在我们的生活中, 我们时不时不听到抱怨. 我也抱怨. 一个例子就是我的一个朋友, 多年来一直是好朋友. 他是个地产经纪, 所以我在买房子的时候别无选择. 可是呢, 在我找房子的时候, 他却一点都不积极. 我推一下, 他动一下. 后来我才知道, 他在代理一个2个MILLION的大客户, 没有时间理我. 那我就自己找房子, 而且找到了. 再后来, 他自动帮我选了CLOSING AGENT. 我表示是不是可以SHOPPING AROUND. 他口气中显出了很不耐烦,找个借口把我的电话挂了.  我让了步, 不选了. 类似的事情出了若干次. 我开始觉得不舒服了, 心想: 我是出钱的, 我有权利选择和谁做生意, 出多少钱. 如果是别的地产商, 至少不会吼我. 回家和老公抱怨了. 老公说, 哎, 人无完人, 你只能接受他啦.

 

想想也是. 如果人和人之间不走近, 你就看不到他/她的优缺点. 走近后, 缺点就显得突出, 而且因为距离的原因, 缺点就会伤得到我们. 我如果期待他有这些缺点, 我就当他是普通人来接触, 是怎样就是怎样啦. 其实这也是我们想要别人对待我们的缺点的方法, 不是吗?

 

再想想也是. 都说了, 要用自己愿意被对待的方式对待别人. 做人要宽容. 宽容的第一步是接受不完美.

 

让我们接受不完美吧.

 

早上起来跑步, 穿过绿绿的NEIGHBORHOOD, 呼吸着甜甜的空气, 不由得想到: 新的一天开始了. 小的时候我们是为明天而活着的.展望明天是生活中的一大主题. 到了生活的这个阶段, 才开始意识到, 其实我们的每一天象在抽屉里的卡片, 抽一张少一张, 有少不多呢, 而且每天时间可短了. 我们是不是该积极地往我们的日子中装添内容, 忙碌也好, 享受生活也好, 就是不能浪费在无意义的事上呢?

 

     

 

California Bar Exam is known as the hardest test in the states. It is well known that people from good law schools have to try 3, 4 times or even more. The record is one tried 14 times. I was warned because I have never been to law school in my life. I did not even sit in a prep course. All I have is material book and a tutor who tells me what I did wrong.

Long story short, I was very close on the first attempt. Without hesitation, I tried for the second time. I put my life on hold and give all my time to the test prep. So one day before my test result came out , I happened to talk with this friend of mine I knew from college. We spent a lot of time together in a "group" so we knew each other very well. When I told him that I was scared to death, he said,  you know you are at that level already. You can do it.  He said that as a statement of fact, not a compliments. Second day, he called again. I told him, yeah, I did pass. He again calmly said: " I am not surprised. Of course you will."

 

California Bar is very hard. It does test on a lot of rules and applicants' capability to apply the rules. This is beside the point. The point is that when you are climbing up a mountain, if does feel wonderful when somebody shows sincere faith in you. Gee, it feels good when someone believes in me.

 

I do have an eye for someone's talents and great traits. I always tell them. Now I know how great it feels myself, I will do it more. You?

Woke up in the morning and realized it was 19th of Nov. I also realized that it is my brother's birthday today. My brother is in China and 19th is actually yesterday. He called me yesterday morning to check on me but I did not recall that moment was his birthday. I did not recall when I called him back in the evening neither. Last year he wrote to me to say that everyone forgot his birthday! Guilty, guilty, guilty! I spent half an hour trying all numbers I have to reach him. I finally found him in the party with parents. Luckily they did not forget this time. I also called his friends and asked them to call him too.

 

It dounns on me that we spent way too much energy worring about why people who don't care much. Of course, it is not everyone's duty to show care and it is understandable that everyone has their lives to run, yet we almost forgot people who are by our sides all the time regardlessly. If we do, we are guilty as charged.

 

It also douns on me that my 6 years of working in Chengdu seemed to be such a short time. Why? because we had as many people who care about us as many who don't. Overall, we were happy. Happy days fly even faster. We have no right to blame people for not caring or showing caring because they are not obligated to. However, we should count the blessings for every instances when we are loved!

 

I miss Chengdu mostly because love is in the air, in Chengdu! It is love that makes the world better place to live, nothing else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to work for this company for 2 days. I went out with this girl. She is 26 years old or so. She was so open. On the way to her clients, she told me all about her: where she wnt to school, who paid for her tuition...how old her boyfriend was, where he was now and what he was doing...how she felt about this job...I can't say I learned everything about her but I can sense, if time allows, I could learn a lot about her. I enjoyed her complete honesty and I liked her. I pondered to myself: gee, I wish I could do the same.

