My Own Foolishness

I know that ever since I was a child, I have always wanted to get married and raise a family. That has been one of my obsessions. The problem for me has been that I never knew how to go about finding a husband. I didn't know how to have a romantic relationship. How do couples interact at home? I grew up in a single-parent household, with my father living far away and offering no contact. My Aunt Charlotte lived with my mother, sister, and I and was like another mother, but she could not fill the father figure role.
I blame being raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church for a lot of my problems. I was raised in a very conservative home and church, and I was told to follow many rules. I was therefore determined to find a Nice Adventist Guy to marry. I had it all planned out. I would find my Nice Adventist Guy who kept the Sabbath, believed in Ellen White, who was most likely a vegetarian like myself, who didn't expect me to dance with him, etc. We would go to church every weekend and raise nice Adventist kids who would attend Adventist schools and youth groups. I also wanted to spend some years in the foreign mission field, writing mission stories to SDA magazines.

1. First, there are few Adventist singles out there when you are not attending an Adventist university as a traditional student.
2. Even when you are attending a SDA school from the ages of 18-22, most students these days are not looking for husbands or wives, they are focusing on their education and having fun.
3. At least 3 out of 4 Adventist youth and young adults leave the church.
4. There are also criteria that people have such as age, ethnicity, education level, interests, and more that narrow things down more.
5. It is also difficult for some people with disabilities to find love because most people don't want to date someone with a disability.

I had the problem of being obsessed with someone quite often. Ever since I was about ten years old, I would meet a guy, decide I liked him, and then develop an intense crush on him. I would think about this person constantly, and I would do anything I could to keep in contact with this person. I would follow this person around, and when I finally got on the internet in 1999, I would cyberstalk this person and find out all the information I could on this individual. Such behavior was so foolish, because those men did not even bother with me much, and I was not able to see them often.
Fast forward to Korea in 2005 when I was obsessed with W*****, who had a Korean girlfriend. He had only been dating that woman for a short time, and despite the fact they had many disagreements, W* was hell-bent on marrying this woman. He made it clear to me that he was intent on marrying Yoon Young, even though she criticized him constantly. She was a Buddhist and W* was sure she would become a Seventh-day Adventist for him. They married in the Fall of 2005 and their son was born in June 2006. Their second son was born in Fall 2007. About 5 or 6 years into their marriage, they split up, leaving W* to raise two sons by himself in Korea. Yoon Young stopped attending church a few months into the marriage (no surprise). W* came from an abusive home, had no contact with his father, and his father-in-law died when the children were young. He only had his mother-in-law to lean on for support. The sons will be 19 and 20 years old this year and I hope they are doing well.
When W* left Korea to be with is new bride in the USA for a while, I decided to have a crush on R*. He was from New Zealand, but originally from South Africa. I did everything I could to follow him around. I kept hanging out with a friend at the school he taught. I spent Friday and/or Saturday nights over there so I could see him. I kept using this friend so I could get close to him. It was foolish. After six months (He previously spent a year in Korea), he went back to New Zealand to see his ailing father. Later, he married a woman he met there also from South Africa and married her. They now live in Virginia, USA where her family now lives.
In 2008 I went back to Korea for another stint, this time for two years. I decided I liked someone else this time, another man from South Africa. I had met him briefly at a retreat in Fall 2006. I followed him around for two years, even though I knew he wasn't interested in me. I thought I could get him to change his mind about me at first, but even after I realized that wasn't happening, I still followed him around anyway because I loved his company so much. I also thought I would forever regret not hanging out with him. I was wrong. I now regret my actions and I wish I had left him alone. I wonder how much things could have been better for me had I not followed him around.
Women should not pursue men. That was a hard pill for me to swallow. No matter how much I liked a man and how much I wanted to be with him, if he did not feel the same way, there was nothing I could do about it. Men also want to be in control. They feel emasculated when a woman is in hot pursuit of him. I felt angry at such things, because I felt that it wasn't fair at all. But we must accept things we cannot change. Men and women do not think the same way.

Faces of Autism

Recently, I have been researching information about autism. I grew up knowing a family with a severely autistic sibling. He can't speak and must use sign language to communicate. He would sit in church and twirl his tie and stare at it during the service. I also had a neighbour with identical twins that were severely autistic. I could hear them in their yard making animal noises while they played. I had the privilege of meeting Tony Deblois, a blind autistic savant with a talent for music. He spent a lot of time "stimming" and was difficult to talk with, but he could play the piano like Liberace. Those people I knew of were the classic autistics that we often think about when we think of people with autism.
I was surprised to learn about the diversity of people with autistic traits. There is an autism spectrum with people who can mostly function well in society, even if they have their setbacks.
There are people with Asperger's Syndrome, High-functioning autism, dyspraxia, and other autism spectral disorders who mostly function normally. In order to be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism, the individual must have an I.Q. of at least 85, which is a low normal. Many people on the autism spectrum can have above-average intelligence.
What I found to be most interesting is the number of famous people who have had autistic traits. Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Bobby Fischer, Andy Warhol, Alan Turing, Carl Jung, and more. I already knew Einstein didn't speak until he was four. There is no reason that autistic people have to be very impaired. There is a term called "neurodiversity" that promotes acceptance of the different ways people are "wired".
There is some debate on the famous people suspected to have had an autism spectral disorder, because most of them are dead now and experts have conflicting ideas on whether or not they were on the autism spectrum.

Aimee Mullins on TED Talks and Tony Deblois, autistic savant

A few days ago I came across this video from TED Talks. I subscribe to them on Youtube. This video was added on 11 March. It is about Aimee Mullins talking about her prosthetic legs. She showed her legs to a group of schoolchildren and they were all curious. She wanted them to be that way, she didn't want them to be afraid of asking questions. She wanted them to feel that there was nothing wrong with her. I think this video is enlightening.



Seeing the video made me think of this person:



I find savants to be very interesting. They have trouble performing simple tasks, yet they can do extraordinary things like calculate large sums in their heads or play difficult musical pieces from memory. I had the privilege of meeting up with autistic savant Tony Deblois in 2000 when I worked at a camp for the blind. He is totally blind. He was very difficult to communicate with and spent a lot of time rocking back and forth and waving his arms. He has such a great gift with music, playing the piano like Liberace. I have seen him on the Science Channel. I think it's right to look beyond people's handicaps and see them for the people they are. I had such a great time with the blind campers. I loved their talents. We had a talent show where many of them read poems they composed, songs they wrote, played instruments, and more. They were a lot of fun.