career planning like child’s play

As I pondered about today at work, with no actual work to do, but tons of pastimes to pursue at my desk, I somehow came to the idea of thinking like a child.  I think I was inspired from the fact that a girl in this one movie was about to become a full-fledged lawyer, and I found myself somewhat envious.  It got me thinking about how, as a child, I never really wanted to be anything specific when I grew up.  Sure I said singer/actor, but that was kind of a ‘just ’cause’ answer, not an impassioned one – my heart was certainly not in it.  It just sounded fun to be famous and super talented, you know?

So, as I was thinking about how kids have these people they want to be when they grow up, and how ridiculous those things sometimes sound, and then how boring of jobs those kids typically eventually end up getting when they are adults, I got into the crazy-ish idea of, “Well, if I were a kid now, what would I want to be when I grow up?”  And that’s when the fun started.

It didn’t take very long for me to come to my conclusion.  Fully-passioned and excited, I felt a need to share the news with the world.  I didn’t think much beyond that – sharing it – other than how fun it sounded, and how silly it would be should I actually somehow become such an individual.  Why?  Well, I said that I want to be a cello-playing ballerina artist who does astronomy and physics stuff for fun.

So, I posted about it on the beautiful world of Facebook.  After seeing a few of the comments that friends made, however, I began actually thinking about such a career path for myself.  Part of the whole reason I started thinking about it, was because I thought it crazy how kids, who can do next-to-nothing about it, are so passionate about what they want to do for their jobs, and yet adults, who have all the ability to do something about their current jobs, tend to be so dispassionate about their careers.  So, here I am, taking on a child’s passion in terms of career direction/choice (really, choosing freely (as a child chooses) what I would do, if I could do anything I wanted), and I suddenly realized that I am one of those adults who is in a position actually to do something about my career.

Wow.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized how easy it could be for me.  Yes, it is loads and loads of hard work.  I know.  But I’m talking about practicality of the situation.  I’ve recently re-begun ballet lessons, I’m picking up my own art supplies next week in order to continue in my student-taught art lessons I’ve been receiving, and I’m working at a school with lots of musical connections (likely with links to a student of some age who could start teaching me to play the cello).  And this is all just in my small town in Japan.  When I move back to my big city in the US this Summer/Fall, I’ll have innumerable resources at my fingertips.  And, without even realizing this earlier today, I have made specific progress towards this goal for the Fall: I now recall that I have already spoken to a sort of art expert to help me find some appropriate art classes for me to take this coming Fall.

Life is looking beautiful on the career path front.  I in almost no way have a ballerina’s body.  And that’s okay.  I don’t want to be on the main stage.  I know that.  But I want to be dancing ballet.  🙂  (I’m so excited about this, I can’t stop smiling and having a little delighted shudder race through me every so often as I think about it all.)

My cousin commented about my career goals being similar to the career of Hedy Lamar.  I had to look her up, though I recognized the name.  As I was on the phone with my mom, I asked her what she knew about Hedy.  Just that she was a black and white actress, very gorgeous 30s look.  When I found her Wikipedia page, I read it aloud to my mother, and we both were amazed – she was fabulous, and my cousin was exactly right in comparing my career goals to the career of Hedy Lamar!  Check her out.  She was awesome.  She and the guy from Queen (Brian May) who has a PhD in Astrophysics.  They rock.

So, yeah… that’s today’s ponderings that I cared to share here.  🙂  Peace out, yo.

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

My best friend’s wedding… I mean brother-in-law… or both

On the morning of my best friend’s wedding, one of the other bridesmaids and I went to the hotel where the fiancé and his family were staying.  We were to deliver a video message to the fiancé, from my best friend.  We had made the video the night before, and it was really ridiculous and in three parts, music and dancing and all that jazz included.  Essentially it was a super-cute video, designed to be a fun way to say, “Yay! I get to marry you today!”

When we got to the hotel, we knocked on the door of the room in which my best friend’s fiancé was supposedly staying.  The door was suddenly and almost frighteningly quickly swung open, to reveal the half naked older brother of the fiancé.  He is tall, blonde, and gorgeous.  And, half naked, he’s anything but half bad.

As I was standing directly in front of the door, I had a clear view of him and the room behind him.  Our eyes locked for a moment, his panic showed as he realized that we were not one of his brothers, and the door quickly slammed back shut.  I turned, wide-eyed, to the other bridesmaid and we both just looked at each other, confused.  She asked what had just happened.  She, having been just to the side of the door, had not seen the gorgeous brother in his underwear, and so merely knew that someone had swung open and then shut the door.  When I told her what sight stood before me for those three delightful seconds of unimaginable hilarity, we both busted out laughing, and felt as though we might never stop.  It was a great start to the day.  🙂
Post-a-day 2017

Umbrellas at Night

People look at me like I’m crazy as I walk down the street.  I know I get looks a lot of the time, and oftentimes for good reason, but today/tonight has been particularly ridiculous.

