Tag: work

Music life

I am beginning to see how easy it is to write songs, to create songs. It already seemed doable to me before now, but it has become abundantly clear to me that it is all even easier than expected.

And, I suppose, that is what really is so hard about writing songs. Because it is so easy to start writing them, it is easy to lose track, get distracted, and never finish one. Loads of starts and parts, but very few full, finished songs ever seem to appear.

I guess that is a warning, a reminder, and an encouragement for me. Beware of doing only starts and not actually taking the time and effort to focus on creating a full song in the mix. Remember that it is easy and that you can and want to take the time and make the effort for starts and full songs both. You have done the tremendous effort of completing full and real songs already – you can do it again as many times as you wish.

That being said, I have two songs that are sprouting. One is almost ready to be written beyond just a chorus, and the other began today, budding out with its main idea in the first verse and chorus. (Psst: I’m actually really excited about the latter song.) It feels like the second one will happen before the first, and that’s completely okay with and for me. It isn’t quite yet time for the first, and I know it. It is more a birthday song this year, so it likely won’t be ready until closer to then for me. 😛

Post-a-day 2021

^Whew! I caught myself as I was in the middle of writing the year! No mis-types. Just perfect timing of remembering! 😛

Ready or not

My whole body seems to be hurting – well, all the muscles on the outer layers, anyway – right now, it is almost 11 o’clock, and yet I am getting up at 4:20am to attend the 5:15 workout class in the morning. And I have several activities scheduled with others throughout most of the day tomorrow. I likely will be very tired and sleepy by the end of it all.

So, why I am sticking to all of it, instead of rearranging or rescheduling anything? Because tomorrow is one version of an ideal day for me. I will be doing things that nourish me, that nourish others, that I love doing, and that also happen to earn quality money to support me in this life.

And I am not only super excited about it – I am terrified. It’s that good. 🙂

So, cheers to a restful and empowering sleep for me tonight, and for anyone else who needs it tonight: may we have our dreams come to fruition, as we become our true selves more and more every day. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

^ Whoop! Had to think about it, but I got it right!

Value in being valued

On a walk the other day with my mom, we met these nice old people who live on her street, just after we picked up some ujukitsu off the ground in their backyard/the abandoned small golf course. Turns out that they met one another while teaching for a year in Japan on a military base (that is no longer in existence) near Tokyo. I am familiar with the train line that led to it, according to them. Before Japan, they each had taught a year or two in Hawai (he) and the Philippines (she), and then they met and married and moved to teach on a base in Germany together. They were part of the foreign service teaching for 14 years altogether, I believe they had said. Then they moved to Houston and taught in elementary schools here until they retired. It was adorable to hear.

Considering my frustrations in this part-time job I am now working, I have wondered if something in school teaching is still calling to me. I miss having classes of kids, and teaching something – and something valuable – each and every day I go to work, and being loved and trusted and valued by those around me, in immediate interaction with me every day. Though, perhaps it is less about the classroom and more about the respect and valuing and love that comes to me in a classroom, but that has seemed nearly nonexistent in this position. I have even felt disrespected and incredibly undervalued and unappreciated here.

I wonder what there is for me to do about that.

I know one thing for sure: I’m tired of relying on the way I am told things work. Word-of-mouth information is faulty, and it has proven itself to be so over and over again in this job. I am tired of it. I will do my research for all of my questions, and clock the hours and expect no pay for them, and I will be prepared for all the stuff at this job that will pop up at some time or other – the crazy situations all seem to be inevitable, and I prefer to be prepared and to know what on Earth is going on. So, I will prepare myself, and I will not rely any longer on anyone else to teach me what I need to know or what they all think I need to know – that has been terrible so far, and I am done with it.

In doing that, I will be prepared as I want to be prepared, and as I always prepare myself when I care about something. The system is faulty, and I do not have to follow it – I can do better than it, and I shall, especially in this part of it.

Separately, I am doing more photos tomorrow morning, and I am nervous. I have been doubting and stressed since that bad photo shoot where I didn’t trust myself the other week. I know I need to take photos to move past this, but that doesn’t make it less scary for me. Someone will be relying on me, and I will be relying on a camera… and myself. Now, I just need to trust myself, and do what is needed to be done. Even if that seems like a ridiculous something. You can do this, Banana. Trust yourself and have faith in yourself – Jishin to Kokoro.

