Back from 'Vacation'

Greetings ladies n' gents,

Apologies for the lack of posts for the last 3 weeks. WAMBTM and I were both occupied with our routine December stressor: final exams. As you can imagine, there were a lot of furrowed brows, emotional outbursts, hands thrown into the air in dismay, and late late nights, if not all-nighters.

And the results of our labor you ask? We don't know.

WAMBTM's refusing to check lest it ruin what's left of Christmas break and I'm waiting to check my marks so I can see, cry, and get over it before the actual Christmas day.

I guess I'm more of a 'bitter first, sweet later' kind of person. It makes me more optimistic about the future and less whiny about the present.

Are YOU like me or do you prefer 'sweet first, bitter later?'

Waiting & Watching

I've come to realize that a lot of my time in a day is spent waiting:

Waiting for my boyfriend
Waiting for the bus
Waiting in traffic
Waiting for class to be over
Waiting for that prospective employer to call me back

As much as I'd LOVE to be proactive during these times, and of course if I were, this would be a much more motivating post, but I'm not.

We're talking 'petty' minutes here, nothing big, but when you add up all the minutes you spend doing nothing because you're waiting, it does add up.

Here's a challenge the next time you're waiting for something to happen:

Look around. Look at the people around you and let your mind drift to the people you know. This isn't brain surgery given waiting is a boring game and people watching is quite a bit more interesting. Sometimes I feel like I'm so wrapped up in my own world that even in the moments when I have absolutely nothing else but to wait for the next thing to happen, I'm still closed off from the rest of the world.

Here's a video that inspired me to see things differently, at least when I can spare a moment to:

That sinking feeling

Today, it's more appropriate that the 'joy' be taken from my name.
Today, I am simply, a big fish.

About a week ago, I was still very much excited in anticipation of my graduation ceremony in June. As immature as this may seem, that stupid square hat and awful grad photos actually hold a power over me. It just makes me feel like I've accomplished a milestone and that job offers will overwhelm me because I'm now a graduate.

I guess we all have days where we feel like we're on top of the world one minute until we realize the top of our world is simultaneously the footstool of giants in 'the real world.' If you haven't already guessed what brings me down and makes me worried, I'll be blunt: unemployment post graduation.

It seems ironic doesn't it, that only a generation ago somebody with a bachelor's would have no fear about providing for a family, etc. and yet now, a lot of my friends are talking about doing a Master's just to upgrade their education and gain 'an edge' for better pay. As much as I 'love' education, the thought of spending another oh, $50,000 is not appealing what-so-ev-er.

Anyway, I just feel all around 'blah' today...much like a dust ball that's just being blown this way and that, with little strength to hold on strongly because my confidence just isn't there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to give up on school or job searching (I mean, what's a little trial-and-error when I'm only in my twenties?) but the point of this post I guess is a selfish one.

I wanted to rant and remind myself that it's okay to be human, that in fact most of us are, and that on these 'downer days' there is absolutely nothing wrong with cuddling into the warm sheets of a bed, reading my favorite book to recharge for the brighter tomorrow.

Giving Up - have a little faith

Here are some rhetorical questions to get the ball rolling:
1. Ever feel like just giving up because the floor beneath you is caving in?
2. Ever wonder why your life is what it is and not something more or better?

I don't know you and we've never met, but I'm almost 100% certain we can both answer 'yes' to the questions above. Watching the video below helps give me perspective on life and living:

Motivator speaks at St. Mary's High School


Meet Nick - born without limbs. He's a motivational speaker that reminds us of persevering and staying proactive. No one gets to choose the life we're born into - pros and cons to this reality I'm sure. But here's what sets the proactive apart from the pessimists: the ability to persevere amidst hardship and develop a perspective on life such that we make the most with the cards we're dealt instead of blaming the dealer.

How often have we caught ourselves looking up at the sky or down on the ground cursing 'the world,' some 'higher power,' or 'cruel fate' for our circumstances? Yet, we must remember that no one ever told us life was easy, but what is true is that if you have a reason to hope, you have the key to a priceless treasure.

One of my friends recently shared a thought with me: "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see."

