“Compliments”

I’m part of a ladies group for my former job in Japan, and someone recently posted about how these old ladies always compliment her nostrils as being proportionate to her nose, and so she wonders if anyone else gets funny compliments from other Japanese people.

In a quick think through, I came up with this for my own experience:

I’m dirty blonde and blue-eyed. Students often complimented my ‘beautiful’ hair, asked to touch it and my arm hair, constantly complemented my ‘amazing’ and ‘beautiful’ ‘high nose’, and even, on occasion, discussed how ‘amazing’ my ‘soft breasts’* were (which, by the way, are proportionate to my body and are a small B cup for US sizing)…

Also, I once had a new student, who had just learned that my eyes are blue, specially request to see my eyes… he then gazed into them for a full thirty seconds, and then thanked me and walked away. 😂

*Because, naturally, they discovered that I was not wearing push-up or padded bras, and so, from the outside, my breasts were ‘soft’ and not ‘hard’, like their extremely padded bras…, which they explained to me by tapping loudly on their own surprisingly solid bras…

Oh, Japan…

I do miss you… ❤

Post-a-day 2019

’S’wonderful (!)

Starlight, start bright

All you stars I don’t see tonight,

Take this wish I wish tonight –

I wish I may, I wish I might…

Have another day tomorrow that is as wonderful (or more) as today has been.

Thank you for the love, Universe, etc.

I might not be at par on the whole adulting thing, but I’m delighted with where I am on the whole pursuing passions and being self-expressed ones. (!!!)

P.S. A selfie with the tubby guy at my internship

Post-a-day 2019

Aaaaahhhh, those blasted housemates!

Well, they’ve done it alright… the raccoons have overstayed their welcome.

It is official now that my poor bathroom, the place I must go in my home and cannot avoid, has fleas(!!!).

The raccoons have been living in the wall there the past couple weeks or so, and they seem to have brought fleas with them… the vent in the ceiling seems to be the culprit for how they’re getting into the actual bathroom from the walls.

Naturally, I despise it – nearly a year ago, I had a dreadful encounter with fleas while housesitting in this very street… any attempt at a repeat is to be obliterated, thank you very much.

And so, I suffer ever so slightly more tonight, acutely aware of the surprisingly marge number of freckles I have on my lower legs, ankles, and feet – indeed, I had no idea how many freckles I actually have down there (on my legs, of course, I mean).

I have covered my ankles and shins/calves with some essential oils I read about quickly online just now, ones that seem to be flea repellant and flea life-enders, and I have placed two bowls in the bathroom with soapy water and lit tea light candles… we shall see what the morning brings, but I have already dropped two or three in the bowls since I set them down just a short bit ago…

And yes, I am aware that that is not quite how the bowls and candles work, but, when they attack my ankles just because I’ve entered the room, I’m not apt to let them hang around on me…, and so I pinch and drop them directly into the soapy water of their future.

Ugh… you darned raccoons – I allow you a place to stay while you raise your babies, and you bring in this rubbish… how unkind of a houseguest this is.

Now, here I am in my room, panicking at every hair twinge and bit of air that brushes any part of my legs, worried at what it might be… I struggled falling back asleep this morning after I got the (I think) flea bite (hopefully) in the bathroom… I now worry at my being able to fall asleep at all tonight, or at least to sleep well and awake rested in the morning.

It seems sadly unlikely… :/

Darn raccoons… and, of course, fleas(!).

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How You doin’?

How am I doing, she asks?

I’m doing okay, I think. Dealing with a school mental struggle of being tired of it and not wanting to do semi-pointless work (i.e. work that serves no value whatsoever in why I am getting the degree). I got sick, too, and so that aligned interestingly perfectly with the assignments, and so they are excused from being late. I still don’t want to do them, though. Life has become so interesting outside of school recently, it makes me want to take a big break from school, possibly permanently. But mostly because ‘I don’t Feel like it(!)’, and I’m not sure if it really has anything else behind it. Laziness might just be all there is in the matter, ultimately. :/

That’s the just bulk of my daylight hours… evenings and nights are a whole ‘nother conundrum these days. 😛

How are you doing?

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Beer run?

