I do not allow students to add me on Facebook. My rule is a student has to be out of high school for a year before I consider adding them. And even after that, I am particular about who I add. I ignored a current student’s friend request, and this was his response:
b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but its not even like that. you sayin that we cant be friends on facebook cuz we are not friends(hommies) in real life?THE HEALTH WHISPERER: Guidelines and Recommendations to "INDIVIDUALIZE" your iPaleo! -
I named the challenge “iPaleo” with the “i” = individualized… I am well aware that not one single food plan can work for everyone (e.g. how is the low-fat/ high-carb diets working??), nor do we all have the same amount of leisure time or funds for food. So here are my recommendations to help you…
Dear Manong Mark,
Last Christmas, I called you, and you said you were on your way to Manang Hazel’s. You were just going to stop by in Vallejo then head to Danville. I remember waiting and waiting, and you never showed up. I remember the feeling then… I was so hurt and sad because I didn’t get to spend Christmas with you. It was really confusing to me because back when we were younger, we agreed that no matter how big our families grew, we would have Christmas together. I know this as a fact because I found a letter I wrote to you in 1994 which is about the time when Auntie Delia and Uncle Eddie’s families stopped coming to Christmas, and I remember we were both really sad as we reminisced about Christmas in Hayward when we were kids. I also remember that you and I were the most adamant about going to midnight mass which is why it became you, me, and EJ’s job to go save seats at St. Charles.
So if I was sad last year about you going to spend Christmas with your new family and not us, I’m sure you can imagine how I feel this year. You can’t even LIE to me about coming!! :) I cried during mass… I couldn’t get a note out during Silent Night and you know that’s my song!!! I got really upset when we were supposed to take cousin pictures… I don’t even want to talk about that.
It hurts. I’m really sad. It sucks because I feel like I’ve been missing you for the last five years; but I always had hope that you’d miss us too, come back to your senses, and spend Christmas with us. And not just you, but your whole family, and make Christmas how we always imagined growing up. I know you had your obligations to your other church, but you can’t deny that midnight mass was some of the best memories of our childhood. And now that you’re gone, I don’t even have my hope that maybe this year you’ll show up for Christmas. Definitely a blue, blue Christmas.
Love you, Cousin.
Dear Manong Mark,
Sorry I shared the fart story at your wake… for some reason that was the only one that came to mind…
I wish I would’ve shared with everyone how I used to follow you all over the place and you never complained… or how you gave me a shoebox full of baseball cards so I could start my collection, and you weren’t even mad when I scratched your Will Clark error card (we’re A’s fans, afterall). I wish I would’ve shared how you “tested” all the moves you learned in martial arts on me by putting your hand out and saying “let me show you something.” You made me tough as nails, cuz, thanks. Or how I thought molding my piece of American cheese into a ball and eating it was a good idea, and you tried to warn me that it wouldn’t taste good, but I didn’t listen. I still fold my cheese into four pieces like you showed me after. Or how you knocked on the window of a guy who did me wrong in HS. He’s lucky he wasn’t home. Manong Mark, you even consoled my HS ex BF even if you couldn’t stand my new dude! Just days before u left us, I was showing off to my students that I knew escrima. On Halloween, I told ghost stories about “my cousins friends” at stow lake. I wish I would’ve called you as much as I thought of you, because if I did, I would’ve called you everyday. You have influenced who I am so much, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t do something that reminds me of you. Love you, Manong.
Chris
PS Thank you for putting your butt out the window when you had to fart in the car; even if it flew right back in, I know you had our well being in mind.
The sad truth is that most women in violent situations believe that if they are not being physically hurt, they are not victims of abuse. Most women don’t realize they are in an abusive relationship; therefore, they will never seek out help to get out of their situation. Here are a few websites that describe the warning signs of an abusive relationship.
The following were my favorites:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/hr/hrdepts/asap/Documents/Domestic_Violence.pdf The most cohesive article of the bunch. This article is based on research by the UC Davis Med Center.
http://www.acadv.org/dating.html A page geared for spotting warning signs in teen relationships.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-susan-meyers/warning-signs-of-domestic_b_671321.html As much as this author and I agree that the Eminem and Rhianna song was not the best way to have a discussion about domestic violence, clearly the song has inspired us both to educate others about the warning signs.
