Must…drink…water

My head aches and aches and aches.  All I did was have a wonderful day and drink less than three liters of water.  How is it normal for someone to have such a result?  I guess my body in just in synch with the weirdness of my mind and personality.  Gotta be crazy all over, not just in one area of life.  Oh, no.  😛

Though, oddly enough, I drank very little water today, even though I was surrounded by it with all the rain we’ve had today and tonight.  I was even out in it for a while earlier today.  Crazy.

How much water do You drink on average in a day?  I average a minimum of three liters, and have done up to five on desperate days back in Japan.

Post-a-day 2018

Another letter from Japan

Another letter I found regarding my early time in Japan.  I’m not so sure that I ever sent this one either.  I think they both were intended as drafts, but time kept passing and more kept happening, making me want to add even more… and so I never sent anything. 😛

………………………………

The short version (A Recount in Which I Cut Out the Complaints)
 
I live in Toride, Japan, a suburb of Tokyo, and have an apartment, with about 2/3 of what I need in it (a significant improvement from a couple days ago).
Figuring out how to sort trash took a week, but I mostly figured it out with the help of a Japanese friend I made.
I have a new phone and new bicycle (new to me, at least).  Both were killer expensive.  It’s a 45-minute ride to my main school, 10 to my secondary school.
We aren’t paid until the 21st each month, so I had to bring a boatload of cash for my apartment and initial expenses (apparently credit cards are only used in half the locations the US and Europe use them.  Also, bank cards have single-transaction price limits, so everyone always asks if I want to split my transaction when I use my card. (Not that I understand it, but someone translated it once, and I recognize the phrasing + body language now.)
I have a futon, which is a lame version of a mattress, but practical for the lifestyle here (supposed to hang it in the sun every week to kill germs on it, which is usually needed, because it’s hella-hot, and most people don’t really use A/C, even if they have it), and mine seems to be okay-ish for being able to sleep.
A new friend, Sammi, and I talk every evening/afternoon/night just to check in on one another, and to help each other out with whatever questions we’ve each developed about how to function living here (she lives on a little island and is the token white girl foreigner).  And also just to chat about whatever.  Calls are always free to receive, but dialing out costs after 5 minutes, so we go back and forth setting a timer, and hanging up and redialing every 4 minutes 45 seconds.
I have almost nothing to do at school, but my school requires me to be here.  My whole curriculum is written up for the year, and I am only an assistant in class… so my job is essentially to be present in class, and help in class.  Not spend August preparing for classes.  A drastic difference from what I used to do as a teacher!  So I spend my day working on Japanese, and finding ways not to fall asleep at my desk.  I’m not always successful.
The sun comes up around 5am.  I wake up with it, despite the curtains and my eye covering.
I’ve made four good friends who are part of my program, and one Japanese friend, who is a friend of a coworker of one of those four US friends.  The — (my program) people are Jon(athan), Katarina, Sam(uel), and Sammi.  Japanese friend is Rie (ree from reed + saying the letter “a”). Distances from me: Jon/Rie 25 minutes, Katarina 40 minutes (Tokyo), Sam 2 hours (on the beach), Sammi no clue (she’s on a far-away island).
I’m kind of sick of sushi, but that’s probably just because it’s all I had from 7/11 for several days while I had to wait for my predecessor to give me things she had for me for my apartment (fridge, dishes, etc.)
Sammi is my shopping buddy – we talk on the phone, and she helps send me pictures of things she was given, so that I can find them in the incomprehensible store (e.g. this is a photo of my dish soap, I think… look for the words…).  We both enjoy the adventure of it.
Speaking of the store, the bicycle parking area looks loads like a car parking lot.  And it’s used, too.
I experience my first earthquake last night.  It was a 4.6, and I was scared out of my whits.  I was on the phone with Sam when it happened.  I said, “Is that… I think that’s an earthquake,” and then couldn’t even talk, as I lost the ability somehow.  I was quite shocked at how I responded – I knew logically that it was a tiny earthquake, nothing to cause concern.  Yet my body and emotions went psycho-freakout on me, and I even cried when it ended 30 seconds later. Sam asked if I was okay when it stopped, and all I could say was just, “Give me a minute,” and then could finally function again after I cried.  Totally weird, but I’m glad I had that emotional support for my first one.*
*There actually was one last Wednesday night – a 5.4, I think – , but I was dead asleep in my hotel room, so didn’t notice it.  So this was my second earthquake, but the first one of which I was aware as it happened.
Okay, I think that encompasses plenty, though definitely not the whole.  Send inquiries my way.  ;P  Love you all!!
Peace
Hannah
……………………………………………
Post-a-day 2018

Stepping up

Dear ——, is this still your number?  Hannah ——- here.  I wanted you to know that I am very interested in renting out your apartment.  However, I have three concerns.  1) I’d like to see it to be certain.  2) I would prefer to move in in June instead of May.  Would that be possible?  3) If something were to come up where I receive a job offer abroad, would it work for me to move out sooner than anticipated (even if that means I find a sub-letter, etc.)?

