Make It Happen 2011

be loving 2006
live it up 2007
don’t give up, embrace (one family) 2008
just do it 2009
new places new faces 2010
make it happen 2011

When I choose a motto for the new year, I think of how I can be a better person.  I believed the college-me was going to be the rest-of-my-life-me, but luckily it is not the end of who I am.  We continue to learn new things and are challenged of who we need to be.  These mottos push me to do things that I wouldn’t do because I am too lazy, too busy, too comfortable.  Being an introvert gives me an excuse to be by myself and to do nothing.  A lot of the time I like nothing, but life offers us too many opportunities to be more than passive shadows.  Over the past five years I have continued this tradition of change, lasting friendships, and new experiences to keep me accountable of becoming a better me.

My mottos are motivators, not necessarily something that needs to be “completed,” but this year feels complete.  I am truly thankful for NewPlaces NewFaces 2010.  I never thought that the year would live up to its name, but it exceeded my expectations.  This year was the mark of my transition into the working world, but it was also a season of new friends and a new relationship, new places travelled and new places to be present.  I never thought I would go to Thailand and be tested by my faith and my academics.  I never thought I would be working at a law firm.  I never thought I would go to China to understand my history and to meet family I had never met.  I never thought I would still be connected to great friends and be in a loving and caring community.

With its triumphs there have been trials, as challenges and questions were faced with reality and tears.  And with the never ending search for answers to our future, where to be next, what to do next, this is the year to make it happen.  It is a year of making decisions and following them through, whether it is going back to school, organizing a hike on a Saturday, to volunteering more regularly, or planning a trip to India.  Make It Happen 2011. I am the person who likes to leave early from a party or half commits to things because it takes too much effort to do.  I want that part of me back that is spontaneous, loves the outdoors, and searches for places to explore.  I want that part of me that lives simply and gives time to greater things other than to myself.  As much fun as I hope this year brings, I know it will be filled with many challenges, deadlines, and decisions.  To today and the many tomorrows, may we do our best.

For your motto or mine, let it be yours and let it be your year.

Happy New Year.

Missing In Action

I have one excuse that could have been related to my lack of writing over the past eight months — I started dating a boy. Congratulations to me I suppose, since the mysteries of love and relationships seemed to be solved, for the time being. I should have had things to say about being in an actual relationship, but I had no words. One would think that the results would be different than not writing, but the need to write more. Maybe I got wrapped up in the excitement and bliss of it all, which is worth sharing to an extent, but still I couldn’t put words onto a page. What do you write about?  It makes me think that my blog was written in some form of bitter singleness, but I guess that’s not true considering many of us face relationship dilemmas every day. So I apologize that my blog has been empty for several months.

I cannot promise a full recovery of consistent blogging of new ideas and topics. I started this blog because I was holding a bunch of ideas and conversations in my head knowing that it would be worth discussing and just having them down on “paper.” I thought if my friends and I were talking about these things, then other people were probably talking about them too. But right now and eight months ago, I felt like I maxed out. I know there are more mysteries and problems of friendships and relationships, but as I have grown throughout the last couple of years, I am not dealing with as many of these issues anymore. My life was taken care of when I was in college and I had room to think about dating and love, but now that I’m a mid-twenysomething, I am not only trying to figure out my love life, but my life in general (it’s something they don’t warn you when you’re young or coming out of college). I know there are many other relationship topics that still linger out there, but there is a lot that I do not come in contact with, which is probably why I haven’t written about it. I do have a couple of ideas in this weathered brain, but if you have any ideas this season, please share. This blog may be less constricted to just relationships, but will be in transition of words of growth and understanding of who you want to be.

your friend, Jennifer

BoyMonday or Boys Boys Boys

BoyMonday: boys can only be talked about once a week, for us it was Mondays.

I used to implement BoyMonday for one of my girlfriends. While I lived in Paris and even in Fresno, we spent many hours over videochat trying to analyze how friendships and relationships worked (and in part, that is how this blog came to be).  Why did we do the things we do, why did we react to that, why do we have these feelings or how do you make them go away?

I enforced BoyMonday because in truth, we were just talking about boys too much.  A lot of girls talk about boys too much.  I wasn’t annoyed that we were talking about boys, but the fact that it was only boys, when knowing we had a lot of others things we could talk about.  Sometimes we would be talking about something else, but then quickly tangent or make it relateable to a relationship we had with a boy.  So by capping boy talk, it made our conversations more well-rounded.  While our lives crave to find our significant other and to find love, our lives are also filled with friends, family, jobs, and things we like to do.  So with the first reason being our lives are more than just the opposite sex, here is the other big reason:

This is what girls do best:  When we like someone, we run in circles over analyzing our interactions and cannot stop thinking about them.  We dream of more ‘accidental’ meet ups, the next conversations, the anticipated hang-outs.  We love it, but we are dying inside wondering what you are thinking on the other side. As we try to process everything on our own, we eventually open up to our girlfriends.  We go to our girlfriends to confirm our likings, to encourage us to keep liking that special boy. But by going to our girlfriends, by talking about him out loud, we convince ourselves to like that boy even more.  If our girlfriends say it is ok, then it has to be ok.  But that makes me nervous, because we never know if the boy likes our girl.  : / And the uncertainty is still uncertainty.

