If You Don't Understand Politics....

Why are we somehow surprised that Obama is putting more power in the government than Bush? We obviously don't understand politics. Bush is conservative, Obama is a liberal. In terms of the government, a true conservative puts his power in the free market, gives more power to the states. A liberal works to put more power in the central government, sometimes take care of things like health care, work to take care of the poor, control gas prices, basically keep things in check, not depending on the free market to regulate itself, which obviously the free market is not very good at regulating itself. There is no supply part, just demand in terms of pricing. If you don't understand that and you hate the government, why did you vote Obama in you big idiots!

As for me, if they can do it right, nationalized healthcare for basic healthcare is a great thing. I'm not talking about major heart surgery or cosmetic surgery so much as preventative care like regular check ups, especially for kids, cold, flu, child birth, getting it before it turns into a huge epidemic and a huge problem resulting in people who didn't go in because they couldn't afford the doctor's bill or couldn't afford the time off ending up in the hospital, raising a huge bill and ultimately raising healthcare costs for all of us. That's part of why I voted him in.

I Couldn't Pass On The Leukemia Gene

A Leukemia gene, now there's a scary thought. I mean when we have a gene for diseases like Huntington's or Multiple Sclerosis, we may not know it till later in life or we may only see it in our family histories. With schizophrenia, we see it pop up in some individuals in the family and not others, but mostly in families. But leukemia, that is something else. Most of these genetic diseases hit us when we're adults, when we're having kids, and sometimes we're afraid of having kids, because of what they might have to go through. With meneers, it is horrible, but it hits in adulthood.
But with leukemia, it often afflicts children. I mean at least with adults, we've had some chance to live our lives and figure it out and all that, and while some of us are not ready, most of us are at a stage where we are mature and we can figure out how to cope, how to deal. But how can you expect a child, a little child to know how to deal with that. And if they do, if they grow up before their time, is that fair to take away their childhood? And then you think about the ones that die. It is tragic when a child dies. But it is more tragic when it is your child. Parents struggle when there is an accident, they fall out of a tree and just get a scratch, they have a fight at school, they get teased, etc. when something happens like them getting run over, you get parents with a horrible guilt complex, because they didn't see their child behind that car, even though they didn't know. When kids get kidnapped, parents hold out hope for years on end, and when the bodies are found, it is a tragedy. But in that time, many parents have time to prepare for the worst.
But when your child dies of leukemia, parents aren't supposed to bury their children. That is not how things are supposed to work! And to watch your child die, every day telling them that everything is going to be fine and they'll get better soon. That is a horrible thing, beyond horrible. I don't know what my genes are, and I feel guilty about bringing a child into the world not knowing that. But if I knew that I carried that leukemia gene, I wouldn't be able to do it. With adult diseases, I might justify it to myself and hope that by the time they reach that age some however many years later, they will have found the cure, discovered new things, etc. But with leukemia, even if there were better innovations, if they were not 100%, I could not do that to a child, let alone to myself and the father.

Love By The Zodiac

Yes, I'm taking a break from all my religious crap in a way. Most people, when they look at the Zodiac think about fun, games, what sign they are, what sign is their opposite, etc. They define their possible relationships with other zodiac signs by what basic sign they are, which is partly right. There are some personalities which clash. For example, I am a Pisces, and I find that I clash with a lot of Leos and Virgos. We can be friends, but we cannot be in a serious relationship, and even our friendships are a bit more shallow. On the other hand, with Aquarius', we are often the best of friends, until we live together. We are great when we don't live together. But when we do, it's a constant battle, like everything we do bugs each other. It is mutual. But, you should really judge by the week. When judging by the week, you could technically be with any basic sign, it just depends on which week you happen to get.

