I went to the Native American Smithsonian Museum the other day (because it was one I was sure Christopher wouldn’t feel like he missed out on if I did it without him). It was interesting, kind of like an LDS temple visitors center without the missionaries and with different content.

There was a 13 minute movie about the peoples and their lives, an amalgamation of scenes and snippets of commentary. They talked about their culture, relationship with nature, showed dancing, and then showed a short segment about whaling and how special it was for them to catch a whale.

People applauded when it was over. The children I was sitting by shared their opinion with their parents.

“That was creepy.” – I heard that from a couple of different kids

And my favorite – by a little girl:
“They killed a whale! What if it was a baby whale?!”

It’s really late at night/early in the morning and we’re all ready for bed, finally. We reach over to the remote switch to turn the lights off – no response. Click click click. Nothing. We take the battery out, put it back in, press it a couple dozen more times, rinse, repeat. Nope. The battery is *for real* dead this time and no amount of shaking or fiddling will coax it back to life.

Problem: it’s not a regular sized battery, it’s an A23, half the length of an AAA and we don’t have any spares (and we’re feeling like one of the 10 virgins a little). The *real* problem is this: there is no other switch to control just the light with while leaving the connected ceiling fan on. There’s only the main switch to turn them both OFF.

If you were in our position, would you have:

a. Gotten dressed and gone back out to the closest 7-11 hoping that they carry those batteries (since Walmart isn’t 24-7 here).

b. Turned off the main switch and try to sleep without the fan on – and hope you won’t sweat buckets.

c. Tried to sleep with the lights on (it would be sunrise soon anyway)

The answer is:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
None of the above. Just unscrew the light bulbs and go to bed, silly. :)

Christopher and I were (finally!) married and sealed for time and all eternity in the Logan Temple on May 29th, 2010.

It was the most beautiful moment of our lives.

I promise I will post tons of pictures of the event and tell you all about it soon enough (as soon as I sort through them all – there are so many!) but I would like to write a little about the decisions I am *so* glad I made that led to the day becoming as amazing as it was.

1) Deciding and preparing to be sealed in the house of the Lord.
For those friends and family who only made it (or were only invited) to the reception in the evening, I’m so sorry, but as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the reception (despite a lot of it being the pinnacle of chaos) you were there for the worst part of the day. It was still great, don’t get me wrong, but as much as it might have had its beautiful moments, it was nothing compared to the sealing. Not even close.

I never once thought that I would be as glad as I am that it was that special sealing power in the temple that bound us together as husband and wife.

The sealing itself was such a perfectly simple ceremony, but it meant so much more because Christopher and I had gone through together for the first time just 2 days before and for us, each of those times were inseparable from the other. I will never be able to adequately describe the spirit and power that we had experienced there on both days. It is far too sacred.

Christopher and I have heard of couples who are nervous before being sealed, and also of couples who went through the ceremony in a whirlwind and left not feeling like anything had changed, and being surprised that they were all of a sudden a married couple. Neither of that was true for us.

We were perfectly calm before entering the sealing room. I was eager, but there were no butterflies, no anxiousness, no worries about anything at all. All I felt was a feeling of absolute rightness. We were exactly where we needed to be – with who we were meant to be with. That feeling alone is worth planning your entire life around.

We were able to watch guests entering the sealing room before we were brought in and I was brought to tears by all those who had made it there. It reminded me that the Celestial Kingdom is a place of reunions and a shared love for and understanding of the gospel.

Christopher and I definitely felt married after. I can’t understand what it was exactly, and am amazed at how something so simple and concrete could evoke such a significant change within us, but where we had thought we felt like a very almost married couple before the whole event (and more of a couple than some newlyweds who haven’t known each other near as long as we have), we left feeling like our relationship had a scared seal of approval and that we were a *real* eternal family now. This, I know for sure: it is not just a ceremony. Behind it, there is a real power to bind in earth and in heaven within the temple.

I know it would have been a completely different day if we had chosen to officiate our marriage in any other way. We would have deprived ourselves of that sacred spirit that brought meaning and lasting significance to our marriage. One of the reasons why being sealed in the temple meant as much as it did to us was because of the struggle it has been to end up right where we were. We were there because we had earned it. It was the ultimate reward.

People often think that the reward is to simply still be married to your spouse after this life. The reward isn’t to just BE with them past this life, it is to have the ability to GROW with them in this life and in the next and the next and the next.

As I wrote to my best friend, Lindsay soon after the event:
“People throw around the word eternity so much at these weddings, you just kind of brush it off to mean “a long time”. Christopher and I are not looking to be together simply for a long duration of time. We are planning on being together through all the phases of growth and development in this life and beyond. We aren’t just talking about building our careers and having a nice little LDS family in the near future. We do that only as a stepping stone to
creating whole worlds together. That is our destiny we strive toward fulfilling. And I can’t imagine myself ever reaching that state with anyone else.”

If being sealed in the temple had not been first and foremost in our minds, then our relationship would be built on very earthly and temporal foundations and would lack the depth and the blessings that we need to go even further with our potential than we can even imagine.

2) Not eloping/having an actual wedding
I’ve always hated the word “wedding”. I despise how the day often becomes more about the event and less about the marriage. And even more, I didn’t like the thought that our marriage was everyone else’s business too.

Christopher and I had seriously fantasized of getting married privately and civilly on our own a year before having our family present at the sealing. Almost every young couple in our era romanticizes the thought of running away to be married, doing their own thing and not caring about and fleeing from social obligation.

I eventually decided that I wanted to have an actual wedding, not only because I didn’t know how I would deal with our disappointed mothers, but because I had seen from a few examples how the absence of one meant a lack of integration between both families. I decided on doing it “the right way” or even the “boring, normal way” because I understood weddings to be the time for welding, melding and integration, not just between man and wife, but between them and the new in-laws. Without a wedding, there would be a missing connection between the two families. We’d love weddings to be only about the couple and their love and only what they want. But as much as we’d love for it to be that way, marriage isn’t just about romance and love and 2 people. It is about the coming together of two families and two cultures to become one. Not involving our immediate and extended families as well as our friends would have cut us off from the blessings that we could receive from having them in our lives. And what blessings they truly are!

It took a while coming to a decision about our wedding: why we were having one, what we wanted it to be, who we wanted to share it with and how we would accomplish those things.

For me, the wedding was never about making it the most beautiful or romantic day of our lives. Christopher and I have had very, very many of those moments we share, and I’ve always thought that if people have to look back on their wedding as the pinnacle of their happiness, they must have very unhappy relationships and lives. For me, the ultimate “highs” should come from those pockets of pure happiness that you find in every day life, from sharing a meal together, nightly bedtime conversations, dancing together at home (and not just in the reception hall on your wedding day). Happiness should be found in everyday things, however mundane, not from a larger than life, once-in-a-lifetime event. For me, the wedding would be more of a celebration of those moments, and less of an opportunity to create them. I guess I just didn’t know how great a wedding could be.

I tried to narrow down what “once-in-a-lifetime” things you could only do at a wedding and made sure that I made decisions based on making sure I would not have any regrets about how it could’ve been.

For many girls, the wedding is a day about aesthetic beauty. Their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend lots of money on looking their most beautiful and have lots of pictures taken of them. Having a (now) husband who is a photographer and likes having me model for him, I have plenty of opportunity to look more beautiful than I really am in daily life and my only goal was to look especially beautiful that day for Christopher and not for myself.

The conclusion I’d come to was that the most special thing about a wedding was a gathering of people. Call me morbid, but the only other time in which ALL your friends make special effort to gather on your behalf is your funeral. Therefore, I decided that I wanted our wedding to be the excuse for all our family and friends to get together, a big reunion for the purpose of celebrating our union, and that the reception would be a small opportunity for those who haven’t known either Christopher or I to get to see – if just a little bit – what we are all about, hoping that they would leave believing in true love and good marriages (and that we have it).

While I was looking forward to the social nature of the wedding events, Christopher had a few more reservations about how big it was going to be. We kind of planned the whole event around giving other people what they wanted out of it. Christopher especially felt like he was doing this for his mom and for me. We certainly did not expect to get so very much out of it.

I wrote soon after the wedding:
“I never planned out the wedding to be the happiest day of my life. I planned it to be somewhat unique, meaningful, and just the kind of fun we enjoyed having. I knew it would be significant, but I thought we were doing a lot of this for other people and that it was more a process of giving than receiving. That’s just not how it worked. We gave nothing, it turns out, and received more than we could ever dream of receiving.”

“Milestones, however concrete/excruciatingly detail oriented executing them can be, are important vessels for heightening emotions and creating memories that you can hold on to for a lifetime. Marriage really is a big deal, and it deserves the attention we gave it. I get that now.”

Christopher said to me that night that it had been the best day of his life. For me, without having planned it out that way, it was a whole week of dreams coming true. We had claimed that day (and week) and made it ours. It truly was the best wedding I have ever, ever been to.

