A Guy who is Willing to Hold Your Hair when you Throw Up

Yesterday is a tough day for my digestive system. I was having a stomachache since I wokr up and had been having diarrhea since then. I underestimated the situation and thought that I will get better as time goes by. However, that wasn't true. After half day of work, I felt so bad that I couldn't even sit properly at my desk, so I went home and took a half day sick leave.


As soon as I got home, I had some lunch and a couple pills, then went straight to bed after leaving a message to my boyfriend (BF) telling him how bad I was feeling and that I might not be able to go on skype th next morning.


When I woke up 4 hours later, BF's message appeared in my inbox full of love and care. Here's part of the message: There is nothing much I can do that is romantic. If you have been throwing up, I can at least hold your hair, but now you are having diarrhea, maybe I can get you some fancy toilet paper?

That makes me wonder how much it means when a man is willing to be there for you when you are sick and willing to hold your hair when you throw up. I believe that it happens when a man feels that he has the responsibility to take good care of you. It is a sign of commitment.

Most of the times, when you are sick, you want to stay home alone or be taken care of by someone who is very close to you. I used to have a very problematic digestive system when I was little and my mom used to be there sitting at my bedside the whole night just to make sure I am alright. She would remind me to take the medicine, hole my hair when I throw up and cook nutritious meals for me. When you are sick, you would feel like you are in your worst condition ever and you would only want someone who will love you no matter how you look to be there for you.

When you are willing to let your man to be there for you and your man is willing to be there for you, that mean your relationship has passed another stage, because you two no long are no longer just attracted to each other's appearance. There is something more than pure physical attraction, but there is trust and care as well. When a man is willing to hold your hair when you are throwing up, that means he no longer cares about the mess you are making and how bad it smells, he only cares about how you feel and he wants to make you feel better. This is not the way to define love, but this is one of the ways a guy would show his love. I still remember there was this once when I was drunk and BF took care of me, holding my hair when I threw up and staying up until he was certain that I fell asleep.

I hope that one day, all of you will be able to find a partnre who will still think you look amazing even when you are wearing your worn out clothes, throwing up, being sick or getting old.

The Girl who Gets Flowers in the Office

It is always a scene whenever the messenger delivers flowers to a girl's desk in our office. Today something similer happened and though I was not the lucky recipient of those lovely flowers this time, it reminds me of ther very last time I received a delivery of flowers from my boyfriend (BF).



It was our half-year anniversary and through a lot of challenges due to our separation geographically, BF finally overcame time differences and language barriers, and ordered a very nice bouquet that was delivered to my place in the afternoon.



When the delivery man pressed the doorbell, I opened the door and a lovely package was put into my hand. It was a little teddy bear pushing a cart of pink roses. I was so excited that I can't even recall my reaction except that I kept saying the package looks astonishing. I kept saying that until my mom got really fed up and told me to stop.



I always wonder why most girls, including me, have such strong feelings towards receiving flowers from men. When I was visiting BF a couple months ago, I used to receive a rose from him whenever the previous one wilted. Therefore, there's always a rose in our apartment that is dedicated to me. It is so sweet to receive flowers from BF and I always love looking at them at my free time. It is a reminder of love and romance that I obtained from this relationship.



I guess one of the reasons I can think of for girls' obsession towards flowers is that flowers have been a cultural symbol of love and affection since the very old days. There are scenes in movies of how men try to please women by bring flowers and people have come up with different meanings for different number of roses, as well as for different colours. Such a concept can possibly be implanted into ladies' mind from everything around. That's why whenever we receive a bouquet of flowers, we feel loved and special in the eyes of the sender.



On the other hand, there can also be a traceable reason as to women's love for beauty in general. Ladies are born with the inclination to care about their appearance in order to attact men, and because of this, they are also trained through experience to appreciate the beauty of the world around them. We want to be pretty as well as being in a spectacular environment. That's why some people say that females have better eyes for furniture and in decorating a place. That's also why most ladies tend to always have their eyes on beautiful decorative items such as jewels, purses and shoes. Flowers are somehow on a similar track that they are the beauty of nature and women simply want to own them.



Here I wish the girl who received flowers today have a relationship as beautiful and romantic as the flowers she received!

Dolce Far Niente

After watching "Eat Pray Love", I learned this Italian phrase - dolce far niente, meaning "the sweetness of doing nothing". This phrase captures the spirit of Italians in enjoying the passion of life without too much care and this has beenpart of my life which I try to stike a balance.