Often, I think we want to give up (on things, people, life, etc.) because we can't see light at the end of the dark tunnel that is the present. And there's absolutely nobody we can go to that can guarantee us that things will get better, and out of fear, we take the easy way out and give up. Although choosing to have a little faith and hope takes more effort and it may force us to be anxious with the unknown, in the long run, I think it makes us into stronger people.

As Daddy BigJoyFish taught me growing up, "Life is for living, not for complaining."

Becoming a 'Lifer'

Remember how I said I wanted to see the northern lights before kicking the bucket?
Well, I'm too poor at the moment for a trip north, but I found a photo that satisfies my current cravings for unquestionable and majestic beauty.

Doesn't an image like this just make your heart stop for a second and marvel at how beautiful our earth is? Well, it does for me.

Unto the more serious stuff of the day:

Just recently I've developed a bit of a fear in becoming a 'lifer' in the restaurant business. I'm not stranger to busing tables, hosting, serving, kitchen prepping. Since I was 15?16? I've worked for multiple food and beverage venues and unlike many coworkers, I've managed to stay out of smoking, drinking, partying, and swearing. Make no mistake, I love the food industry - sincerely for all that it is - and I truly believe that my personality and outlook on life would be a lot different now had I not started working so early in life. It's many years later and I'm about to enter 'the real work force' but of course, I am still serving tables at a local restaurant until that happens.

Lately I suddenly realized that I am no longer 16 and that amidst all the changes both within and around me, one thing has remained stable - the lure of money in waitressing in keeping me from quitting. I have quit twice from the restaurant biz; once because I felt that the money was changing who I was and I didn't like who I was becoming and another because of school pressures. Of course, the former presents itself as more noble. That is, until you recall that each time I went back. I love the people I work with. And sometimes I convince myself that they're the reason it's hard to quit. Other days when I'm more honest, I admit that if I only has my base wage of $8/hour, no amount of job satisfaction would make me stay...not with sky-high tuition costs, anyway.

So...what's your take on the situation?

Why do you think people willingly 'get stuck' in the restaurant biz?

I apologize for not having a 'concrete response' myself, but hey, if I had all the answers, I wouldn't be asking the questions. =)

Thanks in advance for your insight. It's appreciated. Cheer-ios!

Free Hugs

Imagine if you were walking down the street one day and you see a sign "FREE HUGS", what would you be thinking?

• what are these people thinking?
• who needs a hug?
• awwww, just in time =)
  

Check it out!



I remember watching this video some years ago and I thought, WOW, this is awesome. It just popped into my head and so I wanted to share this with you in case you haven't seen it yet!

Watching this video gives me the shivers because it brings out a side of people we don't see every day. The joy, laughter, smiles and fun is apparent on faces of people in the video, but how often do we see that from a regular stranger? In reality, no matter how strong and independent people appear, deep down they want to be loved and cared for.

Here are few choices for you now that you have seen the power of a simple hug:

1. Go to your family and tell them how much you love them, then hug
2. Go to your friends and tell them how much you love them, then hug
3. Start a "Free Hugs" experiment and bring some joy to the people in your community
   

Yes, you have to pick from the list above. And no, you can't just read this post and ignore it...

What are your thoughts on this little experiment?

Giving others & yourself a chance

Big Joy Fish here again. Today's provoking topic of discussion is: friendship.

Let's skip the cliche stuff and 'get into my head' for a second.

So I was hanging out with a group of girls that I've known for years, but at times feel like our knowledge of each other is often only skin deep. There's a lot of breadth but not a lot of depth, you know what I mean? Naturally, there are some in the group that I am closer to than others, and to some extent I wish we were all really good friends but reality is, we're not.

Now, what's stopping us from being better, even great friends?
(At this point, try to refrain from the typical responses like "well obviously some people click better than others" and "it's all about timing" as well as "if it's meant to be, it'll happen.")

A wise friend of mine once said, "relationships don't just 'happen.' Instead, they are a result of intentional and purposeful meetings between two people who mutually agree to invest their time, energy, and honesty to one another."

