I let my logic and reasoning take a backseat. Such a struggle; a dilemma.

Last night I stayed up till 6am chatting with an acquaintance friend of mine - and we realized that we’re like a mirror of each other’s thoughts, emotions, feelings, experiences - we’re in the same boat in every way! I’m wondering if this is what they call a soulmate, if this is what it feels like to find a soulmate. I don’t like him the way I like guys romantically though, but we can talk about anything and everything under the sun. Am I actually attracted to him? Or were we just having a moment of bonding and connection, with the continual reaffirmation of each other’s beliefs (since we are so similar?) I couldn’t tell if I’ve already friend zoned him or not, and I couldn’t tell whether I feel for him more than friends or not. It’s an all around very weird feeling / situation, the first of its kind for me. How do I feel about him exactly?

I guess these conflicting feelings will fade in intensity and I’ll let them pass, and we’ll see if we actually keep in touch. Also, when I told him that sometimes I could be intimidating, he said yeah he clearly remembered some memorable moments when I was intimidating. I was super shocked - memorable? Somehow, some of my actions / thoughts had floored him, such that he didn’t know what to do or say. He said I was like a blank slate, he had nothing to work with and so he was flustered. That was when I thought - was he interested in me? I don’t know, but I’m going to leave it at that. Some things don’t need to be driven to ground, some bubbles better left unburst.

P.S. I guess LA will always be special to me now - because it’s the place where my ex and I decided to officially break up two Christmases ago, and now it’s the place where I learned that he is getting married this year. How time flies, and how serendipitous this all is.

P.S.S. It definitely didn’t help that this random guy on the street was hitting on me right when I saw the message from my ex that he was getting married. I cut the other guy short and let him know I’m busy - he made me feel both flattered and upset at the same time. What’s the point of having all these guys hit on me or find me attractive when none of them were marriage material?

P.S.S.S A Korean guy friend of my friend (who has a gf but was clearly interested in me) told me I looked very pretty, and that I looked like Lee Hyori. Whatt?? I look like a superstar celebrity, who is also known as the Nation’s Fairy in Korea?? I’m super flattered hahaha

New Year, New Thoughts

Ok I know it’s been a long while since I last posted - so here I am! My first post in the new year of 2018! Everyone asked me about New Years’ resolutions, or goals for the year, but no I don’t really have anything new. I just have ongoing goals that I’m working on - constant self improvement and learning goals. For example, I want to learn Korean (as I've been thinking of doing since last year), and keep learning better conflict management and negotiation skills, keep dating and loving wholeheartedly, to keep improving in dancing (more performance workshops?), more article writing at my job and teaching junior resources, and more mentorship volunteering and growing together with my mentee. Long story short, nothing much new, but a lot of exciting things I want to keep doing this year :)

What I do want to post about today, is the latest Star Wars movie - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I just watched it this past weekend, and I'm soooo excited and happy about the way it turned out!! Honestly, it's my favorite Star Wars movie thus far! I know there are a lot of people who absolutely hate it, and I can understand why - this movie is completely different from the previous ones. it's different in style, in characters, in acting, in the way the story flowed, in the plot twists, and yet it's similar in some other ways. For those of you who haven't yet seen the movie, go watch it and then read the below. I'm going to go into deep detail analyzing the movie, and there are plenty of spoilers here!

Disclaimer: SPOILER ALERT!! DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE WATCHED STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.

I love the use of a lot more Asians and female characters, and their influence on the male characters. The movie showcased that even when you're the main character or the lead, it doesn't mean you always need to rush headlong into trouble, to be sacrificing your lives like martyrs. The movie showed it three times:

1. Princess Leia demoted Poe for his reckless destruction of the enemy's spaceship, which had cost all the bombers and their pilots' lives. There was a really high risk of failure actually - it was all down to that last bomber which could easily have been blown up before it could destroy the enemy.

2. Vice Admiral Holdo had a plan that was sound and had lower risk of failure compared to Poe's crazy plan to crack the security code with the enemy and destroy their tracker. The unfortunate thing was that there should have been much better communication so that the audience (and Poe and crew) would have been more willing to collaborate. I felt like there was some part of dramatic effect here where the Admiral purposely didn't share information with Poe until the very end, and vice versa as well. Oh well, how else would you get a mutiny scene? It's also sad because more of the Resistance folks probably got killed or injured in that mutiny, and given their dwindling numbers...that's not good.

3. In the last scenes, Rose saved Finn from needlessly killing himself at the risk of her own life. At first glance it seemed really stupid to save Finn when he could have stopped the cannon (and died). Upon further thought, yeah she's right. Even if Finn had destroyed the cannon, so what? Quite likely the First Order's got more where that came from, and they will just break the door down anyway. That scene also showcased Rose's concern and love for Finn, which was unexpected but not THAT unexpected given that she totally admired and worshipped him as a Resistance hero at the beginning. I definitely like this unexpected twist haha. Also at the beginning, Rose used a taser on Finn and stopped him from escaping, which was a really smart move. Despite Finn's "good and sound" reasons, they're really stupid excuses and reflected reckless behavior. We're all glad he stayed and fought.