……………………………………………..

A series of text messages I am considering sending tomorrow (as the person prefers messages to calls, and it is too late to do it tonight).

Post-a-day 2018

How do You shave?

One of my favorite memories from my childhood is the time my brother, sister, and I bonded over shaving legs in the living room.  You see, our dad’s house used to be a duplex, and so the upstairs and downstairs had the same floorpan, giving the girls – the upstairs lots – our very own living room.  It was normal circumstances for us girls and maybe a girlfriend of one of theirs to hang out on lazy afternoons and evenings there.  Occasionally, our bother would join us.  On one particular night, my eldest sister had decided to allow me to shave her legs for her, while we watched some television show.  I was around eight or ten years old.

In my panic of doing it, worried that I would slice open her leg or something, my brother joined in on the adventure, to show that it was definitely doable by me, since he had never shaved legs, but he was able to do it safely.  And so, he shaved her left leg, and I shaved her right, while she lay on the rug in the living room.  Such beautiful sibling bonding time.  😛

Post-a-day 2018

Crazy and some more crazy

Sometimes, I wish that the thoughts that eat away at me could do that more literally, and specifically in the areas of my body that have more fat tissue than I’d like to have there.  That would be awesome, now, wouldn’t it?

Yes, I know that I might sound a bit crazy.  I certainly feel that way.  I’ve felt a bit crazy for a lot of today, I suppose, but in different ways.

I’m somehow still awake after ten pm, even though I was ready to go to sleep early this afternoon.  I guess it’s exhausting being so crazy.  😛   But actually, talk about an exhausting workout… try swimming again after not doing it regularly for years (except for a handful of times I did it in the fall).  I swam just over half a mile in about 45 minutes.  Not much for what I used to do, but huge for my recent list of aerobic activities (i.e. the occasional casual bicycle rides around the neighborhood).

**(Be prepared for some bathroom talk now, and do not read on if you don’t do well with that kind of thing.)**

After swimming, I got a smoothie with my dad (the kind with fruit and veggies, of course).  It was huge.  I drank the whole thing, and then realized, only as I began my half-hour drive home, that I needed to use the bathroom.  I considered whether it wouldn’t be best to turn back and go ask my dad to use the bathroom there, but figured I’d be fine.  When traffic hit, extending the length of the drive, I worried momentarily about whether I would have to urinate on the highway next to my car, the way my brother’s old girlfriend had once had to do.  Fortunately for everyone, the traffic was a minor holdup that ended very quickly.

Now, I once was in the bathroom stall at the movie theatre, when I noticed that the lady in the stall next to mine was urinating for a very long time.  I had happened to glance at my watch right as she’d begun, and so looked at it again, when I realized that she had not yet finished.  I was amazed when she finally ended, well over a minute after she had begun.  Talk about a lot of water.  That being said, I have, ever since then, had a certain awareness of my own capacity and how it goes about being released, so to speak.  The result of that smoothie today was definitely one of the greatest quantities I’ve ever managed.  Not only was the pressure ridiculously high, but it lasted over half a minute!

And, as entertaining as I am certain that that all is, I do not recommend it to anyone.  Having that much in the bladder at once is really quite miserable, and I hope this was the only time I must experience it.

Fun stuff, huh?  😛

Post-a-day 2018

Frosty Fun

Tonight, we watched hockey.  It was grand.  It was terribly cold.  We danced around for a while to warm up, and then chatted while we watched the scrimmage.  We cheered on a Canadian.  (He’s my friend’s husband.)  I kept wanting to holler out cheers for the Ducks. I guess that’s because it’s the only team I know anymore.  😛  Thank you, Japan, for that piece of knowledge.  You see, a California-Canadian friend I met in Japan loves the Ducks and always talks about them when it’s hockey season.  I looked them up to verify that they were actually the Ducks, because the bar that same friend frequented was called The Duck, and I was worried that I might have somehow mixed the two.  But I was correct.  The Anaheim Ducks are a real hockey team, and they’re based in California.  Fun fact about them: Apparently The Walt Disney Company founded them, just after having made the “Mighty Ducks” film, and it originally called the actual team the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.  Cool, huh?

