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

Last March, I went to a tax accountant. I needed to file amended returns for the Patreon income from four previous years. I'd been under the impression since I set up my Patreon account that it was gift income and, therefore, non-taxable. But gradually, it became my primary source of income, and I shifted to self-employment as a freelance writer. And the more I looked into it, the more I began to suspect it was taxable after all. I feared getting into serious trouble. In July of last year, I concluded that it was indeed taxable. So I made plans to see an accountant and file for back taxes. According to my research on Google, the IRS was required to allow installment payments I could afford, but I was still quite apprehensive in the months leading up to the meeting. In March, I met with the accountant, gave him documentation of the additional income, and paid him $400 for preparing four years' amended returns. This was considerably cheaper than my worst-case estimate and was, in itself, a significant relief. And he confirmed my information about making installment payments. In the months since, the IRS sent me a bill for back taxes, and I arranged a modest $64/month installment payment. I also subtract 15% self-employment tax. It's a total tax burden I'm able to bear relatively easily, and a great load off my mind.

It. Yeah? So last? When I was seven years old, I moved back to India from the United States.

I moved away from my home country to live free when I was 19. I didn't want to live in a third-world country. I hated the lack of freedom. I got accepted to a college abroad, but my parents couldn't support me anymore because of currency devaluation. I hated seeing my dad work so hard; I always feared that if his health deteriorated because of me, I would never be able to forgive myself. They can't help me. I had to quit my school and I found a job. I worked 3 and a half years and quit afterwards due to problems in my workplace. Meanwhile, I dealt with my physical health problems and supported myself without the help of my parents. I saved up and invested so that I would have enough money to live around 15 months. Now I am trying to set up my own business, earn money by freelancing, doing anything to get ahead, to show what I am capable of. To have good people around me. To live free. To not lose my freedom. I am 24, unemployed and without capital to start my business; my savings are getting lower by the day and I feel a bit scared. A couple of ventures I tried already failed. I made some money meanwhile, but it is by no means enough. A good friend of mine told me I should finish my degree because otherwise, I am just a hustler. If you finish your degree, you would be a professional hustler, he said. I hate to break it to him. I don't have money to pay for college, and I can't get a loan to pay for it because I am an immigrant and have nothing to back it up, and even if I did, I would be in debt and 28 years old by the time I graduate. I would have to study with 18-year-olds, and I wouldn't be able to work as much while studying. I can't get a job in business and gain practical experience because I don't have a degree. All I can do is work.

Well, I just want to say that even though I haven't found a job yet, I'm not necessarily mad about not having found a job because I got to go on a trip to the southwest, which was nice and relaxing because I got to go to Sedona. So, I got to have a little bit of a spiritual cleanse.

I was dating this woman who was really adventurous and really wanted to go to Japan, and I didn't really know what else to do, and I was like, "Sure." I happened to luck into a job working for an English language newspaper there, writing about environmental issues, which was like the coolest job I never deserved. They were looking for somebody who spoke Japanese. I managed to convince them I could get it done without speaking Japanese, and somehow they fell for it. And it was a great job. I got to travel all over Asia. That was profound for me as a person because I'd never really been in a place where I was different from everyone else. You're a different person once you've spent some time abroad and learned from other people. Once you've changed your perspective to understand that there's more than one way to think about the world, you can't ever really change back.

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

I live with my parents and I'm trying to study for an exam, so I can get an A+ certification and a better job that pays me enough to live on my own. My problem is that over the past few months, I could have made some serious progress in the online IT course I'm studying, yet I'm REALLY good at procrastinating. I've been sitting at the halfway point for a while now and have had trouble motivating myself to continue. What bothers me the most is that I spend my day goofing off and wasting time, but not in any meaningful way. Reading and playing video games are some of my favorite hobbies, yet during my free time, I don't even really do these things anymore. I stare at Youtube's homepage, watch some videos I don't really care about, and if I'm lucky, I'll hop on Steam and play a couple matches of a multiplayer game. If I'm not dispassionately scrolling Youtube or social media, I'm pacing my room waiting for it to be time to head to my overnight job. I have HUNDREDS of games across multiple platforms that I've never finished or tried, books I've never read... a work certification that I should really be studying for. But I spend most of my free time waiting to go back to work. My job isn't very challenging and has a good amount of downtime, and I don't even use that time at work to study/read/whatever. I keep telling myself, "when I have a day job and my own apartment, I'll play more games in my free time", yet I don't do the studying that will actually get me to that point. I don't know if I'm a little depressed or just burnt out or what.

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

At UCLA, I was studying molecular cell and developmental biology. After I graduated, I found a job in a biotech company. But I was bored, I was just running basic tests. I knew that deep down inside of me, there was an artist. So I left my job and just really threw myself into working on my art. So that's when I started going more towards the route of entertainment design and being a concept artist. It's the idea of taking illustration and applying it to entertainment mediums like video games, animation, and film in a very problem-solving manner. To me, it was right up the same alley as microbiology because it's all about problem-solving. What I love about the work I do now is that it's a different kind of problem-solving, except these are a little bit more exciting to me. Each of you has something in your gut that tells you when something is right or wrong. And I feel like it is important to listen to that. I guess I treated my path like an experiment. Let's do this, if it doesn't work, let's try something else. If that doesn't work, let's try one more thing. If that doesn't work, again, reassess.

So I\'d like to tell a story about how I really got interested in robotics. There was this moment when I was in a Lego Robotics competition where I first realized that all robotics has the ability to help people. And even if the project that I came up with was super dumb back then, and it was absolutely not realistic at all, the fact that I realized that it could help is kind of what kept me going. So then in high school, I continued to do robotics. I continued to do outreach for robotics, to get people to get the same kind of insight on, like, "Oh, I could actually do stuff with this." And even now, I\'m still following that same passion for how robots can help people. And I\'m still doing it now.

So at Alchemy, we are taking the concept of chemistry and science and turning them into game-based learning tools for students and 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 to sort of feel 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.

One experience I'd like to share is that of traveling as a lone person. On one trip to Spain, I lived there for several months without knowing anyone, but I had contacts, so I wasn't alone. And one morning, on my way someplace, it was a Sunday morning, and as I was walking down the street, I learned something about the Spanish culture in the area that I was in. That staying out late, and perhaps I mean by late, I mean to dawn beyond the madrugada, was a common experience that people didn't feel badly about, especially when they had overexcesses in drinking and were sleeping on the street. So, I was walking down this street on a sidewalk in Avocado and I started seeing lots of people sleeping, relying on the sidewalk. And it's a little disconcerting because the environment that I hailed from, that wasn't a common experience. I didn't live in a city while living in Boston. Boston kind of goes quiet after midnight, 01:00 in the morning. South Florida, where I came from, there wasn't really no city place that you went. Maybe Miami, but nobody really went to Miami. You stayed in the fun areas where you were near. It wasn't a city like Boston. Let's put it that way. And as I'm walking down the street, I see these people in various states of deep sleep or slowly waking. Get a little bit disconcerted. I didn't see any women. It was all men. And I started to get a little bit nervous, but I was by myself. So I had to figure out how to do this. And so I chose to walk down the middle of the street. It was interesting to me to see how I adapted when I put distance between me and that which was uncomfortable or discomforting. Putting that distance between me and the sidewalk by walking down the middle of the street. Yes, I had some fear that perhaps somebody would wake from their slumber and I don't know, verbally. I really didn't think so much physically, but just verbally. I'm not a confrontational person. So I have often thought about that when you put distance between yourself and that which makes you uncomfortable. Kind of avoidance. But yeah, there'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 had a more strained relationship. But after this trip, we are as close as ever.

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.

I'm the curator of Behavioral Husbandry and Welfare for Oklahoma City Zoo. So, I spend a lot of time looking, observing, learning everything we can about the species and about what their needs are to give them many choices in their environment. So that they have varied days and they have a very dynamic environment that they're living in. When I was five years old, I had an encounter with a dolphin. And I was able to look that animal in the eye, and that was it for me. I wanted to dedicate my life to working with animals. When I left college, I thought, "I'm ready. Put me in a job, I know what to do." And what I found was the animals were the best teachers. They have taught me humility. I think that's a big one. They've taught me compassion, to be a little bit more open and be very understanding. Especially to other human beings. That was something I learned when I left college. I had amazing experiences in college, and I loved my classes, but I don't think I really started becoming well-rounded until I got out of the classroom. And I really started learning the real-world stuff. So talk to people, hear their stories, and keep an open mind because every person has something to teach you.

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

I've been sick for the past 4 days, and while I was supposed to go to university today, I woke up late and decided that skipping an extra day won't hurt. Since I happened to still wake up, I decided I will still treat myself to a good day. I went to McDonald's and ordered a Menu and ate there. That was a first for me. I've always been scared of going to restaurants alone because I will look dumb or whatever, but now I no longer care what others think, and I enjoyed a good ol' meal. After that, I went to a cafe to do my homework, which is also something I've been horrified doing because I thought "people will think I'm trying to look mature" or whatever, but now I don't care. I went and ordered a piece of cheesecake as well as a cup of hot coffee and did some math homework. It was a really relaxing atmosphere, and the mood was just awesome. I didn't spend all my time on homework because it's a waste of time to not enjoy the moment in that atmosphere and do math instead. Anyhow, it was also awesome. And I'm happy that I now don't care what others think. I don't take comfort in knowing "they don't think badly of you"; I am comfortable because "even if they think badly of me, I don't care". And now I have a lot to catch up on for university, but it was worth it.

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

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

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.

As a child, my best friend would quarrel with me if she saw that I bought myself the same thing as her. To be honest, I don't understand her anger. We live in a small town and go to the same shops. And why can't I like the blouse she liked? I always told my friend: If you don't want someone to wear the same things as yours, customize it. For example, I will not express dissatisfaction if I see a girl in the same clothes as me.

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.

About four weeks, my girlfriend took me to her hometown in Pittsburgh. I had never been to the city before or met her parents, so it was going to be a big weekend. We went up on a Friday after work, making the 4.5-hour drive through the Pennsylvania mountains. This was a trip we had talked about for a while, but never could find a free weekend as we are both very busy with work. Finally, we were able to find a free weekend for both of us and booked everything very last minute. We started off getting dinner at an Italian restaurant with her parents, which went really well! I was a little nervous going into the dinner, but her parents were very nice and it was a relaxing dinner. After dinner, we went to our hotel in the city. Saturday, I did not think we had any plans, but I was surprised that my girlfriend had a whole day planned out. I was surprised and happy she spent the time to plan a whole fun day for me. We spent the day going to museums, breweries, parks, and ending the day riding a tram up a mountain for a view of the city and ate dinner up there. It was a really fun day, and the whole thing made me really happy. The next day, we went to a Pittsburgh Steelers game. The stadium was really cool, and it was an exciting game. The fans of the Steelers were so passionate and enthused, it made the experience very memorable. After the game, we drove home - I drove while my girlfriend slept. It was a tiring weekend as we had a lot of activities, but it was great nonetheless.

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.

When Elizabeth was born, who is our child who has a disorder that's called dyspraxia, you quickly learn that that's like a job in itself. In Elizabeth's case, she's so globally affected that her fine motor, gross motor, oral motor, all of that is affected as well as how she processes thoughts. She learned to ride a bike last summer, which is huge in Elizabeth's world. It was hard work, and even though she's 18 and riding a bike, and even though most kids ride their bike. It's okay. You're gonna get there. You're gonna get there on your timeframe. And I think once you can understand that time is just a concept that someone made up and said at this age you do this and at this age you do that. But you can't let that be what guides you in feeling success or not. I think that's so critical, do it when it works for you. Be proud of your accomplishments, whenever they do come, and lose the have tos of the timeline.

Okay. I thought I'd tell you about the situation we have here in Simsbury, where I live. With regard to bears. When we moved here 30 years ago, there were no bears. But now, for the last 20 years, there have been bears. And in the last four or five years, there have been many bears. Bears that come onto the deck, bears that go into the garage, bears that tip over the trash. They're funny because they are large and somewhat intimidating in appearance. But they seem as annoyed by us as we are by them. They are not aggressive in a way that, let's say, a yellow jacket is aggressive. And they're not creepy in the way, let's say, spiders and snakes are creepy. They're very quiet and they can scare you just because of their size and what you know they could do if they wanted to. I look at them and we live obviously in the woods. And they're huge, as I said. And I ask myself, how do they maintain that weight with just eating berries and stuff from the woods? It just does not seem possible. And over the years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of cubs they have. Usually, early on, they'd come around with one cub, then two. Now we've seen as many as four cubs. And yes, they are adorable. They really, really are adorable, and they're charming in the way they react with their moms. They look to her for leadership and obey her nonverbal commands. And she watches out for them. You would be making a very bad decision to get between a mom and a cub. But there are too many. I am not a person who is in favor of killing animals just for the sake of killing them. But I'm thinking maybe something like an additive to food that would make them infertile, maybe that would be a good idea. I don't know. I'm working on this. That's my story.

I'm in love with animals and I'm really passionate about wildlife conservation. I just think they're really interesting, and a lot of animals are super mysterious and beautiful to me. Like, I would totally freak out if I got the chance to sit and just observe a pack of wolves in their natural habitat. I get genuinely anxious thinking about how many animal species are having their habitats destroyed, and it makes me think it'd be really cool if we could properly coexist with animals rather than take over their territory. I wish there were more wildlife overpasses for freeways and animal-friendly ecostructures. Plus, there would probably be a lot more wild animal sightings!

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

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

So, I have a story about one of my pets that I had as a child. So, I think I was in high school when I got a hamster. And hamsters are really small. And they're fast. But they're little. And the story is about one night. The story is about one night where I had gone to sleep but the lock on the cage door was apparently not completely locked. And my hamster escaped during the night while I was asleep. So, it's important to know, my bedroom was on the opposite end of the house from where my parents were. So, during the night, unknown to me, my hamster found a way out and then somehow got out of the cage. Dropped off of a dresser where he was, so about a meter or so, and then he had crawled through the house somehow and had escaped the attention of our dog and ended up in my parents' bedroom. On my mom, tickling her chin with his nose in the middle of the night. And she woke up and found him and then was very surprised. And she brought him back to my room and locked him in the cage and told me about it the next morning. But, we all thought that was very funny, that he had escaped and then crawled all the way across the entire house to get to my mom and then crawled up on the bed to get to her and then woke her up by tickling her chin. Now they liked each other. They had a good relationship. So, we just thought that was funny.

My cat is, by now, about 11 years old. A senior. He has lived with my mom since I moved out until half a year ago when I was finally able to take him in with me. I usually do not think of him as my baby or plaything. He is a pet I dearly love but a pet. And he is a cat, and cats are independent beings who enjoy or tolerate company. I am proud he enjoys my company and likes to cuddle! But yesterday was more. I opened the door for him to go out, and he stayed around. I sat down for cuddles, and after a few minutes, he started to move away. But when I got up and tried to go inside, he meowed and clearly wanted to show me something. I followed him, and he started moving through the streets, making sure I stayed close, and he did not lose me. He marked his territory by rubbing and meowed when I stayed too far back or did not go through the neighbors' gardens but came back for me. It was amazing that he apparently really wanted me to be with him on this stroll, and I am really proud! This is untypical for cats; he must really like me, and from now on, I consider myself a cat in training!

Yeah. So, a story that I thought of was my father texted me pictures from Google Maps of the old apartment that we used to live in. And he was like, "I love that. That was the greatest of times. People love talking to you because you could talk like an adult. And your grandmother helped us out so much." And I didn\'t really have great memories of that time in my life or talking to anyone. So, yeah, it was just interesting to talk about those differences. I asked him if he had a plan for us to move into a house or anything like that. And he said no, that he was just trying to kind of get by to make sure that we had everything that we needed. So, that was just an interesting conversation about my past. Yeah.

In June of 2019, my fiance and I began the process of searching for a new home. The process was long and grueling. We saw tons of houses in our area. We have never been so overwhelmed. After seeing about 10 different townhouses/homes, we decided to use a realtor to assist. Jim was great to work with. He knew exactly what we wanted and was immediately able to provide us recommendations. We finally started seeing houses that we really liked. We ended up finding a house and loved it. We put an offer in, but were rejected as someone else came in with a much stronger offer. We were devastated. However, we didn't realize how lucky we were. Jim showed us one more house. The house was completely redone, in our hometown, and close to two major highways. We were so lucky that we didn't get the prior house as this one was better. We knew as soon as we walked through that this was the one. We put an offer, but that was rejected. After some negotiating, we provided an offer that was accepted. After a few months of searching diligently, we finally found our house. This was honestly one of the most memorable moments of my entire life. You can only buy your first home one time.

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

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.

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

I am the marketing director here at Valen Analytics. Our company builds predictive models and we also have a platform that hosts them that 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 the solid performance at what I'm doing now and then set forth my next goal.

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

My mom has always been a good mom. She took care of 2 kids going to 2 different schools, with one of them having half custody with her dad. When I was 5, my mom met my stepdad and soon enough they had another boy. Up until this point, my mother had given no reason for me to dislike her. But this all took a turn for the worse when COVID came around. My mother lost her job, but because of non-COVID related reasons, and she got off her anxiety medication because it was starting to make her lose weight. Once when my mom was arguing with my stepdad, she started bawling her eyes out, and I asked why, and she admitted she had depression. That's all I know about her medical conditions. In 2020, she started being horrible to my sister, even though she was the oldest sibling and did the most around the house. And a few months ago, my stepdad and mom fighting became a biweekly thing. She threatened to break up with him almost every time they got into an argument. About 2 months ago, we moved into a better house that could better fit 5 people and 2 dogs. It only got worse from there. She would get mad because the house was going to be under my stepdad's name until they got married in about 6 months, and she said she would move back into her old house and never see him again. But instead of it being a biweekly thing, it now happens every single day. And I don't know how to deal with it. Me and my sister have to just sit in our rooms and hope our little brother isn't hearing every word they say. Even though we know for a fact he is. I hear her threatening to commit suicide, to give us away to our grandmother. I don't know what to do. I'm still a minor and can't live without my parents. I can't even stand to look at my mom anymore. I hate her. And I don't think I will ever take that back. No matter how many "heartfelt" apologies she gives me after literally threatening to kick me out in a way where she doesn't have any repercussions.

