Thoughts Archives - Page 2 of 4

Guns, an American Way of Life

February 26, 2018 rubymary Comments 19 comments

My husband and I went to see Black Panther last weekend. Although my husband has had enough Marvel movies for one lifetime, I was quite stoked to see this one in particular. It wasn’t just the all-black (and beautiful!) cast, but I was also excited to see a unique marvel world crafted out of African culture.

The movie was great—until a group of young teenagers a few seats behind us began to provide loud and offensive commentary on the film. I won’t repeat what was said, but let’s just say they said the ‘n’ word twice, among other things. From start to finish this group of teenagers just kept at it—and no one said anything. read more

Are All Americans the Same?

February 11, 2018 rubymary Comments 11 comments

In the last year alone, I’ve managed to live in almost every single region of the United States. West, Pacific Northwest, Rockies, Midwest, South–you name it, and I’ve probably lived there for a month or two.

The experience was eye-opening and made me realize an extremely important fact: not all Americans are the same. In fact, the US does not feel like one country at all. Each region is so culturally and geographically different that, when I travel from coast to coast, I have to remind myself that I’m still in the same country. read more

Why 2017 Was the Craziest Year of My Life… With a 2018 Surprise

January 12, 2018 rubymary Comments 16 comments

I just have to say that 2017 was undoubtedly the craziest, yet also most unforgettable, year of my life.

My aunt told me that I had more life events happen in 2017 than people have in their entire lifetime. She’s totally right, because…

I Had Lots of Big Life Events…

Getting married on a mountain… no big deal

In 2017, I planned and executed a wedding while concurrently completing an intensive graduate degree in international relations.

Graduate school, as I mentioned, was really hard but worth every penny. Learning about international relations changed my life for the better, and now I suddenly see the whole world with a new lens. I don’t regret grad school one bit. read more

Graduating, Leaving California, Traveling to Ireland and Getting Married

September 13, 2017 rubymary Comments 15 comments

I apologize for the long, silent hiatus on this blog. I usually try to update once a month, but since May ’17 my life has been absolutely crazy.

Graduating

I honestly thought going back to school would be a nice break from “real, work life,” but it was actually more demanding and taxing both mentally and physically than my previous 8-5 office job. In graduate school I literally spent 10 hours a day in the library reading (and comprehending) the 500+ pages of literature, as well as write an average of 2-3 essays per week. Graduate school was a repetitive schedule of sleep-study-eat-study-sleep. That was my life for ten months. read more

Job Hunting, The United Incident, and The Girl Who Escaped ISIS

April 13, 2017 rubymary Comments 12 comments

I know, the title of this blog post seems strangely unrelated–and actually, it probably is. The only common link between job hunting, the controversial United incident of this week and the Girl Who Escaped ISIS is my mental state of being.

So let’s delve right into that:

The United Incident

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know about the United incident. A United flight from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville was overbooked and, despite offering an $800 voucher, no one volunteered to leave the plane and make room for four crew members who needed to staff a connecting flight. United felt that the only remaining option was to “randomly” select four people to forcibly vacate the plane. read more

In Honor of Women’s Day: Women Studying International Relations

March 9, 2017 rubymary Comments 15 comments

Ok, I’m biased about this subject matter (international relations being my main area of focus, and me being a woman), but since entering my graduate international relations program I’ve noticed something quite striking:

Males outnumber females. By a very large number.

In my Chinese International Relations and Security Class, there are 5 females and perhaps 15 males. My other classes also hold the same demographic. I always imagined international relations to be a relatively balance degree of gender (it’s not engineering), but I was alarmed by the contrast. International Relations (IR) is basically an extension of politics–and there are no women in it. read more

Finding Inspiring, Powerful Female Leads in Asian Media

February 11, 2017 rubymary Comments 14 comments

Image courtesy of Lord of the Rings Wiki

If you couldn’t tell, I grew up a fantasy nerd. My brother loved fantasy books and passed the tradition onto me–which meant that in 5th grade I was reading the Hobbit, and by the end of the 6th grade I had already finished the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

After reading Lord of the Rings, I was a diehard Eowyn fan. She was the only female in the entire series to kill a nazgul. Not only that, but she disguised herself as a male to participate in the war to prove herself. What. a. badass. read more

The Ruby Ronin’s 2016 Year in Review

December 31, 2016 rubymary Comments 22 comments

newyearcover

As social media and the internet have already proclaimed, 2016 was not exactly a great year. Dozens of amazing, life-changing and truly respectable celebrities passed away–and most of them, in my opinion, left this world too soon (Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Prince… just to name a few).

The most devastating public tragedy to occur in 2016, in my personal opinion, is the election of Donald Trump. I’m in disbelief that a bigoted, low-intelligence, tax-evading, rapist could become president. I go into 2017 with a heavy heart and sincere concern about the U.S. and the world. As someone studying foreign policy day-in, day-out, I am extremely aware of the damage an unpredictable president like Trump will do, and it is very frightening indeed. I went into graduate school with the high hopes of graduating, working hard to get a job in the federal government and serve under the first female president–and now everything has changed. My future looks uncertain. read more

3 Reasons Chinese People Like Trump

November 14, 2016 rubymary Comments 17 comments

Chineseliketrump

Like most of America, I was devastated on the morning of Wednesday, November 9th 2016. The impossible happened. The United States elected a KKK endorsed rapist to the most powerful position in this country. As a minority, I was horrified; and as a woman, I was absolutely disgusted.

Ill with a hangover and still in a state of shock, I rolled over in bed and reached for my phone. I had a slew of frustrated and hopeless texts from friends around the states. My Facebook feed was awash in anger, denial and filled with dispute. I opened my WeChat account to find… read more

The Life You Never Knew You Changed

November 1, 2016 rubymary Comments 15 comments

lifechanged

H called me. I was in my new second home, the university library, writing a policy memo on the conflict in Yemen. I knew something was different about this call. I stepped out of the library and picked up the phone.

“Hey, what’s goin on?” I answered naturally.

“Um,” she was quiet. I listened intently.

“Derek P, you know. He passed away today. He crashed into a semi-truck.”

I grew up in a small, coal-mining town in Utah. As mentioned before, I was the only half-Asian around and I was often teased for being ‘weird.’ Luckily, I had great friends to help me survive the battlefield called elementary school, but middle school was an entirely different playing field. read more

The Ruby Ronin

Connecting China, Japan, and the World

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