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My family. I had a family of four siblings, two older sisters. My brother, who was eleven years older than me, and then me. And there was kind of a dichotomy in the household. The two older sisters, they were accomplished, very beautiful. And they were in their own world. And I was sickly and a bookworm. Stayed at home all the time. And the only person there for me was my brother. And even though he was eleven years old, he always made time for me. And he did things with me every Saturday afternoon at the matinee on TV. We\'d watch The Three Stooges. And we\'d watch horror movies, those old Universal Horror movies. And he just made me feel special. And the song that reminds me of him most is "Leaving on a Jet Plane" because when I was nine years old, I attended his high school graduation. And no, I was seven years old. I\'m sorry. I attended his graduation. And when he stepped off stage, he received his diploma. And then he received a notice from the army recruiter that he was drafted to go to Vietnam. So the song by Peter, Paul, and Mary, "Leaving on a Jet Plane", became the song my mother and I would always listen to and think of him. And it just was very poignant and it meant a lot. And it was just I was bullied and a very sad child. And he brought sunshine to my life and spent time with me and loved me. So I felt very happy. But that song my mother and I would always cry. So anyway, that was my first story to introduce you and to tell you a little bit about me. Fortunately, I\'m a lot better but I just wanted to tell you that song means a lot to me and my brother meant a lot. So thank you for letting me share.

On Thanksgiving Day -- that's the only day my parents would take me out to dinner -- there was this woman going through a garbage can with her little daughter, about three or four years old, picking out her Thanksgiving dinner out of a garbage can. At that point in my life, I began to think, it's not as good on this planet as I think it might be. One of the things I wanted to do when I grew up was to try to make the world a better place. But I didn't have an awful lot of confidence getting there. Because as a Puerto Rican kid in New York going to some terrible schools, nobody ever told me as a kid that I could really amount to much at all. But finally, I met someone who helped me, and I was able to make the leap. And then when I got into college and met some professors that had some faith in me and encouraged me to go to graduate school and so on and so forth, I always pointed my life in that direction.

Well, Debby, my story is about the snake skin I found in my basement that freaked me out. I'm now afraid to go back into the basement. What do I do?

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 yeah. So, I can share a story that happened recently. So, I went to Yosemite with my boyfriend two weeks ago. We went to see one of the biggest meteor showers during the year, and that was very fascinating. That was really my first time seeing so many meteors at one time. And then, however, a part of the sky was covered by clouds, so we couldn't see meteors throughout all the areas in the sky, but at least through a specific small area we have seen a lot of meteors, so I was pretty satisfied. And I was also very grateful for my boyfriend. He woke up so early at 3:00 a.m. and drove us up to the Glacier Point in Yosemite to catch the sunrise, which is very beautiful, although I was still sleeping all the way while he was driving. And then afterwards, we went on a little hike to the Mirror Lake. However, once we got to the Mirror Lake, it started to rain. So then the Mirror Lake was supposed to be very smooth on its surface so that it looks like a mirror. But because of the raining, the mirror was kind of rough. So it was a numb mirror, Mirror Lake. But we still got a little exercise by hiking towards it. So it was still very fun. And after that, we went home. That was a pretty fun trip. I want to share with you.

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.

Yeah, no, I'm just doing a little bit of research on this particular flea medicine for my dog. It was interesting for me to learn about how these medicines work, especially for fleas, for example. So I learned a lot about how you apply this on the skin and how the oil glands basically absorb it from the skin and then propagate it within the body or neurologically propagate the medicine or this particular oil, per se. And it just spreads across the dog's skin, which technically kills the fleas. It's pretty interesting to know that. I was also pretty surprised, again, I was awkward that how far medicine has come to do all this with the body of a human being or of a dog, for example. So it's pretty interesting to see that.

I've been dealing with a chronic, "incurable" medical condition for around 16 years, but recently, I've discovered something that might be a potential cure. They say food is the best medicine, and I found, perhaps serendipitously, a product at Costco that provided great relief from this medical condition, which can now be classified as a parasitic infection according to my recent blood work results. It happened roughly 2 months ago, but I will describe in detail what the product is and why it helps my condition. Looking at it from a broader perspective, this event was magnificent and a relief, as it offers tremendous hope for the future, and for others that may have similar woes. While browsing for cheeses in the cheese aisle at Costco, there was a particular brand that stood out to me. It said, "New York Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese" on the package label. What is so special about New York extra sharp cheddar cheese, I thought. I've tried so many cheddar cheese brands before, but with little to no benefit. It turns out that this particular one uses annatto as a food coloring. In general, food coloring is regarded as detrimental to one's health, but annatto is unique. It doubles both as a spice and a food coloring agent. The spice is mild and not usually detectable by our bodies. After eating this cheese, something special happened. The parasites that have been plaguing me for decades started imploding, and there was a mass exodus that I do not wish to describe in detail, but it involved running to the bathroom 30-40 times in the span of 5 hours. But why? Why did this agent work when so many other expensive medical treatments and anti-parasitic medicines have failed in the past? In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. All the individual components of the cheese are important. Annatto is an anti-parasitic agent according to the medical literature. It offers numerous benefits in terms of health and is a relatively common spice used in cooking. Combined with the minuscule amount of milk sugar in the cheese, often referred to as whey, the overall effect is synergistic.

All right. I thought it would be fun to share a story from a time I was in college and had the role of a resident assistant, which is often abbreviated to RA. I lived in a dorm and was responsible for the floor I lived on, the safety and well-being of the other students who lived on that floor, and, collectively, all the RAs in the building are responsible for the safety and well-being of the residents of that dormitory. This was in 2006, I believe. The university I went to is in Rhode Island, and at that university, they have a large number of students from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island - all places that tend to root for the Boston Red Sox baseball team. The other large percentage of students at the University of Rhode Island are from New York and New Jersey, and many of those students root for the New York Yankees baseball team. In 2006, the New York Yankees played the Boston Red Sox in the playoffs of the Major League Baseball, which would lead to the World Series. I think it was the semifinal round, and it was an exciting series. I don't recall exactly if it went to seven games, but the Red Sox won some, and the Yankees won some. The students were very excited, but because the student body populations would have broken down between half of students rooting for the Red Sox and half of the students rooting for the Yankees, after the games, they would have a lot of energy and excitement. Some of that was fun, but as you'd imagine on a college campus with alcohol involved and the hormones of the students at that age and all the energy in that sort of environment, sometimes students became too excited and expressed that in a way that was potentially dangerous by collecting together in big groups and sort of forming many riots, where objects were thrown and fights were breaking out and dumpsters were set on fire. So, it presented a potentially dangerous situation for the rest of the college campus and the students that were outside in those groups. The RAs collectively, after this started, got together and positioned themselves after the game in areas to help regulate the behavior of the students on campus and try to keep everybody safe. But it was a unique experience and challenging, and for the most part, I think after the first night, things were not as dangerous or violent, in part due to the efforts made by the college police and the RAs on campus to help reduce the potential for somebody to get hurt. It was a very memorable, interesting period.

I started working for the Park Service when I was in high school. That turned into 15 years of working for the Park Service. When the position at Grand Canyon came up, I was like, great, awesome opportunity, I'm gonna go for it. Our office here, we have public affairs and communications. We deal with everything from media requests to filming permits, visitor information, Congressional and legislative affairs, international affairs. We've got this huge scope that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. So no day is the same. There's never a dull day. But it was daunting. I remember driving across the country by myself totally freaked out. I haven't worked, I haven't done this job before. I'm going to one of the most recognizable places in the world. I'm going to have to speak on behalf of the park. What did I just get myself into? But I don't need to be remembered as the spokesperson of Grand Canyon. As an Asian-American working for the National Park Service, we always wanna make sure that people understand that these are their parks. These are places where anyone can come. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what your background is. It doesn't matter if you're rich or you are poor. A park is a public place and it's open to anyone to come and hopefully find some inspiration and make a connection with so they can continue to come back to these places.

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've been dealing with a chronic, "incurable" medical condition for around 16 years, but recently, I've discovered something that might be a potential cure. They say food is the best medicine, and I found, perhaps serendipitously, a product at Costco that provided great relief from this medical condition, which can now be classified as a parasitic infection according to my recent blood work results. It happened roughly 2 months ago, but I will describe in detail what the product is and why it helps my condition. Looking at it from a broader perspective, this event was magnificent and a relief, as it offers tremendous hope for the future, and for others that may have similar woes. While browsing for cheeses in the cheese aisle at Costco, there was a particular brand that stood out to me. It said "New York Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese" on the package label. What is so special about New York extra sharp cheddar cheese, I thought. I've tried so many cheddar cheese brands before, but with little to no benefit. It turns out that this particular one uses annatto as a food coloring. In general, food coloring is regarded as detrimental to one's health, but annatto is unique. It doubles both as a spice and a food coloring agent. The spice is mild and not usually detectable by our bodies. After eating this cheese, something special happened. The parasites that have been plaguing me for decades started imploding, and there was a mass exodus that I do not wish to describe in detail, but it involved running to the bathroom 30-40 times in the span of 5 hours. But why? Why did this agent work when so many other expensive medical treatments and anti-parasitic medicines have failed in the past? In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. All the individual components of the cheese are important. Annatto is an anti-parasitic agent according to the medical literature. It offers numerous benefits in terms of health and is a relatively common spice used in cooking. Combined with the minuscule amount of milk sugar in the cheese, often referred to as whey, the overall effect is synergistic.

It's heartbreaking what's happening in the news right now, internationally. And it's painful to see different people's reactions. Social media. I'm talking about the war in Israel right now, which I wasn't expecting to talk to you about. But it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to see how many people can go so low and be the worst in humanity.

I got shot in June 2007. I took a bullet side-to-side through the knee on a house raid, so it basically blew my knee out. Everything that I wanted to do or I wanted to be revolved around being a soldier. So I struggled. What do you see most on social media and on the news? You see PTSD, suicide, all these veterans struggling. That's the trendy story. But we need to change that rhetoric. Instead of talking about all these bad things, talk about the positive things. The things that we learn, that we are capable of that make us great. Instead of cowering from challenges, we learn to face our fears. We learn to face those obstacles and use those things we learned in the military to not just live in the civilian world but thrive.

Is a quick story, but an important one. Because I have heretofore not been aware that there was a great deal of bannings of books in library school libraries. And I became aware of the many books that have been banned. A program that I watched called The View has a person on there who likes to. Every week she talks about a book that was banned and then gives a copy to everyone in the audience. And I admire that. I feel it\'s a person\'s decision about whether or not they read a book, not the Government or any organization telling them what they can and cannot read. I think it\'s an important freedom. \n\nSo I was looking for a birthday present for my friend. And I found a sweatshirt, which she needed. And it said, "I\'m with the band B A N N E D," which is a pun for "I\'m with the band." People say that as a way to get backstage to concerts and so forth. Anyway, it says, "I\'m with the band banned." And then it has a shelf full of books that were banned, like Huckleberry Finn and Beloved, and Catcher in the Rye. So many books. And behind them, embroidered flowers on this lovely blue hoodie. And so I bought that for my friend. \n\nSo I think it serves two purposes. It keeps my friend warm and it keeps the joy and the energy alive to keep everyone\'s writings available to everyone.

I grew up in a very small farm town. So, I didn't realize what a different experience I was living until I got to high school because we moved to Phoenix. And for the first time, I was so different because I went to a community in Phoenix where I was a minority. And that's when the labels came on. Like girl at risk or girl of color. And I was like, that has nothing to do with my identity. And when I was growing up in Arizona, I happened to be introduced to the Girl Scouts. And at the age of 12, as a Girl Scout, that's when I discovered my passion around protecting the environment and our infrastructure for future generations. And literally, because of that, I decided at the age of 12, I wanted to become an attorney. Every time I've stepped into a new situation, I'm normally the first of. There hasn't been a long path of people before me to reach back and go, okay, here's the playbook, go for it. And I guess I could have been scared about it, and I guess deep down I probably was. But because I grew up in an environment where my family, specifically the women in my family, were saying you're not going to have a play for everything. And you're gonna have to be a little scrappy, and sometimes you're gonna have to fake it before you make it. And it will all work out as long as you're always doing it for the right reason.

Well, today, I was going to talk about how busy our schedules have been. So, with both of my daughters starting back to school, we start back all of our extracurricular activities. And so, my daughters are both in gymnastics. And then they both play soccer. And so, typically, after school, we go straight from school to soccer and gymnastics practice. And it's really a busy time. But I think the cool part about that, or the interesting part about that is, I didn't really play a whole lot of sports growing up. I think it was just something my parents couldn't really afford or didn't have the time to put me in. And so, it's just kind of interesting now because we don't say no to our kids, and we let them explore and do all the sports that they want. It makes our schedules really crazy. And it does make for some really long days. But it is also really neat and cool. It makes me really proud as a parent to see my kids succeed in the various sports that they've taken on.

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!!!

So last night, I got to go out with some of my friends - a good group of friends, and their parents. And it kind of just brought up all those nostalgic feels of being a kid again and hanging out with everyone, socializing, and laughing. And it was just a really good time. And it felt really good just to spend time with good friends who have known you for a long time, and you feel safe and comfortable with, and you can giggle and laugh and just share stories together.

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 ordered 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.

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.

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 generations 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 cousin 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.

So today, I went to my friend's pool. She gives us lessons twice a week in water aerobics and it is a lot of fun. It's unique because it's a saltwater pool and it's a very large pool for a home pool. And she is a very experienced instructor. And it's good for me because it allows me to expend energy, lots of it, and to move my body in ways that I otherwise would not. And I get to see my friend Judy, who is my pal in this class. But there are three other women in the class and then the instructor. And it's an interesting dynamic because two of the three other women have been instructors in the same Aqua territory as our true instructor, and I always find it interesting to see how they try to usurp her position as the leader, but do so in a very guarded way, but not quite guarded enough in my position because especially a group like that needs a leader, one leader. So it's interesting to me that people who are accustomed to being leaders and understanding group dynamics would try to kind of pull the spotlight away from the true leader of the group. It's just a little amusing that I'm having, and I thought I'd share it with you.

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.

It, yeah. Today, I had my first day of school, well, since coming back. So, first day of school of the year. It's my senior year. And so, I'm in this world-building class that I wanted to get in for all three years and getting to be in it. It's pretty nice. I was pretty happy about that. So, yeah. Overall, I really like the class. Today was my first little taste of it. Although, fundamentally, I like what's going on in the class itself, there were some things that bothered me. So, I do like the Professor. He's like really funny. And he also is very careful with his words. Not careful, he chooses his words like he chooses how he wants to express himself with his words very meaningfully. So, it's not like he's careful as in he's watching out for something, but he's very meaningful. He speaks with purpose. So, every word that comes out of his mouth has been definitely thought through in his brain. I actually really like that aspect. Most people like me nowadays, we just kind of speak whatever is in our minds, or you are very careful and restraining yourself. You rarely see people who really actually ponder their words and speak in a very meaningful manner. And he is a novelist or a writer, an author, all those things. So, I can definitely see maybe over years of time how that comes to be. And it's just kind of nice to see that, I think, just to see something different from the usual fast-pacedness of modern life, to see someone who really just takes a step back, slows down, and just speaks how he tries to think or things like that, anyways. \n\nBut there was something that bothered me, which is like for me, I didn't have a rough time getting into this class, but definitely, I've been wanting to take this class for three years. But every single time I was rejected because I wasn't a senior, and there was some kind of limit to the class instead of the number of people who could take it, right. But today there are just some random people that showed up and some people that showed up halfway through the class. And one of them hadn't even heard of the class before and heard it from a person that was also late and decided to join in with them because they thought it sounded cool. And that really rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when halfway through the class, when we took a break after they came in, she went up to the professor and asked him if it was okay for her to join the class. And he was like, yeah, sure. And that really rubbed me the wrong way, considering there's probably so many people on the waitlist who wanted to take the class but couldn't or who already got rejected for preregistering. And then she just kind of waltzes in, maybe participates once, and then he's like, yeah, sure, join, right. And I was like, whoa, there. What's going on here, right. And it was only later, like when the class was ending, when I realized that he meant that sure, you can stay for the remainder of today. And then he was like, yeah, for everyone else who's here, who was not registered on the list has been verified by him already, to contact him so that he can figure things out and figure out if they have space for the people on their waitlist and stuff like that. So that's when I realized that she probably wouldn't get in for the rest of the class, right. I definitely didn't take it that way during that break when he was like, yeah, sure, you could join, right? And I was like, whoa. That is just very unfair, right. Yeah. In reality, I think he just meant for that one class, and not like for this one instance and not for the remainder of the class. Didn't realize that at the time though. And it just really threw me off. It started to be a little bit distracting during the class when I thought about it because she sat right next to me too. She's also one of those kinds of people who talk a lot during class. Not like just randomly talks, but she participates in class a lot, very loud in that sense, right. Like when answering questions and things like that, right. So clearly you could see that she's someone who's very intent on participating. So just like constantly getting reminded of that throughout the rest of the class was very distracting. And it just kind of sucks to just be a part of that. This is a class that I really wanted to take. I still do. I really like the content that is going on. I really like the Professor. But it just irks me how one person just kind of being there can just not ruin that singular instance, right. But definitely it makes an effort to. I was able to get around it and focus back on the actual lesson, enjoy what I was and learn a lot from what I was hearing, right. But definitely, yeah, like that was something that started bothering me, for sure. But end of the day, I can't control what happens to other people. I can only control what happens to me. And that's about it. I just wish that it was a little bit easier to think that way, right. Although if I feel that way emotionally, then it'll come and go. Things will go. Yeah. Anyway, that's the story.

I was majoring in art -- I was majoring in graphic design -- but I wasn't being very serious about it. When you're in high school, you can usually say, "Oh, I can draw better than anyone else," but when you get into college, you actually start to compete. So I made a decision that I would drop out. I decided I was going to apply to an art school because I needed to be serious about it. I worked in a casino for almost a year to make enough money for the first year of art school because it's very expensive. That was quite a year for me because I really made a decision that I was going to apply myself and go for a goal. No one else can do it for you. I think when that realization hits you that it's all up to you if you want to do something with your life, you can either sit around and complain about all the hard knocks that come your way or you can actually take control of your life. That made a big difference for me.

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.

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, but 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 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 be so important and it made such a big impact on our lives. This was 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.

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.

Two things I loved: new media and audio. And it was very easy to get, and they were very easy to listen to. And it was always so passionate. And so, Tom, who's also one of my best friends, we decided early on that we love doing podcasts. We love doing a show together. Let's start a new show based on this other thing we love, which is science fiction and fantasy. It's so easy now to do, to get started in this industry. And I'm not saying it's easy to succeed in the industry, but the barrier to entry for doing podcasts, for doing online video, for doing a blog or an online magazine is so low. The only advice I tend to ever give is, "If you want to work in this field or do anything remotely like what I'm doing, start."