3) Choosing to integrate Chinese wedding customs and traditions
I don’t think I would have gone all out with the Chinese traditions the way we had if we had been married in Singapore or Malaysia where those things are so commonplace. I had originally decided to introduce those elements as a way to create something unique and to share with my new family a little taste of my culture, and to add a good bit of extra fun to the day. What I did not expect was how meaningful the tea ceremony would be, especially that morning. It brought me to tears. I’m glad we decided to share a little bit of that with the guests at the reception that evening.

I see now that it was an important statement, turning toward my roots on my wedding day. As much as I am a very Americanized individual – and I cringe when I think of intercultural marriages because I don’t feel I have one – it is very much an East meets West relationship. It was an important acknowledgement I made that day by making that culture a part of my life and our family.

One day, I’ll truly grasp the importance of these customs and traditions, but for now, I’ll just enjoy the blessings of their presence in my life.

4) Choosing to involve Grandma/having it in Logan Utah.
As a small compromise from eloping, Christopher and I had seriously considered being sealed in Hawaii instead, kind of as a way to intentionally *exclude* people. Since all our closest friends and immediate families had to travel to be in Logan anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a more exotic destination where only the people we were really close to would be. Hawaii is where we met so it would have been both intimate and meaningful. I know that would have worked out beautifully as well, but I changed my mind as soon as I realized that Grandma Wyatt would not be able to attend as she doesn’t fly anymore.

That was the first time I made a conscious decision to involve Christopher’s family in my life. I didn’t understand just how important it was at the time. It just didn’t seem like an option to exclude Grandma! Everything was extra special all throughout because Grandma was there – not as Christopher’s grandma, but also as mine. At our reception, Mom gave a little speech about where I came from, and she talked a lot about her mother, my grandmother. It is because of our predecessors and the way they chose/have chosen to live their lives that we are where we are today. It was very special having Grandma there at the temple with us, and now we are bound together by our shared love for that special temple and that special place.

5) Deciding to wait till the end of May for a Singaporean school holiday, at the minuscule chance that one of my brothers would be able to make it.
One of the saddest things when planning the wedding was realizing that not all of my immediate family would be there. My parents would fly out, and my sister is already in the US, but I have 4 brothers in Singapore, and getting them all the way across the globe at once is very unrealistic. I really missed them all that day, but I’m so so SO grateful that I was at least able to have my “baby” brother Ray there. It would not have been *nearly* as fun without him there. I hope that one day he’ll understand the significance of everything that transpired that day.

6) Involving our friends in the way we did
We were so hesitant to ask, but am so glad that it was CJ and Julie, Christopher’s best friends from the midwest, there as our photographers and Julie as my cosmetologist for the day. Not only did they do a *spectacular* job, it was a wonderful way to strengthen ties. Those were jobs that could have been done by any other professional, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as special or memorable. I’m ever so grateful that my favorite people in the whole world, Lindsay, Glenn and Jessica flew all the way in from far away to be there and were utterly *indispensable* all throughout, for all our friends and family who gave and gave and gave so much for us the entire week and for everyone who came out to share our special day with us. It really feels odd having so many people there specifically for just the two of us, and to having a whole week where we are the center. But the love I felt that day and that week still fills my heart with gratitude.

7) Planning out the details, communicating them and PRINTING them out!
There was chaos all throughout the day. When you get enough people together, there will always be chaos. It would have been much, much, much worse had there been less planning. It’s tedious, and feels so frivolous, but if you want your day to be as close to perfect as possible, take ownership of it, and plan it out. It won’t go just the way you imagined it, but at least it will head in the right direction. I’m so glad I made it our day, our way.

8) Having our short honeymoon in Logan/Providence
Actually, the awesome honeymoon was all Christopher’s doing. I’m glad I let him plan it out. I joked about spending our honeymoon on the I-15, heading back to San Bernardino. We had a couple of nights before then, and we spent them in the beautiful bridal suite at the Providence Inn. You know, we would have loved to go away to some far away exotic place – maybe even have gone back to Hawaii – but we’re not the kind of people that need the excuse of a honeymoon to go to those places. We have had many opportunities to see some of the most beautiful places in the world together, and will continue to seek them out. I am so glad that we had our honeymoon in Logan. It is a beautiful place we would gladly visit to escape from the world. We love it so very, very, very much, especially now, and we will always be able to return to it. I never thought that we were both such sentimental people but we’ve truly made it another one of our homes away from home.

——————

There are so many little insignificant details I could list: having been able to design my own wedding dress, having a wedding website, having funfetti wedding cupcakes, insisting that my mom bring me a BLUE parasol, having bubbles at the reception, deciding to have it at the Bluebird… but those aren’t the things I will remember with gratitude in the long run.

The essence of our special day, and what made it so significant and meaningful to us was that we chose to make it a day filled with everything that was important to us. Everything we involved that day, we would like to be a part of our family for the rest of our lives: our families, our dearest friends, Logan Utah, Chinese culture, but most importantly, the Temple.

We made it just the way we make our lives: filled with great things, and simply ours. And we can’t help but love every minute of it.

Today, we received our temple recommends. We are ready for our endowments and to be sealed in the temple. It feels good. Really good, actually.

We are only 8 days away from the wedding – can you believe it? I have dreamt about something going wrong that day every night for a week now. Even Christopher has had a couple of those nightmares – that’s how you know it’s real I guess.

That and we got his wedding ring in the mail today and it’s the first time I got to see him with a ring on. It makes him feel something to the equivalent of a collared dog, I think, but I love it. It is interesting though, how much just that ring seems to age a person.

At the end of the interview, the Stake President gave us a few words of advice (all married people are filled with advice for us, it’s funny but annoying considering how long we’ve known each other and been dating/spending every free moment together) and left us with this list – particularly for Christopher he said, written by a non-LDS female columnist named Sharon Randall. It was originally titled 25 Tips on How to Stay Married, but I guess it got slightly modified. :)

When Christopher and I were reading the list, he smirked and said, “Hah, I do almost all of this already! I’m such a good boyfriend!”

:) I don’t think my mom has received any flowers from either him nor I, but we do actually do a lot of the things on the list, consciously or subconsciously, and through the occasional grumpiness, crabbiness and not-niceness, we really do have a very loving and strong relationship. We just have to keep on going.

Hope you like the list!

25 Tips On How to Build a Solid Marriage/Stay Married

1. Always put her first – before work, friends, even basketball. Act as if she’s the best thing that ever happened to you, because we all know she is.
2. Keep no secrets. Pool your money. Allow nothing and no one to come between you.
3. Pick your fights with care. Play fair. Show some class. Hurtful words can be forgiven, but they’re hard to forget.
4. Fall in love again every day. Kiss her in taxis. Flirt with her at parties. Tell her she’s beautiful. Then tell her again.
5. Never miss an anniversary or a birthday or a chance to make a memory. Memories may not seem important now, but one day they’ll be gold.
6. Never give her a practical gift. If she really wants a Shop-Vac, let her pick it out herself.
7. Go to church together, and pray every day for each other and your marriage.
8. Pay your bills on time and make sure you each have a living will, a durable power of attorney and life insurance, lest, God forbid, you need them.
9. Love her parents as your own, but don’t ask them for money. Never criticize her family or friends. On her birthday, send flowers to her mother with a note saying, “Thank you for giving birth to the love of my life.”
10. Always listen to her heart; if you’re wrong, say you’re sorry; if you’re right, shut up.
11. Don’t half-tie the knot; plan to stay married forever.
12. Never go to bed mad; talk until you’re over it, or you forget why you were mad.
13. Laugh together a lot. If you can laugh at yourselves, you’ll have plenty to laugh about.
14. Never criticize, correct or interrupt her in public; try not to do it in private either.
15. Remember that people are the least lovable when they are most in need of love.
16. Never fall for the myth of perfectionism; it’s a lie.
17. When you don’t like each other, remember that you love each other; pray for the “good days” to return and they will.
18. Tell the truth, only the truth, with great kindness.
19. Kiss at least 10 seconds a day, all at once or spread out.
20. Memorize all her favorite things and amaze her with how very well you know her.
21. Examine your relationship as often as you change the oil in your car; keep steering it on a path you both want it to go.
22. Be content with what you have materially, honest about where you are emotionally, and never stop growing spiritually.
23. Never raise your voice unless you’re on fire. Whisper when you argue.
24. Be both friends and lovers; in a blackout, light a candle, then make your own sparks.
25. Finally, be an interesting person, lead your own life. But always save your best for each other. In the end, you will know you were better together than you ever could’ve been apart.

Here’s to happily ever after.

You could say that life has been a little… tricky… for me these past couple of months in my new San Bernardino life.

