Gratitude

I am grateful for many things, many aspects, within and including my life. Though my country of origin has many problems – ones on which it is working and ones on which it is not -, I am ever grateful for my opportunity and blessing to have been born here. So much in life seems like a game of chance, and our origins seem often to be part of that. I am grateful for the family who have raised me, for the friends who have joined my family, for the city and state who have always been here, and for the country whose history – including all of its many, many struggles and failures – and whose people’s endurance and passion allowed for my life to happen so beautifully as it does today.

Whatever you do, do it with all your heart. Wherever you go, go with all your heart. I believe that much of my country’s history was filled with people who lived by those two ideas. Their being human, they certainly had their faults. But a lack of heart and passion was not one of them. And so, I am grateful every day for the opportunities they allowed me, over 200 years later.

Remember: Everything and anything you do can and will have an impact on the future, somehow. How can we do out best to make that impact be a positive one for this planet and for its inhabitants?

Post-a-day 2021

Sleep

Tonight, I want to sleep. Hard. And I want to wake up tomorrow with an open and free day.

And yet, tomorrow will not be that. It is a full day, mostly filled with things I do not love enough to want to do when I am so tired.

But, in order to get to that point where I can fill my days with what I want to be doing, I must weather these days like tomorrow first. And, the more heart and love and joy I put into them, the better it all will me.

So, I shall sleep now, and hope it is deep and restful. I shall wake up to an alarm in the morning, and get going quickly. I shall bring my best self to the table, and create a wonderful day, even and especially if I am feeling exhausted. I am here to love and to learn, so let’s love and learn, baby. 😉 I can sleep tomorrow night, as needed, and all I want.

Post-a-day 2021

Comfort

In karate tonight, there was a real adult-only class that followed the mixed (Aka kids) class. We began sparring for the session. As usual, I was extremely nervous. Even as I was, in a way, destroying my opponents in matches, I was dealing with those nerves, with that fear, allowing and releasing that sense of panic that always comes up for me around sparring.

The instructor even commented on how I had been so worried before, and yet see how far I had come… I told her that just because no one else noticed didn’t mean I had no fear or stress around the sparring…, as is the case with most anything in life. Just because we can’t see something on the outside, doesn’t mean it isn’t there on the inside for someone. As we put on our gear to spar, I had noticed the distinct reeling of my heart, panicked at what was potentially to come.

And, tonight, one of those things did come. The assistant instructor hit me hard in the center of the face. Though we wear helmets, his glove and hand hit the face cage so hard, it rattled everything, and it knocked me back a couple paces. No, my head didn’t jolt backward – I keep myself braced enough to avoid that -, but it shook me. And it frightened me. Just the sound from a hard hit on the helmet, from the inside, is jarring. The physical sensation addition of the hit itself just adds to the whole experience. When it happened tonight, I had to wait a few moments before I could return to the ring to continue. I was a tad dizzy, but only from the shock, not from any physical damage. I communicated that it had been too hard (he asked immediately, likely knowing, and I confirmed), and that I needed just a few moments to gather myself before continuing. And they allowed it easily. And everything was okay. I had I remind myself that I was safe and that everything was okay, including that I’d been hit so, and I put myself back in the ring before I fully felt like I wanted to be there. I knew I wouldn’t want to go back ever, if I didn’t just breathe and go back then. So, I went back in. I was nervous, and focusing on calming myself more than on sparring to win. I don’t remember the outcome of that match in particular, but I do remember that achieving the calm I sought was the best thing I could have done for myself. And I am grateful to have reached it, and to have been able not only t continue with other matches, but to do them calmly and stellarly. At the end of the night, I was clear that I had had a wonderful, fun, and free-feeling time… sparring. Which is awesome. 🙂

Post-a-day 2021

Nerves

I think I’m nervous. I’ve been hesitant to share with too many people about this whole computer programming and engineering thing. And I think I finally saw today why. I think I’m afraid that I’m not actually good enough for it. I’ve always seen people who do this kind of thing well to be of a caliber above me, somehow. Super brainiacs, so to speak. I’m certainly smart, but I’ve never considered myself to be that smart.

And yet, as I mentioned while speaking of my concerns the other day with the family friend – who, by the way, is one of those super brainiacs and who has confessed complete confidence in me on this endeavour -, what I have done and can do with human languages is, in its core, remarkable. Sure, it is normal and no big deal for me – it is my own brain’s workings, after all, so I know nothing else. And yet, compared to how most people’s brains work around language and languages – especially people who were not born into a multi-lingual or bilingual family -, what mine does is a total anomaly. I’ve always held that I have a math brain…, and that language is just math to me. But who ever crosses that barrier between math and language/writing? Indeed, who ever dissolves that barrier? For me, it just doesn’t exist.

And so, I can see how my brain is already set up to step into that role of super brainiac, in a way. It already is a super brainiac around language education and teaching. Now, let’s have it expand into the real of computer language and art. I am ready to create, and to improve all this junk that is out there everywhere, currently wasting people’s time left and right…

Let’s do this.

LFG

Post-a-day 2021

Learning

I began last week learning something entirely new to me. Okay, so it isn’t exactly entirely new to me – I first learned some foundations for it back in middle school. Mrs. N**** taught us in computer lab. I think most of the other kids, the girls especially, weren’t huge fans of it and didn’t really get it too well. But I was and I did. It was HTML.

