Entries Tagged 'Writing' ↓

It has been eight years, but I still remember a lot of details from that tragic day of 9/11/2001. I was barely 18 and just moved into the dorms at UC Berkeley. My roommate was a jovial Arabic girl from San Diego trying to be a doctor and a lawyer. It was just another day of school.

Before class started, my roommate told me that someone bombed the World Trade Center. All I thought was, “well, that seems like a popular target”. There was a girl in our hall that came from New York, and she was watching the small TV in the lounge. I walked past her and she seemed somewhat petrified by the images on the screen. Columns of black smoke replaced the once gleaming towers. It wasn’t a bomb that did this, it was planes. I had to go to class.

In class I saw a friend from high school, and he told me that the towers completely collapsed and there were simultaneous plane attacks in other parts of the country. He laughed and said that at least the terrorists will not try to bomb the World Trade Center anymore. Details were still streaming out, but we weren’t exactly concerned. We were 3000 miles away in California. How could this affect us? All we saw was the constantly pristine blue California sky outside.

When I got back to the dorm for lunch I saw that my mom left me a message on the answer machine. She insisted that I get an answer machine before I moved into the dorms. All she said was, “Xin, AMERICA UNDER ATTACK. BYE” My roommate and I cracked up at this message because it was serious and yet at the same time so comical. How could America be under attack? How much damage could this event possibly do? It was incredulous. It was just a couple buildings that got destroyed? Right?

For the most part that day was almost like just any other day for me because New York was a world away. It was the days and years to come that stirred up fear and unrest in everyone. The death toll in the attack and the constant warnings of further attacks made everyone on edge. Even my granddad in China told us not to go outside to public places, because he was afraid for us. The entire world changed for the worse on that day. The safety that we took for granted was no longer a guarantee.

Now eight years later America is still fighting the terrorists and Ground Zero is still vacant. I would say that wounds caused by 9/11 definitely have not totally healed, and for some the scars will be permanent. When I look back on that day I see how naive and immature I was about the whole event, and I wonder if the hijackers who died on that day now see what a mistake they made.

Finally, I hope that those who remember the events of 9/11 teach their kids never to hate something or someone so much that they are willing to destroy themselves and others. The senseless deaths on that day also remind me not to take my life for granted no matter what, because each day is a gift from God.

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I love reading stories about real people, and today I read this story about a man named Daniel Suelo who “quit [money] like a bad drug habit” nine years ago.    He  does live in a cave, and his lifestyle does seem somewhat crazy by the norms of society, but some of the things he believes about money are things I have noticed or thought about before.

On Suelo’s website he makes a point that money is imaginary, and that the power of money only becomes real if both the creditor and the debtor both believe in it.  The example he uses is that if you give a bushman in the jungle some German marks then it is nothing but colored paper to the bushman.  That money has no meaning to the bushman.  This is definitely true when you think about it.  Why is the United States able to literally summon trillions of dollars out of thin air?  It is because the United States’ creditors have faith in the word of the U.S. government.  Why did California have to cut spending?  It is because creditors no longer believed in California.   Money is only real because people believe in the system and participate in it.  If you bestow an account with a trillion dollars to an extraterrestrial who places no value in it then it is meaningless to that alien.

Another point on Suelo’s site is that in reality goods and services can be exchanged without money.  One example he had was of a German woman named Heidemarie Schwermer who has lived without money for about 12 years.  She does this by bartering within exchange circles and she is the subject of an upcoming documentary appropriately titled  Living Without Money.  This is not a new idea since people have been exchanging goods and services for thousands of years.  Money just became a global system of accounting that made these exchanges less personal.  It is certainly more efficient to swipe a credit card to buy a sack of rice rather than trading a bag of almonds or something else.  However, for those without money it may make more sense to barter.

Finally, another thing that made Suelo swear off money is the recurring theme of “mo’ money, mo’ problems”.  The example he gave was that when he worked with Ecuadorean tribespeople he saw how money made them buy useless things.  The tribespeople also became less healthy as they spent more because they started to buy things like soda, MSG, and refined sugar.   Suelo said that he charted their development and “it looked like money was impoverishing them”.  I have certainly seen how money could impoverish people.  Some people forget the real things in their lives such as family and friends and pursue money relentlessly because they never feel like they have enough.  The fact is that if they never feel like they have enough then it does not matter how much money they earn, because they will never be satisfied.

Anyway, I think that these people demonstrate that it is definitely possible to live without money, but the hard part is to unplug yourself from what is considered normal.  I am definitely not cut out to live in a cave, but I have to admit that I am a little envious of those living abundantly without money.  For now I am very thankful for the lot I have been given, and I will just have to do my best in this world that is controlled by this “imaginary” system.   I have to admit that this whole financial meltdown made me less fearful of losing money, because life can and will go on without it.

