[on play-doh and crushes]

Today I made play-doh for the very first time in my life.

Like, I actually made it from scratch.

I didn’t take it out from an orange, plastic container with a red label and an overly friendly boy on the label.

I really made it by hand… and it smelled like play-doh.

I don’t think you realize how revolutionary this was for my life.

I can now be a proper parent and MAKE play-doh with my kids.

I think being a Kindergarten teacher may be the best crash course in “parenting to ensure your child’s success” that I could’ve asked for.

On a similar note – I think I have a crush. And yes, he is one of my students. If I was a kindergartener in my class, I would have a huge crush on this boy. And even as teacher, I have a huge crush on this boy – in the most appropriate way, of course.

Today, the kids were playing with the play-doh that I made and I asked them to make me something to give them a little bit of a purpose in their playing. I was distracted with some other students working on a math game and wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I turned back to the kids at the play-doh table and started talking to the kids. Suddenly, “my crush” yells at me in an excited voice, “look down!” I thought he meant at the play-doh cut outs he was making by his hands, so I looked at his general area. Then he showed me with his own head that I was supposed to look straight down.

The four hearts he made for me. Patterns from a kindergarten boy - brill.

When I looked down, I was greeted by a play-doh heart that he had cut out with a cookie cutter and had somehow sneaked directly under me. I think my heart melted just then. I look back at him with a very genuine smile and thanked him so much for the surprised, and that I was really surprised to see it there (and I really was. I was not expecting that heart). Then he replied excitedly, “that’s the point! You were supposed to be surprised!” He had such spark and joy in his eyes that I could tell that he could tell that I really was surprised and happy to see that heart.

*melt*

And then he continued to make me four more hearts, all with different patterns and textures.

Is this what it feels to be loved?

In any case – I have a crush.

Now, can I have an adult guy who will do the same for me? Play-doh hearts, please?

ps. At the end of the day, my master teacher complimented me on my play-doh making skills and congratulating me on my “first play-doh experience.” I think she could genuinely tell that I was super excited about it… haha.

[do you know how beautiful you are?]

I did a 20 min guided meditation on happiness today. Through it, davidji explained the four needs of the heart: Attention, Affection, Appreciation, Acceptance.

What struck me the most was our mantra – I am worthy of being happy.

Somewhere in the last 10 years, I’ve forgotten that I’m worthy. I’m worthy of love, acceptance, and loving kindess. And of course, of being happy. But at the same time, I’ve been reminded of my worthiness in the last few years, little by little. It isn’t about narcissism of self-centeredness. It’s about remembering who you are and discovering your part in the universe.

At the end of the meditation, I ended up writing a little “rant” (or affirmation, if you will) in response to the question “Do you believe that you are entitled to be happy?” I do believe that I’m entitled, that I have the right, to be happy. And so much of that is in my own hands.

Davidji ended the meditation with this quote from Hafiz. I think it was beautiful, so I want to share it now:

Do you know how beautiful you are?

I think not, my dear.

For as you talk of God,

I see great parades with wildly colorful bands

Streaming from your mind and heart,

Carrying wonderful and secret messages

To every corner of this world.

I see saints bowing in the mountains

Hundreds of miles away

To the wonder of sounds

That break into light

From your most common words.

Speak to me of your mother,

Your cousins and your friends.

Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.

Awaken your legion of nightingales—

Let them soar wild and free in the sky.

And begin to sing to God.

Let’s all begin to sing to God!

Do you know how beautiful you are?

I think not, my dear,

Yet Hafiz

Could set you upon a Stage

And worship you forever!

–Hafiz

[finally, five years later, an open thank you note]

I have a relationship that I’ve been struggling with for the past five years, and today, finally, I feel like I’ve been freed.

I don’t think I need to get into the history of my relationship with my friend. All someone needs to know is that it was a dynamic relationship that spanned across the familial, friendship, intimate and all other cosmic boundaries in negative, positive, and all other ways that a relationship can span.

