David Attenborough is a British biologist who is famous as a commentator for many natural life documentaries. I love his voice, his descriptive words, and the amazing tone he speaks to bring nature into life from a TV screen to the viewers.
A few months ago, I came across a documentary called “Life That Glows” narrated by David Attenborough. The documentary is almost 1 hour long in length, but I was attracted by it for the entire duration without even picking up my phone at all! Today, I want to share some of the reflections I learned from these unbelievable sights I witnessed on the screen.
Flashlight Fish
Fishes that live deep into the bottom of the ocean, there are flashlight fish that have bacteria that illuminate below their eyes. The light is used to confuse predator when all the predators see is running lights all over the place (without seeing the body of the fish in the darkness). Defense is a common function for bio-luminescence lights.
Flashlight fish in the deep darkness.
Strange Blue Glow in the Sea
For those who are lucky, people witnessed waves of blue glowing lights in the sea. As people ran into the water, the bright blue light splash upward and created an unbelievable scene. Attenborough said it may look like a phenomenon from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but the real reason for the blue light was due to the micro-organism called dinoflagellates. These dinoflagellates will glow bright blue when they are being disturbed or touched. They will only grow in mass when a certain specific condition is met in the sea, and create this rare event that is magical to Earth.
In this documentary, the crew was able to film a spectacular phenomenon – dolphins swimming under the blue sea filled with dinoflagellates. That would probably be one of the most amazing things for a person to see in their life.
Moving dolphins under the water, with their shadowry blue lights as they swim at high speed.
Other Interesting Glowing Creatures
This is the barrel eyed fish that can only look upward through its translucent head to search for prey above.
Barrel eyed fish.
Here is another rare sight – a cockeyed squid with only 1 normal eye and 1 strange upward looking eye.
Cockeyed Squid – Normal EyeCockeyed Squid – Upward Looking Eye
He also mentioned another type of squid that had its body full of lights. It is quite strange that they are using those lights as camouflage in the dark environment.
Final Thoughts
This document shows that lights are not only for us to see, but creatures around the world has used them for many variety of other functions. Most use them for defense and survival. Some use them for mating and attract the opposite sex. Some, well, we have no idea why they want to glow. With advance technology and science, we are able to understand more and figure out more about these secretive glowing life on Earth.
I’m thankful for all the technology we have today that allow these amazing videos be filmed and shared to ordinary people like myself and yourself. I am also grateful for the group of brave explorers who venture out into the deep sea and dedicate their life to study about these rare things that really not many appreciate or willing to fund their projects. I’m glad that we are all different and diverse, so somebody will take on these kind of extraordinary jobs.
If you wish to see the documentary, I have the link below. Put your phone away, and enjoy in a fully immersion in a 1h long of spectacular moments. You will not regret that 1h!
Cancer is a common disease that many of us have heard about for the longest of time. But for the longest of time, humanity still haven’t been able to figure out a solution to cure cancer, for the most parts. Today, I want to learn more about what it means to be diagnosed with cancer and what this journey is going to be like for the future ahead. For now, I’ll just refer to the patient as person M and I’ll decide a female gender for her.
The Backstory
M has been noticing there’s a rash under her armpit that’s been growing bigger over time. In fact, something underneath it is enlarged – a lump. She took preemptive and went to see the doctor at the local hospital. They did a lot of testings for her, but they weren’t able to come up with a diagnosis. Most results came back as equivocal or inconclusive, meaning that something seems wrong, but they don’t really know exactly what is wrong. This process went on for 1.5 years trying to find the diagnosis – returning a few months apart and doing blood work, doing skin biopsy, and ultimately doing PET, CT scan, and the more invasive bone marrow biopsy and lymph node biopsy. With the bm and ln biopsy, they finally able to make the diagnosis for M. They diagnosed her with angioimmunoblastic t-cell lymphoma (ATCL), which is a type of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
As a normal person, I have never heard of such a long word, and the doctor actually didn’t explain a whole lot about it other than talking about the treatment plan and such. I was stunned to hear that and really wasn’t able to think of any questions to ask. Now thinking back, there probably are a list of questions that I should ask. However, I think there would be a lot of appointments coming up and there would be lot of opportunities for questions.
Although the doctor didn’t say what stage M is in, but I think it’s probably at stage 3. I really wished that we would have diagnosed this sooner than the 1.5 year it took to get the answer. Thankfully during the 1.5 year, M was mostly living a normal life without feeling much from the lymphoma other than feeling tired and other minor symptoms. The doctor recommends to start treatment ASAP, and so the following would be when treatment will start.
Treatment Plan
I was told that we would be meeting with a pharmacist to go over M’s medication list, and ensure whatever she is taking won’t interfere with the chemotherapy treatment. Then we would also meet with a nurse for education, I am guessing this may be the time to ask questions about this disease and how to take care of M at home and what to do and what to avoid kind of things. Then we would meet up with the doctor to finalize things, and then they will start the treatment.
The chemotherapy treatment will destroy all the cancer cells, but unfortunately will also kill the normal cells. This will lead to quite some side effects and will lower the WBC count, which will weaken M’s immune system. During the pandemic time, it complicates this even more as M cannot afford to contract Covid or any other infections. What that means is she should isolate herself, wear a mask, and limit as much exposure as possible – at least during the treatment period, which would be 18 weeks total (at least that’s the plan).
