Live. LOVE. Learn.

Graduated.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Get your facts straight, haters.

Most perceptions are based on ignorance.

LeimanWhoChangesLives

LeimanWhoChangesLives moved to Bakersfield to start his new job today. Good luck bro, may you continue to change others’ lives for the better. =)

My New Job

I started a new job today at Edison - under the leadership of a new manager and under a different division.  Moved because there is a better chance of getting a full time job at that division than if I stayed at my old one.  So totally cried when I found out that I’m going to be moved because I was going to miss everyone SO much from my division… totally grew up there and it felt like i wasn’t ready to move on.  So the perception of moving on was totally dark and emo..

BUT ANYWAYS reality kicked in and here’s what I found out about my new job now:

1.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE  my new manager =) It’s like I’ve adopted him to be my new uncle who I not only respect for his work but we just get along SO well from the start, personality wise.  He’s done a REMARKABLE job transitioning me into his team so I hit the ground running today because I actually understood what I was doing.  Woot. =)

2.  Transition was a little easier than I thought it would be.  Courtesy of my new manager who has included me in transition meetings over KBBQ and starbucks coffee.  There is this guy who sits across from us who is a HUGE fan of UCLA, so I’m excited for our conversations for SURE.  ALSO my friends that are over in the new division definitely made me feel welcome =) They already started bugging me now that I’m there and helping me as well.  Gotta love ‘em. 

3.  The project that we’re working on is ACTUALLY exciting =) I love that it’s going to help a lot of people and be valuable to the company.  <3 <3 <3 it. 

On a slightly different note, when I prayed about opportunities I prayed that God would place me somewhere where I could change lives.  We’ll see what will happen… As in we’ll see what WILL happen not what might happen.

Taking the Dare.

On the last post, I expressed that I’ve been realizing it’s nice to have people around who you can count on and so on, and kinda sorta decided to take a dare a friend of mine set for me earlier this summer (Oh yea, during this one campfire session on the last day of my Christian fellowship camp, we all sat around and did a truth or dare Christian style, which means pretty much like the title except that you dare people to actually change their lives and you tell truth about someone who encourages them)___  to find a community that I can grow with seriously.   So in an attempt to do that I’m also attempting to forewarn myself that sometimes belonging to a group, or the desire to belong to a group is also dangerous because this mysterious power that a mass of people have on an individual. 


Have you ever tried so hard to fit in with a group of people that you try talking like them, walking like them, laughing at the same jokes (that you REALLY don’t think is so funny), and even bending your beliefs and values to their standard?  It’s like youre so desperate that the slightest disagreement is something that you don’t ever want to have- coz God forbid they won’t like you anymore and somehow you become an exile of their “community”. and whats SCARY is that you think it MUST be you, NEVER them.  And have you ever had that one friend who you can talk to about anything and everything and you trust her SO much coz she only wants the best of you - that ONE friend is starting to hate the group of people coz she can see how much they’re changing you into this person who is so afraid and so agreeable all the time but its like fake agreeableness because all the voice that you had in the world and all your energy is spent trying to figure out what the hell you’ve done wrong once conflicts arise.  The group becomes your God, and shit happens, really smelly shit, when you let other things that’s not god becomes the center of your life. 


And instead of the ball of compassion who loves, you become this- desperate, disempowered… web of insecurities. 

And so yah, coz pastor Kyle (the pastor I wanted to choke below but really am so grateful for) is a man of lists and steps (ALL of his sermons this weekend went like this.. there are 3 steps on how you could…), I’m gonna attempt to forewarn myself by creating a list of things that I have decided would be a good one to look for in a community.  Maybe consider this also a prayer to God asking for these things.


1. I need a group of people who will encourage me to be who I am and accept me.. as I am.
It must come with being this type A personality who wants to be perfect all the time and who has this ideal “me” in my head that I’m always trying to be someone that i THINK i want to be- but doing that feeds your self hatred because that’s killing whoever that God has created you to be.  So I need an avenue to express myself -usually that’s through music or writing or praying.  So a community that’s strong in music, prayer, and creative expressions but is accepting of people who aren’t. Hmm. I like that.

2.  I need a group of people who will challenge me to do things i’m afraid of doing, but they’ll do it together with me.
A pastor friend has this caption at the bottom of his email saying “do something every day that scares you”.  I believe it, because that’s the only thing you’ll grow out of your comfort zone, and that leads to growing up as a person. 

3.  I need an honest community where things aren’t covered up and gossips aren’t spread around.
I’d rather people just come up to me and say directly, dianne i hate the way you do this, than finding out after the fact when my reputation is already scarred because of a misunderstanding or some little things that couldve been resolved otherwise. It hurts to find that out and that decreases trust.. and trust needs to happen for a real friendship and real changes to happen. 

