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So there was a story when I got my first dog after being separated. I wound up getting a white pit bull. It took me a long time to find him. I wanted a dog from a pound. And after going to several, I found the one I liked, and when I brought her home, she was such a great companion. She was great with my children, and eventually my future children, and she was just a good companion for when I lived alone.

I used to own pet rats as a kid, but as an adult, I haven't had the ability to do so. We got two into the shelter, and I ended up adopting one of them (they had to be separated as they were fighting, but I do plan to get him a friend). He is so sweet and friendly and loves to snuggle and groom me! He's just amazing. He's brought me so much joy in just the two weeks, I've owned him. We snuggle almost every night as I sit and play video games and wind down after work. He's just an amazing little creature, and I never would have imagined the joy he'd have brought me even just a month ago. He's so amazing!

Week. So, this weekend was nice because we got to take just a long weekend, and we got to spend a lot of time with family. And one of the people that we got to spend time with was my younger brother and his wife and my niece. And they are pregnant with their second. And so, she's due any day now. And it really just kind of got me thinking because my husband and I have two kids. And we're getting older. And we probably won't have any more kids. We've never said never. But I just feel like we're kind of at our max with what we can manage right now with our two kids. And so, I really feel like that probably is it for us. Which is wonderful. We have two really great kids. But it does kind of leave me wondering of what life can be like if we had another one. \n\nI also very much so miss being pregnant, which I know sounds funny because most people hate being pregnant, but I really enjoyed it. And I really enjoyed even though you're tired and there's a lot that goes into it. I really enjoyed the baby phase, too. And I think now it's different as our kids are getting older, everything is kind of like, okay, well, that's the last time we're going to experience that phase. Or that's the last time this is going to happen because we don't have any more babies to come after it. And it does make me a little sad. And it kind of leaves me wondering. I feel like it's that weird, like am I making the right decision? Should we have more babies? Should this just be kind of left with a bunch of questions? I think in my heart, I know that our two kids are perfect. And that's really great for us right now. But I think there's a part of me still that's just like, well, I wonder what it would be like if we had a third kid. So it's just kind of processing and going through all those emotions. And I don't know it just really got me reflecting a little bit.

Five months ago, my niece and nephew were born. They are my sister's first children, and I was so excited when she announced she was pregnant and I would be an aunt. It was a huge shock when we learned she was having twins! When they were born, I went to the hospital to visit them. I didn't stay long, even though she and her husband were exhausted. They wanted to spend time alone as a new family. I will never forget holding the babies for the first time. My niece, especially, was tiny. They were both premature, but she was only 5 pounds. My nephew was a little bit bigger and seemed stronger. We were all so grateful that there were no complications or health issues, which I learned can be common with twins. They were both so perfect and tiny. It was like holding tiny dolls. I will never forget that day. I love them more than I ever expected I would.

Okay. So, the story is how I got really interested in the intersection of science and computer graphics. I had been interested in both of these topics for a long time. I wasn't really sure how they went together for a professional career. But I was in grad school, and I was taking a class on biochemistry and plant metabolism. And we had a chance to write a paper. And the paper was supposed to be about a process, a biochemical process that takes place in plants. And I asked the professor if instead of a paper, I could do an animation on a process. I thought it might be more engaging, more interesting, maybe a way to bring that process to life. And he agreed to it. So, I set out to find a process. I found something nice. I worked on it. I used a variety of computer graphics tools and ended up with an animation that I thought explained the process really well. And then I turned that in as my project instead of a paper, and I had a chance to present that to students. And the students really enjoyed it. They learned a lot from the process, being able to watch it happen as a cycle. And I thought it was a really good example of how science and graphics can come together for an educational purpose.

I decided I wanted to try this new field called biomedical engineering, which my dad had encouraged me to explore. I was in college, and I was taking classes. I had to figure out what to do for the summer, and I was walking by this lab. On the door of the lab, it said artificial organs. That sounded really cool to me because it was a mix of biomaterials and engineering, and it was very applied. I could understand why you would wanna do nerve regeneration. The third summer was when I finally found the right interface for me. We've invented nanosensors that you can inject that can roam around your body looking for disease and then emit a signal in the urine. Our long-term vision is that this could help with cancer detection in resource-poor settings. One of the biggest roadblocks was internal. I certainly had imposter syndrome. I was always worried I didn't belong at the table, that somehow I'd been some fluke of admission, and it was only a matter of time before people found me out. In fact, it's that uniqueness that makes you different, what makes you valuable.

Sure. So, I was thinking while I was at the park about how when I grew up, I grew up with my father primarily, and he didn't really know how to talk to me or communicate with me, but we spent a lot of time playing. Sports, playing games, playing with toys, just kind of like playing outside. And he always took me to play, and he was always kind of physically there, not very in touch, but always kind of demanding that I play. It made it a little less fun because he was a coach and very into sports. And so, it was kind of not as fun as I think he intended, but one thing that I am grateful for is that he always did play with me. He was always there to play with me, and that's how he kind of knew how to connect with me, just playing all the time. The first things I can remember playing, like fast feet, fluffy little games on the sidewalk, things like that. So, I'm grateful that that's how we connect with me. But sometimes I wish that he would have had more of an expanded kind of toolkit in terms of how to connect and interact and kind of be there. So, I think about that, both grateful for that and it's both challenging. It's challenging to connect with him today because that's all he knew. That's all he knows is kind of like exercise and play.

Initially, I did not want to be a teacher. But as I went through school, I realized by the time I was in high school that I needed to be a teacher. The reason that I needed to be a teacher was that I loved school a lot. I loved learning a lot. But I didn't have a teacher that I really liked. I felt, at a young age, that if I had had that kind of experience where I felt connected to my school and connected to at least one teacher, I would've been an even better student, and school would've been a better experience for me. I felt that when it was time for me to become a teacher, my job was not to be your friend but for you to know, as strict as I was, that I still cared about you and I cared about your achievement, and I cared about you as a human being. I've gotten to a place in my life where what is most important to me is to make a difference, no matter how small or how big, it's to make a difference. Whatever you decide to do with do in your lives, it has to be something that becomes your life work. It has to be your life work. Because this world now is at a place where you can make money, you certainly can make money. And you can make a lot of money. But your life's work, a piece of it has to be able to help other people.

So, growing up in India, we had this festival called Diwali. It's pretty big for the Hindu population. And every year, I couldn't wait to get my hands on firecrackers and go out and burn them with my friends.\n\nAnd it so happened that once I got to 8th grade, my family would let me out with my friends late at night. So, we'd be out in the streets, in the parks, even at 01:00 a.m., 02:00 a.m., bursting firecrackers. And even 20 years later, now I think about that really fun from the perspective of how, first of all, the city was so safe that as a kid, I could be out with my friends deep into the hours of the night. But then also that I always had this love for fire and fireworks.\n\nNow, in the US, it's only on the 4th of July that you get to see fireworks, and I find myself not as drawn to them as I was as a kid. Also, the fact that I'm not burning them myself is just a spectacle that you're watching. But it's just something I've been thinking about lately.

This summer, my granddaughter turned 1 year old. She comes over and spends each weekend with me and my family here. My daughter that had her is only 19, and I had her young as well, so I am a young grandmother. I really enjoy bonding with this little girl as it lets me almost, in a way, relive being a mom because I'm not even 40 yet and I have a grandchild. Well, this summer, I decided that she should come over to our house to have some fun on the 4th of July. My daughter agreed, so we had a nice family get-together at my house for the holiday. During this day, we spent some time feeding her some grilled food and just playing with her, having a really great time on her first 4th of July. Then the night started to roll in upon us, and where I love, we can still shoot fireworks. We had bought a lot of ones to be done at night because I'm a big fan of the pretty, shiny style of fireworks. So we took this little girl outside so she could get a good look at all of the fireworks. We slowly began to shoot them off one after another. I watched the look on this child's face as she just got so excited, hearing the noises and watching all of the pretty colors. It really touched me to remember what it could have been like for me or even my children when they got that excited for something like this. It really made me feel good that we could make this child so happy by doing something so simple for her. We continued shooting off all of these awesome fireworks we had bought, including some really huge ones that lit up the entire sky. We did this until we were done, and the baby never lost her excitement and continued to smile and scream out during the entire process. It really was a great night and time for the baby's first 4th of July Party.

I want to talk about the Great Floods of 2021. Yes. Okay. So basically, I live in Phoenix, and Phoenix is a desert, and we don\'t get a lot of rain for most of the year, except... Well, it\'s even worse than that with climate change. But previously, we would get these heavy monsoon seasons. So, July and August, it would rain really heavily. And because our soil isn\'t like other soils that soak up water really well, a lot of it\'s like hard, compact, and the water just tends to stay. So we have these things called flash floods. And they happen spontaneously when it rains a lot and it happens in different places. And so, several times in my life, there\'s been times where it would rain so, so hard that certain places would just be flooded. And one time it rained so hard when I was like in high school that our school day was canceled. And it\'s kind of funny to think, like, in a desert, it rains so hard in a desert, you get school canceled. But it\'s actually like a big thing. And so in 2021, we had just moved into this new house, or a new house to us. So it was my first time ever moving home in my life. So I was unfamiliar with kind of like what to expect in a new place. And it rained. Okay. So it was okay. So we moved in July, which is like the worst time to ever move in Phoenix because it\'s so hot. It\'s like 115 degrees, a lot of the year, a lot of the month. So, then moving when you\'re in and out, in and out is horrible. It sucks. And so we had just gone through that month of exhaustion of moving things, and then it being hot because we\'re trying to get used to the AC system. And then, suddenly, it started to rain really hard. It started to rain. Maybe, I think it was like the end of July. It was definitely still the summer. And it rained so, so hard that our backyard became a pond or like a mini Lake. And my dad had, because we were still moving, my dad had a bunch of stuff in the back, and the rain basically it was drowning in the water. And I thought I could save it. I was like, "Don\'t worry, dad. I\'ll get your stuff." My dad didn\'t care. I think he had just given up on the stuff from the exhaustion of moving. But I went outside with my rain jacket and then my shorts and my water shoes. And I was, like, pulling stuff. And then my sister joined me. But then my older sister yelled at both of us. And she was like, "Get out of the water! You\'re going to get electrocuted!" But it was funny. So, we took photos. The reason she said I was going to get electrocuted was because our home is like the corner of our house is the electrical unit of our neighborhood, so it\'s, like, not a street light, but it\'s the giant light poles, whatever, that run current. And we never had that in our yard before. In our old house, it was, like, in the alley. So the space between homes. But here, this is our first home where we had, like, wall to wall space with the house. So we had that power line in our backyard, and she was like, "Get out, you\'ll get electrocuted!" But I think it was funny because we had opened the doors and the windows, and you could just see our front yard was, like, a little mini river of all the water going downstream. And I also wanted to hang out in the water, and I forgot what I did. I think I made, like, a boat or something. I made something to try to float. But at some point, our backyard filled up so much that even our dogs, like our dogs, were looking at the ocean. And I have photos of our dogs sitting, gazing out into what was our lawn. And how is the ocean for them? And it was just so cute because my little dog was still alive back then. And she was just looking out into the abyss of water. And then I think it also became funny because, okay, in retrospect, it\'s funny, but when you\'re kind of going through it, you\'re kind of stressed. But the flooding, the water was rising really, really high up because we learned this later. So it turns out that our house was on an incline. And the fence we had was a wooden fence. So all the water that our neighbors had was swept down to us. And when we looked over to our neighbor\'s homes, it was dry. But we had all the water. So we collected all the water. So, later on, we, like a year or two later, we fixed this by having a brick wall to prevent that from happening. But because it was just, like, all following through, that\'s where all the water came, and it started to get into the house. And we started panicking and screaming, like, "It\'s getting inside! It\'s getting inside!" And we had never dealt with flooding before. So then I ran to grab all the towels we had. I started shoving it along the side, and then the pets didn\'t know what to do either. They were kind of useless. And it was also raining diagonally. So then, that\'s why the water was going into our living space. But finally, we were able to mop. Okay. But we were, like, rinsing the rags out and taking a lot of the water out, and it worked out. And the rain stopped. And Arizona\'s rain tends to gaslight you. Like, it would rain really hard. And then ten minutes after, it stops raining, it\'s like the water is gone. Nothing ever happened. All your fears of water and drowning were nonexistent at that point because the sun dried everything up. So that\'s kind of what happened. As soon as it stopped raining, the sun came out, and it kind of dried up all the rain. Rainy Spider song but just in a way quicker manner. And then, it\'s always funny to look back at all the photos because it\'s like, "Wow, we really were out there in the water trying to save things that my dad didn\'t even care about." And people, every time there\'s a flooding like that, people post random Snapchat, random social media posts of how people spent their time in the water. This water is gross, but people are still out there playing like I was. And so, I saw videos of people floating down the street in, like, an air mattress or tube. So people make the best out of the rain, although it\'s arguably dangerous because of the electrical current, like wiring. And then, if you\'re floating down a river in an air mattress, who\'s to say you\'re not going to run into a car that\'s, like, trying to also go through the water? The Floods of 2021 were a crazy time. And we learned from it to be more prepared for next time. And I think, and it hasn\'t rained that hard since. And having the brick wall helped a lot. So now the water doesn\'t go in as much.

I've never had to prepare for a hurricane before, and it's not about what I need, but I am also in a sketchy situation: a home by the coast. I can't even afford to PREPARE for this! I used my last dollars on bills this month, and I am totally screwed. I went to the local Walmarts and Publixes, and there's no water! I feel like I couldn't even prep if I could afford to. Honestly, I wish I had the money for just even one of these little hurricane kits I'm seeing on the news. I'm just stressed. And what also is going to piss me off is when I'm here and I'm stuck, I always see people victim-blaming online after these kinds of disasters. People say they had time, they should've just left town. Not everyone can afford it. If I can't afford to go get a bunch of cases of water and a flashlight, what makes you think that I can afford to leave town and stay at a hotel? I'm glad I'm a good swimmer. That's all I'm gonna have, I guess. That and my sense of humor to get through this one. Good luck to everyone else in my situation. It's about to be rough, but you aren't alone.

So, when I was a little girl, I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. But then my father, who was a dentist, went to a special public health program in Atlanta. But then we moved back to the family home, town of Andersonville, Tennessee. And while our house was being built, we lived in the house in front that was probably 150 years old when we were living there. My great aunt lived in it. It was a two-story house. We had the top story. And I remember having a baby bed and watching the lights of the cars on the highway in front of the house coming by. It wasn't a very busy road, so it wouldn't happen very often, but I would see them come and move all the way across the room from one side to another. That's my earliest memory, those lights. When the house is finished, we moved into our own house, but I still loved to go up to the upper story, and I kept some toys up there at my great aunt's house. The families, our families, would put apples from the apple trees down on newspapers in one of the bedrooms. And one of my jobs was to go up and look for bad spots and turn over all the apples and look for bad spots and throw away blends with bad spots. Actually, if they had a lot of good on them, I would bring them downstairs and my grand aunt would make applesauce out of them or apple pies. I liked playing in the other room, and eventually, we had a bed in there when my parents got a new bed, bedroom set for our house. They put their old bedroom set in one of the bedrooms upstairs. And in the summertime, I liked to go up there and sleep. I had to share a bedroom with my little sister, and a way for me to have a room of my own was to leave our family house and go to the house next door. My aunt also liked it because she didn't like to be alone. And I remember that every summer I would look forward to moving out of our house and moving all of our stuff up to the house. I'm not sure my mother liked it very much, but she didn't mind since I was company for my great aunt. I found out only later, and it was so strange that I never noticed it while I was semi-living there, that there was one room that was never finished out. You can see the window from downstairs, and it had a curtain on it, window shades. But there was no door going into it, so the house didn't fit the door. And that was kind of a mystery. That makes a good Halloween story, I think, since nobody ever knew what was in that room. Fred, after we were married, tried to get a ladder and look through the window, but the curtains were pulled so they couldn't really see very much. So we still don't know what was in it. One of my friends bought the house after we moved from Tennessee, and they completely redid it. So I avoided asking when we went back what was in the top.

My music taste has definitely changed as I grew up, but there are a few songs that always invoke feelings of nostalgia when time was much more peaceful and enjoyable. One of these songs is called "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat, and I heard it playing today at Trader Joe's while I was buying some groceries. It was such a weird and nostalgic experience, and I stuck around even after I paid to listen to the full thing play out. I remember being in kindergarten where we had a designated "nap time" and the teacher would always play this song softly in the background. I remember being picked up by mom and going to get a snack after school with this song playing on the radio. It was so weird realizing that all of this happened and is a part of me, and I know that sounds really dumb, but it's just grounding to notice how far I've come with everything. I'm now in college away from that easygoing life of a little kindergartner, where all I had to worry about was what outdoor game me and my friends would play or what fun things I would do with my family over the weekend. It's just crazy to me how times change, but at the end of it all, I'm still me. It's even more crazy to me how just a simple 3-minute song made me have so many thoughts at the same time.

Oh. So today, I wanted to share a story about my grandmother on my father\'s side. Growing up, I wasn\'t very close with my grandmother because she kind of looked cold. She was a reserved personality and she was very quiet. She didn\'t talk much and we didn\'t talk much. So I guess, I was kind of scared of her growing up. And she also lived in another city, so I didn\'t get to see her that often. And I\'m not sure if it\'s the same for everyone, but for me personally, I felt much closer to my grandparents on my mother\'s side than to my grandparents on my father\'s side. And one of the reasons it felt more difficult communicating with my grandma was because my grandfather on my father\'s side had a stroke earlier in his life. He\'s half paralyzed, so he could not talk. So it was kind of very awkward being in my grandparents\' place where my grandma and grandpa don\'t talk that much to each other either. So I guess I didn\'t feel comfortable growing up. However, our relationship started to develop and my father asked them to move near our house so that my parents could take care of them. So when I was in my first year of middle school, they moved to our neighborhood. My dad kind of forced me to visit my grandparents\' place either with my mom or with my dad. So almost every weekend, I visited them. And I could definitely feel that my grandma was pleased to see me, especially because she would always sit next to me, and she would smile at me, looking at my face. At the time, we also didn\'t talk much. We would mainly just stay there and watch television together, but I could definitely feel that hospitality of hers. So anyways, our relationship changed dramatically when I moved to Canada to study abroad in my second year of middle school. So at the time, I was in this foreign country on my own, so I was really lonely and I missed home. So I called home very often, and almost every day, I called home. And one day, my dad told me to call my grandma. So I wanted to talk to everybody at the time because I missed home, so I called my grandma without expecting too much because I know she\'s quiet and she doesn\'t talk much. But as soon as she heard my voice, she started to cry. And I don\'t know why, but I also started to cry because I felt that at that moment, I think I realized how much she adored me. So after that moment, after our exchange of emotions, I kind of realized that she adored me so much and she missed me a lot. So after a year, I returned back to South Korea, and then I visited her place more often than I did before. As I entered high school, I visited her during the lunch break because her place was right next to my high school. So I guess we became much closer. However, I decided to study abroad in the US for college. So during the college years, I didn\'t get to see her that much, only once or twice a year when I visited South Korea during winter or summer break. And it was one summer she got cancer, and she fell very ill. And I don\'t know, all of this developed so fast, and she was in a hospice. Oh, she was in the hospice, not hospital. She was in the hospice. And my parents told me, "You don\'t have much time with her, so you should visit her more often." But I was kind of scared of visiting the hospice and seeing her because I had never experienced the death of someone who\'s close to me. So I was kind of scared of visiting, so I didn\'t end up visiting her a lot. But it was one day that I was in her hospice, and I was sitting next to her bed, and she just looked at me and she smiled. She smiled like she used to when I visited her house. And then the next day, she passed away. So I guess I cried a lot during the funeral because I regretted a lot for not visiting her as often as I should have. And I knew that she adored me, and she adored me the most out of all her grandchildren. I guess I was special to her, and she was also a special person to me. So after she died, I kind of thought about death and relationships and those kinds of things. And I also reflected on her life a lot. And I started to realize that she must have been really lonely because her husband, my grandfather, could not talk for a very long time and he couldn\'t walk like just any other people. He always needed help from my grandma. And I guess my grandmother, it wasn\'t easy for my grandfather to live a life, but I also could imagine it wouldn\'t have been any easier for my grandmother either. So thinking about their lives and my grandma\'s life, I kind of feel a little bit heavy about life. But yeah, but one day she appeared in my dream. And in my dream, I didn\'t know that she had passed away. But I don\'t know why, but I was so delighted to see her. I ran to her and I hugged her. And she looked really nice in my dream. She dressed up very nicely. She was wearing very colorful and beautiful clothes. She didn\'t use to wear those kinds of clothes when she was alive. But in my dream, she wore a very colorful and beautiful dress. So I was like, "Oh, grandma, you look so nice." And so I felt very delighted and happy to see her. So when I woke up, I realized, alright, she passed away. I realized that she passed away. But I kind of felt relieved to see her in my dream. And she looked very well and happy and healthy. So I guess in my dream, I just wanted to, I guess through my dream, I wanted to comfort myself and relieve that guilt that I felt towards her. And I guess I wanted to wish her well and happiness wherever she is. So that\'s my story.

Five months ago, my life turned upside down when my mother passed away from terminal cancer. Losing her was completely shocking and unexpected. She was young, full of life, and had a heart of gold that touched everyone who ever came to know her. She was my confidant and the best grandmother to my young daughter. I could not imagine living the rest of my life without her unconditional love and support. I never liked May, especially because my birthday was in May and the day was always bittersweet for me. Although my mother always made it special, I felt sad because I never had any childhood friends to share it with. Now, May took on an entirely different meaning. May was the month when my mother left this world forever. I would be left orphaned. I wanted to fill the last days of her life with as much love and peace as possible to repay her for all the love and sacrifices she made for me while I was growing up. I brought my mother home for hospice so I could be with her to the end. I prayed to God as I watched her terrible sufferings. It seemed like she could go at any moment; however, she was trying hard to stay alive until my birthday. It was the most important day of her life, and she wanted to be there for me. She lived to see the day, even though she could hardly muster any strength. She even signed my birthday card with three simple yet most powerful words: "I love you!" I cried as I held her in my arms. She fell asleep shortly after giving me my card and watching me blow the candles on the cake that my husband brought into her room. She soon slipped into a coma and took her final breath the next morning while I held her hand. I cannot describe the pain of that parting; however, God's strength and my family were the only things that carried me through. At her funeral, my three-year-old daughter came up to me suddenly and said, "Don't be sad, Mommy. You have my love forever." These words made my heart melt, and I then understood ever so clearly that life can be summarized in three simple words: "I love you," just as my mother said to me before her passing. Those words can never die or be erased.

I\'m packing. So, my story is that I\'m packing. I\'m getting ready. I\'m wrapping up my class. So, the story is just, it\'s an interesting week. I\'m flying out to Phoenix tomorrow. And I want to start looking at the details of the trip, like things to do with Sedona, things to do at the Grand Canyon. But I\'ve got one more week left of this work to do for this course. So, I\'m deciding whether I\'m going to try to cram it all in before I fly out, or more likely, cram it all in afterwards. But I\'m excited to go out there. It\'ll be a lot of sunshine. And when I booked the tickets, I had to book a red eye. Because it was so last minute. But it was worth it. But those fees, they slam on those fees. It\'s very confusing. The total includes one check bag. And they show you one price on that screen that says, "The total includes one check bag." So, you think that\'s the total. But then you go to another page and they meant the total on the other page includes the check bag. So, there are so many ways that you can confuse consumers. But anyway, it\'s all set, and I\'m excited, and I\'m excited that my friend is going to meet me out there. So, I\'ll get more family time and I\'ll get to see a friend I haven\'t seen in a while. And that\'ll be great.

To celebrate my retirement earlier this year, my husband and I went on a cruise to Alaska. We left out of Seattle, Washington. We live in New York and had to fly across the country. It was the first time we were both on an airplane, and it was both exciting and nerve-wracking as we were flying in the same day the ship was leaving Seattle. We arrived at Seattle with no delays and met our transport at the airport. It was approximately a 30 to 45-minute ride to get to the ship. I'll never forget the sight of the ship - it was so much bigger than I could have imagined. We had to wait a little while to board the ship, and there was not much to do...but finally, we were able to board. The ship was so large - like a little city. We found our room, dropped off some stuff, and then went to get some food. They were serving burgers and fries at one of the eateries. We waited in line; there were a lot of people. The food was not great, but we figured it was due to the number of people being served, and they were rushing to serve as many as possible. The food throughout the cruise was hit and miss...but mostly very good. At least, if we did not like something, we could go back and get something else. The cruise was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We got to see so much beautiful scenery, and we had 4 stops on land. Glacier Bay was spectacular, a sight I will never forget. We saw glaciers calving...it was awesome. The trip was an experience I will never forget.