For example, I've always been told that Libras are horrible for Pisces, and it's generally true in the realm of love. My best friends have often been Libras, but we do not go farther than that for a reason. But my first and only love also happened to be a Libra, and the second guy I've ever liked right off the bat is a Libra. In fact I feel drawn to him in a weird way, have from the start, but decided I wasn't even going to go down that path in the beginning, because he was already in a relationship. They are now split. I felt that same feeling with the man I still love. Love unfortunately doesn't die no matter the circumstances. This is explained by the fact that I am on the Pisces Aquarius cusp. They are both on 2 certain weeks of the Libra. The one I love is on a week which is good for marriage. The one I feel drawn to right now that is actually somewhat available at the moment is on another week of the Libra, which is more suitable for love. I didn't know there was a difference. But in the relationship between my week and his, it states that basically you feel drawn through space and time to each other. Other signs have weeks that are better than other weeks in that same sign for me, and there are some where the best week is more intense and really great for love or marriage than others. But they vary, just as people vary. The best way to judge is really by the week. It doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. But it has worked for me.

Love Is Not Always Enough

Why it keeps linking words from my posts to other sites, I don't know. I'm not doing that part, so it's getting annoying. If I want to cite another site, I will do it myself. But anyway around the time I hit college, I found myself in this long standing thread of trying to please everybody else by spending my life the way they wanted instead of doing what I needed to and should've done for myself. I went to a state college instead of standing up for myself and going to the college I really wanted to, the college I applied to for that reason, one of a number of good colleges like Penn State, NYU, Columbia, Stanford, UCLA, and oddly enough with UCLA, I was told afterward by other applicants that the whole Asian thing actually worked against me. So I really should've gone. But I went to a state college in another city to be with a boy, and I simultaneously attended another state college, because as my mom put it, it was a mistake and I wasn't smart enough to go there(referring to the state school I had chosen). I got a full ride scholarship, I had a 4.0 GPA, and I scored higher than most seniors in high school on the SAT in 8th grade. When I took it again my junior year, in addition to the ACT, you can imagine I got a pretty descent score. So why wouldn't they want me. But apparently my mother was the Asian mother to the point of criticizing everything you do and pushing you to do bigger and better things, but when you actually got there, it turned into you're not good enough. So that boy ended up deciding that after it all, he was going to marry someone else. I understood it, because love was simply not enough. It was a hard concept for me to get, because I thought that love could conquer all. In a way, I never believed myself lovable, because if your own mother can't stand the sight of you, then what hope do you really have. But with him, he seemed to really love me, for me, not because I changed myself to be what he wanted. In fact, he was the only person that I was ever really myself with. He was Christian, and I really tried getting back into it. But in the end, he knew that I would be doing it for him and not for myself. I was okay with it, because between choosing my own religion and being with someone I love, I would choose love, and it wouldn't feel like a sacrifice to me. But for him, he felt like it wouldn't be right. So love wasn't enough then.

So a while after that, I had always suffered from depression. But it really got unbearable at some point, and I was so caught up in trying to be strong, trying to put on a happy face so he would never know how hurt I was, never know how much I loved him, smile, etc, that I passed it over to some degree. Then suddenly, I found myself unable to get up in the morning many mornings, partly because of a severe pain in my stomach and partly because I just didn't have the energy or stamina to get up. I would think about getting up and it was so hopeless. After 3 months of possibly making it to the bathroom to pee a couple times a day, barely being able to eat anything, barely being able to drag myself anywhere, and so on, I finally went to a doctor, who told me concerning the stomach pain that it must just be stress. They later diagnosed it as IBS, and the medications worked for a while, when they removed some of the complications that would stop the medications from working. And then they diagnosed me as lactose intolerant, only later to figure out that I was actually allergic to milk, and finally they diagnosed me with GERD. Mentally speaking, I went to see a therapist, and I never told her about the things that happened when I was younger, as I will never really tell anyone. And then they put me on zoloft, which just dummed everything down. Then I had a breakdown again about a month later, and I got to the point where I realized that feeling sad all the time wasn't nearly as bad as feeling nothing. When you get to that point, you aren't even sure you're alive, except for the fact that when you cut yourself, you still bleed. So you begin to wonder if you're already dead and your body just hasn't caught on yet. We went up to the maximum dose of zoloft, at which point I developed a severe allergy, and inbetween suffered a few breakdowns. We tried Paxil, which was a living nightmare. And this is just for the depression. For the anxiety and OCD which consequently became so severe that I couldn't leave my house because I kept worrying I had left my keys among other things. The keys thing was enough to keep me in for hours all by itself. But there were many more problems than that. So I had some pretty powerful anti anxiety drugs, sleeping pills, etc. I went through ambien, lunesta, and all the tamer ones, they either didn't work in the first place or stopped working shortly thereafter. I also tried a couple that apparently knock most people flat back with about 50mg. I took 200mg, and it knocked me out for maybe 6 hours at a time. And right now, I'm down to a drug called lamictal. Counseling hasn't worked, God hasn't worked, other medications haven't worked. But this one seems to be working out alright, so there's always hope for the future right?

