Do myself a favor: travel alone!

Being alone is something people can only learn to appreciate with ages.

When you are a baby, there is no doubt that you must be with someone, because you cannot even eat, pee, or anything by yourself. As a child, you need to learn different things and play with the others. Being a teenager, you might want be alone from your parents, but never with your friends. Gradually, you don't want spend all the time with your family, friends, relationships. Because so much of our daily life is about accommodating others, which is how it is should be in social situations. Traveling alone give a perfect chance to to step back from the status as a wife, coworker, friend, __ and just be yourself as whoever you want.

I love traveling alone, and just be Ivy who sometimes skips talking for the whole day, and sometimes likes wearing things that don't exactly match, and sometimes wants to do street viewing for quite a long time because its kind of interesting.

My best travel experiences have always been while traveling alone: invited to a Tibetan home for an overnight staying for a shooting star night, invited to road trip by a tractor, invited to a sailing race at a fantastic day. Yes, I have definitely had challenging and risks. All these difficulties help me feel independent and be more self-affirming.

Traveling alone also gives me a chance to meet myself. Of course, I could also meet people. But first, myself. I experience the world's delights with the perfect use of my own nostrils, tongue and touch. I believe that traveling alone is the last great test of who you are in a world where everyone aches to be the same.

The fun starts with the choices, which actually I hate it the most. But it is always easier alone than more. Will I be cycling through the mountain in New Zealand? Riding horse in Tibet? Staying in the boat overnight at the boat from Stockholm to Helsinki? Doing yoga in front of a perfect blue sea in Bali?

And then you will enjoy the most of independence. "From midday to dusk I have been roaming the streets, at last -- for the first time -- I live!" wrote by Henry James. Yes, I opened the window onto the Grand Canal and felt the breeze; ordered room service and pressed my face against a cotton pillow; took out the books during the break of mountain cycling; took off my shoes and died of bliss. I experienced what I want to enjoy without any distraction. My time is entirely my own.

Traveling alone is a great way to re-center, to escape from the details of daily life that can distract us from our own big picture and to come back with a new sense of self-sufficiency and purpose.

Surely I also had really great experience to travel with people, or visit friend's city. And as you know, I am such a lazy ass. If somebody arranged things for me, I didn't do any check for basic information, fully trusting of the others. So I urged myself finally make my solo trip to Hallstatt for this year, still combined with the visiting to Vienna to see my dear friend.

And then it's the moment of: I am here, right now, and I am on the way.

Life without Facebook

I had been flirting with the idea of deactivating or shutting down my Facebook account for a while. Increasingly convinced that I was so unhealthy preoccupied by that website, I would still waste time to craft absurd numbers of witty wall posts, imagining how it would look through the eyes of the others by generating the most “likes”.  When I cannot help stalking someone I shouldn’t care, the monotony of Facebook finally got on me and I quitted. But I didn’t delete the account.

After eight months of life without Facebook, surprisingly, how little I miss it. My friends made fun of me as an anachronism, when they were forced by the fact I wasn’t on Facebook to contact me by emails or messages. Sure, I feel out of the loop when gossip was around or jokes from Facebook were mentioned.

However, compared to what I have gained, life without Facebook is tremendous. My day is quitter now in my mind world. I might miss a lot of interesting details of others’ life, but I got most important things by personal contact. No longer do I wonder about what is or isn’t worth sharing online. Instead, I focus on more introspective stuff. I read, I watch, I write (still not that much), I have long conversations with my friends, and learn things. I am still able to express myself by talking face to face, or this blog (rarely be reviewed).

Life overseas seems strange without Facebook when most of your friends are scattered over every continents. But have you even thought about that friendships take place not through the amount of comments, likes or messages we share.  Are these the friendships themselves? Friendships should be in a heart to heart type of fashion. Sometimes we lose track of it. It is not that important being always connected, and the connection in hearts is the only thing real.

I must admit sometime I miss the convenience and the social connectedness that Facebook provides. But it is useful to learn to stand on my own. It is powerful to know I can. At the end, “life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external”. 

I am thinking about getting back on anytime soon. I know I am a different user now.

Amour: everybody needs somebody

I waited quite a long time to finally watch the french movie "amour". Disease, aging, death, whatelse could be worse than these three topics for me? Well, this movie includes all of them, and love, which I never believe. No doubt how hard to watch this movie for me.

Originally two-hours movie took me three hours, because some plots were so hard to digest, I must pause to make myself calm to continue.

In our live death is not avoidable. Death itself is not terrifying. What is terrifying is the fact people alive need to confront the death. Two years before, I went to the funeral of my friend's dad. That was the first funeral I have ever attended  The moment when I saw the corpse, I cried for no reason. I wasn't even familiar with my friend's dad. I met him at most two or three times. It was just the truth that he was lying there without knowing what we were doing at that moment. I was scared.

The story of the movie is so simple, and there is almost no plot in a certain way. The could be described into one sentence: old lady got sick, she suffered, and then died. But what is complicated is behind the story -- amour.

I love this movie, especially all those details.

Anne had a happy life even with terrible strokes at the end of the life, one of the most important reason is Georges. I don't know at the age of 80s, what is love for them. Scientists tell us that love is related to oxytocin levels. The study, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, showed that oxytocin levels could not last long. Researchers measured levels of oxytocin in people who had recently begun relationships. Six months later, the couples with the higher levels of oxytocin tended to still be together. If oxytocin level is the index of love, well, it won't be surprised to see low level of this couple. It is just a guess, but maybe it could be super high as well. I don't believe "love", or in other way, I don't believe the terminology of "love". Love could be explained as responsibility, accompanying, supporting and etc.