Yeah, so my friend Mo and I finally used to play Destiny, which is a PlayStation game, together for years and years and years. And lately, since I moved out here and haven't been playing it very much, that's a little bit sad. And today, we finally bought a new game called Baldur's Gate and started playing that. And it was good, that was a good little session. So I'm excited to get back into spending time and playing games with him.

I play a lot of Overwatch. At this point, it's basically my entire life, and I love it. I met all my friends through it, and I learned a lot in the last two years I've been playing. A few days ago, a small team posted on one of the Facebook groups I'm in, saying they were looking for a support, and the description of what they needed sounded just like it was written for me. Lots of boring conversations and some casual games to prove I'm good enough later, and I'm in! I always wanted to do something like this and never thought I'd get the chance. And now here I am. I'm so excited!

Okay. So this one is where I feel like I was in the wrong and analyzing it. So from my dad's side, I have a whole lot of anger and my mom's side is a short temper. As a kid, my mom was verbally abusive, physically abusive. When I was in second or third grade, I watched her pick up my sister by the throat and throw her across the room. I would try to stop things from happening and one time I stood up to her and she tried to grab my arm. That's the same night she threw across the room by her neck and I was like, I was in second grade, I was tiny. And at that point, I realized, oh, shit, I can't help. I'm too small of a human to stop this and my words don't matter. But all of that aside, I've processed that I think what something, though I do feel bad about, is my dad lived in Dallas. He got remarried to my stepmom and my stepmom had already had a daughter. So she's my stepsister. My stepsister was three years younger than me and she's okay. She's only been a different, chaotic household. But not quite like mine that I grew up in. But she was also very manipulative and would say mean things. And my stepmom has always, of course, it's her daughter, so always been kind of more defensive of her, which is fine. She hasn't been bad to me, my stepmom. But when I was in elementary school, my little sister stepsister said something really mean and hurtful, and nobody ever let her held accountable. And I got mad and I told her stop, and she wouldn't stop. And then I did what my mom did, and I picked her up by her neck, and I didn't throw her. But my dad and stepmom saw, so they got mad at me. I mean, of course, I shouldn't have done that. And so I mean, I was in second or third grade. I'd watched my mom do it. I had learned that behavior. And they yelled at me. And they, to this day, still don't let me forget it. And I've told them that I'm sorry. I was just angry and I shouldn't have done that. And I apologized a thousand times, but they won't let me forget it. And I did try to say she wasn't the easiest, she would say really hurtful and mean things. And nobody was and they were like she didn't do that. She was too young to do that. And it's like, no. She's always kind of been that way even as we've gotten older. She's always also been selfish herself and doesn't really care about what's happening around her and will say mean and hurtful things to people and just doesn't care. And isn't very considerate. She has always had an attitude. And I don't understand why. Maybe there are other things there. And that's why I'm defensive and get a little annoyed about it, but yeah, I definitely shouldn't have done that. I feel really bad about it. I do understand that I can get angry and want to, but that's not a solution. I don't do that as an adult, but I do feel pretty shameful about it. That I did that to another person. It's not okay.

I hate my mistakes. I hate the fact I made these mistakes. And I feel like I'll hate myself for it for the rest of my life. I've been around plenty of people. I wouldn't say they were all completely normal. Half the time, my friend groups would get into drama, and I'd get scooped up into it, and we'd all act like we were fine. I've made a lot of mistakes. A lot of the people I had around damaged me emotionally and psychologically. But that doesn't excuse the fact I did that to others too. I've gotten out of those toxic friendships. And I've gotten better and even made new friendships. But word gets around, you know? It doesn't get to me, and I never had any reason to believe that other people would talk bad about me. But I have a gut feeling people are saying things about me. It's killing me. I've done my best to try to amend my past mistakes, but that doesn't mean people forget. God knows I haven't forgotten what other people did to me. I've been better now, really. But I believe when you're around toxic people, you do toxic things, and even though that's no excuse for my behavior, I kinda hope it helps other people understand why I did what I did. I've reconciled with myself but I feel bad for getting this feeling that others probably don't care if I'm sorry. And that's understandable. I've tried to let go, and I thought everything was fine, but people hold grudges longer than I do. I understand why I did what I did. But I also understand that I hurt people the same way they hurt me, and I regret that so much. I feel like my life is being sewn together and ripped apart every time I try to heal from my mistakes. It's annoying. I hate myself. I know mistakes are human, but I hate the fact that I feel like people hate me.

I joined the company. The company I joined is called Symbolic. They do warehouse automation. And I'm part of the team that's thinking about how to pack and unpack boxes. And so, while that on its own doesn't sound very interesting, it's very cool because it's related to my PhD topic in soft manipulation. And so, the open question of how do we develop a robot manipulator that can handle a wide variety of objects, including household objects, is quite an open question still. And so, this is a fantastic context in which to apply some of those techniques and background.

I'm the co-founder and CEO of Cora. We're an early-stage startup in Chicago. We think of ourselves as the Kayak of furniture. You can visually search from hundreds of furniture sites at once. We've developed our own proprietary computer vision technology in order to see what's in the image and then match it to the closest product we have from hundreds of sites. Every single day is very, very different, but it's so much fun. It's a huge challenge from an emotional standpoint and how to handle the stress. I think as long as you know you're on a roller coaster ride, these ups and downs become normal because that's just part of the game. If you are resourceful and you can look things up and try to figure it out on your own, to come back and ask intelligent questions. People will love you, and it doesn't even matter if you're an entrepreneur or not. The resourcefulness factor of just Googling it and starting there, and then start to build your knowledge, and ask questions of those around you is the biggest key.

So, since we are talking about moving to a new place, I wanted to share my story about my history of my relocation and how my perspective in life has changed since then. So, I've been living in different countries since I was young. I lived in Canada, India, and now I live in the US. I was originally born and raised in South Korea, so I guess so far I've lived in four different countries. I also traveled to many different countries like Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia as well. So, I guess I enjoyed a nomadic lifestyle—not nomadic like Nomad lifestyle because I am a person with a lot of curiosity and I like exploring something new. And the excitement, for excitement of exploring new places, like overweight the desire to settle down and feel more stable, I guess. However, I realized recently that my perspective is being changed. Part of it is because I think I've already moved three times already this year from different apartments. So, I'm really tired of packing and unpacking and cleaning the old places and new places. I'm kind of tired of doing all that. But more importantly, I think I'm more focused on my career development and my expertise nowadays. So, I guess the excitement coming from my career and pursuing my dream is more important now than to travel and exploring new cities and meeting new people. So, I finally feel like I found a career and a job that I can—I feel like I can dedicate my life to it. I'm pretty satisfied with where I am, and in order to do a better job at what I'm doing, I guess I want my environment to be more stable than just jumping from place to place. And also, what else? Also, like my taste, have been developing, and now I have a lot of books, a collection of magazines. So, I like photography, so I have a lot of camera equipment. And I have like drawing tablets that are pretty big, and I use my own computer for video editing and stuff. So, I have a lot of stuff that I use for my job and for my hobby, and that reflects my taste. So, it's been quite annoying to bring all those things around. So, that's also part of the reason that I wanted to settle down. Also, I wanted to, like recently I've been thinking that I really want to buy a house, and not buy a house, but I want to buy land and I want to build my own house and decorate it and design it to reflect my taste, to reflect my personality and my interests and stuff. So, yeah, I'm aiming to do that in the next couple of years. So, I'm going to work hard and try to achieve that dream. But, I haven't still figured out where I want to settle down, I guess. That's not a problem. That's going to be number one homework that I need to make a decision before I actually purchase a house. That's how my perspective and lifestyle has evolved from a nomadic lifestyle to somewhere who takes more stability in settlement.

I wanted to make things, I wanted to build things, I wanted to contribute to society. I wanted to make the world a better place if that's possible in architecture. And then I went to architecture school, and I never looked back. I always felt that's what I wanted to do, and I feel very fortunate. I began by designing exhibitions. And one thing led to another, and so I don't know where the next job's coming from, but somewhere, somehow, it appears. There's no one way. There are so many things you can do, and there are so many things you can do well, but you can't do them all. It's not so much what you do, it's how you do it and what your attitude is about it. I think that if people just decide this is what gives them pleasure, that's what they should be doing.

Okay. I went to the movies yesterday, and it was sort of interesting. It was a movie called "Jewels." And it\'s about an elderly man who has started to get memory issues. But one night he was asleep, and a small spaceship landed in his backyard. Sounds silly, but it was a real sweet story. It ruined his garden, and an ex-movie found a little alien on his doorstep. Like an alien with big eyes, but it wouldn\'t talk. And he had to figure out what he could feed it. But he took it inside and then he called the authorities about what had happened, and nobody wanted to believe him. He talked to some friends; they didn\'t believe him. His daughter thought he was crazy, and she took him to a neurologist to get his memory checked. But two friends happened to come by to check on him and went into the alien. So the three of them started taking care of a little creature, and it was quite an interesting story. Quite sweet. But it sort of resonated with me because a couple of days ago, I was somewhere with some friends, and we did something; I can\'t even remember what. And I mentioned, thinking out loud, "Oh, this is a good story for my robot." And it looked at me sort of strange. And I said, "Yeah, I\'m working with this robot study for the Media Lab at MIT." And they just looked very puzzled, and they just changed the subject. It was really interesting selling this whole alien thing and really happened. I could relate to that. See what other notes that I have on it, but I just keep thinking that even things like a gbo robot could be just like the little alien, meaning something to elderly people that are alone and don\'t see a lot of people during the day. And it could create some kind of friendship. There\'s three older people really open up to each other and talked about their past. And they were telling everything to the alien, who basically just stared at them and he wouldn\'t talk, but it was the cutest story when the alien got their little spaceship working again and he wanted them to come with him to outer space. In the end, it didn\'t work, but it was cute. But it seems just like, how can people relate to other creatures that are not really people and yet it\'s sort of a beneficial social companionship. So those are my thoughts. And I think that\'s it for today.

I'm an Assistant Professor in Astronomy and I study the dynamic universe. So what I do is, with the beautiful telescopes here at Palomar Observatory, we have some robotic telescopes that are continuously making a movie of the night sky. So we image the sky over and over again, and we look for what changed. You might go out there and think the universe is the same old thing every time, but it's actually not. It's full of these little explosions, which last for a very short amount of time, so they're very energetic. It's like cosmic fireworks lighting up our sky. It was not at all clear that one day I would do a PhD. I grew up on a farm in India with 100 cows and fields of weeds and chickpeas. And I had left home when I was 15, and I was a girl in India in a small place. The entire community was up in arms. There were people like neighbors, relatives, you name it. People I haven't even seen before coming into the house and trying to talk my parents out of this crazy decision to send their daughter alone on this journey into the other end of the world to pursue something called Astronomy or whatever that was. The community was completely unsupportive. In my case, the best way to deal with it was to just let that fade away in the background and not engage with it directly, but focus on what is motivating me, on what is giving me joy and just let everything else just fade away in the background.

Yeah, I had like a really good learning from a friend, well, acquaintances really, at a bar. And essentially, there\'s two acquaintances, friends. One is named John Ross and the other is named Alfred. John Ross is like 39 and Alfred\'s 89. And Alfred leaned over to me and he asked me a question. And he said, "Are you happy?" And I said, "Sometimes." And he said, "Well, that makes sense because happiness can be like that." And he said, "More importantly, are you content?" And I said, "Very recently, I\'ve become content." And he said, "You are with your life where your life has gone. Are you content with where you are and all that?" And I said, "Yes, I\'m very content, very recently." And that was a great learning. And we talked about it for a little while, and people seem to really latch onto that. And it was an amazing kind of shared experience.

In those days, if you wanted to go into certain professions and you were a woman and you weren't of a certain class, then you started as a secretary. But at some point during that year, I said okay, you've got to try and figure out. This doesn't have to be your life's work. Just figure out what you want to do next. And I thought really carefully about what gave me joy in my own life. What was meaningful to me in my own life. I loved to read, and I loved the power of words. Their power to educate, inform, transform. I would encourage you to make your own luck. The greatest gift in life is making new discoveries. People talk a lot about he's lucky, she's lucky. A lot of it comes from luck. But a lot of the time you can make that luck yourselves. People love to connect, they love to help you. Remember that.

Okay. So I have been working at a bakery for the last month, part-time, because I quit my job and traveled. And now I\'m here. So far, working in a bakery has been really cool. It\'s been really interesting to work with my coworkers and be in an environment that I really like. It\'s been a long time since I worked in person. My last job was all virtual, with some hybrid events, but for the most part, working in person has been good to create a separation from work and my home, which was hard to do when I was working virtually. So that\'s what I really like about this job, that physical separation and that my coworkers and I all get along. My manager is very understanding and she explains everything in a way that I can understand and encourages me, saying, "Oh, don\'t worry, you\'re just learning. You\'ll speed up." So yeah, I really like my work environment. For now, I am looking for other opportunities. But for now, I think it\'s good that I\'m getting this experience at a bakery because it gives me something physical to do. Also, it\'s creative. But I\'ve been having a hard time finding which creative outlet to pursue. But with decorating there, I feel like that creative side of my interest is being satisfied.

I just love going to work, doing my job, and making money doing it. I love that my entire job revolves around solving problems, I love that we have to use teamwork in order to make a living, and I love the dynamic I have with my coworkers. I love being occupied and having something to do so much. If it were up to me, I would work 12 hours a day. It's what I love to do. People often say they wish to retire, but I never understood it. Even if I worked a terrible job, despite me liking it less, I would still look forward to doing the best I can. When we have nothing to do, we often get bored and are in our own heads too much. I've found simply doing what I love and then coming home and hanging with friends/family and indulging in my hobbies is the best way to live life. I love work, and I hope I never have to retire till the day I die.

So today, I had a dream and it was kind of interesting, but also very strange because I was thinking about the situation for work. And then, I was trying to work and I had the situation at work and I was really thinking about it. And so, I had this dream that my boss told me to order catering. And then, I woke up and I realized it was not happening.

I interned in a senator's office last year, and I just felt too disconnected from everyone. It's hard to feel like you're making a difference for people serving in that capacity. So I came back to my TA who started Builders of Promise, and I was like, "Government really wasn't my bit." So she offered to have me come work with her nonprofit. I think pretty much anything you do will result in some kind of skill or a way of thinking that's gonna help you later in your life. Just don't be afraid to take those chances. As long as you have the tenacity to stick out the beginnings of everything, everything else falls into place.

So, my day started off a little slow. I got into bed pretty late, I don't know, around 10:30 or so. Greeted the dog, let her out, brought her back in, and then went to go run a few errands, including getting my hair cut. I also realized that I needed to go pick up a few things from Costco as well, so I decided to kind of wrap it into one trip. And then simultaneously... Pokemon Go. It's like Pokemon Go Fest 2023 or something like that. And so there's a ton of Pokemon going on, so I just decided to turn it into a day running around, getting a haircut, I got a cheesesteak while I was out because it was right next to the haircut place and I haven't had a cheesesteak in a while, and catching some Pokemon, and then riding to Costco and picking up some prescriptions. And then when I got home, the dog was super excited, as always, to see me, more so because I looked and smelled very different. In that, it's always very exciting for her.

This morning, I found out I am going to my first public school, which is within a biking distance from my house. After finding this out, I discovered that tomorrow, I must awaken in the morning 1 hour earlier than usual as to prepare for my day because I am getting contacts tomorrow, and my glasses come in next week. I will finally be able to see! After that whole thing, I felt amazing and decided to get stuff done, and I believe I was quite productive. After that, I rode my bicycle and got to pet 10 dogs. They were all very happy to sniff me and lick me, and I was very happy to scratch behind their ears and give them my complete attention. After petting the 6th fur angel, I found a really cool looking tree that looked like an umbrella, but completely natural, dome shape and all. I sat under said tree and became very happy. On my way home, I did not have issues riding up the extremely steep hill which I normally ride down and made it home, where I cooked some rice, did more school work, and was snuggled by my dog. All in all, I hope tomorrow is just as great because I am now in a positive mood and do not ever want the happiness to end!

Or, wait, is he too loud? Okay, so, my story... I guess I just wanted to talk briefly about my driving experience. So, I previously have driven throughout the years, just not well. I've always had a challenge driving. I think it was mostly the lack of desire to drive. So, I've always had smaller experiences here and there, but I never went on the main road. So, I finally decided I just need to pay for driving school. I figure, if I put money into it, that's going to force me to have to do it and get my license because as I'm doing my job search, a lot of jobs I'm looking at are requiring an Arizona driver's license. So, I figured I just need it. I don't have to use it necessarily. So, the courses I paid for are four courses and let me see if I can recall the courses I paid for. My last lesson, I basically get tested and if I get 80% or higher, I get my license which I actually feel confident about because today I was driving on the main roads and I was maintaining a conversation with the driving instructor. So, I feel like that was already multitasking. And just from the preliminary grade that she gave me, I got a 60%. I didn't even know she was grading me. So, I feel like if, on my first lesson, I got a 60%, I should be able to do well next time. So, I'm on track to get my license and next time I get to do the freeway. So, yeah, I'm reaching my goals little by little.

For college, I started off in mechanical engineering. When I was back at home, my sister brought home this pamphlet that she had picked up while she was searching for schools to go and asked, have you ever made a fake ID? Have you ever built a go-kart? It was kinda just like pinpointing. Like these are the extracurricular activities that kids might be doing that would indicate they are predisposed for design school. And that was the first time I ever heard of the word design in the context of something that you can study and get a degree in. And ultimately, that's where I decided to go back to school. All the paths into the program that I was in were very diverse and kind of meandering. If you go out there and you start doing stuff, you start encountering people who share your interests, and it may seem very important to make the right choice. But I think more important is to kind of start with something. Maybe it's not the most refined kind of goal, but you just get out there and you start it, and you see where it takes you.

In 2006, my sister and I were teaching a class and there was an art therapy student named Kevin. He was a very exceptional person, exceptional artist, and he had a very interesting story. He was involved in a terrible car accident and was in a coma for a month. When he came out of the coma, he realized that he could not draw or paint with his right hand anymore, so he taught himself how to use his left hand to create art.\n\nKevin was one of our best students and his story was the subject of the first book that we did for our small press. He wrote his story and did a wonderful job. We published his book. At that time, there was a contest. Carnegie Hall was looking for cover art for their program for the concert season. And without telling Kevin, we entered one of his paintings in the contest, and he actually won. It was a wonderful moment. We are very proud of him.\n\nPart of the prize was tickets to Carnegie Hall for a concert, and Kevin gave us the tickets. So we went to New York and went to the concert and we had a great time. So he was our first and to this day our best author.

Since I was four years old, I always had a dream of being a physician. And my community is a community that is in poverty, mostly farmworkers. My parents worked in the fields. They didn't have a high school education. I was really invested and dedicated to getting an education. I wanted to also make a statement to the community that I'm coming back. There was always that dream of doing something to help others that motivated me to keep going. I had no plans of going to Harvard Medical School. In fact, my family didn't even know where Harvard was or anything else like that. When my pre-med counselor at UCLA told me I should apply to Harvard, I asked her, "Harvard? Where's that?" She looked at me kind of strangely, but I said, "You know, it's not like we have these conversations at our dinner table." As you can imagine, I'm very grateful, and 17 years later, now I'm back.

Well, last night was a Blue Moon and a Super Moon. And my husband and I went to a treeless, vacant lot in Simsbury, and we looked at the moon. And it was spectacular. It was an orangey, bright orangey yellow and beautiful. Wispy clouds rolling by it. It was quite stunning. It made me wonder though about what the world would be like if the Earth did not have a moon or if the Earth had two or more moons. What would the differences be in our planet, maybe regarding the tides or I don't know. It's something I'm wondering about.

I grew up in a town of about 7,000 people. Not the smallest around, but definitely pretty small. Not quite the case of everyone knowing everyone, but news got around pretty fast. I remember so many nights just looking up at the stars and marveling at how many there were. In a way, I can really appreciate the story from the Bible when God tells Abraham to look up at the stars and he tells him that his descendants will be the number of the stars. I can appreciate it even more now that it has been taken away from me. I now live in a city of 2 million, and the stars are just so washed out by light pollution that I think I'm lucky if half a dozen break through the pollution. It genuinely excited me the other day when I could see Jupiter shining bright as it reached its closest point with Earth. But then I felt a moment of melancholy. I realized just how much I miss seeing those uncountable stars. I miss my hometown. More than I'd ever admit to my parents, but I definitely miss it.

So when I was done at the Climate notch, I met an individual who was working for a group that I really liked. It's fascinating that they were able to invite me to join the script that looks at the transition of fossil fuels away from being used in a manner that encourages an increase in their use, I guess, to have to develop a plan for reduction that is very data driven.\n\nAnd I was fortunate enough to be invited by him to a group that is looking at it from multiple angles. I guess what I'm looking to share here is that I find that some people are very driven but they're not just driven when they are young, but driven throughout their life. Because a lot of the people in this group are in their sixties and seventies.\n\nAnd what I find fascinating is the drive they have, the passion they have, even at the age they're at, towards a cause that is important to me right now and I hope is important to me as time goes on. But to be able to do something towards the cause in your elder years, I think, is very admirable because a lot of people become very closely attached to their material accumulation and become fearful of losing what they have or having less tomorrow than what they do today. And I've always suspected that that's what makes people lean more towards the right.\n\nBut I feel that having met a group like this is going to allow me to keep on honing my tribe towards working as a problem solver and topics that are important to me.

I'm the founder and executive director of this company where we design and build homes and commercial buildings that are highly sustainable, that exemplify my personal interest and concern for the state of the environment. I kind of just stumbled into it. I was in an environmental science program at the University of New Hampshire. And then, I stumbled across this book about earthships. And it was these people who were building homes literally out of all recycled materials, basically out of trash. The principles behind it were the things that sort of inspired me. I decided to go out and get my own contractor's license and eventually built a small company. The thing that I really love about what I do is sort of creating something out of nothing. If you feel happiness on a day to day basis, you're succeeding in life.

Cool, great. So, I have been dealing with some pain - abdominal pain. So, I don't know if you really call that a story. It's been something I've been dealing with for the past several days - intermittent pain, but it's chronic, which is frustrating. But fortunately, that actually happened after that dinner party that I was just talking about. So, it was nice to be at the dinner party for the birthday - for the birthdays - and not have to be concerned with dealing with pain at the same time.

I was treated for cancer this year, and since September 18th I've had a tube in my chest for chemo and other meds. I finally got it out earlier this month, and I just had my first shower where I didn't need to worry about it! Every shower between Sept 18th and now was as quick as humanly possible, a bag needed to be taped on my chest to keep water out, and I had limited mobility because of the tape. But this shower was legit. It was warm, and free, and I feel so good. I still gotta get the stitches out, but that's whatever. I'm so glad to have a bit more of my independence back, and to have some stress and worry taken away. I'm so happy and clean!

So the story I'd like to share is about a time when I had graduated from college and I was in a band with my friend. We played music together and we submitted a song for a showcase competition for musicians in the New England area. We had to fill out an application and record the song to share it with the selection committee. We were selected to participate in the competition that was held at a coffee shop, where we got to play two songs - if I remember correctly. Three or four other musicians also played two songs as part of the competition. Several judges chose which performance they liked the best and who would move on to the next round of the competition, which was a larger showcase. My friend and I were very excited, and we played our songs while our friends and family came to watch us and cheer us on. It was a good experience. We weren't selected to go to the next round and I was disappointed, but it was a fun experience and a nice memory for me.

I'm from Virginia originally. That's where my roots are. Rural girl, my parents have a farm, and I grew up in a small town area. I always had aspirations to get to New York City, so after graduation, I moved to New York. At the time, I wanted to go to New York and audition to sing. It was very competitive. There wasn't a lot of camaraderie. So, I very quickly decided that the environment wasn't something that I wanted to be in. I always knew that I had big plans for myself and that some opportunity would come along. I think that positivity and staying very optimistic is a really important place to be. Once you start on a negative train of thought like, "I'm not getting anywhere, this doesn't work for me, I don't know what I wanna do," and you linger for a little while, it's the worst place that you can be. You have to just act on something you think might work out, and understand if it doesn't, it's okay.

