Just came in from shoveling snow off the paths to my doors and steps. Too cold and my fingertips are frozen. Morale of the story: do not have too many doors to the outside when you live in a cold climate. I have two garage doors for my cars and a small door into the garage plus two stairways to my frontdoor. Too many places to shovel. This sounds like a life lesson to learn--do not have too many irons in the fire or too many projects to complete!

One of the most common soul-searching problems that young educated asian women go through is "what will I do when my children grow up?" I just listened to such a woman, and from comments I received from my colleagues, this woman must have talked to many of them! The story is common. A young asian woman is smart and did well during her primary and secondary schools, and even in college. Then she married a smart young man (of course, because she would not marry someone who is not her equal) and had children. Now she stays at home and looks after her children. In the meantime, her children do well at school and are getting smarter than her, her husband is making excellent progress at his career. Her cries are "What about me? What happens to my dreams? Can I return to school and catch up with my husband?"

Often I tell such women that dreams do not go away and can be accomplished. However, such dreams must take into consideration her husband and her children otherwise the price they pay will be too high. I tell such women that they should only plan for two or three years ahead--enough to get a graduate degree, and then at that point in their lives, they can plan further. Some of them came to me with dreams of completing a doctoral degree. That dream is wonderful but that is too far ahead into the future.

I began my first undergraduate class at the ripe old age of 38, a wife and a mother. I did not know that I wanted to be a professor at a university. Things happened and then my dreams changed and now here I am at a university! I am not sure that this is what I want to do forever although forever is now getting shorter and shorter (hehehehe...).

Jasmine is engaged to be married to Donnie. I was caught off guard when she told me but I realized that in the U.S. because she does not live with me, I am not aware of how close she and Donnie are. Now I feel better about it as every day passes and I reflect back on my own personal experiences. If Jas were living with me as I did with my parents, I would have met Donnie a long time ago. I would have met him every time he came to pick up Jas for a date. I also realize that both of them have their whole lives to live and so they have goals they can work towards. Their forever is much longer than my forever.

Thanks to Wena, now I can post to my blog again. She is such a sweet girl and always tell me, "don't worry, mom."