Sure, I’m using an umbrella when it’s not raining, but all it takes is a little logic (or perhaps I’m just a bit too creative and/or crazy for the average Japanese person?).

So, it isn’t raining.  What other reasons might someone use an umbrella?  To block the sun.  Okay, but it’s a clear umbrella.  And sometimes it’s even nighttime when I’m using it.  So, the sun thing doesn’t make too much sense.  Okay, why else might someone use an umbrella?  It is usually for some sort of protection from the elements, right?  So, what elements are at play right now?  Ridiculously cold temperatures.  Wind.  Hmm… I wonder if those have anything to do with it?

As my hair rests calmly halfway beneath and halfway behind the umbrella, you’d think people would grasp the fact that I am using the umbrella to block this frigid wind.  But no, they really don’t seem to get it.  They just stare at me like I’m totally nuts.  Which, by the way, is quite a different look from the usual one I get as a foreigner.  Just saying.  😛

 

Post-a-day 2017

What to write…? a poem

What to write…?  What to write…?

Of legends?  Of thoughts?  Or of tonight?

Do I analyze something maturely,

Or speak from the heart purely?

Shall I cry or weep with relief,

Or in a blow of deleaf… defeat?

What is the point (Shall I write about that?)?

My efforts feel pointless, and quite often, in fact.

But what does that matter, when the measure is of others, not myself?

For this is not just another trophy for my nonexistent shelf.

It is whole and complete, and perfect, you see,

for it is meant as a place to express for I, myself, and me.
Post-a-day 2017

 

Enough is Enough…?

At what point do we say that enough is enough?  What determines that point for us?  Is there a common criteria, or is it drastically different for each person, determined by the nuturing of one’s youth?

Do we have a say in how we manage the rule throughout life, or is it set in stone, once it has been established?

Or is it all relative, to where no situation can be upheld to the same standards as another, where each enough is enough is different?

Just wondering…
Post-a-day 2017

Okinawa, but actually Baseboards

Okay, today was, put simply, an amazing day for me.  I stood up for myself against myself and social pressures and blah-di-blah-blah, I wandered about, I found amazing things, and I never even made it to my intended destination.  And it was fabulous.

However, I’ll not write about all of that tonight.  I’m on my phone, and I find it cumbersome and somewhat annoying to write a lot on my phone, so I’ll wait until Monday or Tuesday, when I have my computer to use.  Don’t worry, though, I took lots of pictures to remind me of what all I did today (a bit different for me, huh?), so those will help me write it all up rather accurately later on!  

Instead, tonight I will write about baseboards.

As I was showering just now, here in the Air BnB, I started wondering about how they manage cleaning of the place between visitors.  Naturally, I cut off that line of thinking almost instantly (because, of you know anything about me and cleanliness, you know I have super-mental-OCD when it comes to bathroom-related cleanliness).  However, it reminded me of dirty I have found places to be in Japan.

Now, when I say that I find places here dirty, it doesn’t mean that Japan is generally gross all over the place – the average person likely wouldn’t notice a thing, except on the odd occasion.  I mean things like door handles, hand towels, and all sorts of other little everyday things.  Things like baseboards, for example.

I never thought much about baseboards (aside from ‘kicking the baseboard’ at the end of an outside turn in two-step (the partner dance, not the song that says it over and over again)) until I was visiting my high school boyfriend’s house one day.  They were finishing with cleaning day at their house when I arrived, and his mom was assigning the final chores to him and his siblings.

“Do you want to vacuum, or do the baseboards?” she asked him.

I think he picked the vacuuming, but I’m not sure.  I asked what she’d meant by “the baseboards”, and someone explained that it was running a wet paper towel or rag along all of the baseboards in the house, in order to get and keep them clean.  I got to watch one of his siblings (perhaps it was his middle sister) then do just that, going along quickly on her knees, cleaning the baseboards.

After that, I began to wonder how my family’s baseboards stayed clean, seeing as I had never noticed anyone cleaning them in any way, and certainly not in the way my boyfriend’s family did it.  I think I never asked anyone about this, but merely wondered privately what magic was at work.

Unfortunately, though, this opened me up to a whole new world of cleaning and cleanliness.  As if I hadn’t already had enough criteria for what determined a place’s (and its residents’) cleanliness, I now had this new one called “baseboards”.  Everywhere I went, of baseboards were in view, I was suddenly aware of how clean they were.

Nowadays, it has calmed down a bit, as it is no longer a new concept for me.  However, I still notice them (and judge places and people by their cleanliness, of course).  In Japan, they have often been unclean, sometimes even layered up with dirt and dust bunnies.  (Actually, there is an extreme amount of dust bunnies at my schools – I don’t understand how they all develop, not why so many of them have to end up right by my desk, of all places.)  And, every time I find these baseboards, two thoughts occur for me.  Okay, well three. 

