For the longest time, my identity revolved around feeling different. From my friends, my family, my community. It stayed with me probably until my 30’s, when I met my friends from Roanoke. They became the family that I chose. The people who loved me and could make fun of me for all my quirks but in a way that let me know that they accepted me exactly as I was.
One of the things that made me feel so different was growing up Filipino in a small rural town in Virginia. This post was originally written on October 3, 2013. Now I know that lots of Filipinos relish in all of the similarities we share as second generation Americans who share lots of inside jokes about how similar our childhoods were.
One of my missions in life is to help people let their inner rock start come out and sing, gosh darn it! Because I know they want to and I like to help people do what they want to do. Even when they don’t know they want to do it. I would have been a great drug dealer or salesperson. In fact, Amazon should be paying me commission for the number of red light therapy panels I’ve sold–even to physicians! Fortunately, I choose to use my powers of influence for good instead of evil.
This post was originally written on October 2, 2013. To read the full post, click he
In Sadie the Artist, Part 2, I’ll talk about why I have included Sadie in my mission of promoting my podcast, feature a song that Sadie is working on, and talk about what this song means to her. Again, in listening to her talk so intelligently and with so much wisdom, I’m confident you will appreciate why I think she is a remarkable human being. Here are the lyrics to the song she debuts:
After talking about politics with Sadie from ages 8 to 19 for a few episodes, I decided to switch to talking about Sadie’s love for all things creative. Which is where her passion has always been since she was an infant, sitting in her crib, entertaining herself with stories until someone came to get her. Similar to the previous episode, I share her my memories of those times and ask her what her experience was like from the child’s, and now adolescent’s, perspective.
This interview took place a few days ago. The 2 prior podcasts were some of my fondest memories of writing my blog, and I hope you enjoyed them. In the next 3 episodes I ask Sadie to reflect on what her mindset was at that time and in what ways it has changed or remained the same. This podcast focuses on her political aspirations. Because they were interviews, there is no accompanying post. But as a bonus, I open and close the episode with a clip from one of her songs, which still needs to be recorded.
I got my gift on August 15. It was hip replacement surgery. I told the orthopedic surgeon at my three month follow up that he didn’t save my life, but he gave me my life back. Because I love tennis, and I have been living without it for six years. I thought that I was never going to be able to play again.
I was glad I could thank him in person. I also calculated the number of surgeries that he’s done. I estimated it to be 28,000. If you could add 800 every year. Just in case he ever encounters someone as obsessive as me. 🙃
This podcast features an audio interview I did with Sadie on August 4, 2015 as she impressively describes her platform at 10 years of age, as well as why she became interested in politics.
The next podcast series will include interviews with my niece. This one was from a blog post written on November 27, 2014. You can read the blog post here.
Have you ever noticed that when someone says something negative about you it carries much more weight than when someone says something positive about you? One psychological theory for why this happens is that, from an evolutionary perspective, when something negative happens this is a signal that something has changed in our environment and we may have to do something about it. When everything is status quo, or even positive, everything is status quo and we just go about our business.
