They never met. Thanks to family arrangements, he called her, long-D call to HK from India. They spoke for 5 hours and mutually fell in love. The next day, they spoke for 7 hours. The following day, he proposed. Her mother asked if he was drunk. Since then, they exchanged letters every day. 2 months later, she traveled to India to meet her fiance and talk about wedding arrangements. This march, they will have their four-day wedding, attended by 500 guests. She will get a house from her dad as a gift, and will get another one from her future-husband.
This isn't my story (obviously), but my colleagues'. I'm retelling it because I think it's the best how-we-met story ever. It's like something out of a fairytale.
Now back to me.
It's 5 degrees above zero, and it feels like one of the coldest days in my life. Like the minus 30 degree day at Waterloo, where I stood there freezing to the ground while waiting for a bus. I think I gave up and went back into the house, and missed my group meeting--only it's
It's too cold to do anything but hibernate. Or do tai chi, which heats me up real quick!
Other than perhaps the weather, and the fact that there is a pile of work I need to get done (which I can do a better job at home than in my cold cold dreary windowless box of an office), 2011 has been good to me. I'm feeling something I haven’t felt in awhile—motivation. Work is not a problem. The problem is always psychological. Last year, my problem was lack of confidence in my abilities. And for awhile, the fact that getting out of bed was such a struggle. I love sleep; what can I say?
2009 was a year of rapid, exciting yet daunting change, in which I graduated and tried to find my place in a new environment. The patterns I set in 2009 laid the foundation for 2010. 2010 was not marked by changes. It was, however, to some extent even harder. New things is easy—sticking to them is hard. I wanted to quit my job. I wondered why I started school again. I even wanted a break from my student. I wanted stretches and stretches of holiday. And to just be able to wake up late for once. I was quite stressed, in a different way than I was back in University. But most of all, I was scared. I realized how small of a potato I was, and dismayed that there wasn't anyone holding my hand through it! None of that really nice jobmine-interview co-op system. Anyway, I was scared of work and mystery future work. And the pain in childbirth. And financial pressure, saving money, mortgage.
I was scared of growing up.
I realized several things about myself.
1 My personality is still changing, which is fine.
2 I'm still half-hazard in my approach to life, and that needs to change. I need to be more mature and take everything more seriously and pay more attention to what I'm doing.
3 I need to live in the moment. A harvard study through the iphone found that people are happiest when having sex, listening to music or reading. It's because people tend to be able to concentrate when engaging in those activities. People are happiest when their minds are not wandering, thinking about the past or the future. I think too much about the future.
4 I procrastinate and become a day dreamer when I face something difficult. I run away from my problems when I really should be facing them head on. I don't even realize I'm doing it sometimes, until I catch myself reading non-work related things like recipes or looking for new amigurumi patterns.
5 I'm generally a grateful and happy person although I like to wax depressing poetry over life. And there's no reason why I shouldn't be happy! I have the most amazing friends, great family, wonderful boyfriend, and God.
6 My dreams are still as weird as ever. (I dreamt of being in a falling elevator that turned into a bird in the end last night.)
Now it’s 2011. No explosive incidents at work, no accidents, and no careless incidents yet (well actually, one really close-call. I dropped my wallet but someone noticed and gave it back to me.) So I'm optimistic for a good year!!
I hope that everyone else around me will also have a great year.
Eye surgery update: so-far-so good!! No pain, no blurriness, no rings at night. Maybe it's psychological, but sometimes I feel like there's an eyelash inside my eye. Like INSIDE.