This five year relationship was at times as sweet but more than often the monster under my bed that consumed me night and day to the point of personal destruction. Now, that is a dramatic way of putting it and I won’t say that my relationship with my friend was the sole element perpetuating my eventual down spiral. But I do feel the need to place enough gravity to the place the relationship has/had in my life to credit it appropriately.

For years I struggled with my inability to communicate in all aspects of the relationship. This was due to my insecurities, my perfectionist tendencies, the supposed novelty of the relationship, and the fear of rejection and failure. I struggled multiple times through embarrassing breakdowns to communicate to my friend the struggle, confusion, and neglect that I had been feeling in the relationship, but with each attempt, I felt that my message got even more confused to the point where I didn’t even know what I wanted. I went to therapy to try to figure it out but didn’t make much progress. Somewhere in the process of trying to maintain the relationship, I had lost myself but couldn’t understand how or why.

I wanted to be everything that my friend desired. I wanted to be loved and accepted in the same way that I loved my friend. And when my feelings weren’t reciprocated, I blamed myself and my inabilities and assumed that I was incapable, and thus unlovable and not good enough. Consequently, my incredible desire to be desired in return made me blind to the fact that I may never have been what this person wanted or needed, nor will I ever be.

At the same time, my friend, who claimed to be intuitive and understanding, seemed to not understand my struggles. I felt like my friend truly heard me or tried to understand where I was coming from. Or maybe my friend tried too hard and that, in an attempt to fit me into their life as I so dearly wanted to fit, my friend tried to mold me and squeeze me into a specific agenda, disregarding my innate resistance, or at least interpreting it incorrectly.

I had lost myself in trying to be noticed when that person had no desire, or at least did not put in the correct effort, to see me as I was in my natural state in the first place.

Finally, the only way I could keep my head above water was to remove myself from the relationship, even if it meant losing the positive aspects of our relationship forever. By the end of the third or fourth year though, the negative so outweighed the positive, that all I could think of was my need for oxygen.

Now, five years after we first met, I have enough experience, reflection, and self-worth to be able to engage in an open dialogue of what I was/am feeling and want to offer to our relationship as we move forward in life.

Oddly enough, what I wanted to say to my friend for those five years was significantly simpler than all the words and explanations I had used before. For five years, I wanted to be seen as an equal – not an equal who shares the exact same goals, ideas, and understandings of the world – but as an individual who has goals, ideas, and understandings of the world in the first place. And for my friend to understand and accept that I am a distinct individual separate from my friend, a capable human being who deserved to be given the time and place to fit in my own mold and take my place in the universe and also be a positive presence in my friend’s life.

It took me five years to realize what I wanted the most out of anything was to be taken seriously and to be given the opportunity to be seen as my authentic self in the way I portray myself, and not in the way that my friend wanted to see me. I had wanted to say, “Look at me! Not who you want me to be! Be present with me and meet me where I am, not where you want me to be!” but never found the words. And now I have.

I am not pointing fingers at anyone specific. I contributed to my own disabling as much, if not more, than my friend. I don’t place blame. It just is what it is.

Because the truth of the matter is I am who I am. I will see things differently from you. I will interpret life differently from you. I will approach love, friendship, the universe from an alternate perspective. So I deserve respect for the transformations that I will make for myself and the realizations that I come to. I deserve respect for making steps toward bettering myself and trying to understand my connection to the larger universe. I deserve respect for my priorities. I deserve respect even if I am not on your team. I deserve respect if you want me in your life.

And I think today I was able to get that through to my friend and ask my friend, “please, take me seriously, because I have taken you seriously this whole time and have respectyou, and I deserve the same respect in return if I matter to you.” And once I asked (or more like, pointed at my friend and stated it), I felt a sense of relief about us that I hadn’t felt in forever. I had no more words to say and for the first time I felt like we were on the same page.

I ask myself, why write this in a blog in such a public domain where everyone can have access to it? But I have found that often times when I reflect publicly, especially through this blog, another person benefits from it. I don’t write this here to blast my relationships to the world. This isn’t a soap opera. This is a medium. I could write a song, paint a picture, or write poetry. I choose to write here.