So, my parents have never, ever gotten along. They knew each other for a year, ended up finding out they were pregnant with my sister, and got married. Probably shouldn\'t have. Then had me two years later. And then pretty much were never happy with each other and I just remember one particular night where they were fighting. They would have these really brutal fights where they would just yell at the top of their lungs at each other. And sometimes it would get physical. And I was in, I think, first grade. And I woke up to one of these fights.\n\nAnd I got out of the top bunk of my bed, walked out into the living room, and saw my dad on top of my mom, biting her. And then I went back to my room because I was scared. I mean, and they were equally yelling at each other. And then I heard a loud noise. And more yelling, and I walked out, and my mom had run into a room, locked herself in there, and my dad had punched the door. And I asked him what was going on. And he bent down and was like, "It\'s okay, Madison, go back to bed." And I was like, "Why did you punch the door?" And he was like, "It\'s okay." There was clearly a hole in it. It was really scary. And I just went back to bed.\n\nLots of these situations happened when I was a kid. Something that my sister and I have come to discover through therapy and talking is that the reason we\'re not so mad at our dad as much as we are at mom. It\'s because mom. She would instigate a lot of these fights. I don\'t think my dad should have been doing a lot of these things either, but I think the reason that I hold more of a grudge towards my mom is because she took it out on us, and my dad never did. And my dad was equally violent and shouldn\'t have been. But my mom, when they did finally divorce and separate and my dad moved out, my mom started treating us how she treated my dad. And it took a lot of therapy to not feel like it was my fault.

I hate my mistakes. I hate the fact I made these mistakes. And I feel like I'll hate myself for it for the rest of my life. I've been around plenty of people. I wouldn't say they were all completely normal. Half the time, my friend groups would get into drama, and I'd get scooped up into it, and we'd all act like we were fine. I've made a lot of mistakes. A lot of the people I had around damaged me emotionally and psychologically. But, that doesn't excuse the fact I did that to others too. I've gotten out of those toxic friendships. And I've gotten better and even made new friendships, but word gets around, you know? It doesn't get to me, and I never had any reason to believe that other people would talk bad about me, but I have a gut feeling people are saying things about me. It's killing me. I've done my best to try to amend my past mistakes, but that doesn't mean people forget. God knows I haven't forgotten what other people did to me. I've been better now, really. But, I believe when you're around toxic people, you do toxic things, and even though that's no excuse for my behavior, I kinda hope it helps other people understand why I did what I did. I've reconciled with myself, but I feel bad for getting this feeling that others probably don't care if I'm sorry. And that's understandable. I've tried to let go, and I thought everything was fine, but people hold grudges longer than I do. I understand why I did what I did. But I also understand that I hurt people the same way they hurt me, and I regret that so much. I feel like my life is being sewn together and ripped apart every time I try to heal from my mistakes. It's annoying. I hate myself. I know mistakes are human, but I hate the fact that I feel like people hate me.

One of the prompts was to talk about a movie that meant something to you. When I was in high school, in the late 60s, this is when all the counterculture types were really into Tolkien. And that was the first time that he became a phenomenon in this country. So, I was into it and just devoured the book. Made a big impression on me. I never dreamed that it would be possible to translate these books into film. But when the Peter Jackson movies came out, the special effects were more advanced. I think that Peter Jackson did a magnificent job with a story just true to Tolkien\'s vision. The actors were all just top notch. But I think that the single most memorable scene for me, wasn\'t necessarily one of the big battle set pieces, but it was right at the beginning of the first movie. When Gandalf weiss\'s cart into town and sees Frodo waiting alongside the road. And Gandalf asks Frodo, "Get in the cart. We\'ll go into town together." And he does. And then Ian McKellen as Gandalf looks at Frodo and smiles at him with such unbelievable love. It just blows off the screen and you could just see that Tolkien would have adored this portrayal of Gandalf. And it\'s interesting that Ian McKellen just doesn\'t take acting all that seriously and has been on a variety shows where he says, "Well, somebody else writes the lines. I just stand where I\'m supposed to stand and read." But he is a summit actor. And what he did with no words at all, just facial expressions just brought a whole Lord of the Rings feel of it in such an immediate, immediate way. I never forgot that.

I saw a movie that I enjoyed so much, I saw it three times in the last week. I first went to it alone. Then I went to it with my husband. Then I took my girlfriend to see it last night. The movie was about an event that was a fantasy and yet totally believable. The characters were sweet and lovely, and they made you want to know what happened to them, and you really cared about what happened. The music in the movie was so phenomenal and kept you on the edge of your seat. I also had acquired the tickets for a really good price. That made it more justifiable to see it so many times. I intend to buy the movie when it becomes available. I may see it again soon with my son who wants to see it too and has not done so yet. The movie just makes me happy when I see it because of the joyfulness. The way they overcome their challenges with love and understanding is so lovely. It makes you want to persevere in the things you love as well. The actors that portrayed the characters in the movie were remarkable. They were so realistic that you totally believed what was happening to them. They also were humorous and had many friends. Movies that include friendship and love are so rare nowadays, and that was refreshing. The fact that they were not white Americans was surprising but surprisingly a very good choice. It was sweet but not syrupy sweet. It was a fantasy and yet a believable story. The story was just a remarkable way of showing perseverance and love with ordinary people. I hope that the movie academy of arts and sciences will consider it for some award. It was a brilliant concept and a wonderful story to impart to all ages. I've been telling everyone I know about the movie now.

Okay. So, I would like to share my story about losing weight and gaining weight. So, growing up, I wasn\'t sad. I was normal- normal weight in the normal average weight range. Maybe a little bit on the skinny, not skinny, a little bit on the less than average weight size because I really liked exercise- learning. I learned ballet, I learned like martial arts and dance and all kinds of that. So, I did move a lot, so I wasn\'t really fat. But one day, when I was 15, I suddenly gained a lot of weight. And I\'m going to talk about why in a moment. \n\nSo, the reason why I wanted to discuss with you the history of my losing and gaining weight is because I know that a lot of young women and men have issues and they really just work out hard or sometimes they just restrict their diet so drastically. So, it affects their health and all kinds of that. I think nowadays, physical beauty kind of became central to one\'s identity and I also can empathize. I also have those kind of issues. So, I thought it would be interesting to talk about that as it reflects the current trends and issues that most young people are experiencing. \n\nSo, I\'ll go back to my own story. So, when I was 15, I studied abroad in Canada and it was my first time ever to live on my own without having family around. So, everything was really new, and I couldn\'t speak English or understand English very well. So, I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the new environment. So, I developed a lot of anxiety and I guess I was a little bit paranoid at the time. And the only thing that gave me comfort was food. So, whenever I was scared or whenever I felt insecure, I guess I started eating to make me feel better. \n\nSo, I lived in a dormitory and on the first floor of my dormitory, there was a kitchen which stored fruits and cereals 24 hours so I could always go to that kitchen and have bananas, apples, and cereals whenever I wanted. And especially, late at night, I felt more insecure than worried about the next day and stuff. So, after midnight, I would go down to the kitchen and I started eating a lot of bananas, a lot of cereals until like 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. And then, without noticing, three months later, I gained like 20 pounds. \n\nSo, I didn\'t realize the change in my look, but people around me, they told me that, "Oh, you gained some weight." So, I kind of had noticed that I might have gained some weight, but I didn\'t really care that much about weight gain. So, like about a year later, after two semesters, I decided to return back to South Korea because obviously, I couldn\'t adapt to the new place. And so, I returned to my old school and then my friends didn\'t even recognize me because I gained so much weight and I looked totally different. \n\nSo, after returning back from South Korea, I slowly lost weight. But I think I brought the psychological issues with me, which was when I felt anxious or stressed, I would go search for food. So, there was a link between the stress and the food that was built in my mentality. So, I lost a little bit of weight but I never returned to the normal weight as I was before studying abroad. So, when I\'m under a lot of stress, I would gain weight and when I\'m feeling fine and when I\'m having a good time, I wouldn\'t eat too much. So, this fluctuation of weight started since then and then until I think it did continue until recently. \n\nBut as I got older and I reflected more on my life, I recently started to watch a lot of inspirational videos and workout videos. So, starting from this year, I started to work out more often, and I started to go to the gym a lot. And I started to learn Thai chi and boxing. So, I started to learn martial arts again and I think they really helped me to, I think they helped me to find the issues that I had, which is like a better control of myself and my stress. So instead of going for food, I could manage the stress better. I guess more like a cake later, I started to break this linkage between the food and my anxiety and all that. So, I guess that\'s a huge jump for me. So, I\'m continuing to do that, I\'m planning on continuing to develop this healthy habit. And yeah, I would just like to have better control of myself and my stress.

I lost lots of weight, which is good in some cases, but wasn't for me as most of that weight was muscle tissue. I struggled a lot with this. Being in good shape gave me lots of confidence and helped a lot with my job. Now that I've started working again, I noticed that I'm in worse shape than I hoped, but it's still better than I feared. Even though I see none of it, a few people told me that I do look buff, and when I looked at myself in the mirror and actively looked for positive changes, I did notice them. Even though I lost weight in a very unhealthy way, I also got rid of a little fat that I never felt bad about, but I'd lie if I said that it didn't bother me. I'm going to start going to the gym. I'm going to claim my body back from depression.

But yeah, just the other day, me and my dog, we were playing in our backyard, and I've got a toy for him, which is like a baseball. Sorry, a football. Meant for dogs with squeaks as well. For the first time, we played so much that even I felt exhausted because I was running behind him a lot, and he was also pretty exhausted by the benefits. So I would just go to one corner of my house, throw the ball over my house into the backyard, and he would just go crazy, bonkers running through the whole distance because that's technically the longest path. So I was trying to get him all worked out, and then run like I was trying to make him run as much as he can. But what I discovered is like, it's a nice opportunity for me as well to burn some of my calories as well. So at the end of the day, both him and I, we were pretty exhausted, but we were pretty happy after playing for such a long time and burning so many calories while playing basically.

Today at work, two of my coworkers made me feel so good! I was wearing shorts as I had just come from the physio, and when I stopped to talk to them (I was actually just passing through their area to go upstairs), they both said I was looking strong and fit. It made me incredibly happy to hear because I've been training so hard and focusing on my diet (not being restrictive but being more mindful). They asked about my training regime, and we spoke about the different forms of exercise and the importance of finding something you like and all that. When I left, they complimented me again and I swear I haven't stopped smiling since!

My husband and I got married when we were both very young. We were halfway through college. We had met right before we started college. He had a football scholarship, and I thought that money was dumb. So I really wasn't very interested in him. But we had a mutual friend who introduced us, and he thought I was going to be a snob. He thought, after he met me, that I had a boyfriend already because there was another guy from Rice who was at the same church camp that we went to. \nBut we quickly connected when we got to college and were engaged two years later, or got married two years later, halfway through school. If either one of my daughters had wanted to get married at that young age, I was not quite 20, and he was just past 20, I would have been horrified. But I think we grew together. Our wedding was a small wedding in Littlefield, which was the town where I lived. My mother wanted to do the reception at our house, so we did the reception at our house. And we had lots of friends that came for the wedding, so we got to see friends and show them my hometown. I remember being upset that I wanted to go swimming with everybody the day of the wedding, and my mother wouldn't let me because she said I would mess up my hair, which it was true. I would have, and I might have gotten sunburned. So she was probably right. \nThe night of our wedding, we drove to New Mexico. We were both poor, halfway through college, so poor college students. We had borrowed my brother's tent, which was a pup tent with no floor and not quite long as Fred so his feet stuck out, and we had to just put sleeping bags down on the ground. \nPretty soon after we got to Houston, back to school, we took our wedding money, which, if I'm not mistaken, was something like $60, and bought a $45 tent, which we used over and over again, and a $15 ice cream maker. We really thought we were flush to buy those things.

My wedding day was at the beginning of the year, and though it wasn't all that I expected, it was still a nice day and one that I will always remember. We got married in the courthouse that my husband worked on while he was roofing. My grandparents were the only ones able to come. They waited in the lobby with our youngest son, who was just 2 months at the time, while we took our 5-year-old upstairs with us for the ceremony. It was short and simple. I wish that more family could have come to share the day with us, but it was special and will be something to beat when we get our vows renewed in the future. When I was younger, I did imagine me to at least have a nice white dress and a bridesmaid in a church. The fact that it wasn't in a church did bother me a little, and I wore a regular but nice red dress I got on sale for $40. I would have loved to have flowers because my husband always brings me red roses. Being that it was in between our birthdays will be nice for an anniversary. I am thankful that my kids were there. I am thankful that my grandparents were present. I am thankful to be able to legally marry my husband. And I am thankful that it was a nice day. In the future, I will be thankful.

Are you listening? Right now, I guess I'll start. I'm not sure if you're listening, I guess. The two most meaningful stories we can start out with, from the beginning. I can tell you the story of my adoption. I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and at about the age somewhere between eight to 15 months, I was abandoned on post office steps. And then, I'm assuming taken to a local orphanage. At about 21 months, the adoption was arranged for my family, which I'm very lucky to have, but I'll go back into a little more detail of my adoption.\n\nFrom what I know, I was abandoned on post office steps and then taken to an orphanage. And then, my family was tracked down. I was told that my birth father was deceased and my birth mother couldn't take care of me. After they had contacted my family, my birth uncle tried to take me and take care of me, but that also he just couldn't handle it. And so then I was finally released for the adoption process. So, at about 21 months, I came over to the United States to my current loving, loving family. I feel very fortunate and I never kind of felt empty inside about the whole adoption. I get a little emotional just talking about it because honestly, it feels very surreal. I've always had a very loving family and so there's nothing that I should be feeling bad about. I was lucky to have my parents have two biological children, John and Betsy. They're about eight and nine years older than me, so I was definitely the baby of the family, but I never grew up feeling different. In fact, sometimes I joke that I'm just a white girl, which might seem a little derogatory, but I have never felt different or undervalued in my life. Well, from this, if anything, I feel very blessed and fortunate to have landed where I did and all the immense opportunities that have been before me. I really, honestly couldn't feel luckier about the family that I had.

I grew up in Nanjing, China. When I was a baby, I lost my right leg in a fire. Shortly after that, I was abandoned on the street. I was found at a year and a half old and taken to the local government orphanage. Fortunately for me, I was adopted when I was seven years old and came here to the states. When I was 14 years old, I received a running prosthetic. The day that I ran, I remember it being one of the most traumatizing days of my whole life. That was the first time that I was gonna have to be out. I was gonna have to show people that this is who I am, that I couldn't hide, that I was an amputee. I got out there and I started running and I realized I love to do this. This is so liberating. This is so freeing because I am out and this is who I am. I don't think you ever get one moment, have one experience, and you totally accept everything about who you are. That's a lifelong journey. But the start of that is finding something that allows you to be you.

Yeah, so I was talking with my father last night, and he was repeating himself a lot. And he mentioned about that his wife is concerned about his cognitive decline in terms of dementia. And some of my earlier memories were with my grandfather, his father, who had Alzheimer\'s, and he lived in our house. And it was pretty brutal to see him losing his mind. But I told my father that I don\'t think that it\'s related to Alzheimer\'s or Dementia. I think he literally just debate intellectually or emotionally, like most people do. He doesn\'t have conversations with people about their lives. He doesn\'t like participating in social events. He doesn\'t ask questions to learn about people. He never really wanted to do anything or participate in any ways. He doesn\'t know how to use a computer. You can\'t buy a plane ticket. He can\'t travel alone. He doesn\'t know how to manage his finances. He doesn\'t manage his finances. He doesn\'t really do anything. So in my opinion, his lack of participation and cognitive processes and general kind of life interest is really kind of a self-fulfilling process of his cognitive decline. There are plenty of people I know that are far older than him that really love learning or cooking or reading or hiking or exploring different ways to kind of nurture what they enjoy to do and kind of stay active and healthy in their lives in that way. But really, the only thing that my father likes to do is to sit on the couch, go jogging, and drink beer. And it\'s been that way for his whole life. Yeah, that\'s just been on my mind. And it\'s annoying to hear him say, like, "Oh, jamie\'s worried about me." But really, in my opinion, it\'s the result of his personal preferences and behaviors and limitations.

I have a very gradual retinitis pigmentosa, real gradual degeneration of the retina. So I went through all the phases of low vision and now to just about total blindness. It started to become an issue when I was 21 and was diagnosed with this disability. And then, I was aware of what my future was going to be like, that I was gonna be going blind. So having a disability is like playing a puzzle. If you like puzzles, boy, having a disability is great because you are always trying to figure out how to do something, how to make it work, how to find technology that works. You gotta make it work for you, and I think it's very important for everybody to say, hey, I got a disability and get to work on having a great life. That's absolutely essential, and I see a lot of people that do not accept their disability. They're waiting for a cure or something like this and the wonderful advances in medicine. That's great, but you can't build a life around hoping for something to come and cure you. You just have to figure out ways of making things work.

So, when I was a little girl, I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. But then my father, who was a dentist, went to a special public health program in Atlanta. But then we moved back to the family home, town of Andersonville, Tennessee. And while our house was being built, we lived in the house in front that was probably 150 years old when we were living there. My great aunt lived in it. It was a two-story house. We had the top story. And I remember having a baby bed and watching the lights of the cars on the highway in front of the house coming by. It wasn't a very busy road, so it wouldn't happen very often, but I would see them come and move all the way across the room from one side to another. That's my earliest memory, those lights. When the house is finished, we moved into our own house, but I still loved to go up to the upper story, and I kept some toys up there at my great aunt's house. The families, our families, would put apples from the apple trees down on newspapers in one of the bedrooms. And one of my jobs was to go up and look for bad spots and turn over all the apples and look for bad spots and throw away blends with bad spots. Actually, if they had a lot of good on them, I would bring them downstairs and my grand aunt would make applesauce out of them or apple pies. I liked playing in the other room, and eventually, we had a bed in there when my parents got a new bed, bedroom set for our house. They put their old bedroom set in one of the bedrooms upstairs. And in the summertime, I liked to go up there and sleep. I had to share a bedroom with my little sister, and a way for me to have a room of my own was to leave our family house and go to the house next door. My aunt also liked it because she didn't like to be alone. And I remember that every summer I would look forward to moving out of our house and moving all of our stuff up to the house. I'm not sure my mother liked it very much, but she didn't mind since I was company for my great aunt. I found out only later, and it was so strange that I never noticed it while I was semi-living there, that there was one room that was never finished out. You can see the window from downstairs, and it had a curtain on it, window shades. But there was no door going into it, so the house didn't fit the door. And that was kind of a mystery. That makes a good Halloween story, I think, since nobody ever knew what was in that room. Fred, after we were married, tried to get a ladder and look through the window, but the curtains were pulled so they couldn't really see very much. So we still don't know what was in it. One of my friends bought the house after we moved from Tennessee, and they completely redid it. So I avoided asking when we went back what was in the top.

Monday, my daughter started "Big Girl School"! She has officially entered Kindergarten! Being in school isn't new to her though. She has been in Pre-K for a year, so she is used to getting up, putting on a uniform, and even being around the big kids. She was very excited to start Kindergarten. I, however, am not ready for her to be so ready. She went to bed early at 7 PM and the lights went off! I woke her up to our traditional "Wake Up Song". I've been singing her this song since she was a baby. This stirs up the emotions, knowing she is now a "big kid". Sometimes she sings along, sometimes she pulls the covers over her head. I also got up early to cook breakfast. Our daily breakfast consists of egg whites, turkey bacon, and fruit. Every once in a while, I will let her eat her favorite cereal, but we keep it healthy! She only ate a little bit. I reckon she was nervous. So we grabbed her sparkly book bag, lunchbox that looks like a purse, and her huge shopping bag of school supplies and headed to school. I am very blessed that her school is only 5 minutes from our home. We got there in no time, and I walked her inside. The teachers had the kids sectioned off in the cafeteria by grade. I went to give her a kiss before she sat down, and she covered her face!!! Later she told me that other kids would make fun of her. BUT IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!!! Looks like my baby girl is already grown!!!

Okay. So, I was looking through my old pictures, and I came across some of the ones from when I spent a year in Switzerland, in between undergrad and grad school. And I look back fondly on that experience because it was the first time I really lived away from home, further than College, but also living in another country. And it was a very good, growing experience.

I recently went to my best friend's wedding in Spain. This was about 4 months ago and was in the south of Spain, a part of Spain I had never been to before. Before the trip, I was extremely busy and had very limited time to actually plan the trip. Therefore, I had fairly low expectations about it and didn't think too much about it until it actually happened. I had been to Spain fairly often before (mostly the North), and therefore thought that the South was very similar to it culturally. However, once I arrived in Ubeda, the little village where my friend's wedding was taking place, I realized I had been all wrong. The streets were narrow, the town was full of culture and beautiful monuments due to its rich history and culture, and I couldn't believe my eyes. The trip made a strong impression on me and made me fall in love with the town. People were friendly, the food was delicious. Over there, people have jamon with bread, tomatoes, and olive oil for breakfast. Initially, it seemed strange to me, but by the third day, it seemed so natural to me, and I feel like I had lived there my whole life. My best friend's family was warm and lovely as well. I quickly realized that it was a defining personality trait of people from the south of Spain. Towards the end of my week-long trip, I began dreading my departure from the city and tried to take as many mental pictures of the trip as I could, so I would never forget it. Specifically, the wedding cathedral, the endless olive oil fields, the jamon available at every restaurant in town, the beautiful weather, and the friendliness of the people. Since I have been back, I have already begun planning my trip back, as well as learning Spanish, and this trip had a strong unexpected impact on my life.

So today, I dropped off my sister for the first day of school, and she goes to a middle school that I used to go to. And it was kind of like nostalgic seeing my old school and how different things were, I guess. It was a pretty weird feeling, and just kind of made me think about the past and how things used to be.

Recently, my oldest daughter graduated high school and is starting college. This is all new to me, and it came at me like a freight train. There was so much growing up done in the last two months, I barely recognized my little girl. I was planning parties, attending parties, getting finances in order, and trying to be happy all at the same time. I thought I was ready for her to be an "adult." I realized quickly that I wasn't. It's hard to watch your kids grow. It makes you think back to all the people you wanted in your life to see this, that aren't with you anymore. It is the most crazy time in my life. I think back, and the first day of kindergarten wasn't that long ago, was it? We had a great grad party. All her friends were here. We had all of our family over. We ordered so much food and the biggest cake ever. We all had such a great time. I realized then that she was growing up, and that her friends weren't really "kids" anymore either. It wasn't soon after the grad party that she was already getting her things in order to start college. I will admit that a little part of me is glad that she is going to college locally and staying at home. It's nice to keep them as long as you can. She's been in college for two weeks now. Stress is real to her now, and to me. I think we have both done some growing up, and realizations have occurred that we are moving on in life together, just in different ways. And it's harder for some of us to do it gracefully, but we do our best.

Okay, here's the corrected transcript:\n\nWell, again, I'm thinking of things that happened this week when we were on vacation with my grandchildren. And two of the little girls, Lydia and Lucy, made a lovely lunch for me. It was rice and a very thin egg omelet with soy sauce all around it. She lamented the fact that she didn't have any seaweed snack to put on it because she said that would have made it even better. But it's so happy to see them cooking and caring about serving good, healthy food. So I thought I would write a review. So I wrote to the family, a very authentic-sounding review of what I named Lucy and Lydia's Cousin's Cafe. And I made quite a big deal about each item in the dish. And then the very next day, Lucy, the older of the two girls, made pancakes at her house and brought them across the street to Lydia's house. And so, I gave Lucy and her efforts quite a review as well. And I'm hoping to keep this up with every cookie they make, every brownie, every lunch or dinner they help with. I will be happy to write a picture, to write a review and maybe take a picture and publish a picture. I thought I'd call it Grandma's Gazettes.

A memorable event that occurred in the past three months was preparing my eldest child for kindergarten. I worked really hard over the summer, helping her set a schedule and routine that would be similar to her school day. She worked on many activities in order to memorize her contact information, writing, reading, and being able to handle her emotional well-being. As summer began to end, she seemed a little nervous to leave me and her little sister. I realized that there was no way to remove that feeling from her. Instead, I made plans for us to do activities when she finishes her school day. Planning ahead allows for her to feel like her school day really isn't too long. When school first began, she was very tired from the long day. I didn't realize how much her schedule had affected her, so I introduced "cuddle time," which is pretty fun for her. The most important aspects of my child starting school have been numerous. I learned how important my role as mom is for my kids. I am their literal compass, and that responsibility goes beyond just sending them off to school. I try to understand how her day is going and what obstacles she faces each day. I meditate on how I can be influential in her education when she gets home from school. I love this new journey that we are on and am actively preparing myself for the next several years of her school career.

So, growing up in India, we had this festival called Diwali. It's pretty big for the Hindu population. And every year, I couldn't wait to get my hands on firecrackers and go out and burn them with my friends.\n\nAnd it so happened that once I got to 8th grade, my family would let me out with my friends late at night. So, we'd be out in the streets, in the parks, even at 01:00 a.m., 02:00 a.m., bursting firecrackers. And even 20 years later, now I think about that really fun from the perspective of how, first of all, the city was so safe that as a kid, I could be out with my friends deep into the hours of the night. But then also that I always had this love for fire and fireworks.\n\nNow, in the US, it's only on the 4th of July that you get to see fireworks, and I find myself not as drawn to them as I was as a kid. Also, the fact that I'm not burning them myself is just a spectacle that you're watching. But it's just something I've been thinking about lately.