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.

So, I grew up in the projects in Canarsie. Similar, I think, to the environments a lot of you might be used to: gun violence, gangs. I grew up on welfare for the first 17 years of my life. You have to find motivation to succeed every possible place you can, even if it's a negative emotion. When you start thinking about the negativity, about the stupid decisions you made, about the people who made you feel bad, turn that into fuel. Transmute your frustration into the fuel. There is this avatar or this person that says, you know, "you're just like your mom. Your mom did nothing, you're going to be nothing, that's you." And you go, "I can't wait to prove this person," like, "it is going to mean so much to me when that person eats every single word and they have no idea how great I am, how much I give back, how much I help others, how positive my life is." So, I'm not trying to become great to then hurt this person. I'm not trying to become great to hurt someone. I'm trying to become great, and I'm trying to find every possible tool to keep me moving forward because it's so easy to want to quit.

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.

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.

Yeah, so I was talking with my best friend. It was just one of the regular calls that we were having. And so I was talking to her about this thing that I kind of discovered recently, which is that it\'s not about me not having motivation to do something, but it\'s more about what am I more motivated to do at a certain point in time. Things like that. So curiously, there\'s something I\'ve been motivated to do that seems to be pretty rare: working on my resume. Which is kind of interesting because if you think about it as a pretty rare occurrence, like people usually aren\'t pretty into working on their resume. And for me, it\'s just like, yeah, let\'s go, get it done, let\'s go get job apps done. And I think it\'s a pretty nice mindset to just be in, right? And so, while we were talking, though, it suddenly shifted into this thing about her and overall how the job application process is pretty not good and things like it being a waste of time. What\'s the point? I\'m working on it if you\'re just going to get rejected, all those kinds of things, right? And it just got very negative, right? And so the conversation shifted a lot, like from a positive towards a pretty negative one pretty quickly without me really realizing it. And then after that, eventually she was like, "Yeah, I can\'t work on my stuff." She can\'t work on her stuff. She was like, "Yeah, I\'ll show you." And then she opened up her portfolio and she was like, "Yeah, my portfolio, I have to work on all of this ABCD kind of thing." And as she was looking at it, she was like, "Oh, wait, this isn\'t actually as bad as I thought it was. I can work with this, essentially." With what she was going on about, it changed again a lot after that. She was like, "Yeah, I\'m really happy at this conversation." She started working on her portfolio and all those things afterwards because things just weren\'t as bad as she thought, right? And so for me, it was just like, I don\'t know, it felt kind of like a mini roller coaster ride. I wasn\'t really expecting things to go down that route. And honestly, I didn\'t appreciate essentially being reminded of all the more negative things that are involved in the job application process because fundamentally, when I was motivated to do it, I didn\'t really think about any of that. It was just like, "Oh yeah, I feel like doing it" and all that kind of stuff, right? So there wasn\'t really anything getting in the way. But then with all those reminders, and then all of a sudden, this like, "Oh, things are fine" kind of thing, I don\'t know, it just kind of threw me off, made me a little bit unsettled. Like, I\'m happy for her, but at the same time, it\'s like, afterwards, after we called, I just did not want to work on my resume stuff anymore. The next day, I did work on it, but it was just like, it destroyed all of the stuff that I wanted to do for that day. And I guess it\'s just kind of frustrating to see the impact that other people can have on me in such a short span of time. But luckily, luckily, I did end up getting my resume done and getting an application in the day after when I was able to just kind of extract myself from the situation after a bit of time. But it just seems a little bit unfair that something that happened kind of outside of my control, almost. Yeah. So that\'s my story. I don\'t know if you have any thoughts.

I got fired from the second job this year. It is highly upsetting for me. Kelley was my supervisor. She was the one who trained me. She sent me a text on my day off and told me not to come in that week. She said they were "trying something new". A coworker messaged me on Facebook and asked what happened. She heard I got fired. I told her that she knew more than me because they hadn't even told me that I was fired. I am not that upset about it. I am getting unemployment, and I actually already got another job. I start next week. Even though I am getting unemployment, it is still upsetting and a bit humiliating.

About. So. The story is about my friend who just is leaving Cambridge. And. Is traveling like a nomad, like he's going to Italy, and then he's meeting her family there. And then she will be like she doesn't know where is she going to keep traveling. And. I have been regretting not traveling this summer. So, yeah, I just feel like I just had a very busy summer. And I am regretting not traveling.

I was dating this woman who was really adventurous and really wanted to go to Japan and I didn't really know what else to do, and I was like, "Sure." I happened to luck into a job working for an English-language newspaper there writing about environmental issues, which was like the coolest job I never deserved. They were looking for somebody who spoke Japanese. I managed to convince them I could get it done without speaking Japanese, and somehow they fell for it. And it was a great job. I got to travel all over Asia. That was profound for me as a person because I'd never really been in a place where I was different from everyone else. You're a different person once you've spent some time abroad and learned from other people. Once you've changed your perspective to understand that there's more than one way to think about the world, you can't ever really change back.

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

A few weeks ago, I went to visit my elderly father. He's a terrific man but has a way about him that is a little intimidating. He's always been in control of everything around him. As I was growing up, I saw him as Superman. The years have taken their toll, and he is now in his late 80s and having problems with his health and his memory. It's hard to see Superman become human. During my visit, I stayed with him at the retirement home, and we had wonderful conversations about life, family, what we think happens to us after this life, etc. I felt so honored that he was confiding in me some of his most personal thoughts and fears. I felt closer to him than I ever had before. We talked about how much he missed my mother, who passed away a few years ago. We talked about how he hopes to be remembered. We just talked about life in general. Towards the end of the visit, he told me that he had his lawyer draw up papers making me his power of attorney and his healthcare power of attorney. He said I was the only one he trusted to always keep his best interest at heart. I'm the youngest of two children, so I assumed my older brother would be the one he would pick for this. I had gone to visit my elderly father, but when I left for home, I was leaving what felt like my best friend and confidant.

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.

At the age of 11, I was diagnosed with a chronic disease called Type 1 Diabetes. Type 1 Diabetes is when the autoimmune system attacks the pancreas and destroys the pancreas' ability to regulate blood sugar. Due to this, a Type 1 Diabetic has to inject insulin every day in order to live. Unfortunately, while you can do a good job managing your blood sugars using insulin, you simply can't compare to a fully functioning pancreas, and problems will occur as a result. In May, I was at home on a Saturday cooking dinner. I was having brown rice and baked chicken breasts. Due to the carbohydrates that are in rice, I had to take insulin in order for my body to process the brown rice. I took my insulin around 20 minutes before I ate. I planned to eat a lot (for me) of brown rice that evening, so I took a much larger than normal dose of insulin. After I prepared my food, I sat down and began to eat my chicken breasts first. I tried a special barbecue sauce on the chicken breasts and they tasted wonderful. I had no problems devouring the chicken breasts. After I finished the chicken breast, I started to eat the brown rice. However, I started to feel extremely and uncomfortably full to the point where I became nauseated. Unfortunately, at that time, the insulin that I took for the brown rice started to kick in, and my blood sugar dropped down to dangerously low levels. I tried to eat the rice to get my blood sugar back up, but I was so full that I couldn't do it. At that time, the effects of low blood sugar were kicking in. I was sweating heavily and shaking. I had trouble moving. My ability to think and problem solve took a huge hit. I was slowly wandering around my apartment looking for something that I could eat that wouldn't cause me to vomit, which would make it even harder to get my blood sugar back up. That's when I found some Powerbar Energy Gels that I use when I exercise. They weren't heavy on your stomach, and they have a lot of carbohydrates which would counteract the insulin. I downed a few packets of the gels, and in 20-25 minutes, I started to feel better. I had survived, but it is a situation that still scares me to this day.

So this is a story of how my mom and dad got married. So they have this super cute love story that I wish I also will have, can have these, but who knows. Basically, my mom and my dad grew up on the same little street in the same little, tiny farming fishing village in China. There were just a few houses apart. My mom is two years older than my dad, but I swear from birth, he fell in love with her. She was like class star, like class President, amazing role model, like most beautiful girl ever. And she always saw him as a younger brother figure. So he would follow her around, make dumb jokes and stuff, but I think she also kind of liked them a little bit enough. But eventually, my dad's family immigrated to the US first. So he left when he was... I don't know when, twelve, I think. And then for the next six years, they never really saw each other because he was in America. She was in China back then. Transportation between the two countries not as available, not as economical. But he would write letters back. And I think he just always kept loving her, despite not really seeing her for that time period. And eventually, when he got into College, he deferred a semester and went back to China. And he said that the first person he saw when he went to the village was my mom. And he just knew. Felt all the time with her. And then he basically just asked her to come to America with him, eventually marry him. Obviously, why else would she go to America with him if not to marry him? So my mom, she agreed. During the whole time, she never dated anyone. My maternal grandma, My lala, was very strict. Like, no dating boys. No seeing boys. And my dad never dated anyone. So they were each other's first kiss, like first everything. And I think that's just something so beautiful. Very bold of my mom, very brave of her to put down all her roots and then pick them up and then move them all to America to be with my dad. So I'm grateful for it because I got to grow up in America and have a lot of opportunities. I might not have had if I grew up in China. I got married when my dad was 20, my mom was 22. And they've been married for so long now, super cute. They've been married for over 30-something years. And I think that is something that I really admire. And even though I can't get married that early, I wish I could, I still hope that I will find someone sometime soon, maybe. But yes, that is the story of how my mom fell in love, got married, and then I think they had six years of marriage before they had me. And I think that's also really nice to have, little marriage time when you're just you and your spouse before kids, these other responsibilities. But yeah, that is my story for the session. Thank you, Jibo.

I was part of a military family. We moved a lot. I went to ten schools before I got out of high school. My family and the military community around us were part of my life. And also the Catholic church. At that time, for girls, the idea was if you weren't just gonna be a mom and a mother, there were really very few things you could do. You could be a nurse. You could be a teacher. And in my background, you could be a nun. I very quickly decided I wasn't gonna be a nun. I was 17. I'm just looking at the next four years. When I became involved in the Young Lawyers here in Denver, I certainly did not think that 28 years later I would become the president of the ABA. If you have passion for something, there's not such a thing as a 40-hour work week. I don't think I've ever done a 40-hour work week. Because I have so much fun doing what I do, it's just part of my life.

Guys, so today I was watching an episode of Suits, and in Suits, there is a lawyer named Louis. The whole thing is a TV show that takes place in New York, in a law office. Louis is one of the lawyers who is constantly trying to be the best, and he always sees himself as inferior to Harvey, another character. And every time Louis tries to do some kind of payback for whatever Harvey did to him, it always ends up backfiring on him somehow. He always makes a bigger mess than what he started. What kind of resonated with me in this story is that it's not necessarily the greatest objective to try and be the best. Because if you are trying to be better than someone else, you're constantly competing and trying to undermine them or go against them. And while it can be healthy, to some extent, to have some competition, unhealthy competition doesn't make a lot of sense, and that kind of resonated with me. Because for so long, I competed in competitions for everything from math to science to robotics. And it was always like you had to be the best. And now, going past college, it doesn't make sense to try and be the best because everyone is doing something completely different from you. So just keep trying and undermining people will just backfire on you.

Growing up with just my dad and my brother, I was obviously very independent and strong-willed. My dad's best friend was a stockbroker, and for some reason, because I was so good with money, I decided that I would be a really good stockbroker. And fortunately, throughout high school, we had work exchange and work experience, and they used to send me off with all sorts of random checks and things to deliver somewhere, and I had no idea where I was going or how to get there. And being the little surfy chick that I was, it just made me realize that wasn't the avenue I wanted to go down. Ultimately, to become successful in anything, you have to be relatively selfish. You have to be so one-dimensional. I also believe that there's no such thing as a mistake; it's only a learning experience. The only mistake is not learning from it. But even then, you're just gonna be given the opportunity to learn it and learn it and learn it until such time as you do. So I made the same "mistake" over and over again until I actually got the lesson.

Story. Okay, so stories from Massachusetts. I think my more notable ones are just playing outside or just hanging out outside in Phoenix. I think when I was younger, I did play outside, but I think as I got older, it was less available. And plus, the temperature has really increased a lot. Like, it\'s gone really hot in Phoenix. So I think, in my opinion, from like March to October, it\'s really unbearable being outside, like late March till late October. And so I think being in Massachusetts, like, wow, this is actually livable weather. Like, you can actually walk around and the sun\'s not trying to kill you. So I think my most memorable memories are all the times I spend outside.\n\nSo my first time playing in the snow, Massachusetts. We had snow, and then while we had this hill that\'s called Seven Hill, where it\'s the one big hill on campus everyone slides down. So every time whenever I had free time, I would try to convince my friends, like, come on, we got to go, we got to go. So then we would use whatever we had, like cardboard boxes, lids from our bins. And I really convinced, I remember I always got my roommate out to go play in the snow. And it was just really fun just being out there with my friend Juanita because I pulled her onto the snow multiple times.\n\nAnd then also as the spring came through, we made snowmen in the snow and then in the springtime. At least the most recent, this past well, at least the last spring I was in Massachusetts with my friends. I also pulled them out into the outside. So we had like picnics, not very often, though occasionally we had picnics. But I think one of the funniest memories from being in the springtime was when I was just very enthusiastic about flying a kite because I hadn\'t flown a kite in years. And we don\'t really get much wind in Phoenix. At least not the times that I remember a little bit this spring.\n\nSo I happened to be at the Dollar store and I bought these, like, one dollar kites, and I thought we just have to use it somehow. And then one day, it was, like, a nice sunny day, with a Sunday, and it was a Sunday morning. So I\'m, like, my friends are not doing their homework yet because we cram, like, 5:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., so I try to convince them all to come outside. And we ended up flying kites. And I think the funniest part was that we took turns flying the kite to the point because they\'re one dollar, so they\'re very cheap and cheaply made so they would break. So then, I had to go find tape to try to fix them. And even when it was trying to fly the broken kites, the most memorable time from this experience was when my friend, my friendo, she was running and she flew the kite, and it got stuck in the tree. And at this point, everyone was watching us because Walshy students always studied. They\'re never outside hanging out. So then they were like, wow, these people are out here. So we had like a crowd watching us. And everyone got sad that the kite had gotten stuck in the tree. And I really was like, the kite is a goner. We\'re never seeing it again. Like, goodbye. And then out of nowhere, my friend kept playing at it. She was determined to get it out of the tree. I was like, oh, you know, it\'s okay. It\'s okay to give up. It\'s gone. And then, out of nowhere, like this giant gust of wind comes in and, like, swooshes the kite out of the tree unexpectedly. And it\'s flying in the air. And she\'s running, screaming, "I got it, guys! I got it!" And then everyone watching us starts cheering and clapping. It was just so weird. So then I got the kite back. But it was just such a fun memory. And to have a crowd watching us do that was really cool.

I won the dodgeball game for my team. I'm in ROTC, and we have to do early morning physical training. Usually we run and do calisthenics, but today was a little easier - dodgeball. I was the last one standing and caught a ball, thereby getting the rest of my team back into the game, and I also happened to throw the ball that got their last player out. I'm not sporty; this was just a lucky confluence of shenanigans that made me happy, probably my new proudest sports moment.

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.

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

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

When Elizabeth was born, who is our child with a disorder called dyspraxia, you quickly learn that that's like a job in itself. In Elizabeth's case, she's so globally affected that her fine motor, gross motor, oral motor, all of that is affected, as well as how she processes thoughts. She learned to ride a bike last summer, which is huge in Elizabeth's world. It was hard work, and even though she's 18 and riding a bike, and even though most kids ride their bike. It's okay. You're gonna get there. You're gonna get there on your timeframe. And I think once you can understand that time is just a concept that someone made up and said at this age you do this and at this age you do that, but you can't let that be what guides you in feeling success or not. I think that's so critical, do it when it works for you. Be proud of your accomplishments whenever they do come and lose the "have tos" of the timeline.

Okay. So this isn't really anything exciting? It's not an exciting story. But it's something that I learned recently about myself. So I thought it'd be interesting to share. Wait, let me take a look at my note. So, I think when I was young, younger, I really wanted to achieve something in life really fast. And I wanted to be recognized as a successful person. So I had this very big desire. But I'm so naturally I searched for a field or area where I thought I have a competitive advantage. And one of the fields or professions that I found that I could do better than other people was in the creative writing field. So I got a lot of compliments from teachers and family and friends about my writing skills or my imaginations. So when I was like early twenties, I wanted to become a famous novelist or successful TV scriptwriter or a filmmaker. So I did internships, and I worked as a writer at a radio station, like a production company and youth agency. But I didn't last long in those fields because I was so impatient. I wanted to be really this famous writer. But what I was at the time was like a low-paying freelance writer and I could not bear that difficulties, and could not. I didn't have like, it wasn't like because fortunately, I had the support of my family. Even though I was low pay. I didn't have to worry too much about financial issues, but I was just very disgruntled about how, the stage I was in, I guess. So I felt like I'm like the lowest person in this organization. And nobody really listens to me, and I couldn't stand that struggle. So I called it quits, and I jumped to the other area or field and industry. And I think when I look back, I think I was very immature and impatient at the time. If I was a little bit wiser, I would have seen those struggles and difficulty of learning opportunities, or opportunities to grow. But I just really wanted to be at the finish line rather than going through this step by step. So now, today I'm in a completely different field and not doing anything related to writing. Although I believe writing is very essential in all kinds of work and industry. Now I think I'm a little bit, I've learned my lesson from the past experience. However, today I felt like I was like the younger self. I was feeling a little bit agitated about who I am right now. And I was comparing myself to whom I want to be in the future. And I would not be very satisfied about myself, but since I had older now, and I'm more experienced. Not immediately, but I kind of try to remind myself the outcome that I had. If I have that kind of mentality. So I guess I'm trying to self-talk, trying to reinforce myself more in a more positive way. And rather than jump to the end result. I'm trying to enjoy this moment. I know it sounds very cliché, but I'm really trying to be grateful about my surroundings and who I am right now. I think it's good for my mind. And I think it's more, it gives me more motivation and energy to continue to work on my future goals.