The treatment includes 6 rounds of chemotherapy at the local clinic office where M will be injected 3 different drugs via IV. Each round would last around 4-5 hours. Patients generally will feel tired and maybe nausea, loss of appetite, along with many other effects that are less common. M will also be taking an oral steroid drug to control the regrow of cancer cells during this time. After a few rounds of chemo, they will do PET Scan to check the cancer cells and monitor her progress and responsive to the drugs. Supposingly, all the mutant cells should be wiped out. At that point, we would be planning for a stem cell transplant (SCT), an autologous one, which mean they will use her own stem cells to regrow her cell – not from a donor. I don’t know how that exactly work, but I was told that we would be meeting to discuss about that after a few sessions of the chemo. From reading online, it sounds like they would need to collect M’s stem cell first and freeze them. After 18 weeks of chemo, they will transplant those stem cells back into her bone marrow to remake new healthy cells.
Chemotherapy
So far, the communication has been very straightforward and the doctor didn’t express any emotions about it. I don’t know if she didn’t want us to feel overwhelmed, not to scare us, or what it is… but reading about ATCL online really doesn’t sound optimistic at all. I read that it is an aggressive type of cancer and usually don’t get diagnosed until the end stage (which in M’s case probably stage 3, but would need confirmation from the doctor, I’m not optimistic that it is a lower number). The statistic shows that the 5y survival rate is at like 43%. Typically, people only live for 3-5 years after being diagnosed. That’s what I read, but of course this doesn’t mean anything as it varies between people, and I try to not read too much into that.
Autologous SCT
Now I’m only hoping that M responses well to the treatment and will be able to reach complete remission after 18 weeks, then undergo SCT to renew with healthy cells… then I hope her WBC count will come back up and she won’t have to worry about a weaken immune system, and that she can live a normal life again. Then we will only have to pray that a relapse won’t come back. If she can hold for at least 10 years, then that is a miracle that we would hope for. With blood cancer, it is very common for the cancer to come back after remission, and that is something nobody can surely tell you how it would be.
What now?
M has been staying optimistic, and she didn’t react to this news. She lives normally, still doing her daily work, completing her house chores, and continue to communicate with her friends and relatives over the phone like she always does. That is a good start to have a positive attitude toward this battle. I’m just hoping the chemo won’t be too taxing for her to endure. Certainly having chemo is not as simple as what I wrote above “feel tired and weaken immune”… there are most likely a lot more complication in between those words that I don’t know about or didn’t even write it down. One of which is losing hairs and turning bald. Maybe eyebrows as well. Maybe losing weight. You’ll look completely different than who you are prior to the chemo. All that stuff. So when reality hits, I don’t know if she can endure and keep on the positive attitude. That’s a fear and worry that I am feeling now.
Stay with a positive mood
What can I do to help? Maybe help with some tasks and learning some tasks to take over for her when she can’t do it herself or feeling tired. I don’t know. One thing for sure is, I know my life will be different when this starts. I am only hoping this will be better or wishfully thinking everything will go back to near-normal again after the 18 weeks of treatments and the SCT. That’s the best case scenario.
Now, I need to figure out what questions to ask and to learn about at the next meeting. So I looked up on the Internet for some ideas:
Can ATCL be cured? Controlled? How effective is my/the current available treatment?
What stage is it? What does that mean? What is my prognosis?
How do I prepare myself for treatment (chemotherapy and stem cell transplant)?
What types of side effects or impact will the treatment has on me and my lifestyle? What’s the goal of the treatment and the outcome need to achieve after certain rounds of treatment and after treatment and after Stem Cell Transplant?
Just curious, am I eligible for a clinical trial if the current available treatment isn’t responsive?
What can I do now and going forward to keep myself in the best possible shape?
What type of food should I eat or avoid (diet)? Drinks? Soups? Other kind of self-care (exercise, activity, emotional support…etc)?
Any products or items should I purchase to help? Such as a lap blanket? Warm socks?
After the 18 weeks of treatment and SCT, will I be able to live like normal again (regain hair, healthy immune system, not tired) if I respond well to the treatment? Will there be continuous follow up appointments to monitor for potential relapse? What is the chance and how long would there be a possible relapse?
Are other members of my family at risk?
Final Thoughts
Yes, “Cancer” is a word that I have heard about for many many times before, but it really doesn’t matter much until it affects you or the people around your life. In fact, the ironic thing is I work in a blood cancer lab. Sometimes though, having the background knowledge about the disease really doesn’t really mean much if it is uncurable. I mean, what is the point of knowing that 50% of the people survived for 5 years or you “may” have 3 years of life left… at this point, it is all mental thoughts within you and how you face the battle against cancer and try to drag it on as best as you can. Everything else is fate and destiny that is out of our control. If it is time to go, we go. We know each of us will exit the world one day, just like the one day we entered the world. I can see the day of my heart stop beating, my eyes stop opening, my body stop radiating warmth heat… etc. I just hope that I don’t have to wear diaper for too long, lost my mind and yelling at random people for too long, laying on bed waiting for the day to leave for too long, and pray for a leisure, relaxing, sleepy exit.
There is no way to prepare for that day to come. There’s no way to not be sad and ready for it. It is okay to be afraid, to be fearful, to want to live longer… but if that day about to come… I will remind myself that I have family and friends that have went a step ahead of me, and I’ll be joining with them in the “other world”. I won’t be alone.
