Happy World Autism Acceptance Day! Yes, that’s every day but don’t forget to wear blue today!
Apr2
Celebrate diversity!
Mar19
Living, Aging, Dying
The 3 interviewees certainly aged well! I had relatives their age and neither of them were as spry and alert!
Lately, my parents and their spouses are really aging and taking care of each other. One of my coworkers had 2 family members pass within days of each other last week. Between sending this coworker comfort, recalling my father’s surprise heart surgery on Christmas Eve, and the universe- or perhaps just algorithms-pointing me to the two media contents above on aging, I begin to wonder if I am living my life the best way or if there’s something more I should be doing in life. I suppose only time will tell.
Everything we choose to do daily has a high cost: time- time from our precious lives. Is there anything you wish you had more of in your life? For me, I would love to be able to work less and travel more one day. I feel so busy, there’s hardly time to eat. Spend more time with friends and family…
What are your thoughts on:
- Aging?
- Living life?
- The Youtube video?
- The podcast?
Mar18
Best Compliment
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
One of my fitness instructors said “ I am so proud of you!” to me last week. He remarked that I had gotten stronger since attending his classes. At the time, I didn’t think about it but now that I think about it, those are words I really never hear and it was such a difference from the instructor on Saturday that I mentioned in my last post made me feel like crying.
Maybe I am not good about accepting compliments because I can’t remember too many compliments. I hope I give them out enough! I have been told I am good with words of affirmation by one of my besties… I should compliment myself! 😂
One of my first years teaching, a visitor / stranger saw me with a student and exclaimed, “You’re amazing!” The way she said it with such awe always stuck with me.
What are some of your favorite compliments?
Mar18
Cultivated: A Shackled Freedom
Silhouette of artificial leaves on shower curtain highlighted by warm color of sun shining
Sundays lately have found me sprawled on my bed exhausted from the past week. From my bed, I can see the image above: sunlight and leaf silhouettes in all hues of sunlight. I think to myself, “It’s interesting how strong a sense of biophilia humans have that even sunlight on artificial leaves can be comforting.”
Started several blog posts on one of my other blogs over the past few months/ weeks but they remain drafts, like half-uttered sentences, half-formed thoughts drifting off from the tongue/ fingers, partially painted paintings… Like so many of my unfinished projects. Today’s painting?…. Today we ponder the word “bond.”
What is a bond? As humans, is it not bonds or attachments that we spend a lifetime creating? I would love to see or create a semantic map on the word bond.
For the yogini part of me, the word bond conjures images of baddha konasana (If my understanding of Sanskrit is accurate; baddha means bound, kona means angle, asana means pose. In English, we often call this butterfly pose) and reclined / supta baddha konasana, which some Westerners call Goddess Pose. For me, such bonds in asana are relaxing.
The similarity the word baddha has to the word band (Band has proto-Germanic roots) does not escape me. According to The Online Etymology Dictionary, the English words band and bond were interchangeable during the 13th century. Bond was derived from an Old English Word bonda, which meant dweller because peasants were in bondage to the land, serf to the landlord and has roots in Old Norse.
Why all of this thought on the word bond? Yesterday, I took 3 of my friends with me on a random adventure to the bonsai exhibit of a local and rather large bonsai club (Who knew?!). At first, we wandered the rows of tables adorned by adorable little bonsais of all sorts of beautiful artistic specimens. There were fantastical displays of ficus, humbling blue atlas cedars, creeping junipers, flowering quince, ancient sage brushes and so much more…
At first, I simply admired each ethereal majestic miniature tree. Then, I noticed that some of the trees were still bound by wires. I began to identify deeply with these trees.
When I was a minor, I had spinal fusion to “fix” my scoliosis by 50%. I felt like these trees were living my human life in miniature tree form somehow.
This is an example of what that surgery looks like… It is not my x-ray, just a random one posted on Reddit that I think is an excellent illustration of what spinal fusion is for someone with severe scoliosis. Spinal fusion reminds me a little of the brass coiled necks of the Kanyan Lahwi tribe.
Later, there was a demonstration on stage as a local bonsai artist and his apprentice trimmed and bound a small tree they claimed was at least 450 years old. The tree was in a pot on a turning table. As the table turned, the artist invited the audience to share where they would trim and then he would tell them if he agreed or not and marked the spot on the edge of the pot by cutting the pot. As the two trimmed the tree, the limbs adorned by conifer needles fell to the ground like the locks of Samson. I looked over at one of my friends who had just received her first bonsai. Her mouth was open in horror as she watched each limb fall. I could feel her pain and could not help but think perhaps it was indeed sacrilege to cut off parts of a centuries old tree. I asked my friends if they wanted to leave and received confirmation.
