emmiwy

*High five* Betty, you're awesome. I'm really glad that you shared your experience because while I've had and continue to have similar challenges, it never gets easier learning how to balance our own needs vs. the need to please people, especially our parents. I can get stuck extremely deep into a psycho-social role reversal to reconcile and cope with how my parents think the way they do. It can drive me a little crazy sometimes. I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself: if you don't, your mom will continue to treat you the way she has. To be treated like an adult (unfortunately for me being a passive wallflower around my parents) asserting ourselves is necessary to develop confidence in communicating our needs, and to generally mature our own sense of identity. In many years of deliberating this, I've found that not speaking out equals obedience to them and breeds dependence on this parent-child relationship. It is deceptively comfortable having someone make decisions for you, to be corralled down a specific path. Until you realize you deserve more than that and have confidence in living life in your own way. Listen to yourself and give yourself the opportunity to trust that doing what YOU want is completely ok. What you want is more important than what your mom wants in the grand scheme of what we call "Your Life". Its not anyone's responsibility but our own to pursue our happiness. I know you have the self-respect and self-worth needed to take the step to do what's right for you, which is why you choosing to go to HK is not a surprising outcome to me. :)

Point well taken. I suppose thinking about it now sounds like a silly "what if" question of, if I hadn't experienced certain things growing up then who wouuld I be now? I listened to an audio book a few weeks ago that helped change my perspective via a pretty good analogy. As people we like to reflect on our lives and life directions as boats steered by the wake left behind the boat. We focus so much on our past and finding meaning in the source of our current state, believing that it is what controls where we go. Time to take control of what we get and make the lives we want, good and bad.

That's nuance that the article mentions. I don't necessarily want to forget certain experiences themselves as much as the emotion(s) associated with the particular memories. Subtle difference perhaps, but otherwise I agree with you. I believe every experience we have in our lives are building blocks for who we see in the mirror everyday, and gives us ample opportuity to be our strongest selves. If we let ourselves see it that way that is.

Experience and memory do make our lives colorful and help us evolve as stronger human beings, through learned mistakes or misfortunes. So in that sense, I wouldn't want to "un-live" my life experiences, but I would be happy to alleviate the emotional wake left from negative memories I recall from my life. To take it further, the article makes me wonder if we can learn to enhance the feelings associated with recalling positive memories beyond our normal capability, in order to help forget the negative. Perhaps its similar to cognitive behavioral therapy? Somehow memories with strong negative components are easy to recall, even when we don't want to re-live the emotions resulting from those memories... http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/03/160126283/can-we-learn-to-forget-our-memories

Absolutely true, social status behind how one's physical appearance may imply is huge. Within the sub-group of Asian cultures I am aware, social status and its significance is pervasive within the language and how people refer to each other. For example, there are specific words used to refer to an "older sister", "younger brother", "maternal grandmother", "second paternal grand aunt", etc. The funny thing is, even with strict adherence to these social practices, Asians these days are trying hard to adopt and assimilate into the Western culture. It's not uncommon to see an immigrated or even native Asian person to have a tan, bleached/blonde hair, wear blue contact lenses. Go to the larger more developed cities in Asia and I'm sure it will be a more common sight than you think.

+1 While I emphatically support pursuing the necessary real world skills to build tools and deliverables, I do see an advantage of higher education and obtaining graduate degrees. In my experience, it is not so much the technical skills you may (or may not, to some) gain in the end, but the ability to solve problems, organize, and be self-reliant, endure. But I suppose what skills you apply depends on who you're working for; the professional success of an individual can be based on doing exactly what you're told or thinking taking an idea and running with it. I'm not sure which one I'm better suited for yet...

All of a sudden I'm feeling like all my years in school was a waste of time. :)

I interviewed several people over the course of last month and I can tell you this is true. I don't know what my applicants are studying in college but it doesn't apply in the real world. Unless a college student takes it upon themselves to educate themselves, what they are learning in college will be of no use upon graduation. A bit of a tangent to the original post but... ...I definitely can see how your statement holds up. Now that I'm finally done with school and "formalized" methods of learning, I regret not having done any internship during the summers in between school years to really gain experience within industry and the necessary skillsets needed to succeed outside of what we think or are taught is practical in the real world work setting. Especially so in engineering (for anyone out there who may be young and reading this, really I think it's an advantageous use of time spent). I'm very grateful for is people around me who support learning and on the job training, otherwise would make the job even more challenging. Yay for the real world!

I see what you did there. :)

Good to know, thanks! :) I'm a novice free flier, so coaching /load organizing would be most helpful, I'll look out for them when I make it out there. Unfortunately I'm going to miss out on the American Boogie, still getting settled into the northern California area. But have fun!

Hi everyone! In anticipation of retuning to the skies after a long layoff due to finishing school and moving, I wanted to ping anyone who may be a regular at Skydance skydiving or Skydive Sacramento. I have not jumped at either of the two drop zones but both will be local to me. Are there load organizers or people I should be looking to jump with as an intermediate up-jumper? Thanks in advance :)

It takes an even bigger person to admit it to open up the opportunity for more learning and improvement. Keep it up and good luck! :)

Sorry to hear that, it sounds stifling. However, I see your dilemma from a different perspective, and that is not to be focused on sex but on communicating. Every person has his/her own communication style. Physical intimacy may be your way of expressing passion, but may not be for her. A strong relationship will benefit from understanding each person's style and adapting as best they can. Things may not be perfect, but the love and intent are there. Just my humble opinion. You may be met with a different answer if you talked to a sex therapist.

Of course. Chances are, in that situation, s/he may not be as into you as you are into her/him. That or someone's been hitting the aphrodisiacs a bit too hard. :)

I think most people who are or have been in long-term relationships can agree that loyalty, trust, and intimacy (among many other virtues) are all important to an exclusive relationship, the physical aspects being a part of that. Which means that if both individuals respect each other, they will practice patience and loyalty with the other. On the other hand, if you are with someone who only cares about sex then I'd guess s/he isn't after a serious relationship at that moment as much as acting out of lust, not necessarily love. Love (and all of the traits you'd expect of a loving relationship) to me is the key to exclusivity and longer lasting, fulfilling relationships.