Here were some other ones that were equally as accurate:
http://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/domestic-violence/warning-signs-domestic-violence/menu-id-52/
http://www.4therapy.com/consumer/conditions/item.php?uniqueid=5182&categoryid=426&
https://www.msu.edu/~safe/facts/warning_dv.htm
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/domestic_violence/page4_em.htm
HAPPY READING!! I’D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS!!
THE HEALTH WHISPERER: WANT YOUR BODY LOOKING PHAT? THEN EAT MORE FAT -
What’s going on everyone?? I hope everyone is surviving this heat wave! I’ve been delaying this blog due to the non existence of air conditioning up in my apartment. But I told y’all ill go hard in the paint with this one, so I feel really confident my points will at least…
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
THE HEALTH WHISPERER: CARDIO MAKES YOU FAT AND OLD -
Welcome everyone! This is the first of many blogs, I will present issues regarding health health and more health, because without our health what do we have? In doing so, I will try to back it up with as many references and scientific data as possible. I am not someone who thinks that I know…
SoCal Tour!
A year ago today, I was sitting in Legally Blonde: the Musical with 14 of my closest friends and family celebrating my last few days of being single. Little did any of my girls know that I was silently questioning whether or not this was what I wanted. I was lost. I had a blog that I updated constantly, and because no one really read it, no one could see that I was slowly losing the motivation to move to the next part of my life.
For those of you who don’t know, I was supposed to be married on September 12, 2009. He and I were together for 9 years, and our wedding day would have been 10 years of being together. On August 20, 2009, after all of the invitations were sent and RSVPs were already flooding in, I walked out of my dream of having 5 kids and a family, and broke up with him for good.
In July 2008, I feel like I forced him to marry me, and I never forgave myself for that. I confronted him, gave him an ultimatum, and in a month we were engaged. By March 2009, my cold feet had become a serious cause for concern. It’s funny because people still wonder and ask me why we broke up. I would give really superficial answers because I couldn’t even accept for myself why I did it. But for the past year, I have been dealing with the real reason why I broke up with him. I spent nine years of my life enduring physical and mental abuse that no one should ever have to endure. I realized much later after the break up that I lived in fear of his reactions. I picked my battles because I was afraid of the battle. I spent good years of my life thinking that I couldn’t leave this relationship because I was ugly and no one but he could love me. I spent more good years believing in my heart that he didn’t want to marry me, and that he was waiting for a better, more beautiful, less crazy woman to come along.
But because I hadn’t realized this until much later, for months after the break up, I was riddled with guilt and shame. I drowned my feelings of anger and sadness with alcohol and went into an unhealthy state of denial. It wasn’t until I began to reconnect with old friends, particularly those who had also gone through break ups, that I began to regain my footing.
So here it is. That’s why I am the way I am. Even if he is completely out of my life, I am still not comfortable telling people about what happened to me, and that has caused a little bit of an implosion. This infection surfaces as a need for attention: ridiculous Tweets/ status updates, garish behavior, and impulsivity. Layer that on top of a lifetime of abuse by men in romantic relationships, and you have a concoction that is the makeup of Christina Chun. The last person that I fell for (and coincidentally the first date I ever had), I told him that I was afraid of the way I was feeling, and now I understand why: I know that I was afraid because I did not completely trust myself to protect my heart. After spending nine years of your life not protecting your heart, it is difficult to allow anyone in without fear.
And I won’t deny that these next few weeks are going to be tough. In the past year, I went from self destructive to reconstructive; I began to redefine who I was and what I believed. People are noticing a sparkle in my eye and a genuine smile. When people notice that I lost weight, I count it as a victory not because of standards of beauty, but I know that I am shedding years of pain. I am working on myself from the inside out. But in retrospect, I realize that this process is going to take much more than a year of reflection and organic foods to heal completely. My band aids are becoming less frequent, and I’m at the point of my life where I am beginning to get comfortable with exposing the wounds and allowing them to heal appropriately. However, the wounds are clearly still fresh, and without proper care, they will begin to fester and infect me permanently. I’m done… I’m sure that I will have more to say as we get closer to September. Thank you to those of you who have been a part of my journey encouraging me to heal.