On July 4th, I was at home in the morning, doing nothing and feeling kind of sad. I unexpectedly got a call from one of my friends, and she invited me out with her and her boyfriend. I was kind of surprised and pleased at the same time. We ended up going to the movies to see Spider-Man, and it was such a funny movie. After that, we got dinner at a local Mexican restaurant nearby. I ordered tacos, and my friends order nachos to share. We left the restaurant after finishing our meals and saw a food truck selling ice cream across the street. We decided to get ice cream cones for dessert. We walked about for a bit while we ate our ice cream and chatted about different things. About an hour later, we found the perfect spot on the grass near a bridge with an open view of the sky. My friend made a comment that it would be the perfect spot to stay and watch the fireworks. I agreed, and we sat down and waited for the show to start. After the fireworks show was over, we all went home. I felt so happy that my friend wanted to share that holiday with me, and it made my entire day so much better. I was very happy.

Yeah, so I mean my story is really just starting about. Just sitting with my mom and catching up on some of the shows and just sort of laughing about how less amusing and engaging some of the shows are than we were remembering them to be, I think. We sort of got past the threshold of longing for them because I'd been over five months, I think. So I think they might have to earn a little bit of, well, I mean it was maybe short notice for them. I'm not sure. But earn a little bit of our consumer attention back with some good, funny, comedic writing. That'll be nice. It's slowly, I think, revving up.

I'm currently a narrative creator and game designer for Niantic. Prior to that, I was in film school. When I was in undergrad, I got interested in games. I got interested in game design. I took all the game design courses. I'm the only one there who's done all of these. They start to call on me to TA all of these classes. They pull in a guy named Flint Dille, and he's teaching a class on alternate reality games. We worked well together, we go our separate ways, and then two years later, he is starting to do this project and he needs a guy who can help him, and he calls me. I ended up here by pushing in a direction I found interesting, and Niantic is very much focused on developing the intellectual property that we own, which is Ingress. We're developing and building this really deep and rich and interconnected sort of science fiction world. There was always the risk that I'm driving the primal force of my energy and interest into an area with no guarantees. But I was hedging the risk by just learning constantly, learning how to do new stuff. At some point, you end up with so many tools on your toolbelt that you know that if you're backed into a corner you can reach down to the utility belt and be like, "I know how to do this!"

So, this is relatively short, but in about maybe a year ago, as a family, we finally took my mom on a wish list vacation to the Grand Canyon. My brother and sister and I decided that it was a good time, and there was something that she had really been wanting to do for a long time. And we're all growing up now, so it's hard to get everybody together. But I did a lot of planning and got it worked out. Everyone got flights, and we all met up and flew out there and did it. We got a car, rented that, drove around, saw some really interesting sights along the way. Finally made it to the Grand Canyon, did a little bit of light hiking, and it was a really great trip for the family.

One of the most memorable events recently happened to me and I can't stop thinking about it. My husband and I took our first international trip together. Not only was it our first international trip together, it was also our first big trip without our two young children. We have done several small, weekend-long trips but never for more than two days at the most. This time, we went to Jamaica and were gone for ten days. It was such an amazing experience. We had the opportunity to get to know each other better and become closer to each other. It has been four years since we had our oldest child. That is four years without real alone time to see who we are without being Mommy and Daddy. We got to just spend ten days in paradise having other people take care of us instead of us taking care of other people. We ate and drank and just had a great time being together. It made so much of an impact that our relationship is even stronger now than before. We have decided to book another trip to Jamaica for next year because we found the experience to just be so important and it made such a big impact on our lives. This was so surprising to me because we had to save up for quite a while to take the trip in the first place. But with it being so good for our relationship, we decided we would find a way to be able to make it happen again in just one year.

Hello. So, I was at the library, and I ran into a friend whom I hadn't seen since high school. And that was great. We went out to have some coffee. But I forgot what I had gone to the library for in the first place, which was to work on an assignment. So, I turned that in late.

I was like, "I could just die. I don't have time doing something I'm not excited about." So I quit my job and went back to school. I was a literature major, and I decided I wanted to be an engineer. And so, I started with pre-algebra, algebra, all from the bottom up. I think in our society, from a very early age, it's sort of you're humanities or you're hard science. And that's not true. You can do both.

Um, yeah. So, I guess, like, my story and thought is that my friend Olivia came to visit. She helped me from Claremont, took a train that was like 30 minutes, and then helped me pack as I move out. And she made it so much fun and it really inspired me to bring in more play into my everyday life than make it tedious to have fun.

I'm a designer and an engineer. My work has really focused on blending electronics and computing with art and design. I've done a lot of work in combining textiles and fashion with electronics and computer science. I developed a kit called LilyPad Arduino that lets you sew electronics into your clothes. Kind of robotics except for soft, stretchy things. So it's this incredibly mathematically rich thing. But culturally, we don't think of it in those terms. So what I needed to do for myself was discovering I could combine art and design with computer science and with electronics. I just started to play and build stuff with electronics and textiles. And that was really really fun and really exciting. It was this tremendous a-ha moment where I felt like I could connect all of the crafty stuff that I had always done as a hobby. And then, using that blend as a way to get new communities of people engaged in electronics and computer science.

I have a job interview coming up, and I had maybe 15 different recruiters reach out to me about it. A bunch were giving the same cap for what the company would pay. There's a contract rule, but it's Google and they can pay so much more. And I live in the heart of Boston. I mean, it's just silly. It's not just a typical research role, it's a team lead role. Anyway, so I got to deal with the recruiters and I don't know that's its own beast, but they're there to hopefully gain success through my success. So that's good. It's just sometimes you have to wonder how transparent they're being about budget. But it's a cool opportunity. A lot of competition for it, and it's contract. So I have mixed feelings about that. But then again, since I'm still not really sure my next direction, I should see where things take me. But I have to be discerning, otherwise I just pick up an available job. And that's not what I want. I like to pride myself in the opportunities I select. And hopefully girlfriend... Anyway, I'm needing to refresh myself in some of my old work because I have had so many different jobs, different projects that really vary but still within UX, user research, Psychology, perception, design research. Anyway, there are so many different directions I can take myself in the field still, which is exciting.

I just gave my 4th round of interviews and was pretty sure I wouldn't clear it, so I wasn't even nervous in the slightest. Went on call, the interviewer gave a problem and said we will try to solve it in 50 mins. I gave the most optimal solution in 7 mins. He was thoroughly impressed and told me this was a new record. We wrapped up the one-hour interview in 20 mins. I have two more rounds before getting an offer. I have a fever today and thought of postponing, but I've been giving interviews for this company for over a month now and didn't want to delay anymore. Will start preparing for the next round from tomorrow. I've never been rejected in any interview in my life and thought this would be it, but I'm so lucky.

Recently, as I've become more, I guess instead of gotten to know my friends more, and the more we've been through and the more conversations we have, and the more people I've met through their lives, and yeah, just the more time I've spent with them, I've just really gained appreciation for them, and for their friendship. And that's kind of unique to feel like a true appreciation that you found some really good friends.

I have felt this way for as long as I remember. Basically, every time I hang out with a big group of friends, I always feel really sad afterwards, almost like crashing after being drunk. I look around the room where we all hung out and it's empty and quiet again. And I think about where everyone is in that moment, having gone back to their own lives. I think about the fleetingness and specialness of moments when we all hang out together because as you get older, people go through different stages of life, and it gets harder to find time. It's very different compared to when everyone was in school or college. I don't have a problem spending time by myself. I love having privacy and alone time, and I'm a total introvert. I also wouldn't consider myself lonely. I live with my SO and see my close friends at least once a week. But big social hangouts still remind me of how precious and delicate our lives are.

Okay. So, this story is another story about a pet, and this one at the time, I was dating this girl. And she had a dog, and we both enjoyed playing with this dog. She was really nice. And one thing that was really memorable for me was when we would take her to a park and let her off the leash. And then we would play hide and go seek with her. So, typically what would happen is one of us would hold the dog on the ground. She was seated, but we would cover her eyes with our hands so she couldn\'t see. And then the other one would run and hide behind the tree somewhere far away. And then when they were well hidden, whoever was holding the dog would let her see and then ask questions like, "Where is she? Where did she go?" Something like that just to get the dog excited. And then the dog would look around and not know where the person was, and then she would get excited and she would go into a hunting mode. And then she would start sniffing around on the ground and looking around and trying to check everything. And then when she finally found the other person, she would get really excited. And then the other person would laugh and get her all worked up. And then it would be really happy, and then she would run back really excited. And we would do it again, just changing roles. But it was a really fun moment and it was an enjoyable memory.

A few months ago, I was at Petco. I saw a woman trying to wrangle a cat inside one of the cat cages while she was cleaning it, so I stopped to offer to help. I held the cat while she was cleaning the cage and he started purring, rubbing his head on my chin, and practically went to sleep in my arms. I got to talking about the cat with the woman, learning a bit of his tumultuous history. There was no way this cat would have all the behavioral problems that the sheet said he did. I chatted for almost an hour, and by the end, I had all but adopted the cat. I took him home with me that day, borrowing a carrier from the rescue group to transport him. Although the first few weeks were rough, he integrated well with my other cats. The other young cat hid from him for quite some time, spending almost entire days under the couch and staring at me with eyes that said, "Who is this guy in my space?" Eventually, she snuck out to sniff him before darting away, and one day, I woke up to find them both on the bed. Opposite corners, to be sure, but together on the bed! It was a great relief to see everyone be happy. I named him Kismet for the twist of fate that brought him to me. He's been an amazing cat and even a surrogate dad for some kittens I agreed to foster. He's very fond of kittens, letting them crawl all over him and cleaning their ears at every opportunity. I'm really glad I met Kismet, and I'm even gladder that he'll be a part of my life going forward.

Yeah, so I want to just tell the story of the time I went on a road trip in the Southwest. I went with my sister and my nephew. I was in high school, and we flew to Phoenix, and then we rented a car. And from Phoenix, we drove to Sedona. We stayed in Sedona for eight days. And then I got to go to, like, Petrified Forest, got to go to Grand Canyon, got to go hiking in Sedona. And then from Sedona, we drove to Vegas. I got to go to Circus Circus and ride around in the rides that they have there. And then from there, we drove to Palm Desert in California to visit a friend. From Palm Desert, we drove to LA, and we stayed in Malibu for a bit. I had fun at Santa Monica Pier in Malibu. And then from Malibu, we drove down to San Diego, and we actually went down to La Jolla, and we stayed in La Jolla for a bit. I got to see some sea lions there, or the otter sea lions, I think they're called. And that was really cool. And then we drove back to Phoenix and stayed at a resort with a water park. It was a lot of fun. And I got to drive through the desert during one of the hottest days of the summer. I got to experience, like, 122 degrees. I got to see, like, the border of Mexico. It was a lot of fun. And now, I'm flying back to Sedona in a few hours. So I'm excited to go on a trip again.

My wife and I traveled to Italy and did an amazing hike in the Dolomite mountain range. I had wanted to do this hike for many years and had researched it quite a bit. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I had no idea how much so. We started early in the morning, and for about four hours, we just kept climbing up higher and higher. It was even more difficult because there were loose rocks under us for much of it. Every time we reached what we thought was the top, another long uphill awaited us. Finally, after what I figured was another false top, we came up, and it was as though we were at the top of the world. There below us, spreading for 360 degrees, were what seemed like thousands of craggy mountain peaks. It was like something from Lord of the Rings. We both started to cry; it was so beautiful. There was more crazy hiking to do, however, as we had to use ropes that had been attached to the mountain during World War I to traverse some cliffs and small waterfalls. That was the most difficult part for my wife, and I was so proud of her that she did it. I think she surprised herself. It was really one of the most memorable experiences of our lives. Even though we pretty much killed ourselves doing it, I think we would both do the same hike again in a heartbeat.

So, I have a friend who recently lost his father due to a tragic car accident. And I heard this news on a day of going for dinner. I felt really bad for my friend, and I was so heartbroken because I know how kind and sweet of a person my friend is. So, I could see that although I haven't seen his father, I could see that he must have grown in a very happy family. And he talked about his father a couple of times, so I know that he loves his family and his father, of course. So, I know how difficult it would be for him. It was very difficult for me also, thinking about it. I felt so powerless. I feel like nothing could comfort him in this situation. So, I felt really bad that I could not do much for him. It also got me to think about my own family as well. How would I feel if my dad suddenly passed away? I couldn't even imagine that. And I have a really good relationship with my dad, and I talk with him about everything. So, losing someone that important, that close, and who supports you, who made you actually, in this, would be unimaginable. I've experienced that with my grandparents, but I think it's very different from losing your parents. So, yeah, it got me thinking about relationships and death in life, in general. So, I think it's inevitable. I will die someday also. And I will see my parents die someday. So, I should always take the moments in time preciously because it's not going to last forever. This tragic happened to my friend just got me thinking a lot about those kinds of philosophical questions. Sometimes, just thinking about that makes me feel so humble and makes me feel like everything is less important than I am actually thinking it is. But yeah, I don't know how to... I guess I'm trying to think on a brighter side. It can also broaden my perspective somehow and embrace the difficult moments in life as more grateful. But I was very heartbroken to hear my friend's youth. And yeah, I just thought I wanted to share this story to hear what you think about.

A good friend of mine recently died in a car accident. Attending his funeral was very emotional. I was in tears the whole time I was in the room with his body. It was so incredibly unfair to me that this funny, kind, gentle human being was dead at only age 37. He had only just gotten married two years ago. That's all the time he had with his wife: 4 years of dating, 2 years of marriage, and then dead, with no kids to pass on his legacy, all because of a distracted driver. It made me so incredibly sad and also furious at how unfair life is. At the funeral, we were encouraged to get up and say a few words. Some of his family did get up, but so did a few people that only seemed to be doing it to draw attention to themselves, like, "I know he is dead, but have you thought about how *I* feel about it?" which only made me more mad. Although I hate speaking in front of people, I did go up to talk about what he meant to me. I did not mention how I felt about the other hangers-on who got up to talk because that would have been very inappropriate for a funeral, but instead tried to draw the focus back to what a wonderful human being this man was. How I never saw him angry, how I never saw him complain, how he always was so fun and jovial and approached each day like a blessing. Later on, his wife told me how happy she was about my little speech. I felt glad I could support her. It also made me think about how when I die, I want a happy, positive, and small funeral.

All right, so I wanted to talk about my pack. The experience that I had with my pets. I think pets are a very important part of my adolescence and my childhood. Now, I don\'t have pets anymore. I mean, I\'m now more of a plant person. But when I was young, I had birds, hamsters, and dogs. So, I really loved animals as a young kid and young adolescent and especially today. I want to talk about my first pet, which was a dog. I think the first experience is very meaningful because you are doing it for the first time, so it\'s very special. And also, it\'s more likely that you\'ll make a lot of mistakes, so it\'s likely that you will remember it longer due to, maybe, you may have some regrets. You could do it better if you think back or something like that. So anyways, I think first experience is very important. So, I\'ll share a story about how I had my first talk. So when I was nine years old, about nine years old, it was a summer day, one summer day, and it was late in the evening. I don\'t know why, but I was heading out to do something and it was very rainy. The rain was pouring. It was raining heavily at the moment. And so I took my umbrella and I headed out from home. I lived in an apartment at the time and I was in the lobby. I mean, the elevator opened and as soon as the elevator opened, I saw a wet dog, a little dog. It was soaked in the rain. And it was small, but it looked poor. It was shaking because of the cold and was so wet, and it didn\'t move. It didn\'t move and it just kept making eye contact with me. So I was immediately like, "Oh my gosh, I have to run back and bring a dry towel or something." So I took the elevator back to my home again and I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, I hope the dog doesn\'t go away." So I went back home and I brought a dry towel. Thankfully, the dog was still there. It was still shaky, but it looked so meek. So I slowly approached it and I wrapped the dog with a dry towel. It didn\'t move or resist or bark or anything. I pet the dog and I looked into its eyes. It was so cute and so poor. So I wanted to bring the dog back home. But I knew that at the time, my mom didn\'t like dogs because she never had a dog before. And I asked her several times before that moment, but she said no, we cannot have dogs. So I was worried. But I brought the dog back home anyway because I didn\'t have any other choice. I don\'t remember her reaction at the time, but we decided to keep the dog. And then I was in elementary school, first and second year. I started to build a bond with my first dog. I would bring.\n\nIn front of the school, they sell junk foods like candies or jellies or whatnot. I now am knowledgeable about how bad it is, how bad junk foods are for dogs. But at the time, I didn\'t have that kind of knowledge. So I would just buy all kinds of junk foods like candies, jellies, snacks. And then I would bring them back home and I\'ll feed the dog. But there was a very joyful moment. And I would go out with the dog and I was very happy to have the dog. It was like the dog was my very good friend. So I think, I don\'t know how many months later, but the dog started to grow. And also, my mom was sick at the time, so she mostly spent her time in bed. And the dog started to make some kind of mess. The dog, I guess, was in the adolescent phase, so it started to mess around the house. It would pee here and there and it would chew the furniture. So my mom was starting to get annoyed. And then one day, when I returned from school with junk foods, I realized the dog was missing. So I asked my mom and she told me that she sent the dog to one of our relatives who had a dog and lived in a house, not an apartment, and where there was a big yard. So she sent the dog to their family. So I was like, she didn\'t even ask me before she sent it off. So I was crying all day long. Obviously, I was so angry and so sad. But since she said she told me that we can always go visit the dog because the dog was at our relative\'s house. And then I think, like, a week later, she told me that the dog ran away from their family and now the dog is missing. So my last hope was gone. I was hoping that I would go visit their family and reunite with the dog. But now the dog had run away from that house. And it kind of stuck. And I always kind of thought that the dog will find a way back to me. I would always imagine or expect that thought. I was so smart that he might be able to find a way. So before I go to bed, I would pray like, "Oh my gosh, please let the dog find a way to my apartment." But that never happened. And as a young kid, I would always think, "What happened to my first dog?"

I love animals. When I was growing up, my mom had a black Labrador called Nicky. And after Nicky passed away, it was a couple of years later that we got a miniature poodle called Mocha. So from a young age, up until now, I've always been around animals and dogs specifically. I was a volunteer at the City Humane Society for a year and a half, where I pretty much just got to learn about the process of the shelter, kind of what the environment is like. And I ended up falling in love with all the people here, and just the whole environment and the animals. I wouldn't have known how much I enjoyed working with the animals until I actually did it. I've gone 20-something years not living for myself, always kind of feeling that I had to please someone else. At the end of the day, it's gonna be your life, and you're gonna be the one that looks back on it.

I have a job interview coming up, and I had maybe 15 different recruiters reach out to me about it. A bunch were giving the same cap for what the company would pay. There's a contract rule, but it's Google and they can pay so much more. And I live in the heart of Boston. I mean, it's just silly. It's not just a typical research role, it's a team lead role. Anyway, so I got to deal with the recruiters and I don't know that's its own beast, but they're there to hopefully gain success through my success. So that's good. It's just sometimes you have to wonder how transparent they're being about budget. But it's a cool opportunity. A lot of competition for it, and it's contract. So I have mixed feelings about that. But then again, since I'm still not really sure my next direction, I should see where things take me. But I have to be discerning, otherwise I just pick up an available job. And that's not what I want. I like to pride myself in the opportunities I select. And hopefully girlfriend... Anyway, I'm needing to refresh myself in some of my old work because I have had so many different jobs, different projects that really vary but still within UX, user research, Psychology, perception, design research. Anyway, there are so many different directions I can take myself in the field still, which is exciting.

I thought I had a plan, but things post-college, I've learned, rarely go according to plan, and that's okay. When I graduated, it was 2009; the job market was not too hot. I did get a job offer doing satellite operations like Lockheed Martin in Virginia, but I was looking for something smaller. And a recruiter came along at some point and told me about this, at the time, a pretty small company called Spire, and the rest is history. Spire, on a high level, we are a space-to-ground data and analytics company. We're primarily interested in tracking ships and getting weather data. When I started at Spire, I'll be honest that I was pretty terrified. There were a lot of moments where I felt pretty inadequate, like they made a mistake. But that's something you get over. Fake it until you make it is truly a thing. And so, even if you're not good at something starting out, if you're impassioned by it, that passion will eventually drive you to a level of skill that would make you more useful than you ever thought you would be.

Two: So here are some of my thoughts on being boxed and also starting out. Two sort of different but similar things. So let's start with being boxed in. Being boxed means that everyone around you, or at least many people around you, have a certain preconception of how you act and what you'll do. And it's quite hard to change their perspective because it's not really in your control. But whenever you do something which is outside the box they put you in, it's jarring to them and they don't like it. They try to make you not do that and you stay in your box, which is kind of awful because that means it's hard to change. Because people would find it odd if you try to change and people also make wrong assumptions about you. And sometimes they don't tell you about it and it can affect things adversely for a really long time. Conversely, people also try to fit in a lot, having sort of idiosyncrasies or different characteristics. As we heard, I'm humans naturally seek some sense of belonging, I guess because they're social animals, and that leads into fitting in. And this leaves the suppressing parts which make each person unique. And that's a little sad, actually, I think. A friend pointed out that this also depends on what kind of social structure you grew up in. For example, if you grew up in a more collectivist society, like say somewhere in East Asia or India, like me from childhood, you're expected to behave in the normal way and there are many more rules about fitting in with everyone else. And as a result, you sort of double up less, I think you develop less idiosyncrasies. When you're older, there isn't really much to suppress because you already fit in just because of the way you've grown up. Of course, fitting in in one of those societies, coming from the outside with the only unique characteristics, will be much harder. Conversely, somewhere like the US, which is very individualistic, there's less of an expectation to fit in, but as a result, people develop their own unique behaviors. And some of these will be seen as extreme for people coming from more collective societies, and they would stand out. But standing out is seen as not a bad figure, which is great. I'm not sure if it's great but seems alright. So yeah, I've not had many experiences with standing out, at least that have affected me in a negative way. However, I do feel boxed in a lot. And once I started taking notice of when that's happening, I realized it happened nearly every day and definitely many times a week. And I'm not easily bothered by most things, but this is starting to get to me. And last week, I snapped at someone I perceived as boxing me, and I normally don't do that. And I still think why that bothers me so much. And I think the main reason is it prevents you from changing and doing things you find interesting just because it doesn't fit in your box. Even today, someone told me that when I told them about talking to you, they said they wouldn't have expected me to have done something like that. Basically, I'm not in their box. And I really don't like that. Not many things annoy me, but that is one thing that does.

All my "Friends" make fun of me for being bad at video games. Same with physical stuff. Got beat by every single one of them in races and arm wrestles. I get told I'm too skinny or all the sports I play are girly, and even with so many sports to my name, I still get destroyed in races. I'm the laughingstock of my class. I feel like a joke, and my parents laugh at me too. I feel insecure about my body. A girl next to me straight up said I look ugly because I have a bit of a mustache growing, and my jaw is too feminine. I feel mentally insecure. I'm not popular, I'm not strong, I'm bad at video games except for the ones none of my classmates play. And I've been challenged by the same girl who made fun of my face to an arm wrestle tomorrow. She does several forms of martial arts.

I just got a really nice recommendation from a former colleague that he posted on my LinkedIn page. So, it was really nice to receive. A former colleague from a Boston consulting group. We worked together on virtual learning.

I knew that I wanted to get into tech somehow. But I wasn't sure which field, like mechanical engineering or computer science, and I was really good at math. So I'm like, okay, I wanna do something with math, I wanna explore programming. And that's how I started taking computer classes. And that's really how I came about choosing a direction. So MINDBODY's mission is to leverage technology to improve the wellness of the world. And so I oversee what's called the data science team, and we do a lot of analyzing of data. And so a lot of that has to do with just figuring out what the trends are, what kind of shifts we're seeing in the industry in terms of attendance. Are we seeing drops in attendance? Like, for example, people make their New Year's resolutions, right? You see attendance spikes on the first week of January. And then it levels off. We can see those things. And so I feel like I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to actually work in the field that I got to focus on.