I started writing that last post soon after I’d gotten here and hid it as a draft because I didn’t want to sound like I was struggling with loving my dream life. I posted it after going back to reading it because I feel like it’s important for me to be honest, and to record and remember -down to the detail- the process of adjusting to this life phase.

The first couple of weeks was all about savoring the newness and learning the ropes. The next couple of weeks were all about dealing with all the negative emotions. Those were not a fun 2 weeks. Starting a new family (even of just 2 people) is positively the most exciting thing in the world, but not having a full time job, a job-title, or any kind of means to contribute monetarily, or a role in the community or anything to show for outside the home is HARD. It’s hard not feeling like a burden and it’s difficult maintaining a healthy understanding of your value when the things that had contributed to it before are suddenly ALL GONE.

But you know what, after the first month of struggling and questioning and doing a fair bit of crying, this last month has been absolutely wonderful.

People have interesting ways of compensating for not feeling like they are living up to their fullest potential. In the absence of a much needed job offer, Christopher spends all his spare time applying for every new job he comes across that could loosely fit the bill. It helps him feel like he’s doing all he can as the sole bread-winner.

Me, I’ve discovered baking and working out at the gym. I research and then bake yummy treats that make people around me happy, and make me feel like I have something that I can do relatively well and I have completely delved into the vain rewards of working out regularly. And then, in the evenings, I teach Christopher how to blues dance and we work on our Chinese together (he thinks I am helping him work on his, but it’s actually improving mine a lot).

Sure, it’s not the same as having a group of children to care for, or making enough money to pay for necessities and luxuries, or having a crucial role in whatever community I am involved in. No, my days are short and simple. But I’ve learned to fill it with things that develop myself and our family and have found gratifying meaning in my small existence here.

I still need to pro-actively seek out places where I can serve and be needed. It will be my fault if I don’t make something of myself that I can be proud of. I *love* being lazy but am only happy when I am constantly busy and looking forward to something (albeit a wedding, a vacation, a dinner with friends over, or even a treat I want to try making). I do all this, realizing that life for me and for us will not always be like this. One day I will be swamped and exhausted, but for now I am savoring the time that I have and hope that I’m doing well with it and filling it with all good things.

I feel like this is an isolation exercise. When we workout , we isolate certain muscles so we can work on them specifically and strengthen/tone them individually. I feel like I’m in a small part of God’s workout routine for me. Here, a lot of the “big and cool”, “pzazzy” things have been removed and I am left with these few things to focus on with my time.

My dream job has always been to be a mother and a home maker. I have always had a deep respect and love for the role women have in the home. I’ve always understood that they are responsible for their “family culture”, that they set the tone for the lives of their family members and are responsible for the kind of spirit that dwells in the home. Now that’s become my job.

We’re not parents yet (or even married) but we are a family. It’s just Christopher and I for now, but I am setting the patterns and working on strengthening the foundations that our family will be built upon. Here, I have (all the) time (in the world) to work on the me muscle and to prepare myself to do even more. And you know what, it really can be so so SO much fun!

A lot of times, it’s easy to go through the motions of an exercise without really paying attention to what you are doing and why. It’s easy here to feel small and insignificant. It takes effort to realize what I am doing that matters.

I could spend my time missing the things that I had, or I could spend it loving the things that I do have.

It’s a choice, and I hope I always choose the latter.

Saying that I live in San Bernardino isn’t quite true. I mostly live in my house.

Mobility has become an issue: I don’t have a driver’s license and won’t be able to get one until I get a green card which would be 5-6 months after we’re married.

Even then, where would I go? To the store? Maybe visit Christopher at work to deliver him lunch. To the gym maybe? But without Christopher? Nah.

My main focus while I am here is to enhance Christopher’s life. I think that’s fairly easy to do. I was told on Sunday that he’s not smiled as much or been as social. I give him something to come home to at the end of the day. I cook him nutritious meals and do his laundry so he doesn’t need to worry about it. I truly, truly enjoying doing those things for him but at the same time, it is not my goal to disappear into the woodwork and simply become a part of the house he lives in. I am still trying to figure out what I am doing for me.

You know for most people, housework is what you have to get out of the way so that you can have time for you. For me, right now, I feel like housework is the thing that I am doing to fill the spaces. I save myself work to do so that I have enough to occupy the whole day.

It’s not that I’m bored. I can always come up with something I could do or need to do. I am wondering about finding a hobby – taking up knitting again, or learning how to garden, or sewing or making things that make this home more homey… maybe learning Spanish – but all of it sounds too forced. Like I’m looking for a hobby for the sake of having a hobby. Not because I really am passionate about creating – I really dislike arts and crafts and all that – but because I just want something to pass the time, kind of like that stupid farm game I’ve started to play, just to have something to “harvest” on my phone every hour on the hour, but maybe a little more productive.

Part of being out of your element as I am, is missing having an expertise. When I was teaching, I felt fulfilled simply by going in to work everyday (well, most days) because I was in my element, doing things I loved to do that I knew I was good at. Sharing my love for music, loving children, being able to understand their needs and striving to provide them, earning their love and respect and being able to manage them better than anyone else could. Those were the things I got to do that contributed to my self-worth.

Here in this new world, everything I am doing is quite the opposite of what I am good at. Managing a household, cooking, cleaning, organizing. Those things have never come naturally to me and though I enjoy pushing myself to be better, there are more parts struggle and less parts fulfillment in this process.

In a life that could be completely empty and meaningless if I let it, I’ve found that creating structure and routine makes a large positive impact. You have to make little rules for yourself like:

Go to bed by ______, wake up by _________
Begin and end the day with prayer
Always eat breakfast
Make the bed
Change out of your pajamas and put your contacts in ASAP
If you’re going to use the computer, don’t do it in bed, in PJs with glasses on.
Shower and shave everyday (I know, I know)
Look pretty before Christopher gets home
Read scriptures daily
Cook a meal everyday.
Do dishes as soon as you can get them done (and ideally before the roommates notice).
Exercise regularly
Find excuses to leave the house at least once every 2 days
Plan to have friends over or meet with friends at least once a week
Meet 1 new person at church every Sunday

….And the list goes on.

It’s a really silly list, I know. To say that I always follow those guidelines would be a huge, huge lie. But I have noticed NOT doing those things really results in feeling lousy and worthless. And it’s easy to have days like that here.

But I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to figure this out.

Welcome back to U.S.A. Welcome home.

Home. That’s the strangest thought of it all, learning to call this place home.

Being here has been interesting. To begin with, I feel like I’ve lost that enamored feeling I used to have about living/being in the US. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I dislike it, or dreaded coming here. It’s not quite like that. It’s just that it’s not new. There’s little excitement to the newness unlike my first time moving to the US or visiting “the Mainland”. It’s just going back to a life that I vaguely remember and having to remember why I loved it, and how to love it this time around.

The first step out of China was actually stepping onto the plane that brought me from Beijing to San Francisco. Flying on United is very different from flying a Chinese airline. Service is different. It’s more genuine. It’s still professional, but people get to be who they are. They giggle, and laugh and joke. They can call you “Hon”, and you can have casual conversations with them. That’s America: everyone gets to be who they are, no matter what role they take on.

I feel perfectly integrated into this part of the world for that reason. Unlike in China where I was surrounded by Chinese people who I looked like but was so different from, here while I am still very different from everyone around me, I feel like there is more of a mutual understanding between us all, and more of an ability to connect to people, to talk to them, learn about them. It’s easier to understand who people are here, and easier for them to understand me. Culturally, this is home for me.

And yet, it’s still going to be a difficult adjustment. Coming out of the airport into San Bernardino, it felt like being back in Hawaii, because that was the last place I lived in that was American. The buildings, the people, they are just like I remember, but without the Polynesian Island beauty. No volcanic mountains, no beautiful beaches everywhere and no green. The pacific ocean is not far away, but this is a desert. It’s dry and harsh and very brown. I’m going to have to get used to the climate. I miss the climate in Beijing, even the winter, because I knew it so well. This is unfamiliar territory.

The first thing we did, after meeting at the airport, was to head to Joe’s Crab Shack and have a bucket of crab each to celebrate. Wow. As Christopher said, everything is bigger in America. I remember how much I loved the food here. Tonight, we’ll go out for Mexican. I can’t wait.

The other thing I’ve felt immediately, is the pang of missing the city. I’ve always been a city girl. I’ll miss living in the city. I miss the tall buildings, I miss the public transportation. Here, I’ll need a driver’s license and access to the car to get anywhere. In some ways I feel isolated from the outside world. It feels strange being dependent on Christopher for everything.

Living in Laie, Hawaii, I was far away from the city – and I really rarely left campus. However, living on campus masked how isolated we were from the outside world. It was always bustling and busy. Lots to do, lots of people to get to know – and almost all you need within walking distance. So even though it was a small town, there was enough to feel connected to the outside world and I never felt the isolation.

