healthy body
September 9, 2005
Today is not bad, but Japanese summer is pretty brutal…yes..humid and hot..my mom got sick, and so did my grandpa. Poor my mom, she has been taking care of my grandparents /her parents since they both have alzheimer’s disease. I don’t have a job yet and having pretty much laid back days since I got back from the states, but there were a few days when I was exhausted by heat and passed out pretty early. I want a healthy body and everyone should have a health body too…
Last Sat right before my Kamakura trip, Yurie invited me and her friend, Sayuri for a nice dinner again! It was so much fun as usual, and we had healthy and yummy foods. Her famous!! lentil soup, babaganush (spell? those eggplant dish with tahini..yumm), framboise sourbet (homemade!!), and the salad which she made when she came to Chicago! The salad has sauteed shrimp, mixed dark greens, tomatos, avocado, pine nuts, and more and more with balsamic vinegrett. I brought fresh ginger from my parents’ farm and homemade miso and tofa (tofu desert that I had in Taiwan and love it since then). I bought a fresh soymilk for tofu making (not that one in a box which is processed and not able to be tofu) which comes with a NIGORI which makes soymilk solid. It turned out pretty good. I made sweet ginger sauce with fresh ginger and brown suger for the syrup. I love the warm soft sweet tofu with sweet ginger sauce. The night was really fun and they are amazing women whom I want to be like. beautiful, smart, and sweet—they both are health conscious! So am I!!
A few nights ago, my dad and I had a good conversation. I realized that I tend to overwork and warn myself out and abuse? myself until my body says no…I might not be physically weak, but I just stressed myselft out. I am getting better at it though. When I worked at tv and radio station, I was always overworked and exhausted. My health condition was not good all the time. When I traveled with Yurie to France, I always asked her to slow down and I always complained backpain or headache or whatever the pain I had. when she came to Chicago, she was surprised how strong I got, haha, you guys should know that I am getting strong!! I didn’t see drastic change except I don’t get sick as often as before. I used to hate when people don’t understand people like us who get sick all the time. How many times people told me this, “are you sick again? (with a face, you know what I am talking about)” I think that relaxation is a key…yoga, meditation, therapy, or whatever… and also how you take things or see the world plays an imporatnt role as far as stress relief goes.
To be honest, not getting scholarship for the phD program devastated me for a big time. I felt that I failed and my life became meaningless in a way, but I have good friends who supported me throughout my hardship, and I realized that my life was not so bad, haha… I do have great friends. well, I don’t have many friends, but a few good ones!!! I am talking about YOU!! Just one failure didn’t seem a big deal when I see my life with a different perspective. I think that I learned the balance is important in my life. It is still challenging and never ends, but I feel better now, probably because I have been resting for a while…haha…
Anyhow, I just wanted to say many thanks to my friends who support me all the time…
super freash ginger
August 30, 2005
I started feeling sinus infention-ish, which I don’t like the most in terms of my health weakness. Of course, I have been doing netti pot (my mom thought I brought back my “favorite” water pitcher), but I picked a freash ginger root from my dad’s farm today and ate it just as raw. It was very tender and yummy! and helped decongest my sinus. I love ginger and I didn’t know my dad was making it. I helped planting echarlottes (spell? you know a little onion family root vegetable), which will be ready next Spring. My favorite from his farm beside ginger is sweet potato’s stems. It is like a skinny? green bean and tastes slightly sweet potato. yummy…
Tomorrow, I am going to have acupuncture with my mon and go get my eye lash permed with my friend. I know it sounds crazy, but it is pretty common here in Japan. I have been using a heated curler,but it got broken, so when my friend told me about the place (she liked their job—it’s important to know), I asked her to make a reservation for me. no more curler for me at least for a month.
I felt like I should move on as soon as possible, but I should recharge my energy and complete my thesis, which is not hard at all at this point (one more approval). So if people ask me what I am doing, I should say that I am taking a little break in my life. How does it sound?
I miss living in Chicago with my old (oh..) roommates and hanging out my friends in Chicago…
Of course, I love my friends here, but I want both…some day!
I have been very caffeinated since I moved back to Japan. A cup of green tea every meal and one or two cups of coffee everyday. I don’t know anyone who tries not to drink too much caffeine here, well I guess I know a few peope, but in general, I haven’t seen decaf coffee at any place yet. I haven’t been to Star Bucks yet. They have soy milk though.
Many people are health conscious and whatever the food tv shows introduced for health benefits instantly becomes popular. People drink vineger for health benefit (healthy blood stream and more), and special cooking oil which supposedly doesn’t turn into body fat too much is very popular, and many tv programs about health including diet are popular too. People try to loose weight in a healthy way, and family restaurant menu always indicates calories of each dish. Detox, raw food, fasting are popular too. I enjoy the tv shows about health, but loosing weight stuff doesn’t make me happy at all. I love eating and eating is fun! I care my health, but I won’t sacrifice my enjoyment of food. I want to be healthy, which is true, so I can be conscious about my body, but not too much.
Okay, I am getting sleepy….My parents eat out for lunch every Wed as my mom’s hardwork for taking care of my grandma who has Alzheimer’s disease. I am going to join them…exciting! Oops, see I can’t be on diet…
sweet dreams.
up and down and up
July 30, 2005
Friday was a long day for me. I woke up in the middle of the night around 3 a.m. felt so sick and throwing up (gross…). I totally overslept by not hearing my alarm went off. I have no idea how it happened. On top of that, my face was swollen and my eye lids were puffy like marshmallows. I got to the work super late and one of the waitresses was saying that my face looked so different. I put my face in and out ice cold water for a minuite, and it got better eventually, but I was so conscious about it for a while. I don’t know how I got it though. My guess is that Thai food that I ate was too salty and greasey and my body was too weak to digest them. I need potassium for water retention. Banana…plantain… I had a banana last night.