It is great that these female characters were showing their strengths in being calm and rational instead of rushing to take risks, but I prefer it if it wasn't just women tempering the men all 3 times. This only perpetuated the female stereotype that women are the ones who think twice and avoid taking risks, whereas men take risks heedlessly. The message would have been stronger if they included scenes with men tempering men in order to undermine gender stereotypes, though maybe it wouldn't have been as obvious to the audience if it were another guy saying "whoa hold it, this isn't going to work". I had the feeling that the audience probably only saw Admiral Holdo as too "soft" or too "aggressive" and use negative words to describe her. It's definitely unfortunate :/

One note on Rose - I like that they chose another minority character as a lead - an asian female, and of a different shape and size from the usual no less! i.e. she's not tall, and not skinny the way every other model and Hollywood star seems to be. I really like that :D We need more actors and actresses of different colors, shapes and sizes in the media so that our kids know that it's ok to look different and still be popular and famous! She is also spunky, headstrong and willing to jump straight into things alongside Finn and Poe, so she is one female character that undermines gender stereotypes. Hurray for that!

There was a scene where there was totally "manterruption" (i.e. a male interrupting a female unnecessarily) and "bropropriation" (i.e. a male taking credit for another female's ideas). It was the scene where Finn was explaining the plan to disable the tracker on the enemy's ship. Rose was trying to explain but Finn talked over her and interrupted her, and he essentially explained her idea as though it were his own. Fortunately for all of us (and my very upset brain/heart), Finn finally stopped and let Rose say her piece. It was so obvious that I felt like they must have written it into the script on purpose. Is the scriptwriter female? Whoever it is, I am really impressed and kudos to Star Wars / Lucas Film / Disney for making that statement!

I came across this really good article that discusses the mansplaining (i.e. men explaining things to women as though they're ignorant, when the women already know it better than the men do) in the movie, among other things - definitely check it out: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/12/star-wars-last-jedi-laura-dern-admiral-holdo-listen-to-women

Next, I really liked the concept of turning / changing each other, the talking and reflecting between Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren and Rey. It’s clear that they have a strong bond, and that she is the one who sees the good in him, in that there is hope to turn him. Kylo showed a lot of potential and it made sense when he helped Rey kill Snoke. It even made sense when he asked her to build a new order together. If only there was better communication between Kylo and Rey, so the Resistance and the New Order can collaborate and merge, in that case I think it can totally work lol. The old generation just had too many hatreds and feuds that it makes it hard to avoid enmity.

I especially love that ironic (or even anti-climactic) reveal that Rey didn't have “famous” parents. That's the greatest twist of all - she had been wondering all her life, we as an audience were speculating and hoping for all the life of us, and the movie says nonchalantly, "I'm going to just subvert your expectations hah!" It goes to show that you can come from nothing and still achieve great things! It's true in real life too, such a strong message that you can succeed and do amazing feats even if you don't come from a legacy.

This ties very well (in foreshadowing?) especially with the ending scene - where the child on that "Vegas-like planet" showed that he had the Force and held hope for the future. He had the resistance ring on his finger, and he was thinking of Luke Skywalker as his idol/inspiration as the Jedi Master. It could very well be there won't be any Jedi after this movie, but whatever they're called in the future, they can still be folks who use the Force for good instead of evil.

Which brings me to this random musing - it is unclear to me why the First Order is evil. Perhaps they are oppressing the people and creating wars just to make profit? Anyhow, I do love conflicted and flawed characters; there is no clear good or evil in people as everyone has both sides within themselves - even that great Jedi Master Luke Skywalker! At the end of the day, it is the environment you were brought up in, the choices that others have made for you and in influencing you, and the choices that you end up making based on your values and your options. It was sad for Kylo Ren to be betrayed by Luke the way he did (and this is so consistent with Episode III, how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader - it's always fear that evil thrives on), I definitely have high hopes for Kylo Ren in the next movie with further conflict within him! How about a spoof where the First Order collaborates with the Resistance to create the Second Order of peace and harmony? xD

I love the part about the Vegas-like planet, where the rich indulge in extravagance and the poor serve the rich. It's a representation of our world today - a social commentary in what constitutes entertainment for us, the inequality between classes, animal abuse, among many other things. It serves as a good reminder that Star Wars does reflect our reality, and we need to pay attention to its various messages - on all the issues that are going on in this world, on women leadership in the workplace, etc.

On death - it's interesting that Luke died the way he did. I didn't expect him to be first of all, not fighting in person, and then second of all, still be alive after doing all that exertion over the huge distance (especially being so out of practice with the Force). And then a few minutes later he smiled into the sunset (did you see two suns!) and disappeared, so I thought - oh ok I was right after all, he totally died from all that exertion. It was a double subversion of my expectations lol. It's also interesting to see that Jedis die by disappearing into the Force...Snoke definitely didn't disappear that way haha. Well it reminds me that just like we are all stardust, in the Star Wars world, they are all part of the Force - they come from it and they disappear into it. I'm just glad that Luke finally found his purpose and meaning in life, and found peace in letting go. So zen...

And on another death - Carrie Fisher died after filming her swan song performance in this movie (I liked her performance in here a lot!!). How will they tie Princess Leia's death into the next movie? I'm so curious! How will the next movie turn out? How will the Resistance rebuild themselves, will there be training of the new generation of Jedi? or are they called something else now? Will they end up turning Kylo Ren in the end?

One reason I think that people may hate this movie is because there were so many older "elderly" characters in here. It does bring the energy down and make the movie a lot more mature / heavier / slower-paced than if it were all younger people doing action-movie jumping and stunts everywhere. I guess given that I'm older and more mature (and educated about women's issues) now, I definitely enjoyed this movie way more than any of the other almost meaningless action movie-style Star Wars films.

What do you all think of the movie?