Here, I don’t have school, and I don’t have a job so it’s going to be harder to find my place. It’s strange having to start over from scratch.

I’ve met a few of Christopher’s friends. I really like them. I think I’ll fit in just fine. That helps.

I’m nervous and a little scared. I want to love it all, but I’m afraid that there might be some things that I’ll find difficult adjusting to. The things I miss, I hope I can be happy here without them.

I do know for a surety, that I’d rather be in a place I like less with Christopher, than a place I like more without him. As much as there might be more to do, whatever I do in a place without him, is meaningless. And whatever little I’ll have here with him, will be filled with love, purpose and meaning. That is a comfort.

My favorite part of everything that I’ve seen here so far, has been the house. I love this house. It has a beautiful yard with lemon trees!!! It has a nice kitchen. The living room is a little barren now, but it doesn’t take away from the immediate homey feeling I’ve felt from the moment I stepped in. This house was built with so much tender loving care. This is the kind of house you call home. This is a house you can have a family in. I love it. More than I could adequately describe.

Despite all my worries about finding my feet and figuring out what I need to do to be fulfilled here, I have a place here with Christopher. This house, it’s my refuge. This is home.

2:45 am, just got home from Guangzhou. 8pm flight was delayed again (last time I flew out, there was a delay too) for 3.5 hours. I have never been more thankful for Starbucks which was both dinner, dessert as well as internet and power.

Tomorrow will be my last day of work, tearful goodbyes, I expect, as well as only day I’ll have to run all the errands I had planned to do over the course of 5-6 days that I ended up being in Guangzhou for instead of Beijing.

And then, my flight to Ontario, California will leave at 1.40pm from the Beijing Airport. Friday afternoon.

I’m really leaving. I keep thinking it’ll hit me tomorrow.

Had a vivid dream last night in which I was doing some weird family therapy thing and there was this teenage girl that had experienced some unknown traumatic experience she wasn’t ready to talk about.

At the end of the session, I pulled her over, and made her sit by me on the couch and said,

“I know you feel the need to run now and I understand that but one day, it will catch up to you. When it does, it’ll be the scariest moment of your life, like the most terrible monster from your childhood you’ve always been afraid of finally getting to you. But you know what, then you’ll realize, that it’s just pain and that you’re strong, and you can handle it.”

Who says stuff like that in their dreams?!

It’s strange how this abstract concept of home is anchored so concretely in simply having a place for your belongings and how the lack thereof can leave you feeling somewhat adrift.

Place. Yours. Belonging. I think those are the keywords to home – and why I feel so far away from it at the moment.

I never imagined it would be this hard for me, giving up an apartment I’ve only lived in for six months – something that I’ve always understood to be temporary. But having to put everything into suitcases, leaving behind what I don’t need/can’t fit, handing back those keys- it’s been an emotional experience and one that’s been extremely lonely. It feels meaningful, though, like a rite of passage – almost symbolic, but I can’t quite figure out of what.

I don’t know what I feel I’ve lost but the emptiness is there, and I feel the need to mourn for the loss, alone, until I’m ready to figure out how to fill the gaping hole it left inside.

Somehow, it makes it worse knowing that the place is there, as I left it, but that I can’t go back and that if I do, it’s no longer mine. This feels like a breakup. There’s just no going back. “Move on Fei, he’s not yours anymore.”

What confuses me is why this particular move has been so hard. I’ve moved away from lots of apartments before. I cried leaving a few of them, but not this hard. I still feel like those places are mine in some way – I’ve never felt like I’ve really lost them. I’ve kept them, the memories of them in my possession. Maybe it’s because I chose to leave them. Maybe it’s because I always had a better place lined up right after that I had something to look forward to with eagerness, to keep me from looking back with longing.

I thought perhaps that I would feel liberated, lighter, mobile – something I idealize. Yet I can’t help feeling a little bit like a freed bird that just wants to go home to its cage. Though I know there’s nothing to fear, though I am not afraid of what’s ahead, I am still scared. The worst bit, though, is not knowing of what, and why.

It’s been odd figuring out how to get settled here at Grace’s, a place I know I’ll only be at for 2 weeks. It’s odd because I have all my belongings with me here, and it is a place I am familiar and comfortable with, yet, it doesn’t warrant making this place home. It’s also different from being just a guest with a little travel suitcase. Then, there’d be no discussion about how comfortable I’m supposed to get. You can unpack everything without feeling like you’re too attached because there’s no need for you to cling to it – you’ll be home, at your own place soon enough.

Another reason why I’m confused at how hard this is, is because I’ve been in this exact situation before – but in reverse. When I first came to China, I had all my belongings in suitcases but no place that was mine to put them. I didn’t seem to mind it then. I had the person I came here for – and that’s all I cared about. I was home.

There’s a place for me. A few places, actually. Places where I belong. Places where I am welcome to put my things and claim a piece of for my own. There’s a place for me in Malaysia, and one in Singapore. Family. There’s an indescribable comfort in knowing that there’s always that to go back to – even when neither of those places were ones that I’ve lived in growing up, it can still be home. As long as my family’s there, I have a place. That’s a comfort.

Then, there’s that place in California. The one I’ve never even seen but is meant for me. It’s there, waiting for me and my things. Waiting for me to complete it. To complete him.

Home is Christopher and giving this one up brings me one step closer to him. I cling to that thought.

So maybe I’m not homeless after all. I’m just in transit.

Perhaps my favorite part about these quarterly airport reunions besides the moment of meeting itself is my commute to the airport.

This is a moment of quiet contemplation where I am left alone with my thoughts, my music, and my anticipation.

It feels strange going through this again. There’s a sense of revisiting the past, like Deja Vu. But as I sit here immersing myself in thoughts of him, of us, I realize that it’s not just my past I am going to greet: it is my future.

I’ve filled this space with so much fluff lately, this place isn’t a very fair representation of my life. Lots of the details are hidden in private posts or emails that I’ve written. I wish I could publicly post them here – I feel like I’ve lost something valuable by censoring the details because I’m trying to be sensitive to my readership (maybe posting to Facebook isn’t such a good idea…) I have the need to write openly and hope that I will find a balance here and won’t have to resort to a new anonymous blog. I like having everything in one place with nothing to hide.

In light of that, I want to say a few words about my life as of late, if in a vague, abstract way.

A couple of weekends ago (was it really that recent?), there was a large – HUGE – drama that broke out between Christopher and I that shook our relationship to the very core. We had tapped into a pocket of overwhelming emotional energy and being unable to handle the torrent of emotions, our worlds came crashing down. The distance did not help.

I won’t write the details here. I have written a record for myself. It will be enough for now. I think that there is a lesson I can teach with it, and hope to be able to write about it openly one day after time has worked its magic on the episode. Then, I hope, that it will be filed under immature misadventures from the Fei of the past, instead of something that might cause me to be judged/misunderstood today.

Suffice it to say, we suffered both because of something I did, and how it was interpreted. That weekend, our lives were completely turned upside down. Utter hell.

We overcame it. Somehow. For how deep the damage was, I would even say that we resolved it relatively quickly. That’s one thing you can say about us. We always manage to bounce back and move forward somehow or rather.

We are past it now, and we emerged stronger than ever before. From where we are, we can even look back on the sum of it all with fondness now.

Through the fire, the both of us learned valuable lessons about ourselves. We showed our worst; we showed our very best. I discovered a reservoir of hidden strength and confidence I never knew I possessed. Neither did Christopher. Life is full of surprises.

Since then, I feel like I’ve hit a growth spurt. The week after, I was riding on this wave of emotional movement. I felt a stirring within me. I had moments of lucid clarity. I saw; I understood. The most amazing thing was that I wasn’t alone in my experience: Christopher felt the growth too.

From my little taste of it, I want to say that growing together is the pinnacle of a relationship experience. Discovering ourselves and having a glimpse into our future selves together is something I cannot describe. To me, it is the apex of spirituality.

I’ve always wanted/expected to be able to say that my relationship is conflict free. This is not so. It is not a relationship defined by our conflicts, but we do need to constantly work to overcome ourselves to avoid them/resolve them better. The most important thing, though, is that I’m not afraid of it anymore.

I also used to think that I would be happy settling into the role of inferior in the relationship, and submitting to my man as the leader. I’ve learned that submitting does not always co-exist with my fiery passionate nature. Christopher is someone who I love, respect and trust and gladly submit to, but ultimately, I think I’m learning that I stand beside him as an equal. I’ll need to quicken/lengthen my stride to keep up, but learning that I can has been an important lesson.

Not every moment can be as intense as the most memorable ones. I crashed pretty hard the week after. Some depression always sets in for me after the emotional highs and moments of intensity are over and I have to figure out how to love my routine again. It’s hard to go back to walking when you’ve flown.

Things are back to normal now. I’ve got two feet firmly planted on the ground. Life is simple and event oriented. I have Christopher to look forward to in two weeks, with lots to occupy my time and energy to sufficiently distract me until he arrives.

