e-Bomb, the fire cracker in a small package. e-Bomb, the philosopher. e-Bomb, the late bloomer staging her own life revolution. e-Bomb, the history watcher. e-Bomb, the lover. e-Bomb, the friend. Welcome to My World. Here's my story.
I care.
Education, health, economy, peace, environment ... EVERYTHING that means EVERYTHING to me.
I will NOT forfeit my responsibility to protect and improve those things that mean so much.
Change.
The time is NOW.
By the way, I am voting for Obama. You?
Last night was another long night ... at the bars with international students.
It was really interesting. At dinner, there were:
1 Texan
1 Oregonian (me, that is)
1 German
1 North Carolin...ian (ok, someone from NC)
1 French
1 Spanish
1 Swiss
Most of them are older than me ... well, actually all of them. All of them MBA students.
So Swiss, Spanish and French went home, and left Texan, Oregonian, NC, and German to go to the bars. Ahhh, Long Island Ice Teas. And yay for free drinks on the house for the ladies. :) And dancing to music that I know! Oh, how I miss home.
The next time I go back to school, I'm going on an exchange!
Of course I cherish this time I have with these new people, but it is also such a great adventure for me ... not exactly to meet new people, but to experiment with being "me."
I have wanted to improve who I am. I want to stay who I am, and more. I want to be stronger than ever. I want to be someone who loves herself. I want to be assertive, and I want to speak my mind and do what I think is right, yet at the same time, comfortable with being alone and being quiet when everyone else is talking (instead of feeling "pressured" to speak just to "stay cool and in the loop"). I want to feel ok about being different; it's ok be feel small, and even BE small, because my path is different. I don't want to be funny for the sake of attention, but just for fun. I want to feel fine, feel acceptable to myself, to be careful, to keep distance, to say no. I want to be who I want to be.
And fortunately and unfortunately for these kids, I get to experiment on them.
Do you feel it?
Change is in the air.
Economic downturn, the demise of absolute international hegemony, busting of lies and uncovering of truths, the rising of nation unions and second world countries, attitude on sustainability, technological and medical innovation, new diplomatic relations and ties, change in religious and cultural landscapes, and so much more ...
I can smell the chaos in the air that brings new beginnings.
As the age of Pisces wanes and the age of Aquarius comes into reign, the world will gain new clarity. My generation shall witness the first great change of many changes in years to come.
It’s coming.
He says,
Live like it’s your last; love like it’s your first.
It’s true.
If you don’t live like it’s your last, then you wouldn’t know to love like it’s your first.
If you don’t know to love like it’s your first, then you don’t know you’re living life at all.
- Western Europe’s first public bus service started on March 18, 1662, by Blaise Pascal.
- In the US, on average, five hours of TV viewing would yield 71 minutes of politics, 26 minutes of crime, 12 minutes of disasters and 10 minutes of celebrities. Science, technology, health and the environment received just six minutes of coverage (with health and health care accounting for half of that.)
If you want it bad enough ...
... it CAN happen. And you’d KNOW it’s important for it to happen.
March 17, 2008
World Banker and His Cash Return Home
By JASON DePARLE
SINDHEKELA, India — An important man from the World Bank recently arrived in this isolated village, where monkeys prowl rutted roads, rain pours through the school roof and the native son who achieved the most did so by going away.
Lessons about global poverty were waiting, but so were his sisters’ chapattis. Migrant and migration scholar, Dilip Ratha was home.
No one has done more than Mr. Ratha to make migration and its potential rewards a top-of-the-agenda concern in the world’s development ministries. And no place has done more to shape his views than this forgotten hamlet, where he studied under the lone streetlight and began a poor boy’s improbable journey to the front ranks of an elite field.
"When I think about the effects of migration, I think about Sindhekela," he said.
Working from his office in Washington five years ago, Mr. Ratha produced the first global tally of remittances, the money that migrants send home, and stunned experts from himself on down with the discovery of their size. Gathered from a trickle of hard-earned cash, the sums now exceed $300 billion a year.
In subsequent work, Mr. Ratha, 45, has pushed to reduce money-transfer fees and increase the productivity of the money that is sent. Allies say his work has prompted projects in governments and beyond that could benefit millions of people. Skeptics argue that if migration brought development, Mexico would be Switzerland.