1) Gross.

2) I want to leave now.

3) They need to get in board with John’s mom on this one. 

(John is the old high school boyfriend, in case you didn’t gather that.)

And, since so many have proven unclean here, I’ve actually taken to avoiding looking at them.  I hardly have I think about it anymore, I just realized – I simply don’t look at them.  Thus I am able to maintain one small piece of this sanity a good handful of people in the world believe that I truly do have. 😛

So,… go check out cleaning your baseboards, kay?  Or not.  Just don’t invite me over, if you haven’t checked them and can guarantee their cleanliness. 😛
Post-a-day 2017

Becoming myself through depression

This depression thing sure is interesting.

Tonight, as I sat eating dinner on a beach, thinking about the last time I’d had meal on a beach (a topless beach in Barcelona, Spain), while staring at the water and the highway above it, I noticed how much myself I had been tonight.

I had spoken up proactively about not going to an izakaya (Japanese bar-restaurant), expressed easily why I didn’t want to go, and even answered questions about why (drinking nomihodai (all you can drink) is not one of my favorite things, and smoking just makes me miserable (most establishments allow smoking indoors in Japan, it seems)).  And I did it all with a sense of easy, calm comfort.  I was not afraid to be myself and to admit, ‘I don’t want that, and I don’t support it, so I’m not going to do it,’ although I have been so much in the past.

Although there are plenty of times at which I feel completely not myself with this whole depression thing, there are also times like tonight, when I feel more like myself than I have ever felt in certain areas of my life.

Perhaps it is the fact that I have been so not myself, and that I am really having to work on myself and my life, such that I can be rid of this overpowering funk that seems to control my life in such painful ways, that I am having breakthroughs in certain areas of my life.  Because I have made this conscious effort, and continue each day to make it, to be… well, to be what, precisely?  Is it to be myself again?  Perhaps it is to be the best myself that I can be.  

I suppose that only makes sense, right?  I want to be the best “me” I can be, and so, eventually, that starts to happen.  Even though the bottom-dwelling funks still occur, the breakthroughs are becoming stronger and stronger…  I guess what I’m failing to say clearly is that, since I established that something was incredibly wrong in my life and that change – transformation, actually – needed to happen, I have been working to my core to make these alterations to create a transformed me and transformed life for me.  And so, things that weren’t too bad before my depression are getting cleared up entirely now, because they are being addressed.  (As opposed to being left alone before, since those particular areas/things were ‘good enough’ as they were.)

Anyway, I’m exhausted, so I’ll sleep now.  Today was an interesting day for me both in terms of what happened, as well as how my mind had to work to manage it all.  I found myself cursing and expressing utter dislike for Japan, as I stood in the cold, after missing a train at six in the morning (due to the system of how the trains are labeled, and its being completely unhelpful as Inwas rushing to make an important transfer), and yet I was able to let that be so while still being able to look forward to my trip.  The first didn’t ruin the latter – they were separate entities.  Things similar to this incident have happened all day long for me, and I handled each one similarly to this train scenario.  A very tiring task mentally, when so many things go poorly in a single day.  But it was almost unbelievable progress for me, and I am so happy, it makes me cry with relief (and a bit of exhaustion, too, of course).

So yeah… there’s that for today.  🙂
Post-a-day 2017

Across the Universe

A few years ago (and by “a few”, I actually mean ten, because I just looked it up, and it was October of 2007), the film Across the Universe was released.  I was originally a bit skeptical, yet also excited.  All I knew was that it was a film that used music from the Beatles, in order to tell a story of some sort.  While talking about it with my cousin Jared one night, he informed me that the music was not being performed by the Beatles, but by new people.  That is, the music was being re-done in order to be used in the film.  In a world with loads of terrible song re-makes (think of the stars’ versions of classic songs found during the credits of films [especially Disney films]), I could only expect disappointment.  Many a people had already created terrible versions of good songs.  What kind of disgrace would come to the names of these fabulous Beatles songs?  I was distraught.  Why ruin something so good?

But then,… but then… my cousin said to me, “Hannah.  They’re actually good.”  What?  How could that be?  I mean, this is the Beatles we’re talking about here.  How can someone cover the Beatles and not have it be far worse than the original?  Jared had been skeptical at first, as well.  But he had the earliest release of the soundtrack now, and he had been listening to it.  It was good, he assured me.

So, standing in the living room, we pulled up the music (I think it was on his iPod, actually).  I was terrified.  And then, when Jim Sturgess lulled out from a silent background, “Close your eyes, and I’ll kiss you.  Tomorrow, I’ll miss you…,” goosebumps made an appearance on me like never before.