So to my friend, thank you for listening and trying to understand. Thank you for taking me seriously and seeing me as the individual I am. And thank you for understanding that ultimately, our goals are probably the same, and that we’re just two boats on different rivers trying to get to the same ocean, and that just because we are on two rivers, doesn’t mean we can’t try to talk about that ocean, share our processes of getting there, or discuss how the river and the ocean is just a piece of a larger reality. Because ultimately, I take you seriously even if I may not always agree. And I always have and always will.

[a letter from my grandpa]

I received a letter from my grandpa from Japan a couple of days ago. I’ve been wanting to blog about it since, and find it eerily coincidental that WordPress featured this blog post on their Freshly Pressed.

I’m pretty sure when I saw the title, I responded verbally, “Why yes, I HAVE talked to my grandparents recently.”

This in itself is a big feat for me.

I am one of those horrible grandchildren who fails to keep in touch with all grandparents. It’s even worse because I am the first born on both sides of my family.

My two main excuses I use for myself is that a.) all four of them (minus my grandma who passed away 4 years ago) live in different places: Hawaii, Seattle, Tokyo, Hokkaido and b.) since my parents’ divorce, it’s harder to have a normal conversation with some of the grandparents.

My relationship with my relatives in general have also been a bit strained after the divorce and my entrance into college. There were also a lot of dynamic changes on both sides of the family (mom and dad’s) with marriages and cousins growing up. I guess that ideal family image that I grew up with and was surrounded by every holiday was changing rapidly as I matured and my immaturity couldn’t deal with the changes.

That said, as I graduate into semi-adulthood, I’m realizing that I need to be a better family member – cousin, niece, grandchild, etc. They’re not going to be around forever!

You’d think that my grandmother’s death 4 years ago would be a wake up call for me to keep in touch with family, but it wasn’t until this past month with random phone calls from grandparents and my grandpa from Japan (the Tokyo one) in surgery that I actually got the wake up call.

He spelled my address wrong multiple times, but it still got to me!

I sent my Tokyo Gpa a “get well” card since he had a minor brain surgery to relieve pressure in his skull after a freak fall. I wasn’t expecting anything back, but found a letter from him: one page in (slightly broken) English and one in Japanese (I guess he didn’t think I could read the Japanese one. My Japanese relatives underestimate my reading skills in Japanese). The letter(s) basically said that, contrary to popular belief, he had already left the hospital well before he received my card and that my mother probably over exaggerated his injury (though, at his age, every injury should be over exaggerated). But that he is happy to hear from me and hopes that I am doing well.

Damn corporate lawyers. So stubborn.

But this letter made me want to write him back – perhaps one page in English and one in Japanese – because, honestly, how many people get to exchange letters with a grandparent in a different country? I need to take advantage of it while I can, especially since there are so many things I regret not having done with my grandmother.

It’s about time I put behind all of my childish selfishness and self-pity regarding my family and develop a post-college-me relationship with them.

So Secrets of Adulthood #5: Be a better family member. Stay in touch with relatives – especially your grandparents.

[click]

click
click
click

screens of smiling faces haunting
embarking on a new technodrama

i’m too good for this
desperation talking
respiration happening
reflection

new chapters mean new windows
new cupids
new click, click, click

spend less
spend less time
spend less time with my new addiction

damn
click

["i like asian girls"... and you're an ass]

I don’t date. In all honestly, I don’t know how.

To further aggravate the issue – I dislike small talk (unless it’s a part of my job) and I know very well that I can be quick to judge men. You can’t dislike small talk when you meet people. And you really shouldn’t judge people as well.

I have great hopes for myself…

But now I’m in the great city of San Francisco living with two girlfriends from college and they have decided that after a month and a half of being single, it was time for me to start meeting people.

*sigh* I suppose one cannot wallow forever…

To humor them, and to humor myself, last Friday night we went out to one of the 20 bars that is in a 3-minute-walk radius of our apartment (we got lucky with our apartment). The bar had a funky crowd of all ages and had a live band playing covers from the 80s and 90s.

