Curly's First Day Home

I finally brought Curly home yesterday.  He's super active though whiny when kept behind bars.  I let him come out of the cage to explore the environment, and he already responded to his name and followed me around the living room while I walked zig zag or in circles.  It was a real joy to have a fur ball follow me around.

I tried hard not to be overly affectionate to him yet, and to ignore his whining.  I wish I could tire him out before letting him happily go back to his cage to rest, but since he was still sick afterall, I had little choice but to force him into the cage. 

Luckily he has good appetite and so far he is very well housebroken.  He is also much more affectionate to me now, knowing I am the boss in this household.  I wish for nothing but good health for him and more obedience growing up.

My Toy Poodle Puppy: Curly

Let me introduce:  This is Curly, an emotional toy poodle boy of 10 weeks old.

After Beary left, and a lot of crying thereafter, a very helpful staff, Cat, at Dog One Life helped me find this cute fluffy puppy from a breeder.

I was supposed to pick him up yesterday but he caught a cold and Cat is helping me look after today before I try to bring him home tomorrow.

To prep me to become a responsible owner and leader of Curly, I have also started reading Cesar Millan's books and watching his DVDs. 

I am excitedly looking forward to this new addition to my home and life.  I truly hope the puppy will grow up to be a healthy, happy, well-behaved dog and companion of mine.  In the meantime, I am practising "calm-assertive" energy, and shhh signal for disapproved behaviour.  :)

Officially, The Deceased.

It's embarrassing that I dated a petty guy for 2 years, 2 prime years of my life.  A guy so petty that he deleted my friends and I from facebook.  Is that really necessary?

I feel so bad that I ever introduced him to my closest friends, who treated him like their own close friend for 2+ years.  Even after our breakup, they never bad mouthed him or thought ill of him.  We were all mature enough to accept that not all relationships work out.

So this was the kind of insensitivity I had to deal with on a regular basis for 2 years.  He just never bothered to manage matters more maturely, delicately.  When he realized/ was told his actions hurt my feelings, he would be very upset (at me) for being hurt.  I am very sorry my friends have to deal with it too.  Clearly, he hasn't thought about the awkwardness if he ever bumped into my friends on the street, even the friendliest ones who'd otherwise still greet him like an old friend. 

I never deleted him or his pictures from my facebook because I didn't feel it was necessary.  I didn't love and care about him just because he was my boyfriend at the time, but because I loved and cared about him as a person.  That, to me, was special.

Well, it is good that this happened, so now I can officially accept that I have wasted 2 years of my time on someone completely cold-blooded and cruel, who didn't cherish anything between us.  He is now officially - THE DECEASED.

Rebound Guy/Girl

I don't agree that if a person gets into a new relationship fairly quickly it automatically means he or she is on a rebound.

Having said that, I do notice that typically the person on a rebound tends to date someone (seemingly) without the traits that he or she hated in the ex which likely led to the breakup. Yet, sadly, another commonality in breakup of the new romance is that the new date does not have the positive/admired traits of the ex.

What does this mean? It means that often times we try hard to move on from the breakup and, conscious of the need to learn from the "mistake", we look for someone without those incompatible traits we experienced. However, in the process of searching and learning from "mistake", we sometimes lose sight of what WAS important and what we LOVED about the ex. We subconsciously block out those positive memories of our ex's good qualities to avoid the pain, only to realize later on that while the new date does not possess those negative traits he/she also does not possess the great ones we used to value.

Perhaps, it's not important though. Afterall it's just the healing process of the brokenhearted and the rebound person is merely a timefiller. For this, I wouldn't want to be anyone's rebound girl!

Male-Female Culture Advantage

I had a nice chat about female empowerment in certain cultures in certain era, and the chat led to my discovery of a key gender related cultural difference between South America and many other countries.

My friend, originally from South America, told me that in her culture after a couple gets married they are expected to become closer to the female's side of the family whereas in many other cultures the opposite is true. In her culture, it is common that the boyfriend's parents try to be nice to the girlfriend hoping that after marriage the girl won't entirely snatch the guy away from them.

This to me is very interesting. At least in Chinese culture, it is the other way around. I remember how a guy's parents played a huge role in the fate of my relationship. When they approved of me we totally had their blessing. Once they felt I was making their son angry and emotional, our relationship was doomed. One time the mother got involved in our fight and yelled in my face "you are too sensitive! You stop that!" The son felt empowered and more than once he said to me after that incident "my parents were right about you!". Mind you, this was already a foreign born and raised Chinese. Imagine what a traditional Chinese family is like.

When I told my mom about this difference, she was very much amused and thought it would be great for me to have a future husband who takes care of my family like his own. However, I do feel parents shouldn't try to influence their children's relationship. As for the son, it's great to love his parents but if he listens to his parents rather than himself whether a girl is right for him, even quoting his parents, that is very pathetic. Grow up and be a man!