Realistically though, it's rare for two people to feel the same way about starting a friendship and I guess that's why we probably have more 'old friends' than 'new friends' at any given time. I know for myself that it's taken a lot of conscious effort this year to really invest in people around me and not get caught in feeling that "I have enough friends."

So how do you form new friendships and maintain old ones?
What would you suggest to someone who fears forming relationships?

(sorry, just thinking those questions 'out loud.')
Feel free to spam =)

Introducing...Big Joy Fish

Greetings everyone =)

My name is Big Joy Fish and I am a co-author for this blog. Soon enough 'wambtm' and I will get our act together and set up a profile pic. For now, use your imagination and let it run wild with what you'd like a 'big joy fish' to look like. No hard feelings.

Now, I do believe a little mystery keeps things interesting so I won't tell you how I came about my blogger name until later. Although one thing is for sure, it'll be juicy.

Just so that you can get to know me through small increments of information, here are a couple truths about yours truly to get you through today:

1. My childhood aspiration was to be a professional swimmer.
2. My favorite 7-11 item to get is the 'frozen malt.'
3. One item on my 'bucket list' (list of things to do before I die): See the northern lights.

Alright, that's enough about me. Stay tuned for more =)

Feeling down and blue

My feelings yesterday:
Got my midterm back a few days ago and it was not good news. 1/3 of the class failed and the class average was 60%. Unfortunately, I got 30%. For this exam I put in a lot of extra effort but I guess it was just not enough. For some reason this academic term hasn't been going so great and my marks so far do not look good on a grad school application =(

To add to this, I have not seen the results I want from the three Squidoo lenses that I have created from scratch. I have done a lot of research (I will share this with you someday), and I expected these pages to do some magic almost immediately after I published them. As of yesterday, none of them were indexed by Google.

My feelings today:
I checked around noon time today and found out that my 3rd lens was indexed. WOOHOO! I searched the title of that lens and found it ranked 6th on the first page of Google!!! That is amazing because I had only created that lens two days ago. Because I was so excited, I did some more optimization tricks and added more content to all my lenses.

From yesterday, I was feeling down and doubted my studying methods because of the failed midterm. Fortunately, they handed back another midterm today at my other class and I got 80%. My confidence was instantly restored after seeing the 80% on my exam paper.

Moral of the story?
Perhaps it is just me but our emotions and mentality can be so easily affected by everyday events. A simple example is what happened to me as mentioned above. Maybe a suggestion is to learn to keep stepping forward, no matter what happens? If you know you have done your best, then be at peace with it because that is all you can do. Move on and keep working hard regardless of the result. Don't stop because every minute that you sit and feel bad for yourself, you are wasting precious time. This might be time that you can use to be productive and to make up for your mistakes. Learn from your mistakes, move on, keep working hard and eventually it will pay off.

WAMBTM is what?!

So like I promised, I would reveal my personal favorite quote, and also the meaning behind my nickname. Like I said before, I don't know if I had dreamed this phrase or if I had heard this somewhere from someone else.

WAMBTM, each letter stands for a word. "Want a Miracle? Be the Miracle!" There, I said it.

Technically it should be WAMBAM, which stands for "Want a Miracle? Be a Miracle!" Unfortunately, someone out there had already predefined the term WAMBAM and the definition as found on urbandictionary.com isn't too appropriate. So, I was forced to change it to WAMBTM.

Both quotes "Want a Miracle? Be the Miracle!" and "Want a Miracle? Be a Miracle!" are geared to motivate, not a message of invincibility. That is also the reason why I like "Want a Miracle? Be a Miracle!" more. "Be a Miracle" means one miracle, not the only miracle. This leaves room for someone else to join, someone else to help and is less self centered. It leaves room for unforeseen circumstances, and it leaves room even for a higher being at work who is overseeing everything.

Let’s face it, we are not invincible and we shouldn't set ourselves up for failure. Even though we always want to control everything in our lives, we have to accept that we simply can’t. Sometimes you can try your best, spend significant amount of time and yet still fail at the attempt. Sometimes we have to accept that even with the best of our abilities, we simply can't be where we want to be. However, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't try nor does this mean you shouldn't dream. I encourage you to work hard and try. The KEY is that by trying and working hard, you will reach YOUR maximum potential, and that is where your success will be.