Still, I haven’t forgotten. I carry with me a deeper and more refined sense of appreciation for the person that I am and am becoming. I am more grateful than ever before for Christopher in my life. There is no word that can adequately describe what we are to each other. We are flawed, but we still have the kind of relationship you would be right to be envious of. That is a cocky thing to say perhaps, but we are just that. If we play our cards right, what we have can be far reaching – beyond anything any of us can fathom.

It’s a good thing we both loving playing cards and are getting pretty danged good at it too.

Today I…

• successfully taught my primary children a hymn at church
• made Hawaiian Haystacks for 19 people
• flirted shamelessly with a pre-mie (thinking about writing him…)
• met 2 board gamers I’d been in contact with via Boardgamegeek.com
• paid the next 3 months of rent for this apartment
• had a pure moment of pleasure seeing all my guests at 3 separate tables, simultaneously playing games. (2 of which I did not initiate. Spontaneous gaming, people who come over specifically for the games, people I taught how to play teaching other people how to play – mission accomplished.)
• got to play a favorite game: Princes of Florence, but only once, and it was not enough ;)
• tried 2 new games
• won a few games, even.
• Enough to feel bad about winning
• found out that Parker, my house guest for the last 2 weeks has to leave. Who am I going to play games with everyday then?
• had a crazy great day
• miss Christopher like crazy.

That was too long for a Facebook status.

Game: Bohnanza
Number of Players: 2-7 (Best with 5, recommended for 3-7)
Playing Time: 45- 60mins

Bohnanza is a popular and very interactive card game all about bean farming. The object of the game is to collect different types of beans that will make you the most money. You collect them by trading them, planting them and harvesting them for money. At the end of the game, after the draw deck has been exhausted 3 times, whoever has the most money wins.

How the Game Works
Each card in the game represents a different kind of bean. There are coffee beans, green beans, soy beans, cocoa beans… all kinds. All worth a different amount. On every card is indicated how many of that particular type of bean are in the entire deck, as well as how much money you can make by planting and harvesting them. Depending on the bean, you’ll need 2-4 of the same type to earn 1 coin, so one bean by itself is worth nothing. Of course, the more of each type of bean you collect (by planting and harvesting), the more money you can make.

Some beans are more rare than others, and are therefore worth more. It’s easy to get a hold of the more common beans, of course, but you’ll need to plant/collect lots more of them before they earn you any money. Everyone can only plant 2 different types of beans at a time. You can plant a 3rd type if you spend 3 coins on a 3rd bean field, but that’s the most you can do. Because planting space is limited, you have to carefully decide which beans you are invested in, but also be ready to switch markets when the time is right.

Sounds pretty straight forward right? However, there is a unique and *significant* problem that everybody has to deal with throughout the whole game: everyone starts out with 5 bean cards, but you may *not* rearrange them. They *have* to be planted in the order that you received them. On your turn, you always have to plant the very first card in your hand regardless of whether or not it is a bean that you were trying to collect.

I will have to plant the stink bean at the beginning of my turn unless I trade it away before my next turn begins.

The key to this game then, is “rearranging” the cards in your hand by trading the beans you don’t want to plant away, and hopefully getting something useful in return. Sometimes, you can be desperate enough to get rid of something to keep it from ruining your existing plantation that you give away unwanted beans for free. And of course, if you’re lucky, you might find yourself at the receiving end of these great bargains. You’ll find that trading favors and IOUs are not uncommon in this game.

The catch, though, is that everything that is traded has to be planted immediately after the trading is done. It can’t be set aside, or put in your hand for later. That means, you have to be careful what you take from a trade too.

In any case, you will find that if you don’t plan carefully, you may be forced to harvest your bean collection prematurely for no money at all, just to make room for a new bean that you *have* to plant .

Turn Order

Turns go like this:

1. a) Plant the 1st bean card in your hand
b) Plant the 2nd bean card if you’d like.
***You can no longer plant from your hand on your turn. ***

2. Flip over 2 cards from the draw deck.
These 2 cards are yours to plant (at the end of your turn) if you want, or if you don’t want them, you can trade or donate them to the other players.
***Remember: All traded bean cards are set aside to be planted at step 4.***

3. Trade away any unwanted cards from your hand
This is a good time for other players to try to get rid of their unwanted cards – but they can only trade with you since it’s your turn.
***Again, everything that is traded is set aside to be planted immediately after the trading is over***

4. Everyone plants what they received from the trades.
You can harvest your beans at any time and plant your traded beans in any order you’d like.

5. Draw 3 new cards, one at a time, and put it at the back of your hand (Remember, no rearranging!)
This signifies the end of your turn.

This is considered a light game by most gamers. There is some luck involved in which cards you draw, but since those cards can be traded away, most often, the winner is the person who made the savviest trades, and planted and harvested the right kind of beans at the right time.

This game has a couple more steps and mechanics than Uno or Phase 10, so it takes non-gamers 2-3 rounds before they get familiar with what to do on their turn. The mechanics may feel a little clunky and unnatural at first, and some people dislike the game right off the bat for that reason but ultimately, it is not difficult to grasp. The decisions are usually fairly easy to make. Once you get the hang of it, the game moves fairly quickly and the trading gets livelier as you go. There is a little bit of strategy, which many people figure out after a few plays, but you can still have lots of fun without playing strategically.

What do I think?
I enjoy using Bohnanza as a gateway game: a game to introduce non-gamers to the world of more interesting games. It doesn’t offer the same kind of satisfaction more serious gamers might look for in a game since there’s really not that much to it, but it can be a lot of fun. Because this is a trading game, there is a lot more interaction here than you might find in a lot of non-party games, and like many interactive games, how exciting it gets is largely dependent on how into it the crowd is. I bought this without knowing anything about the game except that it was a popular gateway game and I have never regretted this decision. It is an indispensable part of my game collection.

Conclusion
Bohnanza is a great blend of interactive fun and careful planning/meaningful decisions. The decisions won’t hurt your brain, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence either. It’s a solid game for a crowd that’s new to gaming or wants to try something different. Try it!

Meta-list:  15 Favorite Things I Love to Wear
Felt like doing something a little more visual today. Mouse over each image to read the text.

1. My Engagement Ring

2. A flower in my hair.

3. My flip-flops – everywhere

4. Dresses & skirts

5. Oversized hoodie sweatshirts that belong to my fiance

6. Dangly Earrings

7. Little-to-no makeup

8. Bangs + My hair down

9. A backpack filled with games.

10. Scandalously high heels – to church

11. My music + phone + journal + scriptures + camera + internet + portable gaming device.

12. Angel Perfume

13. Bright colors.

14. My heart on my sleeve.

15. My favorite person in the whole wide world at the end of my leash arm :)

Favorite conference quote thus far:

Since the beginning of time, love has been the source of both the highest bliss and the heaviest burdens. At the heart of misery from the days of Adam until today, you will find the love of wrong things. And at the heart of joy, you will find the love of good things. — President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Oct 2009.

Ever since listening to the talk, I’ve been making a mental list of the greatest sources of happiness in my life. It is identical to the list of things that I love the most. I’m not the most pro-active person I know, but I am proud to be able to say (and am extremely grateful) that my life is filled with lots of wonderful, good things.

Things I Love to Love

(this will be a short list today: it’s late)

1. Christopher: My best friend and companion, more than I could ever ask for.
2. The Gospel: The ultimate source of light, truth, knowledge, peace and joy.
3. My Family: The core of  everything good inside me.
4. Children: My life isn’t complete or meaningful without being surrounded by them.
5. Writing: It helps me think and gives me clarity.
6. Teaching: Nothing is more fulfilling than using what you know to inspire and guide those around you.
7. My Job: It’s fun, rewarding, and is a great blessing in financial security.
8. Board Games: I love to play, I love to use my brain (the only real thing I get to use it on these days) and I love to win!
9. Music: For the great emotional and spiritual power that it carries.
10. My life: It is simply awesome.

“And the greatest of all good things is God.”

If you didn’t already know, Christopher is all I ever really want to think about, talk about and write about. However, I am often hesitant to talk about him and how much I love him for fear that it would appear too…much… gooey, annoying, pompous – or worse: I don’t want people to roll their eyes and think “Oh, they’ve not been together very long, that’s why.”

No. It’s been over 2 years. Sure, we’re not “marriage veterans”. We’re not even married. But we’re certainly not new to each other anymore. There’s still a little left to discover, but not much. No more “getting to know you” conversations. Expectations and disappointments have been dealt with. The quirks that were once mysterious and intriguing became annoying, and now fluctuate between annoying, tolerable and endearing. Our relationship isn’t like a brand spanking new pair of shoes you just got from the store. It’s your 2-year-old pair of flip-flops – your most comfortable footwear – that you wear everywhere that no longer gives you blisters in between your toes.

