Stories by Anni Yang on Medium

Love Is a Battlefield

Anni Yang — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 01:30:32 GMT

Over thirty years ago, the singer Pat Benatar released a song, “Love is a battlefield”. The song is to be taken figuratively and not literally. The context has some reference as to how romance and relationships are difficult to be in. After much needed consideration, the meaning in regards to love being a battlefield, can be taken on a different level than the song from over thirty years ago.
Love, romance, relationships aren’t easy to be in and have any more. There’s the internet and more people on the planet to engage in sexual activity with. People have become materialistic and selfish, that they don’t care about anyone but themselves! The average person in a developed country is a narcissist. It doesn’t matter what race or even their gender, people are narcissists!
It doesn’t matter whether a person is heterosexual or homosexual, male or even female, people we know, are difficult to be in a loving romantic relationship with. Our heart may love someone, and most of the time, they don’t even love us back! Dating, love, and romance has become extremely difficult to be in due to what we thought of the modern conveniences ruining peoples’ attention span. Love is a battlefield, an emotional fight to be in.
When we try to be in a relationship with someone, it can be compared to military soldiers who must fight in a physical war to survive. Soldiers must be more aware and improve all their senses in order to fight the “enemy” they encounter. The “enemy” that we must deal with in a relationship is our partner’s attention span and true intentions. Do we have try to be likened to a spy where we have to pretend to get in the other person’s dark side? Or, do we be the soldier that goes in to fight?
It’s not a physical war that we have with the person we are trying to be in love with. It’s an emotional and at times, a psychological war. When soldiers are in battle, they have guns and knives on hand to fight off their enemy. Soldiers keep the gun and knife close to their body, to protect themselves when that moment arrives to fight back. We don’t know when we won’t need pull out and use our gun or knife, just as we don’t know when we’re about to be attacked emotionally or even psychologically.
Before a soldier starts their basic training, they have the attitude that it’ll be easy. When we are new to a relationship, we also have the same feeling that it’s going to be easy flowing. When the soldier is awakened on their first morning of basic training, they are faced with the reality whether they should even go through it. After their endured their first say and eventually the duration, they feel slightly accomplished. But it’s when the reality hits of when it’s time to be in battle, facing war. That is when the soldier has panic attacks due being afraid of what’s about to come. They never thought they’d be in the battlefield to fight the said enemy.
Humans are faced with similarities of what it means to be finally enter in to a war. Just as a soldier survives through basic training, that is compared to the beginning of a relationship, where we assume that it’s tolerable to endure. Just as a relationship progresses, going into battle is the same, for we don’t know what to expect. Some people abandon their post while in battle, just as many skip out on their significant other because they feel that they can’t cope with the responsibilities of that person.
If a soldier can put up the physical fight of being in a war, a regular person can do so as well. Enduring a romantic relationship isn’t easy. There are problems that every decent person is faced with that puts into question their means of survival. How does a soldier react to when they’re suddenly encountered by an enemy? The enemy in a relationship isn’t the person, it’s their emotional needs that arise and get in the way. A soldier can either avoid shooting or stabbing their enemy that is attacking them or they can come to an agreement to avoid a violent act.
Romantic relationships are faced with the reality whether we should face the problems we are having with someone by means of attack, or come to a non-violent agreement. Our enemy looks like us, sometimes, it is us, our psyche, emotional side that is taunting us. The supposed enemy can sometimes appear to be innocent looking, just as when we enter into a new relationship with someone we’ve recently met. Just as some animals look friendly, they can actually be deadly, as human emotions are the same thing. Some people can appear to be attractive looking, but once we engage with them, they may speak in a psychotic manner or idiotic.
Could we survive what it means to be in an emotional warfare? Will we abandon the one we love all because we’re secretly weak? If a person has never survived a real war, they’ll NEVER be able to survive an emotional psychological battle. Love is a battlefield; a figurative one we must fight our way through.

“Silicon Valley Exit: If Trump Becomes President”

Anni Yang — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:52:47 GMT

As a transplant to the Silicon Valley area, I do have to say, as much as most people who’ve moved into the area are liberal on a political level, most of America still prefers Donald as their upcoming elected President. Since most people in the state of California were either mostly into Hillary or Bernie, they forgot how the election process goes. What would influence people as a whole on the USA east coast and central states, will determine who will be leading the country. Any states, including Alaska and Hawaii have no say in the end since the process is based on the majority as a whole.

So if the majority of Silicon Valley companies are operated by a bunch of foreign born liberals, women, and LBGTQ people, what would it mean if a conservative dictator with homophobic ties came into power? For the most part, most companies would have to literally start packing and leave the USA! Where will these companies even go? They can’t go to England due to the Brexit issue of 2016! The middle east isn’t female friendly and they’re government is extremely homophobic as well. What are the options for American based tech companies? South Korea, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, …oh wait, the options just got even smaller! Europe is out of the question due to the bombings all over that continent in recent times.