4.   I need a community that is passionate about people’s well being (not just social justice type of work but also mentorship type of work and individual well being), showing mercy, compassion, and kindness to people that society doesn’t usually like, without care of their own reputation being associated with them (not just the homeless and the poor, but also the “socially awkward” and the “uncool”). I want to grow in those characteristics and I need people to show me how. 

5.  I need a community that teaches me how to have a voice, a community that empowers me.

So I guess then that’s it for now.  A pretty simple list, i’d say, but if you have any suggestions as to what I should add or if you want to talk to me about this or if you think you have a community you can show me, give me a holler.  What’s fo sho is that I would need prayers and God to help me find something like this, so prayer is mucho appreciated. Woot. Here goes.

Icebergme.

It’s been really hard for me lately to write down my thoughts in this blog or talk it out to people, and I’m not quite sure for what reason. A few nights ago I couldn’t sleep because it was super hot and I was awaiting the long awaited retreat- so my mind wondered about things like the future (the 2500 characteristics I want in the boyfriend, who the bridesmaids are, san diego weather), work(checklists, checklists, checklists) and what i’m going to eat today (buffet, cup of noodles, souplantation..) and for some reason I ended with pondering what the purpose of this blog really is for me.


So some people use their blogs to raise awareness about issues they care about, some use it to express their feelings, some use it for plain advertisements.  So I looked through my blog and all I could see was whine whine whine waa waa waa i need this i hate that emoness shed tears here (hence you don’t find those posts here anymore because out of disgust i deleted them all) and I’m just like.. gee. Is that REALLY me? Am I REALLY sounding FIVE every time I write a blog entry? MY god. Shut up Dianne, really. Your life isn’t that hard. And so I decided that from now on, I will only post up things that really would be beneficial for other people to know or read or if people can relate to things (like no one really needs to know my internal dialogue once a cute boy approaches me and asks me out unless i could relate it to other girls out there, which I will do in later posts about inner workings of girls’ minds- but not now). 


But at the same time that brought me to another problem because I have been realizing that duh the traveling salesman post and the super not making sense houze poem is a scream of my unconsciousness and things that are not necessarily resolved in my life and duh the other shorter posts are more direct screams because my friends are all spread out and its harder to go call Julia or Tracy or Stacey to pour my heart out.  So I just lick my own wound, calm myself down and try very hard to be a big girl but at the same time hoping that someone would come across the post and say ‘hey, are you okay?’

I hate that about myself- that I even need someone to ask how I’m doing. I should be self fucking sufficient and should be tough like Superman who dont need no sidekick or nobody helping her.  Because being emotional is so often associated with weakness and I’m quite the emotional one- i mean, shit, nobody wants to be the emo one out of the crowd.  And mind you, that is what the world tells us- is that you should NEVER share your emotions with others because you will be a burden, and that you should isolate yourself in the bathroom stall when you wanna cry because you dont wanna cause any scenes or worse, face the ACTUAL problem. And so what used to be deep conversations with people just becomes blog posts or is simply kept inside.  I was getting used to it- getting colder and colder by the moment.  I guess the distance and being away from a community has been making me more of an iceberg me since graduation.  I’m finding it easier and easier to shrug pain off, or give others the smile again that I used to give people my freshman year of college or the silent treatment when I’m angry or just run away from everything.  Easier to be “strong” by the world’s standard, to keep the ugliness inside and put on a mask.

But who are we kidding. 

Today, the pastor talked about community and how people need people and i wanted to choke him because damn it he can read my mind (not really, I was more like, wow this is why God gave me the strong feeling to not ditch his sermon today).  Then this weekend I also met awesome people at the retreat who reinforces that its so nice to actually have a community- to belong somewhere.  Then to top it all off I was talking to Leiman Who Changes Lives about some recent events and I just started bawling out of frustration about a whole mess of things that I havent mentioned to anyone and being the good friend that he is, he goes it’s okay that you’re frustrated, he said, you’re trying your best to love other people.

I hated that it felt GOOD and calming to me- that I needed someone to do that for me.  That I really do need people and God wasnt kidding when He said it aint good for man to be by him(her)self.  That there is still the little girl inside of me that is still hypersensitive and needs some kind of a safe space to bawl and be herself _ and today thanks to the pastor and spec kids and LeimanThatChangesLives I’m realizing that perhaps it’s good for me to be with people again, so that there is less of a need to post random ass posts from the subconscious that I end up deleting anyway.  And more importantly, so I can grow, so that I don’t run away from problems, and actually become a better person, so that ultimately the icebergme would melt and all that is left will be compassion and love for others.  Because if youre plugged in the right community this is what it should help you become- a ball of compassion who loves.

And so here I go. Because I want to be a different person the next time I look back at this post.