About

As much as I’ve been able to figure out “myself”, and at the risk of being contacted by Oprah’s lawyer, here’s what I know for sure: (is there a TM after this phrase?)

I am enormously motivated by the desire to help people feel good in their own body and mind.

To feel good in our “body and mind” requires a detailed understanding of how it all works, and that in itself is a vast, almost unending field that keeps expanding. So far, I have found myself drawn towards:

+ The human anatomy, physiology, and psychology.
+ Human communication patterns, languages and social media: How do we talk to each other? How do we listen? When is marketing “slimy”? When is it welcomed?
+ Cultural and societal similarities and differences that shape our experience.
+ Design, communication arts, pedagogy, and educational methods: How do we learn? In this highly visual modern culture, how can visual arts assist in our learning, communication, and coming into our sense of self, our identity?

I’m a small time trouble maker learning to be mindful. I am a dedicated yoga practitioner and teacher. I received my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Certification, and will be receiving my 500-hour Certification in May of 2010 from Pacific Yoga Teacher Training and Advanced Studies in Seattle.

I often find myself precariously climbing up things, to my mom’s chagrin, but the real danger are those soccer balls that always seem to find my knees, or any human body part that disagrees with full-on contact with a flying soccer ball (all of them, it turns out).

I sometimes speak of the pompatus of love. In Malcolm Gladwell’s parlance, I am a natural connector, and I relentlessly train myself to be the maven of yoga, personal well being, and personal technology. I am always looking to grow my collection of “Why did…” jokes.

At the University of Washington, I received a Bachelor of Science in Informatics, a Bachelor of Arts in Business Information Systems, and a certificate of International Studies in Business. (I didn’t have caffeine in my blood, I had blood in my caffeine.) I spent my sophomore year hopping European trains (going anywhere), eating cheese, and studying French literature and history at Université de Nantes in Northwestern France.

If humans could be characterized and categorized in neat boxes based on a set of 50+ questions they take during a certain 30 minutes of their lives, according to the Myers-Brigg Jungian personality test, which I’ve taken many times since high school, I’m decidedly an ENFP.

ENFP Strengths - Most ENFPs will exhibit the following strengths with regards to relationships issues:

• Good communication skills – In the words of the Beatles, “I have to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time”. I’ve been interested in communication since middle school, growing up in a household where I had not only a generational gap with my parents, but also a cultural one as well. When I lived in France as an Asian American, this interest heightened. I’m currently learning Nonviolent Communication, a technique spearheaded by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg.
• Very perceptive about people’s thought and motives - “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” I take this advice to heart and often put myself in people’s shoes.
• Motivational, inspirational; bring out the best in others – I’ve been told on numerous occasions by friends who would come to confide in me that I should be a Life Coach or a motivational speaker.
• Warmly affectionate and affirming – On most days, and especially if you’re a kitty!
• Fun to be with – lively sense of humor, dramatic, energetic, optimistic – I do have an affinity for “knock knock” and “why did the…” jokes
• Strive for “win-win” situations – As opposed to lose-lose, yes.
• Driven to meet other’s needs – Sometimes to a fault, this is something I’ve been working on, to make my needs met as well.
• Usually loyal and dedicated – I’d say that I’m loyal and dedicated to *people* I work with, not necessarily companies

ENFP Weaknesses - Most ENFPs will exhibit the following weaknesses with regards to relationship issues:

• Tendency to be smothering - Hmm.. I can’t say that this is “true” or “false” for humans, but perhaps if you’re a kitty, it’s definitely true.
• Their enthusiasm may lead them to be unrealistic – I may have told my mom (and my diary) a couple things that she may have deemed “unrealistic”, but only time will tell.
• Uninterested in dealing with “mundane” matters such as cleaning, paying bills, etc. – Okay, guilty as charged, definitely a known bug.
• Hold onto bad relationships long after they’ve turned bad - Also guilty as charged, though getting much better over the years.
• Extreme dislike of conflict - Oh yeah, but, since conflicts are inevitable in all aspects of life, that’s why I’m learning Non Violent Communication, and that’s why understanding how to meet my and other people’s needs is so important to me.
• Extreme dislike of criticism - Correction, I don’t care for destructive criticism, but I have actually trained myself to seek constructive criticism
• Don’t pay attention to their own needs – Learning how!
• Constant quest for the perfect relationship may make them change relationships frequently – Oh god, please don’t tell my boyfriend this.
• May become bored easily – This is probably true, not just for me but for most people as well, when there isn’t sufficient challenge and motivation, we become bored. This is why finding work that’s meaningful is so important to me. You can’t be bored when you’re compelled and connected to your own work.
• Have difficulty scolding or punishing others - Oh yeah, I am terrible at this. Please don’t make me tell someone they’ve been “bad”, not even a kitty.

Above and beyond “personality type”, above and beyond job titles and college degrees, I’m learning what it means to live fully as a human being. If I had to identify myself as anything, I would say that I am grateful.

This is one of my favorite poems by the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, which I think most accurately describes who I am.

Prologue

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1955

I’m many-sided.
I’m overworked,
and idle too.
I have a goal
and yet I’m aimless.
I don’t, all of me, fit in;

I’m awkward,
shy and rude,
nasty and good-natured.
I love it,
when one thing follows another
and so much of everything is mixed in me:
from west to east,
from envy to delight.

I know, you’ll ask:
‘What about the overall goal? ‘
There’s tremendous value in this all!
I’m indispensable to you!
I’m heaped as high
as a truck with fresh-mown hay!

I fly through voices,
through branches,
light and chirping,
and butterflies flutter in my eyes,
and hay pushes out of cracks.

I greet all movement! Ardor,
and eagerness, triumphant eagerness!
Frontiers are in my way.

It is embarrassing
for me not to know Buenos Aires and New York.
I want to walk at will
through London,
and talk with everyone,
even in broken English.
I want to ride
through Paris in the morning,
hanging on to a bus like a boy.

I want art to be
as diverse as myself;
and what if art be my torment
and harass me
on every side,

I am already by art besieged.
I’ve seen myself in every everything:
I feel kin to Yesenin
and Walt Whitman,
to Mussorgsky grasping the whole stage,
and Gauguin’s pure virgin line.

I like
to use my skates in winter,
and, scribbling with a pen,
spend sleepless nights.

I like
to defy an enemy to his face,
and bear a woman across a stream.

I bite into books, and carry firewood,
pine,
seek something vague,
and in the August heat I love to crunch
cool scarlet slices of watermelon.

I sing and drink,
giving no thought to death;
with arms outspread
I fall upon the grass,
and if, in this wide world, I come to die,
then it’s certain to be
from sheer joy that I live.

Translated by George Reavey (revised)