Big Brother

Today is my oldest brother's birthday.  Domingo is his name, and what a great brother he was as we were growing up.  The fondest times I recall were when he would give us siblings money for Christmas.  That was a treat and something we looked forward to every Christmas.

I also remember the many times he took us to the movies, whether a drive-in or a walk-in.  The first movie I ever saw at a theater was Star Wars.  Back then, that was epic.  Our parents didn't take the time to do that for us because they were busy with their own entertainment indulgences.  That was fine though.  Having big brother take us was better.

We saw Star Wars at the Old Mill, which was located at San Antonio and California in Mountain View.  The Old Mill is now gone, and there is housing in its place (of course).

There used to be a drive-in movie theater on Shoreline by 101 in Mountain View.  Big brother took us there many times, and it was so fun to watch a movie that way.  It was replaced by an indoor theater complex long ago.  I saw Les Miserables there a few weeks back with my sister-in-law Lien.  It's also just down the street from where I work.  There are lots of memories in that particular area of quality time with my siblings.

Big brother also taught me how to drive.  He must have been a so-so teacher because I failed the first time I took the test.  Kidding aside, I fondly remember this because he took the time to teach me.  That was nice.

Growing up in an Asian family in the number 5 slot is not as burdensome as growing up in the number 1 slot.  I was number 5.  Big brother was number 1.  Right after high school, big brother went to work and gave all his pay to my parents.  We lived in poverty, and so this was an expectation as much as it was needed.  Big brother was a good son, in addition to being a good big brother.  He made sacrifices for the family.  He always encouraged and incentivized me to go to college.

We all eventually grew up, got married, started raising our own family.  I'm not as close to big brother as I used to be.  He lives a lifestyle different from mine, but we believe in God and we believe in prayer.  We both love karaoke.  We're really not that much different, although I might be a bit better off than big brother in terms of stress.  I will pray for him as I hope he is praying for me.

I am happy to see him posting on Facebook all about his fishing adventures and his karaoke and entertainment adventures.  To you big brother Domingo, I wish you a happy happy birthday.  May God bless you!  Love always, your little sister Yolanda.  :)

What is Your EQ?

I don't know mine either but I probably would score fairly high if there were an official test to take.  Of course there are every day life situations that are the official test to take.

The best write-up I found on EQ on the internet can be found at the following page:

http://disc-report.com/products/emotional-quotient/

The TTI Emotional Quotient report focuses on five areas within interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. Intrapersonal intelligence is the ability to understand oneself, while interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand others.

Intrapersonal Emotional Quotient

• Self-Awareness – The ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others.
• Self-Regulation – The ability to control or re-direct disruptive impulses and moods and the propensity to suspend judgment and think before acting.
• Motivation – A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money and status and a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.

Interpersonal Emotional Quotient

• Social Skills – A proficiency in managing relationships and building networks.
• Empathy – The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people.

Of all the five areas, I believe the most important are Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation.  Without these, I don't think you can succeed in the other areas.

Self-awareness and self-regulation might not be achievable immediately when you are young and foolish.  It takes time and maturity to realize when you are behaving childishly.  It takes time and maturity to admit to mistakes and to apologize.  It takes time and maturity to realize that your behavior, moods, and emotions will affect others.  It takes time and maturity to realize that your behavior, moods, and emotions will affect children the most.  It takes time and maturity to control your behavior, moods, and emotions.

I've been through so many tests in life with respect to EQ and I at times failed miserably.  These days, I'm armed with the knowledge of past failures and successes to know how to behave and/or know how to predict how others will behave or react to my behavior, moods and emotions.  I will be subjected to more tests, and although I can't guarantee that I will not fail them, I will have the self-awareness to know how to pass them.

The saying "Hindsight is 20/20" is a fact.  If I knew then what I know now, perhaps my life would be better.  I look back and analyze what I learned and think about how I could have changed things or done things differently. I have regrets, but I don't dwell on them.

When I was younger, I had a fairly bad temper.  Everyone was wrong, and I was right.  Have you ever met anyone like that?   If so, it was probably me.  I would easily snap, and mostly it was with family.  I loved the attention I would get when I was loud and ornery.  I thought it was a good thing, and I behaved that way especially in front of my peers.  Someone put me in my place quickly one day when that person said, "I don't like you."  That was powerful.  It was hurtful too, but I realized I deserved it.  This was when I was starting high school.  I was a good girl through junior high, but then in high school I gave into the peer pressure.  I smoked, I drank, I cut school.  My grades fooled my parents because I kept them up to hold onto sanity.  But I was not a pleasant person to be with.  That statement of "I don't like you" came from a total stranger, but it made me realize what an idiot I had been.