This blog is inspired by a Hong Kong comedian actor. Who he is doesn’t matter, the inspiration does. When I come to know an actor, I know them from the movies and the roles they play in them. For this actor, his forte is comedy. He even does standup comedy in front of thousands of live audiences and ran his own show. We tend to generalize what we see on TV will mostly reflect to some level of similarity to the real life behavior of the actor. When I think of an actor, I usually think he/she is an extrovert, outgoing, sociable, and along with other traits like funny, handsome, pretty, attractive… etc. I mean, don’t you need to be like that in order to be an actor, especially a main character that is being followed by paparazzi everywhere and being in front of screens all the time? Don’t you have to have exceptional public speaking skills and the ability to speak on your feet?
Well, when I came across a personal interview of this actor, I learned many surprising things about him that is opposite of what I formulated in my mind. The image that I created from his movies was completely different than the real him. I learned that he never intended to be a comedian. I learned that he wanted to act in serious movies. Because of circumstances, he was pushed to be a comedian, and to his surprise, it was a successful path and therefore he continued down that road.
Similarly, who would think a comedian such as President Zelenskiy will become such an amazing leader of Ukraine, and a war leader? Sometime life just throw you into a different path and require you to undergo a new dimension transformation!
Life is quite weird. It sometime leads you to another total different path than your original intention that you never thought you would ever capable of doing. However, when facing adversity, humans can adapt quickly and push ourselves to thrive by creating multi-dimensional of ourselves. The actor has becomes a sociable person, an extrovert, outspoken, and funny… while he is on his job only! This makes me correlate and reflect to my own life. Have you ever encounter adversity and you had to cope and adapt to the changes that you must make to thrive? I certainly had!
My Personality VS. My Job
Similar to the actor, I consider myself a relatively shy and quiet person. I am an absolute introvert and do not like to be in the focus of attention or on a spotlight. To give you a sense of perspective, growing up, I hardly made any friends in school. By the time I graduated through high school and college, you can use your fingers to count the friends I have, and you wouldn’t even need to raise all of them.
Everyone has dreams. Mine, I wouldn’t say it was a big dream or something I’m super serious or try very hard to achieve. I guess I can call it “thought” or “imagination” instead of dream. In college, I did think about being a teacher. However, the thought of being in front of the classroom, and picturing myself unable to answer a student’s question in front of everyone – that deterred me from pursuing that vision. By random chance, I ended up getting into the science field and ended up working in a laboratory as a lab testing personnel. Quickly, I learned that I have to interact with other people – my coworkers, my boss, and attending lab meetings. Quickly, I found myself having to answer phone calls, speaking to random clients, completely stranger, on the other side of the phone — I don’t even talk on the phone with my own friends and family much — leave alone the difficulty of having to answer to requests that I am completely clueless. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I needed another “dimension” of myself.
The boredom of working as a lab tech, the same routine, not much interaction, but it can change if you want to change it!
It was not an overnight task to build a new dimension of myself. I sought help, and I discovered Toastmasters, a public speaking organization that helps people improve their public speaking confidence and leadership skills. I was part of the group for almost 4 years before I took on the opportunity to compete in a speech contest. When I was pushed by my club members to compete, I thought I would just lose out on round 1. Indeed, I did lose. I was so nervous that I forgot my words while I was speaking at my club. Because it was just an internal club contest, there were only 3 of us total, and I got placed 2nd place. However, I had the opportunity to advance to the Area Contest level for being 2nd place that year because there weren’t as many competitors, so they allowed each club to send 2 contestants.
I practiced really hard. I made edits to improve my speech. I rehearse each day after work, over and over and over. I must have practiced and made small edits for over a hundred times throughout my entire competition adventure – I made it through the Area Contest, the Division Contest, and made it to the District Contest Level. That is much farther than the club contest level that I originally thought. What happened? The short answer is my hard work paid off.
My very first trophy in the area Humorous Speech Contest in 2016!
The long answer is, I didn’t even realize I have created a new dimension of myself. When I was on the stage, I am no longer the old me. Instead, I tell myself I am a performer! If I am on the stage, I have to give it all out and do not hold back, and there’s nothing to lose. So who do the audiences and the judges see on the stage? A new dimension of me – a person who is so funny although it is self-deprecating, speak loudly and confidently although with flaw of pronunciation, and someone who has a passion to share a learning lesson with my listeners.
I became more popular. People come up to me and greet me. They told me how much they enjoyed my speech. They love listening to me speak! They told me things that I never think I was capable of doing – leave alone of doing so well, as winning 1st place in a competition. That gave me a big confident boost and I continued Toastmaster and competed in many more contests after that, and I gained more experience and earned more success in the Toastmaster and public speaking arena. Ultimately, I applied for a Education Specialist job in a lab and got the promotion – I am now a TEACHER in the laboratory, educating students, employees, and managing a lot of lab tours and presentations and leading lab meetings and such – things that I would never see myself doing if I look back in the rear mirror of when I was a college student.
Today, I’m still an introvert. I’m still not sociable. And I’m still consider myself a shy person. However, I talk when I need to, I am funny around people I am comfortable with, and I love being in the spotlight when I think people should give me their full attention as I’m lecturing. I have built a new dimension of myself through adversity. I am now able to switch to my new dimension when I am at work, and also when I am not at work if I feel so! When I went on a cruise trip, I got on the stage and sang a Karaoke song for the first time of my life. And no, when I was on the stage, I wasn’t like most other people who just sang. I was a performer when I was on the stage. I transform into my new dimension, and I give it all. I moved my feet, I moved my body, I gave them my facial expression that emanate the energy of the song, and people cheered and sang along and some people even pulled out their phone and waved it with their flashlight mode on.
This was the crazy pose I did when I ended the song on the Karaoke Stage. The energy was high!