The WHO and WHY of this blog

I was walking to the bus stop after my class finally ended at 6:30pm and I was thinking of what to blog about next. I looked around and it was dark and gloomy, and I really didn't see anything interesting that could spark any ideas. Then I thought WHY. Why am I even devoting my time to build a blog? Who is going to read it? Who do I want to read it? What are the messages that I want to get across with each post, or each category? So I did a little thinking and here is what I came up with. I hope after you understand the intentions behind this blog, you will want to come back and visit and even share with your friends what this is all about. Please leave your comments, interact with other readers and allow me get to know you a little too.

WHO are the authors?
Me and maybe my other half in the near future! I have been talking to her about this and she seems really interested. She needs a little time to figure out the WHY for herself too.

As for myself, I come from an average family, living in an average house, driving an average car and going to an average school. I love sports but my heart is in helping and motivating people.

I prefer to go by my nickname WAMBTM (I will post some other time the story behind this name) because I prefer to not display my real name. It's not that I don't want to be transparent, it's just I have dealt with too much negativity and downers in my circle that I don't want to be put down again. I believe in this and I am going ahead with it. Besides, all super heroes have their secret identity, and I want to be a super hero of some sort too!

WHY this blog?
I am no famous person or any world influential character (although I would love to be a motivational speaker one day), but I believe everyone can make a difference. Everyone and everything has to start somewhere. I mean, masterpieces aren't crafted overnight.

I guess all this is from the influence of my high school leadership class, where my leadership teacher then and a good friend of mine now, drilled these revolutionary ideas into my head. "Shoot for the moon, because even if you don't reach it, you will reach the stars"; "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"; "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds" etc etc... I have learned a lot from that teacher, and I have achieved a fair amount. In fact, I feel quite lucky because all throughout my life I have had teachers and mentors who are willing to guide me along. I want to pass it on and I want to inspire someone else like these people have inspired me.

I love dreaming about where I can be in the future, or what kind of difference I make in this world. However, due to my busy schedule at school, even though I am a part of a few volunteering organizations, I can't always find time to help because I don't have a flexible timetable. That precisely is the WHY of this blog. I want to make a difference even with my suffocating schedule, and blogging is flexible and easily accessible medium where I can achieve this. My hope is that the little stories that I tell and the interactions between readers of this blog will be an inspiration to every reader.

I want to help when I can, with my ability and my time, where I can.

I believe everyone can dream. I believe everyone can chase hard after their dream. And I believe if you are lucky enough to reach your dream, you can help someone else reach theirs.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” - John Quincy Adams

Now that is a good quote. This one coming up is my personal favorite. I don't know if I dreamed this one night or if I heard this somewhere and really liked it: WAMBTM. Each letter stands for a word. Technically it should be WAMBAM but since that the definition of that word on urbandictionary.com isn't too appropriate, I changed it to WAMBTM. Take some wild guesses and drop it in the comment box.

You can be who you are and make a difference. You can serve and you can help. You can live and inspire.

Don't wait, take action

Still on the topic of learning about Internet marketing, I hope I am not spending so much time here that I am neglecting other things in my life… Maybe I am a little of a nerd, but I am very excited with all this learning and injection of new knowledge into my brain =0. At the same time, I feel I have been reading so much that I am getting overwhelmed. Every time I turn on that PC I say to myself, okay, today you have to start putting this knowledge into action by either building a Squidoo lens or writing an article. But every time, I manage to find more amazing material that sparks my interest, and I begin reading again.

So, last night, I had another Eureka! moment – all this knowledge is nothing until I put it into practice. Maybe the reason why I haven’t started is because I am a little bit of a perfectionist, and I want to learn how to do it the right way the very first time. However, you can't show the world what you can do until you actually start doing it. I am not saying it's not good to research until you are absolutely confident you can nail it your every first try, but maybe making a mistake here and there is another practical way to learn? So, TAKE ACTION. Even if what you come up with is not the BEST it can be, you are learning even if you make mistakes. Don’t underestimate the learning potential from screwing up because I found that times I screwed up the most, those are the lessons that I remember the most.