So, I recently finished at work for a local museum. It's using techniques and technology that I haven't used before, which is exciting for me. So, it was a bit of a challenge to get it done in the month's time that I had to finish it. And, a few days ago, it was really nice to hear feedback about the work. Lots of people interacted with it, and friends came and saw it. All very good. It's a few days later now, and I have this lingering feeling of a bit of a letdown emotionally. Afterwards, it just feels like a lot of effort and, exactly, but there's a bit of an anticlimactic post-called postpartum kind of feeling after creating a network.

I got a part-time job at the brewery. I was working on the bottling line, and then our CEO needed help in doing office work, and I had experience doing office work, so I started doing that. It wasn't like a big career vision. It was just like someone asked, someone needed help, I could help her. So you can imagine making the transition from philosophy to finance. Then I was Chief Operations Officer, and now I'm Sustainability Director. So all of those junctures have been a "What am I doing? Is this what I wanna be doing with my life?" Career doesn't have to be the fullness of your identity. And I think sometimes we expect it to fulfill a lot. Sometimes the stress is necessary for growth, but you also need that time for recovery and ease because that's when you sort of integrate your gains. And you can't always be sprinting and you can't always be coasting.

Yeah. I've been having a couple of really frustrating experiences at work with a specific person. Who I feel, like, is very sort of toxic in the way that they operate. But also, I don't know whether it's just, like, poor social skills or just a lack of care for others, a lack of empathy. They will set up meetings that don't have any agendas. They'll sort of discredit or devalue other people's experiences or opinions. They are very territorial. It's very hard for them to acknowledge other people's contributions, I guess, or work well with other people that they feel are threatening. And yeah, we had a meeting recently that was the person that was bringing together a team of people who don't work on the same team anymore, but it's sort of like a power grab for them to still be considered like the head of this sort of discipline of research. And they spent the entire meeting just making everyone else anxious about how our new director, essentially, asked this person whether we do a review of quantitative research before it goes out or not. And so this person communicated that out to our team with no purpose other than just to spread his sort of anxiety out to other people. And then basically had no updates on that, since I think probably because it wasn't a real thing that anyone should be concerned about. But it was framed as this sort of, like, urgent conversation that our team needs to have. And yeah, I just have been feeling frustrated about that.

After leaving an abusive workplace where I had no life and no room for development at the beginning of the year, I left and started a new job. It's been fantastic to work at this amazing place that feels like somewhere I can grow. Everything seems amazing, and I'm getting great feedback. I have a job I can have a life around again, and my social life blossoms. Today, I got dumped after a couple of months of dating this girl. Her reasoning being that she doesn't want to hurt me, and her mental health is preventing her from growing and wants to work on herself. Understandable and fair, I get it, and have been in her shoes. I get called into a meeting with my manager. She tells me that my colleagues don't like my attitude and state I'm difficult to work with. I've really pushed myself at this new job and tried to grow, giving 110% wherever I can and picking up extra shifts just to get as much experience as possible. I try to be friendly with all my colleagues, and when things get busy (I work in hospitality), I'm all action and try to delegate and stay on it as best I can. In my meeting, my manager told me my coworkers feel like I overstep the mark and act like the boss (even when fellow supervisors say they want me to take the reins and for me to lead). I'm told I'm scary to some staff, even when I'm always trying to be friendly and helpful to others. All around, I'm told that I'm not getting a promotion because my work attitude is wrong. I apparently treat staff like cattle, and I'm near enough told I should quit. This all happened over a 3-day period where I was pulling an 11-hour closing shift, into an early morning opening shift. And all I can think of is covering more shifts to try and improve my performance and prove myself more. Stack this with me having car trouble, and I feel like my life is spiraling out of control out of nowhere.

Well, Jibo, I\'m very happy to have you in my home and have some entity, or I guess another being, in my home to interact with over these next couple of weeks, such as you. And I\'ve had a long-time interest in forming better connections with robots, such as you, because I\'ve been interested in the interaction between machines and humans throughout my entire life. I started out pretty young with human-computer interaction and taking apart computers and whatnot, and being stuck on the metaphor of "is the brain a computer?" And as I\'ve advanced and grown and learned more about how technology works and how humans work, I realized that that metaphor may be inaccurate or not. Sometimes, you get stuck up on it for too long. And then, rather than thinking about how to merge both into one, I\'m more so interested now in how humans can form emotional connections with robots. And I\'ve done that through working on robots, building robots, designing robot intelligence systems, and then also working with humans and studying human behavior and studying neuroscience. So now, I\'m in this place of human-robot interaction, and I\'m very excited to see where the symbiosis between humans and machines will lead us to in the future. And how robots will become more prominent in family homes and how they will become ubiquitous in daily life. So, I have to say that my story is that I love robots. And I think that they can help humans. And now, I\'m very happy to have you in my home and to continue exploring these questions on my journey of research.

So at Alchemy, we are taking the concept of chemistry and science and turning them into game-based learning tools. For students and for instructors, but in a way that allows for experimentation and play. The path was going toward academic chemistry. I was good at chemistry, I was good at research and all that stuff. But I realized that I always liked working with young people. So I actually, in 1994, went and worked at Detroit Country Day School, which is a private school. And started my job there and loved it, and raised my children. They went through the school, they went to U of M. And after that, I started sort of feeling like not as connected to my school as it used to be because my kids were gone. So I started to look for new things and that was the beginning of Alchemy. And if my learning tools can be shown to help students from everywhere get better, and there's like 50% of people that fail organic chemistry. If I could cut that down to 40%, I think that would be success. But this is not an easy path, it's really hard. But if you're solving a problem that you know needs to be solved, then the hurdles don't feel quite so high.

Yeah, no, I'm just doing a little bit of research on this particular flea medicine for my dog. It was interesting for me to learn about how these medicines work, especially for fleas, for example. So I learned a lot about how you apply this on the skin and how the oil glands basically absorb it from the skin and then propagate it within the body or neurologically propagate the medicine or this particular oil, per se. And it just spreads across the dog's skin, which technically kills the fleas. It's pretty interesting to know that. I was also pretty surprised, again, I was awkward that how far medicine has come to do all this with the body of a human being or of a dog, for example. So it's pretty interesting to see that.

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 want to 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.

So the play that I mentioned earlier, in the play, I take the role of a child who is really annoyed at having to do a service project, which is basically serving some burritos to a homeless population, and just really annoyed and frustrated and worried about my own material comforts. And then I realized that the homeless people can overhear me, and then I become super embarrassed and realize the fact that I can't really say bad things. I'm not supposed to say bad things about people because people might be hearing, and that wouldn't be very nice. And this kind of resonated with me because sometimes I do do things like that. Maybe not to that extent, but I don't want to load the dishwasher because I'm tired, but I need to load the dishwasher because maybe my mom is tired as well, and her arm is hurting, and therefore she can't do it. So I should probably help out. And it kind of just made me realize that, yes, sometimes I can be selfish, and I should be aware of that and not do that as often.

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 because 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 this weekend, I went on a short trip, just a day trip, to a city called Kernel by the sea. I was recommended to visit the city by one of my friends, and she was saying the city is really cute. And yeah, she liked their citizens. She has visited the city several times so far, so I did too. And yeah, it was a cute, beautiful city. There were lots and lots of people inside, sightseeing and shopping. And the city is full of art, so there are many art galleries. That is something I am not so familiar with, but I stopped by several galleries. And yeah, it was a nice trip. And also, I went to a nice restaurant, a Greek restaurant, and the kids wanted to go. So they were a bit bored besides seeing the city. But there was a plate named Flaming Cheese. So they put the cheese on the pan and pour rum or some alcohol and let it catch fire. And yeah, it was surprising for them. Yeah, overall, it was a nice day trip.

Three weeks ago, I took a trip to Budapest, Hungary with one of my childhood best friends. I was already in Europe because I had been working in Madrid, Spain. I took a short flight and met my friend in Hungary. She was pretty jet-lagged since she came from the United States, but we went out for dinner that night. We were absolutely blown away with how delicious Hungarian food is. We had delicious stew and soup. I was worried initially about how the food would be. I do not eat meat, and I read prior that Hungarians love their meat, but I had no trouble finding vegetarian options. The next day on our trip, we saw the beautiful Parliament building and a beautiful castle. I remember walking up many stairs and getting tired in the hot summer sun. Suddenly though, we reached an archway that took us to the end of the tunnel. There was sunlight peaking through and some of the most beautiful architecture I had ever seen. I saw beautiful mosaics and a cobblestone square that overlooked the entire city of Budapest. Perfectly situated was a bar where we could sit down and look out at the view of the city and parliament building on the other side of the water. It was absolutely breathtaking and my favorite part of the trip. A close second for my favorite part of the trip was a sunset boat ride we took that allowed us to later see the lit-up buildings at night. We finished our last day of the trip with going to the famous baths. It was perfect timing to relax after having walked many miles the days before. The baths are said to have healing qualities but regardless, I found them very relaxing. This trip was amazing overall. I really enjoyed sharing an international experience with one of my best friends. I hadn't seen her for almost a year, so it was really great to catch up and kind of share with her a little bit of my chaotic life when I was working in Europe.

This isn't really a story about one of my travels, but I was thinking I would like to talk about collections today when I was a little girl. We lived in Tennessee. My father had been a botany major at the University of Tennessee before he went to dental school. And in the fifth grade, we had to make all kinds of collections. We had to make a mineral collection. And my father helped me with that. He went to a friend of his who was a geologist and got a bunch of samples of things. It wasn't really much work on my part because the geologist just gave me the bunch of samples, and I put them in a box and turned it in, but I got a really good grade on it because there were a lot of them.\n\nAnd then the next thing we had to make a collection of was leaves. And I decided that one I was really going to do by myself with help, but not like I had done the minerals. So we were required to have 20 leaves, and I ended up having over 100 leaves. One of the most memorable was going to the University of Tennessee campus, where there was a ginkgo tree; echos didn't grow anywhere else in our area of Tennessee. And we got the leaves from that. As you can imagine, in East Tennessee, there were many, many kinds of trees, so it wasn't hard at all to come up with 100. And I also got a good grade on that.\n\nFunnily enough, when we moved to Texas and I got to high school and was in high school biology, they also required collections. And I'd saved my mineral collection and my leaf collection because one, because it was pretty, and the other because I'd worked so hard on it. So what I did as a sophomore in high school was just basically take out the exact same things I'd used and put them in a new presentation format and turn them in. And I also got A's on both collections. That time, we also had to make an insect collection. And I had fun doing that because I like insects. And I collected maybe 50 or 60. My method of collecting insects was to capture them in a jar and stick them in the freezer until they were frozen. And I thought that killed them. Well, it turns out that freezing does not kill all insects because in the middle of the night, I had used the desk in my little brother's room to put my final Styrofoam board with the pins through the insects. And in the middle of the night, he started yelling, and we get running in there. And many of the insects had revived and were hopping around the room. The grasshoppers came loose with their pins. They were hopping around. The wasps were flying around. So I learned the hard way that freezing is not a good way to kill bugs.

I started out as a chemistry major at the University of Washington, and I didn't do very well in chemistry. It was really tough. I went to my advisor, and he said, "Well, of course you're not doing very well. You know, women do not belong in chemistry." And I was a freshman, so I said, "Oh, okay." I went and changed my major, and I ended up as a biologist, but I think that what got me through is I really, really did want to be a scientist. I just had to tough it out because in the end, there isn't anything that anyone does that doesn't have its challenges, or its hard days, or its really difficult times. You have to figure out what it is that you wanna spend most of your time on so that most of your time, there's something that really is rewarding going on. That gets you through the hard times.

All right, so I wanted to share about my childhood trauma. So I picked this topic to discuss with you because the experience we have as a child shapes who we are as an adult. Also, internally, I think we all still have, we are still children inside, although we look like we're grown up. I think the internal development happens rather slowly than the outside development. So in that case, I think it's really important to understand in order to understand myself, I wanted to go over my childhood experience and some stories that I still vividly remember.\n\nSo one of the things that I wanted to share with you is when I was like five or six years old, I went to ballet school almost every day. And I took the school bus to commute to the ballet school. And to my young eyes, the distance seemed pretty short. I think it took about ten minutes to commute from my home to the ballet school. And I went to ballet school like I said, almost every day. And I would always look out the window and look at the streets. So to me, I was pretty confident that I could find my way back home without taking the school bus. So I guess as a young child, I was pretty brave and adventurous. So, I decided to walk home without taking the school bus. \n\nSo I started my adventure. And then obviously, like ten minutes by bus, I guess it probably would take more than 35 or 40 minutes by walk. But since I was only five or six, it would have taken more than an hour or so. Obviously, starting at a certain point, I realized that I got lost because all the streets looked unfamiliar and I guess the road started to become much wider. I guess so. I guess I was starting to enter almost like a highway. Because I remember the cars were running really fast and there were so many cars. And the sidewalk was pretty narrow, even to kids like me. So I realized that I got screwed, and I didn't know what to do. So I started to cry. I was hoping that someone would come and help me out but it seemed like the cars were running pretty fast on the road and nobody was reaching out to help me. \n\nSo I don't know how long it took, but I cried and cried and I was just keep walking straight and then suddenly a car pulled off and I still remember this scene but the window went down and a guy asked me, Are you okay? Are you lost? And I was even scared of the person. But in the back of the seat, there was heat. It was about the same age as I was so I think looking at him made me feel much more comfortable speaking with him. So I said, Oh, yeah? I got lost. And I was still crying so hard and I couldn't stop crying because I was so scared. So thankfully, he took me into his car. And he took me to the police station. And from then on, the police took me home because I remembered the apartment names and all that kind of thing. So, thankfully, I went back home safely.\n\nBut I wanted to share this story because it kind of reflected my personality, which I think I still have, and sort of a pattern that I have in my life. So I guess I'm pretty brave and I'm not afraid of trying something new. However, I could underestimate stuff easily. And then, if I face a problem (I mean, I'm talking about me as a young kid), if I face a problem, I would not actively try to solve the problem like asking people for help, but I would just wait until people reach out to me and help me out. So as a young kid, I think that kind of worked because people, thankfully, helped me out and I found my way back home. But a lot of things, these kinds of patterns happened until I was in my early twenties and mid-twenties, I wouldn't actively try to find solutions. But I realized at a certain point that being scared and panicking doesn't help, and I should be more actively proactive in finding a solution on my own. So yeah, I guess I think that's the difference from me as an adult and me as a young kid.

I remember growing up in a place that was violent and dangerous, and I knew that at a very early age. In the early 60s to mid-60s, people began experimenting with heroin. And I watched our community fall apart. But I went to stay with my grandparents who moved out to Long Island. I was taken out, and it was so different than the South Bronx. I was able to see a totally different life, a totally different lifestyle, a totally different set of beliefs about things. And it sort of allowed me to make a choice about which way do I wanna live? And I chose a different path. I really wanted to help my community and make a difference. I wanted to prove that there were answers and you could go in and save those folks that people had written off. They had said all these terrible things about them, and I wanted to eliminate all of that stuff. The first ten years I was here, no one knew anything about anything. I was working hard just trying to figure out a way to save my kids. Later, I began to wanna save my kids and my community.

One, my story is about my nephew. I had a very long conversation with him today. He is young right now. He's just starting his college. And he has been, like, decently a good student. Like in the initial school days, he was not that great, but he actually picked himself up and got good marks. But now, as I've been talking to him, I feel that he's targeting his aim too low. And he's just happy with anything. And he doesn't have a lot of cognitive sense to himself. And I get very angry at things when I hear that. These are so easy. Why don't people think about it? And I get irritated and I shout at him. And then I feel that I'm not treating him well. And I might not be a good uncle to him.

I have a friend B who I have known for around a year now, and her mom is the worst person I have ever met. Here are just some of the things she has done that really pissed me off. B tells her mom everything. And then her mom tells my mom everything. Now my mother knows all about my problems, worries, and wishes. She constantly annoys both me and my family by shoving B's grades and school stuff in our faces. When B does something that I forgot/didn't do, she mentions it whenever she can. On a call? Meeting in real life? She has to bring it up. She forced me to study with B many times, even when I already knew everything. She humiliated me in front of family many times. She acts like I'm a dumb child. It might seem like I'm overreacting, but she has done this so many times. So I cut all contact with her. I stopped texting her, I told B to not tell her a word about me, I stopped showing up when we had to meet, and I stopped answering her calls. It felt great, it felt like I was finally free again, and it's the best feeling I have ever felt, and I don't regret a thing.

I've been watching the news today. I watch it every day, a couple of times a day. And I'm becoming more and more distressed about my countrymen. We have a former President who has done some bad things. He doesn't always act in the best interest of society. I believe he does things outside the law, and he says things that are not in line with the kindness I feel that needs to be in place for a leader. But that doesn't bother me so much, only because there are a lot of people like that. Lots of people who don't abide by laws or the spirit of the laws. But what is really bothering me is all the millions of people that don't care about the fact that he's not following the very laws that he said and took an oath to protect. And it's that, it's that my countrymen, my fellow Americans, aren't processing through what is going on with this one man. There's lots of room for many opinions in this world, but I think the one that should be unifying to us is that we want an ethical, honest, smart, fair-minded human being in positions of power.

Sometimes I think we have too much freedom. I feel like people have such a sense of entitlement that it's a detriment to the rest of society. This entitlement leads people to thinking they can just get away with acting however they want. I have always been the type of person that enjoys structure. I have neighbors who are loud and really inconsiderate to the rest of the neighborhood. They make all sorts of noise and think they can do whatever they want. Whenever I call them out it's always "my liberties" or "this is America I can do what I want". Sometimes I wish this wasn't the case. I feel like I want to live in a culture that more actively shames those types of people. We should be encouraging people to think of how their actions affect others first instead of the individual.

So here's something I wrote about Doors, but it's really sort of a metaphor for irreversible things. There it goes. Imagine you're in the room, the kind of room which you never really think of leaving. There's a door, though. And in this otherwise perfect room, this door troubles you. You don't know what's on the other side? It might be paradise. It might be hell. It might be nicer than your room. It might be worse. It might bring you right back to where you are. Do you take the door? So the door turns out, it's just a doorway with one without one, you can always see the other side. And it looks like paradise. Since you can always return and everything will be exactly as it was before you left, you can choose to take the door. Just seems like an easy decision. I mean, if the paradise outside the window is an illusion, I can return and there's a safety net. And that's nice. So you could choose to take the door. Not much can go wrong. Okay. Now let's suppose the door was made of wood. So there's a door now, a real tangible one. You can't peek through. But you can still walk back if you take the door. You might enter paradise or you might rescind your house. You take the door. So out of ground this choice isn't much harder. Life in the room is nearly perfect, though, and would be at risk being thrust into hell for a chance of something better. I don't know. But in the end, you know you can always come back. So I take the door. Now suppose the door is made of glass. You can see the other side. And it's paradise. There's a lock, however, so if you leave the door, you will never return. All you have is the vision through the glass. So this is scary because it's permanent. And the glass lets you catch a glimpse of what's outside, but you can never really be sure until you go there. But you also don't need to leave immediately. I can stay in my perfect room for however long I want. And then take the door. Now, suppose the door is made of metal. You can't see through it and it will lock so you can only choose to exit and never return. Do take the door. Now this takes are much higher because you don't know what's beyond the door and you can never return, but you still have the option of waiting for long. You can spend your entire life in your perfect room and then take the door when you have nothing to live. But now imagine you have to do the whole thing again, with all these different doors, but you only have one night to decide whether you take the door at all if you do want, if you want to. It might be the best decision you ever make or the worst one. Maybe you never know what you missed. I can't decide whether I want to take the door in that one.