A soft-spoken man whose seeming diffidence disguises his drive, Mr. Ratha is gripped by his cause. "Some people say I paint too rosy a picture of migration and what it can achieve," he said. "But I realize the importance of dollars coming in because I know poverty firsthand."
If he is enthusiastic about migration, he has lived it on especially favorable terms. He has never crossed borders illegally or worked with dirty hands. He commands a salary 100 times higher than he would if he had never left home. With it, he has educated two younger siblings, paid for a nephew’s life-saving operation, and built a big house for his father.
Limits of Giving
Yet a visit to Sindhekela last month also suggests the limits of long-distance giving and the migrants’ psychological strains. Old friends want money. A younger brother has squandered his help. An effort to upgrade the local high school has met with ambiguous results.
His father, at 78, worries about dying alone. His older sister frets that he eats with a fork. Both speak Sambalpuri, meaning his Venezuelan wife and his American sons, all English speakers, cannot talk to them.
Globe-trotting technocrat, village boy made good, Mr. Ratha is like many migrants torn between two worlds and fully at home in neither. "On bad days, I do feel lonely in a way that I can’t explain," he said.
There are about 200 million migrants worldwide, supporting as many if not more people at home. That suggests that remittances may reach almost a tenth of the world’s population.
India ($27 billion), China ($26 billion) and Mexico ($25 billion) are the leading beneficiaries. But in relative terms, small countries gain the most, with some increasing their national incomes by more than 20 percent. Egypt gets more from remittances than it does from the Suez Canal.
Most of the money is spent on consumption — food, clothing or a birthday bash — which leads some economists to discount its impact on development. But Mr. Ratha argues migrants would invest more if they had better options. And he regards higher consumption among the poor as a very good thing.
"It’s not just about economics," he said. "Having someone who’s doing well abroad brings confidence to the family. They can hold their heads high."
Holding heads high has been a challenge in Mr. Ratha’s corner of India. Per capita income in the state of Orissa is about $400 a year, half the national average. The neighboring village, Khariar, made international news two decades ago when a hungry woman raised about $3 by selling a child. Sambalpuri, his first language, lacks a written script.
By local standards, Mr. Ratha’s family enjoyed a comfortable life. His father, Gopal, had a primary school education and a state job as a land assessor. As a Brahmin, he was expected to avoid physical labor, but he bought a speck of land that a sharecropper worked. The Rathas had little cash but plenty of rice.
While Mr. Ratha’s older sister left school after third grade, he grew up inexplicably hungry for books. His father saw him with a promising future as a village postmaster. But high test scores brought a scholarship to a two-year college, and his father felt obligated to find the money for room and board. "I felt like I was putting a tremendous burden on him," Mr. Ratha said.
More scholarships took him to a university in Delhi, a 42-hour train ride, where he studied under Marxist economists and practiced English by watching Clint Eastwood films. He wanted to attend an American graduate school but lacked the application fees. Teaching fellowships sustained him at the prestigious Indian Statistical Institute until he finished his Ph.D.
The Global Migrant
By then, a younger brother, Artatrana, was following his path — he earned two Ph.Ds. Their younger sister, Rina, got a master’s degree. When Mr. Ratha finally borrowed the money to reach the United States, he became Sindhekela’s first global migrant. Other than his brother, a professor in Minnesota, he is thought to be its last.
"We are always citing the example of Dilip Ratha," said his high school teacher, Mrutyunjay Tripathy, who now runs the school. "Our students are astonished that this young man from Sindhekela flies around in planes."
When Mr. Ratha reached the World Bank in the early 1990s, most economists saw remittances as small private sums that were irrelevant to development. After years of sending money home, he took a closer look.
Given the scorekeeping at central banks, it was an exercise in forensic accounting.
The International Monetary Fund said the Philippines received $122 million. Mr. Ratha produced an estimate 51 times higher: $6.2 billion. His tallies, first published in 2003, showed that remittances, once dismissed as the equivalent of a rounding error, were nearly three times greater than the world’s combined foreign aid.
"That was a bombshell," said Kathleen Newland, a founder of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington research group. "Putting it in that context made people see there was this enormous flow of money into the developing world. Dilip really is the person who put remittances on the map."