Moral of the story?
Is there something you want to achieve? What are you goals for this week, this month and this year? Set that goal and start taking steps towards it, EVERYDAY. Start researching and thinking about how you can achieve this and talk to others who you know have succeeded. Every time you learn something, have a notepad with you and jolt it down. When you have a slight idea of what you can start doing, DO IT. Don't wait, TAKE ACTION. You will be pleasantly surprise when you look back a week or a month from now, how much closer you are to your goal because you CHOSE to take action. Remember, nobody knows how much you know or what you can do until you start showing them what you are capable of.

Limitless opportunities for everyone

So the past weekend, I once again spent hours and hours every day reading and learning about this new "profession" of Internet marketing. I honestly feel like I am cramming an entire university degree into a four month term, and yet I don't mind the hard work because it's so appealing. From time to time, I am not motivated to try hard in school because I can't draw the connection from the courses to real life applications. In addition, there are these tedious required courses that are simply boring and I swear are there only because the university wants to make more money.

In contrast, because learning Internet marketing is not a structured course, you can pick and choose according to whatever your interests are. You can go at your own pace depending on your situation and do it whenever and where ever you like (as long as you have access to the Internet and a computer). With millions of untapped markets out there, and hundreds of different ways to make money online, the opportunities are limitless. Most importantly, you can apply what you learn everyday immediately with almost immediate results that will give you feedback if you are doing something right or wrong.

Moral of the story?
No matter who you are, what your background is, there is a place of interest for you on the Internet. Take for example your interest whatever it may be. Since your interest is probably shared by many others around the world, you can be someone that provides more information on the topic through a blog, some articles or other means, while making a little money from it. It’s an interesting idea isn’t it? Of course your success also depends heavily on personal attributes like: discipline, time management, how teachable you are, how proactive you are and etc... I have just started this journey and I love it. I definitely recommend you to give this a shot too!

Take advantage of this free resource

As some of you know from reading my previous post, I looked into the idea of Internet marketing. I am very much a skeptic and require much persuasion before I can fully buy into an idea or a new thing. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy jumping on opportunities when they come by, but I am extra careful and will do plenty of research before committing full throttle. So, for the last few days, I have research hours and hours on Internet marketing.

My advice to anyone is not reach for your pocket until you have researched and know exactly what you are getting into. Especially in searching through the topic of Internet marketing, many many many sites pop up, promoting their products and recipes, potentially depleting your wallet quickly if are not careful. Believe me, most sites and ads that I have come across online are amazingly well put together and my hands did reach into my pocket several times. However, it's also because of these advertisements that I understood that there are literally millions of products out there that can "help" you and so you should never feel rushed by the ads to buy the item even if it's 'limited time offer'.

So why is the title of this post take advantage of the free resource? Well, the Internet is the free resource I am referring to. These several days of research from forums, articles, website and subscriptions, I have found so much information on Internet marketing, article marketing, paid per click advertising, paid per click earning, affiliate networks, marketing tools and etc... It will literally take weeks or even months before I can finish browsing through and learn all this FREE information.

Moral of the story?
Treat the Internet as an unlimited source of information that you can use from your fingertips. Because of the Internet, you can be better informed of the topics you are interested in as well more informed of what you are being sold. If you are willing to dig deep and understand how and where to search, you will probably find lots of valuable "hidden" contents that are worth more than 'most outwardly appealing' paid products.

Thank you God for the Internet

As I was working on my computer last night, I had an epiphany of how lucky we were to live in the current era where everything is available to us at our fingertips. What do I mean?

Why, the Internet, the www., the dot com era of course! The Internet, a place where everyone can access these days, contain so much valuable information from the smallest of topics like fixing a specific problem on a specific cell phone to influential news like the new elected president of the United States (congrats Obama!!!). Experts from all around the world share their insights and experiences, and if you want to learn, you simply have to search, read up, take it with a grain of salt, and read more somewhere else. The amount that you can learn from this Internet thing is seriously limitless. I know it's common knowledge, but I just want to make a point.