I am a person who likes to work hard to make my life better. However, I am also the kind of person who cannot work too hard and loses my own direction. I still remember when I went job-hunting earlier this year, the senior managers always ask me what my career inspirations are and how I see my life in the future. I tend to lie a bit by trying to demonstrate how passionate I am towards work and how much I want work to be an important part of my fulfilling life.

What I actually think is that I love my job, but my job is just a small part of my life which provide me with satisfaction in various achievement and sufficient financial resources that let me go for different enjoyment of life, such as traveling and pursuing further studying in areas that are not related to work. I always want a balanced life no matter how difficult it is to maintain. Outside work, I always want to have time for myself and people I love. I need to be able to spend time with all these people and to think through what I have been doing in order to be able to feel the purpose of my life. I want to be a woman who has things that interest her and keeps her mind occupied, as well as being able to put a lot of her attention into her family that she builds with her husband. For me, work and career cannot last forever, but then relationship with people can. When you walk through the path of life, it is love for people that allows you to leave footprints.

I enjoy my "dolce far niente". I regard that as a time when I can think through different parts of life and feel what my heart is telling me to do. The voice of your heart is always so soft that any kind of disturbance can cover up that little voice and lead you to the way where your heart doesn't belong. "Dolce far niente" doesn't have to be a time when I just lie down and do nothing, instead it is the time when I do things simply because I want to do them, but not that I am obliged to do them. It is such sweet moments of life that makes me understand what I really want in life and what has been giving me most pleasure. My mind loosen up when I just let my conscious and structured mind slow down and let creative ideas to flood all over my mind, telling me how much more wonderful my life can be. THe time when you enjoy the pleasure of idleness, you start to notice and appreciate the world and how much people hae worked around you to make you the person you are now.

If you ask me the word that represents me, I woul say "amor", which means "love" in Italian. I hope everyone can take some time off every day or even just every week, to enjoy your "dolce far niente" in your own way. I am sure this will make you find your life more colorful.

The Perfect Proposal

Every girl has a bit of fantasy as to how her man is going to propose to her one day. There are a couple components (sort of like a marking scheme) that girls would generally have in mind. If you get all those right, you would have given the girl her dream proposal. Here are some of my thoughts:

The Ring

Most guys are very aware of this. Though the general principal is that the bigger and of better quality the diamond is, the easier it is to please the girl, but it is also important to know the girl's style and this requires a bit of intelligence. It might not be wise to go to the best friend of the girl, as I think since you can't blame on her friend if she gets it wonr, why not trust yourself.

I personally think platinum and diamond is always a safe choice, since it goes with all skin colour. However, the arrangement of the diamond is the tricky part. My favourite is the one which there are little diamonds on the band next to the major one and the little diamonds should not be held in a way which makes the diamonds look like being in a tunney, they should be held individually next to one another.

One of the other elements which is seldom shown in those romantic proposal scenes in movies is the ring being too loose or too tight. Since my fingers are ridiculously small, sometimes I think maybe I should just marry the guy who proposes with a ring of the right size. Therefore, make sure you either steal your girl's ring for a match in the store, or you know her hand very well.

The Place

A lot of people like taking their girl to the place they first met for a proposal. I won't say this is a bad idea, but it actually all depends on where the two of you met. For example, my boyfriend (BF) and I met at a Chinese New Year dinner, so the venue is a Chinese restaurant. However, I guess I won't really want to go back becasue the place wasn't romantic at all and the food wasn't that good either. I think what girls care about the venue is how romantic the atmosphere is. If the atmosphere is right, even a proposal at home would be very memorable.

One of the most interesting proposal venues I have ever heard of is the cable car. I found it so intersting because the success rate has to be fairly high or at least the guy has to be very confident that the girl will say yes. The thing is that, first of all, you cannot escape in a cable car. As a girl, I find a guy using this strategy quite smart. Even if the girl hesitates in saying yes, the guy can use all sort of ways to convince the girl and tell her much he loves her.

The Time

The major reminder for this section is: never try to make a girl stay with you by proposing. Getting married or engaged is never a way to solve the problem in a relationship. If there is a problem in a relationship, proposing would force the girl to make a decision and would only make her more certain that she doesn't actually want the relationship. When there is a problem exists in a relationship, the only thing that should be done is to try and solve the problem with your partner. Marriage is a promise that can only be made when you genuinely want to make. If you don't, such will only bring you a lot of regrets.

I personally think the right moment to propose is when you think the relationship is healthy enough to take a further step and commit for life. When two people are deeply in love with each other, know that they are taking the same pace in life and ready to build a family together, then it might be time for the guy to propose.

