Alone vs Lonely

Many years ago, I told a good friend of mine, "I feel lonely." He said, "You are alone, but not lonely. There is a huge different between two. You can feel aloneness, but never feel loneliness."

I guess he was right. Aloneless is simply being without anyone or anything else. Loneliness however, refer to dejected by the awareness of being alone. I was alone, but then started feeling lonely. The feeling of loneliness is anxiety provoking. Then I realized, I started scare of being alone...

As Dr Bacon mentioned in my class, everybody has his or her own "default way" to deal with anxiety and depress feelings. What is my "default way" to deal with my anxiety of being alone and lonely? Drinking? Shopping? I guess my default way scares myself a little bit.

Perhaps it's time for me to find a better way and healthier way to deal with my anxiety.

Pay for my thoughtlessness

I got a ticket today, just because I forgot today is Friday and I am suppose to park my car off the street from 8am to 12pm.

This is the law that "specially dedicated" to all Californian. There is a day in a week that has been chosen as "street cleaning day" and in certain hours, all the cars must off the street. Perhaps I was too lucky that there was always somebody helping me move my car on Friday morning. Not today though. Therefore ended up I had a ticket for $58. My mind started picturing certain things that I wanted to buy is flying away...

I have been so generous to the California state lately. I just "donate" about $500 few months ago for my "running red light's" ticket and now came another one. Yes, my heart is aching! 500USD can really buy me a lot of goodies. I haven't shopping for months but I am giving away my "sweat and blood" within seconds, for a stupid reason.

No more shopping, no more movies, no more dine out, Zoe!

Sigh!

My Map

A good friend of mine, Soo Lee, has posted the world map in her blog and filled the red color for those countries she has visited. I find this is interesting and I created my own map.

First of all, look at the world map. It "looks like" I have visited a lot of countries but God knows I only visited 5 in total! Not even been to Thailand and Indonesia that are so close to my home country. And now I am in USA. Still, I do not grab the chance to visit Mexico and Canada and other surrounded countries since USA alone is big enough for me to discover. She has visited 18 states but her world map looked not "as red as" mine. LOL! I am lucky that I have been to Beijing once and this map made me like visited the whole China. And I just visited 19 states in US but the map made me visited Alaska as well! It is interesting tho.


visited 5 states (2.22%)


visited 17 states (34%)


For those of you who like to travel and have travelled around, why not make your own map and tell yourself someday, you are going to fill every single space RED! (It is not too hard as long as you make Russia, China, USA, India and Canada part of your travelling destinations. LOL)

P/S: I forgot to provide the website earlier on. Here is the place to visit to create your own map: http://douweosinga.com/projects/visited Thanks Hoay Ming for reminding me.

Different Perspectives

I was in the restroom five minutes ago. As I was "doing my business", I read a notice sticked at the door saying "Ladis, Please do not turn off the fan. Thank you very much. :) "

The first thing I noticed, the word "ladies" was spelled incorrectly. The next thing came into my mind was "Hmmm... It is amazing that the writer get the rest of the words spelled correctly." Right after this thinking came into my mind, I was amaze by myself. I am saying this because I used to think "How could he or she got such an easy word spelled wrongly?" However, after I take a step back and look at things from different perspective, I then realized it can make a whole lot of difference.

Then I recall a story of "a black dot in a piece of white paper" told by my teacher when I was 11 years old. You might have heard this story before. One day, my teacher hold a piece of white paper with a little black dot in the middle of it and asked us what we saw. The whole class gave the same answer "A black dot." My teacher then said, "It seems like is a human nature that we tend to look the negative side of a thing rather than the positive side. None of you mentioned the white space in this paper but everybody just noticed the tiny black dot in this paper. Just like we tend to not appreciate a person's good part and take it for granted but always remember the imperfect part of that person."

Therefore I said I am impress by myself. I know I am a bit odd that a notice could make me think that much. I was not sacarstic but really impress when I see the rest of the words spelled correctly. The feeling is good when we know how to look at the good side of a thing and appreciate it.

A trip to San Diego (Part 2)

Hey guys! I know, I know, I know. I took way too long to update the photos for San Diego trip as I promised. That was because I need to get the inform consent from the photographer in order to cover my bud so that I am free from copyright infringement. (Just kidding. He is nice enough to let me show his works here.) The truth is, there are too many nice pictures and I have hard time screening all 200++ of them. Anyway, here we go again:

I like this picture because it does not look real. Sounds odd? Hmm.. I think this looks like it has been edited by using photoshop, cut and paste my image in the middle of flower field.

Another amazing picture. It is simply a good shot by showing the little path among the flowers. I love the zooming of this photo as the flowers were a little blur. It looks like the path was the main subject of this particular picture, but not the flowers.

Compare to the above pic, which one you like better?