Hypertext Markup Language, that is.

And, you know, though I didn’t ever realize that I could pursue learning HTML, I did pursue learning other languages. Remember, languages and math are all the same thing to me. So, a computer language just feels like a fun cross between the human spoken/written languages and the math ones. No wonder it was easy for me to pick up, and no wonder I loved it back in middle school.

But I never knew that this was the foundation upon which all of this ‘computer programming’ and ‘software engineering’ was based. Don’t ask me how – I don’t know how I didn’t ever make that connection. But, finally, I did last week.

And I’m doing beginner work on it all now, starting off with a course on HTML. Though I’m in this course to learn HTML, I kind of feel like reading the comprehensive list of code for HTML would be easier for me at the point. The blocks of text that attempt to explain things to me are often much more confusing that just looking at the actual code itself. I regularly go back to the text after reading the code, and decipher it that way – the code makes more sense seen than talked about. Does that makes sense, how I said that? I guess it is like just about anything else: you can talk to me for days about it, but, until you show it to me, it is just words and ideas, and doesn’t fully make sense or click.

But this stuff is clicking. And I’m liking it. A lot.

I’ll finish the HTML foundations course tomorrow or the next day, I think, and move into CSS or iOS app development training next. Or both…

It’s funny, though. I can tell this is important to me, because I won’t let myself cover too much direct information in a day, so as not to confuse it all later. And I am excited every night before bed, as I plan out when I will be working on it all tomorrow.

Man… did I mention that I’m a nerd? Well, it just got a bit more obvious. 😛

Post-a-day 2021

Hard decisions

Just because it’s a good option doesn’t mean it’s the right option. There can be a multitude of good options available to us. But they aren’t all the best for each one of us. They are all different just as we are all different.

And, even if someone else may think this good option is the best option, it doesn’t mean that it really is the best option for me.

And, just because I can see that this one really is a really great option, it doesn’t mean that I have to pick this option. I am allowed to choose freely, of my own accord. When I know exactly what I want, I can wait for that, create that. I do not have to select or accept something else, simply because it is the best I’ve found so far, the closest I’ve found to what I actually want. Because it, ultimately, isn’t what I actually want.

Even if it is a really good option.

I don’t just want the best so far. I want the best.

If I’m going to put so much effort into something, I want it to be for the perfect option, the one I truly want, and never anything but that one.

Post-a-day 2021

Sharing is caring?

I have begun sharing. Why? Because I care. I care about those who have been hurt. I care about those who can help those being hurt or who have been hurt. I care about those who can prevent others from being hurt. I care about those who want to understand. I care about those who want to help. And I care about those who, simply, need to know.

But sharing isn’t always easy. And it isn’t always perceived as caring. Sometimes, it can merely frighten those on the receiving end. So, I think it is important to be responsible for the listening – will this person be able to hear right now what I next will say, or do I need to set up the conversation differently, so that this person can hear what I am going to say?

Beyond that, though, no matter how jarring it may be to share, I believe that sharing truly is caring. And I care.

Therefore, I share.

Watch out, world. I’m coming, open.

And that openness has reached a whole new level. So, get ready. And let’s do this. ❤

Post-a-day 2021

Five years

So it seems, five years ago, on 21 June, I opened my account for a weblog. I wanted to be a writer, and so I needed to start writing. I was focused on writing only interesting, good things at first. By October, I had discovered that it stifled my opportunity with the weblog, limiting myself so strongly. I began writing every single day, sharing just whatever happened to be on my mind. It had become, and remains today, a sort of journal for me, a true log of events and emotions within my life. Whenever I cross older posts, I am delighted, and often also amazed at what I had to say on a certain day or topic, what I had to share. My own history, in a way, is written here, my mind itself put on display for any who would buy take the time and interest to read.

Fascinating… I am grateful for the opportunity of this weblog, both for the cataloguing it has done and for the expression of self that it has been for me. No matter my situation in life, with family and friends and all, hannahananas.com awaits me, always ready and always accepting whatever I have to offer. It is an open space, granting me opportunity for the cosmos. And I am grateful for that.

Post-a-day 2021

Work’s working…

I don’t know how, but the work at my part-time job seems…, well, easier. I am not as worn down by it as I once was each shift. Yes, it takes a lot of energy, and I leave tired. But it is not in the same way. I feel energized throughout most of the workout time, actually bouncing around and dancing here and there and everywhere, in little bits. And, when I leave, I am not slightly miserable. I am just tired, with no negativity tied to it.

I like this.

And I really don’t know what has changed. Perhaps it is threefold…

1) I left and returned, as I mentioned about relating to places as home. I have to leave once before it can feel like home. I was gone for just over two weeks, following the family member death recently. I am now back at the shop, and it has felt like a small sort of comfortable return to home.

2) Certain things regarding function at the ship have improved. That always feels good, and much of it was a huge part of my daily frustrations.

3) My attitude has altered. I no longer see it as a necessity and my forever future, but as a beautiful, fun, and slightly silly opportunity in my life that is helping me exactly where I am right now, and reminding me that everything is perfect in how it is and how it happens. I am here on purpose, both for me and for the world at large, for both known and unknown reasons.

Okay, and a tiny 4) There are some new people, and I like their energy and their overall cuteness as people. 🙂

So, yeah… I’m liking this.

Post-a-day 2021