Thank you Movember

for helping me realize that I find men with facial hair attractive.

Latest realization of turn-ons:

• facial hair
• nerds who are passionate about humanities (or any sort of field they can excel at--whether finances or technology, but especially humanities).

Already realized turn-ons:

• shaved head...not necessarily due to natural hair loss..haha
• witty, i.e., smart and funny

All-time biggest turn off:

• men who spend too much time on their appearance, including working out and dressing up.

Blind Faith

I turn 27 in January.

A couple generations ago, at age 27, people were already married for a few years and were having kids. Things seem to have been so easy back then, to find the right person, to be with the right person, and to have a family with the right person.

Or was it?

I guess the theory doesn't stand if you start accounting for all the divorces, and the billions of books on relationship published since the beginning of time.

I grew up in the suburbs and so did most of my friends. We're all about the same age, plus or minus one or two.
None of the people in my groups of friends are married. Some are in serious relationships but with no immediate plans of marriage. Some are in pseudo-serious relationships with no plans of marriage. Some are single.

Those who are single are looking. They deal with their uncertainty in many ways. Some are scared to let themselves take the plunge even when meeting the potentially right person. Some are dating serially in hopes of finding the right one soon. Some try to change themselves, some don't. Some lament about their lack of relationship status, some try not to think about it, some convince themselves that they are happy, some really are happy.

Those who are in pseudo-serious relationships are the ones who are settling. Some have convinced themselves that they are with the right person, even though deep down inside, they are still wondering whether the person they are with is the one. Some know they don't truly love the person and that there are problems, but they don't know what else to do. Some people are happy with settling. Some people are not. Some people are not even sure. But when you settle, everyone else around you can tell.

Admittedly, relationships aren't easy.

In fact, relationships are so complicated that there's just no right way of doing something. I didn't settle and I accepted the fact that I could be single for the rest of my life. But that doesn't mean there aren't people out there who can settle, who wants to settle, and who needs to settle. And there are people who can't bear the fact of being alone. I dated around but I didn't sleep around. But that doesn't mean that there aren't people who don't date around and still found the right person. It also doesn't mean that if you sleep around you won't.

And then there's a difference between being in a happy relationship and being in love. I genuinely believe that you can be in a happy relationship without being in love, but it depends on your personality.

I'm no relationship expert, but here is my take on it...

A happy relationship, for me, is this:

• Self-knowledge. Understand yourself, know your strengths and flaws, and don't be greedy. Nothing in life will ever be perfect, but if you can figure out the best ratio for gain and compromise for you, and you alone, then it's easier to be happy.
• Commitment. Make sure you can commit to your decisions. If you decided to settle, don't question it and regret it. If you are going to question it and regret it, then don't settle and commit to not settling. If you're always flip-flopping in between, things will never be easy.

Love, for me, is this:

• Risk. To let yourself love, and be loved, is always always always a risk. Because you can wake up one day hurt and wounded. Because you can wake up one day alone, and regret never having settled for someone whom you did not love but would have kept you company forever.
• Luck. But luck comes to those who are prepared.
• Belief. Sometimes it's just blind faith that the right person will come along.

I honestly believe that we all have so much time still to find the right person, as long as we keep believing. Cheesy, I know, but I really mean it.

Politics of Politics

Walking around the city and even surfing around on FB, I am bombarded with the phrase "Did you Vote?"
Even my temporary MA driver's license said in big bold letters "YOU DID NOT REGISTER TO VOTE TODAY."

The best part is likely when I was at the T stop and a woman tried to hand us pamphlets while saying "Did you vote?" We shook our heads at her, subconsciously rejecting the pamphlet and answering her question. She scowled at us like we are awful American citizen.

Look lady, you can try to shame us into voting, but do you really want a Canadian voting on American politics? We'll turn you socialist in no time! (Okay, maybe not with the recent Ford election...)

The Rock

I realize the following paragraphs will become a conversational piece, especially for some of you who have been silently keeping up with this blog, but it probably doesn't mean what you think it means.