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I know, I’m a bit late in posting this, but the Wise Bread book is officially out.   Wise Bread is running a contest for everyone who is interested in the book here.   You could win a Flip camera!  I actually have one of these Flips that was given to me by my company, and it is pretty neat.  When I first got it I taped my husband play an real time strategy game and caught the most hilarious expression on his face as he lost horribly.

Currently the book is doing pretty well in some categories on Amazon.  It is currently #2 in Personal Finance and #1 in Money Management and Budgeting.  The Wise Bread admins are doing a really good job in promoting it.  I have been too busy lately so I haven’t done much in terms of blog related things.

Anyway, I was going to write a really long post about the special election coming up tomorrow morning in California, but I didn’t have time.  If you want to read about it here is a really great article.  I am hoping that all the voting citizens realize that a pretty much all the measures on the ballot are tax hikes in disguise.   I am not a citizen, so I can’t vote, but as a taxpayer I think I have the right to say that they really just need to figure out how to cut a bunch of useless things and learn to budget better.  Most of my friends who are voting are voting yes on 1F, which limits pay hikes on legislators, and no on everything else.  That probably will be the end result of this election.

Have a great week everyone!

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I didn’t want to say anything on this blog until it was official, but today I got confirmation that some of my articles from Wise Bread will be published in an upcoming Wise Bread book.

The title is 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget  and the release date is May 1st, 2009.  However, we already have preorder listings  on Amazon, Borders, and Barnes and Nobles!  Of course, the cheapest price is still Amazon.

All of the articles in the book are from Wise Bread and they will probably be edited a bit to suit the book format better, but this will be an awesome book because you will be able to read some of the best tips from Wise Bread in your bathroom.

I already told some of my family and friends and my dad said that he wants a free copy if possible.  If not, he would buy it and that he is my “most royal reader”.  My mom said that this book will help the people of America, which I thought was kind of funny.  I am probably not going to make money off this book at all since there about a dozen regular writers for Wise Bread and the book is a collection of materials that has already been published online.  However, it is still quite exciting because my ramblings have never been published in a book before.

An interesting anecdote I found out is that the publisher/editor said that frugal living books generally sold poorly in years past.  This is no surprise since people were more interested in spending money rather than saving money, but I am hoping that our book does better  in the current economic climate.

Anyway, I already got some mockups for the pages of book, and it looks pretty neat.   I am hoping that it would serve as a great promotional tool for Wise Bread, and also encourage people to save money.

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Recently I read several articles about the mass exodus from California in the past four years.    It’s really not a surprise to me because I have seen the rapid rise in cost of living, taxes, and unemployment in the past few years.  Combine that with a state government that is in constant turmoil and you have a very stressful and unstable situation to be in. However, is the California dream really dying?

In my mind, the California dream is much more glamorous and adventurous than the so called “American Dream”.   For example, every Chinese person I know still calls San Francisco “Old Gold Mountain” because of the Gold Rush.  The gold ran out, but the legend of sailing halfway around the world to California for treasure still remains. The dot com bubble burst, but some lucky few still made out like bandits and new entrepreneurs are still trying to strike it rich in the Silicon Valley.  The California dream gives people high expectations to become the richest or the most famous, but it also dishes out  big disappointments. The fact of the matter is that most people cannot attain the California dream.  Not everyone can become a movie star, and not everyone can be a dot com millionaire.

I have lived in California for almost 12 years now and I have seen both of my parents’ next door neighbors move out of state.  One of the families sold their home for a dandy profit and headed up to Oregon, and the other packed up to go to Washington.  Now my inlaws have packed up and left for the Philippines after living here for over 23 years and raising two children.  Honestly I am a little jealous, and a little curious as to if they love where they are now, but I think they have achieved their goals in California.

There are a lot of things about this state that I love even though sometimes I am so frustrated by all the things going wrong.  I love the innovative energy in the Silicon Valley, and the mostly sunny skies.  I love the diversity of people here and the availability of cuisines from all over the world.  This is also the state where I got a pretty decent college education even though my parents paid for it through tuition and oodles of taxes.  California is where I grew from a child into an adult, and for better or worse it is  a part of who I am.

It is very unlikely that I will leave California since pretty much my entire immediate family is here.  My husband is adamant that he would probably never leave California since he has lived here since he was two and my parents have worked pretty hard to be here.  This is home, and it is messy and screwed up, but it is still home. I am pretty sure it is going to get worse, but I also think that the innovations of Californians will make this the place to be once again. The California dream will live on because everyone dreams of a life beyond the ordinary, but perhaps right now it doesn’t seem like California is the best place to realize that dream.

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