Creatvity:

If you think about it, a proposal is actually a way of saying "I really love you and I am willing to be there for you for the rest of my life". It is a dedication for life and a creative and romantic proposal can definitely make the whole thing more memorable for the girl.

I once heard of a girl telling me the story of the proposal from her man. She was complaining before that the guy was no longer as romantic as when they just started dating. Then 2 weeks later, the guy started being very romantic and leaving little presents all over the apartment to make this girl feel so loved. After a week of such romance, it stopped. The girl thought that the guy has stopped being romantic again, but since he has tried, she was still very happy. 2 days later, the couple was looking at their photo album together, and at the end of the album was a written line "will you marry me?" When the girl looked up, the guy was already on his knees, holding a ring.

Isn't that creative and romantic? Every love story is unique and it always melts girls' heart when guys are willing to use different ways to tell girls how much they want then for the rest of their lives.

At the end, you might say that people get married when they really love each other and it doesn't matter if any of the above factors go wrong. I agree with this totally. I was talking about a perfect proposal, right? And life can never be perfect. Therefore, what I have been saying is what a guy can consider when they want to propose, but if they have enough sincerity, a girl can overlook all of these, because love can make everything perfect.

I wonder how my guy is going to propose one day! =)

To Infinity and Beyond

Is there a relationship that can go infinity and beyond? What does "I can see a future in you" mean? How far in time does "future" mean in that context? Does that imply "to infinity and beyond"?

Recently, my boyfriend (BF) and I are planning my trip to fly over to see him and the question "how far in the future I can see myself being with this guy?" pops up in my head with a very high frequency. I am the kind of girl who always wants to marry the guy I am dating when I enter into a relationship. If I don't think that way, I know I don't love that guy that much and I won't even want to enter in a relationship. It is like an investment of love that I would for someone I can see a future (long term prospect) in. However, I am starting to question myself on why I ask such a question.

I wonder why I need to know how long I can see myself being with a guy if I am seriously in love with him right now and how I come up with the conclusion that I think I can at least stay with him for a year or so.

One of the reasons that I ask these questions so frequently is possibly because we are a long distance couple. By being a long distance couple, BF and I always take very concrete steps to carry our relationship forward. These steps include making travelling plans together, having Skype dates and finding ways to give each other surprises. It is very certain that if we stop doing those things, our relationship can hardly work and we will never see each other again. The effort of ours is so apparent that it makes me think of where all these efforts will go at the very end. Am I calculating? I would defend myself and say no. The reason is that I don't care how much efforts I have put in if I know we will end up bein together. I don't care who puts in more effort and I don't even know who puts in more effort.

However, a question comes up recently as to how much in the future I have to be able to see in order to feel secure and comfortable. I can't think of an answer for his question and I also don't know when I will no longer need that kind of security. Is it when I am married? Or is it when we have spent 10 years together? I cannot tell.

My conclusion is that the "seeing a future" or not is just one of those abstract ways to see if I love the guy enough. Since I can never see the future, it's then all about gut feeling. It's all about a judgement of how much I think the two of us are for each other, how much security I feel from the relationship and how much more effort I am willing to put into the relationship regardless of the uncertainties.

When I Cried Over the Value of an XBOX, I found LOVE!

Today is a stressful day. It is stressful not because of work, but because of the unpredictable increase of air fare.

My boyfriend (BF) and I were planning a trip for me to see him in January and we would be spending time together on my birthday. We have been trying to get holidays at work, thinking through ways to minimize costs and what to do on my birthday. Today is the day to book the ticket and get everything done.

However, as we were clicking into the site with my passport and frequent flyer ID number ready, BF discovered that the price actually goes double because of the direction of the flight. Therefore, if he flies over, the price would drop half. We were shocked by such a difference in pric and we immediately enetered into a conversation about how to plan the trip all over again; whether I should still fly over, or he should fly over, or we should meet another time. We came up with the solution that I should actually fly over for Christmas instead of for my birthdy, because this solution would require us to pay more but give us more time together. BF therefore started a lot of research on discount vouchers as well just to see if we have any luck in saving some money.

After seeing BF working on it for quite a while, I started crying. I didn't even know why I cried, I just knew that I felt bad and wish everything can just go back to what I expected. BF was quite right in guessing that money is a factor for the outburst of my tears, but I would say it is not as direct a correlation as it seems. What I felt bad is more about our long term relationship. I felt like there will be way more bumps on the road we are going to walk together, we might end up spending more money on things normal couples don't have to. I don't know how long BF and I can maintain our very positive spirit among all these problems. I worry that one day either one of us just don't want to be bothered anymore and give it all up. We had such a beautiful relationship and those thoughts make me sad.