On my flight back from SFO on Wednesday, the woman sitting next to me reminded me of Kim Kardashian, except in her late 30s if not early 40s. She had long dark black hair and olive skin, and despite she moves and talks with the utmost forced femininity, the thick amount of makeup couldn't hide all the thick and thin lines across her entire face. From afar, there's no doubt she looked good: leather jacket, TNA leggings, still in good shape, etc. It's not hard to tell that she takes good care of herself; from the American Express she keeps swiping on the screen in front of me, the Mac Air she was using the entire flight, and the GIGANTIC rock on her finger, you can tell she has both the time and the money to take care of herself--and she does.

I swear the diamond on her finger was unnaturally large, maybe the size of a dime, and obviously a lot thicker (2-3cm?). I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't stop looking at it and secretly wished that one day I can sport a rock this big. And herein lies the irony---just a few days ago, J, one of my awesome awesome coworkers at Fremont, was telling me how she had a dream wedding last year in Prague with close families and friends for an entire weekend (40 ppl) and a dream honey moon (10 days on a small Greek island, removed from any signs of tourists, at a cottage on top of the hill, overlooking the island) while completely forgoing an engagement ring. Her wedding ring had a diamond on it, but it was not those big engagement ones.

At the moment when J was telling me about her whole wedding, I was thinking that this is exactly what I had always wanted--I don't wear jewelery and I don't care to have a large wedding that requires a year's worth of planning--I just want to celebrate the occasion with people i love, and just have fun.

And here is where I feel like I need to clarify again: If you guys are thinking that I must be wedding-crazy and that you guys are about to be attending our wedding, just know that nothing is happening any time soon.

But yes, I have been thinking about weddings and honeymoons lately, and what I want to do for mine. I can't seem to help it. Recently, left, right, and center, I'm attending weddings, looking at ppl's wedding photos, and hearing people talk about weddings. I know I have mentioned all of this before, but when I was little, I never thought about what my wedding would be like, or what my ring would be like, because I just never thought about it. Now that everyone is getting married, it probably won't hurt to just think about what I would want to do one day, because, admittedly, it is an important day--I don't want to look back one day and regret that I had a nonchalant attitude towards me taking a huge step in my life, right?

Anyway, every time I go to a wedding, hear about a wedding, read about a wedding of someone I know, etc., my mind will change a bit. I do know that I want a wedding with just people I know, and not a bunch of people I've never met in my life. And I want simplicity and elegance, which sounds cheesy but thats the type of cheesy i want.

But what about the rock? Big? regular? or none at all?
Thankfully, this decision won't need to be made imminently.
In all likelihood, if i were a billionaire (or married to a billionaire) i'd want a gigantic ring but end up never wearing it.
Since I am a middle-class consumer, I guess perhaps I should really opt to skip the engagement ring and put the money toward something else. Would that be too pragmatic?

Sometimes I feel like pragmatics and relationships are mutually exclusive. It's like trying to put logic in love...

Blog

Although I don't blog as much as I used to, which was a few times a day in high school and undergrad and a few times a month at Oculus and during grad school, my online activities has only increased. On the right column, you can still see my rarely updated twitter, my often updated yelp reviews, my whereabouts on my calendar and people's blogs i do follow.

It's probably better this way because my blogs used to have what I thought was better content, but since I've finished school and am on the full working life, my thoughts and my writing have been devolving into series of unfinished thoughts and superficial posts that doesn't entice me to look back and re-read my entires. At least the conversations I have and re-post here I still find amusing.

For a while, I played with the idea that perhaps the (not-so) newly lack of blogging is a reflection on the emo-teen years everyone goes through. It's true that the older you get, the less you seem to want to release all your pent up emotions from your puberty-induced hormones by some form of self-expression. And maybe it IS that I no longer NEED to write, and therefore I don't. But I do miss writing and and the analysing that comes with it. Hopefully, I will make the effort to find the time again some time down the road and practice writing things that are more observational, and if i'm lucky, insightful.

And...this is what happens when I sleep all day and wake up at 2am PST/5am EST...