Insecurity

Insecurity, what a powerful thing. It changes one's character, judgments. It turns a nice person into a monstrous one. Why does one feel insecure? Many started developing their insecurities from their childhood. Children yearn for parents' approval, if they did not receive enough from their parents, the insecurity would start to form at an early age.

Most common form to express one's insecurity is to be aggressive. If one feels secure enough on what he or she represents as a person, then there will be no need to attack others to get anything or for any reason. People with insecurity also cannot take any criticism. People who are secure take criticism as a step toward bettering themselves, while insecure people take criticism as a threat from the others. Nothing from the others can possibly be constructive for insecure people. People who are insecure also tend to feel the need to validate themselves in front of the others. If they agree with the others, they have to voice the idea again themselves, so others Know that it is their idea also. If they disagree, they also have to voice themselves so they feel they are heard. Secure people don't have the need to voice themselves all the time.

Insecure people also tend to be indecisive. They might appear to be multi-talented, yet, they cannot decide on one rout to concentrate on, due to the fear of "what if". "What if this is not my favorite?" "What if I cannot do this as well as the others who are brilliant?" "What if I spend all my time with this, and loose touch with my other talents?" "What if I am not good enough at this to pursue it as a career?" What if what if what if.... The fear of taking consequences of their own choices... A life like that is tough and sad...

I definitely have my own set of issues with insecurity, but I now can recognize it in any forms of expression, and most of the time able to stop it in time before any further damage is done to my life. I will keep working at it until the day I die.

Messiah Organist On Crack

A friend sent me this link, absolutely hilarious!

Washington Ballet Nutcracker

This is the first time I have chance to play the Celeste part in the ballet. I had a wonderful time. Celeste is a hard instrument to play. The unevenness of the sound created a great challenge for me to deliver the sugarplum dance. However, I love the piece, love the various colors created by all the other instruments in the orchestra. Playing in the middle of an orchestra is definitely different from playing in front of the orchestra. I loved every minute of it. People are extremely nice also. Helpful, sweet, nice human beings. I am really grateful for the opportunity to be part of this. Thank you. Unfortunately, the Ballet Company is in trouble.

Here are my husband's words about this crisis:
I hope the management of the company really thinks and remembers why they were in the business in the first place. They are there to manage the product created by the artists, they are not there to manage the artists! I find the idea of some type of corporate hierarchical relationships extremely unhealthy in this case. In the corporate world that structure can work because both managers and their employees work on producing the same product. In the arts, there are artists who create the product, there are people who manage this product & relationship between the buyers of this product and artists. The only way you can have a well functioning system is when artists & manager work in partnership. That means that both sides have distinctly different set of skills and responsibilities. It also means that both sides should try to compliment each other instead of confront and abandon the idea of one party ruling over the other. Ignorant leadership is dangerous and that is exactly what would happen if one side would be in complete charge. If you make artists in charge of management, it would lead to a very substantial problems because very few artists have an expertise necessary in marketing, business development,...etc. However, if you have management which treats artists as a corporation employees or office workers, you run into problems of equal magnitude. Managing artistic resources is a very difficult task because the best possible product qualitatively is not always deliver by the biggest effort quantitively. For example, if you are a musician or a dancer, by spending 60 hours on a project in one week, you will not necessary produce better result than by spending 20 hours. The creative process demands artists to be in their best possible shape or form. That involves a very delicate balance between practicing enough, and resting enough, both physically and mentally.

So, these are my husband's thoughts. I agree 100%!

Management

This whole stupid WB thing really makes me mad! Do they actually want to help the artists/dancers or they are only B. S.-ing to see whether they can fool the musicians or not. So, we must look so stupid to them that they think we would actually buy their story. Did he (artistic director) even want to be there? I am so MAD!!! These abusive situations make me want to cry. Management really needs to go in the Art Business. Art business should be directed by collective efforts of artists and have middle (negotiator) men, and people run operations. Managements are blood sucking monsters!!!!!.

New Age/New Usage of Language from Taiwanese Middle School Kids

A friend forwarded this in an email. HA HA HA!


國中生的火星文

看一下現在的國中生的用語,真是特別............

很好笑喔
原來"史努比"也可以醬用啊

本文

明天要開56班親會，想必會來一堆歐氏宗親會的人。」「morning call的成績出來
了，爐主、顧爐、扛爐的還是那幾個宮本美代子的同學，要是我考這種成績，我媽一定AKS，罵我乾脆史努比算了。」


翻譯

明天要開無聊的班親會，想必會來一堆歐吉桑和歐巴桑。」「模擬考的成績出來了，倒數一二三名還是那幾個根本沒事做（台語：根本沒代誌）的同學，要是我考這種成績，我媽一定會氣死（台語），罵我乾脆死路邊(台語諧音)算了。」

Sacrifice

Sacrificing yourself to accommodate others is not necessary a good thing for oneself or for the others. I believe that sacrificing yourself for the other one is the death sentence for the relationship between two people. In most cases, between husband and wife, the wife somehow justifies the act of pleasing the husband by sacrificing her own personality, her own likes, her own dreams and many others. Many tend to spend most of the time and energy on taking care of husband's needs, children's needs, and being really not generous to herself. The end result of that usually is that husband keep on pursuing his dream, his interests, and two who started from the same place slowly walk different paths. The marriage can turn dull, cold, and unfulfilled for both parties. The husband might think that his wife's body and soul has disintegrated, and the wife might think the husband is being selfish. While from the beginning, making sacrifices was already the mistake. That is only a easy way out of the challenges. The fear to face the unknown, the not wanting to take responsibility for your own action. Sacrificing seem to be a noble and caring action, in reality, you are just letting the other party decide what you should be doing, so later on, if things don't go well, you don't have to take the consequences. One should be nice to oneself, and also be responsible for his or her own decision and choices. Be fearless!