Men I love

I've been too busy physically, mentally and emotionally to write. I did write a couple of posts but there were just some unfinished posts because my train of thoughts just got lost since I didn't finish them in one sitting.

Here in NYC, I've been blessed with wonderful female friends- they are fun, intelligent and beautiful. But in college, I had a lot of male friends that I hanged out a lot. Sometimes, I would go to an ice hockey game with a group of male friends and I was an only girl in the group. It's such a different experience hanging out with a bunch of girls only and a bunch of guys only- activities we do, things we talk about are all so different. But I enjoy both.

I do miss male company though. So I have been thinking about those men I love in my life.

My father

He is my hero, a role model. He's a hard working, kind, generous, intelligent but very stubborn like me :) He inspires me in so many ways. He came from a poor family in a village in the middle of Myanmar. But passing all the obstacles, he made himself to an engineering school and now he's a Chief Engineer in Myanma Timber Enterprise. All his family and friends still remain in village and not formally educated. He's looking out for the whole family, his siblings' families, and most close relatives in the village. He's so responsible and dependable. Myanmar is a country with very few opportunities. One has to be not only extremely hardworking, intelligent and innovative but also has to be extremely lucky to reach to a very top.

Greatest thing about him for me is that he never took me anything less because I am a girl since I was born. He wanted a daughter before I was even born while most of his peer male friends only wanted sons because they think boys are better. But the same time, he never tried to make me like a boy. He always loves me as who I am. He taught me how to dance, how to ride a bike, how to play golf, how to drive a car ( although we fought like crazy then). He never treats me differently from my brother. That is something rare in our culture - for a daughter to be treated equally with a son.

Time goes by and now I'm fully grown up. I am still hoping that he still loves me as who I am. There are still parts of me he does not seem to fully understand so I do not know. He now blames that it is because I came to the U.S. It is not true. I think sometimes it's just hard for him to let go of the little girl he used to know better, well that's what he thinks. It's just that he can't keep me in his arms and tell me exactly what to do.

Anyways, for me, I know him so well and I love him no matter what.

My brother

He is only two years younger than me. He's a medical doctor and very talented in music- he plays Burmese harp, piano, guitar and a little bit of violin. So we grew up pretty much the same time. I loved him and hated him the same time when I was a kid. I thought I wouldn't have to share everything if I was an only child. Yes, I was a very greedy kid. But after we both passed our unstable adolescent stages, we became very close. We understand each other so well and are great friends. My parents were worried so much about him in his teens but I assured them that it'd be fine. I was the one reaching out to him because I understood more about what he went through than my parents did.

He is so different from me in so many ways. But interestingly, we both respect each other strengths and support each other weaknesses. When we were kids, I was the one who made him to go outside the house and seek adventures. I again learned from him to think a little more before doing things impulsively. I have always been blindly bold and he's always been about seeking security and balance in life with his own thinking. My motto is "just do it" and his is more about comfort, security and avoiding all unnecessary troubles.

I was worried about him being too comfortable and not trying to grow up as he has lived with my parents the whole life. But he did leave family and went to this remote place where he lived really a hard life in the border of Burma and Bangladesh. He is a medical doctor so he was there working with a French NGO for a nutrition project for those malnutrition kids in the region. He learned a great deal from the experience and he's been exploring a lot more and reading a lot more after that. Now I saw him when I went home last two months ago. He's really grown up intellectually, not only that he's very open-minded too. That was my main concern because he has lived in such a close country where exposure to the rest of the world is so little. We had so many great conversations - our thoughts about politics, culture, people back home, family, love and other personal matters.

He is only one in my family who knows me most and still loves me as who I am. I love him so much :)

My Best Friend, RT

I have mentioned about him a lot. It's been over six years since I first met him. The bond between us is very rare. I think that is what true love and friendship is about. We are not related by blood. Quite contrary, we grew up in very different cultures and backgrounds. He grew up in Brazil- which I think is nothing like how I grew up.
I don't exactly know what brought us together to became such great friends. There has been nothing I couldn't tell him or I feel reluctant to share about. Same with him too. I know all his dark and bright sides. Still we love each other. We can talk about ANYTHING.

Now also we live in different parts of the world. So strange....but every time we talk, it's always the same. He can put up with all my little none senses. But last time, he told me "every time I talk with you, I feel like I lose a testicle, you treat me like your gay best friend'' :D I guess he gets all the worst situations of being my friend.

The best part of our friendship is that we can always make each other laugh. So RT really knows me so well inside out. I love him a lot :)

Battles In My Life

I still love this saying "Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors." But once in every while, the sailor gets tired and frustrated when he feels that there is little chance to survive or constant rough sea just makes him physically tired.

All my life, I always have to fight hard to get something I want. I'm not sure if it's because I always want something that's a little out of my reach or I'm just always not so lucky to get something easily? I have had my parents in panic mood since I was born. The birth itself was very difficult. Then throughout my childhood, I was struggling with one illness or the other.

I was always in some kind of competition throughout my basic education schools. There were so many tough competitions. I did win so many prizes though - one of the top 3 students in class all the time ,won many essay competitions and passed my matriculation with top 30 in the whole country. I got into medical school but I did not want to become a doctor and wanted to come to U.S. against my family.

After going through a lot of pain, emotionally and intellectually, I got into one of the best liberal arts colleges with full-financial aid. Those two years trying to get into school here was one of the darkest and hardest times. People constantly were asking me what I was doing with my life instead of going to Med school. It was really hard to learn English. My family was not financially able to afford a good school in the U.S.

I was struggling a lot in College as well trying to be a decent college student. But still it was very hard to study in another language. My English was really bad and still not as good as I want it to be. I'm still trying to get it better. Well at least I did manage to survive college life and made a lot of great friends.

Now I'm in another phase again. I'm struggling again to find my way and have a promising career and the same time, I want to please my parents. My parents don't want the same thing I want. They want me to settle down and marry a Burmese man. For me, I still want to explore and live free and marry only when I find true love. I have been debating a lot with my father about this. It seems like one of us will never be happy or maybe even both of us will never be happy.

I come to understand more and more that life is always about making difficult choices. It could never be perfect. Even Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg must still have things they are missing they want. However, I still don't want to give up trying to make it better or make the best out of what I have.....Deep inside me, I still believe in good things and those good things happen to good people when you have strong will and don't stop trying.

Wonders of Human Mind

I’m often amazed by human mind - how it works and all its capacity. It’s just ashamed that we don‘t really exploit it much. I don’t either. According to 10% myth, most people only use 10% of their brain to coordinate mental actions. There is a mental laziness like “I don’t want to think about this”; “uh this problem is too hard to solve”. Intuitively, we know that sometimes things don’t make sense but give up easily before we reach to the point that it makes sense.
But sometimes, there are a lot of separate matters going in your mind all at once:

• trying to understand and make sense of things around you
• trying to make choices and decisions
• making judgments of what is right and what is wrong
• analyzing if you are still useful and important
• Imagining about near and far future about things you want/accomplish/need
• Reflecting about the past- moments of happiness, pain and endeavors, failures and achievements
  

Isn’t it so amazing? I guess what kind of other living things can have that much mental capacity? But the most amazing thing of all this is a strong will to survive.
Why do we want to live so much? Because we have experienced happiness and joy? But we have experienced pain and sufferings as well? There are people in other parts of the world who live under all kinds of adversities and tragedies but they still want to live. Are human being so optimistic and think that they can get better by living? Or do they still have joy we can’t see? or is a will to survive just a natural instinct?

I’m not making sense right? Well I won’t even try to make sense and will just let my mind go wild with all the thoughts.