 

In our daily interaction, we constantly judged what to tell, what not to tell and how to tell because we are afraid either the audience don't care to know or the sharing will someday backfire us. In most occassions, we just shut up in order to be safe. Over time, we don't even share with ourselves. However, we miss the joy associated with sharing. In USA, everyone lives in a me me me world. what happens to another soul at this moment does not matter. So we announce how much we love our families and leave friendship totally out. As the result, each one of us is lonely somehow and we can't say we really lived fully.

 

Trust too much, we will get hurt. Trust too little, we never lived. I hope each one of us finds the balance.

 

 

 

Another killer spree! Millitary Psychiastrist in Fort Hood fired more than 100 shots and killed 12 innocent people, wounded 31 of them. What a shock?! Not really! It happened more and more often. Virginia Tech, the mall in Chicago and last christmas at a family party....Why do these people do crazy things like this?

 

When my further research led me to the finding that the killer is a loner and has nobody in his life, I realized this has to be the root of the problem. The Korean guy in Viginia Tech was a loner too. Four years into his college, his roomate did not even know his name, neither his major. Same with the chicago instance and the chrismas party incidents. All of these killers are introvert and had nobody to turn to for distress. We human are like balloon. When pressured, we need to a outlet to release the presure. However, in America society, people always send you to a "professional" who would think of you as a weirdo or insane people to start with. Very few people have someone to go to to express their worries, anger and to go through their thoughts. Anger grows over time and sooner or later, it exploses.

 

Does that have to do with us? Of course. How many times do you want to talk to someone about something serious, you get a feeling that they don't care even to listen. How many times people come to you for support, you turn them away like they are crazy? Even worse, how many times you gossip over what people trust you with. Now we have enough lessons as to what loneliness can do to us, as a society, for the sake of compassion and the safety of society, we should somehow pay attention to other's joy and sorrow. I would emphasize this to those hyprocrites who talk about God all day long but refuses to show any interest in others' lives. I want to say to them, walk the talk! Now we are lucky, bad things have not happened in our vicinity, but if we keep ignoring others, and keep being a hyprocites, we will pay for it soon.

 

Let's listen! 

 

最近学着老公和老弟, 看文学城上瘾. 上面出了各种科技政治新闻外, 多半是对为情所困的男男女女的描写.  看着觉得好累. 当然谁都经历过. 记得一个INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER说过一句话: 人际关系就象是手上的沙. 你越捏得紧, 你就越什么都得不到. 人的感情本来就是象雾象云又象风的东西, 追是追不来的.

 

其实爱是不离不弃, 是靠时间堆积起来的. 再多的挑情, 时间短了, 都是沙地上的房子, 牢固不了的. 其实, 朋友也好,家人也好, 是你的就是你的, 争不来的.

 

我发觉每当我用心看了几个小时的书, 才懂得什么叫做知识就是力量. 知识的分量让你觉得踏实, 是跑不了的. 比如吧, 这两天我有空,  我喜欢看法律方面的书做消遣. 当我悟到法学逻辑和数学是相关的, 我可高兴了.  我们不是在追求快乐吗? 读书是一种快乐, 而且是自己给自己的

 

 书中自有黄金屋, 书中自有颜如玉

 

I read so much MSN and learned that guys are always looking for the next prey. Guys are described as heartless, emotionless, coward and handicapped when it comes to communication. I feel so sorry for single women out there. It seems that is getting almost impossible to find a non-jerk. In my life, I have met too many guys who don't appreciate intelligence, and who choose looks beyond personality. Overtime, I am disgusted by many men I met. I don't want to dig deep because I am under impression there is nothing there anyways. Of course, my friends and my family are in differnt category. They are too rare anyways.

 

Something tells me differently today. I went to Peiwei, a resturant near my house. I was waiting in line. In front of me were a couple who are slighly overweight. The lady had a short pig tail, wearing something very casual. It'd be fair to say that she is next door girl. The guy looked at her, grabbed her and pressed a kiss on her forehead for a long long time. Gee, that passion has to be from the bottom of heart. It strikes me that guys do love. (I know my guy loves. ) I wish to let those brainless models know that look is not everthing. When there is true love, look does not really matter that much. If a woman has nothing but looks, she sets herself as a sex object. Don't just blame guys.

 

mhm, it is good to know that love happens to non-good-looking people too.

 

  

 

 

Constitution 101

 

What do we know about constitution? We may remember we were told that constitution is law of law. But what does it exactly mean?

