Luciano Pavarotti sings

In memory of Luciano Pavarotti

My favorite La Boheme recording is the one with Pavarotti and Freni by Decca.

Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single person in possession of a good mind , must be in want of strong opinions. However little known the feelings or views of such a person may be on his/her first entering a forum, his/her opinions must not be repudiated...

After spending too much time on Internet forums, it's my observation that people may have strong opinions, but their strongest opinion is about their own opinion. Myself included.

I guess that's what blogs are for, to expound on those opinions on one's own turf.

All About Me

When I first started blogging, I was stumped and a little frustrated with having to address the ubiquitous about me field. Now that I have blogged a bit, I understand the need to explain myself so what I write has a point of reference. To that purpose, I start.

About the Pictures. They are in jest. They are also from a long long time ago. They are roughly based on me, but not even my own relatives can recognize me looking at these photos. I am a little uncomfortable with posting personal pictures on a public blog, so I purposely choose photos that can not serve as an identifier. The baby pictures are from a year or more ago for the same reason. Besides, I don't have many recent photos. I am usually the one with the camera going "say cheese..". I dress my family nicely if I may say so, I am not so particular about my self, so I avoid being included in pictures. Don't want to spoil the effect.

About my faith. I surprise myself when I realize how much of what I write/think is based on my Christian believes. I would most definitely not characterize myself as a religious fanatic. I am a wayward Christian at best. I have not attended church regularly as an adult until now. Call does get in the way, but that's no excuse. I do work in a Catholic hospital that prays through the intercom periodically regardless of what I am doing at the time, I don't think that counts. I have trouble memorizing the books of the Bible, and whenever I try to improve my knowledge of the Bible, I get really stuck at the begets. I am hoping to find a Bible study group to help with that problem, I may first try some on line sources seeing that I am so attached to my computer. I am grateful to my grandmother for my faith, left to myself, I would probably have gotten lost.

My thought on parenting. I have been a mother for exactly four years come Aug 28,2007. I have been a daughter since the day I was born. How I feel about the parent child relationship reflects more on my relationship with my parents and the relationship of my aunts and uncles with my cousins than my experience as a parent. Good for us, but bad for my blogging career is that our family is not only not dysfunctional, it's almost overly non dysfunctional. For me, my relationship with my parents is unique and irreplaceable even if they drive me nuts sometimes. (vice versa I am sure). I am not sure how people who have gone through multiple divorces and multiple combinations of parents would feel about their parents. They might like all of them, but ? I really just don't know. I want all of my children to experience the same degree of certainty I experienced growing up, if that makes me selfish or insensitive to the needs of my daughter's birth parents, I can only apologize, but I must think of my (their) daughter first. Children do not belong to their parents for very long as it is. Very quickly they grow away from you and develop their own personalities, lifes, dreams, bad habits, whatever. Only the really young want to be around their parents all the time and sleep with them. (Define really young for yourself please, I think in my family the definitions may be a little older than the American norm.) As an adult, one has to choose to have a relationship with one's parents (not all do). That relationship needs to be periodically redefined and updated if the relationship is to remain meaningful. Kind of like a website?

On being an Asian woman. I do not represent the views of all Asian Americans women. I do think I represent a tiny niche that does not get a lot of press. My lack of insight on the sexual stereotyping of Asian women is a result of my inexperience with bars, night clubs and fraternities. And just to be honest, a lack of mammary glands. (too much info, too much info...) I just throw in my views to add to the overall picture. Don't want to be accused of not being thorough.

On my writing. Well, there's a reason that one does not need to pay to read it.

Addendum: On my husband. He insists that I mention him or he won't proof -read my blog. He's OK otherwise.