.. L i F e - i S - G o o D ..

Have you ever felt like you’re at the junction of life? When you have to choose something to be with for life, but you aren’t really sure how it’s going to turn out. At this point, I think life is like gambling!! You have to take the risk to win or lose. If you win, lucky you! In case you lose, you just have to find the way to get back up and choose again. People usually use their feelings and experiences in choosing the path somehow, but does it really work that way?

There are so many reasons why people want their lives to be like they are right now: choose by interest, norm, someone’s  suggestion, and etc. I do wonder whether anyone looks back to the day he chose the path and asks himself if what he’s doing right now is what he dreamed of in the way past. Following your dreams is as important as being responsible to others. And, that’s why it’s tough.

Actually, we confront this kind of junctions a lot in everyday life. People always have choices to choose, then it leads you to another junction. This cycle never ends. When it comes to a big one, it’s harsh and takes a lot of effort to get through the moment smoothly. No one wants to regret about what he has done. So, be careful of what you’re choosing. I keep my fingers cross for all who is facing the same situation as me.

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Culture is what people need to be concerned when they have foreign friends. All people are raised in particular areas with social norms of those societies. That’s why people are different. According to different background, people automatically act like they always do with friends in another culture; as a result, it can cause difficulties getting together. It’s nothing wrong about anybody but misunderstanding

Eastern people are always indirect: the way of talking, acting, or even expressing their feeling. In contrast, western people usually behave directly as what they feel. So, how possible for them to understand exactly what the other is thinking.

Last night, six of us (the mixture of eastern and western people) were going to go join the cruise with all classmates. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we missed it. Then, we were going to somewhere else. Three western people dicided to go to a bar. The thing was three eastern people weren’t alcohol drinkers, and didn’t know how to let the others know that they didn’t enjoy any bar that much. Moreover, they didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings because they all realized that it was kind of misunderstood. Therefore, three eastern people did express their feelings indirectly as the way they’re used to do so by telling the other three to get into the bar while they found something to eat at another place. That sounded fine, but it was not. The three people in the bar were waiting while the other three tried to find something to do outside in order to let them have fun the way they like. Then, when we met again before going back home, it could be assume that the three people in the bar were angry because the other three didn’t join them and they didn’t understand. So, three eastern people gave them the reasons, which was a secondary reason.

We all were wrong in this situation, and no one meant to hurt each other . However, I’m pretty sure that we all hurt since we weren’t aware of the differences of cultures. I have no idea what to do back then really. All I want to say is “sorry.”

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Have you ever planned for anything about your life? It sounds normal, doesn’t it? What I want to say really is there’s no way to plan every steps in life.

What if someone plans to start his job and family in countryside, who knows if his boss will send him to another country next week. It’s, eventually, like something go wrong when we plan things perfectly. "Keep it slow!" & "Do step by step!" are what fortune is telling me to do so. Because we’ve faced sort of accidental situations all the time, we need to be prompt without a long term plan.

I really feel like there’s someone up there messing up humans’ lives; I don’t know if it’s for fun or he’s on duty but it seems to be painful anyhow.

Take what you think it’s good for you right now! No one can tell about the future; however, what’s good today will lead you to another good way. Even though, it’s not what you plan to be, take it because it might be what you mean to be.

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Today, My BF and I went to AMC Empire @ Time Square for watching a movie. It was really hard to decide which movie we would watch because we got there around 7pm, so we could choose only one movie (!.!) Finally, we took "Kung Fu Panda." I didn’t have much expectation, just needed time for fun. After half an hour, I found out that the decision we made was great.

The story is about Po, a big fat panda, who is chosen as dragon warrior in order to fight with a powerful tiger. Po is a big fan of Kung Fu but knows nothing about it. He believes and tries so hard to make himself better and follow his dreams. It’s so funny that Po is greedy enough to be trained by using food. He’s so cute though. Moreover, there are some good statements in the movie such as..

"There’s no accident in everything."

"Yesterday is history.

Future is mystery.

Today is a gift; that’s why it’s called ..present.."

Even though, I heard these statements many times by now, it’s still impressive and very emotional. This movie is a terrific movie for kids really. I’m just about to love it!!

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Today, someone told me that "In the cruel world, there were a lot of bias, and it was a good opportunity to study laws because when you faced a tough situation you could say that you had laws behind you."