Final Thoughts
We need to be flexible and adapt to what we need to do in certain circumstance. Work is usually the place where we must make the changes to fit the tasks that we are assigned to complete. When there is not an option, then we are forced to create a new dimension of ourselves. Those who fail, or more like refusing to do so, are often the ones who find themselves stuck in an endless pit of struggle filled with failures.
I think having internal self-talk conversation with yourself is important. In my example, telling myself that when I am on the stage, on the spotlight, whether it is at a speech contest, at a lecture hall, or at a Karaoke stage – I am a performer, I am here for my audiences, my students, and my listeners. I’m here to teach, to inspire, and to entertain. Nobody want to see a shy, hiding in my turtle shell and being small, or a person who is lack of confidence. If you can overcome your internal self who keeps telling you that you can’t do it, that you won’t win, that nobody cares about what you say, and all those negative thoughts – you will realize you are capable of doing things that you never think you can do, and doing it with much better results than anyone would ever expect you could do.
Empower yourself, build a new you!
If you haven’t started building a new dimension of yourself yet, today is a good day to start. This isn’t something you can create over a day, a month, or even a year. It is something that you have to continuously push yourself to face adversity and just give it all in. Remember when I said I practiced my contest speech for over 100 times? I was not over-exaggerating. It was probably the ONE thing that I did in my life where I actually pushed and forced myself to do EVERY DAY for a long duration of time (a few months). The final result is HARD WORKS PAID OFF, and that was the turning point and marked the completion of my new dimension.
I am eager to write about the topic of work this time because I just signed up for a 52h work-week this coming week!
I work in a hospital, and my regular job is pretty consistent with a 40h work week, which is pretty neat. About 2 weeks ago, the hospital offers opportunity for double-pay work for anyone who is willing to help out at the Covid lab due to an unprecedented surge of Covid testing around the country (most likely due to Omicron). The lab experienced almost triple the amount of volume than before, and so asking staff from other lab areas internally to help will be able to save the temporary surge, without having to hire any new people – which they won’t need for a long term as Covid will cool down after the peak. So they rather pay existing staff double pay to help with this urgent needs for the short term, which I think is the right move for the hospital.
Well, double pay, meaning you’re making 100% more than your original hourly salary! Within 2 days, over 120 people signed up for the job, including myself. I spent a full 8h day to get trained on the simple task – all I did was to take the Covid samples out of the bag, verify the identify of the label to the computer screen after scanning in the barcode, then place a new processing label on the tube, and finally drop the tube into a bucket of dry ice to keep it frozen until the lab process the test. And you repeat, repeat, repeat, for hundreds of tubes coming in throughout the day.
Now I am trained, but then I found out that the double pay only last till the end of January. That means there’s only 1 week left! So what do I do? Well, I go all in! Anyone would do that! I tried to sign myself up to hours that are still reasonable to me to work, while not interfering with my regular day job. I ended up approved for these hours: 4:30-6:30 AM for a few days and then head to my normal job. There’s a day I start at 12:30AM and go till 6:30AM. Then on a Saturday I got 8:30AM-12:30PM. Anyway, that’s because they were full on the earlier hours, otherwise, I would start at 4:30AM on a Saturday.
This is where I signed up my extra 12h of work this coming week will be. The Styrofoam boxes may contain dry ice to keep the samples frozen. It’s a massive lab.
I have never worked overnight before or been up all night before in my life… so this will be interesting to juggle my sleep hours. But at least this horrid schedule will only last a week, I think? I would be worth it when you think about working 1 day and get paid for 2 days of work.
What’s work really mean?
We spend an average of 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime, that’s is 11,250 days of work based on a standard 8h/day. That comes out to be around 30.8 years of working day (so you’ll have to add the weekends and holidays on top of that as this is an under-estimation). Still, let’s just round it down to 30 years for simplicity, that is 3 decades worth of our life is spend on working alone. That’s quite a long time if you ask me.
Why do we work? Obviously for the money. I mean, let’s be honest. They wouldn’t even get 12 people to sign up to help with Covid if they were asking people to work for free. But with double pay, 120+ people signed up in a matter of 2 days. We tend to think money = greed and we shouldn’t be following the money. However, the reality is cruel and depicts the truth. We work for money, that’s the #1 reason, whether we admit it or not. The more money they pay, that’s where our eyes and noses follow.
I found this photo that is quite interesting. Almost 2h/day from our work, the $ goes to tax… which I’m sure a large portion of my “double pay” is going to Uncle Sam’s pocket, not mine. It sounds like a lot of money, but after tax, it isn’t really as much as I think…
What’s work really mean other than money? Well…
Employment during the pandemic.
Needless to say, it is everywhere on the news. STAFF SHORTAGE is everywhere, literally. Another keyword “The Great Resignation”. The last 2 years have turned the world upside down due to Covid19. You would think a bad economy would mean there isn’t jobs around… nope, it is exact the opposite There are plenty of jobs, people just unwilling to work and fill those positions!
I wonder what do those people do after they quit the job? Did they find a replacement? Or they just live under unemployment fund from our tax money? The “Great Resignation” is a real “thing”.
Front line worker? No thanks, nobody wants to get exposed to Covid and then spread it to their family at home.
On site work? No thanks, remote learning works, and so why should I go back and work in the office? Save me commute time and gas money. I’m going to quit my on-site job and find one that is remote. Yes, not every job can be remote, but those remote jobs are probably more for the higher paying professionals like people in IT and management positions.
