New baby....

My cousin just had a baby, named Alex. Looking at the pictures he sent me just gave me a sense of something wonderful happening in the world. With all the clouds over my life right now, across the world in Poland there is a little family growing and a wonderous thing that is moving his arms and legs now.

Here is a photo he sent me.

Whose rules?

I am working on a midterm and thinking about how I always expect to follow the rules. And when I don't seem to do that, I feel uncomfortable and I don't allow myself the risk of exploring, settling, and living beyond those boundaries. In the first place, I am not quite fair feeding those rules to myself. Most of these rules come from the standards of mainstream society and expectations of others who have different morals, personalities, and ideals-- without considering my own particular needs.

I think this is partly why I feel so much guilt. Guilt around my career which seems to be going nowhere or backwards, instead of following the rules of always having a steady job and progressing in a career. Guilt around not eating healthy or not making new friends. The list goes on and on. And then I am left unhappy and feeling that my life is worthless.I need to give more self-love and appreciation. Everyone deserves this.

Four things I love.

I enjoy:

1. Listening to piano music
2. Farmer's markets
3. Prospect Park
4. Waning sunlight as evening approaches

How can life be so bad? I have been able to experience the above four loves of mine today.

Hope and believing

I just talked to my friend Betty from high school I had not talked to in awhile and explained my confusion, challenges, and malaise with my career and job search and she had very supportive advice. Listening to her made me feel much better.

I realized from talking to her that I can work on a couple things. One is believing in myself. I've learned that is the most important ingredient in a job search-- self care, love, and belief. With that, anything can happen. I put a lot of strain into what is going to happen in the future, when I don't know what is happening in the present. Therefore, I want to focus more on what is happening on the present, which the future builds upon.

And loving myself no matter how many rejections I receive is important. No one can truly reject me except for me. And we have control of that.

I've missed thinking about my whole life and situation in another light. Full of love and support--- thinking about the stories of other people. Knowing and thinking about the similar experiences and hardships of others and that they got through them to the other side. That will be one of my steps to hope I think.

Trusting in myself and that even without a set career presently, I can still define myself. I still have loves, passion, knowledge. All that is still inside me. And I can still declare my career. I still have one without being in a job or grand position. I have lived with my standards and expectations too high. I am setting myself up for sadness by always raising my expectations further than I am. It's easy to set an illusionary expectation. Now I need to work on pursuing what I love. And trusting in the process. Trusting in myself. I have read that the bulk of the career search is looking inside ourselves. My sister even suggested that on the phone today. (I don't like to admit when she is right)

I thought I knew what I loved to do during my Master of Public Health degree. I was on a track of going to Kenya and International Health. And then I left that "world" and entered an unknown and dispassionate place. But there is nothing to say that I don't have the sparks left inside me. I constantly try to dim them. It's easier not to love. Not to take risks in what we love, watching our dreams grow or get shattered. That is a tumultuous and potentially the most rewarding process.

Maybe I need to take more risks, instead of running away.

I also need to realize that I will get different advice and responses from different people, and think about why that is and understand where different people are coming from. And not get disheartened. My sister will always support a direct, agressive, no-frills route and get upset by deviations from that. She is self-righteous and it makes sense. I cannot expect anything else from her given who she is. I have friends who are loving and supportive of the time it has taken me. The ultimate judge is myself though. For I have to live with myself 24-7. And I need to work how I judge myself, God knows.

Farmer's market walk

When I walked to the farmer's market this morning, I noticed this cute house! It has a red heart painted on the side. I got apples and a ricotta portabella wheat turnover at the Prospect Park farmer's market to take home with me. A yummy lunch!

Tuesday

Jen's last day.

We tried to get as much as we could out of the time we had together this day. Her bus didn't leave until 11:15 pm so we had the whole day to linger over eachother. We watched No Reservations in the morning, one of my favorite movies, and took a walk along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade which was so beautiful. The weather was mild and sunny.

I saw these images on the ground-- the first one says "Got Torture?" and the other two are images of the Manhattan skyline from the Promenade in different time periods. The first in 1776 and the second in 2001.

Monday

Monday morning Jen and I wanted to take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, but after waiting in line for quite a while we realized the wait would be around an hour or more so we decided to walk uptown to Ground Zero and to the Tribute WTC 9/11 Visitor Center which was such an incredible experience.

I didn't know what to expect but thought that I knew everything about the event because of the media and stories that have been circulating for the past several years. In fact, I knew little to nothing of what happened and to the people who were directly affected.

Seeing pieces of clothing and artifacts brought a tactile dimension I could have never imagined...making the whole thing more real of course. I also never realized that all of the emergency workers (i.e. fire fighters) involved in the rescue efforts have died out of lung cancer, leukemia, and other illnesses.

What also touched me in this museum were seeing the event of 9/11 through the eyes of children. We saw a lot of children art projects in the museum containing so many thoughts of love and peace, opposite to the adult views of revenge, war, death. I thought that was interesting. Below I'll share some of these art pieces.

Then we walked to Times Square and other places around Manhattan. It was nice to be there with Jen as she experienced everything about New York City that I have taken for granted by now.