Having a child at a young age made me grow up fast.  I still had fits at times, but I soon was able to control my mood swings.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned was from a former co-worker, Marcia.  I wrote a blog post previously about her and how she died of cancer.  The lesson she taught me was how to view things in a more positive light and to be more sympathetic.  One day at work, she hung up the phone and shook her head.  She said that her husband had lost a roll of bills that amounted to $500.  I said, "Wow, I would be so pissed at him."  She looked at me in surprise and said, "Why would I want to make him feel worse than how he already feels?"  That made me stop and think twice, three times, four times about the situation.  It was such a wise and mature perspective that I refer to it every time I need a reminder on how to react to certain situations.  I have to stop and put myself in the other person's shoes to discover that it's true.  Nobody wants to be kicked down when you're already down.  So you have to be sympathetic and empathetic.

I am much older and mature these days, and the keys to my high EQ are self-awareness and self-regulation.  I usually stop myself from saying something hurtful or regrettable.  In situations when things get heated, I will slow down, breathe, and listen to the other person.  I will let them get the words and anger out.  This has proven to be so helpful to me in situations that I know can become confrontational if I regress.  I also force a smile on my face just to keep from hinting to others that I am in a bad mood.  I have also learned to use "I" in sentences when communicating with others instead of "you" because using "you" can be interpreted as being accusatory.

I find it easier than before to apologize when I make mistakes.  It just feels honest, others will see that you are a human being, and they will apologize for their mistakes too.  I practiced this with my son as he grew up.  He does the same thing and apologizes (to me at least) when he knows he is wrong or has made a mistake.

So think about it.  You should wonder what your EQ is.  Think about how your past actions and moods affected others.  Ask yourself if you could have had a better result or reaction.  Put yourself in other people's shoes.  Think about having a different perspective.  Empathize.  Sympathize.  Strive toward a higher EQ.

Peculiar

I found it particularly peculiar yesterday when I walked into the diner at the bowling alley to order some coffee.  I had lost a "coffee frame" last week, and so I had to buy the team coffee.

What was so peculiar about walking into a fairly cool diner that feels retro the moment you walk in?  Some random customer sitting with a companion eating dinner picked up his phone and snapped a picture of me.  I noticed he lit up when I walked in, but I thought it was peculiar that he would snap a photo of a complete stranger.

This happened to me once before that I can recall.  Years ago when I worked for the City of Palo Alto, I was at a crosswalk getting ready to cross the street.  I noticed a man smiling at me, and he picked up his camera and snapped a couple of pictures of me.  He smiled and I smiled back.  It was peculiar behavior back then too.

What possesses individuals to do this?  I really don't know whether to feel flattered or feel creeped out.  It's peculiar.

I thought I'd post this because nothing else peculiar happened today.  It was just another busy, crazy work day - nothing new.  Dull, dull, dull.  So sometimes I need to hold on to something peculiar.

I Thought Espionage was Dead

I thought that the end of the Cold War meant the end of espionage and the Jack Ryan series written by one of my favorite authors, Tom Clancy.  As a  matter of fact, the last book I read about Jack Jr. growing up was not as exciting without the backdrop of a little reality called the Cold War.   Espionage and covert operations didn't seem real anymore.  The tearing down of the Berlin Wall, although a happy occasion, soon meant bye bye Clancy to me. I had not picked up a spy book since then.

If I had time, I would do more recreational reading.  These days, I would prefer to pick up books in the true crime genre.  My favorite television shows and movies are mostly based on true crime or about true crime.  I watch Dateline, 48 hours and 20/20 when the shows are about murder.  I've read books about the most infamous serial killers.

One of the first movies I watched that was about a serial killer was called Citizen X.  It was the first time I heard about criminal profiling.  The killings took place in Russia.  It was intriguing.  What was fascinating was how the profilers described the criminal and what the police should be looking for.  I started to watch true crime shows after that about murders and forensics and trials and justice.

The crimes and the shows are especially interesting when they happen in Silicon Valley.  I remember right after I stopped working for the City of Palo Alto but still had the pulse on the city, I heard about a murder that happened in the neighborhood.  It turned out that the husband killed the wife because she was about to disclose to their oldest son that he had a different father.  Their dwindling finances were also a trigger.  Imagine that kind of story coming out of affluent Palo Alto.  There were a couple of true crime shows that narrated it, and I caught one of the shows late one night.  I saw a videotape of the interrogation, and the husband behaved strangely.  The lead detective on the case was a face I recognized because I saw him plenty of times at the police department at city hall.

There was a more recent one that happened in Vallejo, and Dateline featured that story about 2 months ago.  The female victim was killed by a jealous and angry woman whose rage was misplaced.  She thought her baby daddy was having an affair with the victim.  The killing wasn't a snap decision because the perpetrator calculated her every move.  However, she did not calculate the digital footprint, digital monitoring and technological advances in crime fighting today.  She got caught because of her mistakes.  These are the kinds of details that capture my attention and keep me engaged.  I am so addicted.