Post-a-day 2020

Stress and Presence

My mom and I had some stuff go rather poorly yesterday. I was extremely tired, both physically and emotionally, and she was rather tired and stressed, so it wasn’t a good start for entering into somewhat stressful territory for us together. Nonetheless, it happened, and it didn’t go very well, and we both were left, at the end of the day, dissatisfied with parts of our interactions throughout the day. This morning, we started to talk about it all, and that went even worse. Would you guess it? We were both even more exhausted and stressed than yesterday. So, no shocker at how that all went this morning.

After a morning of delight and an afternoon and evening filled with stress and a lack of logic/sense/consciousness from others, I was really working to get off it and to forgive and be okay. Once I was in the midst of all of that, rather than cry my heart and exhaustion out and still have to work, I set myself to mental work to see what I could resolve. I couldn’t alter my surroundings, but I could reconsider my stance within them, and I could use that time, rather than to be stressed, to re-evaluate what really would make the difference for my mom and me and our joint stress regarding our interactions lately and, especially, yesterday and this morning.

By the end of work time, I had it all figured out. I hopped into the car with my mom to go look at Christmas lights together in the area, and we talked through everything over the first 15-20 minutes. We both got heard and clear, and we established actions to take in the future whenever certain scenarios arise (the ones that have been sorts of trigger situations lately). It makes a world of a difference when neither of us is in the middle of doing something, and we are in the same place as one another. It also helped that I was reminded of how stressed life can be when I live it on other people’s levels instead of my own.

So, life is a whole lot better having things clear between my mom and me. That was a huge layer of stress today that feels amazing to have removed at last (though it was only about 20 hours in existence).

And, all I care to say how about all the other nonsense I experienced today with work is: Please, be present in life, and pay attention – it really sucks for the people around you whenever you don’t, whether you notice it or not.

At that, I bid you a good night and restful, refreshing sleep tonight. 🙂

P.S. Happy my brother’s birthday to you, and happy winter solstice! This has been the shortest day of the year, signing off!

Post-a-day 2020

Rest and Weather

I feel like the weather is kind of really getting to me lately. You see, I can handle cold weather and hot weather both, just so long as I can be in charge of my indoor temperatures. Lately, the weather has been going back and forth between warm-ish and really cold (in the twenties Celsius to just above freezing). Unfortunately, between work and my mom’s house, I have not had reliable temperatures indoors anywhere. No matter how I have approached it, I never seem to predict appropriately what the indoor temperatures will be, and so end up slightly miserable while at either location for longer periods of time. In my own home, I hav even fine. But I haven’t spent the bulk of my waking hours in my own home lately.

And so, with that physical semi-misery comes a certain level of both conscious and subconscious stress. And, with that stress and the unexpected cold indoor temperatures, I feel like I am getting sick. And it sucks. All I want to do is take a super fast shower and then curl up in bed and sleep for ten hours. But I have to be up to work in about nine hours from now, so I likely won’t get more than eight to sleep. And only that much if I somehow manage to go back to sleep when I inevitably wake up around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, as almost always now. (Another factor in my feeling terrible, as I haven’t gotten enough sleep lately, especially due to the fact that I can’t stay asleep during the time I have available for sleeping.)

Anyway, lots of frustration and stress lately and right now, and all I want to do, I can’t really do. But we shall see how quickly I can get myself to bed right now, and then how I feel in the morning. I really hope I crash asleep tonight, and then wake refreshed and well tomorrow morning. I and the world around me need it(!). I actually broke down in miserable crying tonight before driving home from my mom’s, I was so tired and stressed.

But, starting after tomorrow, the days will be increasing in length again, and I am grateful for that.

Post-a-day 2020

Actually, inefficiency killed the cat

I just don’t do inefficiency. Period.

Perhaps it is my German blood that flows within me, but I automatically look for the best, most efficient way to do just about anything, whether I’m the one doing it or not, and whether I want to do the evaluation or not. Actually, I’ll often purposely turn my attention away from something that I am not doing, because I know that I, within seconds, will be spending brainpower on developing significant improvements on the effectiveness and efficiency of that noticed activity (e.g. ignoring the guys grinding and paving the streets this past week-ish on the street where I live).

Tonight, I got a little too frustrated for comfort with utter inefficiency. I can accept that other people will be inefficient. However, please, do not waste my time and effort with your inefficiency, people. Please. I just can’t stand it – my brain will not tolerate it for long, as logic defeats your inefficiency every time.