In subsequent work, Mr. Ratha has argued that the importance of the money exceeds its sheer size. Unlike foreign aid, it cannot be skimmed by potentates. Unlike investors who flee crises, migrants increase their giving during hard times. The money is directed to the needy. And Mr. Ratha contends it is well-monitored, too, by intimates on the sending end. "It comes with a lot of goodwill, advice, knowledge and punishment if necessary — keeping in mind the welfare of the recipient," he said.
When officials from more 150 countries met in Brussels last summer, remittances figured high on the agenda. Skeptics smell a fad.
"Remittances: the New Development Mantra?" asked an article by Devesh Kapur of the University of Pennsylvania. He sees the money as a palliative that, while at times helpful in easing poverty symptoms, leaves underlying structures unchanged. "If I ask can you name a single country that has developed through remittances, the answer is no — there’s none," he said.
Some critics fear the focus on remittances obscures broader concerns about migration, including the potential costs to children left behind. "Behind every remittance, there’s a separated family," said Elizabeth Gibbons, a senior official at Unicef.
Some see the money as a pittance that deflects attention from migrant exploitation. "It tends to justify the way the world economy is being restructured for the benefit of a small elite," said Raul Delgado Wise of the University of Zacatecas in Mexico.
Mr. Ratha agrees that migration is wrenching and the economic forces that drive it are often unjust. But, "Once people decide to migrate, benefits can occur for local development — that’s the point," he said.
From Thinker to Doer
Mulling a leap from thinker to doer, he has drafted plans for an "International Remittances Institute," to provide cheaper ways to send money — fees often exceed 10 percent — and more options for investing it. Easier access to banks, for example, might improve migrants’ savings rates and expand local lending pools.
Back in Sindhekela for the first time in three years, Mr. Ratha went from being a migration expert to mere migrant again, with the attendant tensions. He was annoyed that the money he sent his father for medical treatment went to a relative’s wedding. His father was annoyed that Mr. Ratha refused to honor his caste by wearing a sacred thread.
Father and son had long wrangled over the house that Mr. Ratha had built as a gift. The son is proud of the big master bedroom. His father finds its size off-putting and sleeps on a living room cot.
Mr. Ratha gave the village high school a new classroom, which he intended as a science hall. The state never sent the equipment, and the room houses some aging computers of uncertain utility.
Mr. Ratha, who named the building for his long-deceased mother, professes no donor’s remorse. "The building has served a great purpose," he said.
He does worry that his generosity may have hurt his half-brother, Tarun, who spent the money on gadgets and a motorcycle and did not finish high school. At 23, he is unemployed and the family blames remittance dependency. "I think it has affected his drive in a negative way," Mr. Ratha said.
At the same time, his sister Rina said that without his support she would not have earned her degrees or married an architect. "Whatever I am, I am because of him," she said of Mr. Ratha.
The headmaster wanted another classroom. A neighbor needed medical care. Mr. Ratha needed no reminder that his 9-year-old’s tuition at a Washington private school, $26,000, would support 65 villagers for a year.
Still, he was surprised at the recent progress that Sindhekela had made. The road had been widened and partly paved. Three cellphone towers rose overhead, and the children all wore shoes. In a village once thick with beggars, he saw only one.
There were a variety of possible explanations, including an irrigation project that expanded local harvests. It was no surprise that Mr. Ratha emphasized another: India’s vast internal migration, which was luring villagers to distant cities and bringing rupees home.
"I understand the costs of migration," he said. "There is a cost to not migrating, too."
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands:
One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.
The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.
It is the caring she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows,
And the beauty of a woman, with passing years, only grows!
- Audrey Hepburn
Today is my 25th birthday, and honestly, I feel differently this year.
No, actually, I feel complicated. I feel ...
I feel like I don’t know how I feel.
It makes perfect sense to me, but does that make sense to you?
There are so many things going through my mind right now, but they are all like cars with half an engine -- something is there, but it isn’t really working.
I thought about my life -- where it was and where it is and where it will be.
I thought about the very beginning, the very present and the very future.
I thought about all the closed and opened doors ... and all the keys I hold.
Knowing the things that I hold true today will most likely change into something very untrue tomorrow, and those that are quite unsuited will be fitting like a glove, ...
it is all a bit unnerving. Exciting, yes, but unnerving as well.
No one strives to be a failure, no one strives to be ungrateful,
and no one wants to be unhappy.
We all just want to be joyful and loved.
