100 Days to I Do

Day 46: Take a Walk

Chris is very big on walking, as are my parents, so I want to follow suit. My parents are in vibrant health with a very youthful air that belies their actual age.  They take 8-10 mile hikes every weekend, which is more than I can give myself credit for, though I've been quite faithful to my earlier pledge on breaking a sweat daily.

Taking walks to clear one's head is a cliche, but there's really nothing better.  Building upon yesterday's post about compartmentalizing, I think walking is one of the best way to separate one phase of activities to the next.  

As the weather (hopefully) gets nicer soon, I will be taking my walks, sometimes with Chris, other times alone, right after work, or in the early mornings, with long strolls and hikes woven in throughout the weekend.

Day 47: Compartmentalize

If you had a bad day, do you ever, intentionally or not, take it out on your partner or family members?  What do you do to avoid this from escalating to more than venting?  

I've so far avoided taking a bad day out on Chris, but I can see how easy this may become, when he is the closest and the most readily available person to witness me in my worst of moods and the most severe state of irritation. 

I'd read a biography of George Soros (yes, the multi-billionaire one) where people were marveling on his superb ability to compartmentalize--no matter what emotional or mental turmoil he was going through in his personal life, he was able to put it completely aside and place his attention on work wholly.  It does not say, however, if he focused on his family and personal matters with such whole attention when he was outside of work.  Nevertheless, it's a quality I admire.  It's something that superior athletes must also be able to execute, time after time.  If Tiger Woods is to ever come back and re-establish himself, he must put aside everything that has gone down in the past several months and excel on the field.  That, I imagine, would take some serious compartmentalization.  Come to think of it, he already was extremely good at compartmentalizing if he was able to keep up with the multitudes of lovers as he seemed to have....but back to the point.

A helpful strategy is to "wine down" after we get home, so we can talk about our day, not just on surface details but on things that you wouldn't mention casually just to anyone.  Real impressions, thoughts, philosophies, what not.  This allows us to let each other know if we felt less than ideal about anything about our day, but it's also an act of letting it out of our system, so we can either move on, or discuss it further.

Day 48: Hire a Cleaning Service

Ah, I don't like this one.  I hate how the term "maid service" smacks of the old class system, and how privileged it makes me sound to be able to afford someone to come and scrub my toilet.

However.

It must be confessed that Chris and I, though in possession of many lovable qualities (at least to each other), are not particularly strong in keeping things sparkling, lined up in tidy rows.  We're decent, we're not germy, and we do clean up after ourselves, but when things are crazy, as they are now, we do let the dishes pile up, the recyclables overflowing, and sometimes...gasp...dust bunnies even play picnic under our bed.

So, in the spirit of #55, accepting help when someone offers it, I decided to go ahead and ask for help, even if we have to pay for that help. 

It's kind of like applying concealer after a too-long night out...I'm not proud of what I'm hiding or paying off to fix, but it certainly helps as we navigate these tricky last weeks of organizing the biggest event in our lives. 

Days 57-49

The Great Snow Week 2010 was as exciting as it was disorienting.  Threw me off my daily routine and returning to life as it was before the snow felt somehow against the grain.  So today, in lieu of delayed batch of catch up postings, I am sharing you a week's worth of the Most Boring Tasks of my 100 Day to I Do Project.  It's stuff that I've been meaning to post but didn't much fancy writing about because it's, quite frankly, not too fun to write about.

 

·         Day 57: Do my taxes in February (so I am not scrambling to get it in a week before the wedding)

See?  I told you it was dull.  No unimportant, though.

• Day 56: Meet with a financial planner with Chris

Keeping detailed record and track of finances is neither of Chris nor my favorite activity.  To make up for this disinclination, we need to take action and plan for our merging financial future together and prepare for it actively.  Boring...I wish this whole money thing were more fun for me.

