Tag: goals

Reading

I’ve gotten a good amount done today, given that I went for a miniature movie marathon with a girlfriend for several hours – which was awesome, by the way – yet I had only expected to be about two total. I did some tidying at home and some reorganization that seems to be a step very much so in the right direction. I stayed up way later than intended, but even got a lot of folding and putting away of laundry done, too. And, of course, I had an audiobook running that whole time, which was great use of my time.

Thank you, God, for the accomplishments and the love and friendship of today. Help me to make tomorrow another great day, sharing and living your love and helping to be my best self. Thank you for this life and this man and these opportunities. Please, heal those in need of healing and call to you newly all those who most need you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Reading

I have four books to go before the end of the year. I’m already in the middle of a handful of them, so it seems a very doable task. I have one small book I can probably finish reading in less than an hour’s time. But kind of saving that one for when my man is around and I can’t make noise. Otherwise, I have a few audiobooks in the works. I had two that I was well into when they expired recently, and the hold list is forever long still. So, those won’t work. But I have a few other newer ones happening right now that I think I can get done reasonably. I definitely fell behind twice this year, similarly to last year, and so am rushing at the end of the year. But I believe I can do it with reasonable ease. It can be good to do a nice walk with a book, or even a bike ride with an audiobook these next few days. 36 down, four to finish – I can do this! (And I like doing this, truly!)

God, thank you for this life and for this man. Help us always to grow with each other, as well as to grow in your love with one another. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Coming together

Things are, by no means, sorted. However, they are beginning to come together. Little by little – 少しずつ sukoshi zutsu – they are starting to solidify, and possibilities are starting to make sense. As a result, my stressed panic has begun to lessen, and today specifically. We have lots to accomplish, but a big part has been just getting research done and finding certain things that we need. Today, we got a good handful of research done. Sure, there’s still a whole mound of it in waiting, but the first parts can be the hardest, as it all is still so new and unfamiliar. By the end of today’s research, I had a decent handle on several things about which I had previously known next-to-nothing.

So, progress. Today has been good in that sense. Yes, we had some yelling and crying and lots of frustration and ache. And we also had some important and valuable conversations that seem to have accomplished much on their own. We are growing, and we are doing it together. And we aren’t perfect yet. 😛

Thank you, God, for today’s many accomplishments. Keep my man safe, please, and me, too. Help us always to grow together and with you, and through you and each other. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Segregation

Somehow, it never occurred to me that my parents were there for desegregation. We learned all about it in school, but they never had us ask our parents about it… We once had to ask our grandparents about some event, but I don’t recall what it even was. But why didn’t we use our own family members more with history? They, after all, did live through much of the detailed stuff that is referenced in the classrooms… and it makes things more memorable when we can tie them to something personal.

I remember, actually, doing one interview for school with my dad. Part of it, at least, was about race stuff, but it wasn’t tied as much to all the things we learn about, the events and people and such. It was about how a parent grew up relative to another race. I remember that much. It’s when I learned that the first black person my dad met was his college roommate, in college. Also that his parents didn’t particularly like (or know at all) black people, but, since black people weren’t ever around – remember how he never met one until he left home for college – my dad was exposed to much of an opinion about black people. In a way, the almost-certain racism never got much of a chance to be passed on to him. No, he didn’t get to know people of other races, but he also didn’t have any hostility toward them.

Fast forward to the next generation, and I grew up going to school in the most diverse county in the most diverse city in the country. Several of my best friends and crushes growing up were races other than white. And it never even occurred to me to care. People were just people. Kind folks were kind and mean ones were mean. Race truly never came up as a factor beyond looks.

Kind of cool, really…

Anyway, I’ve gone way off topic here. The point was that history class missed a huge learning opportunity here, and I want to remedy it as best as I can. I’ve already reached out to both my parents for some basic memory sharing, and I’m arranging really sitting and talking with them about it in the near future, too. How cool that my parents were there for so much stuff that we learned about in school… And how bizarre that that never truly occurred to me that they could share with me all about it personally, not just from a learned knowledge base. (Like how my mom was talking to me at Dealey Plaza about JFK’s assassination… but I subconsciously thought she was telling things she had learned in school – she was a great student, after all – not that she was remembering it from the live news reports…)

I have so much to discuss with my parents…and I almost feel a need to bring along a textbook!