I need to write something about this Sweet Pea Maze. It was a funny and embarassing experience. I saw a lot of people were playing this maze and I asked my friend to come along. For the first 15seconds after we entered the maze, I started complaining of how easy this maze was because it only has one path to follow. I thought this maze existed to cheat the little kid. After I finished my sentence, there were 3 split lanes appeared in front of us. My friend laughed out loud and said I made conclusion too early. He was right because we used approximately 15-20minutes to get out from this little maze. He couldn't stop teasing me. We took different paths from there and I lost for quite awhile. I looked at the exit, it was so near and yet so far away. Everytime when I thought I was moving towards the exit, I was actually reaching another dead end and kept going back to the same spot. Embarass and yet fun!

Yellow flowers and the blue sky!

Look at the rainbow colors and the busy crowd.

It was a beautiful blue sky holiday.
My friend is really good in taking close-up pics of flowers. Let me show you some of his amazing works.

Masterpiece! How amazing when one could capture this moment. The bees would not stand still and let you take your own sweet time to take their pic. He is really skillful. I would like to give him credit here. Thanks "Uncle Tom"! These photos shown were all taken by him. My camera was not good enough to take all these amazing pics. Or perhaps I should say I am not skillful enough? hehe! I am now looking forward for this Friday trip to Six Flags! Yes, Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California.

Cheers!

给妈妈的一封信

母亲节就落在这个星期天，相信大家都知道了，我很好奇大家将会怎么度过这个日子。

在好多好多年以前，一位年仅12岁的美国小女孩 Anna Jarvis 在无意中听见自己的妈妈在星期天的礼拜课堂上透露自己的意愿：希望在一年当中的某一天能献给全天下的母亲，作为纪念与感怀她们所付出的一切。 当母亲在1905年过世时，Anna 开始了一连串的运动，希望能实现母亲生前的愿望。她写了不少的信件给政治人物、企业家以及宗教领导人物，终于在1914年，当时的美国总统Woodrow Wilson 宣布五月的第二个星期天为母亲节。

在母亲节越来越被商业化的今天，虽然各大媒体的一些笔者“偶尔”也呼吁大家不该忘了母亲节的本意，可是各行各业都争相在这个日子里刊登或播出各式各样的广告，“呼吁”大家在这个特别的日子为母亲“献上爱，献上关怀”。当然他们所谓的“爱与关怀”，就是希望你花钱消费。媒体的力量很多时候真的不能忽视，在这种种的呼声下，如果你在母亲节没有任何的“表示”，好像就是“不孝”或“没有母亲的心”的象征。所以在母亲节送礼，或请母亲吃饭似乎已成了“孝亲敬老”的文化之一。

然后，我看见了一篇由Louisa Taylor 写的文章（原文见此http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=c942370c-cdbb-43b2-af59-71ad4b546854）。她说与其在这样的日子“商业化”地庆祝母亲节，不如写一封信，告诉母亲心里的话，好好地在这个日子感念她为你所付出的，母亲会更感动。我个人觉得非常有意思。我可以开车出去选一件礼物，那可能会花半小时的时间和一些钱。我也可以坐下来，慢慢回忆过去的岁月，母亲究竟为我付出了多少，然后将心里的感激与感动，化成文字，真心地对妈妈说声“谢谢你”，那不需要花钱，可是却可能费了我好半天，甚至一整天的时间去回忆，然后一一用文字记录下来。我不知道妈妈会更喜欢我怎么做，可是我觉得后者真的会让我真心地度过原来的母亲节真正的涵义。所以，我决定给妈妈写一封信。

妈咪，

好久没有看见你了，最近的你是胖了还是瘦了？那天和你通过电话，听见你落寞的声音，心里好心疼。知道家里发生了点事，在你需要别人的支持的时候，你唯一的女儿却又不在身边，心里面的无助，真不知道要怎么做才能扫除你心里的阴霾。

我知道最近我不像以前那么常打电话回家，原因不是不想，只是生活圈子的不同，有时没有太多的话题。但是心的距离始终没有拉远过，我觉得你会相信这一点。在这片遥远的国土上，我用着你辛辛苦苦储蓄，连自己都舍不得花的钱在这里继续追逐我的梦。我从来就知道，没有你的支持，没有你的鼓励，在人生的很多路上，我会坚持不下去的。

在望着你的相片，想着你的脸庞的同时，我的思绪飘到了十几年前的岁月。身为家中的长女，我知道你对我的期望高，而你对我的栽培与付出，更是比起两个弟弟来得多太多了。我记得在我5岁第一次上幼儿园的时候，由于你得上班而得将我寄放在婆婆家，当时的我是个光着脚丫子四处乱跑的野丫头，从来不认真做功课。我人生的第一次成绩放榜，竟然是全班倒数第二名。当时你吓傻了，而我则根本不放在心上。然后你开始督促我的功课，严厉的程度虽然有时让人心惊，但回头想想，如果不如此，我今天又会成为一个怎样的人？我记得我曾经开玩笑地说如果没有你，我早就成为流浪街头卖身的堕落女，我其实真的这样想。我不会忘记每当考卷分发回来时，你比任何人都要紧张的样子。我更会记得，你将我的成绩由全班的最后第二，在我幼儿园毕业前直拉上了全班的第二名的奇迹。