 

Let’s break the code. Imagine, you were given a piece of land and you want to establish a country on that. In other word, you want to set up a government to manage behaviors executed on the land. The questions are what the government can do, (Power); what the government cannot do. (Limitation). It will help if we can have a mental circle around government. The size of the circle represents the government’s powers; the boundary of the circle means where the powers stop (limitation). Another question is that how government execute its power? By issuing laws, right?  Constitution defines the extent of the power of government, right? Therefore,  constitution is the law of laws.

 

Then how constitution defines the boundaries of laws government will issue? Because government’s laws will regulate people’s behaviors. To define government’s power, constitution actually starts with basic rights of people that government cannot violated through laws.

 

Therefore, constitution defines relationship between government and people. If government issue a law that violates rights of people protected by constitution, people may issue a lawsuit to have the law set aside.

 

 

Content of Constitution

 

The U.S Constitution is divided into seven articles and twenty seven amendments.

 

Articles.

 

Article One of the U.S. Constitution sets forth the powers of the U.S congress. It specifies that there shall be a House of Representatives and a Senate. Of course, it further defines how those members shall be elected and compensated. It also sets forth general powers and limitations of those legislative bodies. Noted, law is about giving power and putting constrains on the power at the same time. It’s like when you walk your dog, you want to let your dog do his own thing, but you control him by putting him on a leash, that way, he can only go as far as you allow him to. US constitution does the same thing. It gives power to government unit but make sure the power has a limit.

 

Article Two of the U.S Constitution states that the executive power of the government shall be vested in the President. What is executive power? After laws are issued by House of Representatives and Senate, somebody has to enforce them, right? By enforcing, I mean, if somebody violates the law, certain part of government has to punish him according to the law. Without the enforcement, laws are not more than sheets of paper. Think about prosecutors, police, they are law enforcers. They investigate, arrest and bring lawsuit against people who allegedly violated law. Basically, by doing so, they are saying, hey, law is law. We government are not joking. Try to think about your parents. If they only lay out rules of house, never ground you for ignoring the rules, what would you have been like? It is the same with government enforcement.

 

Article Three of the U.S Constitution states that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in the Supreme Court, as well as inferior courts Congress may establish.

 

The model created in the first three articles of the Constitution is a system of checks and balances. Each branch of government is considered to be equal, and each one in different respects has the ability to check and balance the others. For instance, the legislative branch has the authority to enact legislation. That legislation is then sent to the president who, as the head of the executive branch, can veto the legislation. The legislative branch may then override that veto. If the law is passed, then judicial branch may review it and determine whether it violates people’s constitutional rights. If it does, the judicial branch, i.e, the Supreme Court has right to set it aside.

 

Article Four of the U.S. Constitution defines the concept known as Full Faith and Credit, which means that the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of any one state shall be acknowledged in every other state in the Union. Imagine, you have 51 brothers and sisters. Each one of them has their own family and rules of the houses. If your nephews visit your house and his parents told you certain restrains over him, you are required to enforce such restraints. Say, his mom says, he can’t eat candy for the rest of his life, when he comes to your house, you have to take candy from him. Article Four also defines the term known as Privileges and Immunities, which means that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the same privileges and immunities as the citizens of any other state. Let’s use the same example as above. Say your nephew comes and stays with you guys for a while. If in your house, your children are entitled to watch TV for an hour after dinner, so should be your nephew. Clear enough?

 

Article five of the U.S Constitution provides for the amendments of the Constitution.

 

Article Six of the U.S Constitution makes it clear that if there is any conflict between federal law and state law, federal law will always be supreme. It is like to say, if your parents say something, and you say something else. Your children and children of your siblings should listen to your parents. Mhm, makes sense!

 

Article seven of the U.S Constitution provides that nine states are needed to ratify the Constitution before it becomes effective. That is to say, nice brothers and sisters of yours must agree before any modification to U.S. Constitution is effective.

 

Amendments of Constitution.

 

As stated above, there are in total 27 amendments to the Constitution. The first ten amendments are referred to as the Bill of Rights. They contain the most fundamental rights of American people protected by constitution. That is to say, no matter what laws government make, they cannot violate these rights. Otherwise, they are invalid.

 

The First Amendments states the Congress has no authority to make any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. It further states that Congress can do nothing to restrict freedom of speech or freedom of press, or the right f the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government.

 

The Second Amendment deals with the right to bear arms, but it is written in the context of bearing arms as part of a regulated militia.

 

The Third Amendment states that the government cannot, in time of peace, quarter soldiers in a private home without consent of the owner. In time of war, the government may only do so in a manner prescribed by law.

 

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