Building Healthy Relationships

1. Letting Some Conflicts Go Unresolved

I don't have to fight about everything. We don't have to keep proving each other wrong and proving ourselves right. Unless it's a tease/joke kind of fight, that is. Quarrels can be left halfway unless there is really a need to fight the battle.

Choose your battles wisely (about something that is worth fighting with him for). Other times, it will do fine just to agree to disagree. 

2. Being Willing to Hurt Each Other’s Feelings

Being honest. Giving unfiltered opinions, hurtful truths. 

3. Being Willing to End It

Ending it on good terms. Having the courage to end everything and become single again.

4. Feeling Attraction for People Outside the Relationship

Looking at attractive people is enjoyable. Speaking to attractive people is enjoyable. Thinking about attractive people is enjoyable. That’s not going to change because of our Facebook relationship status.

When we commit to a person, we are not committing our thoughts, feelings or perceptions. We can’t control our own thoughts, feelings and perceptions the majority of the time, so how could we ever make that commitment?

What we control are our actions. And what we commit to that special person are our actions. 

5. Spending Time Apart

It’s important to occasionally get some distance from your partner, assert your independence, maintain some hobbies or interests that are just yours. Have some separate friends. Take an occasional trip somewhere by yourself. Remember what made you you and what drew you to your partner in the first place. Without this space, without this oxygen to breathe, the fire between the two of you will die out and what were once sparks will become only friction.

6. Accepting Your Partner’s Flaws

This is one of those things that is not nearly as complicated as it feels. Let’s break it down:

1. Every person has flaws and imperfections.
2. You can’t ever force a person to change.
3. Therefore: You must date somebody who has flaws you can live with or even appreciate.

End of Part1

While everyone's happily graduating back home and posting countless photos of their last student memories, I can't help but feel a tinge of homesickness. Especially knowing that my sister still loves me exactly the same way I left home months ago, and how Daddy is man enough to openly show that he cares about me, about all of us kids. Really, his Whatsapp message, that health and happiness and the learning process are more important than results, just makes me want to tear up. I realise that I really miss my family, as I begin to see how we function as a unit. While I hate doing chores, I wouldn't mind cooking and baking for them. It is my utmost pleasure to please and surprise people I love with some recipe I tried that turns out marvelous.

My aversion to mainstreamness and extroverts sometimes makes me end up feeling really lonely, in truth that feeling can never be felt when I am with family. Because instead of depending on them, I know I play an important role, and that I am unconditionally loved and being depended on. Relationship-wise, it's been going strong for 8 months now. While strong isn't necessarily the right word to use, I'd like to think that despite all the rickety-rocks that we stumbled and fell upon, everything seemed to be alright when we picked ourselves up again. The bad thing about me that I've learned about myself is apart from my constant clinginess, I constantly seek validation and easily feel jealousy or loneliness when he is happy or having a blast with other bffs. While acknowledging that fact and also knowing that I can't fix myself up overnight, the lesser I think about it, the better. As with family, I don't need validation at all because they actually need me and love me and what to hear about my opinions, I only recalled being a grudging grumpy cat when they ask me to do too much or things that I don't really like to do, like teaching homework.

Anyway, time is still ticking, I've got two last major essays to work upon for this semester. Talking to strangers here is always a fun experience because you get to ask where they are from, what they are studying, how they find Adelaide etc. Even lecturers are nice to chat to, if it's nothing  more than pouring out a bit of your life story. Currently, volunteer experience 1: work experience 0, but I wonder if I would enjoy working in Australia and how that would affect my schedule and my interpersonal relationships. Scheduling time with people doesn't seem to be a major problem, but the idea here is that once you stop seeing people that frequently, the relationship tends to grow cold.

On the other hand, in regards to media, I know my Dad loves Chinese media entertainment and he would actually really like what Michel is doing in the Chinese entertainment site. She is really good, her personality really fits for being a DJ. If I am ever lucky enough to land a job in radio, people will automatically think I'm better suited for an announcer or presenter job, not a DJ, as I am not that talkative, and I don't know how to make funny jokes and be spontaneous, also I probably don't have the charisma. Just being a realist doesn't mean I'm shooting myself down. I think yoga might be too static now, but once I start the course, I will review my opinions again. It has to be something lively that I can do. There has to be something lively and fun that I can do that doesn't involve emotional burnout like acting, deejaying, etc.

Home is where the heart is. There is no moon that is brighter anywhere until you find people that love and cherish you. The  people here have been very good, kind and wonderful to me, and I admit that I'm unlikely to find any friends that replicate their fine qualities. But still, eventually, I'm going home, to a place where I belong.