Thanks to BF who tried his best to understand me though I had trouble even expressing myself in the middle of all those tears. He told me how much he loves me; he told me that it is not a big sum and I shouldn't worry; he said that the sum of money we have to pay in extra would be the same as the amount he would have to pay for if Microsoft was not willing to fix his XBOX two months ago; he even said that if I feel that the additional amount is givin me extra burden, he is willing to share a larger portion of the cost. Yes, he is a caring boyfriend. He promised me that all of these are not annoyances to him and he feels way more annoyed when he got stuck in the traffic, while I said I wasn't annoyed at all about the traffice as I wasn't the driver. I was originally crying really hard and he made me feel a lot better. I can feel that he loves me; I know he has our future n mind; and I know he cares about our relationship so much that everything would be worth it to him as long as we can stay together.

I love BF and I am lucky to have him! Wish us good luck with this coming trip! =)

How Much Does Friendship Worth?

There are so many different kinds and levels of friendships. I have given a little bit of thoughts on how I feel towards friendship and I am trying to identify some of them on this post.

#1: Super Best Friends

Obviously enough, super best friends are the ones who are the VIPs of your friendship club. Super best friends don't necessarily have to have the same interests, but they somehow get along just perfectly. You may not think the exact same way as your super best friends, but you care about them and you are willing to be there for them when they need your support. Super best friends understand each other's thoughts, never judge and try to give their very honest advice when it's needed. Those are people who you treat as the angels of your life.

#2: Long-time-no-see good friends

I have to say I am not a very nice friend as I have never been investing a lot of time in friendship. I am not very good at catching up and I don't meet up with my friends very often. As a result I have a lot of these "long-time-no-see good friends". Don't get me wrong, I love these friends. They are wonderful people. It is just that I have never put enough effort as to meet them very often.

However, whenever I meet up with these people, I enjoy every single moment of it. I feel like nothing has changed. Yes, some catch has to be done, but it never feels like either of us has stepped out of each other's life for any time.

#3: Mentee-mentor friends

This is a very interesting kind of friendship. I have a couple little girls who were once my private tutoring students, but we are now more like friends. Seeing little girls grow is a rewarding experience, it is like going through my own youth all over again. There were moments when they were rebellious, moments when they need the advice on how to feel comfortable in their own shell and how to build up life that they want.

One of them actually said I am more like her sister, and I feel the same way too. We hang out, have nice dinners together, while at the same time, I would give them advice on school or life. It is enjoyable as well as fulfilling because I know I can help her in some ways. At the same time, they all remind me that I should try my best to live an upright life, as I have somehow become the role model of theirs.

#4: Post-love friends

There are always ex-boyfriends or admirers that you once have feelings on but you know things just won't work out between the two of you. THis is what I think post-love friends would come into play. Some people go against the idea of it because they can't face the fact that the romantic feelings are over and they worry about the triggering of more negative feelings.

I worry about that too, but I always find it a pity when I had such good feeling on a person before and now we can't even be friends. It is fate that puts people together and I wish I can treasure that enough. If both of the parties agree that it will only be pure friends without any lingering romantic feelings, then I think it is the way to go. However, if one of the parties is suffering from the residual romantic feelings, I think the smarter way is to let go.

#5: Group acquaintance

At work or in school, people form groups and somehow get to know the people within the group who are more like the friends of your friends. One of my experiences is that I don't really like one of the people in the group and I treat her more like an acquaintance than anything. However, since we are in the same group, we respect each other's existence, treat each other as obligatory friends and celebrate our birthday together.

As time goes on, the whole thing did not go well, I started getting a lot of malicious criticism from her and we ended up avoiding each other in later gatherings. From then on, I have been careful about group acquaintance. I prefer one-on-one friendship, because if we get along well, then we remain as friends; if we don't, then it's the end of everything.

#6: Fake Friends

This is a weird category to be put in a blog, but I have to admit that this does exist in life. I am not living in a fairy tale world, and there are times when I just need to be a friend of someone to maintain the harmony or to be a better player in the office politically ... However, these people are usually more like acquaintance. I like these people, but things haven't gone that far as I can open up as much as to a real friend.

For me friends are people I am willing to do a lot for and they are people I care a lot. When I am with my friends, I never have to worry about them getting mad at me, because we are friends and we forgive each other of unintentional offends. Friends never try to please one another, as we are already very pleased by being able to spnd time with each other.

Have you found your "real friends"? If you do, treasure them!