Christmas present ethics

A friend of mine asked me the other day, "Is it wrong to buy someone a Christmas present, and then decide you like it a lot and buy another one for yourself?"

The funny thing was that I had just done that earlier. I dunno, is it?

My thoughts on guys, part I

My hard drive is freaking out after the last update I installed, which in turn is freaking me out, so I'm currently backing up everything on this computer. Before doing so, though, I'm trying to clean up and organize a little bit so I'm not just backing up stuff I wanted to get rid of anyway. Haha, it was actually one of my goals to clean up this computer during the Christmas break, so maybe this is just a little push to get me to do it.

Anyway, while looking through things, I found this note I wrote on April 21, 2005 about guys. Thought it was kind of funny and sounds just like freshman me, and I thought I'd put it up on here, albeit at the risk of seriously embarrassing myself. I think my thoughts on guys have greatly evolved since then, but it's pretty fun to hear what I thought at the time:



"Before you agree to marry a guy, you have to see how he acts when he’s mad. You need to know what he does when he’s frustrated, especially with his family members, how he treats them. You should see how he treats little kids, what he thinks of them. You should see him when he’s stressed, whether he despairs or hangs in there without complaint. You need to see how he treats his friends when he’s had an argument with them. You should think twice if he’s ever forced you to do anything against your will. Most of all, you should make sure it’s not on a whim, that you have already thought about marriage with him and that you have known him long enough, say maybe 2 years minimum. And it’d be best if you were at least 20.

"My ideal guy? By no means do I set absolute requirements or dismiss a guy if he doesn’t have one of these qualities or traits. I look at the big picture. But, I could definitely describe my ideal.

"First, physical traits. I tend to go for Caucasians. Maybe it’s because I’ve just grown up around white people, who knows. But I am attracted to height and that light hair color that’s somewhat in between blond and brown. I also like light-colored eyes. My ideal guy would be taller than [my brother], but I would still be taller than his shoulder. He would be heavier than me but faster than me (not TOO much faster), and he would be strong enough to lift me in his arms and carry me around without difficulty.

"There are certain qualifications that I’d also like him to meet. He would need to be older than me by at least two years, but no older than [my brother]’s age. He would be ... spiritual like [my brother]. He would be smart on a level comparable with mine, interested and good with languages, and energetic athletically. I am really impressed by coordination and quick reflexes in particular. He would be musically proficient on either cello or piano (but it would be great if he played others in addition). He’d know and be good with computers.

"As for personality traits, he’d be socially sound, but he’d have his dorky moments. He wouldn’t be the life of the party, but he’d be liked by everybody. He’d split time between people and girls (he’d still hang out with friends!). He’d have to be a night person. He’d hang out with mainly guys and not be like those guys who are super nice to all girls. He’d be more of a distanced, polite sort of nice to girls he didn’t know (or both genders for that matter). He wouldn’t be insecure, but he wouldn’t be overly confident; he’d be human and still have his doubts. He wouldn’t overanalyze relationships but he would still be a little nervous and analyze them somewhat. He’d get somewhat jealous but be cute (unknowingly) about confronting a girl about it (and he would confront, not sit there sulking). He’d give a girl space now and then. He would be the type of guy to be aware of girls’ personal bubble and sit some inches away from her. But if he liked her, he would sit closer sometimes and be nervous. Most importantly, he’d TALK.

"Well, there you have it. My kind of guy."



One thing that's pretty interesting is that a lot of the things I mentioned imply someone who is a lot like me (minus the Caucasian part). Lately, I've changed my mind a lot in that regard and think I would like to marry someone who is different from me in a lot of ways. Who wants to marry an identical person?

I think ideally I'd marry someone who shares a lot of common ground with me, but who has a different approach to life. I'm so logical, so deliberate, so serious. I need someone who will liven things up a bit.

More thoughts on this later.

Pressing the snooze button of life

Today's topic in church was procrastination. At first I thought, "Yeah, yeah... everybody does it and we all know we shouldn't." I almost zoned out. But then I started listening and thinking about it, and really so many of the worries and sources of stress in my life (and probably anyone else's) stem directly from procrastination.

What are the things I usually beat myself up about? Homework deadlines. Being late for things. Not being prepared for an audition or performance. Not being far enough along on a project. Not sending important emails or making important phone calls. Not keeping in touch with people. Not telling people how much I care about them. If I weren't such a procrastinator, all of those problems would vanish! It's not like I'm not capable of getting all those things done in the time that I have. I just get into this mode where I lack the willpower to make myself do anything.