In this powerful country, there is no way to avoid racial discrimination. I never thought that it happened normally here, the country called itself "freedom country," by the time I faced the discrimination myself. I think I never posted the story on this blog, so…

This is the article >> How ridiculous some NYPD are!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, about bias, many people just can’t accept the differences. For instance, about language, what if you were born in a country which has its own language and live there more than 10 years without any knowledge of English. Isn’t it ordinary? The answer must be "Absolutely yes." Yet, some people think the persons who don’t know English are stupid. Do they have too much expectation? They want everybody around the world to understand what they say, but not even once try to learn how others are. It’s disgusting.

OMG!! I couldn’t stick with my topic again ;P haha

Back to the rules, in my opinion, all rules are built in order that they will be able to control humans’ behaviors and make the peaceful world. All people should respect to the rules and take them in the positive way instead of using them hurt other people or getting benefits from the weak part of laws.

However, it sounds like an ideal thought that people can be in the middle and compromise with two or more parties who have argued. That’s why rules have been created in order to protect mankind and make the societies be in peace. People, basically, have prejudice but morality helps people know what is right and what is wrong. Thus, rules are not only laws but everyday life. Let’s try to find the wills behind the laws!!

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At first, I used Windows Media Player playing all music. But after my boyfriend got an iPod mini around 3 years ago, I started using iTunes. I didn’t care or even concerned about the differences really. However, I did prefer iTunes because of its interface. Just so you know, iTunes has a nice, neat, and organized interface. Recently, I change back to Windows Media Player because it’s faster. I’ve got to tell you that I’m still using iTunes for my iPod but if I would like to play songs from my computer, I prefer using Windows Media Player.

It’s like Windows tries to make Windows Media Player look hi-tech by using visualization, but it really doesn’t work for me. I feel like it does interrupt my feeling really, I’m not using it though. For its library, it’s just too much to categorize every little things on this window. One more thing, if I were Windows, I would release something like podcast of iPod because there are a lot of people choose iPod because of this kind of service. Anyway, Windows Media Player is much faster than iTunes.

For iTunes , I’m just about to love its interface, but there are some problems have shown up. I used to open iTunes with iBook, and it worked very well. In contrast, when I opened it with PC, it was too slow and froze so often. This kinds of problems annoyed me a lot. I don’t understand how come Apple lets them happen. I’m not quite sure if it’s because of different OS. If not, why the results are so different. Basically, many people using iPod and PC should get the same priority as people who use all Apple products.

All in all, iPod needs to use with iTunes and I have an iPod, so I have no way to leave iTunes behind. Such a great marketing plan, isn’t it? Even though I love iTunes interface crazily, I use Windows Media Player more frequently because of its comfort.

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How cool that people, recently, are able to watch movies at home without going out to a movie rental store!! I’m just about to love it. I don’t want to go find a movie in a store because I just don’t like doing it. But who cares? Now, I’m just home and able to watch movie instantly via or .

Let’s talk about Netflix first because it exists before Apple TV. My friend’s uncle told me about this service because we all loved watching movies. I registered about almost one year later after I moved to a new apartment and found out that it was really fantastic. I’ve paid a little money for 4-5 movies a month. Moreover, I’m able to see some movie instantly without paying any extra. The price is absolutely reasonable. Furthermore, the service is great. The mail movie was lost once and when I let them know, they sent another one immediately. I was so impressed.

About Apple TV, I have to say that I never use or even see how it works in person, but I bet I can imagine after watching their guided tour: http://www.apple.com/appletv/guidedtour/ . I think it’s pretty cool but it’s kind of expensive compared to Netflix. I don’t think it’s worth if I have to pay $229 for an Apple TV (cute) box and $2.99 per a movie or $3.99 for HD.

Eventually, I couldn’t even tell whether Apple TV is better than Netflix or not since I will not buy it at all. And surely, I’m really appreciated what I have right now.

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I’ve found a lot of different feelings about dogs in the world: especially in people in different landscape, culture, and lifestyle. The thing is the expectation of dogs is not so similar.

Here, in NYC, people raise their dogs as friends. They pay big amount of money for particular food for dogs, and caring such as taking a shower in pet care center, hair cutting, and medicare. Then, they keep them in the houses to be friends and walk them for a while everyday in order to let them do their business, but people don’t let them bark.