• Day 55: If someone offers help, and you need it, accept it

This is a bit more abstract, but these past couple of weeks I've spent a fair bit of time delegating tasks to our families and friends.   This doesn't sound like much of a task, but I'm sure you all know those instances where you are so scrambled up about what to do to solve a set of problems that you face that telling another person how to help seems to take longer than just doing it yourself.  What I did not realize, though, is that the very act of asking and explaining a task to another person is the best way to sort out the problem, and even better, you engage a whole another brain to solve the problem with you.  I don't think every group work is worth the effort (as everyone involved in group projects at school can attest), but I think it's well worth learning how to ask for help well.

• Day 54: Keep Up the Work!

And I really do mean WORK when I say work--the work that deposits neat little packets of moneys to my bank account every two weeks or so.  I like my job and am grateful for it.  I had the nerve to quit my job because it was "boring" and look for another job in a really bad bad recession, and I was lucky to be able to trade it in for something that wound up suiting me much better.  It's very easy to get cynical, blase, or complacent about work, especially when other areas of your life kick into high gear.  I'm vowing to do my best not to let myself fall into that mentality

• Day 53: Drink more water

Nothing fancy or especially meaning laden about this.  I don't drink enough water, and this is a good time to start as any other

• Day 52: Begin a collection of recipes for groups

This is actually a really fun part of the project for me and probably deserves its own post, but here's the basic idea:

I love cooking, but I'm not an experienced cook for larger groups of people.  I'm most comfortable cooking for two or three people; any more than 4-5 people, I get a bit flustered because there are so much more things to peel, dice, saute, deglaze, etc etc.  I also love experimenting with new recipes, so I hardly ever cook anything more than twice with the exception of basic things like omelets or pasta.  I also don't really have a written recipe collection--I look things up online, email them to myself, and forget about them thereafter.  

It occurred to me that I may come to regret this haphazard approach when I actually have a family to feed or entertain larger groups of people, so I am starting a "best of my cooking experience" recipe collection--on paper.  I'm starting with the Best 10, and keep on adding at it.

• Day 51: Floss

Another glamorous pledge, I know.  I won't bore you with this.

• Day 50: Contact the Interdependence Project NYC

I'm on their facebook page and am very impressed with the quality and frequency of their events.  Moreover, it's exciting to me that the group seems to be run by young, more "mainstream" folks who are not into the esoteric, ritualistic aspects of Buddhism or mysticism of any kind.  I'd like a platform like this in DC, so I'm going to contact them and see if there are any plans; how I can help, etc..

·         Day 49: Post every day!

I'm renewing my earlier resolution to actually write a whole entry and post here every day.  7 weeks to go!  MORE THAN HALF WAY THERE!  It's starting to feel real, and that's a good thing.

 

 

Day 58: Interraciality, Part Four

The Parents.

Because of Chris' and my relatively brief journey to engagement (a little more than a year, and it'll have been less than two years that we met on our wedding day), I had not really reflected on the potential consequences of our union to our respects sets of parents.

Both of our parents have been married for over 30 years, and have been devoted, loving parents to us all of our lives.  For me, though, I am so used to thinking of my parents in that very specialized context of a child that I have a hard time imagining what type of personalities they prefer to socialize with in the adult setting, and how they develop their relationship dynamics with others.  Perhaps that is different for you, but for me, it's been difficult to pinpoint my parents' social characteristics into a logical, coherent whole.

Partly because of this, and partly because of the language barrier that would inevitably be a part of any potential encounters between my parents and Chris' parents, we never suggested that they meet.  It was not because I was afraid they would not like each other or some embarrassing sequence of events would ensue, but because it simply didn't seem necessary.

But my mom suggested that she and my dad meet Chris' parents, and his parents readily agreed, which made me think about this a bit more.