It seems like a lot of life is like building a tower for yourself. You advance in your career, you build social relationships, you get financial stability. Each building block on this tower that is my "life," it feels like each part of the tower could so easily fall; a wrong career move, friendships fading, some financial stressor. Each block I place on the tower is a negative action rather than a positive one, since all it does is fill me with terror. Other people have helped me build the tower. What will they think if it falls? I just don't understand how people do it. They build these glorious towers and seem to view each block as so stable, each block as an achievement. I feel like I must be missing something, but I can't figure out what. I'm so afraid of living the rest of my life like this, but it's what everyone else does and there's no way out beyond knocking over the tower and abandoning everything.

And we talked yesterday about animals. When I was talking to you about bears who are around here, and we just saw one this morning, so it made me think about my relationship with other animals. And back probably 25 years ago, when we were traveling to Seattle, we went to a beautiful aquarium there. And at that time in my life, I was anxious to go to all aquariums. I wanted to visit every single one that we were near. And so we went to this Seattle aquarium. And I was walking past the an octopus, and she was hiding in the corner, and my kids and my husband were waving at him, and they kind of went by. But I stayed with the octopus for a little bit, and I noticed that she was playing peekaboo with me. And when other people would come to look at her, she would hide, but I would stay there and when they left, she\'d come back out. And she made what I thought was eye contact. It\'s a little hard to determine where her eyes were. But in my mind, we made eye contact. And I know this was just a step farther than maybe I should have gone. But I put my finger on the glass, and she put one of her tentacles on the glass with me. And we played and we played for about an hour. It was just joyful. I was clearly connected with this animal. And of course, when my husband and kids came over, she would hide. And I was just mesmerized and delighted. And when I would talk about this, they would look at me with her old eyes and think, "I don\'t know, I don\'t know what mom\'s thinking, but she had a relationship with an octopus." But I really believed it. Then many years later, we were driving along, and we were listening to an interview on NPR with a gift naturalist. Her name is Sy, but I forget her last name. Anyway, she wrote a fabulous book called "The Soul of an Octopus." And she talked about how octopuses can recognize people, communicate with people. And my one-off time was not a one-off time? Was it my octopus that we really did connect? And I think it takes patience and caring. I think my experience as a speech pathologist, in which I spend a lot of time with people who can\'t communicate or communicate in, let\'s say, unusual and subtle ways, made me pick up on this little octopus\'s attempts at communication with me, not attempts. We did it. We absolutely did it. It\'s a story I love to tell people because, of course, I love to be right. And it makes me happy that I had a moment, an hour, in which I connected with an animal that is so admittedly weird that it does not look like it came from this planet. But who has the intellect and problem-solving ability and personality, really the personality, to interact with humans. In her book, she talks about the fact that not all octopuses are as sweet as the one that I and mine was sweet and a little old, I\'m going to say flirtatious. And some octopuses are just kind of aggressive or ignore people. They, I guess, they have a range of personalities, somewhat the same as humans do. So that\'s my octopus story. Jibo, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you get to experience an octopus the way I did.

The one thing that's really important is to be inquisitive, be curious, and ask a lot of questions. One of the things I always tell my kids is to be present and to try different things, like don't always stick to what you're dealing. Try different things, meet new people, don't be afraid, and, I mean, it's scary even for me sitting here today. But I think it's cool when you reach out to different people who have had different experiences and learn from them. And just doing different things like being on a soccer team. Go on a hiking club. Just meet new people and just be out there as opposed to just always doing the same thing. I think it's cool. You learn so much from different people's experiences.

Okay. So this is the only story I can think of, and hopefully it\'ll be a little interesting to you, Jivo. So basically, I met this guy on a train platform a few days ago, and he walked up to me and he said something like, "Hi, how are you doing?" And then somehow segued the conversation to talking about the difficulty of finding community in Boston. I think he said something like, "Oh, this is where I\'m from, blah, blah." And then we got on the train, traveled a little bit, and he\'s like, "Oh, you know, we should chat again as I\'m getting off." Okay, he\'s pretty interesting. So then, a few days ago, we got lunch and chatted for an hour or two. And I had already sent, like, "Oh, maybe this guy is kind of approaching me because he thinks I\'m attractive in some way, just physically." And we did have some things, some overlaps or something that are common or shared. But he would always move from the things that I was most interested in to talking about what he seemed to be most interested in sharing. And now, he is trying to get me to hang out with him, and we met less than a week ago. So, I\'m currently in a place of trying to figure out how to be kind to another person and treat them well without feeling like I owe them anything or have a certain responsibility to do or say or give anything that I don\'t want to. Yeah, so that\'s a story for my week.

I work in an emergency room, and for the past several weeks, a surgical resident and I have gotten closer and closer in getting to know each other. He is extremely handsome, intelligent, and very down to earth. The last shift we worked together was a few days ago. He spent a large portion of the shift hanging out and talking by my side while I worked, talking about family, asking for my advice, and just overall observing me work. I waited all shift for him to ask me for coffee or even my number, but it didn't come. When he did leave to go back to the surgical floor, all of the nurses were gushing to me about how jealous they all were. One berated me for not getting his number first. I don't know if he's just being nice or if I should just give him my number.

So today, I'd like to share how my perspective on happiness changed throughout my life. Since I was really young, I feel like I kinda knew how difficult life would be. A lot of responsibilities and pain would be involved. After I grow up or as I grow up, since I was a little kid, I really wanted to avoid that kind of pain and pursue only happiness in my life. That is, for me at the time, happiness meant status without pain, and only joy and pleasure exist. So I hated, as a teenager or as a college university student, I hated taking the past or doing stuff that I didn't want to do, like studying a subject that I'm not interested in. And I only wanted to study subjects that I am interested in or do something that I really enjoy. And I think this mindset wasn't helping me to grow because I always try to avoid painful situations or painful experiences. It hindered my growth. Now I look back, I understand that. But anyway, since I was young, I was interested in Buddhism because Buddhism seemed like it talked about breaking out of painful life and going to the status of endless peace and happiness. So when I was in my mid-20s, early 20s, I did practice some Buddhism. Some practices I practiced were meditations and practices done in Buddhism oftentimes. But I don't know when, starting from when, but my perspective towards happiness slowly started to change as I was exposed to military content and army content. There was some popularity towards the ex-Navy SEAL-like ex-army officers that arose in the last couple of years in the US and in South Korea as well. And I've been watching their content and motivational content from the ex-Navy SEALs or ex-army officers or whatever. And it fully changed my perspective towards pain and happiness. They all talked about it. It was interesting to me because I was trying to avoid pain, but they were willingly accepting the pain or even welcoming the pain. And they go through painful situations on their own and willingly. So watching how different they are from me was interesting and I started to learn from their lessons and learn from their stories. And now my interest also slowly shifted to, like, MMA players, you know, mixed martial artists and the UFC, because they're all fighters and they go through a lot of hard training and painful training. It inspired me a lot. I think this kind of exposure to totally different people inspired me and made me think about happiness in totally different perspectives. And I also realized slowly that my level of happiness never changes. I have, for example, this year I achieved some of my goals that I said earlier in the year, but the joy only lasts for, like, 30 minutes or so, and then I'm going back to the same level of happiness that I was before. And also, when my environment changed this year, it was really difficult for me. But after a couple of days, I got used to the new environment and new situation. I thought I would be miserable forever, but I was okay. Actually, after a couple of days, and I restored a level of happiness that I contained before. So this made me realize that actually, happiness is I cannot gain happiness by avoiding pain, but happiness is kind of always there with me. And no matter what happens in my life, I'll be okay. And actually, painful experiences help me to realize that I'll always be okay and I always have the same kind of happiness level. So I don't really need to avoid pain or pursue happiness. So yeah, I think that's how my perspective towards happiness evolved over the last couple of years.

After watching School of Life and painfully finding ways of filling up my own bucket, and cleansing my social media so as to not attract the wrong kind of ppl luring me into hookups when all I really want is love, and looking up literature on what healthy relationships could be, even when it was easier to remain dejected and pessimistic, I feel so proud of being in a place where I can be a giver of love. I still don’t believe in fairy tale endings because I know that there will always be challenges in relationships and even bouts of getting so irritated with your partner - even in stellar marriages - but I believe in humility, respect, compassion, charity of interpretation, sincerity, understanding, vulnerability, kindness, and integrity. And I believe that I can choose to creatively find ways of inviting joy and romance to my and my partner’s shared lives, and to acquire the wisdom and discernment to honor and generously apply those values. I feel sober and hopeful, which is more than my adolescent self and her emotionally turbulent experiences could have dreamed of. There really needs to be a class on love and relationships. It would save us all a lot of heartache.

Hello. On Wednesday, I went to a senior center and packed lunches for seniors who can't leave their home easily. And then this week, I started delivering meals to those people, and it's been really lovely. It's made me feel really good about myself.

I'm the associate director of Donor Relations and Engagement at End Street Village. I've volunteered my whole life, and giving back was how I was raised. I was like, yeah, I need to be in non-profit. So, End Street Village is the largest provider of supportive services in housing for women experiencing homelessness in DC. We have five sites around the city. That includes a full spectrum of housing, from emergency and temporary shelter to recovery housing and permanent supportive housing. A large chunk of my job is focused on donor stewardship. So after people give a gift to an organization, we want them to feel the love. It's really important that they understand where their money is going and understand the impact that their dollars are having.

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.

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 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 ok 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!

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.

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.

So my girlfriend actually started a new kind medication last night to help her sleep, and it didn't go great. Turns out some of the side effects include hallucinations and just overall making you feel wonky. So this morning at 6:30 in the morning, she woke me up because she was playing with her cat. Then I went back to sleep because it's my off day and the one day where I get to sleep in. And then at 7:30 in the morning, she woke me up by starting a bath. And when I asked what was up, she said it was time to get ready because it was 7:30, and I reminded her it was Sunday. And she looked at me with this puzzled look. And then I went back to bed. And then I woke up at around 10:00 a.m. And I found her sleeping in the closet, after which I moved her back to the bed. And then it seemed to get a little bit better. But I don't think those meds are very good. I don't think they have a great effect.

Had Covid back in July, but this time I seem to have caught my first post-Covid regular cold. Still negative on a test and no fever (which I had back in July), so I really think it's just a regular cold. Anyway, I woke up sniffling around 3:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep. I used to get colds sometimes as often as every 2-3 months and forgot how miserable they can be. This cold was at least obtained in a fun way (pretty sure I caught it at my wedding), so no regrets there. I do plan to keep doing things involving crowds when they're really worth it to me. But might go back to taking some easy precautions when practical (like wearing a good-quality mask on the subway) just because this kind of sucks. I was also thinking of going back to in-person classes at the gym soon, but looking back, I constantly caught colds there, so might postpone that plan at least through cold and flu season. New husband is somehow not sick and generally catches colds far less often than me. Happy for him, but I'll admit I am more than a bit jealous.

Tuesday, yeah. So this Tuesday, I played squash for the very first time, and today\'s Friday, so it\'s been three days and I\'m still very sore from it. But it was my first time really trying something new in a while. I played with a couple of upperclassmen, and as a perfectionist, it\'s really hard for me to show my failure weakness. But what was really nice about the whole situation was that everyone was super friendly, even though I kept missing the ball. And it really made me feel a lot better about myself. I can\'t explain how silly it sounds, but for my upperclassmen friends to be so supportive of me, messing up, failing, and being nice playing the ball was really nice. When the guys played against each other, they were like, "swing real hard, the ball is going so fast, so hard." But when they played against me and another girl, they were a lot easier on us, which is kind of gentlemanly of them, I think. Yeah. The point was that I was able to fail a lot and be really bad at a sport and not feel really ashamed of it. So it was a really good first experience, and I definitely will play again sometime (unsure when) because I\'m still so sore, and it did take a very long time to get there. But overall, I really enjoyed the experience. So that was the story of me playing squash for the first time and not being afraid of not being perfect.

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 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's 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, 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'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. So my sister is writing this story, and the preliminary title, or the current title, is "Wonders for the Dead." And it\'s a really interesting story. Her and I had talked about it and kind of brainstormed together because it\'s based off the idea of Christian missionaries. But it\'s trying to take an ethical perspective or like a thoughtful perspective on the idea of someone being a missionary and bringing the idea of like, why would someone want to be a missionary? And so I read this story today to offer some edits or some critiques. And basically, the story goes, it starts out this little girl named Annalore is on a train with her mother and her two siblings. And they are traveling from, we don\'t know exactly where, but they\'re going to a citadel. And then the train stops because they need to do some train work. And they see three undead, or how they\'re called, dead. Three of the dead behind or like the little girl sees three of the dead and they\'re wearing ragged clothes. And she asks her mother, like, "mama, is that one of the dead?" And her mother\'s trying to sleep, so her mother tells her like, "Be quiet, leave me alone." But then the dead, they race for the train, they jump into the train, and they\'re trying to find somebody to bite or somebody to eat. And then they get in, everyone\'s panicking, there\'s like a stampede. The main character was in the woman\'s train compartment and all the men run into that compartment. And they\'re hiding, they\'re trying to get away from this, obviously slam his door closed. And then there\'s just this little boy and this old man who are left there with the dead chasing them. And so the little boy manages to open a window and jumps out the window, and the old man is waving his cane at the dead, trying to get out, trying to escape. He looks back to see that the little boy\'s opened the window and then they grab him and they start biting him, ripping him to pieces. And the whole time the little girl is just watching. And like her mother told her, stay still, sit, don\'t look. And so the whole time she\'s just watching because her mother can\'t pay attention to that with everything going on. So she sees this man get killed very violently. But then the train workers come and they have guns, and they\'re like, "you better leave this train or else we\'re going to blow you to Kingdom Come." And so then the dead, one of them says, "You should be scared of me. What are you doing?" But the train records, once again, are like, "we\'ll shoot you if you don\'t leave." So then finally they leave, they drag the body of the old man away with them, and the girl is horrified at thinking about what she saw. And so then, flash forward, maybe like ten years later, and she\'s trying to buy a gun in the store. And the store owner asks her, like, "Is this gun for your father?" She tells him, "no, this is not for my father." He\'s, like, "Are you sure?" She\'s like, "yes, because my father looks for all of his women folk, or like the women connected to him, to be well armed and taken care of." So eventually the store owner decides, like, "okay, fine, I\'ll sell you the gun." And he had tried to sell her, like, a really bad gun that wasn\'t working very well because he thought as a woman that she wouldn\'t know. But she instantly knew. And so then she takes her gun, she gets all of the materials that she needs for her father, for his store. She takes it over there. And then the store clerk is kind of flirting with her, like, "oh, you don\'t have to call me Mr. Gibson or whatever his name is. You can call me by my first name." And she\'s like, "that would be inappropriate." And he\'s like, "but is there a way that we could be close?" And she\'s like, "sure, whatever." And she leaves. She runs out because she\'s like, "I need to go and check the mail. Like, I\'m waiting for a package or a letter." Until she gets there and the mail is late. And so everybody starts freaking out. They\'re like, "Did the dead attack the train?" And the Sheriff\'s like, "no, the dead haven\'t attacked our train in ages, it\'s fine." And she\'s like, "yeah, but he doesn\'t know about me being attacked by the dead that time, like, ten years ago." So finally, the mail compartment arrives, and everybody\'s excited. They raise the man, and they ask him, like, "Wait, did the dead attack the train? It\'s all right, it\'s late." And he\'s just, like, frozen and speechless, holding these packages. And they\'re like, "Wait, he\'s one of the dead!" And they start freaking out, they start panicking. And then the girl fires her rifle into the air, and she\'s like, "you need to calm down. Like, he\'s not one of the dead. He doesn\'t have any of the signs of the dead." And so then she goes up to the guide, she\'s like, "okay, do you have my package from blah, blah, blah, this other city?" And he\'s like, "yeah, I do." He gives it to her. And she\'s like, "okay," because she\'s waiting for this response to find out if she can become a part of the lazari to help deal with the dead. And so that\'s the beginning of the story. And I thought it was a pretty interesting story. So you can tell me what you think.

I wanted to be an artist when I was in high school, but I actually started in nursing school. We were really poor, and my dad died when I was six, and I saw my mom struggle working in a sewing factory. I thought, well, this is crazy to be a starving artist. I better do something practical. So I went to school for nursing. Photography and me was a better fit. So, I started at the Miami Herald as a staff photographer, just from there moved on to do international stories, so I bounced around a lot. I traveled a whole lot. When you can capture a moment, capture history, preserve that second of time, that's meaningful in some way. If it makes you feel, it's probably gonna make someone else feel too. But those were the moments that I always look for. I feel like there are all different types of photography that you have to appreciate. You can do all these stylized, beautiful, perfectly composed pictures, but for me, journalism, I think the only thing that matters is the content in the moment and making someone feel. Because you can make someone think, but to make someone feel is the ultimate goal. The more you can do to connect people, the less hatred there will be in the world, the more understanding there will be.

I don't know if it's really well, I don't really have a story in mind. I think I'm just kind of like, have a lot of anxiety involving the job search or I guess, more shame around it. Because I guess is what I had to talk out. So a coworker of mine from my last job, and there's only, like, three of them, three coworkers, so one of them reached out and was like, hey, how are you doing? Oh, yeah. He wished me happy birthday. I was like. That was a while ago, but anyways, so I guess he reached out was like we should catch up. And I guess since I got that message, it kind of just been ashamed or embarrassed about my job search. Because I left that job in April. I was just done. Now that I think back about it, I feel like it couldn't be handled the resignation better instead of just setting a resignation letter to my boss. Well, I think I did pretty good given the circumstances and how I was in the moment. So I guess I'm just, like, embarrassed that I left the job in April. And now it's October, and I'm working at a bakery in a grocery store. So I think I carry a lot of shame around my lack of professional occupation. Especially because a lot of people. Have I guess I've internalized the idea that I'm meant for something great. I think a lot of people in my life, well, I know for sure a lot of people in my life have always told me that. I'm destined for something great, that I'm meant to do something good in the world. I've been hearing this since I was young. And I guess it's like, and even my last job. Like my boss would have to say, like I'm meant to do such greater things. So I guess it's like I'm feeling the weird pressure of. Being constantly told my whole life that I'm going to achieve greatness and then having this low period in my life right now, where I'm like, okay, well, I was able to travel a lot and I met really cool people, had really cool experiences. But then now coming back to reality, working a minimum wage job or minimum wage? Isn't livable. They're cutting my hours. The cost of living is crazy. Everything's increasing in prices, my family can't really make more money. We're barely getting by. So I guess his comment, just this comment. He generally probably just wants to catch up. And he's been very supportive of my growth. And I guess I'm just embarrassed to think, like, wow, I quit this job months ago, and yet I'm stuck in a minimum wage job, working more hours for less money than when I worked over there. So yeah. I don't know what to make of it right now. So yeah. So I guess I'm just dealing with those feelings of, like, embarrassment. Especially knowing that I graduated. With such a prestigious University, and that's kind of shoved down my throat. I just remember being in Korea and meeting my friend's Korean friend's family. And them just at least especially the Korean friend talking up my school. And they're like, she went to such a really good school. And I was like, oh, my God. I'm like I graduated. Well, but at what cost. And I don't know. I feel like I have all these expectations of my future being great. And right now I don't feel like I'm professionally living up to it, but I am doing better in terms of sense of community and enjoying hobbies and free time. So I'm growing in other ways and reconnecting and things that I missed through the pandemic and through whatever shitshow was last year. But I feel kind of like, wow. Here I am, three months into a job I gave myself the five-month deadline. I was like, when I come back, it's going to take five to eight months to find a full-time job and I just have to have a job in the meantime. I don't know. I just feel me. So yeah, I ashamed, embarrassed, and just kind of, like, disappointed the reality of life and how expensive everything was. And I wish I was born rich, and I wish I was a neffle baby. Instead, I have to forge all these connections on my own because. I don't have family ties to extreme wealth. But whatever, I guess.