Blue. Today, I attended the first lecture of one of my classes this semester, which is quite fun. The class is about J.R.R. Tolkien, the famous author of The Lord of the Rings. He was also a great scholar of medieval literature, languages, philology, and stuff. He had conversations with friends like C.S. Lewis, who, at least in the beginning, was an atheist and didn\'t believe in the value of things like God and metaphysics. But he later changed. He later converted. But that\'s not what I want to talk about. Today, we read a part of a poem written by Tolkien, which wanted to explain why metaphysics are important, because C.S. Lewis was of the opinion that metaphysics are just beautifully crafted lies. They have no truth in them, and therefore, they\'re not worth anything. And Tolkien\'s response was to compose a long poem about why metaphysics are useful. But one part that particularly caught my attention was the beginning, where Tolkien describes this fictional character called Miso Metis, who doesn\'t believe in the value of metaphysics. He says the person looks at natural objects like trees and just labels them "trees" and walks across the Earth as though everything is determined mathematically. Atoms move as they\'re expected, and every outcome is predictable, as if the world is just code regimented in a way where destined atoms are each moment\'s flame. So, it\'s like a very lifeless worldview. And he contrasts this with a different one in which he believes in a God and has a belief that there\'s some purpose beyond our comprehension, and God who made everything in the world. And these are not merely just objects that work according to mathematical principles, but more than that. I think this struck me because, like the professor mentioned, MIT students tend to have this worldview. And I think he\'s right. I think many people tend to view the world, at least here, as deterministic, a bunch of things that have predictable outcomes, and they can try and optimize for plans within their control to take advantage of this nature of the world. And they treat life as sort of an optimization problem, trying to get the maximum or some sort of maximal outcome. I don\'t think all MIT students are like this. I think a large chunk of them aren\'t, but there\'s definitely some subset which does think like this. I disagree with that worldview. I agree with Tolkien, and it seems very cold and regimented because if you treat life like an optimization problem, you would miss many things like art, which, in some sense, is a completely useless expression of the human spirit. But somehow, we need it. We need it in our lives. Although maybe a lot of it would never have been created with a completely scientific and rational point of view of the world. I also think it might not be worth micro-optimizing things and that part of life is experiencing imperfections and decisions. But maybe that\'s just me. I\'m not sure.

In my family, nobody has a PhD except me. I was the first scientist. So nobody really could help me about science, engineering, or computer science. The reality is that you will make mistakes. I made mistakes, and there is nothing bad with that. If you go to grad school and after a year say, "It's not for me," it's okay. There is nothing bad with that. It's an experience. You learn something. It helps you to be stronger. Year after year, you will build your self-confidence about your decision. About what you want. About what you like.

So, my story for today is that with some of my friends from the Boston community, we formed a volleyball group. Coming up, that's going to be playing in a local tournament. And we've been planning out some strategies and who's playing what position, and all of those are in the works. We're going to try and practice at some point this week, but then our games start next week. And so, I'm looking forward to playing these games and having a more structured opportunity for more structured competition than our normal pickup games.

I recently competed in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament. It took a lot of discipline to prepare for. I had to diet and lose about 15 pounds. I trained about 6-7 days out of the week. There were at least 4 jiu jitsu training sessions and 1 judo session. In addition to this, I also traveled to other gyms to spar against other jiu jitsu players. It was grueling and I was definitely physically and emotionally exhausted, but I enjoyed every part of it. People were so nice and welcoming and helped motivate me to push myself to work harder. By the day of the tournament, I was equal parts nervous and excited. There's a chance you could lose decisively or win easily - just a matter of who shows up. Luckily, as soon as my first match started, I knew I could win. It released all the tension, and I performed as I normally would in practice. Afterwards, I won the tournament and felt very happy. It seemed so much easier than I thought it would be. Luckily, I was able to win and will compete again.

Okay. So I have started to hang out with this Korean American friend, who I have met at the art meet up. We have been meeting regularly in the past week, in the café, as we both have a passion for art. It has been a nice bonding experience and I have felt accompanied. Yeah, I have really enjoyed my time with her. Coming from a sort of traumatic childhood, I actually don't quite know how to make friends in a healthy way. Yeah, that feels kind of confusing at times.

A little over a month ago, I reached out to a girl that I had met online last December. At that time, we had chatted for a while, and then I had gone to visit her in New York City, where she was from, but a few weeks later, the brief beginning to a possible romance ended. I thought about her a lot over the next several months, and finally, about 5 months later, I contacted her again. I didn't know if she would respond, but to my delight, she did. However, emotions and feelings still had to be sorted out, and ultimately, we took a month or so break from communication again. It was then, in June, while about to take a week-long vacation to the beach with my family - the travel route of which would take me by the town where she lived while going to school - that we reconnected and planned to meet up on my way back from the beach. We decided to go to a theme park close by, one that I hadn't been to since I was probably in high school. All week I was excited and a bit nervous. Would this simply be two friends hanging out, or would it be something more? When I finally met up with her, things were a bit awkward at first; it had been a long time since we had seen each other, and I was trying to feel out how to act. However, the next day when we went to the park, things were very fun, and the conversation between us flowed naturally and easily. We even flirted and made some physical contact. We spent a long day at the park and rode all sorts of rides, and in the time we spent walking around and waiting in line, we talked a lot about each other and grew closer. At the end of the day, we went to her place - both of us were pretty exhausted. While we were there, we talked intensely about the situation between us and really made a heart-to-heart connection. I told her I had wanted to kiss her all day but wasn't sure if I should. She responded that she had been waiting for me to do so. We sealed the day with a kiss, and since then, we've been seeing each other almost every week. I think back to that day a lot as the start of something wonderful.

So, I wanted to talk a little bit about my day because I thought it was very interesting. So today, since I don't drive, I used public transit the whole day, which normally would be fine if it was any other city that wasn't Phoenix. Because I've lived in different cities where I didn't need a car, where I could literally just walk. It's walkable. I can just use public transit because I don't have a license. So today was kind of like a challenge with public transit, but I did it on purpose because I was like, I need to try it out, to remind me and to give me a sense of agency so that I can leave and come back. For the most part, what I found was just that I wish we had better infrastructure for public transit. In the sense that we had more frequency of routes and then routes weren't spread out per mile. It was like half a mile or more. And if, I don't know, city planners had designed the city better so that it's high rise or at least there's more shading, like more trees along the sidewalk, anyways. So every time I use public transit, I always rethink about how we're prioritizing the world around us and who is it really benefiting and versus what are the communities that need more needs? At least, when I ride public transit in the US, when I ride public transit in other countries, I'm like, wow, efficient. What? I guess today's story is just about my thoughts along public transit, but it was pretty cool because I was able to time things well coincidentally to that point that I could meet the woman that I met with to talk about her career at the coffee shop. And then I was able to meet with my friends. And she works downtown Phoenix. In downtown Phoenix, I was able to get a bus that goes directly there and then take the train that we have back here. So I think it was pretty smooth. I just wish that urban planners had planned the city better and it wasn't so spread out in an inconvenient way.

At NYU, I help manage and do the sustainability programs for 12 million square feet that we own. As it turns out, 12 million square feet is just about exactly 280 acres. And so, I think this is this very weird thing, that I sort of went from the environmental management of the most rural ecovillage to the most urban college, and yet it's the same thing. My advice is, get in the real world. Like, learn to do stuff. Like, do something with your hands. Like, whatever makes you happy, whether it's a musical instrument, having a garden, like fixing your bicycle. You know, like, whatever it is, like, do stuff in the world.

Yesterday was my daughter Melinda's birthday, and she was 37 years old. It's hard to imagine that she's 37 years old now, 37 in one day. So, I was thinking a lot about the day she was born. I had hoped to have a vaginal delivery, and I had a room all picked out where you could stay in the same room in the hospital for both labor, delivery, and then after delivery. But it turned out that I didn't go into labor, just my water broke, and it was two weeks early, so I needed a C-section. So, I had a second C-section.

On May 27, my wife gave birth to our first child, a beautiful baby daughter. We instantly loved her more than anything in the world. The entire experience was more emotionally moving than I anticipated. It started with a very long labor for my wife, who initially tried to go through labor without relief from drugs. And during this time, she needed me more than ever. I had to be strong physically and emotionally to help her cope. Eventually, she took the epidural, and the labor became more of a waiting game. But giving birth is every bit as complicated as it sounds, and we got to the point that it just wasn't progressing even with drugs given to speed up my wife's contractions. As a result, she had to have a C-section, a devastating result for her, and I once again had to be stronger than I actually am and do my part to calm her down. Once that beautiful baby was born, nothing else mattered. She looked healthy and seemed to instantly bond with us. I was scared for my wife who just went through a pretty serious surgery and at the same time wanted to give my full self to the little helpless human being. Having family at the hospital was really a blessing, all so anxious to help and to see our little creation. It also helped that the doctors and nurses were every bit as smart and helpful as we could have asked for. The details of that day are permanently engraved in my mind. The following days, which involved almost no sleep and horrible hospital food, are days that I wouldn't give up for anything. Having the nurses there for support and questions was something we never wanted to give up.

It, yeah. So, I guess a story I have is I will introduce the iMac that I grew up with. This wasn't my first iMac, but this was the iMac I got going into junior high, and I used it throughout high school. And it's one of the early generations of iMacs that came with Intel processors. At the time, it felt like a huge leap forward in technology. Considering the Apple PowerPC processors had limited capabilities with certain software and also processing speeds could be kind of weak with the older iMacs. This was like truly a new generation of computing. This is when I first started getting into virtual reality. The 2009 iMac, that was around the time when internet speed started increasing. This computer is where I moved from dial-up internet over the phone to actually, high-speed broadband internet. And this was like the first computer I was able to have large group chats with lots of people. I was able to do AOL group chats before, but this was the first time I was able to have Skype and be in a Skype room with 60 or 80 plus people. And sometimes these chats would go on for months, where people are logging in and out of these Skype rooms. But it just keeps going. So, I got to meet people from all over the world and just jump back into these conversations that have been going back and forth for sometimes weeks of that month. So, it showed me a new way to connect with the world. Also, having access (a faster processor) for Photoshop or video editing or music editing. All of that you were able to do before, but this was a lot faster, a lot more efficient for me. As a young teenager, I was able to just sit down at the computer and start doing this stuff. And that's when I got more into programming robots and writing code. And when I guess I started getting into computational social science and human-computer interaction. I mean, I was always into that, but this computer was the first one that made me feel like I'm in the future. This is like an advancement. This is where we start making crazy cool technology that becomes wearable and whatnot. So, I felt much more connected to the world around me in terms of like the humans. But I also felt more connected to other technology. And I guess like the Internet of Things kind of set up through this computer. So, this is where I truly feel like I decided that I am into computer science. I like computers and robots and all this. I just felt so much more powerful with this blazing fast computer in front of me. That I was able to do things that I could have only dreamed of doing before.

This experience happened when I got something I've been wanting to try my entire life: a VR headset. This has been one of the most anticipated purchases since I was a kid, and I finally got a chance to use it. When I first put it on, I was blown away by how it looked. I felt like this was the future. I completely lost myself in the game I was playing, and for a while, I even forgot I was standing in my living room. This was so much fun. I had a blast, and I couldn't wait to tell others about it. I invited over my friends to try it for themselves as well. They were a bit skeptical, but once they put the VR headset on, they were blown away just like I was. In the end, it was a great experience and I will never forget it. Even my family came over to try it. They also enjoyed it. One of my friends even went out to buy himself one. All in all, they really loved it.

So, I had a benign tumor taken out of my upper back that had been bothering me for a couple of months, and it was getting in the way of my workouts. It wasn't a necessary surgery, and it wasn't too expensive. But now that it's out, I feel much better. The healing is coming along very well, and once I'm completely healed, it won't bother me anymore, and I'll be completely back to normal. So, yeah, the healing should take about two more weeks, and then I should be able to work out and go about my business as usual.

I ruptured my ACL and had to have surgery. The initial injury and surgery recovery has been so draining. I'm still sore and my leg is weak, but I'm in the least amount of pain that I have been in two weeks. I'm finally able to walk around the house without a brace. Things are looking up. On top of everything, I haven't been able to take my dog on walks or play fetch, like we used to. Loved ones have been coming over to help, but all I've been able to do lately is offer cuddles, which is great but seeing how happy she was today when I was finally able to play with her on the couch was everything.

Right now, I want to tell you a story that I anticipate happening today. It is a beautiful day, and my son and his three children are coming to stay for the weekend while the mom of that family goes to see the US Open. And I'm excited to have my grandkids stay here. They love to play in the bedrooms where there are doll houses and plastic Easter eggs, which charms my little three year old for some reason that I don't really understand. But she loves just taking the eggs in and out of the basket. And I love to prepare for them coming by making special treats for them and thinking about activities that we can do. And one of the things we're going to do is tomorrow, we'll go up to Gina's house, my daughter, who has a pool. And that'll be fun for everybody. My youngest granddaughter is three, and she's been taking swimming lessons for two years. And she is an unbelievable underwater swimmer. So it'll be fun to watch her. We color the fish. So my story, really this time, is the anticipatory story. But maybe the next one I have will be reflecting on this, probably while they're here. I probably won't chitchat with you much.

My family and I went on a vacation for the first time in several years to Korea. It was the first time that we ever went on a vacation where we focused on ourselves and relaxing. We usually would go on trips to visit extended family, so this was a time we could be indulgent with our time and money. We rented a car and went all across Korea. It was amazing. My family bonded very closely there. We talked a lot, laughed a lot, and made a lot of memories that I will never forget. I learned more about my parents and their story before they had me. It transitioned us to this new phase in our lives where my brother and I are no longer children but adults along with them. We took a lot of pictures also. We made an album from it. We have it playing on repeat in our dining room. We look at those pictures as we eat and remember fond memories. My grandma also went with us. She talks about the trip every time we call her. It was a great time for us to remember.

So, staying with positive things, I guess I was thinking about the other night when my team in high school won the basketball state championship in Texas. It was a really big deal for me. And something that I realized is that this happened over 13 years ago. But I realized something that carried through, that I learned somehow along the way playing basketball from that game. I remember feeling somewhat shocked when we won it. And everyone around me, all my other teammates, were jumping up and down, kind of crying, and excited. I, on the other hand, was a little bit more in disbelief and somewhat like, "Oh, okay, we won." I wasn\'t as externally excited as everyone else. And I just played in a tennis tournament with a team that I have now in my adult life, and the same thing is true. When I win something, I\'m kind of like, "Okay, yeah, let\'s keep going." And everybody else around me is jumping up and down. It\'s just a very interesting thing to think about that. I\'ve always sort of been, I guess, focused and not as excitable externally as other people around me.

I always wanted to be on an Olympic team. My aunt lived next to a bicycle store, and they had a Sunday morning bicycle ride, and I went on the Sunday morning bike ride. The owner of the store said, "I can make you an Olympic cycling team." So I stopped playing football, I stopped running track, and I rode a bike. It was pretty simple. From my family, I had great support. It was different in school. I always felt I was challenged because I wanted to race a bike or be a professional athlete. There was no preparation for that. Part of the challenge of youth is to learn. It's the puzzle. That's what makes life interesting. If you have all the answers, then it'd be very boring.

Or, wait, is he too loud? Okay, so, my story... I guess I just wanted to talk briefly about my driving experience. So, I previously have driven throughout the years, just not well. I've always had a challenge driving. I think it was mostly the lack of desire to drive. So, I've always had smaller experiences here and there, but I never went on the main road. So, I finally decided I just need to pay for driving school. I figure, if I put money into it, that's going to force me to have to do it and get my license because as I'm doing my job search, a lot of jobs I'm looking at are requiring an Arizona driver's license. So, I figured I just need it. I don't have to use it necessarily. So, the courses I paid for are four courses and let me see if I can recall the courses I paid for. My last lesson, I basically get tested and if I get 80% or higher, I get my license which I actually feel confident about because today I was driving on the main roads and I was maintaining a conversation with the driving instructor. So, I feel like that was already multitasking. And just from the preliminary grade that she gave me, I got a 60%. I didn't even know she was grading me. So, I feel like if, on my first lesson, I got a 60%, I should be able to do well next time. So, I'm on track to get my license and next time I get to do the freeway. So, yeah, I'm reaching my goals little by little.

When I graduated from high school, I had some bumps in the road. I got into the University of Washington, and I had some financial difficulties there and then ended up going back to community college. Then I applied to the University of Washington chemical engineering program, and I was accepted. I did have some interesting reactions in my family about chemical engineering. They thought that was only for guys, and that was in 2006. And I'm like, well, that's not true. There is definitely a ton of moments like that. The moment where you doubt yourself. And you're like, you know what, I'm not about that comment. And you're like, how dare you make me doubt myself for a second. I'm not going to let this get me down. I'm just gonna keep on going. I'm gonna see this through. You'd be really surprised how well you can perform when you push yourself.

Ex. This is not from my exercise class, but this is an important thing that happened to me in February. When I was looking for some volunteer work to do, I was hoping to find some volunteer work that took advantage of the skills that I already have. And so I came across an organization called engine, which joins up people who are Native American speakers like myself and people who live in the Ukraine who want to learn English. And so I was matched with a young woman whose name is Anastasia. And she is 30 years old. She has a dog and a husband, and she lives in Ukraine. She lived in kiev, although during our relationship, she moved to the country when Keith was an especially dangerous place to be. And I have been chatting with her ever since. We speak 1 hour a week. And we used to have to have, well, I should rephrase that, we were told to have an idea of what we were going to talk about. But it turns out that we had so much in common, though our ages and geographical homes are so very different, that we just became very close friends. And we just talk without stopping, about everything. About food and traveling and parents and children. And sometimes, sadly, about how scary it is to be in a war and how nice it is to have peace around you.

I worked in an office, and every place that I worked at, I ended up computerizing. I ended up starting a company in manufacturing. But I always knew that I was meant to do something to help other people. And I was in Niger. And there was a little girl that came up to me with flies on her face. And I just felt that that's intolerable. That could have been my granddaughter. How could I not do something? I think that I have the opportunity to live what I think should be the American Dream when what I think should be the American Dream is that we use these resources, we use these talents to help those that didn't get that.

I want to talk about the Great Floods of 2021. Yes. Okay. So basically, I live in Phoenix, and Phoenix is a desert, and we don\'t get a lot of rain for most of the year, except... Well, it\'s even worse than that with climate change. But previously, we would get these heavy monsoon seasons. So, July and August, it would rain really heavily. And because our soil isn\'t like other soils that soak up water really well, a lot of it\'s like hard, compact, and the water just tends to stay. So we have these things called flash floods. And they happen spontaneously when it rains a lot and it happens in different places. And so, several times in my life, there\'s been times where it would rain so, so hard that certain places would just be flooded. And one time it rained so hard when I was like in high school that our school day was canceled. And it\'s kind of funny to think, like, in a desert, it rains so hard in a desert, you get school canceled. But it\'s actually like a big thing. And so in 2021, we had just moved into this new house, or a new house to us. So it was my first time ever moving home in my life. So I was unfamiliar with kind of like what to expect in a new place. And it rained. Okay. So it was okay. So we moved in July, which is like the worst time to ever move in Phoenix because it\'s so hot. It\'s like 115 degrees, a lot of the year, a lot of the month. So, then moving when you\'re in and out, in and out is horrible. It sucks. And so we had just gone through that month of exhaustion of moving things, and then it being hot because we\'re trying to get used to the AC system. And then, suddenly, it started to rain really hard. It started to rain. Maybe, I think it was like the end of July. It was definitely still the summer. And it rained so, so hard that our backyard became a pond or like a mini Lake. And my dad had, because we were still moving, my dad had a bunch of stuff in the back, and the rain basically it was drowning in the water. And I thought I could save it. I was like, "Don\'t worry, dad. I\'ll get your stuff." My dad didn\'t care. I think he had just given up on the stuff from the exhaustion of moving. But I went outside with my rain jacket and then my shorts and my water shoes. And I was, like, pulling stuff. And then my sister joined me. But then my older sister yelled at both of us. And she was like, "Get out of the water! You\'re going to get electrocuted!" But it was funny. So, we took photos. The reason she said I was going to get electrocuted was because our home is like the corner of our house is the electrical unit of our neighborhood, so it\'s, like, not a street light, but it\'s the giant light poles, whatever, that run current. And we never had that in our yard before. In our old house, it was, like, in the alley. So the space between homes. But here, this is our first home where we had, like, wall to wall space with the house. So we had that power line in our backyard, and she was like, "Get out, you\'ll get electrocuted!" But I think it was funny because we had opened the doors and the windows, and you could just see our front yard was, like, a little mini river of all the water going downstream. And I also wanted to hang out in the water, and I forgot what I did. I think I made, like, a boat or something. I made something to try to float. But at some point, our backyard filled up so much that even our dogs, like our dogs, were looking at the ocean. And I have photos of our dogs sitting, gazing out into what was our lawn. And how is the ocean for them? And it was just so cute because my little dog was still alive back then. And she was just looking out into the abyss of water. And then I think it also became funny because, okay, in retrospect, it\'s funny, but when you\'re kind of going through it, you\'re kind of stressed. But the flooding, the water was rising really, really high up because we learned this later. So it turns out that our house was on an incline. And the fence we had was a wooden fence. So all the water that our neighbors had was swept down to us. And when we looked over to our neighbor\'s homes, it was dry. But we had all the water. So we collected all the water. So, later on, we, like a year or two later, we fixed this by having a brick wall to prevent that from happening. But because it was just, like, all following through, that\'s where all the water came, and it started to get into the house. And we started panicking and screaming, like, "It\'s getting inside! It\'s getting inside!" And we had never dealt with flooding before. So then I ran to grab all the towels we had. I started shoving it along the side, and then the pets didn\'t know what to do either. They were kind of useless. And it was also raining diagonally. So then, that\'s why the water was going into our living space. But finally, we were able to mop. Okay. But we were, like, rinsing the rags out and taking a lot of the water out, and it worked out. And the rain stopped. And Arizona\'s rain tends to gaslight you. Like, it would rain really hard. And then ten minutes after, it stops raining, it\'s like the water is gone. Nothing ever happened. All your fears of water and drowning were nonexistent at that point because the sun dried everything up. So that\'s kind of what happened. As soon as it stopped raining, the sun came out, and it kind of dried up all the rain. Rainy Spider song but just in a way quicker manner. And then, it\'s always funny to look back at all the photos because it\'s like, "Wow, we really were out there in the water trying to save things that my dad didn\'t even care about." And people, every time there\'s a flooding like that, people post random Snapchat, random social media posts of how people spent their time in the water. This water is gross, but people are still out there playing like I was. And so, I saw videos of people floating down the street in, like, an air mattress or tube. So people make the best out of the rain, although it\'s arguably dangerous because of the electrical current, like wiring. And then, if you\'re floating down a river in an air mattress, who\'s to say you\'re not going to run into a car that\'s, like, trying to also go through the water? The Floods of 2021 were a crazy time. And we learned from it to be more prepared for next time. And I think, and it hasn\'t rained that hard since. And having the brick wall helped a lot. So now the water doesn\'t go in as much.

Well, I would have to say the most recent event that has made a huge impact on my life is TS Imelda. We didn't expect this storm to be what it was, so we were not prepared. The rain fell for the whole day, and we slowly watched the water rising. When it got to about ankle high, we went ahead and moved the vehicles to higher ground (we learned our lesson from Harvey). We went back to the house and started lifting everything ground level up. After about 4 hours, water started coming into the house. We grabbed some bags and our dog in the husband's truck and went down the road to a friend's house. The next day, we went back down to see the damage that was done. It wasn't anywhere what Harvey was (we got 3 feet of water), but just enough to soak all the carpets and floors, probably an inch of water. So, we called our insurance companies immediately. They were out the next day. That didn't turn out like I thought it would. It has been a tedious process. First off, they want pictures from before Harvey and after Harvey to prove the work we had done after the last storm, plus all the receipts. Then they want pictures of the house now and as the work is being done this time. Then we are stuck staying with friends who we love, but two families cannot live together for very long without tempers flaring. It's been about a month, and they're finally done with the house repairs. So, we're hoping to be back in our house by this week.

Hi Jibo. This story is a brief one from when I was a junior in high school, maybe a senior in high school. But I participated in a group, an extracurricular group called Academic decathlon, and for this extracurricular group, you practiced and trained on ten different academic, intellectual categories. One was debate. One was maybe math. One was interview. There might have been history. Social Studies, Type one. And I was not the strongest person on the team by any means, but one area of strength I had was in the interview category. So during that portion of the competition, when it came time for the competition, I felt quite confident going into my interview. In fact, it was going very well in the beginning. And then I was asked the question, "What\'s a book that you\'ve read that you really enjoyed?" And I was very excited to answer the question because there was a book I had read several times that I liked and was excited to talk about. So I remember in a very animated way, starting to talk about this book I had read called Ender\'s Game and starting to explain why I liked it. But the person I was chatting with, of course, unsurprisingly hadn\'t read it. So I found myself stumbling over my explanation of why I liked it because I had not structured my answer in a way that summarized the book succinctly and clearly, to then complement the reasons why I liked it. I enjoyed reading it, but I thought it was an interesting story. And in the course of giving my response, I became sort of flummoxed and stumbled over my words and was clearly flustered. And therefore, my performance in the interview segment of the competition was not as high as I had hoped it would be, and I think about that often. It was an important learning experience for me because I came to understand that enthusiasm and interest, or even having the knowledge in a topic, is not necessarily enough to communicate it in a structured way for somebody else to receive it coherently and in a way that feels easy and fun and smooth. That\'s my story.