Ok, so what is the meaning of work? It is hard to answer this question without coming back to the $. People are demanding higher pay, better working environment. Many jobs now are being asked to do more with less coworkers, while salary barely increase – not to mention a record high inflation of more than 6% in 2021. Price of everything is going up everywhere… in the mean time, wage is something companies refuse to increase (while they increase the cost of their products/services and make record revenue and profit in 2021). That’s why I said everyone (including the corporate, regardless they are for profit or non-profit) follows the money.
Ok, put the money aside, what does work mean?
I’m not going to turn off all the other benefits about work. With the money topic aside, then work is something I feel is very important to me.
It makes me feel useful as a person. I would imagine if I am unemployed, and stuck at home, and I can’t find someone else to hire me. What does that mean? That means people don’t value me and think I don’t worth them hiring me. In their eyes, I’m not worth any value. So having a job really shows that there is a price tag in me, and companies are paying me an annual salary of XXXX amount to keep me doing whatever they want me to do.
I contribute to the society. While not everyone, but I want to say that I take pride of the job I do at a hospital. Even a temporary part time job doing something quite mindless like tracking in a Covid sample that any simple high schooler can do, I consider myself a front line hero in this fight against the pandemic by being part of the team that provide Covid test results to people.
Unemployment can be a really unhealthy thing…
Preventing mental disease. This may sound like a stretch, but it’s not. If you don’t have a job, you are going to feel worthless, and you are going to develop mental issues such as depression. I mean, if I sit at home all year long and got nothing to do (even if I get to play my favorite video game every day at home), I would be bored to dead. Over time, you will become so lazy and unmotivated to do anything. You can’t even have a life because you’re broke and no money to spend on entertainment other than eating cheap food and stay on your couch watching TV all year long. Other people around you are going to look down on you and nobody is going to respect you, and you start giving up on yourself and that’s how mental attacks come about. I didn’t even mention about the financial stress of not being able to pay for bills and such yet.
We all do need a job.
So in conclusion, we all do need a job – not just because of the money, but because it represents our value in society, our ego, our dignity and how others view us, and also our mental health. Now you get a lot of people complaining about how terrible their job is and how they hate their job and how they wish they don’t have to be at work and blah blah blah — true, there are crappy jobs out there, but that’s a different topic. You do need a job regardless, and having a crappy job is better than having no job. It almost serves as a motivator, a reason for you to get up early each morning to fight and live each day (as oppose to your weekend where most people just decide to sleep in and be a lazy bug because they don’t have to work – everyday will be like that for the unemployed who lost motivation to fight).
Now, how do you get a job that you want or get a job that’s NOT crappy? That’s a topic for another blog. Most people don’t even know what they want to do while studying in college, or even AFTER college, and wasted all their time of and money getting degrees that won’t get them to where they want to be. You see people in their 30s or even 40s who are still sitting in the classroom, figuring out a new career that they “think” they want to pursuit. The problem with this country is people are so encouraging all the time, and everything is so positive that everything will be okay – that’s the message the kids get since they were young students. “You can grow up and be whatever you want to be, as you have your freedom to select what your soul want to pursuit” – then you create a bunch of graduate with an Art degree, sociology degree, religion/philosophy degree… degrees that don’t really get you a job (or decent job with decent pay or stable income). But again, that’s for a whole different blog for another time.
What is my 52h work week going to mean for me?
Well, I’m not going to sugar coat it. It is going to SUCK. Waking up at 3:50 AM in the morning, driving in the bitter cold of sub-zero temperature to work, not to mention of the terrible slippery snow condition possibly. After that, I have to hop on the bus and get to my regular job and work another 8h.
01-22-2022 I stepped out of my car at around 4:20AM, bracing for the frigid cold and sub-zero wind chill as I headed into my overtime work.
But no, I’m not complaining, because I signed up for it. And the double pay? That’s my biggest motivator. Maybe I’ll spend a portion of that extra cash on rewarding myself, just squander it away for some fancy item I find on Amazon or something. In the end, I’ll be happy with the extra cash I make from this week of extra work. Plus, the extra work I take on is actually very easy task, sitting on a computer, clicking some buttons, unpacking tubes, mindless work that is stressless, and getting paid twice the amount I normally make… so why not? I will just be challenged with my sleep hours as I probably won’t be able to sleep during times that I normally don’t sleep. But we’ll see. If you are so tired and exhausted, you can sleep during bright daylight.
Many people recognize this song from the Disney’s animated film “The Little Mermaid” back in 1989. As for me, I have never watched this film before and therefore didn’t come across this touching song until several years ago. I didn’t discover exactly this song, actually. I was looking up some Toastmasters (a public speaking organization) Speeches on YouTube, and I found a video of a guy singing at a Toastmaster club. Yes, the song he was singing on the stage was “Part of Your World”. However, he substituted the lyrics to tailor it to a public speaking settings to motivate other fellow toastmasters in the audience. I was moved by the lyrics and of course enjoy the tunes of the song as well, and that eventually led me to find out that this is from a Disney’s animated film.
I think the lyric is the soul and mind of any song, and as I mentioned before, I was really touched by the song. Because of that, I think it is worth to share my feelings and thoughts toward the lyrics of this song.
Background of the Song
“Part of Your World” was written by Howard Asman, composed by Alan Menken, and sang by Jodi Benson. The main story of this song is to express the mermaid’s strong desire to become human, particularly those wandering feet!
Lyric Analysis
Verse 1 & 2:
Look at this stuff Isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete? Wouldn’t you think I’m the girl The girl who has everything?