My latest passion has been to watch Criminal Minds.  This show is fictional, and so I didn't watch it for many seasons.  I didn't watch it because I didn't really know what it was about either.  The first time I watched an episode, which was earlier this year, I became hooked.  Now I can't stop watching them.  There is a channel that shows marathons of them a couple of times a week, and I become glued.  I do work at the same time of course, but I just guzzle this stuff up.  It's about the BAU of the FBI.  The BAU or Behavioral Analysis Unit are not just criminal profilers or forensic psychologists.  They run a criminal investigative analysis.  If I were to change careers, I would go to Quantico, Virginia, and become a forensic psychologist.

Murders usually have to do with love, sex, and/or money.  You might now know why I stay out of drama because drama usually involves one of these elements.  When analyzing the crimes, I'm sure you have to pay attention to the details and apply your knowledge.  You also have to be persistent.

This brings me to the title of my blog.  I watched Zero Dark Thirty on DVD this past Sunday, and it was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.  The movie is about the almost 10-year pursuit of Usama Bin Laden and the persistence needed to accomplish such a difficult mission.  My other career choice, in addition to forensic psychology, is that of a spy.  Although Hollywood dramatized the movie, the parts I'm sure are true have to do with the analysis and the persistence.

This movie highlighted that for me.  It also highlighted the fact that espionage is not dead.  Although the type of espionage in the Tom Clancy books is not the same as the espionage and covert operations in ZD30, it's just as exciting.  Once I have had more than enough of the true crime shows, books, and movies, perhaps I should start turning my attention to espionage.

I Am a First Generation Immigrant

Every day I count my blessings and thank God for what I have.  There are so many who are less fortunate.  I have a healthy income, which is just enough to get by comfortably in expensive Silicon Valley.  My retirement plan can use some improvement, but the risks I take in my career path can change that instantly.  I love the fact that I have the freedom to take such risks.

That freedom has been more of an obligation borne out of being a first generation immigrant.  I think more and more about this as a human resources professional.  I witness the talent that comes from other countries and realize that living in the U.S. and becoming a U.S. citizen is in the dreams of so many foreigners, just like it was in the dreams of my parents when they emigrated from the Philippines.

My family and I have been living here for more than 4 decades.  My dad first came here not for work but through the efforts of relatives.  He found work and set up bringing first my mom, then my 3 older brothers (Domingo, Emiliano, and Rizaldy), and then me and my 2 sisters (Beatriz and Rosario).  We were naturalized about 7 years later.  I also have 2 younger brothers (Gabriel and Thomas).  My parents left Gabriel in my aunt's care in the Philippines for almost 10 years.  Tom was born in the U.S. the year we girls arrived.

From what I remember, becoming a U.S. citizen was a piece of cake.  I boarded a plane, came here, went to school, learned English, and then 7 years later took an oath and became a U.S. citizen.  Well maybe I'm exaggerating.  It really was not that easy.  Life was tough growing up here because we were economically disadvantaged and ethnically different.  Also, because I have lived here for so long, I have almost forgotten the tough life we had in the Philippines.

I was very young when we moved to the U.S., and so I don't have very many memories.  I recall bits and pieces, mostly of living almost in squalor over there.  I remember pleasant things like celebrating a holiday by getting on a speedboat over to an island surrounded by baby blue water.  I hated the loud sound of the speedboat, and I remember that it made my little sister cry. I also remember waking up early in the morning to accompany my mom to capture octopus.  We waded in shallow water as the mist hovered over and I could feel the octopus swimming by.  I remember falling and hitting my head on concrete staircase at my grandfather's house.  My head was bleeding.  I still have the scar.  I cried hard mainly to get my older sister in trouble because she pushed me. I remember pulling a fishing pole by its hook and getting the hook caught in my finger.  They had to cut the line and take me to the doctor who pulled it out and stitched up my finger.  My aunt was surprised that I didn't cry at all.  I didn't feel any pain. I remember playing out in the rain.  Rain in the tropics is pleasant, and so it wasn't unusual to see kids playing out in a downpour. I remember attending a funeral.  I was speechless the entire time.  Death was so mysterious to me when I was little. I remember buying things from vendors who traveled up and down our street.  Sometimes it was candy, sometimes it was a shot at winning a prize, sometimes it was food. I remember eating this sour vegetable (or fruit?) called pias that grew from tree trunks or bark.  We would put salt in our hands, pick the pias, dip them into the salt, and pop them into our mouths. I remember eating different fruits, such as jackfruit, lomboy, star apple.  There were many others.  I don't remember what they're called exactly. I remember living in the tiny house across the street from the school.  We were definitely poor, with 9 people living in it.  I remember being bathed in a tub outside.  Our hair would be washed with soap.  We didn't use shampoo until we moved to the U.S.  What a difference. I remember crying when I learned that my dad would be gone for a long time.  I didn't even know that he was moving to the U.S.  I don't remember when my mom moved. I remember feeling the jealousy from neighborhood kids when they learned that I was moving to the U.S.  One of the girls pinched me really hard and took off.  That was a nice parting gift.