I listened with intrigue and genuine delight as the songs progressed.  T.V. Carpio, a woman, sang of wanting to hold your hand (something I had always dreamed about whenever I sang along to the song, my being a girl and all).  Even Rachel Wood’s crystal voice rang through the music, whispering sweet nothings to my heart.  The songs.  These Beatles songs.  Remade.  They were just as Jared had said.  They were actually good.

They were totally and completely different from the originals, yet their connection and influence from their origins were completely obvious (of course).  Perhaps that is why there were so good in the first place.  No one had tried to copy the Beatles.  They had simply taken the Beatles’ songs and reinterpreted them, while – and this is key – always keeping the original experience of the songs in mind.  So these songs were and still are Beatles songs, without occurring as covers.  They weren’t like so-and-so’s cover of such-and-such song.  They were something uniquely different, while still being beautifully the same.  They were forever linked to the Beatles and the Beatles’ music, because they were still Beatles songs, but they were their own entity.  They were, put simply, the music from Across the Universe.

Even today, whenever I listen to those songs, to that soundtrack, goosebumps abound, and I am filled with this somewhat unidentifiable sensation.  It is as if, perhaps, my belly and chest are filled with… well, with warm happiness.  It’s cheesy-sounding, of course, but I believe it to be completely true.  The Beatles singing their songs fills me with joy and a desire to dance and sing along.  The Across the Universe music fills me with warm happiness, along with the natural desire to sing along and bop around and smile hugely.  They are like siblings from the same family, these two sets of Beatles music – they are so much alike and from the same place, and yet they are entirely different from one another.  And I love them both.

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

Saturday Mornings

It is nights like tonight and weeks like this past week that have me wish for a Friday night and Saturday morning with my cat. We would typically stay up way late on Friday night, because I finally had no desired bedtime for once, although I was exhausted already from my week.  And then, on Saturday morning, we both would sleep in.  

It was always a sort of drowsy mix of hanging out and deep sleep, all the way to midday or early afternoon.  I’d get up to use the bathroom now and again, maybe even put on a movie for a while before falling back to sleep, and off and on snuggle with my kitty cat.  He would move around on the bed as he wished, sometimes putting good space between the two of us.  However, for the most part, he would snuggle right up to me, usually against my head or neck (and sometimes actually on them), a sort of loving, pillow-like comfort, which I felt brought me a special sense of ease and calm similar to hot cocoa and a fire when it’s cold out.

Yeah, I miss that right now.  I’m even nervous that he won’t really recognize or like me once I’m back home.  Or that he’ll be lonely without other cats (his lives with three right now).  Not much for me to do about that until I get back to the same town as he, right?  Right.

Anyway, the point is that I want to sleep in tomorrow, and snuggle off and on with, I guess, my cat as I do that.
Post-a-day 2017

An Ode (or something like it) to My Underwear

I did some brief research on odes (“Hey, Siri.  What’s an ode?”), and discovered that there is much too much remaining for me to learn about them in order actually to create one in the appropriate fashion.  Therefore, I shall simply follow the idea of an ode, and express my love for and delight in my underwear on its worst of days.

My Underwear

Oh, dearest friend, how I love that you are mine!
Forever at my side, and front and back alike,
You give me comfort that cannot compare
alongside perplexity in your name: pair.

You come in oh, so many forms, from sport and short to lace and warmth,
I could never be bored by your ever-changing personality.
From your “Workout Wednesday” to your royal purple silky,
You empower and encourage in a secret just for me.

Sometimes I long to show you to the world, to let you out to see the sun!
Alas, the world cannot handle your greatness as of yet,
for fear of what their minds might create at the sight of you,
for, whether scraggly or sublime, you have an overpowering view.

‘Tis true, there are days, like today, I must say,
where you decide to keep an eye on things out here, in the world.
Not just the casual peek-a-boo you often do,
but a day-long stretch of you watching the world, and the world most certainly watching you.

In fact, perhaps those are the days I enjoy the most,
though they are seen as somewhat sultry or uncouth.
I get to share you with the world in an odd and subtle sort of boast,
for there is nothing I can do, but to enjoy the looks and to let you do you.

For though there is much other clothing to express parts of my spirit,
it is perhaps in you whom I delight the most.
As I change an outfit, or slip off my clothes at the end of the day,
it is you who greets me with surprising creativity, and in the funnest of ways.

So, fare thee well, dear underwear.  I never like to see you go.
It is as though we become the best of friends together, as I’m sure you know.
You sometimes get too close or cut in on my blood’s efforts at flowing.
I love you nonetheless, oh, underwear, especially when you’re showing.

 

I am silly, aren’t I?  ;D

Note: I feel a need to share about the fact that underwear also is very helpful in situations of forgotten swimsuits – on various occasions have they aided me in my swimming efforts, without causing offense to others nearby.  😛

 

Post-a-day 2017