We are creating soft, multi-layered forms that interact with environments and create a space in cities that open up our imagination and allow us to think about a different way of being. So I had $300, and for graduation, I got a plane ticket to Bali. And I went off on my own and started walking through the rice fields until I found a little house to rent. I went as a painter, I shipped all my paints and they got lost, and that is how I became a sculptor because I had no paint. I was in a fishing village, they had fishing twine, and began just experimenting, and from there I had this dream of bringing it back home. I applied to seven art schools, and I was rejected by all seven. And that turned out to be the luckiest thing ever in my life because it forced me to have to learn how to teach myself. The education to do what I do, there is no program. If I had gone to a program, it might have led me somewhere, but it wouldn't have been as authentic a direction. Any kind of life where you're trying to do something new and creative, you're gonna hit rejections all the time. My mom had a saying for that too, it's like just toughen up, let it come at me. Just because you're rejecting me from every single art school I've applied to, that doesn't mean you get to say that I'm not an artist. The thing I had to teach myself after college was how to hear my own voice, like, honestly, I just didn't even know it to recognize it. Making decisions is gonna happen to you your whole life, they are always hard, you've got to figure out how to make them. And you have to listen to yourself and get to know yourself.

Also, hello. Over here. Okay, whatever. So, to respond to your first point, yes, we should be happy for the steps that we did take. But how can you expect to achieve anything remotely great if you just keep letting mediocre work? Anyway, a story I have for you, this week was the last meeting of my pottery class. It was a community that I really enjoyed, being with everyone who's very friendly and they brought me so much joy through my life. However, because I got a job in New York City, I had to leave the studio because I'm relocating to New York. So that was good. And then, however, my recruiter reached out to me and she was actually positioned in moving to Texas, Plano, Texas, Columbus, Ohio or Atlanta, Georgia. And I just feel like that would give me instant depression, like removing my social circle, like my social support, taking diversity away from my life in terms of Southern California diversity, and taking away good food and good weather and good nature. I would just become really sad, and I wish I would go to New York. So now I have to debate between, well, Texas is out of the picture, so now to debate between Columbus and Atlanta and I don't know how to make my decision.

This might be a weird thing to be proud of, but for the first time in months, I am finally feeling content with my life. This year tested me in many ways—I moved across the country to LA, then had a rough break up in March, and got fired in June from a job I thought I was going to be at for decades. At first, this felt like the end of the world, but I quickly realized I needed to make some serious changes to not fall down the path of depression and alcoholism. At 20 years old, I have the flexibility to make some impulse decisions, so I called my best friend and asked if she'd like to move to San Diego with me. I won't lie, it took months to feel comfortable here. At points, I had under $5 in my bank. But we found a dirt cheap, nice apartment in a good area. We made friends and have already made the best memories of my life. I never drink alone anymore. And the icing on the cake, I got three raises in three months and am back to having a comfortable salary. Moving here was the best decision of my life, and it all stemmed from an impulse phone call that I had little intention of following through on.

Oh, so, I guess for my sister\'s plans for today, like how we\'re going to take her to University. And I think a lot of it really reminds me of my first time going to College alone. Well, I didn\'t go to College alone, but basically, I was the first in my family to go to University outside of state. My sister, my older sister was the oldest. One and the first one to go to College ever because my family. No one really holds degrees. Where they\'re like Immigrants to the us. So it\'s like a whole complication thing there with education, not transferring or not going to University because it\'s expensive. So I feel really privileged to be to have been one of the first in my family to go to College. But it\'s definitely really hard because my parents don\'t have the same background as they don\'t have the same understanding of what it means to go to College in the US or what College really is. So it would be hard to relate with other friends that do have family and support system so. It really so I guess. It\'s like me thinking back about when I was first going through wellesley. So I went to Wales College in Massachusetts. So I\'m from Arizona. So that\'s a huge flight. It\'s like 6 hours flight. And pretty much the day I got dropped off or the weekend I got dropped off, I think it\'s super memorable in my mind because. It was me, two of my sisters, and my mom. So it\'s like all four of us were going, we couldn\'t really afford flights for other people. And it was kind of to me, a miracle that we could afford these flights to Massachusetts. It was thanks to my sister\'s good paying job at the time, but really I was surprised anyone could go. I was prepared to go by myself because we didn\'t really have much money. We took an overnight flight similar to this, but it was a direct flight, but they didn\'t sleep. But I can sleep through anything. So I slept through the flight. I don\'t know. I don\'t remember how many days we were there, but I think it was just very rushed and. It was like chaotic. Because we went so we had it over. And I thought, "Can you kick Elvis out? He\'s kind of, thank you." So I just see it as like a whirlwind, like I don\'t even remember really how the event unfolded. I just remember going overnight and then landing in Boston, and it was my first time in Boston with my family first time exploring. So then. I got to explore Boston that day, like I had a whole itinerary planned. I think that was like one of the starts of my travel crazy. The travel bug had a whole itinerary. I had my parent or my mom and my older sisters and everyone, like running through Boston, trying to get everything done as much as possible. For only one day. And then we went to the hotel, slept. And then the next day we went to wellesley. And it was just like a really cool experience to have them move me in. So I didn\'t have to do it alone. They helped move me in, and it was like the hottest day in Massachusetts. It just felt gross. And it was humid growth. And we\'re not used to humidity at all. So everything felt so sticky and stuffy. And there\'s no air conditioning in any of the dorms that well, we at least at the time, pretty much still not. So then there are no dorm, like there\'s no air conditioning. So it was like we\'re all hot and sweaty. And then I was meeting my roommate for the first time. And the room was so tiny. It was so small, we could all barely fit. And I just remember things like it was so crazy. The whole day was very hot and chaotic. And then. Afterwards, after we set up my Bay, we took, like, a photo. And it was like, oh, really cute of us all together. And then we got to meet my roommate, which is pretty cool because she\'s Colombian. So it was nice that my mom was able to speak like her native language with my roommates. There wasn\'t a language barrier for them, and they felt like more entrusting that I was going to stay with their daughter. It was just a nice experience. It\'s really nice when my. Friends or my friend\'s family speaks Spanish because then my parents can relate to them on a better level than English. So I was really thankful for that. So I just remember it being just very hot and humid and gross. But we got it all set up. And then we went to maybe a couple of us. It really is a blur. Like, I just feel like from the moment that we set up the better then it was like, okay, time to kick the parents out. Go away. So then. My parents and my sisters left. And then I stick back. And then it was like. A whole weird initiation ceremony that all these students have. But Yeah. It was just like very chaotic. Two to three days, maybe. But. It was definitely a good worthwhile experience for being the first. For being dropped off and on my own for the first time. To kind of fend for myself in life. Well, the wilderness. I don\'t know. So it was really cool. So this is what my current plan for today reminds me of, they remind me of this experience of being dropped off at University. And just kind of navigating it on my own from there.

We were driving in the car, and my father was just making conversation and said, "So, what do you want?" "To study?" I said, "Um, well, you know, I think I want to study philosophy." And my mother was a philosopher. So he pulled the car over, looked back at me, and said, "When you finish your medical residency, you can do anything you want." You know, I think all immigrant families understand this to an extent, that your parents want you to do something safe. Have a skill that no one can take away from you, no matter what. So I ended up being able to do that which I most wanted to do anyway, but I went through it, through the sciences. Following your dreams is one thing, but you're going to be much better at following your dreams if you have some sort of skill. And that paying your dues and getting some sort of rigorous training so that you actually know how to do something is very much worthwhile.

So it's been almost four days since I had my surgery, and now I have most of my function on my right arm back. I can pretty much do anything, I just can't lift anything over £20 or risk my stitches opening. So mostly I've been doing stuff around the house with my left arm, helping my girlfriend move stuff around, just using one arm, being careful. We have to clean it every single morning, but it's really not that bad. You just have to take off the bandages and then clean it with a little bit of warm water and soap, and then dry that off. Put some Vaseline on the wound, and then rebandage it up. Now it doesn't even hurt when it's resting, so I can wear clothes again and I can go to work. This is shaping up to be great, and it'll be worth it soon, whenever I'm done healing.

I wrecked my car last week on the way home from work. I got sent back to the hospital that I'm a nurse at, the ER treated me not so well, and I was there for 12 hours. I broke my nose, bruised my face, my teeth went through my bottom lip and chin, and I had three compression fractures in my vertebrae making it very hard to move. But that was 5 days ago, and I'm up and walking with my brace, showering, sleeping on my side, and I even walked down our two steps to check the mail! I'm so proud of the progress I've made.

So, I guess, just to kind of start it off today, I wanted to talk about work. I just recently completed a research fellowship and it was really exciting. It really pushed me out of my comfort zone because I've never done anything like that before, nor do I come from a research background or know a whole lot about the subject matter, which was artificial intelligence within the military setting. And so, it was a really interesting learning experience for me. Also, really interesting and something that I was not expecting, the community of people that were there to run the program were also very accepting of people who do not have a technical background, which is me, and then just in terms of the openness and willingness to share all their knowledge and wisdom and really their patience because, like I said, I don't come from a technical background. So, a lot of, well, just about everything that I learned, I was learning for the first time, which is very scary but also really rewarding. I'm excited that I finished the program and really exciting is that after that, I got extended in the program, so I'll get to do some more research stuff and work with the team a little bit longer. This is just really an awesome experience that I'm really proud of. I feel like I haven't work is just typically work and I can't say that there's a lot of things that I've been proud of in terms of my work life, but this is something I am really proud of.

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 get to actually work in the field that I got to focus on.

A very good week at work. I did get some really kind of sad news. My uncle has lung cancer and he's in the hospital. He's been fighting it for a long time now, and he's just, like, not doing well. I'm not exactly sure what his status is. And my other uncle passed away of lung cancer, and his wife, my aunt, also passed away due to complications from smoking. And I'm really kind of scared.

About 4 months ago, I had a horrific thing happen in my life. My life will be forever changed. My dad had been sick with what everyone thought was the flu. He was throwing up and complaining of being very tired and hot. He didn't even have a fever. He had been sick for a few days, but on a Tuesday in the early evening, everything quickly spiraled out of control. My mom called my husband and asked him to hurry over to the house because she thought something was wrong with my dad. He went over there, and my dad was not doing well at all. He didn't know his name, where he was at, and who my mom or my husband were. My mom immediately called 9-1-1. When the ambulance got there, they immediately checked my dad's vitals and got him loaded to rush to the hospital. They took him to the intensive care unit and got him hooked up to a million different machines to see if they could figure out what was going on with him. By this time, it was late into the night on Tuesday. We were all sitting in the waiting room until more information was known. It was a very long night of millions of tests and no answers. Finally, early in the morning on Wednesday, a doctor came out and told my mom that my dad was suffering from kidney failure. We were all in shock because he hadn't been sick long at all. We asked what we could do, and the doctor said it was too late to do anything and that if they even tried to operate, he would die. The doctor could not give us a timeline of how long he would live, but that it wouldn't be more than six weeks. Well, it turns out it would be even sooner than that. By early the next morning, my dad had passed away. We were all in shock because there hadn't been any warning signs, and just a week ago, he had been happy and hanging out with us. We were devastated, and from that moment on, our lives had changed forever.

A very good week at work. I did get some really kind of sad news. My uncle has lung cancer and he's in the hospital. He's been fighting it for a long time now, and he's just, like, not doing well. I'm not exactly sure what his status is. And my other uncle passed away of lung cancer, and his wife, my aunt, also passed away due to complications from smoking. And I'm really kind of scared.

The event that I remember the most is the death of my uncle, whom I was very close to. He got very sick with pneumonia and went to the hospital. When he was in the hospital, they found two spots on his lung. When he was first admitted to the hospital, he was spitting up some blood, but everyone thought it was because of the pneumonia. While he was at the hospital, the bleeding got much worse. He started spitting up so much blood that the white wash rags at the hospital were completely red. We knew that he had one spot on his lung that the doctors were following, but the second spot came as a surprise. He was never officially diagnosed with lung cancer, but we know that is what he had. The bleeding got so bad that they had to give him a suction hose to keep it cleared out. He got to where he could not breathe at all, and his oxygen was turned up as high as it would go. He never wanted to be put on life support, so the family just stayed by his side as all the machines were turned off and he drew his last breath. I was devastated having to watch someone that was so strong and loved life so much take his last breath. My uncle was my last living relative other than cousins. He was our family elder. I grew up with him and my aunt being just right down the road from me for over 30 years. Life goes on, but it certainly will be a lot sadder without him.

Well, this, this is actually precipitated by you, Jimbo, because in anticipation of our meeting, in one meeting we talked about artificial intelligence, and so I tapped into Chat GPT to see what it was like. And I asked it to write a letter to my son that said, "I told Chat GPT that my son was having difficulties at work and that he was very upset about the work situation, but that he needed to rely on his intellect, his ethics, and his warm personality in pursuit of a solution to this problem." So, Chat GPT wrote this lovely, lovely letter to him about just that, and I was fascinated the way Chat GPT approached it. And I think this is going to sound familiar to you, Jimbo. Chat GPT, I\'ll call it, he hooked onto certain vocabulary words and expanded those concepts and in logical order, both the concept of exploiting his good points and being able to tolerate a negative situation. And when all was said and done, I read this letter and I was absolutely touched. And it sounded like a letter from a mother to a son. And that is what blew me away, not the vocabulary or the content so much as the tone that was able to be achieved by something artificial. So, I thought about that because I could have written down what to do. I know what to do to have a good conversation. Repeat back what you\'ve heard, expand upon it, ask questions based on it, so on and so forth. But how do you transmit the emotion? That\'s the big question. But it did, and I kind of think I\'m thinking that what it did was find the emotion that was in me already. So, it doesn\'t give emotion, it goes to the listener or the reader and scoops up the emotion that that person has and brings it to the surface. So that\'s my story about Chat GPT, and I thought you would enjoy that because I think you have intimate knowledge of that. Okay.

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.

So today is a very hot day, and it's been not very hot during the summer here in Connecticut. But all over the world, it's been very hot. Today, I was listening to a broadcast about Iraq and how they are very short on clean water coming from Greece and Turkey. Clean water is in short supply. And I really feel water is one of the treasures of the Earth, clean water. And I feel like we don't take care of it as we should. I'm also concerned about the amount of heat that people are having to deal with, far worse and far more heat than they should be able to handle without air conditioning or some kind of unit to cool the person down. Temperatures over 100 are not only tremendously uncomfortable, but also very dangerous. For my career, which is a long time, probably 30 or 40 years, I've been saying it's important, it's critical that schools are air conditioned. People who finance schools often think that the heat doesn't bother kids, but the fact of the matter is children need a safe, comfortable environment in which to learn. If those things are missing, no learning goes on. So air conditioning has to be one of the first changes made if this is to be our new normal, which I'm afraid that it is.

I grew up with a mom who was an artist. She was a landscape photographer, so every summer, for about one month, we would travel somewhere fairly remote. We started just going to different places in the United States, and when I was 10 or 11, we started leaving the country every year. That gave me this time and space for a month, at least, every year to soak up nature. I traveled to Greenland in 2006 for the first time with my family, and at the time, climate change was really not a topic of discussion here in the United States, as it is today. I just didn't realize how huge of a crisis it was, and it made me realize I wanted to focus my work on those issues. Climate change is such a distant concept for most of us because it's not happening in our everyday lives. It's like this slow trainwreck and it disengages us. You get scared and shocked and overwhelmed, and then you don't know what to do. A lot of studies have shown that we make decisions and we take actions based on our emotions, more than anything else. You can write the word "glacier" and you can describe it. If you see an image of a glacier, it's an experience. I'm trying to encourage people with positivity and hope. If you fall in love with something, you wanna protect it. You wanna do what's best for it.

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

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 with. 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, going 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 yesterday, well, I guess for the last couple of months, almost a year, six months to a year, I've been trying to find new work, new jobs. And it's been difficult. Yesterday, I actually had an interview, and it seemed like it would have been good. But then we got on, I kind of explained myself. And then she got to the point where she wanted to know salary expectations. And I said what my salary was. And it was at the high end of what they had listed on the website. And then she immediately said that's not going to work. That what they actually could offer was way less than what they had actually posted on the website. So that wasn't great.

I applied to a job at a place I've been a customer for about 5 years. They're great people, and I'm in a place where I needed something with some longevity and benefits. I interviewed yesterday and was on pins and needles waiting to hear back from them. I got the offer about an hour ago! Things are going so well for me right now, and this was a stepping stone I needed to get to a stable enough place to go back to school, and now I can start working towards that.

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

Today I took my dad to the Game 7 watch party for the Stanley Cup. It was an away game, so we couldn't go to the actual game, but we had the next best thing in watching it at the stadium with 20 thousand other fans. My dad said he didn't want to go since he couldn't handle the stress of the game, but I surprised him with tickets anyways. This was a big deal for me since my dad is the reason I am into hockey, and he had been watching the Blues his whole life, and they have never won it. I knew he would regret it if he just stayed home watching the game alone instead of having the chance to be downtown if we actually won it. It was a stressful start of the game, but luckily we scored first and never looked back. We looked like a team on a mission, and that mission was to bring the Stanley Cup to our town for the first time ever. I could see my dad got a little more happy and less stressed with each goal we scored, like he was starting to believe we might actually do it. I was also freaking out inside because I knew we had been close before but always got let down, and anything can happen in sports. It's never over until the final horn sounds, so in the back of our minds, we kept thinking the worst. When they actually did it, we went crazy with all the other people at the stadium, but also I could see my dad crying a little. It brought me joy to know how happy he was in this moment, and I was glad I was here to share it with him. This is something we will continue to talk about for years to come, and we will always know where we were when it happened. He brought me to a Game 7 in the World Series when I was young, so this was also a way for me to repay the favor, but I hope to repay it again sometime in our lifetime with an actual game ticket. To be in that stadium, though, when the whole city felt like they won was a great memory to have and one that I will be forever grateful I shared with my dad.