I remember traveling on the plane with my older cousins Tino and Dolores.  They were moving to the U.S. too and accompanied us on our journey.  I was not a big fan back then of traveling.  When we landed, I remember my cousin Tino becoming excited when he recognized a familiar face in the waiting crowd. I remember traveling from SFO to Mountain View, where my dad had set up a home.  It was nighttime, and the lights on the freeway, on the hills, and all around were mesmerizing. I remember eating a hamburger for the first time.  It was huge and delicious. I remember eating a red apple for the first time.  It was also delicious.

I remember going to school and starting kindergarten.  I didn't know a word of English, but I understood my kindergarten teacher when she was explaining that the mats or towels to nap on belonged in the cubbyholes.  It was as if I absorbed English immediately.  I became fluent in English in kindergarten.

Our assimilation was quick and complete.  I did so well academically that I skipped second grade.  All along I knew we were different.  Growing up in Mountain View back then as an immigrant was not easy.  We were subjected to prejudices and made fun of.  Other kids made fun of my skin color.  They would tease me about how I smelled.  We would smell like fried fish sometimes when going to school.

We lived on welfare in the beginning.   My parents had 8 kids, and we were living on my dad's minimum wage income.  The house had 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a small living room and a small kitchen.  It was more of a home for migrant workers.  Other kids would tease me about being poor and about having to go to the laundromat to wash our clothes.  I wasn't embarrassed or angry about it.  It was just part of life.  But it certainly was always a relief when we didn't see kids I recognized at the laundromat.  In school, we got free lunch, which eventually became reduced lunch, and then we didn't qualify for welfare anymore.

That was my parents, working hard to improve our lives in the U.S.  They eventually were able to buy and own a home in Sunnyvale.  We moved there when I started high school.  The lifestyle in the U.S. was a far cry from the lifestyle in the Philippines.  In the Philippines, you don't have to work as hard.  There's always a support system or easy labor to survive.  In the U.S., you have to work hard to survive.  It really impressed upon me that I needed to succeed and take every advantage of the freedom and opportunity that this country offers.  I felt obligated.  I still do.

My brothers, sisters, and I are all productive and contributing members of and to society.  We are Americans.  Our kids are Americans. I continue onward with my blessed life and count my blessings.  God brought us here for a reason.  It is a good lot in life.  It has been a long road. And every time I meet immigrants or learn of immigrants, I believe I know what they are trying to accomplish and what they are going through.  They are here to build better lives for themselves and especially for their children, their children's children, and so on.  I know because I am a first generation immigrant.  I have first hand experience.

Array Formulae

I am still awake, refreshing myself on array formulae in Excel.  This stuff is very useful.  If you don't think that Algebra is useful and that it's only necessary to take in order to graduate from high school, I completely disagree.  I use Algebra all the time.

*Sigh*

Oversubscribed

Here I go again - oversubscribing.  I sign up for and commit to so many things that I don't have time to relax.  I'm restless anyway. I don't let the oversubscription stress me out though.

There are positives to overcommitting yourself.  The first is that you stay busy and stay out of trouble.  I've learned that relaxing and thinking too much can sometimes lead you to overanalyze a situation and go nuts.  Or it leads you to surf the internet and find disturbing things.  Or it leads you to pick up the phone and make unnecessary calls or send unnecessary text messages.

Overcommitting also means that you are spending time staying busy and most likely not spending a dime.  My overcommitments are dedicated to helping others for free or to making money.  In either case, I'm not spending money, and so this is a positive result of overcommitment.

Last week, I spent my extra time doing work for another start-up company.  This week I have meetings and deadlines galore. I also learned about help that a couple of other start-ups need, and I'm eager to jump in.  There is the side work that I do for another small company as a favor and for a small amount of money.

I still keep my bowling schedule.  I bowl in a couple of leagues during the week and sometimes bowl in tournaments over the weekend.  I've decided not to bowl in the summer, but I'm replacing that with cross fit and running.

I try to see my family and friends as much as possible, but there are limits.  I can spend time when it's scheduled in advance.  I try to spend as much time to and for myself.  When I do chores at home while watching my favorites television programs, I am at my most relaxed state.  It is my favorite time.  Maybe I should overcommit to doing that more often.