上了小学一年级时，你更是兢兢业业地检查我的每一样功课，考试时主动出考题。那时家里好穷，穷得米缸都见底了。所谓贫穷夫妻百事哀，在这样的环境下，你依然坚持在家用心督促我们，依然相信教育是唯一的出路。在为着柴米油盐烦恼的时刻，你始终没有放弃我们，反而更积极教育、爱护我们。后来长大后，我常在回想，当时是怎样的一股力量这样支撑着你，让你如此一个娇弱的女人撑起摇摇欲坠的家。再想想自己，我不认为我有这样的本事。

我想我最常想起你，是在每一次的大众演说之后。每当大家的赞美声萦绕在耳边时，我总会想起你当年对我不遗余力的训练。1996年，你在我马来语演讲比赛决赛时染上水痘。在身体非常不舒服的状态下，你依然坚持出席那场决赛。由于害怕水痘传染，你远远避开人群，在遥远的一角用那双比任何人都专注的眼神望着台上的我。妈咪，你知道吗，你那双眼在望着台上的我的专注，到今天一直都没变过。而那眼神所传达的关心和力量，更是超乎你所能想象的。她能让我慌乱的心安定下来，她能让我的自信飙升，她让我知道，我是最棒的。我更不会忘记，在我捧杯的霎那，那双眼忍不住流下了泪水。你那涨红的脸，兴奋不敢置信的表情，现在都历历在目。幸而，那眼泪是喜极而泣。所以，一直到今天，当我听见给我的掌声，我心里知道，那是给你的。

有句俗话：“养儿一百岁，常忧九十九”，这句话一点也不夸张。如今的我长大成人，你依然挂心。每每在和你通过电话后，心里总是承载着满满的感动。我不会忘记你在机场时决堤的泪水，一再重复着：“你一定要活得快乐，知道吗？”因为这句话，我再坚强的心，再坚固的防备，也被瓦解了，带着感动的泪水转身入闸，决堤的泪水在飞机上还是止不住。现在回想，心里还是暖暖酸酸的。我的健康，我的生活，甚至我的心情，你都挂怀，不论我现在多大。

妈咪，我真的很想在这个日子里好好地、紧紧地拥抱你哦！多少的日子我是那么地想念你，我想念你煮的菜、想念被我作弄的你发狂的样子、想念你“哈哈”的笑声、想念你害羞的样子、心疼你委屈的泪水、难过你眉头深锁的样子。我一个人来到公园，微笑地望着母亲为孩子忙碌的一幕幕，心绪飘到了遥远的一方，想着此刻的你在做些什么？也想起了儿时的一些画面。我看见孩子们吵着母亲买玩具的一幕，想起当时贫穷的环境下，你依然满足我虚荣的心，买些非必要的玩具给我。现在长大的我可以明白，那些非必要的东西，能让你放弃你心爱的一些衣服、饰品，甚至是生活的一些必需品。

在远离他乡的日子里，我对你的爱更深刻了。尤其看见别人的天伦之乐，更加深我对你的思念。我喜欢挽着你的手和你一起逛街、买菜，我想念赖在你房间的时刻，和你谈天说地，畅谈女人心事，如果小弟进来打扰必定将他踢出去。然后轻轻帮你按摩手脚，直到你入睡后，在你头额轻轻一吻才闭门离去。此刻，好想再怎么做，那种心贴着心的感觉，是只有亲子之间才有的。

我常常在感激上天，到目前为止祂给我最珍贵的礼物，就是你，和你所赐予我的一切。很想很想对你说这句打从心里最深处的一句话：“我爱你，很爱很爱你”。

母亲节快乐。一定要快乐哦！

很爱很爱你的女儿，
珍瑛

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后记：

完成这封信比我预期的时间要长好多。原以为一天能完成，谁知竟用了好几天。我在星期二开始写，直到今天（加州时间星期六下午2.20）才完成。幸好能赶在母亲节送上。我独自在一家日本咖啡厅完成这封信，写着写着，眼泪竟然流不停。（幸好大家都忙碌于各自的事，没人看见我的窘态。）然后明白，距离是无法隔阂以及冲淡我和母亲之间超过“血浓于水”的感情。

完成后，更能明白Louisa Taylor 说给母亲写封信的用意。因为我心里是满满的感动，而那感动是无法一一化为文字的，或许是我中文造诣不够好。也因为在写信的过程中，许多温馨的画面都浮现脑海。对母亲说的“我爱你”，更是真正从心里深处最深的感动所说出的。所以，今年的我虽然不在母亲身边，但是我觉得我比起往年在她身边时过得更合乎母亲节原有的意义。妈咪，我希望你能感受到千里之外我对你的思念和爱。也希望全天下的母亲：

母亲节快乐！