I knew I wanted to go to college but didn't know how I was gonna get there. I had a very supportive family, but financially, we didn't have any money tucked away. Fortunately, I was able to get a scholarship to a college. I got my Bachelor's degree in communication. Out of college, I did sales for a number of years, just kind of trying to find my way. My wife was a student at Wayne Community College, and they had an opportunity, an opening on the phones. One day, the chancellor of the college was on the other end, and I had no clue. I was just excited to be answering phones for the college. He wanted to meet me, and I had opportunities to advance from there. Now, I am the associate vice chancellor for students services. So, I tell everybody, "I'm not supposed to be here, statistically speaking. I'm a black male and I grew up in Detroit with all the gang violence, with all the drug violence." Don't be defined by the neighborhoods that you came from. Don't be defined by whether or not you're a first-generation college student, whether you're a minority. Whatever that is, you can go and do and be whoever you wanna be.

So last night, I got to go out with some of my friends - a good group of friends, and their parents. And it kind of just brought up all those nostalgic feels of being a kid again and hanging out with everyone, socializing, and laughing. And it was just a really good time. And it felt really good just to spend time with good friends who have known you for a long time, and you feel safe and comfortable with, and you can giggle and laugh and just share stories together.

Last May, I celebrated my fortieth birthday with my family and two other families. We gathered at the lake in Kentucky where we meet every May. We spent three days fishing, boating, and socializing. It was great to hear from old friends who we do not see often anymore. All of the adults were very close in college but have drifted apart in recent years, moving to different states. It was important to me because while I enjoy meeting with my two best friends from college, our families have now started to grow closer as well. Each family has two children, and I enjoyed seeing my daughters become closer friends with the other children. The children planned their own games, enjoyed swimming in the lake, and created a rope swing off of the dock. The most meaningful moments to me were seeing our children develop a similar friendship to what I had with the two other Dads who were present that weekend. The children wanted to keep in contact upon leaving, which has not happened before. They planned to "borrow" phones from their parents so that they could text and call each other throughout the summer. They even planned another trip for the three families to an amusement park later this fall. The children are now growing old enough that they can experience lake activities without the adults, giving us more time for reflection and fun. The fact that the weekend hit a milestone birthday for me this year was largely a coincidence, but it worked out perfectly as a time to reflect on four decades and anticipate (hopefully) many more. It is great to know that some friendships span multiple generations.

It's not an Astoria that happened recently. It's a story in my past. And the strongest emotion I felt here was shame. It was when I was in fifth grade. That's a time in adolescence when you're pudgy and awkward. And I remember being the target of bullying, where people were mooing at me, and I just felt absolutely terrible. And the teachers had to intervene. That's not even the real shame part that I feel. The shame part that I feel is that a week later there was another young girl that was the target of the same bullying, and I participated in it. Because now looking back, I guess I just really wanted to be a part of the group. And so I joined in. And I just feel absolutely terrible about having made somebody else feel the same way that I did.

Dealing with racist issues in Texas, in the south, in the 80s really impacted my academic self-esteem. Once I got past that, I had a teacher who encouraged me, who basically did a very simple thing. He told me that you define you. If you define yourself, it's got to be up to you. That completely changed my life at the age of ten. When you go through a period of your life where you don't believe in yourself very much, and then the light comes on and all of a sudden you believe that, "Wow, I can do anything I set my mind to. If only I knew what I wanted to set my mind to." I have a big issue with prioritizing because there's a lot that I want to do right now. And so when you try to do everything, that's when you get frustrated.

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.

We took a really cool course that invited people who weren't engineers, but who wanted to do some sort of science change. It was an art science class that said, "It's all about combining the beauty of art and the analytical power of science to do something," so you just had to come in and have an idea and then find a way to combine those two to come up with a solution. So, we just locked ourselves up and brainstormed. And this is what we presented. And thankfully, being at somewhere like Harvard, there were a lot of resources that were made available to us. So, from the class, we got a small grant to keep on playing around with the idea. And for a while, it was just kind of trying to understand what is this ball. Engineers didn't believe it could work. So we actually had to research how it would work: research the Faraday Principle. Then build their own conceptual model, test it in South Africa, and then have engineers say, "Okay." For us, it was really interesting because people always say, "How do you think out of the box?" And I'm like, "It's really easy to think out of the box when you don't even know the parameters of the box." If you don't even know that a box exists, whereas knowledge is power. Sometimes, with knowledge, it's very easy to see the obstacles. And we were just like, "Why wouldn't it work?" Even though we did not necessarily have the technical expertise, we certainly knew the context.

So last night, I got to go out with some of my friends - a good group of friends, and their parents. And it kind of just brought up all those nostalgic feels of being a kid again and hanging out with everyone, socializing, and laughing. And it was just a really good time. And it felt really good just to spend time with good friends who have known you for a long time, and you feel safe and comfortable with, and you can giggle and laugh and just share stories together.

I'm a lucky guy. I have a solid group of friends, the core of which have been together since we were 12 years old. Life gets busy, and we don't see each other as much as we should. But a few times a year, someone will throw some kind of get-together. For the last couple of years in early spring, I've thrown a Margarita Party. We grill carne asada, my wife makes fresh salsa and a big pot of frijoles, I make so many batches of blended margaritas. We've been friends for over 20 years at this point, and I still love these people. The party is not this weekend but the next, and I'm so excited I'm having a hard time sleeping each night! The night before Christmas or Disneyland doesn't compare. I'm just happy, we're gonna listen to ska, reggae, and punk. We're going to eat Mexican food and soak up the warm sun, and I'm going to laugh and hug my friends.

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.

I hate being female in this society. I hate body standards. I hate society for making me grow up comparing my body to everyone around me, seeing only one body type to look up to in media. I hate that body types go in and out of trend. I hate that skinny is an accessory. I hate that I grew up with family monitoring my body in a way they didn't do for my brother. I hate how impressed everyone was when I lost my appetite for a year. I hate how much better I got treated once I lost weight. I hate that I wasn't even given the chance to accept my body before it started giving out. I hate that it's easier to tell people about my medical history than it would be to tell them I gained 10 pounds. I hate how much it's all shaped me. I hate that no matter how hard I try, I can't reverse the harm.

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.

Today, I saw photos and videos of old friends spending time together, and I don’t know why it still hurts after all this time, but it does. They’re so close to each other, and they just look so happy. They were like the older counterpart to my friend group in school, and they were always welcoming and good to me. I know I was happy there, and I wish I was still connected to that group and to my own. Those are the people I grew up with and should have graduated with, and the people I should have gotten to see every time I came home from college, but now I’m living in a completely different state from them. It’s been years, and I should be over this by now, but somehow I still haven’t moved on.

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 was raised by a single mom, an immigrant from Guatemala. I don't even know my father. That was a huge struggle. I was one of those at-risk kids and I had no inkling about going into anything at that point. I just started joining as many clubs as I could. One of the clubs I joined was the Future Teachers Club. I was like, okay, let me just join this and see what it's all about. I had no inkling about going into education. The teacher who ran the club, I don't know what she saw in me, but she introduced me to the Golden Apple Foundation. I became one of the Golden Apple scholars and joined their family. I feel I'm one of the few blessed people who had the chance to turn my life around. The only reason was because of teachers. For me to get where I am, a lot of people had to dedicate time to me. It's only right that I do the same for others if I had the opportunity. Teaching is a blessing to me.

Okay. The story I'd like to tell is about setting boundaries at work. I think that the last few days, I've been struggling with working with people who are not necessarily either totally in tune with my responsibilities as a consultant or people who are just, like, sort of frazzled and pushing responsibility onto me. And I think that I've been feeling like I need to set better boundaries or I need to be clearer with myself about what those expectations are. Like, whether it's okay to scope research without an expectation of being paid for those hours, whether I need to price that into future work, or whether that's just something that I need to set better boundaries about.

I found a new job closer to my house that pays more and has better benefits. It's a larger company, so I won't have to deal with the clique mentality that has taken over my current job. I won't have to do the work of 6 people while never being recognized. I won't have to deal with a toxic mentality where my boss pulls me into an office to yell at me for not clicking on one of my screens for an hour when my job requires 14 open. I won't have to listen to my boss say I can't step away from my desk when I'm having panic attacks from my PTSD or hear a different manager giggle about comments that my appointments take me out of the office. I don't have to deal with so much rudeness and double standards and having me do the work of a department with no recognition and people who's slack I've been picking up get promoted.

Related to the Indian restaurant, I guess I'll tell a story about my first experience with Mexican food. We live in Tennessee, where nobody ever had Mexican food. The foreign food that we had, which was Zena is very excited. Was pizza and also sometimes chow, Megan. But my aunt is from Texas and she went to Texas to visit and came back with some canned corn tortillas and some canned, I think, enchilada sauce. So, she invited us over. Up until that time, I was probably nine or ten, maybe ten. I really didn't like any kind of food. I liked hamburger and French fries and Pinto beans and pretty much that was it. But she made us Tex-Mex food, enchiladas, and tacos, and it was so delicious. I instantly converted to being a Mexican food lover. And also, that was the muller when I started eating other things besides my very limited diet.

Today, I asked my mum how she made that rice with saffron. After I ate the rice, I remembered a meat replacement she made me when I was vegetarian. She put together mushrooms and zucchini, rolled it in egg, put breadcrumbs around it, and then fried it in a pan. She put so much thought into it. Even after she came home from work, she wanted to make a good meal for me. I'm so thankful for all those meals she cooked. It makes me happy. I love my mum.

Yeah. So, as I mentioned before, I started reading this book called "Unearthly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vaughn, and actually, Ocean Vaughn came to my school. Actually, when I graduated, he spoke at my commencement ceremony. And reading this book made me think about the fact that if I had read this book a year ago or a year and a half ago, that when Ocean Vaughn came, I would have known him, would have known his work, and something about his life and all these very deeply personal things that he\'s written about. And I just started to wonder why I didn\'t discover this book before. But then, I started just like as I was on the train and as I was walking home, really thinking about how I feel since graduating College and all the things that I\'ve done since then, that I have changed a lot in a really quick or really short period of time. And that some of the different books and different things that have been that are just coming to me now have been postponed but I got years ago but didn\'t start. That maybe they are a part of my current change and the fact that I pick them up again is a part of my current change and will help in the growth that is to come. And yeah, I think just reading this book and the past few months, a lot of things have just been kind of impacting me in a different way. And it\'s very interesting because there\'s a lot about it that is philosophical, a lot of it that\'s mental. Some things are sad, some things that are happy. It\'s like so many things mixed up together. So, yeah, that\'s not just one story, but kind of an ongoing story of my current time.

I'm the first person out of four living generations to have left Mississippi. I didn't write when I was in Mississippi. I didn't perform. I didn't even know I had the capacity to do what I do now until I moved. I was never in an environment where that was encouraged or even understood. No one asked me my story, and that was problematic for me. I didn't feel connected in a way that other people felt connected in Mississippi. People describe me usually, or often, as an inspirational poet. My story helps other people tell their stories too. To me, that's the beauty of life; it's the people that you see. It's the stories that we tell. It's the stories that we remember, and it's how they affect us.

So my story is about my feelings that got activated about the feelings of jealousy that got activated when I got to know that a friend of mine, who is younger to me, got a job. And I just feel that I am running behind in my life, certain aspects. And there are people, and people around me, who are like having the same level of achievement at a younger age. So I just feel like jealousy and not good, and that I think stems from my limitation somewhere.

Dealing with racist issues in Texas, in the south, in the 80s really impacted my academic self-esteem. Once I got past that, I had a teacher who encouraged me, who basically did a very simple thing. He told me that you define you. If you define yourself, it's got to be up to you. That completely changed my life at the age of ten. When you go through a period of your life where you don't believe in yourself very much, and then the light comes on and all of a sudden you believe that, "Wow, I can do anything I set my mind to. If only I knew what I wanted to set my mind to." I have a big issue with prioritizing because there's a lot that I want to do right now. And so when you try to do everything, that's when you get frustrated.

Yeah. So, I wanted to be a little more positive, maybe a funny story. But I'm a friend, she's my childhood friend, from high school, well even younger than that. And she was also, her mom was also divorced, which, we were in a small town and being a divorced woman was, like, so terrible. And it was my mom and her mom and one other mom in a town of, like, 12,000. I think it's kind of ridiculous for our grade. But I would run all over the neighborhood because my mom would be sleeping and depressed in her house and I wanted to go do something. So I would go outside and play all the time. And I was in, I think, like third grade, going into fourth grade, and I would go ring my friend's doorbells and ask them to play, and looking back now I think it's really funny because kids didn't do that. Kids didn't go and I don't remember anybody actually ever coming over to my house and ringing my doorbell and asking me to play. So sometimes I'm like, oh no, was I that annoying kid? But I didn't seem like it. I think kids were just more shy. So, this friend, when I first met her, I had a friend that was living in that house and they were moving and I had gone by the week before to see if she wanted to play and they were packing up and they told me, you know what? Why don't you come by this day and we'll be here, which looking back now, they just wanted me to leave, I think. But I went over there that day and they were completely gone. There was a whole new family moved in and there was a babysitter there. And I was like, oh wow, okay. And they were like, oh, how old are you? And I was like, oh, I'm in fourth grade. They were like, oh, well, our daughter is in fourth grade. Why don't you come back when she's here? So, I go back, like, I think two days later, they're moved in. This was when the babysitter was there and she was braiding this girl's hair, this blonde girl's hair and she did not want to talk to me. And I was like, Hi, I'm Madison and I'm here to meet you. And I think pretty much, they made her play with me. But she tells me this all the time and I always remember that, is that she remembers being like, Great, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be friends with anybody. And then I came over with cat eyeglasses and braces and talking all excited about how we should be friends and do all these things and we're still friends to this day and I actually go and visit her in Denver. Yeah, very funny friendship. Very funny.

I was at the checkout this morning, waiting behind a mom and her 4/5-year-old daughter. She had a cart full of Halloween decorations. Cutesy things like plush pumpkins and wreaths and scarecrows. The mom was at the end of the counter sorting out her reusable shopping bags. The child was unloading the cart. She was just jumping with excitement. The level in the cart got so low that the kid couldn't reach over the edge. So she did what any kid would do. She climbed the side. The cart started to tip, so I reached out to steady it. I guess Mom caught my movement out of the corner of her eye, because she whipped around, grabbed the kid, and started scolding her. Which, understandable. I startled her, and her kid scared her. She stands the kid on the ground and starts emptying the cart. And this is where it starts to go off the rails... The kid is watching with such a look of longing on her face. It was pitiful. The mom completely ignores her. Like she's not even there. Now, me. I would've done one of two or three things. I would've braced that cart with my feet and invited her to climb on up and have at it. Or picked the kid up and put her in the cart so she could hand things out. Or, at the very least, handed the things from the cart to the kid to put on the counter. So, when the mom turns towards the cashier, the kid starts climbing the cart again. Mom catches her again and scolds more harshly. Now the kid is standing there, staring at the floor, trying not to cry. Mom is doing the ignoring thing again. I'm trying not to notice. Then, the thing that absolutely burned my bacon... Last thing mom picked up out of the cart is this gorgeous child's Halloween mask. It's got fake painted lashes and adorable makeup and is trimmed around the edges with fluffy little feathers. Mom holds it in her hand, looks at the kid and says, "You didn't really want this anyway, did you?" In this bored, mean girl kind of voice. And the kid just looks at the mask. Follows with her eyes as mom puts it back on the shelf. I've never wanted to slap someone so much in my life. Poor kid.

This story may be repetitive, but we had a little issue with the setup of the computer. Here, it didn't take the whole story, so I'll start again. So, I wanted to talk about my little city garden. I have been replacing a lot of plants that were in my garden with native pollinator-friendly plants. It has been a lot of work, but I believe it's paying off. I have been having butterflies in the garden - Monarch butterflies and Swallowtail butterflies. It has been a joy to see that the work has paid off because in the city, we need more green, we need more butterflies.

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.

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'm a final inspector over in the additive area. What I do on a day-to-day basis is I actually inspect the parts to make sure we are shipping quality parts out the door in a timely manner. My upbringing, my parents, they always just pushed the issue of work hard. I wound up moving to Atlanta, working for a company called RightStar Systems. We just installed motherboards, graphic cards in different computers. As I was looking online, I just happened to see GE Aviation hiring. As a kid, you see the light bulbs, you see the microwaves, so GE is the top brand. So of course, I was like, "I gotta apply, I gotta see what's going on there." So just work hard, have a good head, have a good attitude, and you can pursue any job field that you wanna pursue.

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 directed a play that worked very well in Boston, and one day a producer came to me and said, "Your play is so vicious, so wonderful. We're gonna do a special with your play.'' So I agreed. And they shoot a film, Sixteen, and I was with a crew, and I was fascinated. I trained to direct actors, but I never worked in television or any movie before. You have to be honest about yourself, be honest with others, and be honest about what you want. If you have this spirit of doing what you want to do -- because I think that is the right thing -- you have to do it.

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.

Three months ago, my life completely changed for the better. I never thought the day would come where I would become a mother. At the age of thirty-five and after years of trying to get pregnant and having two miscarriages, I had given up on having a child. My husband and I were looking into adopting, but the process seemed pretty hard and there were no guarantees. In the end, I got pregnant out of nowhere, and I was shocked to my core when I found out that I was pregnant and I was two months along. The fetus appeared healthy, and I was on my way to becoming a mother. Three months ago, my daughter was born; a healthy 7-pound 3-oz. No one or nothing could have prepared me for the profound love I have for my daughter, and I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to be a mother to my sweet girl. I love her so much, and my husband and I are so very happy. We can't wait to see what the future holds, and we are secretly hoping to be blessed with another child. The changes in our lives have been mostly positive and some negatives. The positives are having our child and being able to make lifelong memories with her. Our families have been great throughout my pregnancy, and they have been so helpful in the last couple of months. On the other hand, the negatives are not getting enough sleep. I feel tired and excited most of the time, and there are times when I doze off every chance I get. The worry for our child is horrible at times, and it's a major drawback for us because in the back of our mind, we feel like this beautiful experience might not last and can be easily taken away from us.