I don’t really know what I am saying here. I don’t know if all this has a point ... yet. But I know that, from my humble beginning that enabled me to look at the world with different lenses, I am marching the distance to my own beat understatedly, quietly to make an exploding supernova.
Here I come.
I love my parents. Really. They are the only people that care about me as whole-heartedly as they could. I would love nothing more than to make them happy.
But I can’t.
My position does not make them happy ... everything down to my core as a person.
If I can’t make the basic building blocks of my life satisfied with me as a person, then no wonder why I have a demon in there telling me that I can’t ever be good enough.
My parents see me through the lenses of their fears, and I have made their skewed views of me part of who I am.
Ahhh. Future, here I come.
Suppose I would like to be sure about something, so that I can have an anchor to hold on to.
(And of course, being sure about things isn’t just an act; it is a true feeling from the inside.)
Because then, at least I can be crucified for something. The act of being intimidatingly honest is such a luxury, which source only depends on concrete things that can be honest or dishonest about.
But now, I don’t even have anything to lie about, let about being true about -- you would have to be sure about a "yes" or a "no" in order to lie or deliver truth.
The only thing that I can really count on is "I don’t know."
(What happened to me?)
DVDs worth having, other than exceptionally good movies, obviously:
MUSICALS!
DOCUMENTARIES!
BBC AND PBS SPECIALS!
Steady your heart.
Take reins of it.
Do not burst into a blossom, like the way you do when you hear from him and receive his texts or pictures or instant messages.
Do not find the comfort of waking up in a sea of blankets warmed by spring morning light, like the way you do when he tells you he understands and reassures your decisions and promises never to hurt you and to always be there for you.
Do not glow like a star, like the moon, like Stella and Luna of the sky, like hope, like happiness, like wonders, like the way you do when he knows your beauty, bids you goodnight, be present by your side as you fall asleep, fondly, in spirit.
Do not be as certain as the mountain before me, like when you can feel the vibrance of his life touches yours through the distance, when he tells you how he feels about you and when your heart opens up because you feel the same way he does.
Do not sway like Ponderosa in spring breeze, like when you feel something special may be happening between you and him.
Far too dangerous to step out into the sun of assumptions to be dried out by disappointment when you realize you are the only one diving into the sunlight.
But when the sun shines on you,
what can you do?
As a loyal reader, I am very disappointed in The New York Times for the way it chose to report the details about "Kristen," the 22-year-old escort in whose company the New York state governor, Eliot Spitzer, was caught.
The renown news media spent 6-days’ worth of front page real estate for wanton debauchery over a famed personality’s transgressions. To be sure to cut through demographic differences, The Times painstakingly (and unforgivingly) offered its readership details with classic black-and-white articles and innovative colorful multi-media tools all over its website.
However, as shocking as the incident was and as diligent as The New York Times is, the news organization’s reporting has quite unfortunately been devoid of any journalistic value.
What happened to the millions of people dying of hunger, warfare and disease in the rest of the world? What happened to the brilliant people that shined light into others’ lives? Does nothing else but ruinous gossip merit reporting anymore in this day and age?
By indulging in wasteful expenditure of time and resources over a governor’s sex scandal, The Times has become negligent of the critical and urgent matters that are happening around the world.
I would even dare say that The New York Times is complicit with the perpetuation of chaos, hopelessness and futility in the neediest parts of the world (as well as this country) by its failure to exercise the care and integrity expected of a well-respected journalistic organization.
Let’s not ask what is newsworthy, as this word has been frivolously subjected to incomprehensible standards nowadays.
Let’s get to the very basic:
What is NEWS anymore?
I am gravely disappointed in The New York Times for having degraded itself to the level of common gossip tabloids -- not unlike those situated strategically by cashier stands at neighborhood corner stores to resuscitate brain-dead, almost comatose shoppers waiting to pay and zombie out.
I think reading is absolutely, fantastically amazing. Like while I was reading the book SALT: A WORLD HISTORY today, I just made the connection that, millennia ago, the Egyptians have already figured out comparative advantage (each region/country/people produce things that they are good at producing and then trade for things they need, which is more profitable than producing everything they need). They also understood that value-added goods are more profitable than raw material (in general).
Yes, MILLENNIA.