I just might…

Post-a-day 2023

Discussion

We started going through some question and answer things together tonight, and actually discussing some of it… and I feel so satisfied by the conversation as a whole, so accomplished, satiated… satisfied not as in proved right, but as in filled, whole. I have been wanting to do just this for so long, and we are finally doing it clearly and intentionally, and it is wonderful. We both are learning, I think, both about each other and about how to discuss different things effectively with one another, and both are extremely valuable in any relationship. So, I go to sleep incredibly grateful tonight.

Thank you, God, and thank you, my man, for the communication, the willingness, and the love involved in it all. Thank you, God, for this life. Please, make clear our next steps always in pursuing and fulfilling your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. In class today, we started discussing jobs and work and careers and crafts. (This is French class.) At the end of class, we started reading together an article on the Japanese concept of ikigai. (If you don’t know it, look it up, because it is really cool.) Tonight, as I looked at my memories on Facebook, I crossed a post from this day seven years ago talking about how I had just discovered the Japanese term ikigai and that it was an awesome addition to my vocabulary. How fun! 😛

Quizlet

I have been using my first Quizlet and the first shared with me the past two days. A fellow classmate shared his Chinese flash cards with me, and I then went and added pronunciations to them to make my own set. Now, I can practice them as both just characters and meanings and with pronunciations, too.

I still need to make my own hard copy set, but this is good practice for now, and it took minimal time to ‘create’ them, so I accept the do-for.

Thank you, God, for this wonderful chance to learn and expand and improve myself, both as a person and student, but also as a teacher, too. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. Please, keep my man and the dog and their stuff all safe, please. Give him the confidence and the words he most needs. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Social energy

After my cousin and his friend left late this morning, his parents, my aunt and uncle, showed up to pick up my uncle’s boat that we had been storing for him. So, I spent the morning interacting with the cousin and friend, then the midday and early afternoon with my aunt and uncle. By the time our dads and their wives arrived for dinner (almost an hour late) close to five, I was kind of done with my social interactions for the day. 😛

Quite convenient, I know. So, I stuck it out and participated a reasonable amount, I believe. But the seating arrangement allowed for me to take it easy and talk to the grandmother in the living room while the dads and wives all chatted together at the dining table – their spending time to get to know each other was kind of the main point of the dinner, after all. And I got to do a lot of cleaning etc. in the kitchen, which helped me balance it all, too.

Nonetheless, I think the evening was a rather good time as a whole for everyone. I’m very grateful to be going to bed now, though it is after ten PM.

Thank you, God, for today’s blessings. He’s me and help me always to do your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

A kick

Perhaps the fear was the kick I have been both wanting and needing. I have been busy and tired and not sleeping well and needing to do loads of work (though not necessarily being productive during the school day, anyway). I have not been exercising almost at all. Perhaps it has been once or twice a week for the past month. Three times one week, and only one or two since then. None last week at all. So, here I am, experiencing a terribly stressful level of fat on my body. It’s one thing not to exercise and to eat well. But not to exercise and then to continue eating the same easy way… bad recipe, as I have now proven.

Anyway, so here I am. And I exercised today, especially doing the interval cardio section that I really haven’t felt like doing lately. It was a good feeling afterward.

And I still feel and see the fat on me, so, hopefully, it will encourage me to keep going with the exercise. I was for so long at a point of not being as fit as I wanted but not being able to see excess fat… it led me to doing less and less, because it was neither inspiring/encouraging nor terrifying. Now, the scales have tipped, at last, and I am terrified. Though it inevitably will improve, until it is at the original ideal fitness I have for myself, the scale somehow always stays tipped to the negative.

Thus, to work!

Thank you, God, for this clarity and this opportunity. Help me to heal, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Possibilities

It is a good feeling when things start to feel possible.

It also can be a stressful feeling, knowing that the time has come to pick and to make things happen… fast. A fast deadline for a big-deal project is always kind of a stress ball…

God, help us to handle this all well and beautifully and perfectly with your guidance and will. Help us to fulfill these dreams you have granted us. Thank you for this life and for these new possibilities. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023