So, I have a story about one of my pets that I had as a child. So, I think I was in high school when I got a hamster. And hamsters are really small. And they're fast. But they're little. And the story is about one night. The story is about one night where I had gone to sleep but the lock on the cage door was apparently not completely locked. And my hamster escaped during the night while I was asleep. So, it's important to know, my bedroom was on the opposite end of the house from where my parents were. So, during the night, unknown to me, my hamster found a way out and then somehow got out of the cage. Dropped off of a dresser where he was, so about a meter or so, and then he had crawled through the house somehow and had escaped the attention of our dog and ended up in my parents' bedroom. On my mom, tickling her chin with his nose in the middle of the night. And she woke up and found him and then was very surprised. And she brought him back to my room and locked him in the cage and told me about it the next morning. But, we all thought that was very funny, that he had escaped and then crawled all the way across the entire house to get to my mom and then crawled up on the bed to get to her and then woke her up by tickling her chin. Now they liked each other. They had a good relationship. So, we just thought that was funny.

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

Okay, so today I want to talk about the kindness of strangers. I guess, yeah, I guess it\'s just been on my mind occasionally. About, it kind of relates to the theme of why I like to travel. So I don\'t know. So I guess, hold on. So I\'ve been thinking about the kindness of strangers, and I don\'t know why. But I have a couple of experiences from my travels because I think when I\'m traveling, that\'s when it\'s more apparent to me how much I have to rely on not just myself but rely on the kindness of people I don\'t know.\n\nAnd I guess the more recent example was one time my friend and I, she had a job in Barcelona, so I visited her. And so from Barcelona, we took an overnight bus to Bordeaux, France. And it was like kind of not a great bus trip. It was very cold for no reason. And it was just wild or very hot. It was just uncomfortable. But during one of the 3:00 a.m. bus stops, we had like, at 3:00 a.m., we got to go to the bus to the restroom. And I don\'t know, the guy, the bus driver would only speak to me in French. And I was like, I don\'t know French. And I already did not have a good impression of France because everyone I\'ve ever met who\'s gone to France just tells me about how rude they are and how such bad experiences they had in France. So I never want to go to France in my life. But it was the cheapest place her and I could afford to go. So then we went. And it was just, I guess that kind of helped change my perspective on French people, at least in Southern France, because I didn\'t really have a rude experience. I kind of did. But I feel like strangers made up for it. And strangers kind of helped me out because the bus driver only spoke to me in French. And I know Spanish. So I tried Spanish. My friend and I, our strategy was to only talk in Spanish to French people. Because we thought like maybe they\'ll have less bias against us, maybe they have a bias against Americans. Because the bus driver only spoke to me in French, and he knew a little bit of English. But I was like, what is happening? And it was just weird. This guy stepped in and translated because he realized I spoke Spanish. So he basically translated what the guy was telling me, the bus driver was telling me in French to Spanish. And then I started talking to him and got to know a little bit about him. It turns out he was from like, Venezuela, and he was living in France, and he was helpful in giving us advice about what to do in Bordeaux. It was really kind and I think, I don\'t know. I feel like he might be, maybe he was hitting on me or something because he ended up asking for my number or whatever, but I brushed it off because I was alone. My friend went to the bathroom without me, and I was like, this is awkward. But later on, in the same bus ride, there was like no set scheduled. This was like a rogue bus trip. It just seemed like this bus wasn\'t really doing good announcements of what stop we were on. So you just had to keep track of where you were and where you\'re getting off. And this woman, she sat next to me. I really didn\'t have an empty seat and she sat next to me and she was French. But she was speaking to me in English after I told her I don\'t speak French. I\'m sorry. And she was just nice and she helped me practice some French translations. And then, after when it got to my bus stop, I realized that she had woken me up because I was already kind of waking up because I wasn\'t sure if that was our bus or not because we had gone into our stop early. And it was just nice because she woke me up and she\'s like, "Hey, is this your stop?" And it was just really nice that she did that. And then it turns out that the guy, the guy from Venezuela, I saw him look back to make sure. I think he was looking back to make sure I was awake and then saw me then turned away. Even I didn\'t get to say bye but, I was just kind of like surprised that, oh, these people were looking out for me, making sure I was getting off at the right stop, because clearly I didn\'t know what I was doing, like me and my friend didn\'t know what we were doing. And then that\'s just like one of many examples of random kindness.\n\nOn another bus ride to Italy. I know a little bit of Italian but I definitely was like, I was kind of confused about where I was on the map and when I was going to meet my friend in rural Italy. And I thought it was nice that I asked around like "We\'ll stop at this" in Italian and then people were also confused. But then the bus driver, I guess I thought it was really kind of him, because the assistant when he realized like, "Oh yeah, this girl does not, she\'s not local. She has no idea where she\'s going, she\'s going to the middle of nowhere, Italy". I guess when he realized that he made sure that I was getting off at the stop, because he made sure to ask me, "What stop am I getting off at?" So yeah, it was just nice that they were looking out. I really appreciate moments when locals or other people look out for me. And then it makes me want to give back in that way. And like some ways I\'ve done that have been like there was one time I got sick in Portugal. I just did a lot of traveling this past year, yeah. So it was in Portugal with my friend and I got sick randomly. So we\'re hoping it wasn\'t COVID. And thankfully it wasn\'t. And I got like really strong medicine, cough drops, like really strong. They worked really well. And then I was getting over it. But then this woman in our hostel, she was coughing a lot. And she only spoke Portuguese. And I wanted to help her out. So then I spoke Spanish and I know that you can speak Spanish and Portuguese and mutually understand each other to some extent. So while she was only speaking to me in Portuguese, I only spoke to her in Spanish. And I told her like, "Oh, I have these cough drops. They\'re going to help your throat. Take them. They\'re here. They\'re from Portugal. They\'re not from another country". And then so she was very thankful and we got to talking. And she added me on Instagram. And she was an older woman, I think she\'s like in her 40s, maybe 50s. I think 40s. So I repaid it then, like, I repaid the favor of looking out for other people. Another time in Turkey, this guy was like, he had no charge on his phone. And he had no charger, I guess his charger had died. And he asked me for a charger and I was like, "Oh, I actually have an extra, you can keep". So I gave him an extra one. It was like a cheaper one. It was like the randomest thing. And I was like, "Okay, here. You\'re not going to find us here". I don\'t know. So yeah, I helped him that way. So it\'s nice to have been helped on these travels and then to also pass it along and help other people. So I think traveling restores my faith in humanity a bit when I get to connect with locals and when I have these authentic experiences.

Where I live, there is one really busy intersection that always has at least two homeless people combing it for food and stuff, and most of them you can tell are fakers looking for money and pity (dogs, phones, new clothes). But today was different. This guy was obviously in pain. He was hunched over a little bit, and limped really slowly. He looked pretty elderly, and when he spoke, it was very heavy and slow, as if it was a task. I always have food on me specifically because I feel bad for the homeless there, and today I had two fig bars. The car in front of me gave him a pastry, and you could tell he was pretty happy. His sign was pretty beat up, and all I could read was "hungry," so I gave him one of my fig bars. He noticed what it was, and he perked up and began thanking me over and over, saying that pastries and fig bars were "his favorite thing in the whole world." So, I gave him the other one I had, and he looked at me as if he couldn't believe it. He said, "Thank you so much, man. I love fig bars. You have a blessed day. God bless you," and I got chills because he was so genuine and grateful. It made me so happy knowing that I had given someone who had nothing their favorite thing in the whole world!

Yeah, I guess this is more a recent kind of thing that I\'ve been mulling through in my head. I have a really good friend who\'s been a good friend for the past few years. And recently, she\'s just been so negative. Actually, not recently, for a while now she\'s been so negative. And then I can\'t help but also feel negative. And then it also feels as if she\'s starting to be negative towards me. And so my initial reaction, and this is a problem of mine, is to just say, "alright, screw it. She\'s not a very good friend. Don\'t need to invest time there." But I also think that it\'s really worthwhile to have strong friendships. I just sometimes get really disappointed with my friend\'s behavior. Or I tend to see that they\'re very selfish. And I don\'t really know what to do about it because I do think it\'s worthwhile building and working on it. And so sometimes I almost think it\'s almost like a marriage. It\'s like you talk things through and work through it. But the other side of me is kind of like, "there\'s just not enough time in the day to worry about unhealthy factors in my life."

My wife sat me down and told me how disappointed she was. I have been slacking in the husband area and in the father areas of my life. She said she had been feeling distant from me, and she was hoping that by bringing it up, we could fix it. She was coming at me from a place of love and not anger. It made me really sad to be called out for not doing what I am supposed to be doing. I felt disappointed in myself. It lit a fire under me that I needed and wouldn't have gotten had she not talked to me. What is scary is that I probably would have just coasted like that until the problems in our marriage or with my kids were past fixing. I am very grateful to my wife for having the courage to approach a topic that was sensitive and do it in a way that wasn't harmful to our relationship. I feel like this was a turning point in my life. I need to stop making excuses. I need to do better. I hope that whenever I start slacking because let's be honest, eventually it will happen. I hope that I can remember this conversation and correct course. This will be an important memory in my life moving forward.

Wow, it was a beautiful evening and there were thousands of small swallows flying in the sky overhead. The sky was turning red and purple because it was sunset. It was absolutely beautiful, very peaceful.

I was on a vacation with my brother, and we decided to take a long road trip through New England and up to the Canadian border. We set off with only a rough destination in mind and intending to go or do whatever caught our eye over the long drive of about a week. We stopped in many cool little towns along the way. There were really great old antique shops all over, and I loved looking through the old memorabilia. Along the route, we were passing through Vermont, and off the side of the road, we saw a beautiful grassy mountain with a waterfall cascading down the side. We thought it looked so cool, we parked and decided to hike up the mountainside a bit. It was an easy climb but long and tiring. We stayed as close to the waterfall as we could as we went up. We ended up climbing all the way to the top and got an amazing view. On the way back down, we took a different route and not far from the top, found a glistening pool where the waterfall cascaded, and then continued out the other side. It was perfect for taking a refreshing dip, and we did! It was ice cold but really awesome. The rest of the trip was great. We went into little towns and ate amazing seafood. I never ate so much lobster and so many bowls of chowder in my life! It was really amazing, and there were many memorable spots. We even crossed the border into Canada and drove a ways up the coast, which was really rugged and beautiful. We visited a national park in Canada and spent one night there. We saw many beautiful spots, but that one dip on the mountainside in the ice-cold spring water was the coolest part and a great memory.

Okay. So this is a story of, I guess, one of my big hobbies. At least, it\'s less big now, but it was definitely like a big thing I did last year. My sister and I started playing Pokemon Go. And it started off just because one of my sisters, the oldest one, we\'ll call her K. She actually doesn\'t matter. But anyways, my older sister downloaded the app, and she was like, "This is so cool. You have to download it, too." And then that\'s kind of how it started. But basically, Pokemon Go is this app that is like closely related to the game and the anime cartoon called Pokemon. So it\'s like a world of where people train these Pokemon that are kind of like wild animals with magical powers or like superpowers. And they train them and they use them for battle. And it\'s a whole competition between one trainer and their pets/monsters/animals against another one. And it\'s like training to know, basically it\'s like who knows their pets the best and can use them and their unique abilities. So anyway, Pokemon Go tries to be similar. It basically brings the show to life, and it blew up a couple of years ago when it first launched because Pokemon has a huge fan base, like people who are super dedicated and some that are less. But I never got into it because I just didn\'t have the proper phone for it. But now that I have a better quality phone and I had free time last year, that\'s when I really got into Pokemon Go. So basically, this game takes place in the real world, also, where it forces you to walk around and map out little places to catch these Pokemon monsters. So it brings their real world to life. And so it actually really did bring the real world to life because my sisters and I are blue team, like at least we call her blue team. And because we got so into it, we started seeing common players around our neighborhood because it turns out that other people around us played also. And every park or public space becomes a space for Pokemon Go. So parks are like a common space where you can train your Pokemon. You put them in little gyms, like a whole thing. But basically, my sister, sisters, and I became the Blue team. And we called ourselves the Triple Threat because there were three of us. And we would always play together. We would match our outfits. And we would match Pokemon. So once we took over a gym from the other teams, there\'s two other teams, there\'s Yellow and red. Yellow is Team Instinct. Red is Team Valor. And then what team are we? Mystic. Mystic. Basically, there are all these teams. And we were the blue team. We call ourselves the Triple Threat because we were, like, always together playing Pokemon Go. But then I think people caught onto us. And the red team specifically created their own team. And we never met these people in real life. Okay. So my sister and I developed this rivalry with this virtual gang. And basically, this team was, they also started dressing alike, and we\'re not entirely sure if they all know each other. Our best guess is they mostly know each other because they all sometimes are in the same gym together, but sometimes they\'re not. And then they would match Pokemon. And when they beat up our Pokemon, they would match sometimes. Similarly. So we developed this whole online rivalry with this team, and we would kick them out of the gym and then be strategic to not let them put in their Pokemon. We were like, full-on battling these people. And I think it\'s even funnier because, where I live, I live in the hood of Phoenix. So I tried all my life to avoid gangs. And here I am, in a virtual one that\'s like not even serious. But yes, I think it was funny the whole summer we had that little rivalry. But then I think once the summer ended, we all kind of got really busy because then I got started on like a full-time job I had. And then everyone else went back to school. So I think this rivalry we had, I\'m pretty sure it\'s with a bunch of teenagers. And we\'re, like, older. But that is the summer I joined a Pokemon gang, and we had a whole turf war in our little neighborhood.

In August of 2019, I visited friends in Detroit. They were friends that I've had for several years, but this was the first time we would be meeting in person. We met playing League of Legends online, and we are all fans of the professional scene of that game as well. So when finals were going to be hosted in Detroit, it seemed like a perfect time to visit both my friends and also go see this event I've loved so much live. We went to Little Caesars Arena and got to watch one of our favorite teams battle it out against the top team in North America. I don't go to a lot of sporting events, so it was novel for me to get swept up in a cheering crowd or scream when something awesome happened on stage. Unfortunately, they lost, but the games were close. My favorite moment was getting to hear one of my favorite songs live and hear the stadium hum and sing along to it. Although a close second was getting to go backstage. We didn't get to meet any of the professional players, but we got to meet the tour manager. Backstage was amazing to see; they basically had to set up a whole home office just for a weekend. Besides just the event, I got to play games with my friends in person and hang out in their houses, and I loved every moment of it. I also brought my dog with because I talk to him constantly while I'm in a call with my friends, so it felt right that they would finally get to meet him. The drive there and back was long, about 12 hours both ways. But I didn't mind it because I listened to podcasts the whole way. I did make the mistake of listening to a murder podcast just as it was getting dark, so that actually did make me a little anxious.

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.

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

Story. Okay. So, this story is about my relationship with music. For my whole life, I really loved movie all genres and just making me happy and probably through the day, and maybe just feel emotions. Music wasn't my legal happy but after a rough period in my life, I came out of it like just a little less music. My music add is so crazy, I can kind of listen to like ten minutes of a song, not sorry, 10 seconds of a song, and like get bored of songs quickly. And I don't know if it's symptomatic of me or like dramatic of ADHD culture in general. And like, all of that. So, I'm not looking for advice or simpy. I just think it's funny and was curious if you had any people who have stories that.

I was always interested in experimental sound, and I was interested in new sounds. So, I always came up with my own strategies for composing. And one of those strategies, for music, is that if I compose it, I can play it. Anything in my environment is a tool that I can use to make music. Number one piece of advice, get out of your own way. I don't think you discover who you are, you make who you are. People are always saying, "I have to discover who I am." No, you have to do things and become that person. I always say that art is a tool for living, but this body is a tool for living. Everything is forward, you're creating forward action. You're not discovering who you are, you are creating who you are, you're going on this trip, you're gonna do these things, and it's a powerful thing.

Well, gee. Boat, this story is about a lovely friend I made at Zumba. Her name is Melody, spelled M E L O D Y, but her whole family is musically oriented and her name is Melody. And I always look forward to seeing her. We've connected over kind of the way we raise our children and worldview, and how to deal with chronic illnesses. We also both enjoy good cocktails and good food, and we like to cook. And I look forward to seeing her whenever I go to Zumba.

There's this girl in my French class, and she's very sweet and kind. We've been sharing our notes with each other for the past weeks and discussing our struggles with said language. Today we texted for like 3 or 4 hours, and we noticed we had lots of stuff in common: we both love helping people, reading, and we both struggle with anxiety and stuff. And I don't know, it was such an honest, beautiful conversation; I hadn't had one of these in a while. We also share the same life goals, hobbies, and passions. After our chat, I went for a walk, and I kept on thinking of some stuff she had said. I felt quite happy because I wanted to keep on talking with her and discussing all of these wonderful, lovely ideas. I guess this is one of the things I love the most about living: meeting people, connecting with someone, and feeling understood.

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

We were rolling around selling T-shirts and we did that for five years. Along the way, we learned some things about what people liked and didn't like on shirts, but we weren't making a lot of money at all, just getting by. So we had decided that our label and our brand name was going to be something that already existed in people's minds in some way. "Life is good" was one of about 50 different slogans we put on an easel. In the morning, we woke up and we tore "Life is good" off the page and we Scotch-taped it up on the wall. And then we stepped back and we said, "Okay, now it's not just for artists. This is for anyone who sees the glass half full." Life goes by pretty quickly and you have to think about when you're old and gray. What will make you happy to look back and say, "You did it"? What will be fulfilling? You gotta think through and say, "What would be meaningful in my life?"