In my hometown, Thailand, we also raise dogs as friends, but we treat them by ourselves. We bath dogs by ourselves as a nice activity together and feed them what we eat. Eventually, we have specific foods for dogs as well and we feed them in the same way that Americans do. Moreover, we have vets for taking care about dogs’ health, pet care center with bathroom, massage room, swimming pool, and dogs salon. The other difference is dogs are not just friends but house’s guard because they’ll bark when they see strangers.

If you see this kind of situation in person, I bet you’ll be surprised how different dogs are in both places. What I always keep in mind is differences are good things. How could you understand the word "exciting" if everything is the same around the world? And what if every single persons in the world are the same, what will challenge people to think apart, to develop things, to invent new technology, or else. There will be not interesting at all. Will it be the end of human beings that way?

An Americans said to me that "Americans treat their dogs so well, then their dogs have good manners (no barking)" I was wondering if he forgot about the different purpose to let dogs bark. Anyway, people can’t understand all behaviors in different cultures even though they move to and live in the place for more than 10 years. What about people who have been in some places for a while? Is it fair to judge people who are different from you in many many ways by your narrow vision?

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I do have a question in my mind which is "what will you do when you have to split 9 cents half and half?" It’s such a silly question, isn’t it? Yet, I never thought about this kind of question before I’ve faced this situation yesterday. Let’s talk about the choices.

Hmm.. Let’s start with take 4 cents immediately. In my viewpoint, this is fine because it show how nice you are, and that 1 cent is less significant than your relationship.

In contrast, what if one person is greedy enough to take 5 cents as fast as he/she can. In my opinion, it’s not such a good manner. The next question will be "How do you feel about such a person like that?"

Furthermore, the only alternative for me is let’s another person choose first. I think it’s the way to show how I respect him/her. And if he/she let me choose first, I’ll take 4 cents for sure. I won’t let this any kinds of bad feelings ruin the relationship.

Can you guess what I did? I did let her take all of them and said "it was OK, and you could take them all." Then, she took them all and didn’t say anything.

It’s so fun to learn about people from how they behave. Many times, I thought it was impossible to happen in real life, but it was surprised me that I was wrong. Maybe I believe in human beings too well to be true in every single one.

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I never thought that being a parent is so hard until I grew up. When you were young, have you ever imagined the time you become a parent? I did. But after I knew many people in different background, I’ve changed my vision a lot.

I’d like to mention about my friend’s story. She’s a girl who’s dreaming of her perfect future: living in foreign country, having luxury life style, dating a perfect man, and traveling around the world. It sounds alright. Yet she receives a bad news from her mom which is her dad has a heart attack. She doesn’t want to go back to her hometown because she still enjoys her life in New York. It doesn’t sound wrong, but what about her dad who’s looking forward to seeing her in every single breath. At first, she decided to ignore, then her sister called and said that her father needed her. She get confused. One of her friends said she didn’t have to go back just because her father needed her. She should do whatever she wanted in order to reach her dream!! This scares me a lot. Don’t people care about their parents anymore when they grow up? Do they forget the persons who take care of them all their lives? OMG!!

My friend told me a bit about this man. He is a nice guy and have a good education. Moreover, his family is rich. He said with pride that he paid all of the tuition for his master degree by himself. It’s so good that he could stand on his knees, but let’s think about it for a sec, he said he *only* asked his mom to send him $25,000 a year; just that! nothing else. Hmm..

If you couldn’t imagine how expensive it is in the civilized city like Manhattan, you won’t know that $25,000 could cover all tuition and the payment for standard living. In addition, he also works 6 days a week which earns at least $150 a day–in cash if you may want to know. How could you imagine if this guy has less than $2000 a month in his account. Furthermore, He has an older sister who’s living in Europe and doing nothing just because she doesn’t want to do.

In the long run, parents always love, care, and give their kids whatever their children want. Why do their kids ignore the persons who raise you when they get old? I think it’s about teaching moral when the kids are young. Parents have to show their kids how you behave with your mom and dad. I always saw my parents take care of grandpa and grandma until the end of their lives. I realize that my parents are very grateful, and I aim to do so. Anyway, it doesn’t mean that I have to leave my dreams behind because I can do them both at the same time. I just have to be concerned about the factors which come up at the time, then I can decide for the best solutions for everyone.

I don’t know if you guys have different opinions because the differences of society, but being grateful is very important in our culture. Therefore, I feel so sad about this story. Actually, I really don’t want my friend to regret if she won’t have any chance to be a good girl of her dad anymore.

Finally, my friend will go back to see her father after new year. I hope her father get well soon and be happy to see her.

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