Anyway, hockey was fun tonight.  I really enjoyed the frigid adventure (especially since the weather has been heating up so much this week!).

Post-a-day 2018

A letter from my past self

The following is the transcription of a letter I found this week.  (Yes, it was in one of the boxes of papers and folders and such.)  I wish I had found it months ago, when I’d first returned from Japan.  However, it still did me loads of good when I read it the other day.  While I missed out on some bits it mentions, I actually did a really good job of fulfilling most of the tasks prescribed in it… a version of them, anyway.

Anyway, it is a letter I wrote to myself when I was still on my college campus, about to leave to study abroad in Germany and Austria.  As per standards of our school’s study abroad program, we all had to write our future selves a letter, which would be mailed to us upon our return from our study abroad programs.  I fully acknowledge that mine is full of grammatical errors, but that was part of why I was going abroad anyway – to improve my language skills.  Also, the whole letter is written in cursive, because I do that.  The third sentence actually caused me to tear up, and the fourth had me crying.  It’s amazing how right I was, and I really didn’t know that I ever would be in the current situation in which I find myself.

……………………

10. April 2012
Dienstag

Hannah Leigh, chèrie,

Ich weiss nicht, was muss ich dir sagen.  Ich kenne dich nicht, weil du so viel gechanged hast.  Welcome home – may it still feel that way to you.  You are forever welcome here, so remember that – you might need it some day.  Okay, here’s what I want you to do:

1) Go record it.  Get on your computer, write up any questions
you would love for others to ask, & then record yourself
answering them.  Then you can do what you want with
it all, but you will have that satisfaction, that completeness,
wholeness of having shared what you needed, desired, wanted
to share.

2) Talk to people.  Make a quick list of what specifically you already
have wanted to share with whom.  Call each person & set up when
& where you will share what you have to share.  Share with them.

3) Talk to Opa.  No matter where he is, go visit him & talk with
him completely in German.

4) Find someone local with whom you can be open, close, & frank, & speak
only German (or completely German) together with ease.

5) Remember that it’s all right not to “know” who you are.  Knowing
makes no difference, anyway, so no good reason to bother with it.
Look yourself in the mirror & see all that has passed, & be open to
all that will come.

6) You are woman & you create the universe with your being.  Your
power is endless, & it is selfless love that feels it.  Love your
mother & your Mother.  Love your self wholly, & your next
step will become available and visible to you.

7) Be at peace.  Even if it was &/or is hard, it is all relative.
Take it for the beneficial experience that it is, & enjoy every
bit you have gotten & will get from it all.

8) Now & every time you see that it just might possibly help,
take a deep breath & close your eyes, letting your thoughts
run around & then calm naturally as you breathe deeply.

I love you & I wish you all the best.  I am here with you always, though I will now be transformed from the time I wrote this letter.  My understanding & my love have only increased & expanded, I promise.  You are wonderful.  You are beautiful.  You are mine.

I love you.  Love me, too.
❤ Peace       Hannah Leigh

 

P.S. Pretend I pressed a flower in here to give you a wholesome smile & kiss.  🙂 oxox

…………………………………………………..

Post-a-day 2018

Cleaning out = unexpected exhaustion

I’m kind of exhausted.  And kind of feel like crying and curling up in a ball.
There have been a LOT of memories going through this stuff.  And, with that, has naturally come Loads of emotions.  Lots of them quite strong, too.
I guess that’s a big part of why I kept the stuff.

And as of this morning, I find myself not wanting to take on cleaning out and going through anything else right now.  Like I need a vacation from it.

Especially since so much of my stuff is disorganized amongst the various boxes, the task feels more exhausting.  Because, rather then opening up a box and re-living fifth grade, I open up a single box and am going through parts of fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and possibly even a memory or three from before and after those years.  And going through the memories of those years isn’t just ‘going through memories’.  It’s also re-experiencing the emotions and thoughts and thought patterns of it all.  So, in cleaning through one box, I am living several years – and from the very formative years – of my life in a matter of an hour or few.  Talk about exhausting… that is exhausting.

And I want a break from it for a little while, so my mind and my nerve endings can relax again and not be so constantly overwhelmed.

Post-a-day 2018

Sculpting

I have ten fingers and ten toes, a right hand and a left hand, and a right foot and a left foot.  I have a prominent freckle on the outer right palm side of my middle finger on my right hand.  I have another prominent freckle on the outer left side of my middle toe on my left foot.  There are no other freckles on the light sides of my hands or feet.  I am an odd mirror image, perfectly balanced from the clay molded by my creator.

Post-a-day 2018