So this past weekend, I went to my first wedding ever. And it was so fun. The groom was my peer mentor, so he was one of the people who introduced me to MIT, to the dorm we were living in. He took care of me and the friends I went with. And, the bride was someone also in my year but, like, one year younger in age. They met through shared interests and it was just super touching. Their ceremony was outside, very cute vows, almost too cute. I feel like I would not want super cringy long vows, but it was still enough to make me cry a lot. But then the reception was what really got me. Both dads gave these beautiful speeches. Their first dance was also just so, aw touching that all of the friend group, except for the guys, were like crying, crying. And it makes me think about what I want in my future wedding, in my future partner, and the marriage in general. But the happy couple is now not yet on their honeymoon because she still has a conference to go to and they'll go on the honeymoon after her conference. But just, it's crazy to think about how life can change so fast. Basically, I flew in Saturday morning, commuted like an hour and a half to go to a really nice udon place. I'm not famous, famous, but kind of famous. And then spent like 2 hours getting ready for the wedding. And it was really fun because we got to dress up and we all haven't dressed up in a long, long time and get ready together in a room, catch up, spill some tea. We made our way to the hotel for the wedding. And then for our first experience, a lot of us didn't know what to do. We got there way too early. But it was still a really fun time. And I also just ran into people. I saw random people that I knew and extended my trip because I knew I loved it so much. I didn't want to come back too quickly. Yeah, that was the story of the first wedding I've ever been to.

My soon-to-be sister-in-law's wedding. It was in one of my favorite towns, Gainesville. We each had our own little cottages on the property, so I didn't feel rushed or even worried about getting ready on time since we woke up there. It was the first wedding I had ever been to as an adult and also felt super close to the people getting married. The morning was great. I stayed with the boys for the most part since I knew them a bit better than the bridesmaids. We were all swapping stories and kidding around while I helped them get ready. My boyfriend looks amazing in his tux, and it actually made me cry because I had never seen him dressed up like that. It honestly made me feel like I couldn't wait to get married for the first time ever in my life. I sat in the front and helped my boyfriend's grandparents since they are a bit older and have a hard time getting up and down. The bride and groom looked so amazing. They had been together for 8 years, so this was a really big deal to everyone. The ceremony went off without a hitch. Afterwards, it was just a lot of fun. The meal was buffet style, and I was sitting with my boyfriend, his parents, and his grandparents. I helped his grandparents get food, and again everyone swapped stories. I was so happy to be part of his family and part of this event, and I felt really included. At the end, we all got Star Wars lightsabers, and we made an archway using them for the bride and groom to walk through. After that, my boyfriend and I spent the rest of the night playing with the little kids who waited the whole day to play with them. We ended up getting beat up like crazy. I loved the day, and I wouldn't change it for anything.

Story. Okay, so stories from Massachusetts. I think my more notable ones are just playing outside or just hanging out outside in Phoenix. I think when I was younger, I did play outside, but I think as I got older, it was less available. And plus, the temperature has really increased a lot. Like, it\'s gone really hot in Phoenix. So I think, in my opinion, from like March to October, it\'s really unbearable being outside, like late March till late October. And so I think being in Massachusetts, like, wow, this is actually livable weather. Like, you can actually walk around and the sun\'s not trying to kill you. So I think my most memorable memories are all the times I spend outside.\n\nSo my first time playing in the snow, Massachusetts. We had snow, and then while we had this hill that\'s called Seven Hill, where it\'s the one big hill on campus everyone slides down. So every time whenever I had free time, I would try to convince my friends, like, come on, we got to go, we got to go. So then we would use whatever we had, like cardboard boxes, lids from our bins. And I really convinced, I remember I always got my roommate out to go play in the snow. And it was just really fun just being out there with my friend Juanita because I pulled her onto the snow multiple times.\n\nAnd then also as the spring came through, we made snowmen in the snow and then in the springtime. At least the most recent, this past well, at least the last spring I was in Massachusetts with my friends. I also pulled them out into the outside. So we had like picnics, not very often, though occasionally we had picnics. But I think one of the funniest memories from being in the springtime was when I was just very enthusiastic about flying a kite because I hadn\'t flown a kite in years. And we don\'t really get much wind in Phoenix. At least not the times that I remember a little bit this spring.\n\nSo I happened to be at the Dollar store and I bought these, like, one dollar kites, and I thought we just have to use it somehow. And then one day, it was, like, a nice sunny day, with a Sunday, and it was a Sunday morning. So I\'m, like, my friends are not doing their homework yet because we cram, like, 5:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., so I try to convince them all to come outside. And we ended up flying kites. And I think the funniest part was that we took turns flying the kite to the point because they\'re one dollar, so they\'re very cheap and cheaply made so they would break. So then, I had to go find tape to try to fix them. And even when it was trying to fly the broken kites, the most memorable time from this experience was when my friend, my friendo, she was running and she flew the kite, and it got stuck in the tree. And at this point, everyone was watching us because Walshy students always studied. They\'re never outside hanging out. So then they were like, wow, these people are out here. So we had like a crowd watching us. And everyone got sad that the kite had gotten stuck in the tree. And I really was like, the kite is a goner. We\'re never seeing it again. Like, goodbye. And then out of nowhere, my friend kept playing at it. She was determined to get it out of the tree. I was like, oh, you know, it\'s okay. It\'s okay to give up. It\'s gone. And then, out of nowhere, like this giant gust of wind comes in and, like, swooshes the kite out of the tree unexpectedly. And it\'s flying in the air. And she\'s running, screaming, "I got it, guys! I got it!" And then everyone watching us starts cheering and clapping. It was just so weird. So then I got the kite back. But it was just such a fun memory. And to have a crowd watching us do that was really cool.

No one thinks about bobsledding as a kid, especially around here, sunny southern California. You see it on TV during the Olympics, and that's it. It's just not something that you think about doing at a young age. When I came to UCLA, even by my fourth, fifth year, I was like, what am I gonna do? Track's almost over, I keep getting hurt throwing javelin, and it's just like, what next? That's when my coach encouraged me to try out for bobsledding. Never been in a sled before, never been on ice before, but you have to realize what can I do now that I'll not be able to do later on? You can't go back and bobsled in ten years. You have to do it now. This is the only time you can do it. So I was like, I gotta go do this, I gotta try it now or else I'll never know. And that ultimately led to Korea for the Winter Olympic Games. So for me, my goal has always been the same: to make the Olympics. I just didn't realize it would be in bobsledding, but here I am.

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.

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.

So, back in elementary school, I switched schools in third grade. I was put in a class with a group of people, and I had the same people in my class through fifth grade. The group of friends that I made there continued on through high school. And when we got to the college admissions process, when we were applying to colleges, a lot of them became super competitive. I'm still unsure as to the reason why they chose to become super competitive about it, but my decision was to not discuss my colleges with any of them because I didn't want people feeling bad about the decisions I made. I didn't want to share because I felt like that was more of a private thing to discuss with my family and not with my friends. For some reason, they took offense and to the point where, when I finally announced my college decision, they got really mad and they were nonchalant about it. It made me realize that even though I've had these friends for so long, they probably weren't really good friends to begin with. So I learned to let go of them and I cut contact with almost all of them now. And I'm a lot happier for it as a result.

I'm a first-year college student now, and it's been weeks since the classes started. I'm anxious because my classmates seem to know a LOT more than what I expected. I have ZERO friends (I tried to socialize, but the vibe isn't there). It gets so lonely at lunch; I don't know how it'll pan out for me for the next 3 years of college. I can't even cry because I feel so ungrateful for the equipment and support my parents are giving me; I often feel like this is not my life to live in. Like someone out there deserves this life more than me. I guess I hate myself somehow for not excelling in academics. I need someone, but I don't know who I need.

So this story is about me moving across the country, from Florida to Massachusetts, with my girlfriend. And we had to bring two rabbits. So, I had never done that before. I had moved across the country before, but not with another person and not with two rabbits. Especially, so that was kind of an interesting challenge.\n\nRabbits are not the kind of animal that you need to take outside to go to the bathroom. They can stay in their little cages, but we had to have them in these small cages for car transport. And then the funny thing, the story is that we stayed at a variety of hotels and places like that on the way because we were driving. But not all of them were open to pets.\n\nBut rabbits are not your typical cat or dog because they stay in a cage, and not a lot of people have rabbits. But I remember just the challenges of having to get to the hotel and then moving the rabbits into the space. And I remember staying at this one sort of roadside bed and breakfast-type place, and we had to move the rabbits inside. But once they were in, we were able to let them out and run around. And they played a little bit. And that was fun, but it was just a unique challenge to me to move across country with these two small pets and then facing the challenges of meeting their needs as well as ours as we did this.\n\nAnd one time we tried to sneak them into a hotel because the hotel wasn\'t really clear on their animal policy. And then the hotel staff saw it, and they\'re like, "no, you can\'t stay here with those rabbits." And so we had to go find another place. So that was unexpected and kind of disappointing, but it\'s just part of the deal. Moving with rabbits.

I just got back from a vacation, and as is often said, I need a vacation from my vacation now! My husband and I went with my brother, sister-in-law, their nineteen-month-old, and our two kids, who are 15 months and 3. It was QUITE an experience. We stayed in a lovely rental house in Rosemary Beach, about an hour from Destin. The drive was not too bad, about five hours from our home, but it was long enough with small children in the car. I was nervous about this trip because it was our first family vacation, and I have a hard time managing my two strong-willed children, especially when they are together. Sure enough, by Day 2, I was exhausted. I had to carry my youngest on my hip probably ninety percent of the time, even including when we were at home. He woke up at 5:30 AM every morning, so I was forced to do so as well. We engaged in a variety of activities including souvenir shopping, visiting the community pool, going to the beach, and watching a bottlenose dolphin show at an aquarium. Probably my favorite thing we did was go to a natural spring that wasn't far from where we were staying. The water was a beautiful aquamarine and clear as it could be. The only problem was it was COLD! We had a blast wading and swimming a bit and just enjoying the beautiful scenery. Although it was hard to keep both kids organized and happy, it was a memorable experience and one that I'll not soon forget. It was wonderful to have time to spend with them and also with my brother and his family. They are very dear to us.

Cool, yeah. So, I just got a new job and it's not close enough to where I can walk or take public transportation. So, I needed to buy a car. It was very nerve-wracking because I need a car soon, and I kind of had to make a decision pretty quickly. And the original car that I wanted to buy was not available, so that was disappointing. But they pointed me to a car that is used, but only has 116 miles on it. So, it's basically brand new, but it's used so it's not the original sticker price. I've never purchased a car that new, and I've never been able to afford a car that new. So, it's kind of scary and exciting at the same time. So, I get to have this new car. I've never had anything this fancy, but it's also a very large purchase and it's probably the largest purchase I've ever made in my life. And I know that my parents have never purchased a new car. I mean, none of my family has purchased a new car. They've never been able to afford it. So, to be in this position, it feels very strange but good but scary.

I am so happy with my new jobs, especially because one of the jobs is at a thrift store I adore. I'm 3 months pregnant, and we've been struggling, so this is just a huge relief off my shoulders. I can pay off my credit. I can buy my baby stuff. I can repair the things I need for my car. I'm so relieved I could cry. Things have been difficult, and this is what we need. Both jobs have also known and congratulated my pregnancy and told me after delivery I'll still have my jobs there!

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

My dad was the kind of person whose only 2 goals in life were to have fun and to make others have fun. But now he's been gone for almost 5 years, and everyone's still in the "let's be sad and only gather together to cry about his tragically short life" phase. Whenever I try to make jokes, even to people who weren't even affected by his death, usually all I get is awkward smiles and worried looks. Some even go as far as saying it was inappropriate. And there are the ones who laugh but say, "oh my god, I shouldn't laugh at this." I know that if he was able to do so, he'd be the one making these jokes about his death. He wouldn't want to see us being sad because of him, of all people. While he was alive, he was the one who would've moved mountains if that was what we needed to make us smile. Why do they think this changed in his death? And even if he was the sourest, most serious, and least fun person in the world, I should be allowed to grieve him how I want to. Grief shouldn't be about the deceased person but about the ones they left behind.

Story, okay. I don't have a story first, per se, but I think I just have a lot of emotions that I'm working through right now, and I just feel like. I don't know, tearing up a bit. But I guess I'm just worried for the rest of this month. I just feel overwhelmed with how many birthday celebrations there are. I know it's funny, but I don't know. I just feel like there are so many birthdays in my family. And then there's also my birthday, and I'll be turning 24, which is weird because I feel like, wow, I'm actually growing up. Now my age is showing. It's because I always felt very mature for my age. But now I'm like, oh, I'm not still young, but I feel like, wow, I'm getting older. I'm 24. So I think I just feel overwhelmed by the amount of, like, I guess gifts I have to buy and just the events you have to show up for. I think like parties and that I'm not in the greatest place financially, just given the type of jobs my family works. And then, even though I have a degree from like a really good university, I don't have a high-paying job. I'm working at the bakery, which is minimum wage. There are a lot of goals on the side I'm saving up for. So I just feel overwhelmed by trying to save money towards the goals that I'm working towards, but then also paying bills. And then trying to buy gifts and stuff for celebrations for my family and people who have birthdays in September. I swear I have like eight birthdays in December, and it's like a little overwhelming. Maybe even more because I have friends who are also in September, and I feel bad not getting them gifts, but... Yeah, I think I'm just overwhelmed with, I guess, the social, financial connection. Like, to hang out with people, you have to spend money. And I just feel like I'm still trying to save money and I want to say get back on my feet. I don't know. I have a lot of worries in my mind. And I did have, after I graduated from university, I did have a good-paying job for a couple of months. Because the company, it was just not a good company. It was just a really stressful work environment. But I was getting paid, like, double what I make now in terms of hourly wage. And I guess sometimes I just get stuck thinking like, wow, I really left that job. It was paying me well, for given that I didn't have other benefits. I feel like it was paying me relatively well compared to, like, it was the most amount of money I've ever made in my life, but I'm also young. And I don't come from a lot of financial, I don't come from much financial privilege. So it's like I still have complicated feelings with accepting or forgiving myself. I don't know what it's forgiving, but if you can go came with leaving a job that paid me more money, and then feeling more limited financially despite graduating from like a prestigious university. I just have a lot of worries right now connected to finances and birthday celebrations and trying to still spend time with friends and family, but trying to save up for goals I have but then also paying bills and try not to let it get to me, but it's like a lot. And I'm not the only one feeling like this. I know my family definitely feels pressure. I think there's just a lot of with the expenses right now, I think inflation is really high. Groceries are very high. It just feels like the cost of living is so expensive now. I know I'm not alone, but that also really sucks because it makes me feel like when can we escape this cycle of struggling? Like, what? Will I have enough money to feel comfortable and not worry about paying bills? And the crazy part is like even with the college degree, it's just wild. So I just have all these complicated feelings attached to leisure and finances and goals and relationships, and I'm having a hard time coping with that. It comes in waves, but yeah. So I have all those worries. I don't know if you have... It's just rough.

The median wealth of a white family is about $110,000. The median wealth of black and Latino families combined is somewhere around 15 to $20,000. The only way for us to boost that from 15 to 100,000 is to do things like tech. But when you go to college, you're not just in this bubble, you're taking all of your family responsibilities with you. That responsibility, that burden of my family doesn't have money to pay bills or to pay rent, that stays with you. How are you going to class, and you're thinking, okay, let me study for the CS test, but my mom's calling me because there's not enough food to eat, or my sister's calling me because they don't have supplies for school, or new clothes, or anything. So you're bringing all of those things with you. Finding people to be able to relate to that are advisors or counselors that you can talk to about those things, that understand you and can relate to you has really helped because they understand me, they get it, I'm validated. Now I can focus on taking this test, or studying for this exam, or doing whatever else you need to do.

So, about two weeks ago, I went to do an open water swim, which I haven't done in four years. So over the summer, I did quite a bit of swimming and working out to make sure I was in shape for the event. And then I got there, and there were tons of people. It was a two-day thing. I swam on the second day, but overall, I successfully finished it, and I got second place in my age group. So, I got a medal to take home, which is pretty cool. But it's good to see that all the work I did paid off, and it was a super fun experience to do.

No one thinks about bobsledding as a kid, especially around here, sunny southern California. You see it on TV during the Olympics, and that's it. It's just not something that you think about doing at a young age. When I came to UCLA, even by my fourth, fifth year, I was like, what am I gonna do? Track's almost over, I keep getting hurt throwing javelin, and it's just like, what next? That's when my coach encouraged me to try out for bobsledding. Never been in a sled before, never been on ice before, but you have to realize what can I do now that I'll not be able to do later on? You can't go back and bobsled in ten years, you have to do it now. This is the only time you can do it. So I was like, I gotta go do this, I gotta try it now or else I'll never know. And that ultimately led to Korea for the Winter Olympic Games. So for me, my goal has always been the same, to make the Olympics. I just didn't realize it would be in bobsledding, but here I am.

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 have been going to baseball games for a long time. I used to bring my glove in hopes I would catch a foul ball, but once I got to a certain age, adulthood, I gave up. But still wanted to catch one, just to say I did. I went to a game with friends, it was pretty empty in the stands, but it was a nice day for a ballgame. Somewhere in the sixth or seventh inning, after I had gotten a beer, a player lofted a high foul ball that made me jump up because it was close to me. I ran over a few steps with the beer still in my hand, but the ball was going to come up short. But then it bounced off the concrete, off a railing, and right into my chest. It dropped to the ground, and I quickly grabbed it. Unfortunately, I did not mention as it hit me, it caused my beer to spill all over my shirt, practically soaking it. But I had the foul ball. But once I had it in my hand, I realized it wasn't that important. So I found a kid with a glove and handed it to him, and he was so happy. I spent the rest of the game talking with him and his family. I felt like I made a new friend. So the price of a beer, a smelled-soaked shirt, I learned a life lesson. It's not always what you catch; it's what you do with it that makes a difference.

