Swine flu in Kawasaki
A couple cases of swine flu have been reported in Kawasaki. Of course, I didn't know that until after I'd agreed to meet my friend in Kawasaki today. The whole Starbucks team was wearing masks, and regular items like milk and honey weren't left out for consumers (there was a note in their absence saying this was done as a precautionary measure). Everyone is hyper aware of coughing, others or their own. I wanted to cough in the shoe store just to clear my throat but stopped myself.
So that's the excitement. Is the increased focus on illness and death what got me up two mornings this week to exercise? Hard to say, but it was nothing short of a miracle. Let me heartily give at least half the credit to a podcast I came across: Robert Ullrey's Couch to 5K Podcast for Running. It's wonderful to have an encouraging voice direct and encourage at given intervals between motivating techno music. Now the key is to stick with it! I'm kind of excited that each week is different; different music and more time jogging as opposed to brisk walking. Wish me luck!
My Italian has fallen to pieces. There is even a nice guy who calls me from Italy, but my brain seems to only handle English or pieces of Japanese. So there are exceedingly long pauses on my end when I'm just trying my damnedest not to say "arigatou", "hai", or "wakatta". But he seems amused by my plight, at least for a time, and wants to help me learn Italian again.
I think my best classes are my kids classes. I care about those rascals. It's such a feeling of success when you get a painfully shy 3-year-old girl or sullen junior high boy to smile and even learn some of a foreign language. It's exhausting because I put so much into it. But it feels so good.
If facebook is any judge, anyone I ever knew has just had a child or had one within the last year or is about to have one. I've got mixed feelings about this, as you might imagine. If I never find a life partner or have children, can I be content? I've always answered no to that question, but it seems like a major buy into samsara and another reason to deny myself happiness. I have to remember that this inner strength and knowledge does in fact mean the world to me, even if it means nothing to the world. That being said, I may have faith remaining in one thing, and that's serendipity.
So that's the excitement. Is the increased focus on illness and death what got me up two mornings this week to exercise? Hard to say, but it was nothing short of a miracle. Let me heartily give at least half the credit to a podcast I came across: Robert Ullrey's Couch to 5K Podcast for Running. It's wonderful to have an encouraging voice direct and encourage at given intervals between motivating techno music. Now the key is to stick with it! I'm kind of excited that each week is different; different music and more time jogging as opposed to brisk walking. Wish me luck!
My Italian has fallen to pieces. There is even a nice guy who calls me from Italy, but my brain seems to only handle English or pieces of Japanese. So there are exceedingly long pauses on my end when I'm just trying my damnedest not to say "arigatou", "hai", or "wakatta". But he seems amused by my plight, at least for a time, and wants to help me learn Italian again.
I think my best classes are my kids classes. I care about those rascals. It's such a feeling of success when you get a painfully shy 3-year-old girl or sullen junior high boy to smile and even learn some of a foreign language. It's exhausting because I put so much into it. But it feels so good.
If facebook is any judge, anyone I ever knew has just had a child or had one within the last year or is about to have one. I've got mixed feelings about this, as you might imagine. If I never find a life partner or have children, can I be content? I've always answered no to that question, but it seems like a major buy into samsara and another reason to deny myself happiness. I have to remember that this inner strength and knowledge does in fact mean the world to me, even if it means nothing to the world. That being said, I may have faith remaining in one thing, and that's serendipity.