The most rewarding thing about this whole thing is finding out that we only get more into each other with time. I’m amazed by how many more reasons I find to love him everyday. And I hear it gets better. By the way, the holding hands thing hasn’t gotten old. I don’t expect it to. Apparently we like showing each other off still.

Sure, it’s not always intense movie moments with the perfect music in the background. Sometimes we’re really “bleh” and uninteresting. Sometimes, I’m frumpy and  he’s got bad breath. Other times, we snap at each other – especially when we’re cranky/tired/hungry/overly sensitive for no reason. I can’t say we’re one of those couples who’ve never fought – because we have. We don’t shout and scream or anything scary like that, but we’re both pretty strong willed and when our ideas come in conflict with each other, they need to be resolved and we don’t always do it in the best way possible (I like getting things my way.) I can create drama, cry *a lot* over stupid little things, hurt his feelings… Selfishness and stupidity (mostly on my part) certainly can disrupt the harmony. But it never lasts. We don’t let it.

We’re flawed, and the relationship is a constant work in progress so it’s not all butterflies and roses all the time, but as long a we don’t expect it to be, we’re ok. We’re a unit and when we remember that our greatest joys and sorrows are centered upon each other, we’ll do whatever it takes. That’s what makes it a great relationship: not that we’re two people so perfectly suited for each other that there are no problems at all, but that when problems do surface, we try to overcome them together.

All this talk about Christopher… I miss him terribly. He’s my best friend. There’s not a moment that I don’t wish we were together. I get lonely; I miss his company, going places, eating meals with him. I miss his smell, cuddling on the couch, being held, running my fingers through his hair, having him to play games with, or even just having him around to love the games that I do so I feel less weird. I miss going home to him at the end of the day… Heck, sometimes I even miss having him to bicker with. I just miss him.

But I’m not sad. Sure I get sad probably more often than most people do. I cry every night because of the homesickness, yes. Nothing is as enjoyable as it could be if he were here. Nothing. Still, that is not sadness. There’s no reason for me to be sad, just impatient. I have the love of the most incredible guy in the world and when I remember why he chooses me it’s really hard not to be at the top of the world.

Our love is joy. It’s magical. It’s like the tackiest, sappiest, happiest, cutest Owl City song ever. It makes you want to burst, laugh, jump, shout it off the rooftops, sing, dance, cry, write poetry and music (and stay up past 6am just to write this blog post)- all at once. Why am I telling you all this? Because I want you – everyone – to know, and for me to always remember, that it’s *really* all that good. It can really be that good.

I love you, Christopher. So very, very, very much. I can’t tell you just how grateful I am for what we have. And the best is yet to come. Always.

Two years ago, Christopher and I started a Beijing life together. He moved here after 5 months of us getting to know each other long distance, and we found apartments so close to each other (and close to where I worked), I had breakfast at his place every morning before going to work.

A year ago, he left Beijing and started graduate school and setting up what would be our California life together, but had to do it solo for 9 months, returning for a quick visit every 3 months until mid-June when he returned to Beijing for a 3-month summer to study Chinese.

Now a year later, he’s left again. Back to school, back to all work and no play. Back to writing in my blog for me, and back to Skype for us.

The 3 months that we had together were more than enough to create countless memories to treasure for a lifetime. A quick list doesn’t do it justice, but just so there is a record, here are the highlights:

The 3 months really flew by. 3 months is more than I would ever dare ask for, but I’m greedy, it just doesn’t seem enough. In the time that he was here, I ended one school year, had summer vacation and started another school year. It was long enough for us to have a daily-life routine and be able to temporarily forget about it being a temp setup. Long enough to get so comfortable around each other we’d even have little squabbles. It’s very different from just having him for 1 week of vacation.

He left this morning. I hate having to do a tearful airport goodbye every 3 months. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. In all honesty, though, if given the choice between crying and not crying when he goes, I’ll choose the crying. I think for me, the sadness is my way of reaffirming the value of what I’ve lost. I miss him so very terribly. So for now, I’ll allow myself to feel sad, and feel every little bit of the emptiness that is settling in with a plan at the back of my mind to fill in the spaces until he returns.

The confusing thing about it is trying to figure what “normal” is. This long-distance life that we’re reverting to isn’t new. We’ve done it for most of the last year. The routine is familiar, charted territory. In many ways, I feel like now that he is gone, I just have to flick a switch as soon as I’m ready and return to Faye-without-Christopher mode. But having him home was the most natural thing in the world. That was “real life” to me. That’s what should be the norm, and this, this distance should be the exception. When he visits again, even though he is home, it usually isn’t long enough to settle into any kind of daily life routine. Acceptance is essential to being happy, and I can’t live my life waiting 3 months for things to return to semi-normal for a week or two. So the battle now is learning not to question the decision, to find ways to enjoy the manna I’ve been blessed with day-to-day, and fighting not to make everyday just about waiting for him to come home again.

Heavenly Father always blesses me with new friends and interesting experiences and despite the freshness of the loneliness I feel now, there is an undercurrent of peace. Strangely, the fear of misery that I had experienced before is absent now.

Now, I wait until we can find comfort in the routines we’d set up before: Skyping the first thing in the morning for him, and the last thing at night for me. Reading scriptures over the internet. Playing games on Brettspielwelt. Using my Skype phone every lunch break.

There is so much to be grateful for.

I look forward to them because it’s the only day I get to sleep in, the day that I clear out space in my usually busy schedule for nothing; nothing but Christopher.

But then as soon as he goes to bed (sometime between 3-5pm depending on his current sleep schedule and whether or not we are on Daylight Savings Time), the Christopher part ends and the nothingness begins.

Intentional or not, healthy or otherwise, Saturdays have turned into kind of a day of mourning for me, one characterized by emptiness and by the lack of his nearness. It’s the day that I was meant to enjoy because I could spend it with Christopher but the day I generally waste because I can’t.

Saturdays are a lonely day, mostly by choice. It’s not that I don’t have friends I could be spending the day with or the lack of fun things to do. On the contrary, I avoid committing myself to anything social in nature on Saturdays. For that reason, there is no need for pity of any sort. The sadness I feel every Saturday is nobody’s fault but mine. It’s just that every time Saturday comes around, all I want to do is a spend a day missing him.

7 more Saturdays to go.

14) I am a geek wannabe/groupie: I think geeks are hot!!!

Note: There is a DISTINCT difference between geeks, nerds and dorks. Nerds get good grades and can be quite boring. Dorks are simply embarrassing (we don’t talk about them). Geeks are highly intelligent beings who don’t have to conform to the masses but they might’ve spent too much time on their computer to have done well in school.Make no mistake about which category I claim.

I come across as a ditz who lives under a rock a lot more than I do a geek, so it’s not quite correct to call myself one, but I certainly enjoy surrounding myself with lots of them so I feel more like one. Geekiness really appeals to the elitist within me and I really, really want “in”.

I can’t for the life of me trace the source of my obsession with geekdom but I generally blame it on having to wear glasses from age 7. I felt it made me quite a bit of a dork growing up and I’m quite grateful for that. I think having a pretty geeky dad helped too, There are 3 for-sure geeks out of the 6 kids so that must have something to do with it (either that or they were too heavily influenced by me).

Because I have the tendency to love things simply for the sake of it making me more geeky, I feel like a little bit of a wannabe and impostor at times so today I decided to write a list to help me feel better about myself (who writes a list to reassure themselves that they truly are a geek?!).

Here’s the list of the geeky goodness in my life:

1. Almost all the relationships I’ve had (I counted 5/7, Christopher included) have been with guys who’d had jobs involving computer programming or web development. I don’t think I can even begin to describe how much I am attracted to geeky hotness. If I find out something geeky about you, my love for you is guaranteed forever. My hugest *ever* celebrity crush has been Matt Mullenweg, developer of WordPress (blogging, coding, photography AND Jazz music?! *mock faint* ).
2. I do not run Windows. I despise it. I don’t even have a Mac anymore. I use LINUX! And I can now navigate my way around in command prompt alright. Ok, it’s Ubuntu, which is completely noob friendly and I didn’t choose it to begin with, it was my boyfriend and his/our best friend that set it all up for me, but I took it from there and having been able to figure out how to do everything I want on it on my own (with the help of plenty of forums, of course) is probably the thing on my list I am most proud of. Seriously, I rock.
3. I swing dance. I didn’t realize it when I started (I just thought it was the coolest thing ever), but swing dancing is truly a geek magnet. Think about it: For jazz lovers, retro, not mainstream, lots of opportunities to dress up, friendly to those with absolutely no hand-eye coordination at first…. I know everyone loves Herrang (world’s largest swing dance camp in Sweden – I’ve been!) for the dancing, I just love it for the delightful conglomeration of like-minded weirdos. I collected a few.
4. I love XKCD. And people who love XKCD like I do. I am not geeky enough to appreciate all (or even most) of the references and jokes, but the ones I do get are true gems to me. It truly is a work of genius.
5. Band geek —–> me. At least the years I was in a school with a band. I wish I had the opportunity to be as band geekish as my brothers are. *sigh* Oh, the lives I could’ve lived.
6. Chess club. That may not count, though. I did like chess then, but mostly, I joined because it was either that or a club that involved sports. Chess requires the kind of thorough and meticulous planning ahead that I just don’t have the patience for. Gives me a headache. I’ve never thought I’m much good at strategy because of it despite what Keirsey might think.
7. I published my first website when I was 14. I learned the HTML and CSS I know mostly from blogging and I do love trying to figure out code when I see it, but other than that my skills in the coding area of things is pretty dismal.
8. In college, our weekend activity was hanging out in “the hub”, a computer lab and played Counter Strike. Actually, this one is really pushing it because I sucked at it, I’ve never played any other first person shooter games, and I was there because those were my boyfriend’s friends. But the fact of the matter was, everyone else wished their wives would play with them.
9. Way too much time on the computer and waaaay too much Mountain Dew in college. I did say geeks are highly intelligent beings who can be stupid when it comes to doing well in school, didn’t I?
10. Physics, baby. My ultimate favorite subject in school, next to psychology (sorry, the NF in me trumps all other interests), and followed by English and math, of course.
11. I have written my ATM pin down in binary. My dad taught it to me when I was about 9-10. We learned it in school when I was 16.
12. Past hobby: reading the manual to my scientific calculator
13. Dungeons and Dragons. W00t. Ok. So that doesn’t count either. I wanted to play when I found out that I had friends who did. But I knew extremely little about it and was mostly interested because I knew that was something that would secure my place in the geek world (I tell you, I’m a serious wannabe!) I’ve loved every adventure though (don’t tell my DM), the mechanics of the game are somewhat tedious (yes, Christopher, I know, there is always WoW), and I’m really not much of a role-player. I prefer spending my time on:
14. My latest obsession. Games. Board games. Card games. Games that make you think to win. Games that are complex enough to filter the un-geeky out. But mostly, games where I can watch a true geek’s brain at work… mmm hmm…. groups of only up to 5? Mostly guys? It’s the utterly *perfect* social activity for me.

I don’t know if my eagerness to participate in all things geeky make me more of a geek or much less of one (geeks are not supposed to let other people influence their interests) In any case, there are lots of ways in which I could improve my geek ratings.

My geek wish list

I wish I:

• knew how to code. Anything besides the little HTML and CSS I can modify.
• could figure out the technical aspect of photography and maybe get good at it
• were an astronomy geek
• actually played all the computer games I can only claim through people I’ve dated.
• have played more boardgames instead of just wanting to play boardgames
• actually have what it takes to win them. Though I like to think that I learn quick enough to regularly earn me 2nd place in a group with only one experienced player.
• could actually bother to keep up with the latest gadgets and technology.

Fortunately, I have myself a truly incredible Christopher, who is hot in all the ways I am attracted to – and more! He teeters on the nerd/dork side a little (though it is the kind of endearing dorkiness – nobody else should ever dare call him dorky to my face!) but I can still live a wonderful geek life vicariously through him.

Whatever it is that I am, though, geek with full status or not, I take pride in knowing that whatever geekiness I have, combined with the fact that I am Asian, makes me the girlfriend every geek wishes he had.

And that is good enough for me. ;)

For some reason, my thoughts lately have turned toward a post I wrote nearly 4 years ago when I was in a different place, in a different relationship with a lot of questions to answer.

My post “Reflections on needs and submission” is one I’ve read and re-read every now and again. It was written in what I consider one of the major crossroads of my life, as I was discovering and deciding who I was and who I was going to be. It was a time when I opened up an important internal dialogue that would carry on since then. It may be quite the coincidence, but that was also just around the time that Christopher and I got initially acquainted. Or I should say, Christopher got be be more acquainted with me through reading what I wrote and I simply discovered his existence. I never would have imagined then that we’d both end up where we are now.

It’s interesting how four years later, what has changed; what I have moved on from and what I have come full circle back to again.

There are a lot of parellels that can be drawn between where I am now, and where I was then. And yet, I realized, I’ve evolved if ever so slightly, and am not the same as I was then. You really don’t appreciate the growth and the change until you can look back.

Spring to summer of 2005, the last stretch of BYU-Hawaii before I moved to China was a time when I really struggled to be happy, though I couldn’t figure out why at the time. I had found what I thought to be the relationship that I would be able to keep for the rest of my life, someone who was exactly what I was looking for, what I never dared believe existed for me, and yet I turned into quite the social recluse, and found myself drowning in school, unable to get myself together for anything.

It didn’t make any sense to me then, but I understand very clearly now the kind of homelessness and bleakness that I was facing then, simply because there was a major emotional conflict between where I was and where I wanted to be. Circumstances deprived me of being able to completely build my life around the relationship, and it truly felt like an existence without sufficient air to breathe.

And now, here I find myself again, approaching the threshold of another major life change, and (if I were to be dramatic) torn apart from the person I want to be with the most.

It’s really been a challenge, this distance. This is perhaps the most courageous I’ve ever had to try to be in all my life. There have been other difficult times, but none have been a choice in the way that this one has been. I don’t really talk about just how difficult it is with anyone but Christopher because only he truly understands all the depths of what it means. I feel often that nobody really understands the kind of homesickness and lifelessness I have to battle without having him around. Few others have this fundamental emotional need like I do, and a need that is not understood and not shared simply comes across as unnatural or unhealthy. I find myself feeling like I have to justify my unhappiness to those who would not likewise struggle with the follow through in practical decisions like this one.

But you know, people can learn to function perfectly well underwater if they get creative, and there are lots of interesting things to see and do there once you get past missing being above the surface and in the sunshine. I have my little oxygen tank we call skype and as long as I know that I get to come up for a gasp of fresh air intermittedly (we’ll see each other again in just 2 weeks) before plunging back into the depths, I’ll be ok – we’ll be ok.

Comparing the Fei of 2005 with the Fei of today has really helped me see how far we’ve come. Though there may be similar extrenal challenges, my internal dialogue is completely different. The post that I wrote back then, was triggered because I had a major question about whether or not we could be what each other needed. I hadn’t really understood what I needed then, though I understood more about myself then than I ever had before.

Today, I am still discovering the extent of my emotional needs, but I find myself more trying to balance them out than to discover and understand them like I had been before -and I no longer need to question if the person I’m with is able to meet those needs. Compatibility was a subject I was obsessed with in conjunction with my search for that someone for me -or that someone I could be for. But that doesn’t come up anymore. There’s no question about whether there’s someone better for either of us out there. The searching has come to an end. There’s no one else in my life who has the ability to understand me in the way Christopher does (and put up with all of the emotional neediness), nobody I respect more, nobody else I want as the leader of our home who I would gladly submit to, and certainly nobody as weirdly perfect or as perfectly weird as the two of us put together. We belong together; it works, it fits. We fit. The only thing left to work on is constantly renewing my commitment to being those things that Christopher needs me to be.

These past few months, I’ve come to understand a little bit about the relationship between sacrifice and love. I’ve always been familiar with the theory that love breeds service/sacrifice and service/sacrifice breeds love. But in practice, I’ve seen that by giving up that which is hardest for me to give, for making what is to me, the ultimate sacrifice for our relationship, our ties to one another are more sealed than ever before. It’s not what he gives to me, but what I give to him – all the parts of myself that I offer up – that makes me more his.

Looking back to see where we are now has really helped me appreciate just how much I’ve grown. But it’s not just time that has brought this on. I think I’ve always taken it for granted that so most of this growth has happened during and because of my relationship with Christopher. I know I complain a little (ok, a lot) about the lack of extrenally visible movement in our relationship, but internally, there has been a strenghtening and fortification like no other.

It’s interesting to me how seamlessly Christopher fits into all parts of my life, how I can share it all with him, and how all pieces of myself, my past and past relationships seem to make sense and be resolved in our relationship with one-another.

Today, I taught one of my piano students about the tonic chord and explained how it’s the most comfortable place to be in a song, just like home, where most songs begin and end. Everything in between creates movement, direction, beauty, but you are never quite complete without returning to the tonic at the end.

Christopher is my tonic chord, my home, the most comfortable place for me to be. He is where all those questions I have asked in the past and will ask in the future have a place, an answer, a resolution. There are other chords that could do the trick of resolving dissonance, but none that work quite as well as this one does. It’d be nice just to linger in the safety of home forever, but it wouldn’t make a very interesting song. So here we are, going through the minor third, the diminished seventh, looking forward to the dominant, the fifth, little halfway point in the song.

And at the end, we have us to look forward to: a perfect cadence.