I guess I have been in more situations where girl is trying to get over a guy and by still talking about it, it still feeds into the notion that there is hope.  Hope keeps girls running for a long time.  We never give it up until, really, you’re married.  Ok, that may seem a little scary jumping the gun a bit and may be slightly offensive, but girls do not just toss boys away so freely as they think they do.  I know I am being janky-Jen (think negative-Nancy) by not being hopeful or encouraging right now, but a staple of my life: realism.  So really,  bottom line: Don’t feed girls.

And before I leave the country for a couple of weeks, here is to K.Klopman.  We love our Boys Boys Boys!

OUT dating SIDE

From time to time, friends ask if I have a preference of who I date in regards of their ethnicity. Do I like just Asian men, or do I like White/Black/Latino men?

I have dated and have liked boys of different ethnicities, but have found that it is easier to date someone Asian. He doesn’t have to be Chinese, but under the politically correct bubble of Asian/Pacific Islander group: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese… it can be remarkably easier.  It is for the same reasons why you see a lot of Asian people hanging out with just Asian people or why you see Blacks hanging out with just other Blacks. It’s a background thing.

The way we were brought up and the traditions and cultures that we celebrate make us who we are and makes it easier to bond with others that share those same experiences. There are certain cultural obligations and understandings that justify our actions and beliefs.  To have a partner that understands what you do and why you do it is a comforting security.  I know I could not list or identify certain things I do that make me Chinese, but how does one recognize all stereotypes of their race and ethnicity if we are the ones who live them out? I am not negating that I am American, but I just do not want my Chinese side to be left out.

Ask your Chinese friends...maybe Japanese too...(taken in 2004 with R.S.Olson)

I know that friends want to understand and appreciate my background, but it is different to have to explain and show someone my culture than to actually be in it.  Someone of a different ethnicity may try to understand certain notions and even accept them, but sometimes I do not know if it is enough.  And maybe that is saying that I am not giving a chance to potential partners or friends by letting them in, but I have seen some Caucasian (typically) family members and friends sometimes feel left out or uncomfortable at an event or gathering full of Asians.  Are we that intimidating?  Maybe each situation is circumstantial, but I do not want my significant other to feel different or uncomfortable by the foods we eat, the celebrations, or my friends and family.  And maybe whoever he is, won’t feel uncomfortable and love everything that is me, that is Chinese, but maybe not a “yellow fever” man? 

It may seem like I have just closed the books to all races other than my own, but I am very open to dating anyone of any background.  This is just one variable or if I must say it, dealmaker that would make someone more attractive to me.  Someone’s ethnicity or race will not stop me from liking someone or dating them either because there are a lot of other great things about a person than just the color of their skin.  We both know that.  The concept of interracial dating has always been something I have questioned in regards of it being ok.  I know it is ok, but growing up I was not always told that I could date, let alone marry someone not Asian.  Being who I am and who I represent is important to me, but I know I can make choices and love who I want to love.

—

I love race relations.  I studied Anthropology in college for the sole purpose of learning about race relations in my life and around the world.  I have to be open about who I am and where I came from, but a lot of it has been challenging because my life is very compartmentalized between my Asian friends and my White friends.  I love neither more nor less, but they are distinctly different.  I could write a pamphlet about my life as an Asian American and maybe one day I should. I am sorry if I come across hostile or defensive.  It is because I defending what I believe and what I have lived and those who disagree may not have viable experience to say what I say is untrue.

The List

I have caught myself making lists and I hate when I do it.  Why do I do it?  Insecurity.  I am not insecure because I think he doesn’t like me for who I am, but insecure because I do not know if I like him for who he is.

There are two different lists that girls make:
1.  At the beginning when she wants to check if he is date-able.
2. In the middle when she wants to check if he is marriage-able.

I like to call the date-able lists, “nervous lists” because these are the things you put on the list if you are not really sure if you want to date him.  These lists are bad because they are almost pre-judgements of someone that you barely know.  And even if you do know someone fairly well, it is different in dating context.  As you get to know someone you kind of like or like a lot, you start finding out little things about the other person that you also dislike and then start creating those lists of reasons not to like them or pursue them.  But that is what dating is for.  You date to find out more about the other person.  The little that you know may have a greater and deeper explanation for what you judged them for in the first place. — I am definitely fallable when it comes to these first lists, because part of me believes that if I am not sure about these certain things from the beginning, I may still be attached to these things later.  And to avoid the mess, I avoid the boy.

a boyfriend list

If date-able lists are not so great, marriage-able lists are worse.  Marriage-able lists are the, Ok, we’re doing this, now lets see what I can do to make him better.  What were small expecations at the beginning, have turned into either bigger expectations or changes you want to see in him.  Girls may claim they aren’t those girls that change a man, but most want man changers.   Some guys know when girls are holding lists of them, hoping that they wear better clothes, have bigger aspirations, more suitable manners, or be more romantic.  And some guys do change, but not necessarily because of your explicit suggestions.  Some guys change because you are a good influence and support to them and they see the change in themselves, but they change because they want to, not because you asked them to.  When you are in a relationship, compromises and sacrifices have to be made, but to be made together as a couple.

While some relationships falter, others thrive, regardless of the lists.  I guess one could say that it is necessary because without them, we would date anyone regardless of their standards, personality, or background.  Lists can sometimes help figure out what you want in a certain guy, which can be a good thing.

I still hate the lists, but every boy doesn’t have a list.  For boys I really like, there isn’t a list.