The Chinese were the first to manipulate natural gas in pipes, which were made out of hallowed out bamboo covered in salted mud, hooked up to shelters for boiling sea water for salt. These pipes were also used as sewage pipes.
And these are only a few of the many things I learned.
I LOVE READING. Ahhhh!
So here I am in Bend, trying to get settled down.
Yes, I am in Bend. I LIVE in Bend.
Surprised? Yeah, me, too.
But trust me -- it's for the better. I CHOSE to be uncomfortable. I CHOSE to make myself learn new things by force. I CHOSE to go out of my way to improve.
No, nothing noble or even remotely cool.
This is just what needs to be done. So I'm doing it.
Though, I am in such different waters right now, it's not even funny.
It's true that I'm making friends, it's true that I'm getting settled in -- and I can't ask for better people to be around me.
But, boy, do I feel lonely. I have only been here for three days, and everyday and every moment is a struggle to find my own footing. Reminds me a lot of the time I spent in Hong Kong, when I wasn't sure of what would become of me.
I hate this feeling of leaving my life up to chance or the Unknown, even though that's the only way to go.
My mind desperately seeks ways to control, and yet I have a hard time controlling my mind.
There are those that feel "forgetting the self" is the way to go ... let go of the uselessness of self-importance (Carlos Castaneda). Be unknown to others, be invisible.
But that might only apply to when someone wasn't so invisible to begin with, and he/she deicides to evaporate away.
When you are in a place where you are invisible to begin with, you will want to find a place in the group to help you verify your existence, to anchor your stay THERE (wherever it is), and to make the connections needed to be a human being.
That's what I'm trying to do right now, and it is hard.
All I'm relying on is faith ... faith in that everything will work out, that I will be happy.
... I am here to be brave.
I suppose bravery always has a sense of blind faith in there.
But in the end, (at least I hope) we will all come to appreciate the kind of blind faith we have as a token of respect to the things we don't understand, the things that are at work behind the scenes.
I just read somewhere:
"A bend in the road is not the end of
the road ... unless you fail to turn."
~ Anon
Whoever you are, thank you for the reminder.
I like apple pies. I especially like the kind with small crusty grains of sugar on top, even though sugar and I don't associate ourselves with each other on a typical basis. But I like it when sugar is used with something that complements it. Just like colors ... colors are only themselves when they are with each other.
So are we.
Like colors and spices, we are the most beautiful when in the company of those that complement us.
Maybe that's what bonds us together.
I was bored and ran into this page (http://www.numerology.freesoul.com/), where they asked me to add some numbers up (my birthday and this year, so 3+1+5+2+0+0+8=19, then 1+9=10, then 1+0=1, so my year cycle is 1). And what I got is really interesting. Sounds familiar ....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE 1 YEAR CYCLE
A journey of change,
new beginnings, independence
and becoming who you really are!
Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin
No matter how familiar things may seem, you are on an entirely different road now. The 1 year is the first year of a brand new nine-year cycle of your life. It urges you to create a more satisfying existence by recognizing the new potential that is developing. It is a time of change and new beginnings. Last year brought an entire nine-year era of your life to an end and was probably emotional and confusing. However, those experiences were necessary so that this year's new beginnings can occur. The past is over, but you will need to release the feelings and beliefs that are still anchoring you to it. Then, instead of being shocked or confused by this year's changes, you will more easily understand their purpose.
This is a year of new interests, experiences, goals, and understandings: about life, about you, where you have been, where you are now, and where you would like to be. And, because so much drastic change is required, you will also be learning the meaning of courage. You will gain self awareness this year. You will learn about individuality, and the vital changes that must take place within you if you are to attain what you need. You will be learning about independence, leadership, and originality, and you will need great faith in yourself in order to take appropriate action. You will encounter situations involving your deepest feelings, your unique mind and talent, and your need for greater freedom.
You will be learning to adapt to the changes taking place inside you and around you, while your ability to lead yourself and others gets tested. Your progress will be helped along by new opportunities and understandings. Just remember that 1 is also the number of individuality, and that no one can define freedom for another without limiting freedom.
Accept the need for real and significant change. Develop a realistic sense of your own self-worth. Listen to and follow your feelings. What you do this year will set the course for the next nine years. This should provide all the incentive you need to make your decisions carefully and realistically. And by accepting the reality of your past, you will become more aware of who you really are. If you think you already know your true identity, be prepared for some astonishing new truths to emerge.