***I reference the second person here as a general idea, not as you, the reader, so, please, accept that I am not accusing you, the reader, of inefficiency. If you are inefficient, however, I invite you to reconsider those ways for more efficient ones. 😉 ***

For me personally, I’m not sure that I do anything in a way that I deem as inefficient. If I have to get up to do something a more efficient way than I would be doing it lying on the floor, either I will get up and do it and then lie back down, or I will rest (if it doesn’t have to be done right now) as I am, and then get up later and do the task when I am ready. I will not do a lazy version of it from my spot on the floor. I just won’t do it.

Now, let’s be real here: I am totally lazy. I do not deny it. That’s a huge part of my efficiency, really. I do not want to waste effort. Ever. And so, I aim to be as efficient as possible, and with everything that I do, so that no effort is wasted. We only have so much energy and effort and time in a day; let us not waste any of it.

So, yeah…, I was extremely frustrated tonight. I wonder what there is for me to improve within myself on this – managing how strongly it effects me, most likely – so I shall consider that specifically and intentionally over the next day or few, and see what comes up.

Post-a-day 2020

Yikes

Okay, I think I have finally learned my lesson on something: Trust myself.

I know enough and have done enough to handle what I am doing in photography. I am much more reliable than any automatic camera settings. Yes, it is convenient not to have to change settings constantly with changing light and angles. But having photos with the right subject in focus is significantly more important to me than having what looks like decent lighting it with a blurred subject. And the latter is what I keep getting every time I doubt myself and say that it will be safer to let the camera use its intelligent automatic setting.

So, I will trust myself to manage all photo settings from here onward. I trust myself. Not the automatic settings.

Thank you, World for this opportunity to remedy the photos that did not represent me and what I truly can create with photography. I am terrified and grateful, both in a wonderfully good way. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2020

But, what about…?

Must we always feel that sense of doubt after doing something atypical yet important? We consider it in depth, and determine that action is appropriate and necessary. We determine carefully what action is best. We prepare ourselves, and we take that action, checking two and three times that everything is accurate and in place and appropriate and most likely to be effective in the intended and desired ways.

And then we are giddy with anticipation at the accomplishment.

And then we begin to question…, Did I really consider everything? Did I really check it over enough and say the right things, do the right things?

I think that sense of questioning and doubt comes not from a doubt of one’s own competency, but from one’s desire truly to make a positive impact through and by one’s actions. In other words, we doubt and question our decisions and actions directly afterwards, because we care, because we want to do what truly makes a difference.

Though knowing that doesn’t exactly remove the doubt and questioning, I suppose it makes them a bit easier to bear and accept and, thereby, release.

😉

Post-a-day 2020

Meditation

I started on this 28-day meditation thing through work. I specifically selected the five minutes a day version (versus the 15 minutes a day one), because I knew I could maintain five minutes going forward, at least for the 28 days, if not 40 or semi-indefinitely going forward.

The first day’s recording, which involves some prompting at the beginning and end, and casual flowy sounds for the duration, was just over five minutes in total. Okay, no big deal. It’s an approximate five-minute meditation. Totally okay.

The next day was roughly the same for the same timing. Each subsequent day or two, however, seemed to be longer and longer, to the point that, by day 18, I was listening to a more-than-15-minute recording for the meditation. It was still the same sort of prompting at the very beginning and end, with just the flowy sounds in the middle, but it was almost sixteen minutes long now. On the 21st day, I was so utterly wiped and aching for rest and sleep, I could not fathom staying upright and awake for an additional sixteen plus minutes. I left out the official meditation with ease and no regret that night.

I have yet to return to it. I agreed to a five-minute meditation, and that was not what I was given. Frankly put, it had no integrity in its design, based on how it was advertised. And a lack of integrity is a real turn-off for meditation.

Yes, I still want to do a meditation for the 28 days. No, I do not think I will do that one. I do the meditations during my process of getting ready for bed – they are a conclusion to my day. I can give five minutes reasonably and responsibly. Any more than that would be out of integrity for me and for what I need to do in order to take care of myself. The meditations had become a stressful endeavour for me the last several days of it, because it was too much time for me when I was already so tired. So, I’d spend the whole first part of the meditation letting go of my annoyance at the meditation itself. On the last few nights, I even got annoyed again near the end, because it was taking so long, and my body was done with sitting in its position. Not exactly the most productive use of time.

So, yeah, that wasn’t the best experience in giving it a go with a new approach to meditation and meditation styles. I wanted to test it out and see how it went, and that is just what I did. I have it space to grow on me, and it did. And then it overgrew on me and I let it go. Now, it is time to move forward with my learnings from it, and create something that can bring effective value to me and my life as a whole (effecting thereby those around me in life, too, in a positive way).

Post-a-day 2020