Tonight, we went to see a play called “Vietgone,” which portrays the Vietnam War, the American’s involvement in it, and Vietnamese refugees being brought to the U.S. refugee camp in Arkansas to establish new lives.

The play actually touches upon a frequently heard sentiment, that the Vietnam War was a “mistake,” that the U.S. had no place to be a part of the war between North and South Vietnam and only got into it for selfish reasons. While all of that may be true, what is also true is that a lot of great things came out of it; many Vietnamese people were successfully resettled in the U.S. as a result of the American involvement via the refugee camps, and I know many of these people today. They are doing well, in their stereotypical doctor/lawyer positions. If they aren’t doctors and lawyers, their children are certainly entering these prosperous fields and other lucrative, well looked upon professions. My mom married my dad, and my dad brought her over to the U.S. for a “better life,” which yielded Ed and me, for better or for worse. My mom gets upset about the war and doesn’t like to talk about it because of the tragedies she had to witness, but she looks at the American involvement as positive because she sees it as the Vietnamese dad sees it in this play: the Americans were trying to give her a better life. She’s in America today because of this war. And from my dad’s perspective, being a part of the U.S. Army, he looks at it from a positive, idealistic stand point in that he was sent there to make a difference. He doesn’t see it as a “mistake” or a waste.

It’s easy to call a war or a political decision a mistake when it had no direct impact on your life. It’s not as easy when it did have an impact on your life. That’s why most people’s opinions are full of crap when it comes to day to day things.

Seven more days until D-Day. I have a strange and sad feeling that if Donald Trump loses the election that he will still constantly be in the news for all of his sexual assault and racist bullshit.

Hillary, if she wins, will constantly be criticized for not smiling enough, being warm and friendly enough, and not having the correct “presidential look.” I’d even say she’ll be evaluated even more harshly than Obama was. She will also be consistently criticized for how ambitious she is. I mean, isn’t that what the media keeps saying, that she is conniving, will stop at nothing to get what she wants? Because men who are like that are just great, ambitious, and admirable, right? The road to true gender equality is so damn hard.

Last night, I found out that my friend’s colleague recently committed suicide. She’s still friends with his wife.

And today, I found out that my former colleague/friend’s friend, who I had met several times at his group events several years ago, committed suicide by jumping in front of an A/C train yesterday morning. I immediately recognized his face when my former colleague posted. And I immediately felt sickened.

When will all of this ever end?

Tonight, Chris and I went to see The Trial of an American President, a play detailing the hypothetical trial of former President George W. Bush being charged with war crimes surrounding starting the Iraq War, which we now know was a complete waste of time and money, needlessly killing hundreds of thousands of American and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians. A number of real victims of the war who survived detail everything from the harsh realities of “waterboarding” to the horrifying treatment of prisoners held without legitimate reason at Guantanamo Bay. This play just made me feel even more angry about politics today. So many people would want an actual trial like this to happen, but it never will.

The play actually reminded me of how ridiculous all the anti-Hillary or “Killary” people are, saying she needs to be “locked up” for everything from her 30,000 missing emails to the four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, who died during the Benghazi attacks in Libya in 2012. Why are these people making such a big fuss about e-mails of all things to the deaths of four Americans when George W. Bush caused the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis in a war that was completely fruitless? He says he consulted with God frequently when deciding on the war. I love it when conservatives try to say that God gave them some direct message about the stupid decisions they make. It’s really amazing how people turn a blind eye on the things they don’t care about or think is important and zoom in on and scrutinize what really either isn’t important or has already been resolved.

Rolling pandas. Parrots perched on the shoulders of dogs without dogs knowing. Corgi dogs who get excited and yelp like crazy when they see their reflections in a mirror. Then there’s this recent video that’s gone viral of a kiwi girl having her very first taste of ice cream and completely lapping it up — a new experience, the first time enjoying sweet plus icy cold. These videos across YouTube and other forms of social media have millions, if not billions of views. The people who are a bit cynical and pessimistic think it’s all a waste of time and eye balls put to poor use. They think that everyone should be more serious and read real news and get with the current events.

I’d beg to differ. I don’t think that watching videos of rolling pandas shows that we don’t take life seriously or pay attention to current events or the disgusting and divisive state of our politics in this country. It’s not either / or; what about having and doing both? I think that this can all be enjoyed alongside being well-informed citizens. I love watching those panda videos; I’ll admit it. I don’t watch them every day or every month, but when they come up in my Facebook feed or on YouTube, why not? It’s a much needed light and fun break from a world today that is filled with so many problems, so much anger, and a political climate that literally is having me and so many colleagues and friends experiencing anxiety. It’s tiring and frustrating to see Trump’s face and the word “Killary” all over the news and social media every single day.

I think that like other women who are following the presidential race this year, I am filled with anxiety, and these presidential debates are only fueling that anxiety for me. The more I see how incompetent and unfit for president Donald Trump is, the more I feel fear for the future (this is when it would be helpful to channel Tony Robbins and be FEARLESS). It’s not even just about the notion of him becoming president; it’s that even if he loses, which we hope will happen, that his getting this far as a candidate and winning the Republican party’s presidential nomination will fuel this developing and growing group of people across this country full of bigoted, racist, sexist beliefs, people who choose to see conspiracy theories as “facts” and cannot even tell what fact is from fiction. Then, it will be the rise of the next Nazi party in modern day Divided States of America.

I don’t claim to be an expert of history, nor would I ever try to give anyone a proper U.S. history lesson. But one thing that really stood out to me in showing how little Trump knows about how laws work in the U.S. is when he accused Hillary of doing nothing as a New York senator, that she didn’t change any of the laws. No, Moron, she cannot single-handedly pass any law as a junior senator in New York State. That’s not how it works. I at least know THAT.

Someone please needs to make all this stop. I feel so embarrassed for this country and even the Republican party every time I hear this guy speak.

We all live in our little bubbles everywhere. In California, Massachusetts, and New York, I’ve been surrounded by liberals who accept homosexuality, interracial dating and marriage, and atheism, among other things. I grew up surrounded by Asians and was surprised when I traveled other parts of the country to see for myself that Asians weren’t in huge numbers everywhere. And because I’d only seen domestic violence and wife beating on television and in movies, I thought it wasn’t a real problem for most people. And then I read stories like this that won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and realize that there really are cities and states where the lives of domesticated animals like dogs and cats are treated as more important than the lives of women. In South Carolina, a person can be jailed for up to five years for beating his dog, but put in jail for only up to 30 days for beating his wife or girlfriend on the “first offense.” Domestic violence and abuse is a huge problem in South Carolina, which has the highest rates of domestic violence cases of all states in the country, and little is being done about it. With a mix of old-school Christian marriage values, 2nd amendment nuts who want to protect even the rights of wife beaters and abusers to own guns, and dated, sexist gender roles, South Carolina is kind of like a domestic violence victim’s version of hell.

I read stories like this and realize that we have too many problems to solve for in the world. How do we prioritize these? How do we correct gender hate and the idea that beating one’s wife is “right”? I was deeply disturbed by reading this long, thoroughly investigated story in all of its seven parts, but again, I felt powerless to help. Powerlessness seems to be the theme of this week.