Until Chris and I have children (goodness, it keeps coming back to this and I don't mean to, but it does seem pretty integral to this marriage thing, doesn't it?), the relationship between my parents and his parents won't matter too much to anyone, as long as it isn't based on active dislike.  But once we do have a child, it is crucial that both sets of our parents can mutually respect and compromise in the time and influence they will have on this child, and become a harmonious source of love. 

I am not naive enough to imagine that this will be without its tension, but I think starting to think about this now, talking it over with Chris, and with our parents are important prerequisites if we're to minimize tension and hurt feelings and channel all that love that will be pouring out onto this child in the best way possible.

Yep, I really seem to be getting rather ahead of myself here, but I am recognizing the importance of this as our parents finally meet one another in two weeks. 

Day 59: Interraciality, Part Three

Here is my resolution: if a satisfactory set of tools and community do not exist for parents raising bi- or multi-racial children, I will create one. 

I'm going to get super lame and use my day job project management methods to outline my plan:

1) Take an inventory of current offerings on parenting multiracial children

2) Contact the owners and other relevant stakeholders of selected current offerings

3) Develop vision for an ideal forum and resources for multiracial parenting

4) Conduct a gap analysis between the current state and my vision

5) Create a business plan addressing those gaps

If any of my current coworkers are reading this, you guys are probably throwing up on your screens right now.  I sincerely apologize.  

Day 60: Interraciality, Part Two

A note: I know "interraciality" isn't a word.  I just don't like any words that ends with "--racism" so I've decided to use a made-up word to express the same concept.

Continuing from yesterday (well, really a few minutes back because I'm doing another batch posting today)'s point about the fact that Asian women and Caucasian men like to marry each other in America these days, Chris and I have discussed several important ramifications of this (we're not going into the sociological causes of this so-called phenomenon in this medium...perhaps another time in another place).

The major factors we have considered are:

1) Education of our potential children

2) Communication/relationship between his and my parents

3) Where to live/study/work abroad

I will devote this entry to factor #1 because it is, far and away, the most important aspect of our interracial union, and truth be told I've shed many an alligator tear in front of befuddled, poor Chris because I was so anxious about my imaginary children not knowing any Korean and hence, not being able to have imaginary conversations with my parents.

A quick Google search reveals that much of the discussions about parenting of biracial children are, and with good reason, focused on those born of the African-American and Caucasian unions.  There is a smattering of academic papers, but none appear to be too recent and they, too, deal with black-white biracial children.  

On a side note, I had a rather touching, bittersweet episode at a company dinner some years back when I visited a lavish mansion of a company executive for a pep rally dinner event.  The couple was white, as well as most of the guests, but there came running downstairs two adopted Chinese girls, aged 5 and 7. The older one immediately took a very strong interest in me, and continued to bring me her bilingual books half written in Chinese and the other half in English.  When I shook my head and told her I could not read Chinese because "I am not Chinese" she looked more than confused; she looked sad.  She didn't give up, but continued to bring me books. This made me happy and sad, because she was clearly going to live a very privileged life and two loving parents.  But it made me sad, because she was already cognizant of the fact that she was different from her parents and it was also clear that she was desirous of an adult figure who looked more like her.

Taking into consideration the surge of adopted children from Asia/China living in the United States, and the prevalence of Asian-White marriages, I think we are in great need of an interracial parenting/educational infrastructure.   I feel rather alone in this concern, probably because most of my friends in the same type of interracial marriages do not yet have children, and because Web is so devoid of targeted information/resources about this type of parenting.  

With or without external resources, however, I am determined to raise children who are cognizant AND proud of both cultures they embody in their genes.

To be continued...

Day 61: Interracial-ity?

I love the picture posted on the wikipedia entry for Interracial Marriage in the United States:

The caption is even better: An Asian bride and White groom at their wedding (2004).

And according to a nifty chart in this entry, nearly 20% of Asian American females are married to White male (2006).

Now, I could approach this in a couple of ways.  I could say, "Well, love is love is love, and I don't see color!  All I see is love!"