You may start to doubt beliefs and attitudes you held dear, as you realize they are no longer appropriate to current circumstances. You may start to feel out of place around people with whom you have always felt comfortable, and may question their continuing role in your life. Doubts may arise as to how you can be free when responsibilities or circumstances seem to stand in your way. Feel every feeling that arises around such issues. At some point, you will instinctively know that it's time to move in a completely different direction, even if it means doing so alone.
Never forget that this year you are learning to be independent. Attaining independence often brings feelings of isolation and loneliness. Those you thought you could count on may become unavailable to you. Attaining independence always produces guilt which must be seen for the destructive force it is, otherwise you will become stuck in a painful rut of resentment, confusion, and blame.
Welcome new activities. Change monotonous routines. Without change - drastic change - you may find yourself being buffeted around with no Will of your own for a long time to come. The 1 year cycle gives you the opportunity to fix your bearings and choose the direction you want to take. It enables your Will to emerge as the only alternative to guilt and fear. Problems will arise for as long as you resist change. Stay flexible. Your firmest goals may be diverted into unexpected new directions.
The only thing you can reliably expect this year is change. One change will lead to another, and then another, transporting you physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually far from where you thought you would be. Consider what is best for you, and then go ahead in that direction. Start afresh. Decide which direction you want your long term future to take and, even if it means starting small, take decisive steps toward these goals.
Your various relationships are vitally important. So much love and happiness can be experienced there. However, you cannot depend on anyone else for your happiness or success. Rely only on you. Try to surround yourself with realistic, freethinking people who do not judge and criticize your every move. Have the same consideration for them.
Although the emphasis is on you this year, guilt will tell you that you are wrong to focus so keenly on yourself and that ego is the problem. It is not. The solution is to stop judging yourself. This will enable you to balance your ego between overblown or deflated.
You may have to break free from people who habitually disapprove of you or your plans, or those who want to control you. Know what you want and believe in yourself. If your abilities are lacking in some way, take the time to learn what is necessary to fulfill your intentions.
As you strive toward freedom, you will notice that others become less dependent or critical. The more self-accepting you are, the happier everyone will be. Confidence is not an 'act' that hides your fear or ignorance. It is a natural feeling that comes from your acceptance of reality. Once you accept the reality of your desires and potentials, and what you have to do to fulfill them, you will know that although you don't know all the answers yet, they will come to you because you have a genuine intent to learn, and an openness which can utilize new information. Confidence is the ability to accept change as it occurs, and it will occur this year.
Always be aware of what is going on locally and globally, and plan accordingly. Begin something substantial. Failure to start a new project, activity, job, hobby, or even a new attitude, will result in a directionless frame of mind which will keep you tied to undesirable people, places, and circumstances. At least, start a new phase of an existing situation. If you do not make changes where they are needed, they will be made for you.
Without change, we struggle to hold on to fruitless situations. As 1 is the number of independence, you will be aware of your various dependencies this year. Imagine the freedom you would enjoy without them. These may include a dependence on others, a need to keep others dependent on you; a need for approval; on substances such as food, tobacco, alcohol, drugs; or distractions such as 'entertainment', computers, or extravagance. You may be disguising your addictions so that they are unrecognizable, even to yourself. The key is to trace the emotional cause of why you need certain things so badly.
It could take years for you to achieve certain results, but projects or ideas started three years ago can materialize as accomplishments this year, leaving you pleasantly astonished as loose ends from the previous nine-year cycle are finally tied up. Understand the need for time to pass between one experience and the next, and you will enjoy many pleasant surprises this year. Aim high, believe in your goals, and never give up the pioneering spirit that is essential in the 1 Year Cycle. Remember that learning from mistakes is how experience is gained.
Work through your fears instead of denying them and you will be able to explore humanity's journey with an open mind and promote your own desires and interests along the way. Much of what occurs this year will be reflected back to you through events taking place elsewhere. Once you make that connection, you will be able to see exactly where you and your talents fit in. This year, you will learn that life is not meant to be a struggle but a continuous free-flowing journey of energy that moves, shifts, vibrates, spirals, and evolves through cycles of learning.
John just told me that my body goes through changes every 7 years ... not one single cell is the same as 7 years ago. I am literally a "different Elaine" from the one I was 7 years ago!