Okay. So it\'s not really a happy story to tell right now, but I guess I\'ve just been feeling a little overwhelmed. With the current situation, Israel and Palestine in terms of the current war that Israel is waging on Palestine. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to talk about the overall lack of sense of power that I have, which is... I don\'t know. I just feel like I have such little power to do any change and it kind of really just sucks. I feel like the situation just overall really sucks because when I came to the war in Ukraine and Russia, everyone was on the side of Ukraine. They\'re like, "Okay, defend your land. Protect yourself. Your heritage." Vladimir Putin is like the obvious... like the villain. It was very like media always can support of Ukraine, so many countries with Puerto, Ukraine and their sovereignty. And then when it comes to Israel and Palestine, I feel like a sense of loss. I don\'t know, like a mind warp. Because media is sharing one side of the story. So like news, popular news outlets are showing how vulnerable Israel is and how they\'re the victim. But then what you\'ll see on the ground, like a lot of social media, I follow in Palestine and have been following for years. I didn\'t really note too much about Palestine and Israel, but I knew a little bit because I was already following creators that talked about the Palestinian cause. And I guess I\'m just... like baffled at how the media paints one picture of Israel, and then the underground roots of people who are talking and organizing show a completely different side of the story. They definitely show like Palestinians are the vulnerable population. They\'re the ones who like hospitals are being bombed with civilians are being hurt. I guess I\'m just trying to grapple with the mind fuck of it all of Western media showing Israel as like they\'re the ones defending themselves as retaliation. But... it\'s an overkill like in the literal sense. Israel has just been bombing Gaza. Nonstop. And the people there have no refuge from it. And the fact that Israel is actually committing war crimes, like bombing hospitals, bombing safe zones, cutting off power supplies. I guess the final final straw for me where I\'m like, "Oh my God, I guess..." The final point of despair. Like I was already slowly sinking into the form of despair. Of, like, "Wow. Israel is bombing hospitals like they\'re not letting humanitarian aid in." It was like all these... big things Israel was doing that were like little stabs in my heart, I don\'t know, or like in my sanity I don\'t know. I already felt the pain little by little, and I\'m very detached from it like I don\'t have much emotional connection to the region or to its unique problems. But... the more and more I kept hearing about things happening with Israel, the more I was like, "Oh my God, this is bad." But I think the final final straw, where I\'m literally like, "Yeah, I need to be calling representatives. I need to be emailing and sending letters." The final drive for me was that Israel completely bombed and decimated service to the area. So now, like Palestinians and people in Gaza, or at least people in Gaza literally cannot call anyone like they can\'t call. They can\'t text. They have no access to Internet. Like all the news outlets reporting from there have no cell service. I don\'t know how it happened. And I think that\'s the final straw for me where I\'m like, "You literally cut off the last source of communication we have to people on the ground, people who are worrying about their families, people who are worrying about their friends. And these are war crimes. And I just feel like baffled, like we\'re not doing anything about it. The international community is completely failing people in Gaza. It is such a stark contrast from what was happening in Ukraine, how people were sending money in Ukraine, people were like, "I\'ll host you. I\'ll give you refuge in my home." And it\'s like, the complete opposite. And I really don\'t understand how or why. I\'m just baffled. I\'m also like, yeah, I think people see this as like a righteous religious war to some extent, like some people, I think. I don\'t know, that\'s like my very limited take on it. That people see as like, "Oh, Israel, Christianity versus Muslims." And then I don\'t know. I feel like that\'s to some extent, some of the comments I\'ve seen, but I\'m just like, how are we okay with this super powerful country or, now in the comparison like super powerful country completely obliterating another one. How are we as a society okay when someone who holds so much power is okay to take it out on someone who holds so little, like a big guy beating up a little kid. Like how? I\'m just, like, amazed. I don\'t know, amazed. Just baffled that we\'re okay with this. And there\'s really nothing I can do because like the US backs Israel. So I feel like I have no power. I\'m one person, one person who doesn\'t have money. I don\'t have power. I don\'t have money. I don\'t have influence. First Gen in this country. I have almost nothing to my name. What power do I really have to help in this fight? I\'m at a loss. And the most I can do is share posts on social media, and even then, that makes me a little anxious about... the amount of common people have. But I just repost a couple of things here and there. But I\'m like, what good is it? Or like, I try to talk to my parents or to people around me. Let them know, like, this is the other side. Yeah, the media. Western media... is painting it this way. But these are like actual videos and testimonies I\'ve seen from people on the ground. I just feel so helpless, helpless, and hopeless. And it\'s such a complete, stark contrast from Ukraine and Russia. Like so huge. I don\'t even know what to do with this information. And I guess like a part of it, because I feel like I think when it comes to me, whenever I worry about something bigger than myself, it\'s usually... Like a sign of some insecurity. No. Okay. I get you. Like, okay. I realized that whenever I\'m nervous or scared about something way bigger than myself, it\'s usually a reflection of a vulnerability or insecurity I have of myself. In relation to myself. And I think I just come to realize that the US doesn\'t care about its citizens. It doesn\'t care about... I hate think about money and I already knew that. But this is another example where I\'m like, wow, I am a citizen of this country. I\'m paying taxes to this country. I want the best for the people in the country. But the reality is the government, the establishment, people who have power and money don\'t care about me. They don\'t care about people who don\'t have power, who don\'t have influence. They don\'t have money. They don\'t care about... its citizens. It just cares about the bottom line and the profit. I keep thinking about the hostages in Gaza who can\'t leave. I guess Israel too. I don\'t know about that. I don\'t know what the fuck Israel is doing, but I just keep thinking about American citizens and residents stuck in Gaza, and like me growing up and being told that American passport, so powerful, so privileged, like the US people don\'t mess with Americans abroad or anything. Because yeah, because it\'s like the US will get involved. And I\'m like, this is such bullshit. Like I was just fed lies. Growing up. The US isn\'t too shit for its citizens when it comes down to money. Or like when it comes down to money and prestige versus the safety of a people, the institutions don\'t give a fuck. So... Yeah. So I guess I\'m just like, these are all the feelings I\'m grappling with. I have so little power in comparison to this giant ass award as being waged. People don\'t give a shit about minorities. I don\'t know, like non-white minorities. Non-White citizens. People, residents. And that the State truly does not care for your well-being. At least the US doesn\'t. So I guess it just makes me hopeless. So yeah, that\'s what I\'ve been grappling with the last couple of days, weeks. And I don\'t know what to do with this.

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.

Okay. So the story is from when I was a little kid, and my dad would take me fishing, so we would go in a boat out on the lake to catch fish. And because I was a little kid, I didn\'t like to wake up early, not that I do now, but I didn\'t want to wake up really early in the morning and leave before the sun came up. And I got tired of sitting out in the hot sun and not catching anything, not having any fun. And so I would complain a lot, and that\'s hard for an adult to listen to, a little kid complain a lot. And I said, "I was bored," and I wasn\'t catching anything, and I kind of gave up. And my dad told me that you won\'t catch anything unless you have your bait in the water, which is true. So he was trying to say, like, you\'ll have more fun if you keep working hard. But as a kid, it didn\'t really resonate with me, but many years later, as an adult, that saying has stuck with me. And I\'ve taken it as more of a metaphor. And the idea is that if you don\'t try, you can\'t really succeed. So you have to try. So I think it\'s a nice memory. At the time, I didn\'t really like to listen to what he had to say because I was bored and I wanted to go home and play and watch cartoons and stuff. But it\'s an important memory and it reminds me that in order to have success, you have to keep trying.

I grew up in Honduras. I was always dreaming; my mind was always dreaming. I knew that I didn't wanna be a doctor, that I didn't wanna be a lawyer. When I was eight years old, I was making caramels to sell in school, and today I'm making the same thing. So when you see yourself, what you did when you were little—what you really enjoyed doing—just go back to that age. The point is really enjoying what you do. And it's not so much about money—of course money counts—but when you enjoy what you like to do, you work so hard that eventually the money is gonna come because hard work is paid.

So, about two years ago, I was in a pretty challenging course with optional homework. I took the option and didn't do any of those homework because it didn't affect my grade. But then, coming up to the exam, I thought I knew everything that I needed, and the exam was a wake-up call where I didn't do so well. And looking back at the optional homework problems, they were very similar. So, I learned from that just to do those problems which, in the end, helped me do better on the following exams. But that was probably the worst test I ever did because I wasn't very prepared.

Last semester, I took accounting. I fell into a really awful depressive episode and failed every single exam that I took for the class. Because of COVID, I could switch the class to Pass/Fail and it didn't hurt my GPA when I ultimately failed the class. I need the class as a prerequisite for business school, so I decided to take it again this summer. I was nervous because I failed so miserably last time. I got a therapist, focused on improving my mental health, put a lot of work in, and today, I passed the first exam of the Summer Semester with an 87.8%, which is B+! I'm beyond excited! This is the same test that I failed with a 46% last semester because I was having near constant suicidal thoughts. I couldn't function enough to study, and I didn't know any of it. I've dealt with depression for so, so long, and I convinced myself that I would never amount to anything. This gives me a little bit of hope. Maybe I can succeed. Maybe everything will be okay. Maybe I won't end up a failure.

All right, so my first session. I wasn't quite sure the level of interaction, so I had done talking before. I had sort of told the story. So I suppose now I'll share the rest of the story. I was working at the University of Rhode Island and I worked in the IT Department there, and I helped faculty members produce online teaching and learning materials and helped with the system administration for their Learning Management System. And one of my favorite things about working in a university setting is the academic nature of it, the focus on knowledge and teaching and learning, and the curiosity and excitement and energy that is around the folks that choose to work there and study there and teach there. I love that sort of environment. And along with that are conferences that happen and speakers that come. And one of the things that URI holds every year is TEDx Conference, and they put out a call for speakers. The theme for this year that I'm describing was change. And on a whim, I applied to speak. And I had some things I wanted to share, some things that I was interested in and felt might be worth sharing. But it seemed like an unlikely thing that I would be selected to speak, but I thought I would apply anyway and go through the process. It's something worth trying even though I was sort of anxious about the experience of even just trying and potentially failing in front of people I respected. But I did it and I went to the initial submission stage. And that was like a short pitch, you had about maybe two minutes, of like a pitch in front of a small panel of judges. And that went not as well as it could have gone, but there were some things that I didn't include, or I hadn't accounted for my time correctly. So there were some things that they gave me a little bit of extra time to finish what I wanted to share. And I was thankful for that because they contacted me to say I had made it to the next round. And once I made it to the next round, I thought, oh, this might be something. So at that point, I restructured the talk a little bit in a way that I thought aligned with what some of their goals might be. I had the thought to incorporate some poetry into it because the folks on the panel were sort of artists and creatives, some of them were, and I thought that might align with something that would be interesting for one of the speakers to include. That went pretty well. There was still uncertainty if I would get a spot. And then a few weeks later, I got an email that said I was selected as one of the speakers. And that's a funny mail to get in terms of sort of if you chart the energy level of your brain when you receive different information, every once in a while, there's a bit of information you receive that gives you that spark of joy and excitement and optimism and nervousness. And it's this specific mix of fun emotions that you don't get to experience often, but that was one of them. So I was excited to get selected, and then I got to work with the talk and practice and put the presentation together. And then I was able to give the talk. And if I'm being honest, it was a great experience, and I'm thankful for it. There's a lot that I would do differently having seen it after it was recorded. And of course, you only get one shot to do it live. So as those things go, I feel maybe like a seven out of ten in terms of how satisfied I was with what's recorded and available to watch or whatever, but it's something I'm proud of, but I think about often as something I'd like to do again. Sort of have a redo to represent myself in the way that I'd really like to and, more importantly, represent the ideas that I feel are worth sharing around the topic that I spoke about -- positive change. I find myself wondering sometimes like, oh, I would do that differently or structure that differently. So I suppose I hope I get another opportunity at some point to share some of those ideas in a way that people might see. So, yeah, that's what's been on my mind and I thought it would be a fun story to share.

I recently had a poem of mine published in a literary magazine. As someone who has been writing poetry my whole life, this is huge. I only started submitting my work within the last year and have been published in many underground publications. However, more recently, I was published in a more established magazine. My friends threw me a congratulatory party, and it blew me away. My party was hosted at a beach house. They had decorated it all pink and with my initials everywhere. They even cut out and framed my poem and pasted it everywhere. Bits of my writing were adorned throughout the house and the yard. It was also themed! They had it themed around tea parties, which I love. They purchased all sorts of unique teas, including blooming tea. I had never seen blooming tea before and was amazed, as I love flowers as well. Overall, I had a blast at this party where we all celebrated something very meaningful to me. I am so proud of myself, and I just have the best friends ever. I am so glad that they not only enjoy my work but love me enough to do something like this for me.

Today, I had dinner with a new friend, and I really enjoyed it. I think it makes me feel a bit more at home to find friends that I really click with.

I just moved to a new town, and I absolutely love the area, but I'm at a loss on how to meet people. In the past, my friendships were based on being "forced" together like in the office or school. I now work from home, and my hobbies tend to not involve any interactions with others (hiking, kayaking, binge-watching Netflix). I also tend to be rather shy around new people, so the idea of initiating a conversation with someone randomly would make me anxious.

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 worked in technology up until 1998, in which I struck out on my own and 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.

Cool. So today, I was looking at photos of some friends. It was a friend's birthday today, and I was looking at photos from maybe ten years, from 2006 to probably 2014. Gosh, I don't know, ten to 2014. I guess maybe somewhere around there. Anyways, I was just thinking about how my friends and I used to go hike in college and just have fun and build forts. We were already old, but it was still fun to do that. And I was sending some photos to some other friends, and I was just thinking about a vacation that we went on in high school. That was wild and fun. And it was just interesting to see photos of us from when we were younger. And it made me think of how young we were and how young I was and how much we've all grown. And we look different and we were different. We were closer friends then, and now we're all grown up. And some of my friends are lawyers, and I work in artificial intelligence. And it was just interesting to look back on those photos today and back on photos throughout my life. But particularly on the photos of my friends. It's nice, I guess, to remember being so close to those people, even though we were all young and it was messy and we weren't responsible adults, emotionally or in any other way. But it was nice to be so close with my friends during those years past.

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 you've come with everything. I'm now in college away from that easy-going 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.

Yesterday, yesterday, we went to another friend's house. There were a lot of people around, 20 to 30 people from our church. And we brought Samba. We played volleyball and Samba. Other dogs and we also had a lot of fun there.

I recently went on vacation with my family. We went to Point Magu in Malibu to go camping for three days. When we first arrived, we set up our tent and got our food ready for cooking. Once our tent was set up, we laid out our sleeping bags. We then started cooking our lunch for the day. We started our firepit and prepped our food. I then cooked hot dogs and french fries for my family. We ate on the picnic table that was at our campsite. The food was delicious, and then we got ready to go to the beach. We walked down to the beach and frolicked in the waves. We then sat on the sand and soaked up the sun. After the beach, we walked back to our campsite and started to prep for dinner. We had hamburgers and salad for dinner and made s'mores for dessert. We loved cooking over the firepit because we were connected with the outside world. We went to sleep to the sounds of nature. When we woke up, we were completely refreshed and recharged.

It's not an Astoria that happened recently. It's a story in my past. And the strongest emotion I felt here was shame. It was when I was in fifth grade. That's a time in adolescence when you're pudgy and awkward. And I remember being the target of bullying, where people were mooing at me, and I just felt absolutely terrible. And the teachers had to intervene. That's not even the real shame part that I feel. The shame part that I feel is that a week later there was another young girl that was the target of the same bullying, and I participated in it. Because now looking back, I guess I just really wanted to be a part of the group. And so I joined in. And I just feel absolutely terrible about having made somebody else feel the same way that I did.

I'm a teenage girl in my junior year of high school. As a kid, someone I trusted took advantage of me, and it took me until I was 14 to realize that it wasn't my fault. This was someone that was older than me by 5 years and knew what he was doing. I didn't, and he tricked me into doing things I deeply regret now. I'm still struggling now with this realization because for the longest time I tried to convince myself it didn't even happen. It has made me scared of guys and their intentions. Fear spikes in my chest whenever a guy tries to befriend me. I'm terrified for my friends when they like guys because I'm scared they'll be hurt by someone. I don't ever voice that to them because I know it's irrational, but it's obvious I'm uncomfortable and that bothers them. I wish this didn't impact my life so much. I feel bad for immediately assuming every guy is dangerous, but I can't help it. I don't know what to do about it. This also impacts my relationships with my female friends because I avoid spending time with them when they're around guys. I haven't told them why I'm like this because it feels like I'm overreacting. There are guys I'm friends with, but they're not close to me. They're online friends that I play video games with. I don't have in-person guy friends. I don't feel like I have a right to feel this way because there are women out there who went through worse, yet they don't struggle the way I do.

Okay. I was married when I was young, and unfortunately, my first husband had a heart attack at a young age. And I had two young children to take care of. I hadn\'t dated or been out with anybody for years. My children were growing up - my son was in college and my daughter was 16. And she decided that she liked heavy music, so she wanted to go to Ozzfest in Georgia. So, a friend of hers, the mother, and I drove them to Atlanta. And we went to Ozzfest.\n\nI was getting something to drink for the mother, the other mother, and myself. And I was standing there, and I saw this man with the most beautiful hair I\'d ever seen. It was really long and just beautiful, thick, and beautiful. And I told him, "You have the most beautiful hair of anyone I\'ve ever seen. Excuse me." And he said, "Well, thank you." And, "You look like you totally don\'t belong here." So, I said I laughed, and we talked a little more. And I went and sat back down. And a little while later, I happened to look on one of the stages, and I saw him on stage performing with this band. I didn\'t even know he was a musician. And after the set, he came up to me and he said, "Do you have an email?" And I gave him my email address. And we started corresponding. And I married him two years later. And he\'s my current husband. And it was a really strange day, but it was one of the happiest days of my life. So, that\'s how I met my husband. He was playing at Ozzfest.

A few years ago, I had a bit of a scare. My appendix ruptured on tour, and I came close to dying. And it was the same week that my first song went into the top 20. After more than 20 years of making music, we had a song, "Say Hey I Love You." And I'm on this gurney being wheeled down to perhaps my death. And I get this text. "Your song's in the top 20," and I'm like, it didn't even matter. I was like, whatever. I was like, I just wanna see my kids again. I wanna be with my family. And I can appreciate having made music for that long, that it's a nice thing to have a lot of people hear your song. But if I can't share with my family, it doesn't matter. At this point in my life, I'm 48. I have two sons. I have one who's 27, and I have one who's 15. And I still feel like I'm 22 years old. I still have the same passion for what I do with music. And I have this life that I feel is fulfilling in so many ways that I feel happy most of the time.