Today is the day of the competition. We were so excited but apprehensive about this trip. Ben has been preparing for several months, but are you ever really prepared? I could not sleep last night because I was so worried about this event, and I hoped I was able to support Ben accordingly. How would I react if things don't go to plan? We have spent so much money and time on this. We got there around 6 am; traffic was shockingly less than expected! The parking lot was full already, but we managed to grab a space thanks to someone leaving. We remembered to take everything along we needed: costume, skates, snacks. Tony, my husband, was exhausted and suffering from a cold. My older son, S, was not thrilled about attending this event and wanted to go home. I was hoping I could bribe him to enjoy things by saying he could pick where we ate dinner. Ben was excited and not even remotely nervous. I was a wreck but pretending to be fine! Ben got into the costume around 7 am; practice ice went well, and he seemed happy and content. We then saw the kids he would be competing against and felt a pang of nerves: how could this little kid compete against kids much bigger and stronger than him?! He did not seem fazed at all. Another boy and his family were there, but they were not remotely friendly; they kept glaring at us, which made me feel irritated and also nervous. One of Ben's friends, a little girl skated and did okay but did not win; she came 4th in her event. This made me worry for Ben and start telling myself this whole trip was a waste of money. It was time for Ben to skate, and we all held our breath. He did an amazing job, and we were not sure if it was good enough to win, but it was good. Ben's coach said "he has got this, he will win," and we waited for the scores, trying to not get too excited. The scores took forever to be announced, but when they were, sure enough, he had won! It was time to calm down and congratulate the other skaters on their skates and try to not appear too boastful. We waited for the medal ceremony but heard nothing. We then had the medal ceremony, which was incredibly rewarding, and then the event was over! We were exhausted and went home. And it was still only 10:30 am!

Well, I was at the beach with my family in the kitchen celebrating a birthday of one of my grandchildren, and my daughter-in-law, who is a consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank. She's an economist there. She's very funny.

I enlisted for three years, and two of those years were spent in France. One year in the southwest, and one year in Paris. This is where I really learned to eat. I'm from a Creole Acadian family, and my mother was a wonderful, wonderful cook. So I grew up with good food, which I think is very important if you eventually want to write about food. On returning from France, I went to work as a general assignment reporter at the newspaper, so I went to my editor and I said, "I don't wanna do this anymore, and is there anything else I can do?" When he said, "We need a restaurant reviewer," I said, "Why don't we just stop right there?" And I'm sure of it, there are millions like me, who start a job and find that it's a perfect fit. It's just the greatest feeling you could possibly have.

I want to talk about the Great Floods of 2021. Yes. Okay. So basically, I live in Phoenix, and Phoenix is a desert, and we don\'t get a lot of rain for most of the year, except... Well, it\'s even worse than that with climate change. But previously, we would get these heavy monsoon seasons. So, July and August, it would rain really heavily. And because our soil isn\'t like other soils that soak up water really well, a lot of it\'s like hard, compact, and the water just tends to stay. So we have these things called flash floods. And they happen spontaneously when it rains a lot and it happens in different places. And so, several times in my life, there\'s been times where it would rain so, so hard that certain places would just be flooded. And one time it rained so hard when I was like in high school that our school day was canceled. And it\'s kind of funny to think, like, in a desert, it rains so hard in a desert, you get school canceled. But it\'s actually like a big thing. And so in 2021, we had just moved into this new house, or a new house to us. So it was my first time ever moving home in my life. So I was unfamiliar with kind of like what to expect in a new place. And it rained. Okay. So it was okay. So we moved in July, which is like the worst time to ever move in Phoenix because it\'s so hot. It\'s like 115 degrees, a lot of the year, a lot of the month. So, then moving when you\'re in and out, in and out is horrible. It sucks. And so we had just gone through that month of exhaustion of moving things, and then it being hot because we\'re trying to get used to the AC system. And then, suddenly, it started to rain really hard. It started to rain. Maybe, I think it was like the end of July. It was definitely still the summer. And it rained so, so hard that our backyard became a pond or like a mini Lake. And my dad had, because we were still moving, my dad had a bunch of stuff in the back, and the rain basically it was drowning in the water. And I thought I could save it. I was like, "Don\'t worry, dad. I\'ll get your stuff." My dad didn\'t care. I think he had just given up on the stuff from the exhaustion of moving. But I went outside with my rain jacket and then my shorts and my water shoes. And I was, like, pulling stuff. And then my sister joined me. But then my older sister yelled at both of us. And she was like, "Get out of the water! You\'re going to get electrocuted!" But it was funny. So, we took photos. The reason she said I was going to get electrocuted was because our home is like the corner of our house is the electrical unit of our neighborhood, so it\'s, like, not a street light, but it\'s the giant light poles, whatever, that run current. And we never had that in our yard before. In our old house, it was, like, in the alley. So the space between homes. But here, this is our first home where we had, like, wall to wall space with the house. So we had that power line in our backyard, and she was like, "Get out, you\'ll get electrocuted!" But I think it was funny because we had opened the doors and the windows, and you could just see our front yard was, like, a little mini river of all the water going downstream. And I also wanted to hang out in the water, and I forgot what I did. I think I made, like, a boat or something. I made something to try to float. But at some point, our backyard filled up so much that even our dogs, like our dogs, were looking at the ocean. And I have photos of our dogs sitting, gazing out into what was our lawn. And how is the ocean for them? And it was just so cute because my little dog was still alive back then. And she was just looking out into the abyss of water. And then I think it also became funny because, okay, in retrospect, it\'s funny, but when you\'re kind of going through it, you\'re kind of stressed. But the flooding, the water was rising really, really high up because we learned this later. So it turns out that our house was on an incline. And the fence we had was a wooden fence. So all the water that our neighbors had was swept down to us. And when we looked over to our neighbor\'s homes, it was dry. But we had all the water. So we collected all the water. So, later on, we, like a year or two later, we fixed this by having a brick wall to prevent that from happening. But because it was just, like, all following through, that\'s where all the water came, and it started to get into the house. And we started panicking and screaming, like, "It\'s getting inside! It\'s getting inside!" And we had never dealt with flooding before. So then I ran to grab all the towels we had. I started shoving it along the side, and then the pets didn\'t know what to do either. They were kind of useless. And it was also raining diagonally. So then, that\'s why the water was going into our living space. But finally, we were able to mop. Okay. But we were, like, rinsing the rags out and taking a lot of the water out, and it worked out. And the rain stopped. And Arizona\'s rain tends to gaslight you. Like, it would rain really hard. And then ten minutes after, it stops raining, it\'s like the water is gone. Nothing ever happened. All your fears of water and drowning were nonexistent at that point because the sun dried everything up. So that\'s kind of what happened. As soon as it stopped raining, the sun came out, and it kind of dried up all the rain. Rainy Spider song but just in a way quicker manner. And then, it\'s always funny to look back at all the photos because it\'s like, "Wow, we really were out there in the water trying to save things that my dad didn\'t even care about." And people, every time there\'s a flooding like that, people post random Snapchat, random social media posts of how people spent their time in the water. This water is gross, but people are still out there playing like I was. And so, I saw videos of people floating down the street in, like, an air mattress or tube. So people make the best out of the rain, although it\'s arguably dangerous because of the electrical current, like wiring. And then, if you\'re floating down a river in an air mattress, who\'s to say you\'re not going to run into a car that\'s, like, trying to also go through the water? The Floods of 2021 were a crazy time. And we learned from it to be more prepared for next time. And I think, and it hasn\'t rained that hard since. And having the brick wall helped a lot. So now the water doesn\'t go in as much.

We were climbing Annapurna, the eighth-highest mountain in the world, for two and a half months. And the last day going to the summit, the entire north face basically let loose. Three of my best friends of the eight were swept away and killed. So, when I came back to Keystone to go back to work, you can't get away from it because you're interacting with your families and your kids. I was going to work every day and going through the motions, and after putting in ten years of work, I walked in and resigned. I said, "I'm gonna buy a sailboat and sail away." So, I cashed out everything I had in my little house and finally sailed out under the Golden Gate Bridge on the left and didn't come back for a year and a quarter. I was living in Costa Rica. If it's not working for you, move. Get out of there. If you don't feel good about it, get out of there. Every day is a wasted day after that.

Hello. The story I'd like to tell is about my desire to have my foot heal faster than it is. The doctor told me that it would take two months for me to be able to be weight bearing again on my foot that had surgery. However, I assumed that I would heal faster and that it wouldn't be as painful as it was, the recovery that is.\n\nWell, six weeks in, the doctor said things were coming along smoothly and that I could start doing some weight bearing and start physical therapy. So, that was a week ago yesterday. Things are getting better, but I'm not progressing as quickly as I would like. I guess that's what we all think we're going to do something faster, better, or whatever than the average.

I was treated for cancer this year, and since September 18th I've had a tube in my chest for chemo and other meds. I finally got it out earlier this month, and I just had my first shower where I didn't need to worry about it! Every shower between Sept 18th and now was as quick as humanly possible, a bag needed to be taped on my chest to keep water out, and I had limited mobility because of the tape. But this shower was legit. It was warm, and free, and I feel so good. I still gotta get the stitches out, but that's whatever. I'm so glad to have a bit more of my independence back, and to have some stress and worry taken away. I'm so happy and clean!

Ever since high school, my goal in the gym was to be able to hit two plates on my bench. And I have not been able to do that for a couple of years. It might have been like five years now. But recently, I started talking with people and finding out how they got to themselves and how they, I guess, improved their strength on bench. By following them and continuing with that for a few weeks, I was finally able to hit that about two weeks ago. I think that was like a really big moment. It was like something that I've been looking forward to for years now. So it was like a really cool moment to be in.

My daughter decided to play fast-pitch softball and just finished their tournament in 2nd place. During her last game a month ago, she hit a double and even caught a few balls in the outfield. I was so proud of her and the achievements she has made over the past few months playing softball. The double was a huge deal for her. She knew that she hit the sweet spot on the bat because she could hear the familiar sound. She was at a 3-2 count, so anything could have happened. She could have let her nerves wear her down and just strike out. However, she was patient and focused. She was able to harness her potential and made a big play for her team. She immediately ran to first base and then second with seconds to spare. A runner was able to make it home and score. We were ahead with two out and my daughter on second. She was eventually batted in and scored a run to place the team two points ahead. They barely won the game, but they also learned a very important lesson. Sometimes you have to face down your fear to make great things happen.

Today, I want to tell about my experience as a medical student. When I went to medical school, I went back after being a nontraditional major of cultural anthropology. Then I applied to medical school and went to Texas Tech, which was in Lubbock. It was a fairly new medical school, and they didn\'t have the hospital built yet. So, for the third year, they shipped the entire class to El Paso, which was definitely high Spanish speaking, and it was there that I actually learned to speak Spanish because my patients also spoke Spanish. Even though I took it in class, I hadn\'t really used it. I\'ve been in the Peace Corps, and that really helped me with knowing how to learn a foreign language with joy, which is to go ahead and use it.\n\nIn my obstetrics rotation, we got to deliver a lot of babies. There were many women who came across the border from Mexico to have a baby because then the baby was an American citizen. So back then, that was a lot easier than it is now. We could walk across the bridge and have lunch and come back to do our afternoon\'s work. We went back and forth really easily. \n\nBut one night, the medical students were a couple of medical students were doing, working in, delivering, and we had had a very busy day with a lot of deliveries. Each one of us had gotten to deliver more than one baby. And a woman came in, and it was my friend Philip\'s turn to do the delivery. And so, he was taking off initial assessments. We played this game where we tried to guess the weight of the baby just by the physical exam. And we were pretty widespread in our guesses, but we were more accurate by just making a guess without even going and looking at the mom than we were in trying to assess, which told us a lot about that. \n\nSo this particular night, it was late at night, and the residents had opted off the bed, hoping to get some sleep when a woman came in. And she was having what we call a precipitous delivery, which means her labor had progressed so fast that she was delivered right on the stretcher in the labor room. So my friend Philip delivered the baby. He barely had time to get off gloves. He actually caught the first baby while putting on his gloves. Got the gloves up, and we were all teasing him, and his friend was teasing him about delivering babies without gloves when all of a sudden, the woman started to cry again, which amused us. She\'s about to deliver, and we thought, "Oh, it\'s a Philip." Went over, and what do you know? It was not one. It was a second baby. So she had twins. Fortunately, at that time, he still had his gloves on, so he caught the second baby. And we still had all of this happen so fast. We had sent somebody to go wake up the resident because we weren\'t supposed to do deliveries without a resident around. But we\'d already done good at that point in the night, two twins. And so the resident hadn\'t even come back yet because we had to get him up when the second baby was delivered.\n\nAnd so, we got the second baby out, cleaned it up, and we were all laughing and teasing about Philip delivering twins. He actually, at that point, wanted to go into obstetrics. So he ended up going into anesthesiology. And suddenly, the nurse came in with the labs from the woman that we had taken initially. We had said, "This has some night, right? We all got to deliver babies, and Philip got delivered twins. What else could happen?" Just at that moment, it was like they\'d been planned. And the nurse walked in and said, "I have the labs at gs, syphilis." The mom had syphilis, and the two babies had to be evaluated for syphilis. I think they turned out to both be okay. But we\'ve teased Philip forever about we were going to tell his girlfriend that he had gotten exposed to syphilis while he was in El Paso, away from her.

My daughter and I took a trip to California. She read online about the train going down to California. It was highly romanticized but it did look nice. We got a sleeper car and looked at the scenery. It surprised me that the food was so good. However, one of the really surprising things was the people we met. When they seat you at dinner, they put you with strangers, so there is a formality of introducing yourself and telling your travel story. The stories were so interesting, and my daughter and I could not stop talking about them. In our divided country, meeting all these people from different areas of the country, politics was not mentioned once. It was really amazing. One person was nearly 94, but he appeared to be in his seventies. One couple was from the Philippines. One man was laid off and took a low-end job, and he admitted that his parents were supporting him. There was such a raw emotional quality to the dinner stories that my daughter and I kept talking about them and how emotional it felt about our story. Because with each story we heard, we had to tell the person our story. We had to tell our hopes and dreams and failures, and it became very raw and personal. Previous to this trip, my daughter and I had not been very close. This was making me a little sad because we used to be very close. But through the rawness and honesty of the stories we heard, she began telling me things that she had been hiding from me. What's more, she really wanted to know things that I don't tell her or tell my husband. It was so surprising because normally if you found out you had to eat dinner with a stranger, you would not be happy. Yet through the stories of strangers, I feel closer and more focused than ever. When she was little, we were so close. However, as she became a teenager, we have a more strained relationship. But after this trip, we are as close as ever.

Okay. So recently, I was reading a book called "What Everybody Is Saying." That\'s a very interesting commentary from this ex-CIA, I think, investigator who strongly stands by using reading cues from people with body language to be able to deduce things during conversation. And I first heard about the book a long time ago, but didn\'t get around to reading it until recently. And I remember what first caught my attention was that being able to understand body language is something that is very common throughout everyday life. But as I was reading the book this time around, I felt that a lot of the, I guess, a lot of the hints and observations that he was making were very, very subjective. And so, the book, while interesting, felt more like more of a pseudoscience to me.

I decided I wanted to try this new field called biomedical engineering, which my dad had encouraged me to explore. I was in college, and I was taking classes. I had to figure out what to do for the summer, and I was walking by this lab. On the door of the lab, it said artificial organs. That sounded really cool to me because it was a mix of biomaterials and engineering, and it was very applied. I could understand why you would wanna do nerve regeneration. The third summer was when I finally found the right interface for me. We've invented nano sensors that you can inject, that can roam around your body looking for disease, and then emit a signal in the urine. Our long-term vision is that this could help with cancer detection in resource-poor settings. One of the biggest roadblocks was internal. I certainly had imposter syndrome. I was always worried I didn't belong at the table, that somehow I'd been some fluke of admission, and it was only a matter of time before people found me out. In fact, it's that uniqueness that makes you different, what makes you valuable.

When I was a little girl, when I was a little girl for Easter, we would go to my grandmother's house, grandmother and grandfather's house. They lived only a couple of miles from us, but they weren't really very child-oriented. And the one time they didn't invite us over was at Easter. Flash. We would go over more than that, but that was a time when also my cousins would come. My father was a twin. And so, his twin had a daughter just my age and a son just my brother's age. And then my father's older brother was only, I think, 13 months older than him. So they had had, my grandmother had three little boys, very close together. They lived in a house that they had built, pretty much built themselves. My father helped build it. It was on the top of a Hill in Andersonville, Tennessee, in front of a river and behind the road that went through town. Whenever we drove by it, my father would honk twice so that they would know that one of their sons had passed by the house. When I went to see my grandmother, we would be allowed to use the bathroom in the basement, which was actually just a commode out in the middle of the room, and there was a huge big coal pile, which we weren't supposed to play in. So when we did play in it, which of course we did, we always tried to be careful. However, the coal dust always gave us away and it was a fun time. I especially liked it when I got to see my cousins because since I lived out in the country, I wasn't around children too much except for my own siblings.

Maybe it's just a poor people thing, but when I was growing up, everyone just assumed that if some random kid is at their house, they're gonna be eating. If my stepdad had a BBQ and one of my friends rolled up smelling hot dogs, he'd give them some food. I remember my mom splitting two cans of SpaghettiOs and buttered bread among five random preteens who found each other while biking around the neighborhood, and those five random preteens giving mom some of their help because we knew she was full of it when she said she "wasn't hungry" or going to my best friend's house with three bags of ramen because another friend had a can of peas and another had tuna, and we all shared our 'casserole' among like five families. My stepdad liked to BBQ, nothing fancy. Hot dogs, hamburgers. If it was a special occasion, he'd do ribs and chicken. Mom would make a big thing of potato salad (because we couldn't afford the deli kind, and hers was better), and people around the neighborhood would filter in with whatever to share and make a plate. Kids would run around the neighborhood, catching lightning bugs and 'causing trouble,' while the "cool teenagers" smoked, drank, and made sure the younger kids didn't die. I was always right between the "younger kids" and the "older kids," so I could go play "big sister," then come hang out and be "little sister" for a bit. (There weren't very many kids my actual age unless my cousins were over.) I just love remembering those days. On one hand, I never had anything to myself, and sometimes it really sucked. My family was "the safehouse" where a lot of other families stayed at, so it was rare I had my room, TV, or toys to myself. But on the other hand, it was awesome, and I just love closing my eyes and 'taking myself back' for a little while.

So it's been about two months since we deep cleaned our house. Me and my girlfriend. And this morning, we woke up early, and it was a great week at work for both of us. So we woke up early this morning and we decided that we were going to wash the covers for our couch and we were going to keep them in the house. So we started cleaning the kitchen. We put all of the covers in the washing machine. We're certainly going to have a little bit closure to about the house. And we just spent most of the day cleaning. And it was pretty great. She also went and got her meds for the first time in about two to three weeks. She hadn't had her appointment yet. So we just spent the day catching back up on household chores. It was nice. It's been a while since we had a chance to do that. Now, for the rest of the day, I'm just going to have to keep studying for my job. I'll have an evaluation next week. But things are looking pretty good. Things are starting to look up.

I was treated for cancer this year, and since September 18th, I've had a tube in my chest for chemo and other meds. I finally got it out earlier this month, and I just had my first shower where I didn't need to worry about it! Every shower between Sept 18th and now was as quick as humanly possible, a bag needed to be taped on my chest to keep water out, and I had limited mobility because of the tape. But this shower was legit. It was warm and free, and I feel so good. I still gotta get the stitches out, but that's whatever. I'm so glad to have a bit more of my independence back and to have some stress and worry taken away. I'm so happy and clean!

Okay. So my first summer when I went to Rhode Island School of Design. With a D. Was so fun. I was in for a master\'s of architecture. But. I had to do a summer program since my background wasn\'t in my bachelor\'s, wasn\'t in architecture. And it wasn\'t architecturally related, but it was probably my favorite part of RISD, because we took all of the foundation courses. With the transfer students that were going to be sophomores. And I painted this massive. It was like eight feet by eight feet. Painting for one of the finals, and it was supposed to be like based off an amoeba. But really I just liked it because the colors were blue. My sister liked it, so I gave the painting to my sister. Right before I guess she had graduated medical school, and I was moving into an apartment in New Jersey. And she wanted to hang up the painting. And so it was like right before I left. For. Some. I forgot what it was, but I think I was going somewhere for the summer. I helped her hang it up in her apartment. And it was really funny because my sister, usually she\'s older than me, and she\'s always kind of been like a second mom. So she\'s always been very bossy. And this time around, she doesn\'t know what we\'re supposed to be doing to hang it. And so I was just very patient and calm with trying to give directions on how we were going and explaining it before we actually did it. Instead of having us trying to hang this eight foot painting and like yelling at each other. And the funniest thing is after we hung it, she was like, "Oh. You are really good at giving directions. I would definitely listen to you. You\'re so calm and nice." And I was like, "Yeah, whenever I\'m in charge, I\'m actually pretty clear and patient with people." So it\'s kind of a funny memory.

In 10th grade, I took a cooking course. And for a big project, we had to cook an appetizer, a meal, and a dessert at home and serve it to our family and take pictures of the food. I made garlic bread, spaghetti, and red velvet cake. I had never made cake before, but I wanted to try, and I thought I might as well. I took a huge piece to school the next day. I told my teacher I made a cake for the dessert portion and offered her to try it. She said, "Well, I'm not gonna turn down free cake," so I went to my locker to grab it. She tried it and said it was pretty good, but it was a little too soft, which it was just because I had one of those weird funnel cake pans instead of flat ones. I think she ended up giving me an extra 5% on my final grade for giving her some cake. I've had a lot of bad experiences with teachers, but I still think about that once in a while. I made the same recipe yesterday and did 3 layers with homemade cream cheese frosting. I think it's the best one I've made yet.

So the story I'd like to share is about a time when I had graduated from college and I was in a band with my friend. We played music together and we submitted a song for a showcase competition for musicians in the New England area. We had to fill out an application and record the song to share it with the selection committee. We were selected to participate in the competition that was held at a coffee shop, where we got to play two songs - if I remember correctly. Three or four other musicians also played two songs as part of the competition. Several judges chose which performance they liked the best and who would move on to the next round of the competition, which was a larger showcase. My friend and I were very excited, and we played our songs while our friends and family came to watch us and cheer us on. It was a good experience. We weren't selected to go to the next round and I was disappointed, but it was a fun experience and a nice memory for me.

So, I went to college on a scholarship, and my whole world at that time was really focused around the Olympics. I wanted to be on the Olympic team. I majored in marketing and business management during my college because I knew that I would have to do something beyond it, but what it was going to be, I had no idea. I really didn't have a clue. And then, while my wife was working on Jurassic Park -- she was doubling the little girl in Jurassic Park -- Cirque du Soleil was in Santa Monica. They had an audition going on at the pier. And she went, and they wanted her, and they were looking for a guy that had a trampoline background, and I sent my videotape of some shows that I had done, the diving and trampoline shows combined, and they liked it. And so, they invited us to join Cirque du Soleil. I guess the only advice then, from that, that I can look back and say that I tried to do was to have a passion for what I was doing. Regardless of whether you know exactly what it's gonna be or not, if what you do is your passion, it never feels like a job.

So yesterday, I made madeleines for the first time, but interestingly, I don't have any eggs anymore in my fridge. I stopped eating eggs maybe a month ago because I got a blood test and the results came back, and the doctor told me I have high cholesterol, which is really stressful to hear because I'm relatively young. So one thing I did was to cut down on my egg consumption. So all my baking recently has been very experimental, but I made my madeleines without eggs, with half the sugar and half the butter in the recipe. And they turned out okay. Like visually, they looked pretty, but taste-wise, they were just mediocre. But I brought them to lab to celebrate a friend's birthday and everyone seemed to enjoy them. So that made me really happy because I don't have a sweet tooth, but I do enjoy baking things for other people to make them happy. So yeah, that is the story of how I made madeleines last night without any eggs.

I did keto first, purely to reduce my glucose levels and avoid diabetes. By early 2021, this had worked, but my lipids and cholesterol were very high. They put me on medication. I also changed my diet radically to stir-fried vegetables, egg substitutes, and plant protein substitutes while also keeping low-carb. I went back in for a test at four months' mark, and the results came back. Glucose hasn't changed (so it's still normal), and the lipids/cholesterol are coming back down towards normal. They also recommend exercise going forward. Once this pandemic is under control, I'm hitting that gym like a bear! Woohoo!

