After his performance last night, Ronny stuck around and greeted guests to thank them for coming. The venue was quite small, so it was easy to approach him and chat for a bit. I’m always so surprised when I find that people who perform for a living in front of crowds of hundreds or thousands of people are shy in real life. They’re happy to have millions of eyeballs watch and critique their every word, but when one-on-one time comes, they almost clam up. That’s kind of how Ronny was. I got behind another couple to say hi to him while Chris was paying the tab, and he seemed almost embarrassed that I wanted to talk him to him beyond just saying thank you. The more questions I asked and the more I wanted to engage with him on everything from his time in Australia to Malaysian food outside of Malaysia and Singapore, he seemed more and more awkward. It was kind of cute. There’s no way I’d ever be able to do what he does for a living; it’s even more exciting that he’s an Asian comedian in a white/black dominated comedy world.

We’re all biased. We all have our self interests, the things that make us feel self-righteous. We all judge regardless of what we say. But what always throws me off is when people are so marred by their own biases and disgust for humankind that they cannot see the positives in the world.

We were at drinks late tonight with two of our friends, and one of them goes off politically about welfare like unemployment insurance, educational funds for army veterans, and Medicare. Basically, the gist is that he is implying we’re all naive to think that these are truly “benefits.” “Do you really think that the government provides all of these things to us to really ‘benefit’ us? They do it because people protested and revolted and demanded this stuff, otherwise they’d burn everything down and kill others!”

Well, no one said that people never protested to demand their rights. Hello, Civil Rights Movement and women in the late 1800s and early 1900s demanding their right to vote, which was denied to them merely because of their vaginas. After visiting the Civil Rights National Museum twice, I realized that JFK probably gets far more credit for being supportive of civil rights and black people in general than what he really deserves; it was purely political, unlike what they taught us in school. JFK was never going to participate in any “Black Lives Matter” type protest for sure. But at the end of the day, the origin or the reason for these laws or benefits is irrelevant to what positive benefits they provided to people then and now. Was my friend going to reject or deny taking his unemployment insurance when he was between jobs, or was my mother, who looks at the world just like he does and thinks “the government doesn’t give a damn about anyone,” NOT going to take advantage of Medicare and her monthly social security payments? Of course not.

It’s always fun to see people enjoy their “welfare” benefits but complain that the government “doesn’t give a shit” about anyone. Maybe they don’t really care about you, but you still get things from them. Don’t be the person who blindly and happily takes but doesn’t want to give a single thing in return, even if what you are “giving” is merely a little credit or one kind word.

In yesterday’s world, we applied to hundreds of jobs (or at least, I did), and if we were lucky, we’d hear back from maybe 10-20 of them. Companies would make you wait and squirm during interviews, asking you one question after another in an attempt to stump you or make you feel stupid. Then, after whatever phone or in-person interview, the worst of the worst ones wouldn’t even get back to you to let you know they turned you down until two to three months later. Those days really sucked.

Today, there’s LinkedIn for recruiters, internal and external, to reach out to you to ask you if you want to work for them. Recruiters are incentivized to find the best talent for their companies, and many will stop at nothing. I had one person I met say that a recruiter reached out three times, acknowledging all the previous outreach, until he finally responded to her and took her up on the interview request. I’ve had internal recruiters at some of the most prestigious technology companies in the world keep me in their back pocket in the event that a relevant opening comes up that might be to my liking.

And what really shocked me today was when I went in for an interview just past a normal lunch hour, and the interviewer offered to buy me lunch. You want to buy me lunch? Really? Can we be friends now? You’re kind of amazing even for just offering. Thanks so much, but I ate before coming. What a sweetie.

And then later tonight, to set up another interview with another company, they offered to provide a ride to and from their office because “we want you to arrive to your interview stress free!”

I told my friend this, and he responded, “Who is this — Exxon or Goldman Sachs?”

Neither, dude. Neither.

It’s the second day of spring, and I really should start expanding my food horizons when it comes to what I buy at Trader Joe’s. They are constantly coming out with new products, so why do I always just buy the same produce and oil and dairy products all the time?

I’m clearly late to the band wagon, but Trader Joe’s is the cheapest possible source for organic frozen acai. They also carry the cheapest box of Nature’s Path hemp granola. And why did I always ignore the dried fruit section other than the dried cranberries and cherries? With the help of a random food blogger I found, I realized that they actually sell dried baby bananas that literally taste as good as banana bread, just without all the extra sugar, oil, and eggs. If you tried these, you probably wouldn’t care to touch banana bread again (well, I will still make it, but you know what I mean).

I really need to slow down and actually browse stores instead of being so laser focused on things I supposedly need or want to make the recipes on my list. Maybe this is the season for it.

For the first time since college, I have a huge helium-filled balloon in my house, and I’m so excited by it. I got it at a freebie event that was held by an Italian shoe company for their birthday today, and they were handing out free gift cards for way-too-expensive shoes, and these massive green balloons. The last time I remember getting a balloon, my brother had gotten it for one of my birthdays. It may have been my 21st.

Helium balloons bring out the child in me. It’s a very simple thing (until you find out that these things can actually get quite pricey!), but it brings so much joy not just to kids but to adults. As I walked down the street with this huge balloon (it’s probably 6-8 of my heads combined), everyone looked at me and smiled.

Now, I just want a whole room full of helium balloons to get me giddy.