‘Okay, I’m stopping at the grocer on my way out there.’

‘Oh, since you’re stopping at the grocer, will you pick up some (hard) cider for me?’

He then gives me the details of his preferences on cidre, and we settle a plan…

“Haha…,” he continues, a bit nerdily and excited, “I’ve never had my little sister buy me alcohol before.”

We both had a dorky chuckle at this idea, mostly because we knew how the rest of our family had been growing up, as well as how unlike them I had been, simply uninterested in alcohol, let alone getting someone to buy any for me.

…..

Separately, when actually at the store, two girls who work there were telling me about the cidres sold, and kept suggesting I get a ‘sneaky’ one, so that I could ‘get him drunk’, and they kept chuckling at how their boyfriends are always surprised with sweet drinks that have high alcoholic content and leave them drunk, when they had thought they were totally fine… I didn’t entirely disapprove, since it’s people who matter to the girls, but I wasn’t exactly a proponent of the behavior in the first place…

When they remembered that I had said “for my brother”, their tunes changed and they gave me genuine flavor information on the different cidres, instead of just talking about getting something sweet. 😛

The irony of it all was how I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d purchased alcohol, let alone purchased any for my own consumption (not that these were for me, of course), and it felt extra-silly carrying out the cidres… I felt so totally out of place, not unlike an underaged kid sister trying to sneak alcohol for her brother’s party…

My extra consolation was in the fact that he really doesn’t drink much in the first place either, but wanted some drinks because he is on vacation (and even then only a few, because there’s an intense CrossFit class awaiting him in the morning). 😛

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Lost in the story

Do you ever find yourself so engrossed in, so invested in, so infatuated and obsessed with the fairy tale story that you choose it over your real life, the book or the movie or show instead of living the lovely parts of your own real life?

I think I sometimes grow scared of my life becoming a letdown, such that I cling to something else – another story, that is, and usually a created one – for a while instead, and dream about and long for that life, or something like it, for myself…

I unrealistically throw as much possible time as I can into reading the book further, and reading further into the series, if it is one, changing and informing planing and intended activities just so I can spend more time in the world of the book…

Until, that is, I reach the point that I notice the new infatuation interfering too much with real life – when I typically would be delighted at the prospect of spending the day with my brother, and doing photos and sports, nonetheless, but find myself longing instead to stay home alone to continue this new story in which I have mentally thrown myself.

You see, I don’t want to be like Kathleen Kelly in the first half of “You’ve Got Mail”, where she feels like all of her best life moments have been ones read in books… I want mine to be real, more like Kathleen Kelly at the end of the film…

And so, that point is when I acknowledge fully that my interest is bordering on scary, and that I would do best to look at what is behind it all – Why do I long for this other story so?

Do I want their money or love or friends or lifestyle or passion or any number of other things?

Usually, that is it exactly, and, by my acknowledging that, I can find a way to move forward powerfully within my own life, altering something that helps me in the area I found most lacking and which had drawn me so strongly and painfully to the created story…

Say I love their looks and their love story.

Then, I resolve to have my own love story…, and, seeing as how I was rather bummed the other day at the consideration of my search being at its end, I acknowledge that I perhaps do not want the love of my life to be settled yet… and so would prefer not to have Matthew Crawley become the love of my life after all, but would rather wait for the actual real and perfect man for me (because who wants to live in the age of corsets anyhow?)…

Just as an example… 😛

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Mommy, let me skip tomorrow, please

I have schoolwork that I need to do tomorrow and Tuesday, but I find myself already feeling that old dreaded feeling of Sunday night at the end of Spring Break in middle and high school… I don’t want to go back to school tomorrow…. Mommy, can I just not go to school tomorrow?

Obviously, she always declined, but I never truly meant it – some part of me always wanted to go back… I just didn’t necessarily have all the work finished by Sunday evening, and so really just didn’t want to do the work I needed to have done by class the next morning… much like this time… 😛

Life has offered me so many awesome things this past week, and I’ve grown so accustomed to them – and quite easily, I dare add – that I don’t want to go back to that other routine from before Spring Break…

A small part of me is saying that things will be good once I’m back to it, and that it is only tough because this has been such a good break, and that even the break would turn bad, if it didn’t have an end, and that, at that point, I would start to long for my previous schedule of school and work…

But the key word up there is “small”.