From a universities' student stand point, life is so much easier for us than studying 30 years ago. The most common "work" assigned to a typical uni student are papers. Nowadays, all that is needed to find information and research is online. Sure books, bibliography and academic journals are great and more "reliable", but even uni libraries are switching most resources to electronic and Internet related methods. I am personally really thankful because I had an assignment to look for patents registered for my professor's revolutionary idea. With the ingenious resource of Google Patents, I completed this task within hours in comparison to days of work without (I would have had to look for registration papers and such from our national patent office, then proceed to international patent offices).

Moral of the story?
Knowledge is power. We can find information these days like never before. Go and search away. Find tools, gadgets, new websites that will help you in your area of interest. Google itself has numerous tools that are versatile and super powerful if you take the time to learn them.

Opportunities all around

I was chatting with a friend the other day and the topic of “what do you think you will be in 5 years” came up. This discussion gave me clues on why some people achieve more while others stay stagnate.

The story goes back to the beginning of the school year. This year, my friends and I were unusually excited about getting back on campus because we decided to get more involved than previous years. I guess the advantage of being a student at a big campus is the resource that is available to us. Just as an example, our campus has over 300 clubs of different interest and backgrounds and browsing around to choose which one to join is simply overwhelming. Anything a student can be interested in, there is a club that exist and a community to share their interest. To give some examples: surf club, golf club, weather club, astrology club, Toastmasters, volunteering clubs like Engineers Without Borders, multiple ethic-based clubs and religion groups like Christian clubs. Anyway, my point is, ANYTHING one might be interested in, it's likely someone else is also interested in it and there is already a place where you can go to learn.

Personally, I am horrible at public speaking. In efforts to develop better public speaking, I found Toastmasters and sought help from this public speaking specific club. My friend is really stressed out over school work and needed a vent out of some sort. She found multiple Kung Fu clubs that does exactly that for her. Another friend of mine loves fitness and dancing, and so she joined the ballroom dancing club and signed up for some belly dancing lessons with another club. You get the idea.

If you are interested in something, if you want to go somewhere within the next year, next 2, 3 years, if you want to develop a certain skill, there are resources everywhere waiting for you to discover them. In your very own community, community center programs or government funded development programs are excellent avenues you can take a look into. Or, if you can't find what you want in person, then the gift of being in the 21st century and the internet will provide you with all the resource you need to learn from others of the same interest.

Moral of the story?
There are resources everywhere and you can find what you looking for, if you look for it. Devote your time to what you are interested and where you want to be. Going back to the initial conversation that started all of this, I realize that I need to be taking more steps everyday to get closer to my ultimate goal. The difference between those who achieve more and those who stay stagnate is whether you are taking action or not every single day.

Relationship = communication

I have been together with my other half for oh, a good five years now =D. One of the things that keeps us going and keeps our relationship healthy is that we made a deal to be honest to each other no matter what the situation. This means, no holding back of feelings toward each other and no secrets between each other. I know, I know, sounds a little radical but this is a preference that we worked out together and thought would work for us. The idea is, when one of us feels bad or hurt because something the other person has done, we have to communicate that as soon as possible. Reasons being, 1) the other person might not be aware that they have done something "wrong", 2) if it's kept inside, feelings build up little by little into something catastrophic and 3) it will provide an avenue to get to know each other better. Going along with this motto, our relationship has had its bumps and bruises, but we have been able to work things out timely and effectively.

Yesterday, knowing that I should keep my word about sharing "all" aspects of our lives, I told her about a new opportunity that I found. I guess you can say I am a little of a risk taker and am consistently seeking for ways to take a step forward. For a little background, in previous times that I shared about finding new opportunities to get involved in, the reaction has been quite negative. However this time before the discussion began, I was quite excited and relieved because she said that I had her full support.

Well, the opportunity that I found was "Internet marketing" and instead of telling her myself, I showed her a brief video of someone explaining what "Internet marketing" was. She, being a traditionalist, was very against the idea of devoting time and effort to starting something online ("a virtual thing"). We had a heated conversation on where each other stood and was not very happy by the end of it all. Once again though, after letting the steam breathe for an hour or so, we followed our motto and discussed what had happened.