Tech doesn’t fail, it’s the governments that try to control them that do! The people who run all the tech giant names come from all over the world and all of them have at least two or three facilities operating in various parts of the USA, mainly in Silicon Valley of California. Tech companies in general don’t support the conservative politics from first world countries. It doesn’t help that most Silicon Valley companies heavily rely on having employees from other countries such as India and certain parts of China, where the average salary is much less and the labor for IT is cheaply paid. If a conservative person comes into power in the USA, Silicon Valley will have issues due to most of their employees having to rely on work visas to keep the tech giants afloat.

When Reagan was President of the USA, tech was new then. Facebook rose into power halfway during when Bush Jr. was President. Technology has really expanded quickly ever since Obama has been President since he’s been actively involved in tech projects on a political and personal level. Whether people agree with Obama politically or not, it’s safe to say that he’s definitely a tech savvy person, plus he frequents tech companies. If Trump were to come into power, would he be tech friendly other than his hateful rant on Twitter? There’s a 50/50 chance that tech companies will stay around or move.

Ideally, Silicon Valley will have their fate determined soon. Silicon Beach in the Los Angeles area will be back to being Silicone Beach! There would be a high chance that all the work visas Silicon Valley relies on, will not be granted anymore and the majority of the employees will be deported to their homeland. The average American lives and breathes on the vanity of social media but most don’t know how to put it together! Will people continue to expand on their ideas and be backed up by the political system happening in their lifetime? If political leaders are personally unknowledgeable about technology and how it operates, the continuation of advancing will come to a temporary halt.

Politics divides people, technology unites people. It doesn’t matter what race a person is or what religion they were brought up in, technology has brought people closer together than ever before. Political views for certain policies and regulations has caused some people and groups to take extreme measures in an act of terrorism because of their lack of good while using new technology. Only in recent times, have organizations such as Anonymous and Edward Snowden have been able to expose government corruptions. Conservative politics have and will keep people as a whole separate from the rest of the world, just as Putin has done with Russia and Kim in North Korea.

If another ignorant person becomes President of the most powerful country in the world, expect more problems financially and technologically.

“Be Vocal In Tech and Gaming”

Anni Yang — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 04:30:31 GMT

To be a woman involved with tech and gaming isn’t easy. It’s the most competition anyone would have to endure. Why is that so? Women judge each other, no matter what the professional industry, just as they do to each other in high school. Any female who has been openly vocal about the tech and gaming industries, has suffered A LOT on a professional level. Oddly enough, most start-up companies mainly hire only extremely attractive women with little intelligence verses a woman who’s seemingly less attractive but is smarter.

Most females who are better at technology and gaming have suffered when it comes to finding and maintaining employment. There are more men who have been overseeing businesses and what they fear the most, is any woman who is smarter and better at their job than himself. Tech and gaming companies do hire females, but there are still fewer in management and actual engineering positions.

Women are insulted by other fellow female colleagues and men, when they are vocal about a company’s needs when need they room for improvement. Younger females have it little easier, but the older generation have suffered greatly for the younger women to have the luxuries they never had amongst male colleagues. Most tech companies have definitely been around for a while and even gaming, yet the amount of women who have come and gone who do have the skills sets not as a secretarial position but that of technical, have shifted employment status as they try rise in their industry.

When some women insist that they have a sisterhood in the said industries, that is a lot of garbage and lies! Most women see other women as competition for the many men that work in their field. Women are always in conflict with each other and what they can contribute to their line of work. There are women with great ideas, but those are the ones who are struggling as developers and artists since it’s dominated by men who only want “supermodel” looking women in their workplace at all times.

Any time and whenever a woman becomes vocal about her abilities to contribute in the tech and gaming worlds, she’s is ridiculed by other women who are only in the industries for their looks and the men who run the companies that don’t want to be come off as belittled due to their lack of advancement. Will both industries ever change and start to accept intelligent women over those who just look more attractive? It’d be a long time before any changes are made, but for the meantime, it’ll NEVER change as long as heterosexual men are controlling the workplace.

Tech and gaming is not only prejudice against intelligent women, they’re also against transmen because the majority of those who are born male are disgusted of the idea that a woman is able to be a man who can get work done. Many of those who identify as a transman have difficulties keeping and maintaining employment due to the prejudices that they’re born female and are intelligent human beings. Either way, tech and gaming continues to lack the diversity that mass media has sought after to change.

All of the hard work that has gone into making changes in the workplace, will not change for an indefinite amount of time. Not only are there drastic salary differences, but there’s definitely gender differences. Many women and transmen have been keeping quiet since they do not want to be hit with backlash by those who will never empathize or even sympathize with them. Tech and gaming need some serious changes in them. Women and transmen need to be more vocal for equality and diversity in the workforce of tech and gaming.