Like in the movie, Anne probably experienced the worst time of her life because of stroke. Georges was the person who can only support her at that time. I call it "love". She didn't loss the will of living right away after the first stroke. However, the disease destroyed her. She gave up her own life. But Georges didn't. How brave he was, made the most difficult decision for himself. In my opinion, he totally understood her and love lead that ending of the movie.

So at the end, do we really believe love, or just everybody needs somebody to comfort each other.

Saint-Valentine day is coming soon..hope everybody get somebody..and be happy:)

2012 in review: a flying year against conventional wisdom

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, conventional wisdom is "the generally accepted belief, opinion, judgment, or prediction about a particular matter". But is conventional wisdom always true? should we always follow it?

When I look back my whole 2012, these two questions come out.

After 2011 "a year of changes", I continued staying in the same city and job in 2012. I started to feel the stable status of life. Temporarily I don't need to think about where I am going and what I should do next. Remaining calm is something I appreciate now. That's what people said about becoming old. It is the fact I cannot deny. Two of my best friends got married. I went back China in January to participate a male friend's wedding. Just a week later, another female friend announced that she got married, which was completely a big surprise among our friends. When I told my family, they all asked me when it is my turn. All conventional wisdom assume that girls need to get married before 30. It doesn't matter what this marriage is about, the importance is getting married. Me..obviously against it..but I guess that I just haven't met my Mr Right yet.

The first half a year was placid. Emotionally I controlled myself and didn't let myself fall into an uncertain involvement. But all conventional wisdom seems suggest people follow their true emotion. Should I? For work, I kept my own pace. I think I am not very ambitious and I do what I suppose to do. But shouldn't people at my age behaviour more aggressively since I am at golden age for my career? In life, I still keep my way of living, a lot of music, party and enjoyment. Shouldn't I be more responsible for my owe future?

In June I flied back to Marseille for my "important" birthday. I am getting old and I am afraid to accept it. Who told me "people get smarter as you age"? I was happy to get all the wishes from all over the world..but I was just not in a big party mood..birthday is just another day...nothing changes because of it. Marseille..a part of me gonna be stay there for ever..just in one year time..it changed a lot..from the part I knew and the part I never knew. Almost all the friends I used to have there moved somewhere, I guess I have almost no reason to go there. Better, probably, memory is always the best.

My family came to visit me in July, a big group of them. For my dear mum, it was her first time to come to europe. I was so happy to show her where I am living now. But for a person above 55 years, it is not easy to be open for every new things. All conventional wisdom they used to have seems not working in western way. They could feel fresh for a while, but not accept it. Anyway, we had very good two weeks time spending together.

In August, I did skydiving immediately the day after the opening of London Olympic game. People send me sms that night whether I got the inspiration from the queen. It was such a nice experience. The first time in my life I felt like I was actually flying. If it is not such an expensive activity, I probably already became addict to it. In that short almost one minute freefall, my brain was really empty. I wish I could always be like in that one minute, empty myself and be light.

In September, I quit facebook. I am a very procrastinated person. I was thinking it in June. But delayed,delayed, and delayed, finally I made the action. Facebook absolutely is a good tool for communication and keeping network. However, it is over rated. I got tons of useless information from facebook. My attentions was distracted much more because of it. I must admit I am not a conscious people, sometime I just go to facebook and browse like 30 seconds for no reason. I wanted to give myself a piece of quite time. Do we really need that much connections? These months passed, I wasn't alone all the time. Yes, I reduced my social activities. But I have more time to spend to those people I care. Am I going back? I never close the door..so.

At the end of October, I went to Cuba with a friend, short but amazing. There were so many stories happened during that 9 days. What I thought the most was similar to what I though when I came back from Tibet. Honestly, from our point of view, people living in Cuba are poor. I guess we use our standard conventional wisdom. But they seemed much happier than those people we met everyday. Come on, people in Europe they are complaining all the time and it looks like they are living in the hell; people in east Asia never stop to work and it seems like they only care about money; people in American they are competitive for everything, shall they just be released a little bit? Most Cubans are smiling all the time, willing to help, and loving to share. What we thought about development probably could make people living better, but not be happier. Should we really have to impose our way to them? Yes they could open their country, get what we call "democracy", kids will know ipod, sps, nds like kids on the other side of the planet, whether could they keep smiling like now or become like all the others never be satisfied?

At the end of year, I took a month off and went to New Zealand. What a fantastic trip I had! Beautiful landscape, friendly people, all kinds of outdoor sports, what else you want from a holiday? My favorite place during this trip was the lake Tekapo. The lake itself is with jade blue kind of color, surrounded by year-round snow-capped mountains. Any language description sounds so plain to describe the beauty of this area. I also saw one of the most beautiful star sky in my life. Totally opposite from the astronomy knowledge I had from the north hemisphere, I saw a completely different star sky. And have you ever realized that the north and south in the north hemisphere is totally opposite from the south hemisphere. Even for these simple facts, conventional wisdom works in a different way. 

On 21st December 2012, I went to sailing around sea side of Auckland. On the boat, my friend and I were the youngest. All the rest were much older. But they seemed having so much fun and enjoying every moment of the life. As you probably know, how I am afraid of aging. When we were in the sea, far away from anywhere, I had a sudden feeling that being old is never being a difficult thing. But honestly, when I got standing on the ground, it was gone.

21st December 2012, Maya's worst apocalypse, the much-anticipated date for the end of the world finally passed. The earth still rotated on 22nd December 2012 like an any other day; 21st December, an end of nothing, perfectly described my whole 2012. Just watched the last episode of How I Met Your Mother of 2012 yesterday, even Barney stopped playing. Should we follow conventional wisdom to do what we suppose to do at certain age?

2013, keep continuing!