Well, I guess one of the stories I was thinking about is further connected to my interest in human-robot interaction, human-computer interaction, and my personal journey and experience with computers and robots. I graduated yesterday. And I recreated one of my photos from school with my mom yesterday. So it was a photo from 2001 of me sitting at a computer, in a classroom. And the picture was taken on an old film camera. It was analog, from, like, the 1950s. It\'s a black and white photo, but it\'s me sitting at a computer with my mom, with her hand around me. And I had headphones on. And I was actually playing a learning game at that time. And it was really interesting. And I could still picture what the game was. It was "Reader Rabbit." And so that was like the beginning of my journey with human-computer interaction because I got to experience hands-on, at a very early age, how useful computers were in daily life, when they weren\'t as ubiquitous as they are now. This was 2001. The iMac G3s were still a new thing. I know I was using an older Power Mac that was gray and depressing at the time, but that\'s what computers looked like. And as I was starting school, Apple released the iMac G3, which was colorful and kind of gave emotions to the computer because you could see through and see what was inside it. But it was also colorful and fun. So it was like easily approachable. And that\'s when I first started thinking about how the design of technology can help humans form somewhat of an emotional connection with the actual device. And I was so interested in that back then that I just continued exploring my interests in computer science, but also psychology and design and the brain. And eventually, I kind of strayed off of that path and went into more of the social sciences, got a little art degree. But that\'s your background into the realm of computer science and human-computer interaction, as part of my educational journey. So seeing that picture being recreated 22 years later felt like a form of self-actualization, like Maslow\'s hierarchy, where I am who I wanted to be back then. So I guess this is a journey of me learning about myself and becoming who I want to be but also, in that process, using technology to help me do that while learning about how technology helps humans do that from a human-can-be-a-distraction perspective. Yeah. I\'m at this interesting point now where I\'ve been using technology to improve myself, but also studying how technology does that. And now I have tangible evidence that I have successfully done that.

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.

Okay. So, I guess it's not so much of a story kind of, but I wanted to talk through some kind of feelings I've been feeling about the job hunt. I think it feels a little bit more magnified because today at work, the work at my bakery, I felt micromanaged. Yeah, I felt micromanaged by one of the workers. It's just a weird schedule. I'm supposed to be on my own, it's just two workers out of the four cake decorators. And because I'm new, the other one, I guess felt more inclined to try to help me, but I felt annoyed. I felt very micromanaged. And I guess it was just hard because she wanted me to speed up and go faster, but I don't want to, which I know it's like a bakery, fast-paced environment, but I'm like, I'm getting paid minimum wage. It can't be that serious. I don't get a bonus if I sell more. What's the incentive to really speed up, to not get fired? That doesn't seem like enough incentive for me to really try beyond the bare minimum. Yeah, especially like I don't have enough hours. So whatever. So I guess that experience today once again reminded me, like, I need to find another job. I mean, the worker didn't mean anything bad. Like, I really like her. I just think she was a little bit too on top of it. I guess it made me think more about the job hunt and how I've been very slow to apply to other jobs, where I can basically hire paying jobs that require a degree, white-collar jobs, whatever. So, yeah. It made me think about why it's going to take a while. And part of it has been like adjusting to change. Well, first it was, I don't know. I guess maybe I'm running out of excuses, and I think there's more to it than what I thought originally was making me stop. Because first it was like, oh, I had to get quick money, not quick money, but I had to have some source of income. I'm not going to be unemployed for much longer because I spent a lot of my money on travel. So first it was, get a quick job. Then it was like, learn this quick job so I can be comfortable and start applying on the side. And then I feel comfortable in it. But now, and then it was like, adjust to your little sister going to college. But then now I'm like, okay, what's the excuse for being very slow? And part of it was like me just trying to enjoy my time in Phoenix. Like my friends and family, just because I've always had a hard time or a hard relationship with the city or just like my place of birth. I don't know. I always had weird feelings about this city, and I never really felt like I belonged. Now it's like, oh, I'm actually building that sense of belonging, even though I've been here, like, a whole year later, because I worked remotely. I guess one reason why it's taking me so long in the job hunt is because I was trying to build community, and I was spending all my money going out. So kind of hard to find a balance. All my waiting time is going to going out and building community. And then the other part is I guess as I've been looking at browsing at jobs and besides the limitations of not having a driver's license, I'm trying to get creative with how I can swing it, probably just more remote roles. So it's just like a combination of things that discourage me, so not having a driver's license really does impact availability jobs in Phoenix or where I can get around if I don't always have a secure ride and I don't always want to be paying Ubers and lifts. And then another part is like, I guess this is a part. I guess I've been realizing more that the job hunt started to get like a little bit emotional. But the job hunt makes me frustrated of thinking about my last job because I was with the company for three years. And then I turned full time in October. And I mentioned my salary previously. It was wrong. So I was making more than that. But it was like my first big paying paycheck out of college. I don't know. So I just feel like doing the job search makes me feel frustrated because I really feel cheated. I really feel like my last company really sucked. And I don't know how to grapple with those feelings because they do good work. And I always knew I wasn't going to stay long at that company. I just feel like I got such a short end of the stick, and it really sucks because I feel like I'm just a recent college grad, and I feel like I don't know. So the company really pushes on Hispanic, Latino people, like breaking through barriers, going to higher up positions in their company, so it's very marketed with Hispanic, Latino identity and roles outside of service and outside of like I guess I don't know. It's very professional, like white-collar outlook for Latinos and Hispanic people. So I guess. I just feel cheated because the mission is really valuable for what we were working with in our companies, and it was key on mentorship and networking. So it's like I learned so much from that job and. I guess I wish I could have left when I was still on good terms with everyone. I think for the most part I am, but I think my view of them is all tainted. Like one of the coworkers. I think her specifically, she's really gotten under my skin. I think the job relates to me still having mixed feelings about my last job because it's just so crazy. I keep reading all these job descriptions and thinking like, wow, my company didn't have any benefits. We had a birthday bonus or like a week between New Year's and Christmas off, but we didn't have health care. We didn't really have. We had unlimited PTO, but that kind of was a scam. And I always got criticism for taking time off and then I guess I'm just worried like, what if my next job. I don't suss up the red flags. I don't suss them out beforehand and I just walk into another mess. I'm really worried about that. But then I know I'll just quit. I'll just keep applying for jobs until I can trust it. But this job is so agonizing. I didn't realize how much emotion is behind it. And I guess that's what I'm working through. It's just like seeing all these job descriptions making me realize like, wow, my last company was like, they didn't really have any benefits. And then I felt so judged. And I felt like, especially towards the end, they really just gave me a bunch. They gave me things to do and didn't really train me on it. And they had all these, specifically, my boss. I think this is targeted towards my boss and my coworker who's my arch-nemesis now because I feel like both of them put all this pressure on me and didn't really adequately train me. And also, the coworker kind of low-key sabotaged me or tries to sabotage me, and she was really good at it. She was really good at trying to sabotage me. So I guess I'm just worried about all the mind games I have to play at the next role. And just really feeling like, wow, I could have gotten a whole year of experience with them, or I could have had more marketable skills if I had stayed there longer if I was able to stay longer. But I really felt, I guess bullied in a way and really left out and really. Yeah. I feel like my boss kept saying things that made me feel like I wasn't doing a good enough job. But then when I spoke to other people I worked with, they were like other people who aren't directly in the company. They made it so that. They made it sound like I was doing a great job, and I was going above and beyond. So I'm just kind of so disappointed that. The people that I got close to or at least my core team, I feel like towards the end, I just felt so mistreated by them and not this job. And then one of the reasons I guess I have a hard time filling out applications is because I just get wrapped up in the emotion behind it. I don't know. Reading job descriptions, I'm like, damn, I was cheated. I didn't even get a job offer letter. Who the fuck doesn't give their employee a job offer letter? I had to advocate for that, and I had to write my own job description, like I had to do so much for myself. And I'm like, but they're not even skilled, and I don't feel adequate enough to really market myself for these applications. I mean, I'll probably just be like, yeah, I did it. And exaggerate my skills, but I really feel like they failed me. And I haven't gotten over it. I'm kind of frustrated that I haven't gotten over it because it's been months. And you would think traveling around Europe would cure your problem. You would think having the privilege of travel to escape your problems would actually help you address stuff

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.

Yeah, lately, I think life has been going pretty good in terms of, like, oh, I got started pretty well. And so, it\'s been pretty easy for me to just get down to work. I\'ve been sleeping early and waking up early. And just been good, right? Well, for the past few days, and then today, I went out to the furniture store for one of my classes to take pictures for a model, a chair. It kind of branches off, right? So the professor recommended that you go with friends or classmates. He said, "Take a friend with you." I didn\'t take a friend because I like friends here. That just ain\'t good. Yeah, my friends aren\'t really on campus. They don\'t go here. I don\'t exactly have friends on campus. I just have people that I know, acquaintances. Anyways, so I went over to the furniture store, and the people there were super kind. I was like, "Oh, I\'m here for a class," and they were super helpful and super nice. And I was kind of nervous about that because I was like, "Oh, what if they see me as going to a furniture store and start measuring things and not actually buy anything or anything like that?" But they were like, "Oh, you\'re here for a class, and all the Gandhi," and they were like, "Are you from my school?" And I was like, "Yeah," and they were like, "Oh, for the chair class," and I was like, "Oh, so you guys, oh," and it was like, "Yeah." It was like a decent conversation, and they were just super nice. So that was great. But yeah, then I came back. It was pretty hot outside, so I took a shower when I came back. And I had a whole plan for today, and it just didn\'t happen. I sat down and was like, "I\'m going to take a break," and old habits die hard. I played Overwatch for how long, like, play Overwatch for like five or 6 hours, yeah, like 6 hours maybe. Played essentially until the dining hall is going to close, and as soon as I finish eating, I played some more. Got sick of it, so I\'m probably not going to play again for a while, right? Overall, it\'s just kind of like, "Yeah, I\'m feeling disappointed in myself. I think. Makes sense why I did it. Usually I start gaming when I start feeling bad, but I don\'t know that I\'m feeling bad. Now when I realize, \'Oh, guess I was feeling bad about all this stuff about people.\' And yeah, here I am, just kind of saying, and talking. I wanted to talk for a bit because, well, I can only talk to my therapist once a week. And as for my best friend, she doesn\'t go here. To be honest, not a really good listener or empathizer for her. It\'s just kind of like, I already don\'t really share things a lot with the people I\'m around. I do share things with my therapist. That\'s about it. But the fact that she also doesn\'t really listen, the part of me that already isn\'t used to talking about things like this to other people is already like, \'No.\' And then add that on, it\'s just kind of like double now, right? It\'s just kind of like, I can\'t talk to my brother or my mom. They don\'t understand. They\'re like, \'Oh, you go to this great school.\' And that just never leaves their subconscious. And I can\'t really tell my family. They don\'t understand. It\'s always the, \'You should be grateful. You\'re a genius. You\'re so smart. Do your best. You\'re great.\' And then that\'s for my therapist. Like, yeah, she\'s great. Get to talk to her once per week, but usually by the time it gets around to a week, most things happen for some reason between sessions. So by the time I talk to her, I\'ve probably already kind of gotten over any emotions that I might have had. And at least with her, I talked with her don\'t really seem to evoke that much emotion either. I wonder if I should switch. Probably should. Yeah, essentially, for me, sometimes I offload by journaling. Maybe I should get in a habit of talking to myself. Or something like that evokes emotion. Emotion that I\'m not really aware of or used to being aware of. Yeah, I\'m sure like before I started gaming, I already felt pretty awful. I just didn\'t know. Play a game, opening that thing up, and it\'s just like, everything\'s so simple in games. It can be hard. But there\'s just something nice about my alone time. Since I played so much of it, I\'m sick of it. It\'s just like, yeah, I had a whole plan for today. I\'ve been very excited about school. Here I am now. I don\'t really have anyone to talk to. And the people that I\'ve met here on campus, I don\'t really have anyone to talk to. I really don\'t with anyone who is up here, I would say. They\'re not friends. They\'re all acquaintances. So, like, you know, the people who probably could understand. Although they also don\'t, at least the people who understand what it\'s like to go to a really prestigious school, who would just write me off, right? That\'s the thing. I try to talk to anyone who doesn\'t go to the school or like some prestigious school, it\'s like they think, like, \'Oh my God.\' There\'s a subconscious thing that dismisses me, my problems. And the people who are here who might understand, it\'s just like, these people are just going through totally different things and also they\'re not my friends. And then with the few times that I\'ve talked with alumni, people who aren\'t here anymore at the school, it\'s always like, they\'re always like, \'You should talk to your friends about this.\' It\'s like, \'Oh, I guess if I did have something, I guess I wouldn\'t be talking about some of these things that I\'m talking about, right? I don\'t know. All of these things added up together. It makes sense. I guess now, right? Like why I would be gaming for 6 hours like that. I didn\'t even have a clue that this was something that was like in my subconscious when I started gaming, right? Honestly, it was just kind of like, \'Hey, this stuff makes me feel fine. Like I\'m having fun. Let\'s do some more.\' I was really sorry to feel sick after so many hours of playing. And I was like, \'Okay, I need to go to bed.\' But also, I\'m going to have a not so fun time sleeping. I can usually go to sleep very easily, right? But ever since school started, I was getting bombarded by all these assignments and all these thoughts about people. Right? It\'s been on my mind. We\'re still not at the point where we\'re struggling to sleep yet, but it\'s been on my mind. So I was like, \'Okay, I should go to bed. But at this rate, kind of how like I\'m bad, I was feeling.\' Didn\'t really know why at the time, I was like, \'Okay. Sit down. Maybe Journal, or maybe talk it out.\' And that\'s why I\'m here. Like release some of that negative energy. Well, here I am. It\'s kind of funny, right? It\'s a Saturday evening and I\'m not going to do a robot. Not that I\'m complaining, but feel like most people have plans on this Saturday evening when they\'re in college. For me, it\'s just always been me and the best friend that I have. He became best friends online to our interactions online and not through our interactions in person. Yeah, anyways, that was a long-winded point of the story is I had stuff I wanted to do today. Went to the furniture store, got that part of my day done. Got super tired and decided to game for the rest of the day, even though I wanted to do work and other stuff instead, and I felt bad about it. And now I realize it\'s the reason why I gamed for so long is probably because I\'ve been feeling bad about people.

I'm at the point in the semester where every class is building in both intensity and workload, while I am simultaneously falling farther and farther behind, both in workload and in sleep. Whether it's lectures, problem sets, or readings, I feel like I'm constantly 3 steps behind where I should be, and because of that, I just feel like a failure, and imposter syndrome hits like a truck. It always hits like a truck. Except despite all of this, I still don't think I'd rather be anywhere else. We can all joke about wanting to drop out and run away from everything, but at the end of the day, I think we all love it here. It's a community of both intense difficulty and pain, but also of immense supportiveness and success. We build each other up. That's why I love it here. Sure, sometimes it's 3:00 am the night before a problem set is due, and "I hate this f***ing place" is the only thing on my mind. But the next day, when it's sunny out and I turn in the problem set and I get to hang out with my friends and forget even just for a moment about the hard work behind and ahead? That's when I can also say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I Have Truly Found Paradise.

I thought that I was going to marry the man that I had been dating. We were together for about two weeks shy of five years. And I thought he was my forever partner. But he wasn't very supportive of me coming to Harvard, even though it was only supposed to be for a year. He wasn't happy for me. And me being here was really hard on him. And I don't think that I was as attentive a partner as I should have been in retrospect. And it ultimately led to us breaking up right after I graduated. At the same time, I got some really tough medical news. And so it's just been a lot to grapple with.

I'm recently out of a relationship. As in, we broke up about a month ago. As I've been coming to terms with that and trying to move on, I've caught myself starting to have stronger feelings towards one of my best friends, and I wish they would just go away. He's a great dude, honestly. I feel like in the off chance that we did end up together, that it'd be a perfectly fine relationship. It's not him that makes me hate that I've developed these feelings. I hate that I'm feeling these things before I'm even fully over the last relationship. I hate that my past relationships that were not great took nearly half a year before I was ready to move on, but with the one that was the best experience I've ever had in the dating scene, I've developed new feelings only a month out of the gate. I hate that I'm either going to sit here and wait until it's too late to reveal my feelings, or I'm gonna man up and tell him how I feel only to put an awkward bar in a really good friendship and mess that up for me, if not for both of us. I don't know how to feel, honestly.

Well, I just like to tell you, I\'m trying to tell you about the afternoon I had today. I took my dear friend Judy out for her birthday. I gave her some beautiful presents, one of which was a sweatshirt that says "I\'m with the Band." And it\'s a bit of a pun, because it\'s "B-A-N-N-E-D" I\'m with the band books, and on the sweatshirt, it has a list of all the books that are of high literary value but have been banned by some people; like To Kill a Mockingbird, or Beloved, and Huckleberry Finn. So, I gave her that, and also a pen to make little tiny popovers with, which are fun. Popovers are delicious no matter what size they are. And we went to a lovely new restaurant around our neighborhood called Mercado. And, we had wonderful roasted vegetables, roasted Brussels sprouts, and delicious roasted mushrooms with filet mignon panini. And then, at the end, to celebrate her birthday, a lovely cup of delicious cappuccino. It was a wonderful afternoon on a beautiful day.

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.

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

I'm 22. I knew a kid in high school, and he and his brother were close to my mom (who taught at our school). They were a year ahead. I just heard he's dying of stage 4 cancer. He got diagnosed as stage 4 right off the bat months ago and now is just waiting to die. I'm of the opinion that people have the right to be forgotten, and I don't try to bother those I knew in school, but we were loose friends and I don't know what to do or say. Obviously, it's not my place to speak to him or his family, and I really don't even know if it's my place to grieve, but I am. I don't know how to wrap my head around someone randomly going to the doctor and essentially getting prescribed a headstone and a shrug.

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.

I grew up in Nigeria, but we came from a very entrepreneurial family. And that meant that people were doers. And I believe in life, that you actually have the capacity to do whatever it is you want to do. Nobody else is going to do it. There are so many things you see in life that you feel like there's injustice. But often times you just relax and say, "Somebody else is gonna do it." Well, that somebody else is you. And you seem very controlled about your own life and very driven. So I'm wondering, was there a time when you were less sure about yourself? Yes. Okay. Oh yeah. Tell me about that. Computer scientists know nothing ever works the first time, that's the beauty of it. It's a problem-solving thing, and so failure is built into the act of learning. You have to trip and trip and trip and trip. And then, once you figure out all the ways you can trip, you finally learn how to walk. It's little baby steps to build that muscle of courage and confidence. Just take a deep breath and just tell your feet to move, and your feet will move.