Look at this trove Treasures untold How many wonders can one cavern hold? Looking around here you’d think Sure, she’s got everything
Children comparing their heights with peers is a very common (trivial) thing, but we grow to become comparing more into adulthood.
As humans, we always seem to view others having a better life than us, comparing ourselves to other people around us. Often than not, it is very easy for us to see how others have a better life, but not too often we will see we are living a better life than the rest of the world. I think this first two verses are to poke at the idea that we often see how happy others people are and they have everything in their successfully life (a house, a spouse, children, material stuff, career… etc).
Verse 3:
I’ve got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty I’ve got whozits and whatzits galore You want thingamabobs? I’ve got twenty! But who cares? No big deal I want more
Always have the burning desire for more.
This part illustrates what we have in life. Sure we have this and we have that, but it is all superficial sometimes. No one can see what we truly desire deep inside. We have a burning desire for more, that’s the reason we keep living life each day – for more to look forward to.
Verse 4, 5, &6:
I wanna be where the people are I wanna see, wanna see ’em dancin’ Walking around on those, what do you call ’em? Oh, feet
Flippin’ your fins, you don’t get too far Legs are required for jumping, dancing Strolling along down the, what’s that word again? Street
Up where they walk, up where they run Up where they stay all day in the sun Wanderin’ free, wish I could be Part of that world
Be content and satisfied 🙂
This is the part of the lyric where the Mermaid reveals what her desire is and explains why she want to have feet so much. Putting that in perspective of life though, I see this is a very common thing we see. It is the basic desire of wanting whatever we don’t have. She is wanting feet because she has tail instead. And humans? I’ll sure there would be people who would love to trade their feet for the tail to live underwater and enjoy the amazing scenery with the fish and the beautiful coral. Another big point from these verse is that as humans, we often neglect and under-appreciate what we already have. As the lyric pointed out, you can jump, dance, and strolling on the street. In addition, we get to enjoy all the beautiful things on land that she can’t get under the water. It is because we have seen it too much, been on land for too long, that we no longer appreciated what we can take for granted. Sadly, we are always fighting throughout of life to be “Part of that World” (our desires), but sometimes not able to be satisfied and contented with what we currently have or where we currently are.
Verse 7, 8, & 9:
What would I give if I could live out of these waters? What would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand? Bet’cha on land they understand Bet they don’t reprimand their daughters Bright young women, sick of swimmin’ Ready to stand
And ready to know what the people know Ask ’em my questions and get some answers What’s a fire and why does it, what’s the word? Burn?
When’s it my turn? Wouldn’t I love, love to explore that shore up above? Out of the sea Wish I could be Part of that world
Hard work is tough, but because of that, when we reach the peak, we are more happy than things we can get easily without any work.
I feel this is the up-rise portion of the song where it is most motivating and touching. The Mermaid recognizes that there is a price to pay in order to obtain her desire of getting out of the water and being on land. She also shows her excitements by listing all the curiosity on land, one of which is fire. Relative to life, we know there is a price to pay for everything. There is no such a thing as free lunch, the saying goes. In order to achieve our goals, most often, we have to put in a lot of hard work and possibly sacrifice time and money, but that will be okay, and we accept it. That’s because of the rewards, that quench our thirst for curiosity, love, or whatever else we all desire to be – part of that world.
Final Thoughts
I like the song because it is motivating and touching. It really gives me a boost and make me want to spring out of my bed to work on what I always wanted to get done. It can be something simple like spending an hour or so to write this blog or it can be a bigger project or maybe a big resolution that I always wanted to move forward but never dare to jump out of my comfort zone to give it a shot. In the Toastmaster version, it is to encourage people to get on the stage and be part of the public speaking world, overcoming their fear of being in the center of the stage. In our version of life, it could be graduating school, finding true love, achieving financial freedom, or finally reaching that retirement age and it’s time to explore the world.
I think it is important in life to have these desires as they are the main force that keep us living each day. We need to have something to look forward to in order to keep moving, keep working, keep doing what we do each day regardless of how tired, how stressed, and have emotionally and physically drained we are. Because in the end, we know we will receive the rewards we have been working endlessly for in life.
Sometimes life can be harsh, and we may not get what we want in the end, and that’s why we need to learn to be content with what we have already. Having a balance view is very important for a healthy life. With that, I wish you also learned the lessons from the song and the analysis I extracted from it is profound to you. Let me know in the comment section what are your thoughts to the song or my interpretation of life in respective to the lyric 🙂
As Steve Jobs said: “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”.
The overall message is: Stay hungry, keep those desires, keep moving forward. Yet stay happy, be content, and stay away from stubbornness as life is never perfect.
I wish we all could be… part of that world that we desire to be! Happy 2022 all!
Note: here’s the YouTube link of the Toastmaster version that led me to this song in case those of you want to check it out. The guy did a great job changing the lyrics:
I’m someone who loves to listen to old songs. Today, I’ll share an old song that has very meaningful lyrics and good tunes. “Whatever will be, will be”… let’s have the world comes to us. The lyric of this song is so beautiful. In just 2 short minutes, it takes us through child-hood, marriage-hood, and parent-hood. Que Sera Sera! Enjoy!
Many of us struggle to find love, our true love, the perfect one, Mr. and Mrs. Right. Some people take a long time to find the one. Some people may never find one in their lifetime… and some, even finding their best soulmate and stayed together for many many years, they cannot escape the fate of a divorce. According to smudailycampus.com, the divorce rate in the US in 2020 was 40-50% percent! The rate of subsequent divorce (re-married couples) were even higher! That is basically half of the married couples ended up divorcing! HALF! That is an alarming number, I cannot emphasize enough.