Anyway, I ended up dropping college, because after my reason for being at that college instead of say UCLA negated himself, I really reassessed what in the world I was doing. Obviously, I wasn't happy doing it, and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I actually want, recovering, and slowly finding things that I had forgotten, that I had lost. One thing I found is that I don't believe in God, because he's never been there, and it's to the point where I either have to assume that God hates me, which is a horrible thing nobody should think, or that he doesn't exist. It's not really logical to think that God would spend his time hating one person if he existed. So I take the logical answer, and some would say the easier answer. So I dumped church and all surrounding it. I stilll have friends there, they just accept things the way they are now. I realized that I had no reason to stay in college and continue wasting my money. After all, you don't have to go to college to be a writer, and you don't have to go to college to be a dog groomer. To be a writer, you have to have natural talent, and you have to understand basic English grammar. My grammar skills are superior, and I've always had a talent for writing when I feel like applying it. Oddly enough, I turn it on and off.

So after that, it took me a while. It takes a while to reverse things you've done all your life, to completely change the way things work and the way people work around you. Some people have not adjusted, and they have either fallen away of their own volition, or I have left them, because they could not accept me trying to find myself. They were so used to the me that would always do what everybody else wanted, what everybody else thought they needed, someone who never thought to pay attention to herself. And now that I'm asserting my needs, even though I still take care of a lot of the people around me to an extreme point, they somehow feel that I have done something wrong. In answer to those who would wonder why I would sacrifice my time and energy for other people when I obviously have problems of my own and all that, because it is still something that I need. When people around me are miserable, it rubs off on me, and I cannot stand it. So doing little things that do not really compromise myself, it's not such a big deal. It maintains my sanity, because I feel a little too much empathy for everyone around me. I am just careful to take care of myself, more than I used to.

Part 3

So moving on, I went through several different elementary schools, actually about 8 different elementary schools, all before second grade. My dad just liked to move a lot. There was no army brat or any of that, just moving. So with the final school where I met my friend who is a Jehovah's witness, lifelong friend. So moving on to junior high, I met my best friend in 7th grade, and we were inseperable. He started going Christian on me, when he had been vehemently against it until that point, in 8th grade. But he still hung out with a few of us who were into pot and all of that at the time. He subsequently moved away, and with him, he doesn't like leaving people or people leaving him. So before he moved, he would cut all ties, completely be a jerk, etc. So I lost my best friend in 8th grade essentially speaking, when he moved away. This was the friend that was there through it all, who dumped girlfriends because they got all paranoid about me, the best friend. He asked me once what I would say if he asked me out, but I had no idea what he was actually saying and just went off on some tangent like an idiot. He never asked again, because apparently I was the only girl at that time that he was interested in but actually scared that I would say no. Who knew right. But had he stayed around, it was the plan to go to all the high school dances together and all that. With the pot smoking, in a way, I understand I did it to myself, but it was still pretty scarring. First, I stopped smoking, because one day, I smoked too much, basically thought I was going to die, and everybody was so high that they hardly even noticed as I was freaking out. And then, it was partly because they got into some of the harder stuff. But I watched a few of my friends die and some died when I was not there. So that was something I never forgot. I mean to this day, though some of my friends never officially stopped smoking, they have been the friends that have always been there for me, always been around, always been good friends no matter what my choices were. But seeing our friends die had an effect on all of us, just different depending on who you talk to.