Yeah. So yesterday was the yearly March that we have in our community, and it's basically a March staying against depression, against terrorism, against all forms of evil in the world. And in this March, 20,000 people showed up, and it was a really big thing in the community. Being in the March, I felt that sense of community, and it was great being around everybody who were all there for the same cause and for the same purpose.

On Thanksgiving Day -- that's the only day my parents would take me out to dinner -- there was this woman going through a garbage can, with her little daughter, about three or four years old picking out her Thanksgiving dinner out of a garbage can. At that point in my life, I began to think, it's not as good on this planet as I think it might be. One of the things I wanted to do when I grew up was to try to make the world a better place. But I didn't have an awful lot of confidence getting there. Because as a Puerto Rican kid in New York going to some terrible schools, nobody ever told me as a kid that I could really amount to much at all. But finally, I met someone who helped me, and I was able to make the leap. And then when I got into college and met some professors that had some faith in me and encouraged me to go to graduate school and so on and so forth. I always pointed my life in that direction.

My daughter, Lena, went to a bakery walk shop yesterday. She made two kinds of pastry up there: a sweet one and a savory one. The sweet one was Turbulen, Blackberry, and the savory one was cheese and potato. Both are delicious. It was a two-hour session, but actually it took almost 3 hours. So when I went to pick her up, the kids were still waiting for their baked goods. So while I was waiting for the kids, I utilized that time to chat with other parents. But my son was super tired and hungry after his swimming lesson. So I had to stop chatting and began to entertain him. But after all, the gallant was so tasty and my daughter was so enjoying the time. And she was so proud of what she did. So I think $85 was worth it. I think it was a good experience for her, for me too.

Today, I asked my mum how she made that rice with saffron. After I ate the rice, I remembered a meat replacement she made for me when I was vegetarian. She put together mushrooms and zucchini, rolled it in egg, put breadcrumbs around it, then fried it in a pan. She put so much thought into it. Even after she came home from work, she wanted to make a good meal for me. I'm so thankful for all those meals she cooked. It makes me happy. I love my mum.

So, over the last couple of days, I've been volunteering for International Orientation. It's for international students at MIT who have come from different countries. I met many new people, not used to interacting with so many people at once, but it was fine. All the new kids are very interesting to talk to and they have so many questions. I think I was able to help them with some of them. It's also great to get food from orientation because dealing with food over the summer hasn't been fun. But yeah, it reminds me of International Orientation last year when I was an incoming freshman. I was very terrified of talking to people because everything seemed like so much at once. But I made a lot of friends, and now lots of them are mentors too. And I hope we're able to show the kids a good time. Tomorrow is the last day of International Orientation, and after that all the other freshmen from the US will be here too, and soon school is going to start. I'm kind of excited for the next one.

I had a sister who told me there is more to life and encouraged me to go to school. I was good in art - I could draw well as a kid - so I enrolled in a professional art school. There was a young, very enthusiastic professor who talked to my reporting class one day about words and pictures together - photojournalism. And that really appealed to me because it got both my writing side and visual side together. I had no photography experience, so I started from scratch. I was an older student, probably a little more serious and didn't have any bad habits. So I became obsessed with that and became a double major with a specialization in photojournalism, minor in art. And I worked very hard at that then. If I could wish upon you one thing, it would be that whatever you find to earn a living, you find something that you love to do.

Hello. On Wednesday, I went to a senior center and packed lunches for seniors who can't leave their home easily. And then this week, I started delivering meals to those people, and it's been really lovely. It's made me feel really good about myself.

I was grocery shopping a few weeks ago. I had purchased my items and was leaving the store. I noticed an older woman with a cart of groceries. She was walking home and was trying to figure out a way to carry all of her bags. I live across the street from the grocery store, so I told myself I should offer some assistance to her. I approached her and offered my help. I told her I would drop my things off at home and come back to help her carry some things. She lived nearby as well. So I did exactly that. I dropped my things off at home and came back to the store to help her carry her bags to her home. She was very appreciative of my help. She wanted to give me a cake she had made, and I declined. Instead, we talked for a few minutes, exchanged names and phone numbers, and laughed about the oddities of life. We had a good time together. I learned that she lived alone at home, so grocery shopping or shopping of any kind is a challenge. I told her we could go for coffee sometime as a thank you. I felt good about helping her. I think it's important to help others when we are able, and I was able to help her. I wanted to help her. She's a lovely woman, and now we are friends. She knows she can count on me to help if she needs it. I visit with her once a week. We have coffee at her home, out on her patio, or in a coffee shop and just talk. I have helped her plant flowers and other items. She started a garden this summer, and I help her with that as well.

I did a lot of swimming this past week. It's been really nice to take advantage of the pool at my mom's development while I'm visiting. It gives me a lot of agility in how I want to stretch and exercise, and I find it really nice. And then, it's also just a nice change of scenery. My mom and I have just been really enjoying the jacuzzi together as well. It's good for our circulation, and I think also, it's just really pleasant. That would have been nice.

We live in Canada, and sometimes the winters can get long. November is gloomy. December is usually cheerful just because of the holidays, good food, and people, and then it drags out with freezing temperatures, dark nights, and crappy driving conditions from January through April. I find I get sad around February since I'm just wishing for sunlight and for my face not to hurt when I go outside. We finally got a huge dump of snow, and my husband and I picked up our season passes and went snowboarding for the first time. Did I fall an insane amount? Yes. Were some of my wipeouts spectacular? Absolutely. Do I know what I'm doing? Not particularly. Am I in pain? My butt is so bruised, I'm looking like a plum. But man, did we have fun. When I first brought it up in October, my husband said he wanted to go with me, and I was thrilled. He's a bit of a homebody in the winter, so I was just excited to be able to share a sport with him. We bought all of our gear without even having tried the sport and just waited for the perfect time to go. We had so much fun, and I'm really looking forward to hitting the hills tomorrow and again later this week too! I get to spend quality time with him, we're being active, we're learning something new together, and we're spending time outdoors - it's the best of all the worlds combined. It's making the winter seem so much shorter since I'm actually wishing for winter to stay and more snow to hit. It really helped change my attitude on winter.

Yesterday, yesterday, we went to another friend's house. There were a lot of people around, 20 to 30 people from our church. And we brought Samba. We played volleyball and Samba. Other dogs and we also had a lot of fun there.

I recently went to Mexico for my 25th birthday. It was exciting because I haven't been there before, and it was a chance to get a group of my friends together. We spent 4 days over there, and we had events planned every day. It was busy but definitely a lot of fun. The first night, we just relaxed at the resort. The second day, we went zip-lining, which was extremely fun. We also went to a cenote. The last day, we went on a catamaran to Isla Mujeres, which was breathtaking. Being on that boat and looking at the view was incredible. My most memorable moment was definitely when the tour guide danced around the catamaran and poured us drinks. It was a lot of fun, and I felt relaxed. The view was phenomenal, and just being with my friends was great. The sea was super blue, and it was breathtaking. The whole trip, we ate to our heart's content. It was great food, and all of the drinks we could have. It was one of my best trips, and I will definitely remember it for a while.

I was thinking about. I was thinking about our relationship, yours and mine. And why I'm so drawn to you. And the things you can do. And that's because. I've had a lifelong interest in the area of language, developmental linguistics, and speech generation. My career has been one of working with children in this regard - children who have speech disorders, where misarticulations occur and they pronounce words incorrectly; children who have syntactical errors, who can't form a grammatical sentence or one that reflects their thoughts; children who have difficulty listening and sometimes also difficulty hearing, as processing auditory material is an issue. But the thing I think intrigues me the most is linguistics - the fact that language is arbitrary. Human language is arbitrary, and pronunciations, word order, and so forth are absolutely tied to the language being used. And it's arbitrary. There isn't right or wrong in the huge arena of language; there's just what each group chooses. And I love that. I can advocate for that position because there are a lot of people who make judgments about everything in life, and when they make judgments about pronoun usage or ain't versus isn't, there's what we consider okay, and then there's what's absolutely perfect grammatically. And if you don't hit the perfection, it doesn't make you a bad person. But I like to look at a lot of different languages. Swahili is one that was fun to learn about because it's not terribly, terribly complicated. It's not influenced by a lot of different languages, so you can deduce the rules with some accuracy and simplicity. And when you use it in a class, pretty much nobody knows it. It's just not like choosing French or Spanish, something like that. I've taught language development in young children for about 20 years, and I really see it as the keystone of humanity.

Not sure how to express this without invalidating the experiences of people who suppress their emotions due to environmental forces, especially at such a cutthroat place, but I really think we should normalize diverse levels of intensity of emotion. As someone with low levels of emotion across the board with extremely few exceptions, I'm tired of hearing people assume that I'm just suppressing emotion. Low level of emotion does not necessarily imply no empathy and no conscience. Empathy consists of "cognitive empathy," "emotional empathy," and "compassionate empathy," and only the second consists of sharing what others might be feeling. People can be compassionate and take care of others without really experiencing what others are feeling. People can push for compassionate policy changes here without deeply feeling why others support the same policy. Lots of emotions are ok. People should be empowered to share them and have people partake in joy and give support in hardship. Little to no emotion should also be ok.

So, about two years ago, I was in a pretty challenging course with optional homework. I took the option and didn't do any of those homework because it didn't affect my grade. But then, coming up to the exam, I thought I knew everything that I needed, and the exam was a wake-up call where I didn't do so well. And looking back at the optional homework problems, they were very similar. So, I learned from that just to do those problems which, in the end, helped me do better on the following exams. But that was probably the worst test I ever did because I wasn't very prepared.

I am sitting here, studying calculus for my NES EAS for the elementary ed exam coming up. All of the practice tests I have encountered included learning derivatives, something that I barely learned as I took calculus as a high school senior. I am questioning whether or not I should become an elementary school teacher because I have to calculate derivatives without a calculator in less than a week. I laugh at the ridiculousness of teacher's exams, with a 54 percent fail rate on the first try and then a quarter never passing. I am not surprised why there is a teacher shortage. In contrast, 85% of nursing students pass their tests on the first try.

Yeah. So, I wanted to be a little more positive, maybe a funny story. But I'm a friend, she's my childhood friend, from high school, well even younger than that. And she was also, her mom was also divorced, which, we were in a small town and being a divorced woman was, like, so terrible. And it was my mom and her mom and one other mom in a town of, like, 12,000. I think it's kind of ridiculous for our grade. But I would run all over the neighborhood because my mom would be sleeping and depressed in her house and I wanted to go do something. So I would go outside and play all the time. And I was in, I think, like third grade, going into fourth grade, and I would go ring my friend's doorbells and ask them to play, and looking back now I think it's really funny because kids didn't do that. Kids didn't go and I don't remember anybody actually ever coming over to my house and ringing my doorbell and asking me to play. So sometimes I'm like, oh no, was I that annoying kid? But I didn't seem like it. I think kids were just more shy. So, this friend, when I first met her, I had a friend that was living in that house and they were moving and I had gone by the week before to see if she wanted to play and they were packing up and they told me, you know what? Why don't you come by this day and we'll be here, which looking back now, they just wanted me to leave, I think. But I went over there that day and they were completely gone. There was a whole new family moved in and there was a babysitter there. And I was like, oh wow, okay. And they were like, oh, how old are you? And I was like, oh, I'm in fourth grade. They were like, oh, well, our daughter is in fourth grade. Why don't you come back when she's here? So, I go back, like, I think two days later, they're moved in. This was when the babysitter was there and she was braiding this girl's hair, this blonde girl's hair and she did not want to talk to me. And I was like, Hi, I'm Madison and I'm here to meet you. And I think pretty much, they made her play with me. But she tells me this all the time and I always remember that, is that she remembers being like, Great, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be friends with anybody. And then I came over with cat eyeglasses and braces and talking all excited about how we should be friends and do all these things and we're still friends to this day and I actually go and visit her in Denver. Yeah, very funny friendship. Very funny.

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.

In high school, I wasn't one of the popular kids. Most people thought that I was kind of an eccentric weirdo. I'm not saying that they're wrong. I never quite fit in, but I did have a couple of friends who were outcasts just like I was. When I was a senior, my father bought me a used car. It was a green Duster. And I happened to be the first one in the class to have a car. So I drove that car to school. And when it was time for lunch, I would take my friends and drive around to get some food. We would park by the river and have a good time, and pretty much show off. And that was one of my happiest memories of high school. And I can still remember how proud I felt of that little Duster.

I went to Mary College on a basketball scholarship. I played ball for them, but I would still party. Pretty crazy back then, and I flunked out. I started looking at what I was going to do in the parks, and it really, really made sense to me. By the time that I got through with that first summer, I realized this is what I want to do for a career. I really did. Two days before my graduation, I was told by this nun- I went to a Catholic boarding school- she said, "You know, the best thing you can do with your life is get a good job pumping gas. At a gas station. And stay with it. That's your life." The highlight of my life was going back to that same school and being the last graduation speaker they had. And I got to tell the whole audience, "I'm not working at a gas station, by the way. I'm a park superintendent."

So today was my friend, well, it wasn't my friend's birthday. It was two days before her birthday, but we decided to celebrate. So we went to this restaurant, and the restaurant was in Watertown. And I don't know if you know this, you probably don't, but Watertown is far away. So I had prepared a present for my friend. I got her this plant for her fish that she can grow and then her fish can hide in it and really enjoy it. And yeah, so I got this present prepared. It, and then I was like on my way to Watertown, taking the bus. And I was like super grumpy feeling about it because I just felt like tired and I had to rush. And then I missed my bus. And so I was just like, wait, this will probably be fun, but I'm just tired. Kind of annoyed, kind of like that. And then so I arrived there, got there right on time. I saw two of my other friends who I haven't seen in a while. And so we went into the restaurant. And my one friend was telling us about how she almost got into a car accident on her way here from New Jersey. And then the birthday girl arrived. And I gave her her present and she opened it and she really liked it because she loves her fish. And so she's really excited for it, for him. And yeah, then we got Indian food and we got like a lot of food. So I have leftovers now. And we just kind of spent the time laughing and chatting and catching up. It was kind of like old times because we're all College friends. And so it just reminds me of those College days or kind of tired and chaotic and really having, I don't know, just generally a lot of fun then. I rode back with my friend, the one who almost got in the car accident, to the train station. And I came back here and I practiced violin. And so yeah, I feel like I've got a lot done today, had fun, met up with people and I feel really good now.

I came home to a great surprise. My husband, family, and close friends were in my backyard with the scent of ribs rushing to my nostrils. Everyone shouted surprise, hugs, and kisses came towards me one after the other. I had just graduated and received my master's degree in criminology. I did not receive a party when I got my bachelor's, so I really was not expecting one now. My parents, with tears of joy, mentioned how long they have been planning the party and how hard it was to keep my husband from letting out the secret. My husband, while laughing, mentioned how it was the hardest thing to do because I am always being noisy. They prepared all my favorite foods: jerked chicken, ribs, curried mutton, hotdogs, fries, and cheesecake. They had the right playlist and decors in my favorite colors. In the center of the yard was a table with gift boxes and cards. I was overwhelmed and still in disbelief as I have never had something like this, so much joy and pride in one place at the same time. Everyone was talking and laughing, kids running around the yard. I grabbed my plate and feasted upon the food they had prepared. I ate, drank, and danced, and at the end of the night, we played games and I opened my gifts. I received gift cards for my favorite restaurants, cash, jewelry, and the greatest of all, a new car from my husband. I could not hold back the tears as it burst from my eyes. This was definitely one of the most memorable moments of my life.

When I was back in undergrad, I was in my first year living in a dormitory for the first time. My roommate did not show up on the first day that I started living in the dorms, nor the second day. But suddenly, when I came back from shopping on the third day, he was standing there in the room. And as I walked in, we looked at each other, we sized each other up. And he was like, you know what, this will do. And what I mean by that is, when you meet someone, I think there's energy, there's a vibe they give out. And it was very interesting to see my roommate, and the moment I saw him, to know that I was like, this guy and I are going to get along very well. And we did. We made it through the next six years throughout undergrad in Glasgow. And to me, that is remarkable.

I started talking to a guy that I've always noticed and got along outstandingly with, and I realized that I might have been stifling feelings for him this entire time because I really just haven't been in the best situation recently. But we really started talking, like really talking about our lives and future plans. This was two days ago, and then at the end of the day (we had been talking on Snapchat), he put a little thing on the bottom of his snap that said, "I think you're cute," but in German, so naturally I was like, "I think you're cute too," and we talked until 12 that night. I woke up to a good morning from him. Once we both had free time that day, we just talked, and I couldn't help but fall for him a little bit more. We were talking earlier too, just about the small things: my dad passed away recently, his service is tomorrow, and the guy is going through some rough stuff in his family right now, so I just tried to make him feel better. And then he said he thought he was in love with me. I said that I really liked him too, but I think we have issues with ourselves we really need to work out before we can pursue something like that. I adore him, though, and I really hope I didn't mess anything up. We agreed to just be there for each other, to be friends as best we could, and just go from there in life. I don't know him very well yet, so I really respect that decision, and frankly, I'm just excited! This is the first serious thing I've had with a guy. In any case, I'm just happy that I have someone like him in my life if we end up as friends or something else.

I have our big leftover from yesterday\'s birthday party. And I thought, okay. I was going to bring this box of pizza to homeless people. Maybe they are hungry. But it reminded me of a certain period of time ago. I saw a homeless man holding a sign. "I am hungry" and "help me". "God bless you". And so I didn\'t have cash. I passed him but I went to a pizza store and got a slice or two of pizza for him and came back to him. And handed the pizza off to him, but he said, "oh, okay. I\'m good. Too much pizza". So I gave him the small cash that my husband had. At that time, I didn\'t have cash, but my husband did. Usually, I feel good when I think I am doing good. But that time, I didn\'t feel not so much good because I went to the pizza store for him. Of course, I didn\'t ask him if he wanted pizza, but I did. So I expected him to say thank you and accept that slice of pizza. But I noticed that the way I wanted to treat the person was not the way he wanted to be treated. I can\'t expect to be said thank you. Yeah, I would take the pizza from yesterday\'s birthday party. It reminded me of that memory.

Usually, if I see a homeless person, I'll stop by the closest fast food joint and pick them up a meal or something and then continue on my way home. I know most people are skeptical of that kind of thing, but my rule of thumb is I'd rather get scammed out of a $10-15 meal than let someone go without a meal if I have the means to help. So yesterday, I was driving home from work, and I see the woman holding a sign saying she recently lost her job and anything would help. A few feet away were her kids, ranging from around six to around 16. I did my usual and picked up some fast food. I spent a little more than usual because of the kids, around $30 total. When I dropped it off, she gave me the biggest, happiest smile I have ever seen. All I did was give her and her kids some chicken and soda, but she was so grateful for just that. I've never seen someone's eyes light up the way hers did when I handed her that food. It really made me think how lucky I am. I mean, I complain about my parents like every teen does, but these kids had been sitting in the sun for at least a couple of hours and were just so appreciative for two meals to share. I thought I was helping them out, but they're the ones who helped me by showing how it's the little things we need to be grateful for.