We left and rounded the corner where a cosmetic store advertised a product for “perfect” skin on a poster in the window. “Do you think that works？“ I asked aloud. One of my male friends replied, “You don’t need it.” It was a kind and genuine reply but I secretly did not believe him and plan to return to that store to see the cost of that product and other such products. I dismissed his compliment with, “Let’s go eat.”
At the restaurant, we joked that bonsai is like bonsaige (bonsai +bondage): a toxic relationship between master (the artist) and serf (the tree). After that, the jokes got a little too raunchy and I wanted to close my ears. We exchanged polished rocks, which I remarked, like the bonsai, have been painstakingly transformed by humans.
Oddly enough, the Japanese word 盆栽 (bonsai) has no connection to bondage. According to Wiki, it is derived from 盆景 penjing (Pen (盆) means pot and jing (景) means landscape), an ancient Chinese art form popularized during the Tang Dynasty, a period when foot binding was also popular.
I muse over how bond and bonsai both sound phonetically similar to 绑 （bang in Mandarin and bong in Cantonese), the Chinese word for bind. Pleco, my Chinese dictionary app, describes the character 绑 as the radical for silk (糸– pronounced si) with the word for nation 邦 (bang).
Later last night, I attended two aerial circus classes in preparation for my aerial retreat in Dublin coming up in 21 days. I have been really enjoying each aerial experience but last night, I found myself comparing myself to the students with ballet backgrounds. Every move was both excruciating to my bruised body and to my bruised ego. At the beginning of one of the classes, the instructor made some comments I found discouraging and my bruised ego felt unwelcome the rest of the night. I could not concentrate on her instructions. Every move was belabored. I just wanted to hide and cry.
After class, I said, “Why does it matter? This is just another hobby I will have and enjoy for the next few years and then I will move on to others.” I felt so much shame about not being able to tolerate a few words of criticism, something I provide others in my daily job. Truthfully, it is my curious inner child that keeps me active with so many daily hobbies but my inner critic has always chastised my inner child for never sticking to anything long enough to become good at it. I have a mind that delights in novelty but the more activities I pick up, the less deeply I can remain involved in others. I find comfort in the terms jack/ jill of all trades, mulipotentialite, and polymath but such terms seem to indicate I actually have talent, which I don’t feel that I do. I think Marie Forleo’s term multipassionate is more accurate in describing someone like me. I suppose having only one or a few interests/ passions/ careers, etc is just another bond created by society.
Then I am bemused by the straps in yoga and the silks that tie limbs every which way in aerial. Perhaps I am practicing a human bonsai. It’s funny that we took such offense to bonsai when most gardeners have placed stick, wire, lattices and such in their garden to guide their plants and gardeners also must trim their plants. In some strange parallel to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I did feel sorry for the bonsai: all potted. I had read a long time ago in The Hidden Life of Trees that trees in the wild communicate with each other through underground networks of mycelium while domesticated trees are isolated from others of its kind by mankind. Through biophilia, agriculture, forestry and just by existing side-by-side, plants and humanity are bound as far back as billions of years ago in the evolution of life on earth before humanity existed. We (humans, animals, trees, life forms, nature, etc) are all bound to each other in this enigmatic universe shaping each other’s lives and fates.
Life is but a dance of bondage and letting go, like bonsai.
What is bondage to you? How do you practice bonsai metaphorically or literally in your life?
Mar12
Mi primer día laborable del año en horario de verano
Anyone else tired from two days of one hour less of sleep?
Here’s how today went…. It was a bit nuts so I wrote it in Spanish (or attempted to- Made many corrections after checking the translator apps) to make my day better! 😂 Corrections are welcome!
Hoy fue el primer día laborable del año en horario de verano. Duermen un hora menos de normalmente. Tuve un dia loca. Varios estudiantes se hicieron caca y llegó a todas lugares. ¡Que disorden! Nosotros limpiamos mucha caca. Alguien intentó forzar la ventana de mi oficina, pero no pudo atravesar los barrotes de la ventana. La principal no trabajaba hoy. Ella invitado padres y no me dijo. Teníamos planeado un viaje para ver la ceremonia de corte de cinta de reapertura de un parque local. Llovió y la ceremonia se pospuso. La compañía de autobuses no nos reembolsaría por lo que los estudiantes fueron llevados al parque sin importar. Se negó a salir por 30 minutos. Durante el día, un estudiante en el autobús fue el baño y encerró. ¡Se negó a salir por 30 minutos! ¡Todas tenemos cansando! 😪 ¡Espero que el resto de la semana sea mejor!