I have to admit that I’m a pessimistic person and always look at life in the worst-case-scenario situation. I know that we should be optimistic about relationship and life in general, but the numbers are just too… factual… to ignore. Is there something wrong with this country? Something wrong with the people? Are half of us people are bad and selfish people? After all, why do people get married in the first place when they are going to just divorce when they encounter hardship/frustration? Didn’t they vowed that they would stay with one another through sickness, through the bad and good times? Actually, I have been ruminating on these questions for quite some years… maybe that’s why I am too afraid to get into a relationship. It is an uncertain and scary thing.
Today, I am inspired to share a story that I heard from a friend, someone who I think is so professional, so charming, and a woman who is always full of energy and intelligent! She has ended her relationship with a divorce – a 35 years of marriage. She is a great story teller, and I hope I can share it in a compelling way as she did, and we can have some thoughts together about this topic at the end of the blog.
The Story of XX
To protect her privacy information, I’ll just refer my friend here as XX (female chromosomes if you wonder why I chose that name – I’m a science nerd). Now XX isn’t the most beautiful person on the planet or super attractive, but she is not bad looking either. When she got her very first job at Jack in the Box at the age of 16, something unusual happened on her first week at the job. First comes XY (her husband), asking her out on a date. Second comes XYY (not important), also asking her out on a date. Now, XX is not someone who would be dating two boys at the same time, so she knew that she has to make a decision and pick one of them after their first dates, and each of the boys will only get one chance. She was never asked out on a date before, and so two dates coming by at once was really an unusual thing for her. After all, “we were once a youngster”, she said.
XX went out on separate dates with each boy, and she chose XY in the end simply because XY was able to make her laugh and that XY was funnier than XYY. XYY was devastated that he wasn’t chosen, and so he moved on. And so XX and XY continued their dating life, but broke up before High School graduation. After college, they got together again and married 6 months after that.
Women tend to like the guy be funny and able to make her laugh. But is it really the best factor to consider a partner? The ironic part is the person who makes her laugh may end up be the same person who makes her cry the most.
Throughout the 35 years of marriage, XX often check-in and asks herself if she is still in love with this man, and the answer was always “yes”. In fact, she feels that her love toward this man grows stronger year after year. She is always grateful and thankful for this relationship.
The reason for the divorce was not completely clear as XX didn’t explain it in detail during her story, but it has to do with XY is broken, and he just won’t fix himself up again. XX used an analogy of Humpty Dumpty – “All of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again”. The only way to piece back together is Humpty stands up and fixes himself, but XY was not standing up. XX just can’t wait any longer and so the divorce happened. It was very hard to “divorce someone you are still in love with”, and she still thinks of him as a family member, and her best friend.
Discussion
Flowers are like the relationship between a couple, they need support of the water and sun to keep blooming, just like people need continuous support from one another. If the water and sun stops, the flowers will wither, and ultimately die. Marriage is just the first step of a relationship challenge. How long and how far they can go depend on how much sacrifice and tolerance they are willing to spare to stay together. There is really no such thing as “perfect match” where every single thing and idea between two people are identical and 100% in agreement. If so, we might as well marry to ourselves (ie: stay single). While I certainly do not know the exact feelings that XX has went through with XY during the demise of their relationship, I could imagine it was painful and heartbreaking. A relationship started at age 16, and turned into a loving family with children, and ultimately wither and fall apart… that is the imperfection of life. Life gives you something good, but will also take it away… eventually.
Love (like flowers), requires day to day continuous care and attention to bloom.
Anyway, I was glad to see XX is pushing forward, being strong, and she did not even afraid to share this story. It was a life lesson and I believe she had never regretted her decision of choosing XY over XYY as a husband, as a best friend, and as a fellow flower in her garden of love. I wrote her a long letter to express my sympathy, and encourage her that single life is not all bad 🙂 At the minimal, our mind can stay in focus and one piece, our heart doesn’t ache, and our soul is free to do whatever we wish to do without tying ourselves to another person.
Final Thoughts
In my opinion, there are many reasons for divorce. One obvious reason is there are bad and selfish people who only care about themselves and only find a partner for sexual pleasure. The second obvious reason is people were young and they didn’t really spend the time to know each other and reflect deeply enough before deciding to make the vow. The third reason is what a friend explained to me, she told me that people change after marriage… and the person you marry afterward is a different person than the person you know pre-marriage. I am skeptical about this point, but I can see it can be true in a sense because when you live together, there are a lot of new friction and conflict that got introduced to their lives that were “hidden” before during dating life. To me, I don’t think the person changed, but rather, was hidden before or just the situation was never countered before until after marriage (ie: children education style, living with parent-in-law… etc).
The worst thing parents can do is to fight in front of their children, and the victims of the divorce are also the kids.
The 4th reason, to me, I think this would probably be my top reason to divorce someone, is the lost of interest over time. The flowers need to continued be empowered by the water and sun… lot of time when a couple got married for so long, they have known each other so well that life has became a routine cycle of “Work, home, dinner… repeat”. So to me, it is important to find someone who is not boring, have an open mind, and willing to explore (or at least support from behind) new things together. Time commitment is a big one. You can try dancing, singing, quilting, video gaming, swimming, wine-making, skating, volunteering, traveling, board gaming, hiking, camping, story telling, joining clubs – chess club, book club, photography club, math club… so on and so on. The list can go on that the couple won’t be completely finished until the day they die. If you can find a person who is willing to just say “yes” to everything you propose, then you found “the PERFECT (likely non-existing) one”.
