I've just had two indulgent, albeit different, weekends. Two weekends ago, I did absolutely nothing -- puttering about the house doing personal projects, getting plenty of rest, taking my aunt and uncle out to dinner at Shao Shao Ke (mmm, Shaanxi food -- fish in citrus sauce, roasted pork ribs), and having lunch with the lovely Mike Co and Ming.

Mike has always reminded me of my college crony, Kuo: both good, solid, mid-Western guys who are always patient with and look out for me. And now that Mike is with Ming, the similarities grow. I've always felt so cared for whenever I go visit Melissa and Kuo; and when I had lunch with Mike and Ming, I found the two of them so complementary to each other, and just wrapped in warm, fuzzy, soft cashmeres of feelings.

Last weekend was quite different. For the Double 10 long weekend, I flew to Hong Kong, where I met up with Melissa (along with one suitcase of her belonings), and my cousins Pei and Yuan-yuan. We girls had quite a weekend that included lots of catching up, dim sum at Victoria Seafood, crab (both the traditional and the "hairy" kind--the English translation doesn't sound very appetizing, huh?), tea, divine chocolate banana cake, colon hydrotherapy treatments, and shopping. Pei, Yuan-yuan, and I realized us cousins hadn't had a meal together in months, and seeing Melissa before she ventured off to big, bad Beijing was ever so good.

So, one weekend like a cashmere blanket, and another like a sparkling glass of champagne.

Melissa left yesterday to eventually end up in Beijing, where's she's accepted a new job--yet another friend made in Taiwan who moves on. That doesn't mean our friendship is over, of course. I have some friends whom I stay in touch with with more when we're in different countries than when we are actually in the same community. Thank goodness for email and instant messaging systems.

P.J. Hamel, the editor at King Arthur Flour, wrote this in the latest Baking Circle newsletter:

Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, Katharine S. White (that would be E.B.�s wife) and Elizabeth Lawrence� While each of the women in these two famous letter-writing pairs considered the other her closest friend, they spent very little time together, meeting only occasionally. Instead, letters flew back and forth regularly, taking the place of face-to-face (or telephone) conversation in an era when communication wasn�t nearly as simple as it is today.

Perhaps it isn�t communication that�s simpler these days, but merely the technology that carries it. Has it ever been easy to speak what�s in your heart? Or to put down on paper what you truly feel, and then mail it to someone? Opening your hidden self to the scrutiny of others can feel dangerous. What will she think of me? Will he still like me?

Here are some things I�ve learned over the years. Set fear aside. Tell the truth about yourself. Admit your shortcomings; we all have them, why pretend otherwise? But don�t criticize your friends. (As a line from one of my favorite movies has it, �Only God can point the finger.�) Take care that your own garden is well-weeded and watered before hopping the fence and working on someone else�s. If you�re invited into the garden, however, make your pruning very gentle; advice doesn�t necessarily need to be preceded by criticism.

At work, praise lavishly, and deflect kudos onto your co-workers; but take responsibility for failure onto your own shoulders. Do more than what you think is your fair share; the other person is probably doing likewise. Accept different work styles; there are many paths to reach a common destination. If it crosses your mind to criticize a co-worker, think before opening your mouth; if, after thinking about it, you still feel like opening your mouth�think some more. And, above all, work willingly, and with a smile on your face. Imagine how stress in the workplace would disappear if we all just looked happy!

And this, I promise, will be the very last on a series of musings on friendship. For a while at least, anyways.

It's funny how things work. I long suspected something--my intuition has always been good at telling me what is going on, although I'm not always good at listening--but instead I pretend to ignore it. It festers in my mind and my heart, and gnaws at me day by day. But finally, after I acknowledge, instead of denying, and bring it out to the open, it ceases to bother me.

Lately my focus has been on healing myself, of holistic improvement. So I've been going to acupressure/Chinese tuina massage, and I started an acupuncture series. I've been trying to do slow down, to spend more time at home to recharge myself. It's a natural process, after all--a cycle of activity followed by inactivity. Restoring after depleting. I am also trying to do more yoga and belly dancing. Bryan Kest, whose yoga class I was able to take while I was in L.A., has the *best* philosophy:

Re-activeness creates tension. Discomfort is a part of life. Unwanted things happen, and wanted things don't happen. Our comfort zones get trampled. No one, no matter how wealthy or powerful, can escape discomfort. Yet within our discomfort, we actually have a choice: Shall I accept it or not? Accepting discomfort is intentional passivity. Non-acceptance is resistance.

...

The less reactive we become, the more accepting we are of ourselves and others, as well as experiences, and the more peace (balance) and harmony pervades our life.

Felicia came up this past weekend from Kaohsiung and I had the pleasure of her staying with me. Felicia is so thoughtful and perceptive, and she left me with two gems: sometimes a person's greatest strength is often their greatest weakness, and you can't be disappointed if you know a friend's weaknesses. Christine had a few gems of her own, too. What stuck with me was when she said I should be thankful for those times when people I thought were friends let me down, because then I learn, through no effort of my own, what they are capable of giving as a friend and how much they value the friendship.

I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many strong, smart, engaging, and thoughtful women here in Taiwan. This web of women has been a source of resilience. In Asia, I have learned to fully appreciate the value of my girlfriends--both those that are here and abroad.

Last weekend's edition of the Asian Wall Street Journal featured an article about how tough Asia can be for single western women. Among the challenges, of course, are that while career opportunities are often greater for women, socially, the opportunities are often lacking. Stan Sesser wrote, "single overseas-born Asian women living in Asia have their own set of experiences that in some cases may parallel those of single Western women and in other cases be totally different." The most hilarious line was woman who said, "Honey, Asia is single-man heaven and single-woman hell." Unlike the women profiled in the article, my life outside of work is not at all empty, and my girlfriends are in no small part responsible for that.

Happy Birthday, Angela and Zofia!

I read a great article in Tech Review today about using technology to name your child. Actually, a better description would be how to utilize technology to avoid giving your child a ghastly name. I've long said that children of Asian immigrants can often be easily determined by their names--they're the ones with names like Eugenia, Esther, Isabel, and Rosalind, names that were popular decades ago but are ones that no self-respecting native English-speaking parent would name their child now.

A particular gem from David Brittan:
The knowledge that Michael means �who is like God� might be a source of inner satisfaction for Michael, but it will always be his little secret. The fact is, our society doesn�t much care about derivation�otherwise people named Bertha (�bright�) and Kermit (�church�), beautiful as their souls may be, would not be consigned to what must surely be a living hell.

A Google Image seach on Bertram (one name my parents were considering naming my brother Galen) yielded this horrendous sight. Thank goodness I picked Galen, as this Galen is pretty easy on the eyes. I'm glad I had enough sense as a three-year-old to recognize that aural complement of Berta and Bertram alone was too much. A search on my name yielded much as I suspected: overweight Eastern European women of a certain age, dogs, and men.

As much as I dislike my name, it is me, for better for worse. At least it is unusual, so I've never had problems picking out an email address or username. And it's not like I could pick a name in Chinese. Now those all sound alike to me.

Lately I have felt like I am drowning in Things I Must Get Done. Take last night for example. The CAPT EC meeting ended by 9 p.m. I thought to myself that I had plenty of time to run errands and get to bed early. After I finished doing power yoga, I still had to finish up a load of laundry, hang clothes, wash dishes, pack my bags and prepare lunch for the next day...by the time I finished, it was well past midnight. The business of living takes up so much time, let alone my volunteer committments and trying to achieve my personal development goals...there's a stack of magazines and journals I should be reading. How does one do it all?