I have a terrible time getting up in the morning. I'm the type of person who can hit snooze for over an hour and not really notice that time is going by. Funny thing is, if I wouldn't procrastinate going to bed, I'd get enough sleep and wouldn't procrastinate getting up in the morning. But that of course would require that I not procrastinate my work and have to stay up late. Which would mean that I would have to get stuff done earlier in the day, which would probably be easier if I got up on time. Which means that I would need to go to sleep earlier... etc. Endless downward spiral...

Sometimes I wish I could stop and hit the reset button and start with a clean slate. Nothing would be behind schedule, and then I could try to stay on schedule. But how do you get back to that point once you've started down the spiral? The lesson on procrastination is always to just not even do it. But where's the lesson that tells us what to do if we've already started doing it?

How do I stop when everything's already backed up like crazy? If I don't procrastinate one thing, I've gotta procrastinate something else to keep up. It's like getting caught in a pool of quicksand.

Itching to write

Apparently more people look at this blog than I thought. Which makes me slightly embarrassed about that post on falling in love... but I'm going to fight my introversion and remind myself that the reason I started blogging wasn't in order to hide my thoughts.

In all honesty though, there have been so many things I have wanted to say but I just haven't had the time to sit down and formulate coherent sentences. Sigh... the paradox of blogging. We all know it.

How to have a good day

Get enough sleep.
Take your time getting ready for the day's activities.
Do something spontaneous and different before you head out.
Pack a good lunch.
Spend some time outside in beautiful weather.
After a hard day's work, do a little bit of what you most like to do.
Spare a couple of minutes out of your busy day to catch up with people that you like.
Set aside enough time to have a nice, relaxing dinner.
Figure out one big thing that you need to do and get it done really well.
And at the end of the day...
...take a moment to reflect on how great this day has been.

I want to fall in love

I'm working on my master's and I just realized that I have no plans for after I get my degree. No preference on where I want to live, what I want to do, where I want to work... nothing. I think I always figured that this is the part where the guy's supposed to show up and start factoring into everything.

By the way, this is not a complaint about being single. I love being single. I have freedom, I don't have to worry about taking care of someone else and nurturing a delicate relationship, my time is my own and I can do whatever I like with it.

At the same time, it would be awfully nice to have someone to love and look after, and who loved me back and supported me too. Friends are forever, but that particular kind of companionship is just on an entirely different level.

I highly doubt that I'm going to be married by the time I get my master's degree. So then what? Whoever I marry depends on where I end up going after that. Don't want to mess THAT up. I mean, I'll probably end up going wherever the wind takes me but I sort of want to get married someday, too. I wonder who he'll be, what he'll be like, what sorts of things he'll like to do, what kinds of things he'll like to talk about. How will I find him? What will our story be like?

Are you out there, somewhere? Are you wondering these same things too?

I'm in an uncharacteristically girly and sappy mood. It's too bad it's a Tuesday night and I have homework, else I'd probably be switching on some chick flick right now. Wouldn't that be something?

Stop this train

Being the extremely pop-culture-ignorant individual that I am, I had never even heard of John Mayer until Jessie added a music player to her blog. I like pretty much all the stuff she's got on there, but I especially liked one Mayer song, "Stop This Train". Besides having a nifty acoustic guitar accompaniment, the lyrics really speak to how I've been feeling lately.

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind, but
I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
Don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in a while, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark

Singing, stop this train
I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

Lately I feel like I've woken up and discovered that life is racing by faster than I can handle. When I think about things like getting a full-time job, moving away from school, getting married, having kids, grandkids... and eventually losing my parents, my siblings, my friends, as we all get old... I'm not ready for any of that; I don't want to be ready for any of that yet. I'm not ready to fight life out on my own.

It seems like there are people who can, at the end of their lives, lie on their deathbeds and say with confidence that they're happy with the lives that they've lived and that they're ready to go. Obviously, I'm not to that point, but it makes me wonder -- what are the things that I want to have done by the time I die? What do I need to be happy? To feel like I've really made the most of my life?

What if I were to die tomorrow? What would I regret never doing, or trying, or saying? If I were to follow the saying "live as though you would die tomorrow", how would I live differently? Would I be kinder? More patient? Would I tell, show my family and friends more often how much I love them? Would I be better about calling, writing emails? About listening? About just being there for others?

I don't know what I want out of life. Or what it wants out of me. I don't know what I want to accomplish, and see, and experience before I'm ready to go. How can I be ready to live out the rest of my life if I don't know what I want to do with it?

Honestly, won't someone stop this train?