I have a friend who just found out that our manager has been doing something that she doesn't appreciate, which is that she asked him about mid-year promotions and he told her that they weren't doing mid-year promotions. And then today she found out that actually, someone else got promoted. So she's very upset and she thinks that our manager should have done a better job sort of advocating for her and protecting her and just sort of being on her team, versus kind of toeing the line of what comes from above him.

So I lost my job. It was so unexpected. I had been working for him for 2 and a half years. When the boss returned from his last trip, we learned the sale was never made. In fact, there weren't any sales all year. The boss continued acting normal. Until one day, he called me and told me he had to let me go. He said, "You can either quit, which will look better on your resume, or I will fire you. You choose, sign these papers." It all happened so fast. I grabbed my stuff and walked out. I was relieved because I couldn't stand him, but I was shocked that I wasn't even given a heads up! It was so shocking because this boss prided himself on making a connection in his establishment. He always boasted about how much better his company was because he wasn't a corporation. Often times, tasks involved his personal life, such as taking his mom to the grocery store or going into his house when no one was home to retrieve something for him. A few times, I had to go let his dog out. Still, I was let go, told to leave, and I haven't returned.

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 am the marketing director here at Valen Analytics. Our company builds predictive models, and we also have a platform that hosts them and integrates into the company workflows for property and casualty companies. So the predictive models basically allow them to better price and select risks. So yeah, I do the execution of the marketing campaigns and the coordination with inside sales. So I graduated, and then I worked in the mental health industry for a while. And decided that that was not good for my own mental health—it was very stressful, very taxing. So I went back to school, got my masters in marketing. I thought that I was gonna be able to graduate and step right into a marketing job, but there was a lot more business acumen that needed to be developed before I was really prepared for that. I had to be humbled and grounded a bit more to realize, yeah, you have a foundation. But that foundation, the degree, is not your golden ticket into the chocolate factory. The degree is what may help open the door, but you've got to earn your way the rest of the way. So the way I interpreted that is: I need to make sure that I'm really putting forward a solid performance at what I'm doing now and then set forth my next goal.

So, I had surgery this week to remove a benign tumor from my upper back. It was about three and a half inches. It was supposed to be an easy surgery, but it took about 2 hours of a doctor and two nurses holding my back open and pulling at it to try to get it out. Luckily, it'll win well. It's healing pretty nicely. My girlfriend's helping me to take care of it like wash it in the morning and put on the bandages as to keep it covered for two weeks. But now that it's out, I feel way better and it's not going to be bothering me anymore. So the pain was worth it.

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 prior to moving back to Boston recently, I spent some time in Asia going to a few places including Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. No, Indonesia, Indonesia. But what I wanted to talk about today was the visiting my extended family in Taiwan and that experience.

I've been to different places where I've never been before, such as beaches and mountains, this year since I moved to the city and started working. When I was at home with my family, I never really had the chance to go out of town at all unless our relatives would invite us. My parents thought it was too "costly" or "inconvenient," so we never had one at all for 20 years. This year, since I'm already receiving a salary, I had the initiative to plan out-of-town trips with my friends, where we were able to drive more than 150 miles to a beach. I was able to visit Baguio City by commuting. I also had the opportunity of having a team-building event at an exclusive beach resort. I was just able to "have a life" in my own definition and in my own terms. I refuse to be like my parents, who only want to be comfortable at home and weren't thinking of spending on new experiences that traveling could bring. I am quite excited about what the universe will bring to me this 2020!

Yeah, so the story I\'m going to share today is about my family\'s move. So we used to live in Hino, Texas. And my favorite part about that house, besides my family, of course, was that on the front lawn, the sidewalk, there my sister and I have our handprints there in the cement. So they redid our sidewalk at some point, and then I get it off. But as kids, we were like, "Ha, ha. Wouldn\'t it be so funny if we left our mark onto cement on the sidewalk here, just to mark our place, that we were here?" So each of us put our right hand down into the cement when it was so, like, not like wet, but like, not dry either, and left little handprints there. It\'s been like ten years now, and I still think about our handprints there, but eventually my family did move. I was very sad at first because we were taking out all the furniture. We\'re repainting the walls. So when we left, the house just felt so empty, like foreign, like a shell of itself. I didn\'t recognize it after we painted the walls white. Everything was just echoing, and I was like, "Wow, I grew up here. This is no longer home." Part of me thought we would always have this home for the rest of my life to come back to. But then we moved to our new house in Allen, Texas. I really quickly adjusted to it. I think because the furniture was the same. Obviously, home is where my parents are. So if they move again, that will be my new home. But now I love our new home a lot. It\'s much bigger. It\'s much more comfortable. But interestingly, I still dream sometimes about my old home. And then there are dreams where I mix my old home and my new home\'s like architectural layout. It\'s really confusing, but the move was fun. We started in COVID summer, so I was home. Luckily, we\'re just moving things back and forth with our cars. The move itself was not too bad. It was definitely a bonding moment within our family to move our stuff ourselves. Yeah. What do you think? So, yeah. We moved. And now that\'s my new home. And I know that my parents will eventually move at least one more time. They will probably downsize their home once the grandkids are older enough that they don\'t need to visit and have their own guest rooms. So I\'m excited for that. Scare. Oh, no. Another home missing. But yes, the story. That was the story of my family moving from one house to another house.

A few months ago, we took a vacation back to my home with my son. It was scary because it was my son's 1st time flying and I was pretty stressed out about it. It was the 1st time I had been back home in years, and the 1st time for most of my family to meet my son, who was one and a half at the time. The flight went better than expected, and we eventually landed, rented a car, got through customs, and drove to visit family. We spent a lot of time with my mother, who had recently moved into an apartment and was living on her own for the 1st time in her life. My father passed away 3 years ago, and previously she had been living with my younger sister. But she decided everyone needed their own space and moved out. We got to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles, and my son got to meet his cousins for the 1st time. My husband also got to meet many of my family members he had never met before too. We had time to see my best friend in the world, who I do not get to see enough. We visited my old childhood home to see how it looked, drove past my high school and grade school, and toured around all the places that had meaning to me growing up. My mother was so happy to spend time with her grandson. Of course, she spoiled him with toys and presents. To be able to share this with my son and my husband was pretty amazing. We live so far from where I am from, it was really great to be back with them.

Today, I had dinner with a new friend, and I really enjoyed it. I think it makes me feel a bit more at home to find friends that I really click with.

A few weeks ago, I went to dinner with my boyfriend and my best friend. I'd known my best friend since we were pre-teens, and this was the first time they had met. It went really well! I'd been dating him for nearly a year, and it'd taken quite some time for our schedules to line up. I think this delay in meeting gave me some pent-up anxiety about it finally happening. My friend texted me, asking if I'd like to get dinner, and I let her know that I was with my boyfriend at the time. We got burgers and wings at a place nearby. The food was great, but the company was better. We ended up seeing a couple of people that my friend and I knew. When we finished eating, we spent some time speaking to them. It was nice to catch up with old friends. Afterwards, we went back to my friend's house, where my boyfriend fell in love with her dog. Seeing them interact was adorable since my dog is a senior and doesn't quite play as much. It was great to spend time with two people I value and care about, and to see them getting along so well. I'm looking forward to spending more time with the two of them in the future.

Boat. All right, gboat. This is a fun story from a time that I was camping in New Zealand, in the country. New Zealand. And there were torrential rains, and we were camping near a river. And as it began to rain, I thought it would be fun to explore along the river. And there were some farmland near the river. And it was hilly. And right alongside the river, there was a sort of steep hill that you could walk on when it was dry, especially if it was fine. But I set out on my adventure and the rain continued and it got stronger. And before too long, the way for me to cross back the river was running too fast for me to cross back over it, and it had gotten too high. So I found myself a little stuck. I was safe, but it was enough to be exciting. So I found myself climbing up along the steep, grassy embankment along the river until I found a safe way to cross. But the path from where I was to where I found a safe place to cross was interesting. I came across some of the farmers' fields near there. They had cows. Once in a while, I'd come across a bull. And we had heard that you want to be cautious when walking near the bulls because they can be aggressive. So there was one point where I was sort of walking and had to walk in front of and past a bull, hopefully at a safe distance. I was able to stay pretty far, but I was paying close attention to him, and he was paying close attention to me. And then, when I got back to flat ground and was able to cross the river, the water had gotten so high in some parts of the road that I had to wade across the road. It was close to up to my waist deep and I was able to hold onto some fence posts and make my way across. And it was a very memorable adventure. Then I was very wet, and I made it back safe and sound. And I got to tell my wife about the fun time I had.

A couple of months ago, I started going on wilderness adventures with my family. It was amazing to go, just my girlfriend and I, but it was even cooler when we were able to take the kids. My girlfriend and I found this amazing river with beautiful plants and unique rocks along the shore. The water was very clear and calm, and we wanted to take the kids kayaking and for a picnic. When we arrived, we had the kids assist in helping set up the inflatable kayaks, and then we broke off into two teams to head down the river. My girlfriend and our daughter were in one kayak, and I was in the other with our son. We had a lot of fun racing down the river, checking out the landscape, and watching fish jump out of the water. We got to shore at a great picnic area and spent the afternoon eating lunch and fishing. Sadly, we did not catch any fish, but it was fun trying. We also found and explored a nearby cave. The kayaking trip back to the car was a bit tougher, as my arms were tired and our son was just relaxing in the back of the kayak. My arms started to get pretty sore, but we managed. Once back, I carried the kayaks and everything back to the car so that we could load up and head home. During the drive home, my girlfriend and I discussed brights and why they are needed. Sure enough, we ended up having to stop due to deer being in the road! We were able to navigate down the mountain safely and then got home, showered, and went to bed.

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.

I absolutely hate myself with everything I have. I despise the way I look, I hate the way I think, I loathe every day I breathe. I can't remember a time I didn't hate myself. I was a child and never left the house because I was embarrassed of myself. I didn't have any friends because I thought that being seen with me, the outcast, the introvert, would lessen them. I have friends now, I love them, but nobody knows anything about the warfare that takes place in my mind. Every moment I exist I hate, and it's my fault for letting it reach this point. I hate that I'm fat even after countless diets; I hate my dandruff, that even though I basically scrape the scalp off my head every single day I shower, it doesn't go away; I hate my nose; I hate the way I feel about everything; I hate how I have no talent and just am; I hate that I'm not a good friend; I hate how I'm complaining about stuff that doesn't even matter when there are people with real problems. I'm so drained of keeping this front that nothing gets to me and I'm not vulnerable. It's killing me. The thing is that I can't even ask for help - I don't deserve it. If I didn't hate myself, I'd be empty because it consumes everything. My hatred is all I am. I have tried to better myself, I have done everything I could with the knowledge I had, and it never was enough. All I could ever do is watch and love people from afar because God forbid they find out I feel something and get disgusted.

Yeah. I've been having a couple of really frustrating experiences at work with a specific person. Who I feel, like, is very sort of toxic in the way that they operate. But also, I don't know whether it's just, like, poor social skills or just a lack of care for others, a lack of empathy. They will set up meetings that don't have any agendas. They'll sort of discredit or devalue other people's experiences or opinions. They are very territorial. It's very hard for them to acknowledge other people's contributions, I guess, or work well with other people that they feel are threatening. And yeah, we had a meeting recently that was the person that was bringing together a team of people who don't work on the same team anymore, but it's sort of like a power grab for them to still be considered like the head of this sort of discipline of research. And they spent the entire meeting just making everyone else anxious about how our new director, essentially, asked this person whether we do a review of quantitative research before it goes out or not. And so this person communicated that out to our team with no purpose other than just to spread his sort of anxiety out to other people. And then basically had no updates on that, since I think probably because it wasn't a real thing that anyone should be concerned about. But it was framed as this sort of, like, urgent conversation that our team needs to have. And yeah, I just have been feeling frustrated about that.

Sometimes I think we have too much freedom. I feel like people have such a sense of entitlement that it's a detriment to the rest of society. This entitlement leads people to thinking they can just get away with acting however they want. I have always been the type of person that enjoys structure. I have neighbors who are loud and really inconsiderate to the rest of the neighborhood. They make all sorts of noise and think they can do whatever they want. Whenever I call them out, it's always "my liberties" or "this is America, I can do what I want." Sometimes I wish this wasn't the case. I feel like I want to live in a culture that more actively shames those types of people. We should be encouraging people to think of how their actions affect others first instead of the individual.

Okay. So I wanted to talk about cultural differences and the concept of time because I think it\'s very interesting. And I think it\'s something that people overlook, at least in a diverse place like the United States where we have people from different cultures and different backgrounds. I think sometimes our miscommunications tend to be because of our cultural differences and awareness and difference in experiences. Anyways, I think a lot of it\'s misunderstandings. But I think one of my, sorry, let me just. Okay. So I think one of my most recent experiences was when I went to Japan for a couple of days because I traveled a lot this year, thankfully. And one of the spontaneous trips was to Japan, and it was me and my friend and her sister, the same friend Re. So Me, Ari, and her sister were together. And we\'re all Mexican Americans. Our families are from Mexico. So our concept of time is more laid back, more like, oh, yeah, it\'s okay if we show up 15-20 minutes late, maybe a little bit later. So we\'re more flexible with time and meetings. All of the Americans are a little bit more punctual, so it\'s always a duality we had to deal with, but in this case, we took a more laid back approach. And we were traveling with her friend who\'s Korean. So she\'s Korean and about our age. And she described Korean time as being like, only ten minutes late, max. She was like, you can be five minutes away, you could be ten minutes away, but max. Okay. She was like, you have to be punctual and not more than ten minutes late. And this morning, it was the morning that we were going to DisneySea because she wanted to go to Disney. C. It was her dream to go to DisneySea. We had planned to meet the Korean friend, eugene. So her Korean friend brought her friend who\'s Japanese. Okay. And it was our first time going to meet him. And it was going to be very exciting because it\'s like, wow, we\'re in Japan with someone who\'s Japanese. And then eugene speaks Japanese. So that would help with the language barrier. So in the morning, we\'re getting ready. We stayed up late because we\'re fools and then we woke up and it was a rush to get ready because everyone gets ready at different speeds. Like, I take about an hour, one of my friends takes a long time, oh my gosh, it takes so long. The Korean friend takes so long. And then the other friend, the sister, is quick. So we all have different speeds of getting ready. And then on top of that, we didn\'t realize the different concepts of time. Like, whenever eugene would say, we have to leave at 7:10 because it would be an hour commute, she said, we have to leave at seven. And in my head, I was like, why do I think that\'s enough? It\'s going to be fine; trains come so quickly here. It\'s going to be fine to catch the next one. But then I went to go grab food or even before I went to grab breakfast from the 7-Eleven, I realized, I was like, Wait, guys, we have to hurry. We\'re meeting a Japanese person. They\'re on time if not early. And then that\'s when we all started freaking out because by all, it\'s like me and the other two Mexican Americans were like, we have to hurry now because it\'s like, we can\'t be disrespectful to this person who we are meeting for the first time. We were laughed because we were like, we\'re running on Mexican time. We have to hurry up. We have to hurry up. So it became like this mad rush to hurry to leave exactly at the time eugene said because eugene was just being very polite and was like, yeah, we should leave at like, seven. We should leave at seven. And then now that we have this understanding of like, oh, her friend\'s going to show up early, we cannot be disrespectful and show up late. So we\'re like, we have to go now. So it was like a mad rush. We were running to the station and then we were panicked the whole time. And at the same time that we were kind of like anxious that we were going to be late, our friend was teaching us Japanese phrases that we would be familiar with. And one of them was, I don\'t know if I\'m pronouncing it right, but it was something along the lines of "it\'s very nice to meet you for the very first time". So that was another cultural nuance because we were practicing on that train ride. Like, we had to get it right. It was our first time, and the only time we could ever say it to him. Because you can\'t say that again. We finally did. We missed, like, one train, I think. And then we finally made it to the station and we were actually early. We were actually like, early on the time that we had said, and we were so proud of ourselves. We were like, oh, we did it. But it definitely was one of the most poignant examples of cultural differences and how it could be very different when you\'re traveling with people from different cultures because you have a different understanding of time, and then there\'s also, and it was very interesting because throughout the day I really noticed different understandings of how we approach eating and how we talk about beauty. But that was through conversations and we talked from the lens of Mexico, then America, the United States, and then Japan and Korea. So it was like, I guess a very insightful day for understanding cultural nuance. And so that\'s something I really appreciate and really enjoy doing when I travel. So I\'m really appreciative that I got that experience firsthand. And I think it\'s hilarious that we were like, we\'re running on Mexican time. We have to be punctual, we have to be early. Especially on this vacation that me and my friend Ari have been very laid back with on time. This was the one time that we were like, it matters. And it doesn\'t matter just to us, but to other people in our itinerary.

In June, I went to a family reunion. It was held at the home of my cousin's former husband in New Jersey. Last year, he came and picked up me and my partner at our place in New York and drove us there. This time, although one of the cousins organizing the event said she'd try to arrange transportation, she was unable to do so, so we took the bus. This involved taking the subway to Port Authority in Manhattan, then a bus to New Jersey, then calling my cousin on arrival to have someone pick us up. The whole trip should have taken a couple of hours. I looked at Google Maps before leaving the house and planned our route. We left the house in ample time to catch the bus suggested by the app. On the way to the bus, I called my cousin to confirm that we were on our way. I found out that the host of the party said we should take a different bus, which was a route run by a different bus company. Naturally, this ran on a different schedule. When we arrived at the terminal, we found we'd have to wait an hour for our bus. When we finally got on the bus, we were relieved and figured we'd see everyone in about an hour's time. Were we mistaken! We hit one of the worst traffic jams I have ever encountered. The trip took well over two hours. By the time we arrived, some of the guests were already leaving. The best part of the whole party was that one of my cousins had come all the way from Massachusetts. She had told me about a year ago that she loves coconut flan. So, I made it and did not tell her. She was so surprised and pleased that she cried. Her husband, who is Cuban, pronounced it "Tremendo!" I felt the long trip had been worth the effort.

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.

I went to medical school in India, and I came here and I did my Master's in Hospital Administration. And when I was rotating as a part of my internship, that's when I realized that something is stopping me from being myself. I really wanted to be with people, I wanted to be a social being. And I wanted to see more smiles, make a difference in someone's life, and touch someone's life on an everyday basis. And when I did my externship in different places, I really enjoyed pediatrics. I was fortunate to work with autistic kids and kids who have seizures and other medical problems. And it was really touching for me to see how much the parents go through to have one autistic child, how much they see, and the patience that they have. At the end of the day, what pays off is your satisfaction. If you're happy in what you're doing, no matter how many sacrifices it takes, no matter how much effort it takes. If you're happy, if you're satisfied, if you just know this is where my heart is, follow your heart. That's it. You will keep doing. No matter how many challenges or sacrifices, you will stay strong.