But it wouldn't be true.  Choosing a life partner is a multivariate equation, and race, culture, and family backgrounds are some of the more important factors in that complex jumble of formulae we must consider.

In my case, carefully thinking about and discussing the various issues that arise from our interraciality (?) has been, and continues to be, an important part of our 100 Day Project.  

To be continued...

Day 62: Link Up

One can't go it alone, and here are some of the resources that I've found useful in the various aspects of the project.  I've tried to list as many free resources as possible because pennypinching has never been in more style!

• Sane wedding/marriage advice: A practical wedding.  Looking at the Internet for wedding planning advice, you'd think only white girls with unlimited budgets and a dedicated event decorator got married.  I don't think this is such a grave injustice in the world that merits a rant, but it can get tiresome pretty quick.  This site offers some refreshing, authentic content.  "Wedding Graduate" posts from brides who recently had their weddings is particularly enlightening

• Non-religious pre-marital counseling: PREPARE/Enrich seems to be the most popular tools for couples to assess their relationship pre-marriage.  I know that practically all churches offer some sort of a pre-marital counseling and makes it mandatory in some cases.  I actually think this is a great idea and looked into it, but it quickly became apparent that it was way too shrouded in dogma for me to be comfortable with.   There are also a host of pre-marital books that are sitting on my bedside table now, and Chris and I went through one of them that I may blog about in the near future

• Meditation Guide: I've linked it before, but this is a fantastic free resource on the why's and how's of mindfulness meditation.  

Day 63: Checking In

Let's see.  After posting a deluge of semi-drafted posts from the previous week, I believe I am caught up.   63 days...a mere 9 weeks away from the 100th day of 2010.

I never thought it would be easy, but crafting thoughtful, well-composed entries about weighty matters while working full time and planning for a wedding, along with working out and meditating every day, has been a challenge.  A fun, worthy, and energizing challenge, for sure, but not something I've been 100% successful every day.  I'd give myself a healthy 90% success rate, though, and I want to use today to jot down my impressions thus far.

Handmade guest goody bags with our initials 

Almost as soon as I started this project, I began to think of this blog as not so much as finished product, but a progress report, an idea book of sorts, where I remind myself of the things that count, and share the experiences, thoughts, and ideas that I think are helpful in my 100 days in the hopes that it'll help others in the same situation as well as become a good resources for me as my 100 days become 100 days of our married life, 200, 300, 1000, so on and so forth.

I feel very good about where Chris and I are, more than 40% into this 100 day project.  Just a smattering of examples: Chris is learning Korean, and our dance lessons, as hilarious as they are, are going well (it's worth another entry of its own).  We have gotten our parents involved in a project that really delves into our respective family's histories and backgrounds; our parents are also coming to DC in a few weeks for a visit where they will meet for the very first time (also worth a standalone entry!).

On the career front, while we are both enjoying our current positions, we are also actively discussing where we will be in 1-2-3 years from now on, and how it'll fit in with our other life goals.  It's a timely discussion, and we have many action items resulting from our discussions.

Wedding--after a few weeks of actually feeling stress over it, and aghast at the fact that I wasn't above the stress (never a very helpful attitude, toward myself or others), I got over it.  Not the stress, but the fact that I was stressed.  

Of course I am stressed--wedding planning is akin to staging a play where I am the director, producer, lighting specialist, costume designer, AND the lead actor all in one.  And this is all before the emotional significance of it all even starts to kick in.

So I accepted the fact that I am allowed to experience stress, then I found, happily, that my stress level went way down.  Talking over some of the causes of my stress with Chris also helped, as many things that I think are important are actually not, and he helps me see this better than anybody.  The whole process reassures me what a good partner Chris is, and that has also made me stress less. 

The 100 Days to I Do Project, I believe, is helping me create a virtuous cycle of action, reflection, and reminder between myself and Chris--something I hope to sustain in our lives always.