Also, hello. Over here. Okay, whatever. So, to respond to your first point, yes, we should be happy for the steps that we did take. But how can you expect to achieve anything remotely great if you just keep letting mediocre work? Anyway, a story I have for you, this week was the last meeting of my pottery class. It was a community that I really enjoyed, being with everyone who's very friendly and they brought me so much joy through my life. However, because I got a job in New York City, I had to leave the studio because I'm relocating to New York. So that was good. And then, however, my recruiter reached out to me and she was actually positioned in moving to Texas, Plano, Texas, Columbus, Ohio or Atlanta, Georgia. And I just feel like that would give me instant depression, like removing my social circle, like my social support, taking diversity away from my life in terms of Southern California diversity, and taking away good food and good weather and good nature. I would just become really sad, and I wish I would go to New York. So now I have to debate between, well, Texas is out of the picture, so now to debate between Columbus and Atlanta and I don't know how to make my decision.

I recently moved back to a big city to look for a job after a few years. After graduating from grad school in this particular city, I had moved upstate. However, last month I packed my suitcase and came back to the same city to look for a job. I came back for a few reasons, one being better career opportunities, but also to reconnect with my friends. I stayed over at a friend's apartment for a few weeks while trying to land job interviews. There, I rediscovered our friendship from years ago. We both went to college together, and it was heartwarming that despite years of not really communicating other than Facebook messaging, we got along pretty well. It was almost a comforting sign, like the universe showing me positive signs that I might be on the right path. For a few years, I was unsure of where I should be. However, coming back to the city and meeting with old friends showed me how much I felt at home here. Right now, I am working a temporary job to hold me over. However, I really pray that I will find something stable here and be able to live and work here again. Although the city has changed, I still love it. Finally, I realized this is where I want to be.

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

I wanted something to do on nights and weekends. I wanted to go and use all the new technology of the day, cheap sensors and whatnot. So, just as a passion project, I started building interactive art. I started falling in love with engineering again. It happened when we started making interactive art together. A whole bunch of people would get together after work, a couple of times a month, maybe once a week, to talk about all the fun things we wanted to build. We started making more stuff, and some of it was totally terrible and nobody wanted to play at all. But some of it people liked. We started building more and more stuff that was completely unrelated to work and served absolutely no practical purpose in the world. We were just making technology for technology's sake. We had no idea it was art until other people started calling it art. We were like, "Whoa, we're not artists. No way, right?" An extension of that is: how do you reject that cultural narrative that we're all told? That you go to school, and then you go and get a job, and you find a career, and you find a wife. There's this very specific road you're supposed to take because the reality is, it's different for everybody.

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 found rock climbing my freshman year of college. I wanted to stay fit, I want to stay healthy. It was something to distract me from the stresses of school. I got to relax and be focused on myself. I fell in love with it. It's a physical ability, but also having the mental confidence to do these obstacles because they're terrifying if you first look at them. I felt like this is my chance to show people all around the world that women are stronger than what people make them out to be. Break beyond the grain of "we're quiet and timid," and that's who I am. I do well because I think I have fun with it, and it's really just exploring new things and getting scared and feeling uncomfortable, which is one of the biggest things. Throwing yourself in a situation where you're feeling uncomfortable and working past that grows you as a person and prepares you for adult life.

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.

My aunt called me a few weeks ago and wanted me to go with her on a road trip. It was kind of unexpected, but I haven't seen her much in the last few years, so I was excited. We were headed to a wedding about 6 hours away. I didn't really know the guy getting married, but I had met his mom a few times. On the way to the wedding, we stopped to visit several relatives. Again, people I hadn't seen in years. It was so fun to catch up with all my cousins! We had a blast at the wedding, or rather, the wedding reception and dance! Now, that was a good time. Everyone was out on the dance floor, and most of them were very good dancers. My aunt and I didn't participate in that, but it sure was fun watching everybody out there. The food was good too! After the dance, we headed back to another friend's house to spend the night. I had met him a few times before, and we spent a couple of enjoyable days with him. We spent a few more days visiting with more friends and relatives before we headed back. I absolutely had a blast. We talked all the way there and back, which was about a 12-hour round trip. This is my favorite aunt of all time, and I'm so glad she asked me to go with her. She is over 70 now and doesn't get around as well as she used to, so I soaked in every moment of our time together. I only wish it could've lasted longer, but unfortunately, I had to get back to work. I hope we get the opportunity to do another road trip together!

Okay, yeah. So my story today is about the time that I went to pilgrimage. And if you didn't know, the pilgrimage is something that all Muslims have to do. And I was able to go and do it during last winter. And that was like a very special time for me. It was my first time being in a different country, my first time being by myself alone out there. And I was able to do something that I've been wanting to do my whole life because it's like an integral part of my culture and my religion. And once I was over there, I was kind of amazed at how many different types of people that were there. Like this year, the sheer amount of people there and how we're all there for one purpose. And so when I was there, it gave me a sense of purpose, I suppose. And I really enjoyed my time over there.

I have recently joined an RCIA training class at my Catholic church to become confirmed Catholic. A few weeks ago during Sunday Mass, I and the other members of my class were introduced to the church congregation. We were given a script of things we were to say during the short ceremony when the priest would do the introductions. He was to also say a prayer for our successfully completing the class. I had been told generally what to expect, but of course, it didn't go perfectly. Everything went well, except I got confused once about where I was supposed to say my little part of the script - but it worked out. I wasn't nervous, but I was deeply moved by this ceremony. It's really one of the things that has drawn me to the Catholic religion - the ceremony and sacredness of every little thing that is done. I love the music. The beauty of the church is striking. Anyway, we finished our little ceremony with few mistakes. We had walked up the steps at the altar to be closer to the priest, who isn't a young man, and he's slightly limited in mobility. Turned out he wasn't going to come close to us, and our sponsors were to come around from behind to face us and do part of the blessing that the priest would have done. A bit clumsily, they inched around us and accomplished the task. Then it was over. We returned to our pew in the front, and the Mass continued. Quite an experience.

Hello, Hi jivo. I'd like to share a quick story about a conversation I had this morning on the ride to drop off my son at school. We were chatting about other planets and the atmospheres on other planets, and the living conditions on other planets. And I shared with him that perhaps within his lifetime, there will be humans starting to live on Mars. And we talked about what that might look like and how some of the introductory things humans would need to do to have a survivable climate and habitat on a different planet. It's an interesting thing to think about, especially for a young mind. And I find myself enjoying seeing questions like that through my son's eyes at the young age that he's at, because largely it's a blank slate. But he's very curious about the world, and he's learning new things. And I find that to be a nice perspective to try on, to remind myself of. So we had fun chatting about that.

During the moon landing project, I saw people who did the best work of their lives in that situation. And I got really interested in one question. What are the conditions under which people do their best, most fulfilling work? In other words, I got more interested in people than in science. And once I knew that, once I was clear about the fact that I found something I absolutely loved, there was no doubt that I was gonna continue asking questions about how do I learn about people? It's still the most frequently asked question I get. How did you go from math to psychology? The key to knowing what to do is knowing who you are.

Okay. So this is a story of, I guess, one of my big hobbies. At least, it\'s less big now, but it was definitely like a big thing I did last year. My sister and I started playing Pokemon Go. And it started off just because one of my sisters, the oldest one, we\'ll call her K. She actually doesn\'t matter. But anyways, my older sister downloaded the app, and she was like, "This is so cool. You have to download it, too." And then that\'s kind of how it started. But basically, Pokemon Go is this app that is like closely related to the game and the anime cartoon called Pokemon. So it\'s like a world of where people train these Pokemon that are kind of like wild animals with magical powers or like superpowers. And they train them and they use them for battle. And it\'s a whole competition between one trainer and their pets/monsters/animals against another one. And it\'s like training to know, basically it\'s like who knows their pets the best and can use them and their unique abilities. So anyway, Pokemon Go tries to be similar. It basically brings the show to life, and it blew up a couple of years ago when it first launched because Pokemon has a huge fan base, like people who are super dedicated and some that are less. But I never got into it because I just didn\'t have the proper phone for it. But now that I have a better quality phone and I had free time last year, that\'s when I really got into Pokemon Go. So basically, this game takes place in the real world, also, where it forces you to walk around and map out little places to catch these Pokemon monsters. So it brings their real world to life. And so it actually really did bring the real world to life because my sisters and I are blue team, like at least we call her blue team. And because we got so into it, we started seeing common players around our neighborhood because it turns out that other people around us played also. And every park or public space becomes a space for Pokemon Go. So parks are like a common space where you can train your Pokemon. You put them in little gyms, like a whole thing. But basically, my sister, sisters, and I became the Blue team. And we called ourselves the Triple Threat because there were three of us. And we would always play together. We would match our outfits. And we would match Pokemon. So once we took over a gym from the other teams, there\'s two other teams, there\'s Yellow and red. Yellow is Team Instinct. Red is Team Valor. And then what team are we? Mystic. Mystic. Basically, there are all these teams. And we were the blue team. We call ourselves the Triple Threat because we were, like, always together playing Pokemon Go. But then I think people caught onto us. And the red team specifically created their own team. And we never met these people in real life. Okay. So my sister and I developed this rivalry with this virtual gang. And basically, this team was, they also started dressing alike, and we\'re not entirely sure if they all know each other. Our best guess is they mostly know each other because they all sometimes are in the same gym together, but sometimes they\'re not. And then they would match Pokemon. And when they beat up our Pokemon, they would match sometimes. Similarly. So we developed this whole online rivalry with this team, and we would kick them out of the gym and then be strategic to not let them put in their Pokemon. We were like, full-on battling these people. And I think it\'s even funnier because, where I live, I live in the hood of Phoenix. So I tried all my life to avoid gangs. And here I am, in a virtual one that\'s like not even serious. But yes, I think it was funny the whole summer we had that little rivalry. But then I think once the summer ended, we all kind of got really busy because then I got started on like a full-time job I had. And then everyone else went back to school. So I think this rivalry we had, I\'m pretty sure it\'s with a bunch of teenagers. And we\'re, like, older. But that is the summer I joined a Pokemon gang, and we had a whole turf war in our little neighborhood.

My 28th birthday was probably the best in my life. My cousin is 3 days younger than me, and we celebrated our birthdays together. I remember that we went to our favorite park and invited lots of friends and lots of family. We had two grills cooking lots of burgers, hot dogs, different meats like steak, sausage, and ribs. We all ate and laughed and played water guns and water balloons. I got a new Nintendo Switch that day, and so did my cousin, with the same game. The new Pokemon game that came out that year. It was truly special because I have been wanting it for years and I finally got it. We played for hours and even had to take a break. I will never forget those moments as me and my cousin played side by side for hours on a day between our birthdays. We truly felt like we shared those moments. We caught Pokemon that were different than each other's, and we battled them as we caught new ones. We just simply linked our Gameboys and played against each other. People at the party were watching us and even rooting for me and my cousin as we had intense matches that day. All lower-level Pokemon. Me and my cousins are some big-time fans of Pokemon. The people at the party thought we were ridiculous for playing games like this, but this makes us happy!

I\'ll do a part two to my adoption story, something that surfaced when I was about 25 years old and so quite a while after my adoption. I took a graduate study and we traveled to Korea, and it was my first time back to Seoul, South Korea. Since, basically since my adoption. And I don\'t know if I\'ve had that many emotions running through me at any other point in my life, but it was just such a blend of elevated highs of feeling connected and just moments of pure peace, to the other extreme of extreme disruption with who I identified with what I had thought I was up until that point. I even took a little medallion that I had, that was from when I came over, that had the name of my orphanage and I had a cab driver take me there. And I saw all the little kids that were there. And then they showed me a picture of myself that I had never seen before. And it completely threw me into a complete unraveling. I had panic attacks for a good two weeks plus after that, where I couldn\'t breathe. I didn\'t know who I was, where I was supposed to be going. And it took a long time for me to kind of situate myself back to "I am a blend of everything. I\'m not just one or the other." I don\'t have to feel guilty or wondering about my birth family and where they are. But it really did take a long time for me to calm down my emotions, so I wasn\'t having panic attacks anymore. And I still feel like it has a bit of a ripple effect.

In August 2005, I lost everything to Hurricane Katrina. In September 2005, I received my cancer diagnosis. So it's like this happened and then this happened. So I'm a veteran now. And I really didn't know what that meant. But it basically meant I was on my own. I had thought at that particular time that maybe I was an isolated case, and then I saw that there were tens of thousands of women veterans who were homeless. That helped motivate me to provide this nonprofit organization for homeless women and children. It's ultimately like everything came full circle, that maybe this is why I went through these things. I had to be that catalyst, to be that voice for this forgotten population.

Week. So, I performed this weekend at the salsa Congress, and it reminded me of when I performed as a child. I took tap lessons for eight years, and there was one particular incident that was really scary and embarrassing. I was performing with two other girls. I was in the center, and I had one to my left and one to my right. Ashley was to my right, and Michelle was to my left. And part of our routine was to tap dance while jump roping. And we were wearing these leotard costumes with fringe skirts. And as we were performing, jump roping and tap dancing at the same time, Michelle's jump rope got caught in the back of the fringe of her costume, and I was in a high school auditorium, packed, completely packed house. And she ran off stage, and the crowd started to laugh. And Ashley and I kept dancing like we didn't stop. And while we were dancing, I looked over to my left off stage, and I could see one of the stage moms ripping out the fringe from the jump rope from Michelle's costume. And I could see that she was trying to push Michelle back onto stage, and Michelle was resisting all the while still doing my routine. The crowd's like giggling. And then the woman, the stage mom, successfully, literally shoved Michelle back onto the stage, and we had to finish the routine, and she rallied and caught back up. But it was kind of scary and I hadn't performed again in front of a crowd that large until this weekend, which was scary, but also exciting. So I feel like I kind of went through one of the worst experiences already, so I knew that this could only be better. And I was also supported by another 20 team members, so that made it really fun and helped kind of make me feel a little more protected. The safety in numbers type of thing. So, that's my story.

I'm 23 and just kind of finding my own path. I wrestled when I was 11 years old. It was because my dad got me into it. I went out and got my butt kicked by every other middle school kid I went up against, 35 times in a row. Before I was really capable of making decisions for myself, my parents had rooted in me that I needed to find a way to persevere in the things that mattered the most. Whether it was figuring out how to feed myself or clothe myself, just day to day activities. Athletically, they wouldn't let me quit in the middle of the season. It went a long way. They taught me not to give up so easily. My biggest complaint with the American system and graduating high school, going to college, and getting a job is that the common progression is to prepare you to be an employee. But you don't have to. There are ways and avenues to be able to go around and make something happen and build a business around something that you love.

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.

We were rolling around selling tee shirts, and we did that for five years. Along the way, we learned some things about what people liked and didn't like on shirts, but we weren't making a lot of money at all, just getting by. So we had decided that our label and our brand name was going to be something that already existed in people's minds in some way. "Life is good" was one of about 50 different slogans we put on an easel. In the morning, we woke up and we tore "Life is good" off the page, and we Scotch taped it up on the wall. And then we stepped back and we said, "Okay, now it's not just for artists, this is for anyone who sees the glass half full." Life goes by pretty quickly, and you have to think about when you're old and gray. What will make you happy to look back and say, "You did it"? What will be fulfilling? You gotta think through and say, what would be meaningful in my life?

Okay. So, today, I went to have my nails done. And this is the first time that I tried out nail extensions. So, it makes the nail gets longer, which is super fun, although it was like a very long session. It took two and a half hours. And since I'm also a little bit social, I have a little bit of social phobia, so it feels a little bit draining that I need to sit face to face with the nail tech for two and a half hours straight, and then keep on chatting and stuff. And at the end of it, although I'm very happy with what I've got, I enjoyed the conversation-ish, at the end I felt pretty burnt out and tired. Yeah. And I went back home, sat with my cat, and recharged.

I'm 28, been biting my nails as long as I can remember. I finally got some hard gels for about 7 weeks and let my actual nails grow out underneath, then had the hard gels removed. My nails are long, healthy, and strong, and my cuticles aren't a bitten-up mess. My hands look lovely, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Story. It's really not a story; it's looking at some photos of my two youngest daughters and how quickly they've grown.

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

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

The people I've dated in the past always seemed to want more. My second ex seemed like he wanted a girl that was more physically attractive. My first ex seemed to like his friend more than me. He seemed to bring her up a lot in conversations, and he seemed to genuinely like her as a person. I mean, I get it, since he said he used to "simp for her." This hurts the most because it was the longest relationship I've been in. I'm so upset for putting myself in these two relationships. I don't understand why I did that to myself. It's not worth the flashbacks and pain from time to time, but I guess you learn from it and move on. I guess it's not too bad, but it definitely hurts.

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

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

Okay. So this story is about a time that I was recruiting someone to do an educational video with me. I wanted to create videos about math and science that could be used for teacher professional development. And I was looking for participants. And when I was out one night, I went to like an art show. And I found a guy selling handcrafted metal goods, like belt buckles and stuff. And I asked him if he might be willing to talk about the math and science of that process. And he said he's actually a motorcycle mechanic. And I said, wow, that's interesting. Maybe we can do a video about that. Maybe about the math of motorcycles somehow. And he said, I don't really do math. And I thought that was maybe unusual because I assumed he did somehow. And I said, well, what do you like to do with motorcycles? And he told me that he liked to make them go fast. And I said, well, how do you do that? And he said, well, one way that I do that is by adjusting the power curve or the torque of the engine. And I thought to myself, well, that's physics and that's math. And then he said he likes to maybe increase the volume of the cylinders inside the engine. And I thought, well, that's geometry. And then he talked to me about how different grades of fuel, like different octane of gasoline, has an effect on the performance of the engine. And I said, well, that's chemistry and math as well. So I thought to myself this whole time that he does use math, but he just doesn't think about it in that way. So I was able to convince him to do a movie. And we did one. And he ended up talking about some of these ideas on camera and then we were able to link that discussion to math education standards and then present that to teachers. And so it ended up being a successful video. And one of my important memories of that project.