Also check out:
http://www.innerself.com/Channelings/Cycles_of_Seven.htm
Life is a process of growing and outgrowing,
and what fits snugly today, be it an idea, attitude,
or belief, may be entirely the wrong size tomorrow.
~ Sally Brompton
Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
~ James Baldwin
You know, I've developed a taste for flossing and brushing my teeth 3 times a day. Makes me feel ... comfortable. hehe!
Ok, that's all.
Oh, yeah, and I'm moving to Bend this weekend and the next. That's my birthday present to myself. (Oh, and thank you, Prince Charming, for the birthday present. Can't wait to see you next month! Also, JP and Eric the Mann, welcome to Bend for a visit, Nora, her company and other friends for helping me stand on my two feet ... yay for friends! Last but not least, thank you, the Great Unknown, for ... well, the unknown and lessons in life.)
Ok, now that's all.
Ever felt like being a stranger at home?
I feel like that right now.
I scare my parents for how different I am from them. This child that they birthed but does not resemble anything like them ... a child that they are incapable of understanding and identifying with. I make them feel like they have failed miserably.
The fact that I scare them causes them to push me away.
Me, a stranger at home.
[dedicated to parents]
It always feels hurtful whenever someone tells me I am a disappointment, a tarnish of shame, a source of unhappiness. For me, it's always the feeling that makes me forget to breathe -- literally, takes my breath away. It's also that ache that rattles in my chest that keeps all aches.
Time melts away the memories of words. What is left behind is usually the faces of disgust, of disdain, the way their heads turn away to avoid the hurt in my eyes, the way they look down to replay in their minds the disenchanting moments of embarrassment that substituted those glorious moments of praise, which they have always imagined and hoped for.
Perhaps they were just being honest and truthful.
But I'm still left with the reverberation of their impact and no choice but to lock it all up in my chest and move on.
Get up ...
Move on ...
Keep going ...
No other way ...
Start, continue -- my fighting chant.
[Sense and reality are trying to escape from my grasp tonight.]
You know, I hate dealing with taxes.
It's bad enough that they take money from me and use it unwisely, they also make me do stupid work filling in forms that ask me questions in code language. And if I do it wrong, they are gonna come after me and say that I'm lying.
This is just a system that sets you up for failure. I mean, if you're going to take money from us, then just do it. Don't make us do a bunch of excessive work. We should be able to trust them to take money from us honorably and honestly. Those that prefer to do it themselves can elect to do it themselves. The rest of us should be able to pay (more like donate) as painlessly as possible.
And if we're supposed to do our taxes, ok, then make things as easy and clear as possible. Don't use code language or clumsy sentences that hide what idiots they are by trying to make ME feel like an idiot ... don't even try to fool me; I am NOT stupid.
If they are gonna make such a big deal out of taxes, then kids should be learning how to maneuver through this code language crap to pay their taxes/deal with the government's bullshit.
UUUUURRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!
"If it is possible for a multibillion-dollar education program to train people to see themselves as limited being, it should also be possible for that program to encourage people to see themselves as embodiments of the capacity to transcend their present concepts of themselves and their powers."
~ Sidney T. Jourard
It's true, isn't it?
There isn't any other way but this ...
just to be yourself.
BE YOURSELF
audioslave
Someone falls to pieces
Sleepin all alone
Someone kills the pain
Spinning in the silence
To finally drift away
Someone gets excited
In a chapel yard
Catches a bouquet
Another lays a dozen
White roses on a grave
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
Someone finds salvation in everyone
And another only pain
Someone tries to hide himself
Down inside himself he prays
Someone swears his true love
Untill the end of time
Another runs away
Separate or united?
Healthy or insane?
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
And even when you've paid enough, been pulled apart or been held up
With every single memory of the good or bad faces of luck
don't lose any sleep tonight
I'm sure everything will end up alright
You may win or lose
But to be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
There are so many things about going on my own adventure that I am afraid of.
Fear.
So primal and simple is such a thing, but so bone-crushingly powerful.
Here.
Here is to battling fear.
"He must be fully afraid, and he must not stop." ~ Carlos Castenada
"Learning is not the accumulation of knowledge. Learning is movement from moment to moment." ~ J. Krishnamurti
City Tree by Dan S, inspired by stiletto.love.
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