Activities are unlimited, but the problem is finding the mutual person who is always there to do these with, and this require A LOT of compromises to make it happens (Ie: I don’t like running or reading :-p But I will compromise by reading 10 pages and running just one lap).
How about you? Why do you think there is such a high divorce rate in America? Have you heard of an inspiring story from someone you know that experienced something similar to XX? Or have you already found your soul mate and are living happily ever after? What is your secret to keep the eternal vow? Feel free to share a comment below!
I bought the New York steaks from Walmart a while ago. It came in a package of 3 strips. Yesterday, I transferred a piece from the freezer to the refrigerate to thaw it out slowly.
After work today, I picked up some mushrooms because it is a bit too meaty to just have rice and steak alone. I also took the steak out of the refrigerator, but didn’t remember to do that right away, so the steak was still cold by the time I cooked it.
Chopping the mushrooms + seasoning the steak
I chopped the mushrooms into quarter sizes and brushed the steak with Korean BBQ sauce + seasoned with some sea salt rubs.
Cooking time!
I sauteed the mushrooms, throwing in a little bit of random things that I found around my kitchen. I added soy sauce, cooking wine, dried shredded cilantro, and dried basil leaves.
I roasted the steak up until the internal temperature hits 160F (medium). I let the steak rest at room temp for several minutes before slicing it so it can maintain more juice. The meat was tender and easy to slice and slightly pinkish.
The rest of the time was just clean up the mess and pack my lunch for tomorrow at work… now it’s already 8:45 PM, and that’s my cooking night and pretty much my entire night.
Have you ever feel like you want to cook something good for yourself? Try to make something to experiment with food? Or is cooking dinner an ordinary day to day thing that you do? Well, it doesn’t have to be a fancy steak dinner. Sometimes it is just more satisfying and give you a sense of content when you actually work hard for your food rather than going for the easy way and just eat out.
Smile is free, but it will come with a cost of ego if I don’t visit my hygienist
Terrie000
Many people needs to see a hygienist, including myself, do you?
Dentists generally recommend seeing a hygienist at least twice a year to remove the plaque in our mouth. The danger of leaving it without care is the risk of plaque hardening into tartar, which will eat into tooth enamel and infect the gums. That’s basically the reason why all of us should see a hygienist.
My Story with my Hygienist
It all started back in around 15 years ago or so, with a dentist recommendation to my parents. When my parents became more informed, they started to take me and my brother to see a hygienist as well. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago when I established myself as a patient of a clinic in town, that I get to know my personal hygienist, where I have built a friendly relationship with her throughout the years.
Initially, I only went annually because, really, who wants to get have metal chopsticks poking and plastic faucet showering their mouth, and sometimes water can get excited and jump onto other parts of my face – in short, a day in the hygienist’s room was not something I looked forward to.
It didn’t take long for my personal hygienist noticed the black stains in my teeth were somewhat… prevalent, and she suggested me to come in twice a year. With hesitation, I agreed.
As a slippery slope, I was then advised to visit 4x a year due to my heavy stain. And don’t get it wrong, she was giving me her honest advice and tried to help me figure this out. While it is a bit embarrassing to admit, she asked me to show her how I brush my teeth (not exactly the right way the way I did it), the duration (my time was shorter), and whether I have other lifestyle habits that may contribute to the staining such as chewing tobacco or drinking soda (NA for me).
Anyway, I did the quarterly visit for a few years and incorporated the brush twice daily, flossing, and using a mouth wash to my daily routine habit. My stain problem got better, but I still have trouble with the corners because I usually miss those spots while brushing. Today, during my visit, she again gives me another helpful advice for that – to start brushing from the corners first as I will more likely to spend more time brushing on those areas if I start there first. That’s such a simple idea! It doesn’t hurt to try, so I’ll give it a try! Her other advice is to dip the toothbrush in baking soda (diluted in water) and then just brush the corners with it. I looked it up on google and it says don’t brush longer than 2 minutes with baking soda (I don’t plan to brush that long anyway, no problem), and seems like it has whitening effect to the teeth.
The Experience & the Lesson
Well, that story was kind of a slow progress of establishing a relationship with my hygienist. The experience also improved significantly since my teeth have less stain, because I won’t need a full hour in the room anymore. I can now get in and get out in less than 45 minutes.
Sometimes laying on the chair, looking up at the lights (see picture below), with the constant background noise of water flushing through the teeth, metal poking in the gums, it gets kind of easy to “zone out” for a moment. So why don’t use this time where you can’t do anything to reflect and contemplate about things? That will make the time past faster and you are being productive.
A day in the hygienist’s room is no longer a day that I dread about. I am not going to lie and say I totally looking forward to it either. I do have to say though, if there’s one lesson that I can get out of this relationship (or any in relationships in general), is: go with your own pace, cooperate and work with the other person, take their advises/feedback and give it a try – you don’t have to make it into your habit if you absolutely hates it, and after maybe 10 years of slow transformation, you may realize you’ve gone farther than you ever thought you would be.
What is your hygienist story? A dentist story? Or maybe… an epic story where you build a better relationship with someone over time that may not looked so smooth in the beginning?
My view of the ceiling, laying on the chair, observing the Christmas decorations while reflecting on thoughts. Note: it’s my hygienist’s hand. She was so willing to help me adjust the position of the light for a perfect photo shot when I told her I wanted a picture for my blog 🙂
Terrie's Blog 