This song is on repeat on my playlist. I discovered it a few months ago and I am still completely in love with it. I can’t find a video that does it any kind of justice, so this one will have to do.

I swear, these are getting longer and longer

4) I’m not the best at receiving or giving gifts.

I almost always have to fake a certain degree of enthusiasm after unwrapping presents. It’s not that I *dislike* what I get, it’s just that I have a hard time getting excited about getting new stuff, no matter what it is and it is very difficult to surprise me. I think I actually experience more joy receiving a wrapped present and knowing that someone wanted to gift me a gift, than receiving the actual gift that’s inside. The anticipation can be fun, but I often find the results a little anti-climatic.

Speaking of personality typing:

3) I try to figure out everyone’s personality type upon meeting them.

That means I probably have already typed you too. Even all the babies that come through my baby group at work have at least been loosely typed by me. It’s become something I do almost subconsciously now, unlike when I was first introduced to it a couple of years ago and tried to type everyone and everything with obsessive enthusiasm. I don’t mean to sort people into boxes, but as it is my current vocabulary for understanding people, it’s impossible not to use until I can find a better replacement. I don’t want to make too many assumptions about people so I try to keep myself open to new information and often revise the personality types I’ve assigned them. Of course, there are some people that I can “place” quickly and accurately and others who I keep having to go back to try and figure out.

2) I know little to nothing about pop culture, world history, geography, politics, economics or current affairs.

Apparently my first list of 16 wasn’t long enough. I must be a very interesting person. :)

Because my list has gotten so lengthly, I’ve decided to split it into 25 parts, posting 1 or 2 a day. That leaves me time to complete the list without overwhelming you when I finally post it. I’ll compile them all into 1 post when it’s completed and tag you all in there. But for now:

1) My real name is Fei.

“Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 16 people to be tagged, including the person who tagged you.”

I usually wouldn’t be involving myself and others in note chains like these except that I was tagged by one of the people I love most in the world – and have thoroughly enjoyed reading the lists that she and everyone else has written, I want more! Plus, I always jump at any opportunity to properly talk about myself. My list is more like 16 million things.

This is an issue I’ve been grappling with for a long time and have never been able to collect my thoughts in a way that has left me confident enough to write. Lately, I feel more informed on the issue than I have ever been, having read what little I have been able to from all sides of the spectrum to help put words and clarity to my vague understanding of the debate: but and even after all the reading, digesting, pondering, pacing and the thinking, I still feel completely unprepared to write about it in a way to do it justice.

But I need to write about it, for me, to help me sort out my thoughts and to express them. My purpose is not to represent either side of the argument or to try to win it, but to simply express my relationship with this issue and my understanding of it – which inevitably includes making a stance.

And that is the hardest thing for me to do: choosing sides.

Life since Christopher left has been filled to the brim with work, swing dancing, Russian food, Church, friends and riding my bike around in the crisp autumn air – all things that I love. It’s felt good to be able to completely throw myself into all the activities that I had felt just a little guilty for not being able to commit to 100% when Christopher was around.

to adopt, people. Geez!

I’m in some sort of funk today. I think this began yesterday. Oh, I’ve been having some great socializing, but at the end of the activity at my house yesterday, I came home feeling rather empty. I brushed it aside for a little to write up that last blog, but it hasn’t gone away.

This week is looking just a little bleak. I have all the time in the world because it’s a holiday, but I have no real desire to do anything with my little social group. Actually, what that means is that Alex, Ed and Patrick are gone and I want to do all these fun things, but I don’t seem to know how to have fun without either of them around. Pathetic, no?

Ok. It gets deeper than that really. Those are the symptoms, and I’ve been spending all day trying to get to the root of the problem.

There are few things a good conversation can’t fix.

I’ve spent most of the last 3 days trying to pack. When I found myself slumped on the floor and staring blankly, I knew I needed a break. I am exhausted. The first thing I could think of was to blog. I am glad I still have that one saving grace. Even though my computer died this morning and I have no idea how I am ever going to get all the files and pictures I was intending to back up.

I haven’t blogged lately because my mind has mostly been on the tasks I need to do before I go. Not really substantial, not blogworthy. But as I sat on the floor, looking around at all the things strewn around the room that I am desperately trying to cram into my suitcases, I was confused as to why packing was such a difficult thing. So here I am, writing about it.

How do you try to cram your entire life into 2 checked bags weighing no more than 70lbs a piece and a carry on?

Who’d ever have thought that packing would be such an emotional thing.

There isn’t any more room in my bags. But there are still things I want to take with me. Stupid little things. It frustrates me that I have so much emotional attachment to my stuff. Stuff that I can easily buy again. What makes it hard though, is that I am just beginning a life for myself. Finally, everything that I have is mine. Not Mom’s or Dad’s. Mine. Some were gifts, some I bought for myself. It took a long time to save up to buy some of these things. It took a long time to collect these many things. But now I’m moving, and I can only take so much with me. These things are a part of me. I don’t want to have to start from scratch.

Somehow I have attached my identity to the things that I have. I insist on packing every single item of clothing I own not because I’ll need that many clothes (realistically, no one does) but because I feel that they are an extension of me. My clothes were with me through every single memory that I have (I don’t have a whole lot that I made naked, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you) and I don’t know. The logic isn’t sound. All I know is that I should be leaving more things behind and it’s so difficult!

My own materialism disgusts me.

I remember the last time I left Hawaii, I cried when I had to give away my soy sauce, oyster sauce and a couple of cooking utensils. I knew I wouldn’t need it back home so I couldn’t take it with me, but I had waited so long before I could afford to buy that for myself.

One thing that I learn everytime I move is that you leave a little piece of you behind whereever you go. Some things you can never find again, like the missing earring, but you find new things, new memories to fill the void. I really don’t want to have to lose all the pictures that I took while I was here, but if I did, I’d be sad for a little while, and maybe in the future, when I want to look back ,I won’t have the pictures that I took, but I’ll be too busy taking new pictures and dwelling on the newer memories that the sense of loss will fade. I cried when Mark’s car was finally sold after he left. But those don’t mean as much to me now as they did then, and I have now completely detached myself from that chunk of metal. It will happen with everything else.

I learn every time that material things don’t last. In the end, they aren’t worth very much and are easily replacable.

But for now, I’m going to mourn for a little bit before I throw a few more things out. Tomorrow, I’ll leave things behind and be a new person.

Maybe that’s what scares me the most.

Yesterday, I made many many girls happy by putting out very expensive textbooks, books I was saving for my personal library, some nice clothes, and other useful odds and ends on the Freebie table at the dorm. I’m still not done giving away stuff I can’t take with me yet. The girls know this, and are hungry for more, anxious for me to leave.

I should have sold most of those things, but instead chose to give them away. I still have a whole computer, a hot/cold box, EIGHT answering machines and others to give to people. I feel like Santa Claus.

Because I have been so generous, even though I am stinkin’ poor and actually will need those things sometime in the future, I hope that it’s ok to ask you if you can pay me back in the form of money – maybe through a super good job in China, or maybe cool free things – like the ones I gave away – when I need them most. Otherwise, I would like my very own laptop computer for Christmas so I will never have to agonize about trying to back up all my files from a computer that is hardly functional and without a CD burner.

Otherwise, a kitten would be nice.

Thank you so much for your time,
Faye.

p.s. Don’t you think it’s kind of sad that when I went to add more things to the table, I saw a cute pair of shorts and thought, “Oh wow, someone put out some really nice clothes this time” and nearly went to pick it up before realizing that they used to belong to me…

Got my passport back in the mail today with my visa in it. Paid for my ticket. Packed my carry-on. I’m so close.

Also, something is wrong with my computer. It has slowed down considerably. And by considerably, I mean it literally took 2 hours to boot up and averages about 20 minutes to open a new browser load a page – if it does at all. I kid you not. It is extremely frustrating because there are so many things I want to back up and to clean up before I turn in the computer but can’t because well, yeah. And these computers here in the dorm computer lounge just blow my mind away at its speed. I nearly forgot what it is like to click on something and have it respond immediately.

Thank goodness I’m leaving soon, otherwise my compy would be the cause of my distress. It’s not working fast enough for Yahoo to work, which means I will be deprived of having insta-communication with Matthew for a little bit.

I had pictures and stories to tell about my day. But we’ll have to see if I can upload them on to my computer. Woe is me.

I get a lot of you, since I don’t control what I write making my blogs long and boring.

So, most people on read the beginning of the “Dear BYUH” post and gasped at me getting kicked out of school, without reading the posts just prior to that.

Yes. I am leaving BYUH. This Friday, in fact. On academic suspension. Thinking about it, I seriously wish that it was for Honor Code violation or something. People almost respect you more for that. Doing poorly in school when you have no excuse is so much more shameful. Plus, you can still get into other schools while having premarital sex, but not with a transcript like mine.