I worked all day, double shift and went to Josh ‘s house for Luca’s last night in Chicago. I couldn’t talk to him much and I got there kind of late too. Luca is so great and everybody loves him. I am sad, yet very happy that I got to know him. He left today, and I am going to leave soon. Marcia is leaving to Brazil and L.A. soon too. A lot of farewell….sad, but good to know there are people who care about me somewhere in the world.
I remember that three of us in Marcia’s car a year ago, talking about how easily people are hooked up and separated, and we think that is ridiculous. Well, our conversation was not that simple, but more personal, but basically that was what we were talking about. That was really nice to share the thoughts. Last night, we decided to meet up in either Tokyo or Prague. That should be so much fun! I want to travel a lot. I want to go many places where I have not visited before.
I have two more days at Wabi. They are throwing a party for me at the Mas, because I was saying “Mojitos” all the time. How nice! Luca made a great mojitos last night. It was delicious as always.
My friend, Chisato found my blog on line and called me this morning. I haven’t talked to her for a long time, so it was very very nice. My phone ran out of battery, so it got cut off, but still it was very nice to hear what she is doing and going to do. She is moving to New York from Tokyo for studying in culinary art. She wants to open a gallery cafe. We used to work at the same company and hang out quite a lot. I think I can see her in Japan before she leaves to New York.
Just in general, people around me are moving now. I have to visit many places!
I am scared of going back to Japan, but pretty excited too. very very mixed feelings…
Murakami and yoga
May 28, 2005
I finished Murakami’s Kafka on the shore yesterday. I like it a lot, maybe more than “Sputnik” one. It has mental journey or struggle like Norwegian wood, and also adventurous or puzzle-like story plot like Wind up bird or Sputnick. It was not unpredectable, yet fun to read. It is not dark or sad…umm…hard to describe it. It is sad at some points, but it seems to make sense. It made me want to go to Shikoku (one of the islands in Japan). I’ve never gone there. I really enjoyed the perspective of 15 years old boy. I want to talk about it more, but I don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t read it.
After this book, I re-started “A Confederacy of Dunces” which my friend, Chris bought for me. I don’t know why I stopped reading it..Oh…the main character is very bitter about many things, which are sometimes funny, but sometimes hard to take. When I read the book in public like in the train or coffee shops, I’ve got some people came up to me to talk about this book. A lot of people like this book. The author commited suicide and his mother brought it to an English professor who ended up publishing this book. It is autobiographical.
I went to Yoga this morning. I didn’t go to yoga last week, and yesterday I felt bloated and weak. I am glad that I went. I feel light and clear. I am sure I will sleep well tonight. After the yoga class, I went to Red hen bakery and got a cinnamon raisin bagel with a cup of a half decaf coffee and walked for a while. It was a nice breakfast/ teat after yoga. I should do this more often since I don’t work in the morning much except a couple of days a week.
I bought a ticket to go to NYC when my friend, Yurie is coming. We will stay at John’s fancy apartment. His b-day is on the 4th of July, so he will throw a big party and his twin brother whom I haven’t seen for a long time will be there too. It should be a lot of fun. We will be back to Chicago together and she will stay at my place for several days. I am excited. I want to see Jimmy and Gretchen too.
two more days work until my nexrt dayoff….
Kill PMS
May 11, 2005
If you are girl, you know how horrible pms can be. If you are boy, you have to understand that women go though 10-15 day long pms every single month! 10-15 day long pms and 7 day long period… women’s hormon constantly fluctuates in 1/2 or 2/3 of a month!
Today, I woke up and thought, “Am I getting sick?” I felt so slow and exhausted, so of course, I felt unproductive and that didn’t help me feeling better. I have to do this and that…. It is my day off. I should be relaxed. All of the sudden, I felt crazy. Am I forgetting something? Am I supposed to do something today? Oh I needed yoga today for sure.
I mean everybody has a day like this, but come on! If it is caused by my hormonal changes, what can I do? I know…I am supposed not to consume too much caffeine, sugar, and salt and do exercise regurely. Yeah, it sounds simple, doesn’t it? I think, though, pms still occurs even if I did these, not physical, but mental symptom like my craziness today. I think my physical symptom is not too bad, except fatigue. I don’t have cramp or breast tenderness which I used to have. My menstration is not heavy either. It was bad before, but I guess I have been taking care of myself better lately.
More scarly thing is menopause. Women go crazy and mean and super emotional 300 times worse than pms. Even my mom who is very sweet became mean to me a couple of times, and she felt so much guilty afterward. scarly….. I am not as nice as her, so what could happen to me?
I kind of want to do raw food detoxication, but I want to enjoy the food until I leave to Japan. Marica did and told me a lot of good things. Margaret Cho did it too. Ummm, I want to do it, but not now. Maybe, I should visit Marcia and do detox together in the future! I should tell her that.
So I went to yoga this afternoon. It helped me chilled out. I will sleep very well tonight. I like that yoga relaxes me and fix my aliment, and there are theraputic effects too.
I will just take it easy tonight.