And so, I feel like curling up into my bed with my stuffed animals – duh – and ignoring morning tomorrow, and sleeping in, instead… though, I know I’ll be up around eight or nine at the latest, desperately needing to go potty, and guilt is likely to settle in within me, if I try to avoid the day by going back to sleep. 😛

And so, (I say again) I think I’ll not bother figuring out anything right now… I’ll go to sleep and rest myself in all aspects for the night, and then see how I feel whenever I awaken… hopefully, I’ll be prima for going to a coffee shop to work, and then I actually do that, because I really do have a decent amount of schoolwork to do by Tuesday and Thursday evenings. (Yikes.)

Sweet Dreams, and Good Morning (to those across the planet right now from me)!

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Here I am

I am myself, completely, including and especially in the face of difficulty.

That is something I have wanted for myself for quite some time now… tonight, reflecting upon my day today, I have come to see that, so far as today was concerned, I did an amazing job with this idea.

No, I wasn’t perfect with it.

However, it was beautiful to see how things worked out when I was being true to myself.

Such an odd feeling, and such a wonderful one (that keeps on going).

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Do I belong here?

I sometimes forget that I belong with my family.

I aim to find other people in my life, to surround myself with people who get me and love me just about no matter what…, and I always seem to be failing at it, at least in terms of life in the daily.

And then I spend some time with my close family, and it is only upon consideration afterward that I notice how I have experienced entirely “belonging” and “being loved”.

This family is good for me, and they are the ideal that many people dream of finding in their own families… and I have them in my own family.

Friends all seem to pale in comparison, because my family is already everything I’ve been looking for in friends – the bar and standard are too high for new people to reach.

And, perhaps, one day, someone will meet or surpass that bar…, but only a few have so far, and they don’t live even in the state, so it hardly affects my day-to-day.

For now, though, I still have my family, and they still have me, and we all can love and spend time with one another, as we still seem to do, even though we are in our adult lives and have little ease in arranging simultaneous visits to the same spot.

But we do it, and the time together is always great…, just like this week, and how I was supposed to go back home Thursday afternoon…, but am currently, as of tonight, actually scheduled to leave tomorrow, Saturday, morning around 9am.

What a time, heh? 😛

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Tantalizing Fantasizing

At this one school where I worked, it wasn’t that I felt unappreciated, because I didn’t…, but more that I felt unnoticed…, which, in a way, feels kind of way worse.

I remember finding myself fantasizing about receiving this particular award at the end of the school year – it was an award given to a teacher whom the senior class had elected as invaluable for their own educations… aka an extra-special teacher.

Since the students elected it, I had a chance of actually winning the award, though I had so few of the seniors, it wouldn’t happen, anyway.

Nonetheless, as I sat amongst the miniature version of the band during the senior awards ceremony, at which this teacher award also was awarded, I would ‘read aloud’ in my head the write-up they would give about me, before officially revealing my name… mentioning how I was involved in many areas of the school: dance PE class, teaching foreign language, helping with theatre on many levels, assistant coaching and co-founding the women’s lacrosse program, helping and participating in band events, actually playing trumpet in the band (including at this ceremony), founding of an acts of kindness group on campus, and much more in the unique realm of student interaction… and the kids would choose me for the award, because they acknowledged my utter awesome-ness and outstanding-ness as not only a person but a person who encourages and empowers them to be the best people they can be… I think no student who has known me would deny that fact.

My students know that I love them and that I want all the best for them, including if that means they need to suffer a bit to get themselves straightened out… they know and understand this all just from being with me in class or the various activities.

I take no nonsense, which they know, too, but my love and concern for them are unwavering and undeniable, and they know it.

I miss that.

And that is why I allowed myself to fantasize about receiving the award – if enough kids had known me, I could have won the award… if the administration ever would have allowed my winning it, of course. 😛

Anyway… yeah.

P.S. Tomorrow holds something new for me, in a sense…, if you feel up to it, I would appreciate your sending good intentions and/or prayers my way. 😉

Post-a-day 2019