Happy First Night of Ramadan to those of you who celebrate!!!
Mar12
Mi primer día laborable del año en horario de verano
Anyone else tired from two days of one hour less of sleep?
Here’s how today went…. It was a bit nuts so I wrote it in Spanish (or attempted to- Made many corrections after checking the translator apps) to make my day better! 😂 Corrections are welcome!
Hoy fue el primer día laborable del año en horario de verano. Duermen un hora menos de normalmente. Tuve un dia loca. Varios estudiantes se hicieron caca y llegó a todas lugares. ¡Que disorden! Nosotros limpiamos mucha caca. Alguien intentó forzar la ventana de mi oficina, pero no pudo atravesar los barrotes de la ventana. La principal no trabajaba hoy. Ella invitado padres y no me dijo. Teníamos planeado un viaje para ver la ceremonia de corte de cinta de reapertura de un parque local. Llovió y la ceremonia se pospuso. La compañía de autobuses no nos reembolsaría por lo que los estudiantes fueron llevados al parque sin importar. Se negó a salir por 30 minutos. Durante el día, un estudiante en el autobús fue el baño y encerró. ¡Se negó a salir por 30 minutos! ¡Todas tenemos cansando! 😪 ¡Espero que el resto de la semana sea mejor!
Happy First Night of Ramadan to those of you who celebrate!!!
Mar9
Cuatro poemas y cinco imágenes de Valentin González-Bohórquez
Bajar las alas Para luego levantarlas Contra el viento agónico Del tiempo Levantarlas como un ave Desesperada por volar Por huir escapar remontarse Y…
Cuatro poemas y cinco imágenes de Valentin González-Bohórquez
Mar7
Anticipating My First Time in Ireland 🇮🇪
What’s been on my mind almost 24/7 all of 2024 so far???
¿Qué ha estado en mi mente casi las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana, todo el 2024 hasta ahora?
到目前為止，整個2024年，我幾乎24小時都在想什麼？
到目前为止，整个2024年，我几乎24小时都在想什么？
I used Google translate to translate my first sentence in this blog entry to Spanish, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese to hear the iPhone read it out loud to me so I would know how they sound and look. It’s kind of interesting. I only translated the first sentence because these were enough vocabulary words/ phrases for me to mull over.
As of today (March 6th), there’s only 32 days left until my Spring Break/ Aerial Retreat!!!
I am spending so many of my waking hours anticipating this trip, I am a little worried about if I will be lonely and depleted after the trip! I know there’s more to life than travel and vacations but it is hard not to be excited…
Read the rest of this entryFeb15
¡Feliz dia de amor y amistad!
¡Feliz dia de amor y amistad!
Feb8
The Whatever Will Bes, What Ifs, and What Is
The weeks and days go by so quickly that I sometimes find myself a sentimental mix of wanderlust, excitement, curiosity, longing, nostalgia, loneliness, desire, and hope all at once. This energy carries me through each dawn to dusk.
Oftentimes, over the years a song comes to mind: Que Sera Sera. I have always found this song comforting.
In the past couple years, I watched a lot of Chinese and Korean dramas. Although I limit consumption of such melodramas nowadays, I am thankful to have learned about languages and cultures that I don’t get exposed to in my daily American life. In both these cultures, fate is a bigger part of the culture than it is in American culture. I kind of like this because it reminds me that we cannot control everything. Somethings are just met to be and somethings are not.
In Chinese, fate / predestined relationships is called 缘分 (yuán fèn). The dictionary defines 缘 (yuán) as reason and 分(fen) as to divide or separate.
The perhaps archaic ( I read that it isn’t used often) Korean word 업緣 (inyeon) is derived from the words 업 (in) for indirect cause and 緣 (yon) for direct cause.
A number of idioms and proverbs come from both 缘分 (yuán fèn) and 업緣 (inyeon).
I watched a Korean American movie that introduced me to the concept of 업緣 (inyeon). The movie, titled Past Lives, was comforting to me because it reminded me how things just happen you just have accept that it was just inyeon. It wasn’t a Disney ending; no superhero nor magic. I liked the movie but would not recommend it to most audiences because most people watch movies to escape reality, not be reminded of it.
Being up at night watching a movie was not something productive nor something I wanted nor planned to do, but I needed this reminder. Just like Que Sera Sera relieves my anxiety by reminding me to let go of what could be in the future, Past Lives reminds me let go also of what could happen in the future/ the what ifs. After all, we only have the present.
There are infinite could have beens, should have beens, would have beens, could bes, and perhapses but only one is / now.
Shine Bright Like a Smile 