Once I hit high school, there was a girl's home in the area where I lived, and I was still trying to go to church and maybe hoping that god would come around. I was friends with a few of the girls in the girl's home, and they were amazing. They had been through a lot of challenges, and they overcame more than most people could. Cool girls. One was thinking about coming to church with us, and I was honest with her. I basically told her that I was trying to find God, because the whole friends dying thing freaked me out and all that, but I didn't care who was what. So I went with her and we were doing whatever. And then one of the leaders of the women's group came up to me and basically told me in so many words that she hadn't grown up with all the things I had, so I should lead my friend to the truth and I should be the better example, because she didn't know right from wrong. I was livid, offended, a lot of things at that point, because honestly that friend was better than I could ever hope to be. We had been through many of the same things, but she was so much stronger than me about it. Yes, she ended up in a girl's home. But the circumstances tend to warrant it, and she was such a fighter. But honestly, the fact that a major religious person could be so judgemental and not see this amazing person that I saw got to me.

Part 2: My Religion

After everything that happened when I was really young, during it, before it, after it, we moved around a lot. We stayed in one house a grand total of 2 weeks. I never knew exactly why that particular stay was so short. Anyway, during that time, we basically moved in between communities where all the kids were pretty much white and pretty much mormon. I went to a Korean culture camp in the summers, where I had the majority of my childhood friends. Kids are rough yes, but apparently kids in my areas were especially brutal. I think I first got called by a racial slur in kindergarten. My mom's approach was just ignore them, my dad's approach was fight back. I gotta tell you, fighting back worked much better.

Anyway, in areas where any religion is the predominant religion, I can guarantee those kids will be the brattiest, because they are among their own and most comfortable. Mormon kids did not disappoint. When I moved to the elementary school we finally stayed at, the first kid who was ever nice to me was not a mormon, but a jehovah's witness. All the mormons wanted nothing to do with me. Only after she had befriended me for months did they start to come around. We're still friends to this day, and she was the reason I looked into being a Jehovah's witness for a time. The missionaries that came to our door throughout the years were always really nice too. During this time came the day when my Grandma, who had really been one of the only secure things in my life up to that point died. Again, I was on the train to try to just ask God to be there with me, to comfort me, not bring her back or anything. But there was no response, nothing.

The introduction to me religiously speaking

I grew up mormon, LDS, whatever you want to call it. My mom was a convert and my dad grew up in the church, being a descendant of one Brigham Young interestingly enough. I never really believed in the church, but I did try as a kid. When I was really young, about 5 actually, I saw a lot of things nobody should ever see, and I couldn't stand to have anybody know. So I told no one. I was always taught that you should pray to god for help. I was always taught, and from a young age understood better than most, the concept that God wouldn't necessarily get you your favorite toy for example if you prayed for it. But if you asked for him to be there, to comfort you in your times of need, etc, he would be there. Well, I was probably the only kid in my area that had that great a need for god to be there after all the things that happened, and I prayed really hard, really regularly, really whole heartedly, and he never came. I hoped for years after that that I had somehow done it wrong, and I tried to figure out all the things I could've done wrong. I never found them. In addition, I was told that at the grand old age of 5, I needed to repent because I was consorting with the devil. Mormons believe that you are not truly aware of sin in its fullness and so on till you're 8. But apparently, I was a special case, because I was told this by bishops, stake presidents, seminary teachers, basically the guys who are supposed to be leaders.