I shared how I felt betrayed because she promised to be fully supportive but turned out to be fully against the entire idea. She shared that she was hurt because she felt I was too defensive toward the whole thing and was not receptive to what she had to say even though it was me who asked for her opinion. Later in the conversation, I explained to her what my intentions were to begin something like "Internet marketing" and why I think it might be beneficial. She then shared that one of the reasons why she was so against it before was because she thought my intentions toward the entire thing was greed and money, but now she understands why and where I am coming from.

Moral of the story?
1) No matter how many times you hear it, open communication is the key to solving problems and sustaining a healthy relationship. Each couple/ relationship has their own preference of how much they can share with each other or how open they can be, but the point is that this should be established and will only aid in maintaining good relationships.
2) I guess it was not the best idea to pitch the idea through a video instead of speaking and explaining in person. People in general enjoy the human interaction and since communication is 70% non-verbal (hand gesture/ expressions/ tone/ etc...), when it comes to something important, it is generally a better choice to communicate face to face.

Patience and Love

This brother of mine, oh man, I don't even know where to begin. I love my parents and my brother, but just sometimes, I don't know how to show them.

A few nights ago, my brother ran into the living room really upset. He didn't say a word but his face was like a red tomato and his eyes were full of hate. He then stormed upstairs to his room all the while murmuring to himself. My mom, being the caring and gentle person that she is, went upstairs to check on him. Turns out, he was really angry at something but could not pinpoint it. Somehow, my mom's kindness finally got it out of him and it was something my dad and I had done that angered him. From what I remember, when he came home the last few days, he ate and immediately went to his room to study. As for the two of us, we barely spoke to him, let alone an opportunity to upset him.

My approach to relational issues is to talk about it openly between everyone that is involved. Really, the basics of relationship are to relate to one another and to communicate. Well, apparently my brother thinks otherwise. His personality confines him to keep everything to himself, which really leads to catastrophic eruptions like we witnessed just the other day. After having a great long discussion with my parents tonight, I understood that living together in a family requires one key component - love, and with love comes patience. My dad said, just remember that a family always supports each other, even in the toughest and most unreasonable times.

Moral of the story?
It's a good reminder that love should come first no matter in what situation when it comes to family. Problems and disagreements have to be solved and worked through, but the attitude is should be to love first the person, then to solve a problem.

a very wise saying from a famous book:
'Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
It is not self-seeking, nor easily angered.
It keeps no record of wrongdoing.
It does not delight in evil,
But rejoices in the truth.
It always protects, trusts, hopes, and preserves.
There is nothing love cannot face;
There is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things that last forever:
Faith, hope, and love;
But the greatest of them all is love.'

Crazy driving almost gave me a heart attack

Why would I need to drive like a mad man? Well, like you would have guessed, I was running late for something super important!

This morning, brother was had a major exam and we were suppose to leave the house an hour and a half earlier for some slack time. Load and be behold, we left the house half an hour later than expected and only had 45 minutes to get to the university. Usually traffic is reasonable for the 7-9am rush hour but because of the rain and coldness, everyone decides to drive. Traffic was amazingly heavy and we got stuck 5 minutes after getting on the road.

You see, this exam is extremely important and we could not be late. So what do we do? Drive a little more aggressive than usual and utilized some shortcuts/ alternate routes to by-pass the traffic... Believe me, the rush from this drive got my heart pounding because being late was not an option. I just can't bear to be those hot headed drivers who cut in and out and drive to the very last section before you merge to the main road. However, this special circumstance, it was necessary.

Moral of the story?
1) Time management is a definitely one item that separates people who succeed and others do don't =0 By no means am I an expert at this myself and I encourage everyone to work on this is "skill" a little more
2) From time to time, we see crazy drivers that drives us crazy. Thinking from a different point of view, they might REALLY REALLY need to be somewhere. If you aren't in a hurry and can afford a little time, letting them cut in front of you might make all the difference for them that day. I know there are mad drivers that drives like that day in and day out, but a brighter perspective will make your day better too =)