Together

a few days ago, i was watching a chinese drama with my mother. since my mandarin is terrible, i could only understand bits and pieces of it. at one point i asked my mother what they said. here's what she explained to me:

SCENE

Three people are having dinner: a wife, husband, and an ex boyfriend. The ex boyfriend is rich and successful. he broke up with her because he wanted to expand his riches by marrying another rich woman. Ex boyfriend is trying to win her back.

At one point the husband said this:

"It doesn't matter if you can buy the most luxurious car in the world. I'm not rich like you, but here's what i'll do. My wife and I will put aside some money every month and we'll slowly by the parts. In one month we'll have tires. In two months we'll have the engine. In three months, we'll have the body. Soon we'll have all the parts to make car. It may not be the best car in the world, but i got it with my wife. We did this together."

"So what if you can hire a babysitter? You know what i'll do? I'll pick up my kids from school with my wife and we'll go grocery shopping together. After cooking and eating dinner, we'll play rock, scissors, and paper to see who'll wash the dishes. Even though I win most of the time, i don't mind losing because one, i like doing dishes, and two, i love my family."

i didn't do the show's analogy justice, but you get the point.

love is about compromise and compromise is about sacrifice.

it's about willing to give/put up some things for each other; whether it's pride, time, or face.

i threw a curve ball at you and hit it RIGHT INTO MY FACE

three days ago someone rung the doorbell to our apartment. my brother went downstairs to the lobby and answered the door. It was a woman accompanied by a policeman.

They were here to do an investigation.

I didn't know what was going on at the time, but the next day i found out that one of the tenants was reported missing. he was an old guy in his 70s. my parents told me he was a little senile, but he was a nice guy. i never saw him with a frown. you might have seen him passing out flyers with his wife in chinatown.

an hour, my mom walked by and showed me a newspaper with a picture of him.

he was found dead by the a pier in manhattan. i tried googling news about his death and i think this was it (http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpps/news/tourists-spot-body-floating-in-river-ahead-of-tour-dpgonc-20110223-fc_12008858)

i never knew him and i don't feel any remorse, but it made me feel a little empty inside.

it made me think about dave

forget what i said in the previous post

i want to take chances

Guts, they have feelings too

whenever i see people embarrass themselves online, i cringe and skip through it. i just can't stand watching it. i don't know why. maybe it's because i want to spare their embarrassment by not watching that scene even though it isn't real?

you know what also makes me cringe? thinking about my experience with girls over the past few years.

I

WAS

SO

STUPID

thinking about all those times just makes me CRINGE. just thinking about it made me realize that i was such an immature and that i had so much to learn! i learned how not to tell a girl that you like her, the politics of texting, how not to bring your friend a long in a date, how girls can be confusing as hell sometimes, etc. But most importantly i learned that my gut feeling was never wrong, which leads me to another story.

My parents are happily married and their anniversary's coming up on the 16th! They met through their families and got married within six months. I would say my mother and father are in a healthy marriage and that they love each other very much. The other day I asked my mother how did she know that my father was "the one" in just six months? She told me that she just had a feeling, a sixth sense.

Thinking about it now, I understand what she meant and it's completely true, to me at least.

For each and very single one of the girls I had an interest in, I just knew that things weren't going to work out. I would think about just living life, getting rid of "what ifs" by trying to go for girls i had a bad feeling about (not "BAD" bad, but "things weren't going out" bad).

The next time i'm going to get rid of my "what ifs" for a girl is when my gut says "don't lose her."

-edit-

maybe not knowing for sure is the beauty of life. you just don't know what might happen.

damn it why things can't be just black and white?

i can be so indecisive sometimes

pizza and honesty

Every Saturday my father, brother, and i would visit my grandmother (father's side) and we would always get a pizza pie from Vic's Pizza (http://www.yelp.com/biz/vics-pizza-new-york). It's been something we've been doing for several years now.

today we didn't get the usual pie because my brother already had lunch, so i decided to get 4 slices for my father and myself. Victor (the owner) looked very busy so he asked his assistant (i think it's his son. he might be around 15 years old) to put 4 slices in a box and charge me the money. I gave him a $20 and i got back $14.25 and went out.

When i got to my grandmother's home, i took the change out and counted it again. If you do the math, I was charged for around $1.40 a slice. I remembered clearly that they charge $2.25 a slice. I was supposed to get back $11 instead of $14.25.

So I told my dad this and he asked me if i should give some of the money back to them. I said "i don't know, should i?"

He said that i should because it's honesty.

Then he said if you should give back money that isn't rightfully yours, but if it is then hold onto it and fight for it! haha

After leaving my grandma's, I had to get my mom a slice because she said she wanted one. So i went back to Vic's and asked him how much does it cost for 1 slice. he said $2.25. I then explained to him how his assistant might have under charged me. I gave him back the change and told him to charge me as if i gave him $20 bucks and ordered 5 slices. When i got back the correct change and he gave me pizza, he said "Thank you."

It was one of those very genuine "thank you"s. After hearing those words and seeing the expression on his face, i felt good for doing the right thing. I wish i could explain what i felt in detail, but all i can say is that the feeling of doing a good deed is a reward in itself.

Back in senior year of high school, we had to share the gym with a freshman class. There was one freshman in particular that caught my attention. Let’s just say I didn’t like him very much

He would be the guy on the treadmill running at the highest speed for 10 seconds and stop, acting tough by jumping up on the pull up bar and just struggle to do one. I really didn’t like his guts. You know how I don’t like show offs. I despise them with a PASSION.

One day the two gym teachers decided to have a dodge ball match between the seniors and the freshmen. I was so pumped up, so was that freshman. He would get down and do ONE SINGLE push up, get back up, and talked a little smack.

When we actually played the game, I was really surprised. Some of those freshmen really knew how to throw the ball! It was a close game, but we turned out to be the victor.

In my class there were this bunch of “chiggas” (a combination of “Chinese” and “Nigga”) who apparently didn’t like that cocky freshman either. At one point in the game, one of the chiggas got frustrated and tried to jump that freshman.

After the game the senior class got lectured by the two gym teachers. A couple days later that freshman was jumped by several chiggas and they were suspended.

*Sigh, the stupid things people do just to act tough.