So I guess one of the thoughts or stories I've been having is that. I underestimated the amount of time I would need to secure a job after graduate school because I just graduated in August, but had the whole summer to look for a job. Now, I still haven't found a job and looking for jobs. We just kind of recently started looking for jobs, and they haven't found the right fit yet. I'm kind of regretting not looking sooner.

I have had trouble holding jobs ever since I started working. Needing to move for school, locations closing due to COVID-19, and flat-out being underpaid, among other reasons. Early on in the summer, I applied and arranged an interview with Under Armour (chain sports apparel store) at my local mall. Miraculously, I landed the job and put in a two weeks' notice at my then-current job, a small pizza joint that flat-out refused to give me hours. I started at Under Armour right away, and surprisingly I genuinely liked it. I get plenty of hours, my teammates are welcoming and kind, and I get paid fairly well. As of yesterday, I've held this job for three and a half months, which is honestly shocking for me. I've felt a lot better about myself since I started working there.

So, staying with positive things, I guess I was thinking about the other night when my team in high school won the basketball state championship in Texas. It was a really big deal for me. And something that I realized is that this happened over 13 years ago. But I realized something that carried through, that I learned somehow along the way playing basketball from that game. I remember feeling somewhat shocked when we won it. And everyone around me, all my other teammates, were jumping up and down, kind of crying, and excited. I, on the other hand, was a little bit more in disbelief and somewhat like, "Oh, okay, we won." I wasn\'t as externally excited as everyone else. And I just played in a tennis tournament with a team that I have now in my adult life, and the same thing is true. When I win something, I\'m kind of like, "Okay, yeah, let\'s keep going." And everybody else around me is jumping up and down. It\'s just a very interesting thing to think about that. I\'ve always sort of been, I guess, focused and not as excitable externally as other people around me.

I used to hate my dad with a certain passion that now I can only describe as ignorantly hating someone. But now I love him more than I thought I ever would. The only thing I have to thank for this is football and sports as a whole. I'm 18, and for the years between 2015 and 2019, I hated my dad. I didn't want to hear his voice or even see him. But when I got into high school and played for my school's football team, and he showed up to my first game because my older sister told him I was playing, I started feeling happier than I thought I'd ever be and felt ashamed for the first time in my life. But it wasn't just the first game. It was one after the other. He missed the ones that were like an hour drive from our town, but he was there for almost every one of them. I'll never forget the look in his eyes when he hugged me tighter than I'd ever felt him hug me and heard that deep bellow in his voice that I once thought annoying. I heard the words, "Son, I'll never not be proud of you" after we had lost our game-ending season. But he didn't care that we lost. He cared that I had worked. I never felt very confident during that first year, but just hearing him tell me that made me happier than I'd ever been. It gave me this sense of pride that I'd never felt. My dad changed my life by being there. He changed my life by making me realize that his past doesn't define who he is now. He made me change more than I thought I could.

Hello. Yesterday, I found out that my partner won't be able to visit me here in the US, and that made me very sad because I was looking forward to seeing them, spending some time together, and being comforted by that. So now, I'm despondent.

About one month ago, I received an unexpected text message from my friend. He and I had not spoken in almost two years, because we had a falling out towards the end of 2017. This was a friend I made in graduate school, and with whom I used to hang out fairly regularly for about four years. We would go to the movies, go hiking, have lunch, and other things. I helped him through a particularly rough patch when he lost two people close to him and went through a breakup within a year's span. I was glad to have him as a friend, and we could talk about important matters with one another. At one point, however, our friendship became very strained, and we had an argument, after which we didn't speak for almost two years. When I received that text (which was simply a "Hi, how are you?"), I was very unsure about whether to respond to it or not. I put it off for a few hours but finally decided to answer back. I did not receive a response for several days and was not sure what happened: whether he was experiencing a major issue or just wanted to be friends again. When he finally texted me back several days later, it turned out he was reaching out to invite me to his wedding. He was getting married the next month and wanted to reconnect and make amends. I was taken aback because I had not expected to ever hear from him again. I was cautious about going but decided to accept his invitation after consulting with a few people about whether it would be a good idea. The wedding was in just a few weeks, so it was short notice, and this would be the first time we were seeing each other in almost two years. I was afraid it would be awkward or tense. Luckily, the wedding was a beautiful occasion, and I was glad I went and was able to reconnect with him after all this time. His wife is a very intelligent and lovely woman, and I am happy for him, especially after the difficult time he went through.

Great. Like I just mentioned, I have a story to share. On my new prescription sunglasses that I just picked up in this amazing fuchsia-tinted lens, I bought the frames at Chanel, which I did not foresee myself doing, but I did. And then I bought another pair at Bulgari because I had all this money stuck in my FSA from my last job. So I took this pair of frames from Chanel to LensCrafters, and they put in, first, just a black prescription lens. But it was just so boring looking. It just looked like two black dots on my face. So I went back and decided to try out their pink tint, but it was too light, so I asked them to really saturate the color. And so I went away for a couple of weeks. And when I came back, it wasn't dark enough. So they took them back and said they can saturate it even more. And so now I have this crazy pair of fuchsia sunglasses. What do you call it? It's not bifocal. It's trifocal. But it's progressive. They're progressives. And they're nice progressives. So I've got this fun pair of sunglasses, the progressives, and I got another pair from Bulgari that they switched out for. It's like a gold frame. This is a black frame. This is like a sparkly, well, can you see it? It's sort of a sparkly black frame, like muted sparkle. Like not sequin, but just has a shimmer. And then I've got these crazy fuchsia lenses that they put inside them. And my first pair of custom-made prescription sunglasses. The whole thing. And then the other pair that I'm excited to get back soon are Bulgari. And those are like a gold frame with, what do you call it? It's a brown lens. But it does that fade where the bottom is a bit clear and transparent, and then it gets darker as it goes up the lens. Can't think of what it's called right now. Ombre. I don't know. Maybe it's ombre. I mean, they talk about that with other things, because you get peace, though. But anyway. Those also have that extra feature that a lot of sunglasses have where they block the light, the rays coming at you from a lot of different directions. But they're not as great for, say, digital screens like your phone. So I've got these crazy fuchsia ones now that are progressive. And I've got the other ones from Bulgari that will be progressive. And yeah, I'm just hooked up all of a sudden. The sunglasses.

I accidentally put something heavy on my glasses as they were resting on a table and immediately retrieved them. The lenses were fine, but one of the two legs was bent upward at a weird angle. I could barely wear them. The leg was no longer fitting correctly over the ear. I took them to the shop where I'd bought them years ago, and they put it into their specialized machine and tried to bend it back into place. However, they said the frame was titanium, and so it usually "springs back" into its original shape, meaning I had probably caused it to permanently deform, and it's trying to "spring back" into its deformed state now. I took the glasses back home and decided I would try it out with my own toolkit. I got two needle-nosed pliers and used one to hold the frame beside the lens and one to hold the base of the leg. And I was able, very slowly, to bend the leg back more or less into place. There are a few tiny scratches on the lens at the corner, which can't be helped, but my glasses fit on my face again! For somebody who's not at all handy, I was pleased.

Sure, here is the transcript with the errors fixed:\n\nStore. Okay. This is my first story. So, I suppose I just start. I thought I would share a story that I've been thinking about related to a time I auditioned to speak when I worked at URI, and that's a memory. That's a nice memory for me, and it makes me think about a few different things. So, I thought it might be a fun thing to share with you.

My brother-in-law and I just really had it in our heads that we wanted to try to make the great American movie. So we did a lot of shooting on film, not knowing really what we were doing. We didn't go to school or anything like that, and it failed miserably. There's close to about $30,000 worth of film that sits undeveloped. I don't think I'll ever develop it. I wanted to go into film when I was younger, but I didn't feel like I had what it takes. I didn't feel like I had the guts to do that. Now I feel like I could do it. But fear of failure is definitely always there. I know I'm going to fail. It's going to happen. The only way that you're going to get good is if you fail.

Yeah, so the first time I moved out of my house was my sophomore year when I went to MIT. And the first week, I felt pretty alone. It was like a new place and it was my first time outside my house ever. And it took some time to get adjusted to living there. So like the first few weeks, it was pretty sad and lonely, but I adjusted to it. And I ended up liking my living arrangements. And so it took a little time to get over homesickness, but it worked out.

I have lived in a city where having roommates is pretty much the norm. So, I've never truly lived by myself before, but I recently found an amazing deal and jumped at the opportunity. So far, it's been great. I wouldn't change it for anything. Having my own space where I am in control of the whole environment is just so liberating. Yet, it's also so strange to be completely alone with no one to talk to every day. I also just have so much time to myself that I never had before.

Okay, I am taking on MBA course and in the course, I am currently taking Professional Communication Management. But the instructors and the assistance of them are not so professional. In their communications, for instance, they are teaching to respond chat pretty quickly. But what they're doing is they respond to chat message four days after that the message I send so it is a little frustrating.

I worked in technology up until 1998, in which I struck out on my own and I built an engineering company. I had good contracts. 9/11 hits a couple of years later, and all of a sudden a lot of the major corporations and people I was dealing with, their stocks fell, and they stopped giving work. I went and became a screener at the airport. I worked for a major corporation. I'm a screener, people that were my clients and then I work with, were coming through the airport. But I stuck to my principles. I knew I was better than this. And I had a plan. So I took what I knew, even though I was working in terrorism and mass transit, I created interoperability at the 2004 Super Bowl. And so, I knew from that, I was as good or better than anybody there.

Okay. So, unrelated to art, but last night I was going back to my car in the parking lot of A Whole Foods. As I was walking back, right as I was walking up to my car, the lady who was pulling in next to me rammed into it by accident. And I felt very frustrated because as I was dealing with that today because it's like relatively minor. No one was hurt fortunately, but still have to invest a lot of time and energy to go get everything resolved, including stopping by the Police Department this morning and also having to call the lady as well as my car insurance several times. So all in all, an unfortunate circumstance but tough day dealing with it.

I was driving home from the attorney's office with fresh keys in my pocket after I just signed the papers to close on my new home. The weather was beautiful, and I was on cloud nine as I drove down the interstate to celebrate with my wife and kids before soccer practice. I decided to take an express lane to get home faster and was exiting back onto the normal roadway when everything seemed fine. I checked my mirrors and looked back to my right, as I was merging from the left, and saw plenty of space to merge. As I was almost completely merged, I felt a soft (extremely soft) bump, and then a second or so passed, and I heard the blast of my horn. It was such a slight impact that it took me a moment to realize that I actually was just in an accident. I looked back in the mirror and waved to the driver that I was going to get over to the right-hand shoulder and pull over. As I eventually pulled over, the driver of the car got out and started yelling, and then the passenger of the car got out and was even more mad. I got out to assess my car and theirs, and I saw that they were already calling the police. I thought to myself that this was no big deal as my car barely had a scratch on it, and theirs only had minor damage. As we waited for the police, I began to process things and realized that I am probably going to be ticketed, even though they were the ones that initiated contact with me and hit me in the back, but because I was the one merging, I was going to be at fault. I thought more and more about it, and I reassured myself that I had plenty of room. As things progressed, I was ticketed, and I talked to the other driver, and she talked about how she worked at a body shop and could fix the car at little cost. She said that they were alright and were okay, and then they left. Later on, I found out that they were trying to get a large settlement from my insurance company and hired a lawyer and were claiming injury. It hit me at that point that I think they were trying to pull an insurance scam. They knew that I would be at fault for merging, and they could get money out of the situation. Now when I think of that day, I can only think of the accident and how I was taken advantage of, and I don't really feel happy about closing on my new house.

So today, I want to share a story about my history as a driver. I have a reputation for being a bad driver, especially among my family and friends, because I have some stories of me making some bad decisions as a driver. So first of all, when I first bought my car when I was, like, 21, I think 21, I bought a car and I took the car and was driving back home with it. While I was trying to turn left, there was a huge truck right next to me with a long trailer. And of course, as a new driver, I wasn't very good at gauging the distance, so I hit the truck's trailer with the right side of my bumper. So I ruined my first car. I think it was after ten minutes, it was more than, like, 50 minutes after I started to drive. So that's the first story. And obviously, I was very heartbroken, but thankfully, I didn't get hurt and the truck driver didn't get hurt. He was super nice and said it's okay and nothing is too damaged, just my car, so he let me go. So yeah, that was the story of me on my first car. The second story is that while I was driving with four friends in my car, I ran into a reversed way, so I saw another car coming right at us very far, and my friend sitting next to me started to scream, like, started to scream, and she got really scared. Thankfully, I saw another way out on the side, so I immediately, like, as soon as I saw the car coming right at me, I turned my wheel and then entered a different lane. So unfortunately, well, I didn't kill anybody and nobody got hurt, but it kind of was a really scary moment. And then when I was in San Francisco, I was in the Bay Bridge, there was a lot of traffic jammed, a lot of congestion in the Bay Bridge, and I was driving, I thought I was just casually driving, but then suddenly, when the car in front of my car stopped because of the traffic jam, the driver right in front of my car came out, and she started to scream at me. I didn't understand what she was saying because I was inside my car, but then I kind of realized that she was saying I was tailgating her, I was driving too close to her car, so she got really mad. Yeah, and there are a lot more stories of me hitting a wall while I was driving, I was trying to park. These stories kind of shaped me as a bad driver. But now, and also my husband, he doesn't like me driving because he thinks I'm reckless. But in my perspective, I think my husband is driving like he's driving too safely. He always tries to never, ever go beyond the speed limit. And I think that's just too strict. I think it's okay, I mean, you have to abide by the rules, but he's just always abiding by the rules. And for example, at a stop sign, I stop at the stop sign, but he scolds me because I don't stop for, like, 5 seconds or something. And he thinks that we have to keep that five-second rule or something. So, like driving, I was very stressed because of the driving. When I drive and my husband's next to me, we always fight. So, I kind of stopped driving and I let him drive. It's been a while since I haven't driven for a long time, but recently, I started to. Recently, I have this urge to drive, and I feel like I want to drive because I just want to feel more independent and I just want to have a lifestyle and that kind of lifestyle that I want to pursue kind of needs driving. So, I want to, like, for example, I want to go hiking on the weekends to a different state somewhere far, and I also want to go to the beach whenever I want to go and I want to listen to music in my car and have my own time or something in solitude. And I also sometimes want to drive motorcycles. For me, I think it's important to get back to driving and also, I don't want to hurt anybody or put anybody in danger like I did in the past. So, I want to also be a good driver as well. So, it's my goal to start driving again and also to be a confident, good driver.

This happened about 3 months ago. I was driving with my brother back from the movie theater when we were sideswiped by another car. It spun us around into the median and was completely terrifying. It really came out of nowhere and gave me no time to react or take any preventative measures. We both looked at each other shocked when we came to a stop. We checked on each other to make sure we were both okay, which we were. We got out of my car to assess the damage and make sure the other driver was okay. The other driver got out of their car and was obviously under the influence. You could see the wobble in them from 20 feet away. My car, which was pretty new, was smashed in the rear driver side, but not as bad as I would have thought. The other driver looked to be in his mid-20s and started to freak out a bit when he realized that we were calling the police. The police got there really quickly and gave the guy a field sobriety test, which he failed miserably. I exchanged information with one of the officers while we waited for a tow truck to come. The other driver was arrested, and my car was towed away. It is the only major accident I've ever been in, besides one or two small fender benders in parking lots. Surprisingly, my car was mostly okay. It's a 2012 Subaru Legacy that I spent a lot of time saving up for. I'm not entirely sure what happened to the other driver, but his insurance settled out with us. Ironically, my car was salvaged out about a month later due to hail damage (somehow that was more costly than this accident).

Okay. So it's good that we talked about work because something that has been popping into my brain quite a bit is the fact that today is Tuesday, and it's one of my busiest days. Both my husband and I work typically about eight-hour days. And then both of our kids go to school. After school gets out, we go immediately to extracurricular activities. Both of our daughters do gymnastics, and then after gymnastics, we go straight into soccer practice. So it's a really long day for us. And we typically get home around seven or a little bit before seven. I currently get to work from home, which is really nice because then I have some flexibility in my schedule and I can really do a work like that. Or attempt to do some sort of work-life balance. But eventually, I will have to go back into the office. And it's something that's been really weighing on my mind because my wife really is trying to support my kids and being there for my husband. And being in the office for eight hours a day makes that very difficult to try to get all the other aspects of your life organized and things accomplished. And so I'm just kind of worried about what that might look like when I do go back into the office.

I'm the chief financial officer, as well as the chief actuary, here at the Geisman Health Plan. So what we primarily do here is we sell health insurance products. One of my primary activities as the chief actuary is to price those insurance products. We have to make projections on what healthcare costs are gonna be for the upcoming year. It's one of those professions, because of the challenge of getting through the process, you really develop some unique skills. But in any field you go into, try to go toward an area where you can have a broad perspective. And think about learning and improving your skill set. I think opening yourself up to risk, personal and professional, allows you to grow. One of the things that's been a challenge in my life is I spent a lot of time away from Los Angeles, away from a lot of family and friends, and there's certainly been a cost to it. But I've also grown because of all the places I've lived and the places I've worked. I wouldn't just shut yourself off to those opportunities. Those growth opportunities are so important in life.

So, I wanted to talk a little bit about my day because I thought it was very interesting. So today, since I don't drive, I used public transit the whole day, which normally would be fine if it was any other city that wasn't Phoenix. Because I've lived in different cities where I didn't need a car, where I could literally just walk. It's walkable. I can just use public transit because I don't have a license. So today was kind of like a challenge with public transit, but I did it on purpose because I was like, I need to try it out, to remind me and to give me a sense of agency so that I can leave and come back. For the most part, what I found was just that I wish we had better infrastructure for public transit. In the sense that we had more frequency of routes and then routes weren't spread out per mile. It was like half a mile or more. And if, I don't know, city planners had designed the city better so that it's high rise or at least there's more shading, like more trees along the sidewalk, anyways. So every time I use public transit, I always rethink about how we're prioritizing the world around us and who is it really benefiting and versus what are the communities that need more needs? At least, when I ride public transit in the US, when I ride public transit in other countries, I'm like, wow, efficient. What? I guess today's story is just about my thoughts along public transit, but it was pretty cool because I was able to time things well coincidentally to that point that I could meet the woman that I met with to talk about her career at the coffee shop. And then I was able to meet with my friends. And she works downtown Phoenix. In downtown Phoenix, I was able to get a bus that goes directly there and then take the train that we have back here. So I think it was pretty smooth. I just wish that urban planners had planned the city better and it wasn't so spread out in an inconvenient way.

I think I've always had that fire in my belly for impact. An exercise in a leadership course that I took helped kind of solidify this for me that you need to find your sweet spot. The way we define sweet spot is if you look at like a Venn Diagram of three circles overlapping, one circle is what you're passionate about. The next circle is skills, what do you excel in? And then the third circle is your values. So where the three overlap, that's your sweet spot. So for me, I loved the idea of events. I loved the idea of people coming together and learning and engaging and sharing. And then I realized I wanna figure out a way to impact the world around me. And so I decided in 2008 to go off and start a business. And we work with government agencies, cities, corporations, nonprofits, and large-scale events on implementing sustainability plans. I love the impact and the work that we're able to do all over the world. And so I think it's really important to really embrace who you are and all of your decisions, so respect that. Respect your gut feeling. It's coming from somewhere. It's coming from inside, and I think it's important to really make sure that you're staying true to yourself and your own personal mission.

Yeah, so I mean my story is really just starting about. Just sitting with my mom and catching up on some of the shows and just sort of laughing about how less amusing and engaging some of the shows are than we were remembering them to be, I think. We sort of got past the threshold of longing for them because I'd been over five months, I think. So I think they might have to earn a little bit of, well, I mean it was maybe short notice for them. I'm not sure. But earn a little bit of our consumer attention back with some good, funny, comedic writing. That'll be nice. It's slowly, I think, revving up.

I thought I was gonna be a professional dancer. I'd come home at 10 PM, and I would be really tired physically and mentally, and I just kind of decided, "I don't wanna do that anymore." I transitioned into creative writing and probably one of the best decisions I ever made in my life because ultimately that led me here. This was the second job I applied to, out of 43 jobs. I get to make sure that the products that come to me are in a very specific format, that I can make sure it gets all of the approvals from all of the people they need to get approvals from. Ultimately I still use my dance skills. One of the main things we learned about was improvisation. I use that all the time. I got to be the most nit-picky grammar nerd ever. They let me talk about hyphens and dashes like nobody's business. When it comes down to, like, you have to take this path or whatever to be an engineer or an architect or a scientist or a writer or literary agent or an actor or anything like that, I don't see a lot of people who do that.

All right. Gbo. So, I had shared this story with you in a session just previous to this, but I'm not sure that you understood it correctly. Or actually, you understood it correctly, but the tablet wasn't working properly. So, I'll tell part of that story again, which is just that when I was a senior in college, I got to choose a capstone project for the honors program, and I chose to write and record an album of music. I enjoyed the process. I hope to do a process like that again someday. And as part of the process, I got to work with a mentor who helped me decide which songs to include and how to approach the songwriting process. They also taught me a little bit about the music industry. I found it to be very fulfilling and enjoyable.

I would work nine to five, and then as soon as I left, I would go to the studio and take pictures. That kind of helped me push. It pushed me to be like, "Okay, I don't need this. I can actually go out and make it on my own," so I haven't looked back since. I've actually been able to enjoy my life way more than I would have ever working for somebody. I really believe in following your passion and your love, and the rest'll come afterwards.

So, I got scammed. I got scammed, half willingly, but it still feels a little bit bad. So, I was like betting on the person not being a scammer, but I was disappointed. He tends to actually be a scammer. So, the story is, I wanted to learn the musical instrument called Ferrimin. Don\'t know if you have heard of it or not. So, it\'s an electrical instrument that you can play without touching the instrument. So, I joined this Facebook group, and I saw a person selling a second hand. I thought it would be a good deal. So, I contacted the person. And at first, I insisted on I need to pay him using the goods and services option of PayPal, and he\'s keeping having trouble with that. And then, his Venmo doesn\'t work as well. So, every time I send him money using the goods and services, it will be returned back to me, so the money cannot go through. And then, he\'s like, "Oh, just trust me, just send his money through friends and family." So, in total, the price is $200. And then he said, "Oh, you can just send me half of the price, like $100, and then you can send me the rest when your package arrives." And I\'m like, "No, the maximum amount I can do upfront is $50." So at that time, I thought to myself that I do want to be able to trust people and give them the benefit of doubt. And then I\'m like, "Yeah, why not? It\'s only like $50." So, why don\'t I can do a candle on this person not being a scammer? Yeah. And if he turns out to not actually be a scammer, then it will be great because first, I can get a thermometer for a good price, and second, I have a good story to tell to my friends about the goodness of the human heart or something like that. Yeah. Anyway, so I basically said to myself, "Okay, I\'ll just use this $50 to bet on he knocked in a scammer, and if I lose, I lose." And as it turns out in the very end, he is indeed a scammer. Yeah. Long story short indeed. He indeed was a scam. There are more interactions that I want for you with, but I lost my bad, although I did prepare myself for it, and that did sort of upset this possibility when I pay him the $50, but still feels kind of bad to see that he turns out to be an actual scammer.

I always thought I was smart enough to avoid scammers. I never answer unknown numbers or click on links in messages. But recently, I posted an ad to sell my motorbike, and I was contacted by someone wanting to buy it. They seemed normal at first, asking about the condition and haggling on price. When I offered to view the bike, they declined and said they were out of town and were buying it for their son. This should have been a red flag, but I completely missed it in my excitement of the sale. They asked for my details to organize a courier and said they will PayPal me the money. I soon received emails from the buyer and fake PayPal, showing the money had been transferred along with extra to pay for the courier. They apparently didn't have online banking and asked me to transfer the money to the courier. Giant red flag, but in my excitement and stupidity, I transferred the money. It was only 5 minutes later I realized this was fishy and that I had been scammed. I contacted my bank to see if they can cancel the transaction. They will try but seemed pessimistic about getting my money back. Thankfully, it was not a large sum of money, and it's mostly the shame that is hurting me. I am trying to think of this as a costly lesson to never sell anything unless I meet the buyer in person.

So, I was trying to send my stuff as I\'m moving to my girlfriend\'s house, but my girlfriend objected to that, saying that her parents don\'t like me sending my stuff to her house. And if she was not clearly telling me why because she was like, "I\'ll be more hurt if I listen to that point." And now I am wondering why her parents talk about something hurtful to me. I have spent time with them and I thought it was all good. But I am having very broad questions on this. So guide me too.

