My list of words I can't seplle *spell.

REALLY?!?  why is my brian so broken? i'ts like my brain can no longer connect why wrods are wrong and how they are sounded out phonetically. It's been over 6 months since I started speaking english on a daily basis again.... but my synapses se fue.  

thesauris
thesaurauis
thasurus
tit (it)
dissemeniated
foreing
indenous (indigenous)
distanat
nigrogen and phosphours (nitrogen and phosphorus)
foundrasing
fundrasing
pyjamas
instute (institute)
resovoir (reservoir)
appropropriate
implemenation
relationshiops

*note this is only a snapshot into my reality.  Imagine this list, but on a daily basis with more variation in words.  AND I'm just as bad in verbal communication.  hahahaha!

Warning: blanket assumptions and judgments

Why is it that when a man is in a relationship, he can still retain his self-identity?  But when women get into relationships, they often cease to exist as interesting individuals?

I get along great with my man friends who are attached.  But my female friends with significant others, it's so frustrating that they disappear out of my life, that they spend 1/3 of our conversations analyzing the minutiae of their relationship, that their idea of adventure is to take up knitting/quilting/having dinner.  Why is it that women are so much more willing to give up their identities to merge into monolithic TomKat creature?  Granted there are exceptions, but I don't see to many of them.  

I enjoy my female friends.  It's just upsetting to me that all of a sudden, I'm hanging out with mostly guys because a good number of my female friends suck at life.  I adore my male friends, they're fun and are game for the absurd ideas I develop for them.  But I feel the sudden vacuum of my lady friends. 

my life is coming together.  I work my ass off at school and i probably won't fail :)  I go out once a week, sometimes twice.  I have lots of friends.  My family relationships are good.  and it is all so terribly NORMAL and BORING. 

I need adventures.  luckily I know three boys (platonic) who I can force to do things with me.  this is a working list of ideas:

1. give fake tours of the U of MN to my friends
2. do a re-enactment of something (american civil war? photosynthesis?)
3. have a tea party with little cups of tea 
   
4. paper mache a bust of someone
5. roll down a snow hill
   
6. draw portraits of my friends
7. do tacky team building exercises
8. hand charades
   

I think I am making some bad personal decisions right now.  But I am willing to pretend that my choices are completely benign and will not have any real consequence due to my extreme restraint.  that is what i am telling myself. 

Why are men so stab-able?

I was chatting with a friend of a friend, Bee.  He was telling me that he was reading up on business books which were fun.  I jokingly said it was the opposite of fun because I'm terrible at anything related to econ, stats, or business.  To which he replied:

"bc you had easy ride in life opportunity always at your doors unlike us, we have to create them"

I was/am pissed.  I think it boils down to the fact that I see this as a Hmong issue, as him labeling me as a "white" middle class Hmong who had it good, went to school for fashion design, traveled to all sorts of countries, and has fun pictures that usually have alcoholic drinks in them.  He doesn't know anything about me to judge my life.  Certainly, I may have had an easier life than him, but I would not qualify my life as "easy".  It's this issue where people judge me and say I'm not Hmong enough or I'm not doing enough for the Hmong community.  F you and F you too.  Why can't I be a multidimensional person with interests?  Just because I'm Hmong doesn't mean I have to blindly honor General Vang Pao.  It doesn't mean that I have to relish my role as a woman, defined by my marital status and the number of kids I can pop out before I'm 30.  I get angry about this because my view of Hmongness is very inclusive.  But once people start putting out qualifiers, I start failing them.  And once I start failing them, I start rejecting everything and resenting the heavy hand of culture.  because i'm immature like that.  so, let me be inclusive and let me be mature.

I guess he just triggered outrage in me because i felt the underlying accusation of hmongness and the sense that I need to validate my suffering in order to qualify as a human being.  I use frivolity as a coping mechanism because the seriousness of life is exhausting - it's the only way that I can work in development and handle my family relationships.

Anyways, he broke off the conversation because he had to head out.  Hombre better explain himself later, or someone is going to get stabbed.

gorgeous breaks and the perplexing case of happiness

at various points in my life, i accepted that i was mildly depression proned, a pessimistic personality.  my friend, myc has talked me out of a number of self-critical pity sessions.  so, it seems completely wrong that the last few months have been some of the happiest continuous moments of my life.  I put in 10-14 hours nearly each day on school and schoolwork, even weekends.  I barely get to see my family.  I've been continuously in fear of not making a 3.5 gpa to keep my scholarship (i think i should come out at a 3.6).  And I have a very limited social life.

But it's been the most vividly alive and honest time in my life.  It wasn't just my jaw that broke recently.  I think the two years being a peace corps volunteer, experiencing Guatemala, having such amazing friends created hairline fractures in my character.  And I cracked in the best way.  My life is so fun now.  Because I don't wait for people anymore.  And I have really embraced the eclecticism of my fashion style.  And I'm not afraid of putting myself out there.  especially if I have had some alcohol.

Sometimes I actually worry that i am having too much fun. because there seems to be a contradictory correlation where: as i get older, i actually become less mature.  This doesn't seem normal that my main priority after school work is, "fun".  It's as though I have no more room in me for levity, as if I spent all of the seriousness currency I had in Guate.  Life is short, be merry, sing/dance with your friends, and accept/love your family. Or so it appears to me.  It's not just mortgages and other crappy things akin to mortgages, it's also just the simple joy of being alive and surrounded by good people. 


Other great things that broke:

1. My self consciousness about body movements.  Among my cohort (we party together), I'm the person who loves dancing the most.  Shocker, yeah?  i'm surprised too.
2. My english.  I honestly believe that 4 languages were too many languages for my brain.  I don't think that it is something that can ever be fixed again.  Like when grant pops his shoulder, he will forever be prone to shoulder popping.  I accept it positively because it's a sign of an overly educated person.  
3. My personality.  Somewhere in elementary school, i was conditioned to be quiet and respectful -- ever since I've been very self-constrained.  But, these days, I feel like I get to be me, all the time.  Not only do people like this person, I like this person. 

It's not my usual bout of sporadic joy.  It's a fairly steady stream of happiness.  And I know how to find happiness in my moments of declining spirit.  All it takes is for me to run through the halls, to skip, to spin around in elation.  How is this right?  How is a person allowed to be so happy, so long? 

America!  drinkable tap water, I never cease to appreciate it.

New Years has been my favorite holiday for a number of years. 

1.) It's a grown up holiday, which involves some of my favorite things: dressing up and alcohol
2.) It's change.
3.) It's hopeful.

You get to imagine shedding last year, and jumping into the new one.  It's filled with unknown possibilities and excitement.  I've been lucky enough that my life in general has been so wonderful.  2010, while kicking my ass immensely, continued that sense of wonderfulness.  So while I have no regrets or dourness about 2010, I'm looking forward to what 2011 has to bring.  My other favorite holidays: Spring Daylights Savings Time and Flag Day.