And I still have found what I am looking for.......

I have thought over and over about this week's blog. The mission of my blogs are to be something that inspire, call for action, and maybe comfort others who read it. They are also to give insight where I think others who know me can't get it. This week has been a building up to of pressure and change. I sense that change, a welcomed shift in my reality is approaching but it's been long and drawn out. In the last two weeks, I have noticed that I have been present to how indiviualized my life has been. I.E. Ideas surrounding why I was born into the life I was instead of the world I live in now, how my reality can drastically differ from the person I briefly encounter on the street. It's all been so astounding how so much life can occur and yet, maybe, we don't even know the half of it. All of this awareness and realization and observation has brought upon me increasingly confusion. Possibly fear that is unwanted.

Last Friday, I was invited by my teacher to accompanying her to her temple. I have studied Buddhism before in the past, seeking answers there for a way out. I never found what I was looking for. So, I took what I learned and intergrated it with my Catholism. I have found that it has broadened my relationship to the religion, making "God" less of a authorian ruler and more of a guide. But at times, I have felt that "he" as a guide has ignored me. While my teacher was showing me 'the ropes' of how to pray to Buddha,became so uncomfortable, because this year I had shunned all of this and turned to the Bible as the sole answer to my sufferings. As, I performed the required rituals to communicate with Buddha, I couldn't shake this feeling of betrayal. I saw that I actually believe that Buddha was a 'idol' as written in Old Testament. Yet, I didn't stop. The answer to my question(How do I bring love into my life-not romantic love, but general love) was to try and try again, that I currently have an opportunity but it will take time. One of the characters used to describe this was gou(3) for dog. How I ironic, because I have a dog, but it didn't particular pertain to having a dog. So, I left the temple, once again feeling empty-handded in dealing with my current troubles.

The same teacher also advised me to meet with a intuitive counselor who saw past lives. I made the appointment and saw him on Tuesday. He spoke of three different past lives that I had, all the characteristics of them,how the characteristics related to this present life, and what I was dealing with in this life time. I really didn't like this, and the whole while I thought to myself 'Why did I come to this again?' Of course, the counselor, emphasis with my feelings, saying that he knew where I was at because he had been there also. Which to me was like a kid on the playground tauting another kid about their lack. Then being on the fortune roll I was, during my language exchange I went to a Taiwanese physic in Snake Alley. This was the strangest of all my adventures in seeking paranomaral advice, because of how they did it. The woman, tapped loudly on a Bao-gua compass, 'asking' the gods for advice. It was more like she was sending Morse code to some one. And what makes it even funnier was that another person decided to join in, so there was two people furiously tapping away, seeking the god's answers for my two questions. I walked away with a piece of paper saying that I was 72% lucky, wouldn't get married until 38-40 because my career would have to be inplace(which would make me famous), and that I would have many suitors to choose from. The 6 years in between I would have boyfriends, just not marriage material. Oh well....

I left feeling incomplete and pissed off which has mounted within the last 48 hours.

I stopped seeking the advice of this so-called 'intuitive counselors' in 2003, because they haven't presented me with what I wanted to hear. Also, I felt that I have spent so much money on them and left with no greater insight that would empower me to break thru the current difficulties I have. I always left with feeling that it was never enough. In a way, I feel that they are shysters and incable of truly knowing the 'truth', but then again, it could be have never told me what I wanted to really hear. So, now I am in the mist of frustration piled on top of the other frustrations that I already had.

I don't know what it will take for one's present status to change. Maybe we are destined to live certain lives within certain forms of feelings and never getting beyond them. For me, it's always been living a life that has had a lot of misunderstanding in it, anger directed toward me and failure. I look at people like Oprah,Ghandi, and others who have had difficult beginnings but eventually found their purpose, their 'place' and became successful. I always believed that I was like them, but from this weeks current advice, I am not destined for fame. While that pissed me off, I found myself actually more confused and lost than I have ever been. The final straw being that I had switch out of my current class, because my teacher 'feels that she can't help me'. (My situation at Taiwan Normal University has been a very frustrating one, so much so that I would have to rant on it in a whole other blog post).

I still believe in a God. I still pray, but I do wonder if this 'god' hears me, or whether I am doing enough for him to hear me. My current frustration with learing Chinese has pulled to the forefront the depths of how lost I feel in life, making me question how much long should I endure this. Which frustrates me deeper, because there is one person in my life who's reality of my life, proves to them that their fears of my choices are right. I feel hurt, and scared and alone. BVery much alone, with noone to relate to and no one to just speak to of my troubles of being human.

All in all I have no answer that empowers me. Yet, the irony of all this is, before the current term began, I prayed and prayed that I would have a successful term with my learning. The irony? I haven't been able to grasp any of the new grammar I have been learning and I had so much difficulty with the teacher. It seems like the joke was on me.

The intuitive counselor advised me to seek out nature and to feel. What I am feeling is lost and most important "what was the purpose of me coming to Taiwan?" It was not that I even wanted to come here from the very beginning. In fact, I resisted coming but came with the idea in mind that I was following 'God's lead". Maybe this purpose will reveal itself in years to come, but given that I am so tired of failing and living a life where people can't access my heart therefore I can't be loved by them and they can't feel the love I have for them.................