After about 5 minutes, my roommates and I were approached by a tall, white (his race is somewhat relavent, I promise) man, probably in his mid-20s. He was hardly remarkable looking and more or less your typical white guy (TWG) next door.

And this is the conversation that followed:

TWG: Do you have gum?

Roommates and Me: No, sorry.

TWG: Hi I’m [insert typical white guy name here].

Roommate and I introduce ourselves. Every time he talks to us, he feels the need to put his face really close to ours. Ew

Some drunken (on his part, since my roommates and I were not drinking) banter back and forth about the band. I also find out that he is a Mechanical Engineering student. D’oh. It seems I cannot catch a break and will be stuck with Engineers for the rest of my life.

TWG: Cassie
Confirming my name?

Me: Right.

TWG: See? I remembered. Aren’t I a good doggie?

Me: *blink blink*

TWG: I’m easy to train

Me: …

TWG: Do you have a boyfriend?

Me: [sadly] No.

TWG: I like Asian girls.

Me: [long pause - both shocked and awed by what just passed through his mouth.

Finally...] Yeah, we’re nice…

TWG: Do you want to go to [insert random Thai restaurant] sometime and have a drink with me?

Me: Excuse me?

TWG: Can I have your number?

Me: Um… I don’t think that’s a good idea.

He’s clearly forgotten about my roommates – who are not Asian, by the way. 

TWG: Do you not like White guys?

Me: [Are you fucking kidding me?] I don’t discriminate…

TWG: Then why not?

Me: Well, I’m new here.
Lame, I know. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him “Because ‘I like Asian girls’ is a line that I hear often, but one that never works on me. And thus I now whole heartedly believe that you are a drunk jerk’”

TWG: So? We can still exchange numbers!

Me: Well… How about if we see each other again then we can exchange numbers then.
Even more lame. Even he knew it was lame. I also remember him saying that he lived around my neighborhood – which means that the chance of me seeing him was actually pretty high and thus I placed myself in a very awkward position.

Luckily, at this point, the cover band that was on break started playing again making normal conversation impossible. AND our guy friend (big black man) that we had been waiting for finally showed up.

image from fatkidatcamp.com

Really? My very first night out in this new city to celebrate my singledom had to result in a  guy hitting on me because I was ASIAN? It’s happened to me before, but usually I was conscious enough that the guy didn’t have to tell me that they were interested in me because I was Asian. But for a guy to just flat out tell me?

What happened to “Hi, I think you’re beautiful. Can I buy you a drink?” (for the record, this has never happened to me. I just watch too many movies)

This is why I don’t like dating and I just want a guy I who I can sit in bed with and read.

This is going to be a long summer…

[on facebook relationships]

My friend recently posted a rather brilliant post (I think – but I could be biased) about this whole… “it’s complicated” relationship status that Facebook has had since day 1. And really… who seriously decides to openly admit on Facebook that “it’s complicated” with their significant other (or pseudo-significant other… because if “it’s complicated” then the assumption is that there’s some weird force field – or emotional immaturity – that is preventing your significant other from really being your significant other… right?).

Anyways, I’m reposting her blog post here because I think it makes you say “duh” but at the same time, kind of funny and puts things into perspective. I have no ownership over the text after “–” so you’ll have to go to her actual blog to read more from her.

ps. ”[insert name] is too emotionally immature/unstable to be in a relationship” cracked me up.

–

What the fuck is the “It’s Complicated” relationship status on Facebook, and why does it have to be so cryptic?

Seriously,  what could possibly be more complicated than actually being in a relationship? Are you in the process of breaking up? Are you sort of wanting to be in a relationship? Are you just taking advantage of him/her? And if your girlfriend/boyfriend cheated on you, it shouldn’t be complicated–it should be “[insert name] is now Single”.

We all know that when someone’s relationship status goes from “In a relationship” (or worse, “engaged”) to “It’s complicated”, some bad, bad shit went down. (He probably cheated. Or they’re in a long distance relationship.) The bottom line is, I don’t need to see this awkward news on my freakin’ Facebook “News Feed”. It’s like the Debbie Downer of all “News Feeds”.