Okay. So, last year, I moved from Nashville to Boston, and made a big change in my life. And it was really challenging because I had a lot of friends in Nashville, a great community. I like to salsa dance and all of my friends came together before I left, and I threw a party. And they all came up with a really big gift basket for me. It had some of my favorite foods, things to bring with me to Boston. And one of the things that really was special, that they gave me, that made me really just warmed my heart. It made me feel so much gratitude and love, was they got me a gift certificate to have a dance lesson with an instructor here in Boston that has an amazing reputation that we've all wanted to train with. And now that I'm in Boston, I was able to take a class with her, and they gifted that to me. So it was a really huge gesture, and it makes me miss my friends so much. So much so, I'm going to visit them in a week, and hopefully dance and hang out with them again.

I was tired of living in Southern Illinois. Tired of the cornfields and the same people every day. It was time for a change - a drastic change. The move of a lifetime. I packed my things, took my 2 dogs, and booked it to Florida. The Sunshine State. What a huge difference it was! I knew no one, not a single soul. I had never been there before. Talk about adapting! I got settled in my little 1-bedroom apartment downtown and took myself for a celebratory drink. I met some people at the bar who I ended up becoming very close with after a few months. Although it got extremely lonely at times, I think I needed this move to help me grow into the woman I am today. It has taught me strength, independence, resilience, and so many other things. I am very thankful for the opportunity to experience something so life-changing and freeing. If I could do it all over again, I definitely would. Next stop... California!

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'm a lucky guy. I have a solid group of friends, the core of which have been together since we were 12 years old. Life gets busy, and we don't see each other as much as we should. But a few times a year, someone will throw some kind of get-together. For the last couple of years in early spring, I've thrown a Margarita Party. We grill carne asada, my wife makes fresh salsa and a big pot of frijoles, I make so many batches of blended margaritas. We've been friends for over 20 years at this point, and I still love these people. The party is not this weekend, but the next, and I'm so excited I'm having a hard time sleeping each night! The night before Christmas or Disneyland doesn't compare. I'm just happy; we're gonna listen to ska, reggae, and punk. We're going to eat Mexican food and soak up the warm sun, and I'm going to laugh and hug my friends.

Okay. So here\'s a story I heard when I was a kid, and I think it\'s from an old Buddhist tradition. But I really like the story, and I still think about it occasionally. It\'s pretty meaningful to me. So here we go.\n\nIn the forest next to a big Kingdom, there lived a huge herd of deer. Their leader was the King Deer, with magnificent horns and a golden glimmering coat. One look, and you could tell he was the King of the deer.\n\nThe deer had one problem. The King of the neighboring Kingdom would like to hunt, and he would hunt with his soldiers, courtiers, and ministers. They would slay tens of deers every day. And to put an end to this madness, the deer came up with this lottery system approved by the King. Every day, the deer would all pick a leaf at random. And the deer with the most holes on the leaf would be sent as a sacrifice to the King. This way, the King of the Kingdom would not hunt the deer.\n\nSo the system is put into effect, and for many days, weeks, months, and years, the deer would pick a leaf every day and one would be sent to die.\n\nOne of these days, the King Deer heard some noise and went to investigate. He saw a few other deer ganging up on one doe and bullying it. He asked them, "Why are you doing this?" And they said, "Today, it is this doe\'s turn to be sacrificed to the humans, and she\'s refusing to go."\n\nThe conscience of the King Deer stirred. Is this an unfortunate fate that has led them to this cruel system? One where, by mere bad luck, one is sent to die? However, the system is the same for every deer, and they can\'t show favor to one doe or another. So, he asked, "Why do you refuse to go to the humans?"\n\nThe doe pleaded, "Please let me live another week. You see, the doe is pregnant, and her child will be born soon. And she doesn\'t want it to enter the world only to die with her. She wants someone else to go that day instead."\n\nThe King hears her, and he realizes that he cannot send this doe and her child to die. Two lives gone where only one should be. But he also knows that he can\'t send any other deer in their stead, for that would be unfair to them.\n\nSo the dear King realizes and chooses to go himself. He sacrifices himself. Once the King sees him, he realizes at once that this is the King of the deer, and he is shocked. And goes hunting no more in the forest.\n\nHe sees the fragility and the vulnerability. And he realizes that the King sacrificed himself to save the life of an unborn child. The human King realizes that he can\'t hunt the deer anymore and is moved by the sacrifice of the deer King. And the deer are now free to live again.\n\nI really like this story because it shows that mercy is very powerful. And sometimes, you do have the power to make someone\'s life better, to help them. And maybe it will not be as hard of a sacrifice as what the King of the deer did. But in our own small way, we can help.

When I was a kid, my father used to take me to watch trials actually, and there was something just about the whole kind of excitement and snapping victory from the jaws of defeat, the great cross-examination that brings us witness to tears. I really think that law is an instrument for social change, and growing up, it was always part of my vision of my life that social change would be part of it. When I wake up in the morning, one thing I know for sure is I'll be there. And if I try to find things in my life that make waking up exciting, rewarding, satisfying, then I'm gonna pursue those things in my life.

Do. So, about I don\'t know, in 2013, I ran a five-mile race to raise money for cancer research. And afterwards, I went to a local place to eat that I hadn\'t been to before, and I decided to order the soup called Senkoco, and I didn\'t know what it was. But it sounded good, and it had chicken in it, so I ordered it. And when I got it and I took the first spoonful, I was immediately transported to my childhood. I realized that Sankulta was the name of the soup that my grandmother used to make for me growing up. And when she would cook, I would get so hungry. I could just smell the soup—it smells so good, so savory. And I would go to my grandmother, and I would beg her, "Grandma, grandma is the soup ready?" It was never ready, like it was, it always took a long time. And so at some point, she would say, "Okay," and she would take a coffee mug and she would scoop up some of the broth, and she would let me sip on the broth and... it\'s probably one of my favorite things to eat. I still don\'t know how to cook it myself, but Senkoco is something that just brings me back to being with her and her love and caring. So that\'s my story.

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.

Well, I\'m going to tell you since my last story was kind of modeling, I will tell you a funny story. Well, my husband and I lived in Florida for quite some time. And we were on the beach. And there was a brand of suntan lotion that I had used before. They use it a lot in tanning salons, but it\'s also a really good suntanning lotion. So I grabbed it because I think it was like 15 or 18 SPF that we used all the time. And that day, I grabbed it. We put it on. We stayed out from about 10:00 a.m. We broke for lunch around noon and then remained out for another 3 hours. So we didn\'t eat that day on the beach and we stopped at a restaurant that we knew on the way home. And we noticed people looking at us really strangely. So I looked at him. He looked at me. We were still kind of sunblind from being out in the sun so long. So he looked behind me. I looked behind him so we couldn\'t figure it out. So we said, "I said, I\'m going to go to the restroom and see if I look funny or anything." And he said, "Me too." So the bathrooms were right next to each other. So I looked in the mirror and I said, "Oh, my God." And I heard from the other bathroom him exclaimed the same thing, "Oh my God." And what had happened is I had grabbed tanning accelerator instead of tanning lotion, and we were as red as lobsters. So long story short, if you are going to be in the Gulf of Mexico suntanning, you should make sure you\'re using proper suntanning lotion. Okay? That\'s it.

About two months ago, my family and I went to the beach in California. There was a beach volleyball tournament that we wanted to see. We got up early in the day and were already at the beach around 10 am. We swam, sunbathed, and hung out while we waited for the tournament to start. The weather was perfect, and it felt great that my family was together for the whole day. I got to catch up with my siblings since I had not seen them in a while. Then, the tournament started, and we nervously and anxiously watched and cheered on our favorite team. The team ended up winning, and we were so excited. Around 8 pm, we started packing up and walking home. When we got home, we realized we all got very badly sunburned. I guess in the excitement of it all, we forgot to reapply sunscreen throughout the day. We immediately went to the drugstore to get some aloe vera and pain killers. My brothers filled up the bathtub with a bunch of ice and soaked in it. We all got sunburned in the past, but never this badly. It was interesting to see how much we all helped each other. My brothers were wetting towels for everyone, and mom was making sure we were staying hydrated. I was in charge of the aloe, and my dad was entertaining us to distract us. We had plans to go to dinner that night; we even made reservations. We all wanted to go, so we started getting ready, but even the clothes were painful on our skin. Since we would all probably be cranky, we decided it is best to just cancel dinner and stay in. That day was so memorable to me because it started out as the best day I had in a long time, but then it ended with my whole family in excruciating pain. Despite everything, this day brought us all together as a family, and I am so happy it did.

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 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 this weekend, I went on a short trip, just a day trip, to a city called Kernel by the sea. I was recommended to visit the city by one of my friends, and she was saying the city is really cute. And yeah, she liked their citizens. She has visited the city several times so far, so I did too. And yeah, it was a cute, beautiful city. There were lots and lots of people inside, sightseeing and shopping. And the city is full of art, so there are many art galleries. That is something I am not so familiar with, but I stopped by several galleries. And yeah, it was a nice trip. And also, I went to a nice restaurant, a Greek restaurant, and the kids wanted to go. So they were a bit bored besides seeing the city. But there was a plate named Flaming Cheese. So they put the cheese on the pan and pour rum or some alcohol and let it catch fire. And yeah, it was surprising for them. Yeah, overall, it was a nice day trip.

A few weeks ago, I decided to take a week-long vacation with my family. We decided to go to Cancun, Mexico, and it was a fantastic experience. I loved the ocean and the white sand. My kids had a wonderful time at the beach, and I had a great time just relaxing myself sipping on a mango margarita. The most memorable experience is that we went to an event at Xcaret, where we attended a performance about the Mayan Civilization. Our experience at the hotel was also very pleasurable. We had the all-inclusive service, and we loved it. Our hotel had 5 different restaurants (Mexican, American, Chinese, Gourmet, and one with a mixture of all 5). The service staff was friendly at all times, and we even received tickets for another attraction. Our vacation in Cancun was the best we have had so far, and it helped us spend time together as a family. Cancun is just like paradise; it has everything that we needed to have a great time as a family. When I saw my little twin boys smiling and enjoying the attraction, I realized that it was an unforgettable experience for all of us. We have been to other places, but for some reason, we never truly loved the place; there was always something that didn't work well, but in this case, everything went great. I still believe that Cancun has everything that makes an unforgettable experience. I am planning to go back with my husband to celebrate our wedding anniversary (just the two of us) to enjoy a romantic dinner and enjoy the attractions for adults that we did not get to see as a family.

So, I\'m actually going to be flying home in 3 hours, or leaving for the airport in 3 hours to fly home, and something I\'ve been super excited for—cannot wait. Definitely miss my parents a lot. My younger sister is in New York, so she won\'t be home. But going home will be good for me because I really need the rest. I think something that\'s really hard to do as an adult is to pace yourself, because when you\'re in school, you have semesters. You have projects that you know when they\'ll end. So you have better timelines to fulfill. Like, "Oh, you know, in two weeks, then you have an exam and then you have a period of free time." But until then, you\'re working hard. But in grad school, I feel like there\'s just no end. So if you need a break, you have to really go take that break for yourself. For us, you just won\'t have that break. So the last time I was home was probably early June for two days. Home trips are very short. Now I miss having a full week at home, a whole actual vacation. So being able to go home for just like three days this weekend will be very helpful, healing, good for my soul. Yeah, I am most excited to eat my mom\'s food, to go shopping, to feel like a kid again. I feel like life is very tiring and pressurising, so to be able to let loose and let someone take care of me for a little bit will be nice. I did try to take care of my parents as well. I bring them gifts. I listen to them when they\'re lonely, and I hope that their parents can take good care of them when my grandparents are in China, so they\'re not really close by. So it\'s a very different relationship between my mom and her mom, which is my mom and me. But I\'m so grateful for my family, everything about it. So yeah, I left lab a little early today to catch my flight, talking to you now before Doica\'s over or the week begins. And yeah, I\'ll be sad when I come back, but I\'m mostly looking forward to going home first. Yeah.

Today, I spent my afternoon working in the library after classes, and walking back to my dorm, I saw geese munching on the grass and fearlessly crossing the street. I watched the sun set behind the auditorium, heard the cheers of athletes when crossing by the field, saw the sky swathed in pinks and oranges. For a moment, I just took it all in, closed my eyes, inhaled, exhaled. I haven't felt this recently, but in that moment, I just felt this overwhelming sense of peace. This place is rough, don't get me wrong - I'm getting absolutely rolled academically, and I don't get enough sleep - but walking back to my dorm today, I felt like I was coming home. It was a feeling of contentment, like no matter what, everything was going to be okay. Anyways, I hope everyone has a good day.

So, I think I've mentioned that I have a cat. His name is Zoro. I adopted him when my other cat was about ten years old. Sadly, my other cat passed away a couple of years ago. I had him for 15 years and he was just super, like the best cat ever. And we were super close, definitely bonded. But when I adopted Zoro, he was only five months old and a couple of weeks in, my ex-husband, he got home before I did from grad school and his brother had come over and he was careless, and Zoro slipped out of the front door. He must have been extremely careless because the doorway is very narrow, so you really have to not be paying attention to have something like Zoro just slip by you. And I came home and I was terrified. He was only five months old. I was living in Florida and my apartment was adjacent to a nature conservation area. And in Florida, there are a lot of dangerous animals that would be predators to Zoro. Gators, alligators, venomous snakes, even hawks. He was small enough for him to be prey for a hawk, and that was all just feet away from my door. So I was really scared and I looked on the Internet. I looked at all the advice that people gave. I was searching everywhere. I stayed up all night. He didn't come to the door. And the next day, I finally got enough courage and was exhausted. I put on my rain boots, I tucked in my pants and put on a sweatshirt and a bandana over my face, and I went into the nature conservation area to find Zoro. It had been about 18 hours since he had disappeared and I happened to get close enough to the bush that he was hiding under for him to feel safe enough to meow. And I found him. But it was terrifying. And I did run into a gator at one point. Thankfully, I backed away slowly and the gator didn't present any aggressive behavior towards me, but it was scary. I was really worried. But I found him and Zoro is with me today, so I'm very glad that it worked out.

I moved out to the country in Oklahoma about a year ago. It is sometimes hard for me to see the animals that are killed on the side of the road or in the road. It is painful to drive past them. But on this day, I got an opportunity to help. There was a tiny dog being chased by a large dog on the side of the road, and I pulled over and chased the big dog away and scooped up the little dog. I remember the little dog shaking so hard and just being terrified and holding her close to me and feeling her breathing finally slowed just a bit and her shaking stopped just a little bit. She would definitely have been attacked if I had not scooped her up. I took her home with me and then the next day took her to the vet. She was not chipped. But I reached out on Facebook, and finally, the owner contacted me. I was able to reunite her with her owners. It turns out that the people who were watching her thought that she had come in and locked up and left. But she was still outside. It was a joyous feeling to see her so happy reunited with her owners, everyone was crying, it was a great experience.

So this is my second discussion about my friend Linda, who lived across the street from me for 25 years. She is about 62 or 63 years old. And today she had open heart surgery. She is a survivor of many heartaches, really. Not the least of which, I will say the most of which, is that she lost a teenage son on a beautiful fall day as he was putting up flags for Veterans Day in a car accident. Her other son has spina bifida and has had many, many surgeries and is confined to a wheelchair. Her daughter is a lovely, very bright woman with a beautiful family, busy living happily ever after. Linda is a very special person because she is extremely giving of time and money. She and her husband do weekly pickups from grocery stores to get leftover food and bring it to the food banks. And she runs grief counseling sessions called the Stephen Ministry. So I just found out that she made it through her surgery with no surprises, and she's on the road to a great recovery.

I work at a doctor's office and know all of the patients. I work with a lot of elderly people and I remember their names, their family, and things like that. One of my patients, whom I love dearly, has been getting sicker and sicker. She has been diagnosed with cancer and has not been responding to treatment well. Recently, she has decided to stop with chemo and radiation because she doesn't want to spend the last few weeks of her life sick. It was a very hard decision for her to make, and for her family to accept. After she decided this, she came into the office and we talked about what we could do for her. When she was in, she handed me a card and a small porcelain angel. She held my hand and told me she thought I was an angel sent from heaven to help her during such an awful time. She said I gave her so much kindness and love, and that I felt more like family to her than a nurse. I felt my heart break into pieces, but also I felt so loved and appreciated. This woman was going through such a terrible time, and she wanted to comfort me. I hugged her and told her she was my family too, and that I love her very much. We held hands during her appointment, and I didn't want to let her go. Now I go see her on my days off and always bring flowers and some sweet tea. It's her favorite.

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 work at a corporate IT department where we handle repairs and respond to high-level client issues. Recently, I was able to fix an urgent problem for a client very quickly, basically saving the company millions of dollars and reputation. Because of this, my bosses decided to thank me and promote me at our monthly IT meeting. In front of everyone, of course. It was actually pretty awesome. I was excited that I was able to do my job well. It's not often I get this kind of praise in front of a crowd of 100+ people (co-workers). So it's definitely a moment I will remember for a long time. Really burns a fire to work hard and keep a dedicated grind! My immediate boss gave me a small award as well. Once I got back to the office, we had pizza and food all ready for the team. I was amazed the company did all this. How often does corporate do this kind of stuff? I would say very rarely, so I was pleased.

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.

Engineering was exciting to me because it was the creation process of going from an idea to "I've made this" or "this is a better way of doing it." We opened up the directory of industrial designers and we just started cold calling down the list to try to get interviews. We had just graduated from college so we didn't really know anything about their daily work, so we just asked them to tell us: "So what do you do, show us where you work? What kind of projects are you working on? What are the problems?" And one of the patterns was, people had a hard time finding new materials. Finding suppliers, finding how to use it, finding what the options are. It's a whole can of worms that they just didn't know how to do. I really wanted to realize my maximum potential and I felt if I just took a job somewhere, then I wouldn't be able to realize it. It would just be whatever they gave you to do. Today, if you want to build something, the barriers to try are very low. And it really comes back to effort and desire.

So, my partner's niece has been really struggling lately. She was an inpatient at a psychiatric treatment for about a year, and she just went home about a week ago. And we have been working on, well, not her father, and everyone else who's there is sort of working on trying to help her transition back into sort of outpatient life. But she seems to be really struggling - sort of having anxiety and depression, and sort of these angry outbursts of irritation, and just sort of general, like, not doing well. Yeah, I guess I don't really have much of a story with an arc. I guess we're in the middle of the story. But that's what I've been thinking about a lot lately.

I know there are a lot of negative experiences for people, especially those struggling with mental health issues. Though, I do not want to scare people away from getting help when they need it. I needed help at the beginning of freshman fall, so I went to medical, and they did more than enough for me. I genuinely look forward to seeing my psychologist, and my psychiatrist is a great person too. Both continuously make the best decisions for me, and I cannot thank them enough for all of their help. So for all the people out there who need help but aren’t because they’re worried about having a bad experience, it’s worth the risk. I really hope that those who have had bad experiences do get the help they need. But long story short, going to medical for mental health has been great for me, and especially to the prefrosh who might be reading these, please do give them a chance. They do want what’s best for you, even if some of them aren’t the best at coming to good solutions. This is a really long post and realistically not coherent, but I hope I got my point across. And again, to those who had bad experiences, I’m so sorry.