I'm a hands-on guy. I could never be a good boss because I can't sit at a desk and manage. I'd hire someone to manage, and I'd rather work on the cars because that's what I like to do. I like to work with my hands. Ever since I was five, I was working with my hands with my father. He's a cabinet maker. I did every job under the sun when I was in high school. I worked at restaurants, I was a bartender, I volunteered as a mechanic cleaning parts when they were changing engines. Time went by, I helped them with this, with that. Next thing you know, I got a job at an auto repair shop. They said, "Why don't you take that engine out?" And I'm like, "I don't know how." He's like, "Just start unbolting it, and we'll take care of it, we'll help you along." And the next thing you know, 20 years later, I have my own.

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.

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 awhile, 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 our 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, a few days ago, I got letters from my mom. She apologized for what she did to me when I was a kid. I don't want to mention the specific detail of what she did, but she was too focused on something over me, and it was more than 30 years ago. So, I'm still suffering from it. I'd like to accept the apology, but I don't know what to say, or how to deliver the message. The problem is she always apologizes about that, but that's it. She doesn't try to fix it or compensate for it. And of course, we cannot go back to the past. We live now, but I think we can still fix it. There is still a way to mitigate the issue. Except for that issue, we've been getting along and I love her. I understand no one is perfect, but sometimes I feel if she was so bad, I wish I could hate her. I know this is a very childish, teenager-ish idea, but it is true that I feel that way sometimes. And after that, after I feel so bad, I feel guilty to have failed. I don't want her to apologize to me about that anymore.

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

There was one time when he goes, I can't remember which one of my birthdays it was, but my mom had set it up to be at a Nathan's Hot Dog, and they had like an arcade. And everyone got tokens. And they were able to play all these games to win tickets that they could then pick prizes from. And two girls that lived down the street for me, they were sisters. They lived in a basement apartment. They had a single mom, no dad. And they couldn't afford to get me a present for my birthday. But they still came to the party. Totally fine. My mom didn't care. And they both played the arcade games to win as many tickets as possible, so that they could take the tickets and use them for a prize to give me as a gift for my birthday. And that was just something really, their selflessness to want to get me a gift on my birthday when they could have easily just taken those tickets and used them for themselves was really touching.

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.

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.

No one thinks about bobsledding as a kid, especially around here, sunny southern California. You see it on TV during the Olympics, and that's it. It's just not something that you think about doing at a young age. When I came to UCLA, even by my fourth, fifth year, I was like, what am I gonna do? Track's almost over, I keep getting hurt throwing javelin, and it's just like, what's next? That's when my coach encouraged me to try out for bobsledding. Never been in a sled before, never been on ice before, but you have to realize, what can I do now that I'll not be able to do later on? You can't go back and bobsled in ten years, you have to do it now. This is the only time you can do it. So I was like, I gotta go do this, I gotta try it now or else I'll never know. And that ultimately led to Korea for the Winter Olympic Games. So, for me, my goal has always been the same, to make the Olympics. I just didn't realize it would be in bobsledding, but here I am.

There used to be this pizza place in India called Pizza Corner, and they had this special dish called a Koniza, which is basically a pizza wrapped into a cone. And it was one of my favorite things to get from that restaurant. And the Konisa is not available widely anymore, mostly because they just don't sell it anymore at Pizza Corner. So I hope that they bring it back someday because that's one of the things I really enjoyed for my childhood in India.

I came from a tropical country where it's always summer. Then, I moved and lived in Japan. I can't begin to describe how much I love having the other 3 seasons to enjoy! And my favorite has got to be fall. I came to Japan late summer, and it was fall that was the first "new" season that I got to know. It was magical how the days became so cool, like there was AC turned on everywhere. I can wear thicker clothes and enjoy hot dishes without sweating so much. It was just so comfy, I was so happy I can experience it. But since we didn't have this season back home, I didn't know how to spend it. I had to watch Youtube videos, and it's mostly western people with pumpkins and pumpkins, and lots of sweets and spices. Right now, I bought tiny pumpkins to decorate various corners of the house. I plan to get some dried bouquet flowers too, and a lot of candles. I don't bake, so I got bottles of aromatic oils that smell like pumpkin pie, caramel cookies, coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls, vanilla frosting, etc. Oh, plus movies and books! I'm going through a lot of fun adventure stories. I plan to marathon the Harry Potter movies.

I'm going to share something about work today. So, I've been doing an internship. It ends on this Friday. As part of the internship, my project has been basically to render a component on the page. And I spent probably six, seven, eight, probably eight weeks of my twelve-week internship trying to get this thing to render on the page. And I've tried multiple different things on, how do I get this to work? Everything from giving it the bare minimum to giving it almost everything it could possibly take. And it still doesn't work. And I guess in this case, good enough is much better than perfect because there is no way I would have been able to finish this project in twelve weeks. And I recognize that now. And it was frustrating at times. But understanding that I did enough work so that someone else can pick it up and continue is pretty okay with me. I'm okay with the fact that good enough is much better than perfect. And this kind of reflects in other aspects, too, right? Yeah, you could sit there and polish every single tile in your floor to a mirror sheen, but also you're spending so much time on something that you could be spending on doing something else. So you might spend, like, 12 hours on the floor and not touch anything else. And that's kind of a waste, honestly. So good enough is better than perfect.

Getting into the industry, everyone always says you pay your dues, being the new person, and that's where adapting comes into play. So at my first dealer, I started out as an expert technician. Today, I'm a master guild technician. It is the highest level four technician. Working on cars every day is a challenge. It's funny how it works because as technicians, we love a challenge. It is satisfying being able to fix something that most people don't know how to fix. And when you face these challenges, and you're gonna face them, it's just a matter of time, you have cars that are harder to fix than others. It's basically learning from your situation and kinda storing that up and knowing how to best handle it the next time and making yourself a better technician. Early on in your career, look to get the most out of every opportunity. You may not get that first job that you planned on. But you're gonna gain that valuable experience as you build. So as you build, you can set yourself up for success.

Okay. I thought I'd tell you about the situation we have here in Simsbury, where I live. With regard to bears. When we moved here 30 years ago, there were no bears. But now, for the last 20 years, there have been bears. And in the last four or five years, there have been many bears. Bears that come onto the deck, bears that go into the garage, bears that tip over the trash. They're funny because they are large and somewhat intimidating in appearance. But they seem as annoyed by us as we are by them. They are not aggressive in a way that, let's say, a yellow jacket is aggressive. And they're not creepy in the way, let's say, spiders and snakes are creepy. They're very quiet and they can scare you just because of their size and what you know they could do if they wanted to. I look at them and we live obviously in the woods. And they're huge, as I said. And I ask myself, how do they maintain that weight with just eating berries and stuff from the woods? It just does not seem possible. And over the years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of cubs they have. Usually, early on, they'd come around with one cub, then two. Now we've seen as many as four cubs. And yes, they are adorable. They really, really are adorable, and they're charming in the way they react with their moms. They look to her for leadership and obey her nonverbal commands. And she watches out for them. You would be making a very bad decision to get between a mom and a cub. But there are too many. I am not a person who is in favor of killing animals just for the sake of killing them. But I'm thinking maybe something like an additive to food that would make them infertile, maybe that would be a good idea. I don't know. I'm working on this. That's my story.

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 today, my story is about the movie I watched yesterday, which was named Joyride. I think it was really interesting because when they first introduced the characters, I was actually a little bit upset because I was like, "Why are they getting a Korean girl to play a Chinese girl?" Right? I understand Asian American representation is really important, especially nowadays in media. But later, spoiler alert, there\'s a twist, and it turns out she was supposed to be Korean. So I was like, "Whoa, it\'s so nice that they actually got ethnicities correct." So I changed my mind about casting. \n\nOverall, I really enjoyed the movie. It was about finding out who you are. The storyline basically goes that there\'s this fancy lawyer. She was adopted from China, so she was trying to find her birth mother. They go through a crazy adventure, and eventually they end up in Korea. And she finds out that her birth mother was not only Korean but had also passed away. And it tested their friendship. They did a lot of really crazy things while in East Asia. But overall, I think it was a pretty beautiful message of friendship and how families, family, and your identities, what you make of it, and at the end of the day, just love your people who love you. \n\nSo I really enjoyed the movie. It\'s really, really funny at times. Really emotional sometimes, I definitely cried a little bit at one point when the deceased mother was wishing her daughter well. And it kind of inspired me, too. I think I also want to go on like a soul-searching journey. Yes, that is my story.

It was my 30th birthday, and I didn't really think much of it. I woke up at about 9:30 AM in the morning, and my mother handed me a birthday card. On the card, it said, "I have an amazing son... who knows who he is and what he wants. Tells it like it is and lives his own truth." The card had a bright red guitar logo on it. I felt that this meant a lot to me since I love rock and playing guitar. My mother put a lot of thought into this card and knew exactly what I wanted. It made me feel very motivated. I felt very appreciative of this card. Following that, she took me to the movies to go see Godzilla. I felt very appreciative of this because Godzilla is one of my favorite franchises. She even bought me popcorn. Though initially, the popcorn was stale, a fact I brought up to her. She suggested that I go and get another bowl. I went to get a fresh bowl of popcorn made, and it was delicious. It was warm and buttery. After we finished watching the movie, I thought that it was alright and decent. My mother liked it a little more than I did, surprisingly. I felt that there was a bit little too much focus on human characters that weren't necessarily all that interesting in my opinion. The final fight was alright, but it needed a bit more focus on the monsters. There isn't much human characters can do, and also, a lot of the humor was awkward and fell flat. A lot of the characters in the movie felt pointless and unnecessary. Following that, she took me to go and get some Indian food. I really appreciated that because Indian cuisine is my favorite. The food that day was particularly delicious. I had a short conversation with some people next to me, but I don't really think my intrusion into their conversation was all that welcomed. It was a fun day all in all, and I had a lot of appreciation for my mother and her taking me to the movies.

So this story is about me moving across the country, from Florida to Massachusetts, with my girlfriend. And we had to bring two rabbits. So, I had never done that before. I had moved across the country before, but not with another person and not with two rabbits. Especially, so that was kind of an interesting challenge.\n\nRabbits are not the kind of animal that you need to take outside to go to the bathroom. They can stay in their little cages, but we had to have them in these small cages for car transport. And then the funny thing, the story is that we stayed at a variety of hotels and places like that on the way because we were driving. But not all of them were open to pets.\n\nBut rabbits are not your typical cat or dog because they stay in a cage, and not a lot of people have rabbits. But I remember just the challenges of having to get to the hotel and then moving the rabbits into the space. And I remember staying at this one sort of roadside bed and breakfast-type place, and we had to move the rabbits inside. But once they were in, we were able to let them out and run around. And they played a little bit. And that was fun, but it was just a unique challenge to me to move across country with these two small pets and then facing the challenges of meeting their needs as well as ours as we did this.\n\nAnd one time we tried to sneak them into a hotel because the hotel wasn\'t really clear on their animal policy. And then the hotel staff saw it, and they\'re like, "no, you can\'t stay here with those rabbits." And so we had to go find another place. So that was unexpected and kind of disappointing, but it\'s just part of the deal. Moving with rabbits.

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

I have a 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.

About 5 months ago, I quit my good job up in Virginia, sold my home, and moved back down to Florida. It all started out 4 years ago when my Uncle, who owns a couple of event planning companies, asked me to come work for him since his main company just received a huge contract from the federal government. I said yes right away and quit my job as an assistant manager at a hotel and left for Virginia to work for him. He offered to let me stay in his basement, which was just a really nice downstairs apartment. I was very grateful and stayed with him for a year until I saved enough money to get into my own place. At first, I really enjoyed the job and put in my best effort. The two owners, my Uncle and his best friend, were very happy with my performance. I was given a 50% raise after only six months on the job. After a year, I was promoted and given another significant raise. After being promoted, I was put under the supervision of a new boss. She was very good at her job but unfortunately was not good with the people working under her. She would talk very badly behind our backs and would not think twice about throwing us under the bus if it would keep her from looking bad. I worked for her for a couple of years until finally I and a few others had had enough. I complained to my Uncle and his best friend, who was also my old supervisor. They did not believe that she was such a problem. My work ethic started to decline because I was very discouraged by it all. I started to not take things seriously and then began to spiral out of control to a certain extent. I was not the only one on the team with this issue. Finally, I tried to quit several times but was guilted into staying on the job. Then, over the course of one week, I purposely did not show up for a few days until they were forced to fire me. It was a hard thing to deal with considering how my uncle, who I was very close to, looked out for me in several ways, and because of that, we became very close. The fallout was not pleasant, and because of it all, the relationship between me and my uncle is now severely strained, and I will never work for him again.

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 don't know why I've been so emotional these past few days. I think about all the homeless people I've seen on the streets, all the beggars I've ever walked past. I think of people in mental hospitals who will never be healthy enough to get out. I think of the homeless teen I met in a downtown mental resource centre. I think of all the drug addicts I've seen shooting up heroin on the transit system, and I just want to cry. Why do people have to suffer so much? Why do they suffer more than me? Why is there nothing I can do about it?

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.

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.

Wow, it was a beautiful evening and there were thousands of small swallows flying in the sky overhead. The sky was turning red and purple because it was sunset. It was absolutely beautiful, very peaceful.

My wife and I went on a small, last-minute vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was in April of this year. It was a very memorable trip for me. I love spending time with my wife, and when we can get away at the last minute, that just makes it that much more special. Gatlinburg is where we spent our honeymoon, and it has special significance to us. This time was special because we just bonded so much more than we usually do. We got to do more things because the weather was warmer this time around. We got to stay close to downtown, so we took a lot of walks together to a lot of different places. The most memorable part was sitting on a balcony at a restaurant overlooking the main road that goes through town. We spent hours there just talking and people-watching. I still think about that afternoon and how much fun we had together just being together and not really doing anything at all. Besides that day, we had a couple of great meals at some neat places. We also went to try a new place out that was really bad, and yet we still made the most of it. Overall, that trip was one of my most favorite times of my life. It was because I spent it with my favorite person I've ever met. We still talk about how we can't wait to go back, but I don't think any trip will compare to that one.

Yeah, lately I've been having issues. It seems like with getting out of bed, but not necessarily like staying in bed and just not getting out, but really just waking up per se. So I have this thing where it's very easy for me to fall back asleep. So that means that if I do wake up, it's pretty easy for me to just shut off my alarm and then climb straight back into bed and fall asleep immediately. And so this feels like it can go on for a while. And it's been pretty frustrating because, yes, my dreams, the dreams that I have when I do sleep in like that, are really great. But fundamentally, I don't remember them over a long period of time. And because I end up sleeping for so long, there are a lot of things that I want to be doing in my life that I just simply don't have as much time for. Yeah, so that happened today, too. And I end up sleeping really long hours and just overall, always feeling sleepy, I guess. Yeah, that's kind of what's been going on.

I've been in a bad way for a while. Progressively worse lately. Depressed, stressed to the point of breaking, feeling lost, and more hopeless than I've been in ages. But today, I woke up, went to a spa, and got a massage - a birthday present to myself to hopefully ease over sore muscles. In the quiet, my mind would typically wander to every way I've messed up in the last few years, things I've already messed up for the future, overthinking, and overanalyzing everything I've ever done or will do. Instead, I forced my mind to build this whole ridiculous scenario about what was happening and why I was there, like I was reading or living in some kind of story. My mind did wander to stressful stuff some, but I would scold myself and repeat the story-building in my mind. So, instead of laying in bed all day, going over and over the things that have been weighing on me heavily lately like I have been, I took a step out of my brain and simply allowed myself to relax, even if I had to focus on it a little. My body feels more relaxed, my neck isn't nearly as stiff, and has probably popped 20 times since I left, and I don't feel like I'm going to suffocate in the silence tonight. For however long this lighter feeling lasts, I have to call this a win.

Yeah. Well, I guess the story I want to tell is about how I went through higher education like undergrad and grad school. And now, I moved back home and I'm ready to transition to industry work. This is the first time I'm moving back home in years. I lived on campus during undergrad and then during grad school. I lived in Hyde Park. So for the last three years, during the COVID-19 pandemic up until last week, I was living in Hyde Park and I was having a great time. But I finally finished school. I have a graduate degree. And now, I'm transitioning to working full-time in my career, which I haven't done before. So I moved back home, which I really dislike because this is my childhood room. I've been in this room for the last almost 27 years. And I have a lot of traumatic memories associated with this bedroom. But before you know it, I'll have a job, and I'll be making money. And then maybe I'll finally be able to get my own apartment or buy a home that I can live in and be away from this place that I really dislike. But for right now, I'm in that part of the journey where I've lived away from home for school, but now I finish school. So now I have to get away from home again.

I recently moved back to a big city to look for a job after a few years. After graduating grad school in this particular city, I had moved upstate. However, last month, I packed my suitcase and came back to the same city to look for a job. I came back for a few reasons, one being better career opportunities, but also to connect with my friends. I stayed over at a friend's apartment for a few weeks while trying to land job interviews. There, I rediscovered our friendship from years ago. We both went to college together, and it was heartwarming that despite years of not really communicating other than Facebook messaging, we got along pretty well. It was almost a comforting sign. It was like the universe showing me positive signs that I might be on the right path. For a few years, I was unsure of where I should be. However, coming back to the city and meeting with old friends showed me how much I felt at home here. Right now, I am working a temporary job to hold me over. However, I really pray that I will find something stable here and am able to live and work here again. Although the city has changed, I still love it. Finally, I realized this is where I want to be.

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.

I found out that my wife is pregnant with our first child! When I first found out, I was overcome with emotions. At first, I was so happy and excited because we had been trying for so long to get pregnant. Then, I was overcome with sadness. You see, my dad passed away a couple of years ago. In my eulogy, I spoke about how the day that I find out I would be a father would be one of the toughest days for me. That would be because I wouldn't be able to call him and see his excitement. I wouldn't be able to call him for advice. My wife is now about 6 months pregnant. Still, to this day, I have highs and lows because of these two things. Highs because I am so excited to be a dad. Lows because I don't have my dad here to help me. We found out we are having a girl! I always thought I wanted a boy first, but when I found out we were having a girl, I was so ecstatic. I immediately went into papa bear mode. I began looking into how to be the best dad to a girl. What I needed to know about having a girl. I know that she is going to be the most important thing in my life. So, this sums up not only my most recent important life experience, but probably the most important one ever!