I suggest Facebook get rid of “It’s Complicated” and incorporate one of these new relationship statuses:

• “It’s Confusing”
• “I’m/He/She (is) Complicated”
• “[insert name] is too emotionally immature/unstable to be in a relationship”
• “[insert name] is a friend with benefits”
• “[insert name] is having The Talk with [insert name]“
• “[insert name]‘s ego is too big to simply just be “Single”"

But before you make it Facebook official, please go uncomplicate your relationship. Thank you.

–

For more from my friend, make sure to visit her blog, Semi-Sane and Going Strong!

[what i lost]

please help me
define the word “self-worth”

i know it in my head
i know it in my mind
every cell in my being understands this

it seems to have disappeared
floating away like a red balloon
a crushed piggy bank with no internal organs
an invisible friend only you know about

we were friends once upon a time
come back and make me whole

i lost my heart and my soul
i lost my worth

can you help me find it please?

[i'll climb uphill to forget you]

little progress
see myself regress
but I digress

hoping for the unhopable
that inevitable cosine undulation
sending love and light when I think of you
nothing comes easy

you must love to be loved
still waiting for my heart to be returned
waves and waves of self-doubt

the shackles are gone
but the weight still lingers
i take in your sadness
i wait for mine to disappear

try to see if i can keep your love through osmosis
searching for last every drop in the glass

muscles pain and ache
the atriums pump
work double time when i feel you
listening to that bass line

waiting for this fog to clear

sitting
alone and independent
i’ll climb up hill to forget you
reach the top and meditate on love

[ganesha - remover of obstacles]

When I first moved to Hawaii a year ago (A YEAR AGO!?), two of my really good girlfriends came to visit. After one of them returned to Boston, she set me a present – I can’t remember if it was a birthday present or a graduation present or whatever. What she sent me was a small statue of Ganesha, the Hindu God.

Ganesha, identifiable through his elephant form, is known as the Lord of Beginnings or Remover of Obstacles. As a Remover of Obstacles, he also places obstacles for those who also need it. Hm… According to some (er… wikipedia?) Ganesha is also the Lord of Letters and Learning and resides in the First Chakra, the foundation holding up the other chakras.

Granted, I’m barely scratching the surface with my description of Ganesha, but just with those definition my mind and spirit is reeling.

When I first received my own Ganesha, I thought it was cool but failed to see the significance.

But… I don’t believe in coincidences.

I am incredibly incapable of packing and cleaning. So this past week of cleaning my room, my work place and packing it all up has been a form of hell for me.

But then I found Ganesha.

Actually, maybe Ganesha found me.

I’m one of those walking cliches that loves the book Eat, Pray, Love – so I was rewatching the movie for the first time in a year and what do you know, I hear James Franco telling Julia Roberts, “This is Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles.”

Ding, ding, ding, ding!

I’ll take that as a sign from above.

I have obstacles – MANY obstacles in my life right now. Some are physical, like packing. Some are very emotional and spiritual – I haven’t been able to find my center and balance myself.

Aaaaand in sweeps Ganesha, in the middle of my pile of sh*t as I try to pack.

He sat there and gave me that stern, stern look, “I know you have obstacles, because I put them there. So don’t be looking at me and crying, begging me to move those damn things. You needed ‘em, so I put ‘em there and I’m not removing them unless you do the work.”

Ok, I’m not sure if a Hindu god would swear. Maybe.

After Ganesha was done with that speech, he went on to tell me, “You also need to start meditating again – you’re way too off balance. Place your feet firmly on the ground and get closer to God.”

Yes, I think I have a love-hate relationship with the loving Ganapati.

As I was talking to her today, my friend who gave me my statue of Ganesha suggested I carry it around with me. I think I will.

While I may not appreciate his stern looks, I believe that Ganesha will not place any obstacle I cannot overcome and that he will remove any obstacle that will not get me to where I need to go. He is the Lord of Beginnings, reminding me to truly begin living my life now.

Or something poetically Hindu like that.

So maybe this is life lesson #4 – follow the elephant.