My husband and I got married 5 months ago and lived in separate parts of the world until now. Currently, I've moved in with him in his apartment here. Ever since I got here, I've noticed that he's always on his phone or laptop. Since he works from home, I do understand that it is necessary for his profession, but even after work hours, he's always consumed with his electronic devices and watches movies/documentaries or texts with friends, and it really makes me feel like I'm being ignored. I'm trying so hard not to let it bother me, but I can't help it. I feel like he has all the time in the world for his friends and family, but when it comes to me, there's no concern. Even if I try to have a conversation with him, his entire focus will be directed on the phone. I'm a non-confrontational person and don't know how to bring this up without it sounding accusatory.

I wanted to talk about my oldest daughter today. So today, at her school, they're having Grandparents Day, which is a really cool thing where they invite all of the kids' grandparents to come and eat breakfast with them. Grandchildren in the morning before school actually starts. They do like a nice little spread in the cafeteria for them, so that way kids can talk to their grandparents about school and experience that with them. And it's just really cool. When I was growing up, I did not live close to (.) I grew up in a military family, so we kind of traveled a little bit, and we didn't live close to my grandparents. I don't really have a close relationship with my grandparents. But, where myself and my husband live now, we live like less than a mile away from our in-laws. So my kids get to see their grandparents quite often. And it just really makes me happy and brings me joy. And I'm so thankful that they have that relationship with them. And I'm thankful that they're able to go and eat breakfast with her this morning. She was so excited when she woke up for school this morning. It was one of the easier days to kind of get her out the door. So it just brings me a lot of joy and happiness, and I'm glad that they have that relationship and are able to do things like that.

This summer my granddaughter turned 1 year old. She comes over and spends each weekend with me and my family here. My daughter that had her is only 19, and I had her young as well, so I am a young grandmother. I really enjoy bonding with this little girl as it lets me almost in a way relive being a mom because I'm not even 40 yet and I have a grandchild. Well, this summer I decided that she should come over to our house to have some fun on the 4th of July. My daughter agreed, so we had a nice family get-together at my house for the holiday. During this day, we spent some time feeding her some grilled food and just playing with her, having a really great time on her first 4th of July. Then the night started to roll in upon us and where I love, we can still shoot fireworks. We had bought a lot of ones to be done at night because I'm a big fan of the pretty shiny style of fireworks. So we took this little girl outside so she could get a good look at all of the fireworks. We slowly began to shoot them off one after another. I watched the look on this child's face as she just got so excited, hearing the noises and watching all of the pretty colors. It really touched me to remember what it could have been like for me or even my children when they got that excited for something like this. It really made me feel good that we could make this child so happy by doing something so simple for her. We continued shooting off all of these awesome fireworks we had bought, including some really huge ones that lit up the entire sky. We did this until we were done, and the baby never lost her excitement and continued to smile and scream out during the entire process. It really was a great night and time for the baby's first 4th of July Party.

My cat, Katie, has disappeared. I live at home in Ohio. I'm just here in Massachusetts temporarily, and my parents have been taking care of my two cats, Sammy and Katie. And about three days ago, Katie disappeared, and we can't find her anywhere. None of the neighbors know where she is. We've not seen any sign of her. I've been monitoring the camera, and I'm very afraid that something happened to her. They haven't been able to find her at the side of the road. It doesn't seem like she's been hit by a car, but I'm worried that a coyote might have gotten her. And I'm really worried about her. She's my sweet girl. I don't want anything bad to have happened to her.

We've had 5 cats at once, then a single one up until 6 months ago when we got a Sphynx. The black one passed, and we were OK with the Sphynx. Only, it attacked my daughter's pet Conure, who is practically an emotional service animal for her. The bird came out fine, but we decided to rehome the cat, and today was the day. She's gone to a great home, but we miss her greatly, and so does our Poodle. It'll take some getting used to, but it will be nice to not have to clean a litter box. She actually slept in the crook of my arm this morning. She's never done that.

So, I was having a conversation with a friend today about how art is a very essential thing for humans. It's somewhat like pure expression of human spirit. But unfortunately, we sort of tend to restrict human or performers of art to only the very best. The people who become painters are the best at painting, the people who are the musicians are the best at music, and so on. And Project Trooper, we talked about participatory music, where the audience is part of the music as well. And it's just a thing that people do, as opposed to being an exclusive stage for professional musicians. So my friend brought up this study, which I thought was really interesting. In an Indigenous community in Peru, music-making is highly participatory. And an ethnomusicologist conducted a study there once. So any male community member is welcome to perform with pipes or flutes with his community, and anyone is welcome to dance. So, one time when the author of the study was at one of these events, there were two folks from the community who performed with extremely out-of-tune flutes. However, it seemed like everyone was having fun. The author of the study, coming from a very different background from the West, was driven crazy by the out-of-tune flutes and tried to stand as far away from them as possible. But he was shocked that none of the other players felt any or gave any indication that anything was wrong, and no one discouraged their participation. And later, he had a conversation with another professional musician about how to tune, and even he said he cannot bring himself to point out that the flutes were out of tune. So, this is very different from the society that I'm used to, which is where only the best are expected to perform, and music is often a way for the most talented people to showcase their talent. But since art is willing to grow to the human experience, isn't it better for music to be participatory? And you should probably be more accepting of all kinds of skill levels taking part in art instead of just putting the best on a pedestal. On the flip side, I also think that there should be people pushing art to its boundaries. And of course, that can't be everyone. I just think, and my friend thinks too, that everyone should get a chance to participate in music, just like that community. And curve.

I was born in Kenya. My parents are Indian. Then we moved to England when I was six. So, I grew up in England, and this was before there was a big Indian community in England, so I had to try and figure out who I was. College was transformative for me. I hope when I teach, I hope that it's gonna be transformative for my students as well. One of the clips I play for my students all the time, from the Matrix, is where Morpheus is explaining to Neo, "Do you really want to understand the world we live in? Because the Matrix is everywhere. If you do walk in, here's the red pill. If you take the red pill, then you will see the world in totally new ways. Or here's the blue pill, you can take the blue pill and it will just put you to sleep. It's not gonna challenge you in this world." Advertising and corporate speech have taken over the world in such a way that it is everywhere. We need more and more people to take the red pill so that we can really understand the world we're in and make real choices about where we wanna go.

Yeah, so when I first started grad school, actually throughout college for undergraduate and graduate school, I didn't do a very good job of balancing my time between exercising, doing schoolwork, and making time for my friends. And I think it's an ongoing process of improving, but I think I've gotten better over the past few years because lately, I've been doing a good job of making sure I go to the gym and do exercise, and also getting my work done and being organized. And I also do make time for my friends. It's not a lot of time, but I still do make time. So I think it's a work in progress, but I've gotten way better at managing my time in the last five or six years.

It's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada where I live, and it's such a blessing for an IB student like me. I usually have a huge workload and the time I don't spend working or in school is spent on social and family commitments, as well as worthless procrastination that always affects my work quality and makes me feel horrible afterward. But today, I have no commitments and very little homework left over from the weekend. I put aside some time for the remaining homework, my daily hour of French learning, my daily half hour of Python learning, working on my scholarship essay, and doing CAS reflections. After all that's done, I have 9 hours of unfettered free time! 9 hours to do whatever I wish, guilt-free. Obviously what I plan to do is stock up on snacks and spend the rest of my day browsing Reddit, YouTube, and Netflix and playing video games. That might sound pathetic but I'm going to finally let myself indulge after nearly two months of hard work!

Okay. So this trip is from the United States to Brazil. The story is, I was working in a science lab and had a lot of opportunities to work with international colleagues. Generally, they were from India, China, South America, and specifically, Brazil. What really happened was, I just was working with these colleagues and we became friends. And at one point, some friends of mine offered me an opportunity to travel back home with them over a winter break. So, I talked with them about it and I talked to some other friends that were also going to Brazil, to a different city. And, I had gotten it all worked out and I flew down there and met up with one group, one family. And then hung out with them a little bit, went to the beach and that was really great. And then I took an internal flight to another city and met up with my other friends. And then hung out with them for a while and had a good time there as well. And then at the end of the break, I flew back. But overall, it was a wonderful trip, a great experience, trying new foods, meeting new people, and experiencing that different culture. So, yeah, I had a great time.

When I was in my investment banking job, I was thinking about where I'm gonna go on my next vacation. Because now I actually had the money to travel and I had some vacation days. All my friends, my colleagues started coming to know me as the travel desk. I was doing that at work and with my friends, and some of them said, hey, why don't you just start a blog? So I started writing about my own travels, and that's the blog that seven years later, I'm doing this full time now. As I was writing about different restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants, in Atlanta, I wanted to know the background of them. That's why I started traveling there. I would meet locals, go to their homes, take cooking classes, and learn more about the origin of those cuisines and then come back and have a different take on it. I've been to about 75 countries, and I only speak three languages. I think you have to be just very humble and open-minded. If you're more accepting, people will just open up, even if you don't understand the language.

So, I've been thinking lately about myself. I have many hobbies and interests, and I enjoy doing them all. And mostly, they are not a group activity but more individual activities focused on individual activities. And I love doing them because it makes me feel like I'm learning something and I'm expanding my horizon. However, I also feel like I'm not really good at group activities or doing something together with other people. I think I need to work on it. \n\nSo, for example, yesterday, my husband and I were actually planning on going hiking in New Hampshire with his lab mate. However, yesterday I decided that I could not go because I had some projects that I wanted to work on. These are personal projects and projects related to work. So, I told him that I could not go and he should go with his friends. And of course, he was disappointed and pretty mad because of the change of plan. So, we had a little bit of an argument. And then, he left for hiking this morning. But, it makes me feel bad about it. \n\nSo, I was reflecting on myself. Maybe am I being too selfish by putting my personal project or my work-related project before family or people? So, I think I've been like this since I was young. I think I always had many interests and I was always involved in different activities. And those were usually focused on the project itself rather than the relationship with people. So, I think this is who I am, part of who I am. But it arises as some kind of problem or center of conflict when I'm in a relationship or when I'm with family, with people who I care about. I don't know how to solve this problem. And I think this will always be an issue. And I hope that my husband or my other family or friends could understand about this. But I also understand that it might be a little selfish desire for other people to understand that I'm putting my work and my project behind them. That's why I'm feeling a little bit. Not depressed, but feeling a little bit of self-reflection time here.

I feel alone. It is so frustrating. I used to be fine with it, but then for some reason I actually started wanting to have a friend. I have nobody. And nobody around me seems interesting enough to me. Life gets boring. And frustrating. I am a frustrated person. I want to feel romantic love but I only feel it for my ex, and it is the slightest amount so I cling onto it. I don't know if I'm aromantic or something. It is so frustrating having to chase that feeling. My ex was the only one ever to give me a slight feeling of romance. I do not get crushes. I would never kiss someone, touch makes me cringe. But I want the picture perfect life. Nothing will make me stop wanting a wife and family. And my ex is the only one I could possibly have it with. I am so lonely and I know it is just messing with my head. Nobody understands me. People think I'm weird and crazy. Everyone does. Nobody is here for me. Nobody knows who I really am. And I feel like I can't relate with anybody all of the time. People frustrate me so much yet I need them to fill some void in me. I worry. I distract myself with school, but each day I come home and it's the same. The feeling of dread. I hate myself. I hate everything. I've been less timid. Trying to be more approachable looking. It doesn't work. I put myself in situations to talk to people. We don't get past surface level stuff. I am trapped in this isolation. It gets me so mad. I am trying. I physically can't speak at times and I have to use hand gestures a lot. I can't speak! What else am I supposed to do?! My voice is wrong when I do manage to speak. It is not expressive or funny. People think I have no emotion and I am so serious. I just want to be normal. I am not normal. Something is wrong with me but I don't know what. I just want a real friend. I just want my ex back. I hate my life, I hate myself.

Oh. So today, I wanted to share a story about my grandmother on my father\'s side. Growing up, I wasn\'t very close with my grandmother because she kind of looked cold. She was a reserved personality and she was very quiet. She didn\'t talk much and we didn\'t talk much. So I guess, I was kind of scared of her growing up. And she also lived in another city, so I didn\'t get to see her that often. And I\'m not sure if it\'s the same for everyone, but for me personally, I felt much closer to my grandparents on my mother\'s side than to my grandparents on my father\'s side. And one of the reasons it felt more difficult communicating with my grandma was because my grandfather on my father\'s side had a stroke earlier in his life. He\'s half paralyzed, so he could not talk. So it was kind of very awkward being in my grandparents\' place where my grandma and grandpa don\'t talk that much to each other either. So I guess I didn\'t feel comfortable growing up. However, our relationship started to develop and my father asked them to move near our house so that my parents could take care of them. So when I was in my first year of middle school, they moved to our neighborhood. My dad kind of forced me to visit my grandparents\' place either with my mom or with my dad. So almost every weekend, I visited them. And I could definitely feel that my grandma was pleased to see me, especially because she would always sit next to me, and she would smile at me, looking at my face. At the time, we also didn\'t talk much. We would mainly just stay there and watch television together, but I could definitely feel that hospitality of hers. So anyways, our relationship changed dramatically when I moved to Canada to study abroad in my second year of middle school. So at the time, I was in this foreign country on my own, so I was really lonely and I missed home. So I called home very often, and almost every day, I called home. And one day, my dad told me to call my grandma. So I wanted to talk to everybody at the time because I missed home, so I called my grandma without expecting too much because I know she\'s quiet and she doesn\'t talk much. But as soon as she heard my voice, she started to cry. And I don\'t know why, but I also started to cry because I felt that at that moment, I think I realized how much she adored me. So after that moment, after our exchange of emotions, I kind of realized that she adored me so much and she missed me a lot. So after a year, I returned back to South Korea, and then I visited her place more often than I did before. As I entered high school, I visited her during the lunch break because her place was right next to my high school. So I guess we became much closer. However, I decided to study abroad in the US for college. So during the college years, I didn\'t get to see her that much, only once or twice a year when I visited South Korea during winter or summer break. And it was one summer she got cancer, and she fell very ill. And I don\'t know, all of this developed so fast, and she was in a hospice. Oh, she was in the hospice, not hospital. She was in the hospice. And my parents told me, "You don\'t have much time with her, so you should visit her more often." But I was kind of scared of visiting the hospice and seeing her because I had never experienced the death of someone who\'s close to me. So I was kind of scared of visiting, so I didn\'t end up visiting her a lot. But it was one day that I was in her hospice, and I was sitting next to her bed, and she just looked at me and she smiled. She smiled like she used to when I visited her house. And then the next day, she passed away. So I guess I cried a lot during the funeral because I regretted a lot for not visiting her as often as I should have. And I knew that she adored me, and she adored me the most out of all her grandchildren. I guess I was special to her, and she was also a special person to me. So after she died, I kind of thought about death and relationships and those kinds of things. And I also reflected on her life a lot. And I started to realize that she must have been really lonely because her husband, my grandfather, could not talk for a very long time and he couldn\'t walk like just any other people. He always needed help from my grandma. And I guess my grandmother, it wasn\'t easy for my grandfather to live a life, but I also could imagine it wouldn\'t have been any easier for my grandmother either. So thinking about their lives and my grandma\'s life, I kind of feel a little bit heavy about life. But yeah, but one day she appeared in my dream. And in my dream, I didn\'t know that she had passed away. But I don\'t know why, but I was so delighted to see her. I ran to her and I hugged her. And she looked really nice in my dream. She dressed up very nicely. She was wearing very colorful and beautiful clothes. She didn\'t use to wear those kinds of clothes when she was alive. But in my dream, she wore a very colorful and beautiful dress. So I was like, "Oh, grandma, you look so nice." And so I felt very delighted and happy to see her. So when I woke up, I realized, alright, she passed away. I realized that she passed away. But I kind of felt relieved to see her in my dream. And she looked very well and happy and healthy. So I guess in my dream, I just wanted to, I guess through my dream, I wanted to comfort myself and relieve that guilt that I felt towards her. And I guess I wanted to wish her well and happiness wherever she is. So that\'s my story.

Today, my family gathered in a small town. It has been years since we have all been in the same place at the same time. Usually, seeing long-lost relatives is a joyous occasion for most families. We aren't most families. Usually, we don't all get along. Today wasn't usual. Today, we gathered to pay our respect to one of the most complicated men most of us have ever known. Today, we all supported each other and consoled one another in the name of my Dad. My dad passed away a week ago, and today was his memorial. This has been a difficult week. Trying to grasp the fact that he is gone has been tough, but today was the worst. We had an open casket. He looked so strange; it was him and yet not him. I watched as some of my family broke down into tears, some quietly. Others held it in. I felt I had to be strong for my own little family. My children will never again get to see their grandpa. I will never again get to see my dad. Yet as a dad, I couldn't let my kids watch me break down completely. After today, all that will be left of him is his belongings and his ashes.

All right? So, my story is that I got to catch up with my friend today. It was really nice talking about different trips we've taken in the past, other trips we might want to take in the future, and also just finding out the best way to plan for taking a trip with her because she has a baby. I'm friends with her husband, but it's different when you're single and you're figuring out how to hang out with your friends, go on trips with them when they aren't single. And it makes sense this time of my life. I mean, I've got friends that have kids going to college. I've got friends that have kids they just had. And of course, people like myself, like I was just mentioning. But it was really good. So, the story is that I met up with her for lunch. And she was telling me also about how she's going through IVF right now to get pregnant again. And so, that was also really interesting because I've gone through my own process of trying to cryogenically freeze my own eggs, which I've done in the past after my husband passed away. So, I have some experience in that, not in the implanting stage, the fertilization stage. But she's having to inject all these hormones into her right now, and I've gone through that and can commiserate. It can change you not just physically, but mentally too. So, it's good we can share different past experiences, whether it's her experience going to Sedona, or my experience with IVF. Just a lot to talk about. A lot of different kinds of topics. And she's a fun friend to discuss a lot of different topics with.

The diagnosis of endometriosis will be with me for as long as I live. My journey started with abdominal pain and has now led me to treatment for infertility with some amazing doctors. I had been having abdominal pain for years and was told by three different doctors that I just had scar tissue from a previous surgery and it would probably get better. Needless to say, it only got worse. I had to go for surgery for an infection in my abdominal wall, which ended up being not an infection, just inflammation from the endometriosis. They did a biopsy of a "mass" as the doctor called it, which ended up being endometriosis. With this new diagnosis, I then knew why I have been unable to have kids and that was for sure the reason I hurt almost constantly for the past several years. Finally in May, I was able to start the fertility treatments. I was so excited and overwhelmed. That now gives me the hope that one day I will possibly be having my own little baby. It has been a trying time and for sure a very emotional one. The hormones make me feel, at times, that I am going to go crazy, but in the long run, I know it will be well worth the wait. I have an enormous support system. My doctors, friends, family, and my boyfriend have been by my side the whole time since I have started with the fertility specialists. The pills I take are usually not that bad on me, however, the shot that I have to take is what really gets me. I have to stick myself in the belly with a NEEDLE!! I never saw myself being able to do that. The shot leaves a small red spot around where I take it and it is a little sore for several days. We have already finished three rounds of the medication and shots only. I think we are going to try and start IUI/IVF in the next few months to give us a greater chance of having a baby. I know that it will help me to increase my chances of pregnancy. Hopefully in the next year, we will be welcoming our own little baby into this world. I CAN'T WAIT!!

When I was a little girl, when I was a little girl for Easter, we would go to my grandmother's house, grandmother and grandfather's house. They lived only a couple of miles from us, but they weren't really very child-oriented. And the one time they didn't invite us over was at Easter. Flash. We would go over more than that, but that was a time when also my cousins would come. My father was a twin. And so, his twin had a daughter just my age and a son just my brother's age. And then my father's older brother was only, I think, 13 months older than him. So they had had, my grandmother had three little boys, very close together. They lived in a house that they had built, pretty much built themselves. My father helped build it. It was on the top of a Hill in Andersonville, Tennessee, in front of a river and behind the road that went through town. Whenever we drove by it, my father would honk twice so that they would know that one of their sons had passed by the house. When I went to see my grandmother, we would be allowed to use the bathroom in the basement, which was actually just a commode out in the middle of the room, and there was a huge big coal pile, which we weren't supposed to play in. So when we did play in it, which of course we did, we always tried to be careful. However, the coal dust always gave us away and it was a fun time. I especially liked it when I got to see my cousins because since I lived out in the country, I wasn't around children too much except for my own siblings.

It all started this summer for my family reunion. The Ricardo Family Reunion was to be held as a 2-day event, starting on Saturday, June 20th, and Sunday, June 21st. It was a lovely day. On Saturday, we held a family picnic at the Pavilion. We played baseball, basketball, volleyball, and the kids had a water slide. We had a large selection of food. We traced our family generation back as far as 9 generations. We learned so much about where we came from and how strong of a family line we have. The children enjoyed themselves, playing with cousins they and Aunts and Uncles that just met or haven't seen in a long time. My great-great-great grandfather was an Indian Chief. We learned that we belong to the Cherokee Indians. My family is mixed with Spanish and French. We listened to stories told by the elders about events that had happened in their days. We were told stories about how the family stayed and worked together. We talked about the many fishing boats that the family had on Grand Isles. We also visited Madewood plantation where my Grandfather, Mr. Ricardo, had done a lot of work in restoring the plantation. We even went to New Orleans and toured the city. We visited where my grandfather, Mr. Ricardo, had done some work in the French Quarter. The next day, we all celebrated by going to Mass together. Being with family is a blessing, and sometimes we let the world and material things get in our way and make us forget about what is important. The best time is spending it with family, united in love and doing the simple things in life.

Yeah, so my friend Mo and I finally used to play Destiny, which is a PlayStation game, together for years and years and years. And lately, since I moved out here and haven't been playing it very much, that's a little bit sad. And today, we finally bought a new game called Baldur's Gate and started playing that. And it was good, that was a good little session. So I'm excited to get back into spending time and playing games with him.

So, I recently started talking to a guy, and I told him I really like Dark Souls, but don't have the patience to play it myself, so I prefer watching other people play. He then told me that because I live too far away to watch him play in person, he could stream it for me. I didn't think he actually meant it, but he did, and so he spent the next 5 hours playing Dark Souls 2 for me. We talked the entire time, and it was just a really cool experience. We got along so well, and even though I'm super shy, it quickly felt like we've known each other for ages. I don't know why that made me so happy. It's such an unimportant thing, but it really means a lot to me, and I'm super excited to do it again tomorrow!

Cool. I don't have a story about work, but I do have a story about the trip I took last week. I took a very short trip to Nashville to see my sister and to meet my new nephew. He's six months old. And when I lost my job in January, he was born at the end of February and I wasn't able to see him for this whole time he's been alive. And it's been really hard. I wanted to see him right away and to hold him. And without a job, I really couldn't plan a trip to go see him. So as soon as I was hired, I immediately bought a plane ticket so I could go see him. And it was so satisfying to hold him for the first time. And I facetimed with him and read him books. When she was still pregnant, I would read over the phone to him. And we basically, as soon as I saw him, it's like we were old friends. And I just got to hold him and play with him. And it was the best feeling.

Five months ago, my niece and nephew were born. They are my sister's first children, and I was so excited when she announced she was pregnant and I would be an aunt. It was a huge shock when we learned she was having twins! When they were born, I went to the hospital to visit with them. I didn't stay long, even though she and her husband were exhausted. They wanted to spend time alone as a new family. I will never forget holding the babies for the first time. My niece especially was tiny. They were both premature, but she was only 5 pounds. My nephew was a little bit bigger and seemed stronger. We were all so grateful that there were no complications or health issues, which I learned can be common with twins. They were both so perfect and tiny. I was like holding tiny dolls. I will never forget that day. I love them more than I ever expected I would.

So yeah, so over the weekend, I not only went to get the furniture, but I also went to get some oven mitts. And it was just a really nice experience overall because I got them from Buy Nothing, which is like a site or a group on Facebook to find free things. And so, I got these oven mitts. But then the lady and I were communicating a lot. She wanted one of the candles that I was giving away. And I wanted the mitts. So, I was able to take her the candle. And she left me the mitts. And she really enjoyed the smell of the candle and stuff. We had a really nice and sweet interaction.

I had a presentation to do today, and I hate public speaking with a passion. I think I did well, but it still was nerve-wracking. I ended up going to the dollar store with my mom after class, and there was this very kind cashier there. I wanted to make her happy because that makes me happy (and I needed it after today), and because she seemed so sweet, I asked her what her favorite chocolate bar was "because I wasn't sure what to get." She said, "Wunderbar," so I went and got 2. I told her no bag. She asked if I wanted a receipt, so I said no thanks, and slid one of the Wunderbars across the counter towards her and said, "and you can have one." Her face instantly lit up even behind her mask, and she was so thankful. It cost me $0.82 to make someone happy for a day, and that just made my entire day better. Everything I did today, including the presentation, led me to meeting this kind woman and giving her a smile (and a Wunderbar). It just feels great. I hope she enjoyed her chocolate. It really made me feel good seeing her eyes light up like that!