Candles

Happy Birthday to me.

I felt a little bit impatient for my birthday to come this year, I think I felt much the same way last year, but it's not so much looking forward to the birthday itself.

I spent at least half year before now feeling like there is no way I could possibly still be 22 years old. I felt so much older and although weeks and months seem to fly by so quickly, years still seem to take their time.

My birthday felt like vindication- finally I can officially be a little bit closer to the age that I feel.

Which is why what happened last weekend surprised me a bit.

My adult English conversation class took me out for lunch to celebrate my birthday. Of course, a few of the ladies were kind enough to bake cakes for me. So, at one point they were putting the candles on one of the cakes.

23 candles, I confirmed. Yes, I was going to be 23 years old.

So I watched the candles be put on the cake.

'They are being put on too close to each other.' I thought, but kept it to myself.

The candles circled the perimeter of the cake, keeping the same distance that I had believed was too close to possibly work. I had kind of a gnawing feeling somewhere within as I watched almost unable to tear my eyes away. To my bafflement, the way that the candles were spaced out worked perfectly.

I counted the candles to myself, in awe of how many there were. Sure enough, it was 23.

(It had been a few years since I last had a birthday cake with candles, I realized.)

Mid-class thought

So today I was teaching in my least favorite of my 5th grade classes. I don't quite know why but this particular school seem to have a lot more bratty children than other schools that I go to.

In this class, there's one boy in particular who manages to get on my nerves a lot. Sitting near him, his female classmate seems to find his antics funnier than anything on Earth and is eager to jump in on it.

I was a 5th grade girl once and I'd have to be more dense than Osmium to not know that she has a crush on that boy.

So easily I could end this nonsense by asking her in the middle of the class out loud if she likes him.

So easily I could use preteen awkwardness and peer pressure to make the 5th grade classes a little more bearable.

But I didn't and I won't.

Why?

Because I was once a 5th grade girl and it would be downright evil.

Kind of random

I'm posting this with the assumption that the people who read this blog are people who love me.

Here's a list I suddenly decided to write of the things I want to with my life (at this time, anyway... this list will probably change bit by bit.)

- learn to portray myself better to people who don't know me so well
- take part in making the lives of less privileged people around the world a little better.
- always be moving, changing, growing, and marching to my own drum.
- take an active stand against nuclear weapons and other war methods that harm innocent civilians (or at least be on the team or staff of someone who is).
- learn how to express my thoughts and tell stories well. (And confidently)
- adopt a child (children?) instead of having my own. I just really feel when the time comes, there will already be a lot of children out there who need a safe place to live.-
become well known just enough so that I can go talk shows and tell some people to their faces that they are a**holes (although I'll put it in a slightly more civilized manner).
- learn how to make the people I talk to feel very important (put less importance on myself).
- be a mediator.
- take in foster children. Those kids are usually put through so much and are sometimes not the easiest to relate to, but I just want to be one of those people who are there for them anyway.
-become an amazing person

groggles

Ugggggh... I have a cold. It's not really a bad one- if there was something in particular I had to do or wanted to do, I could do it. But, besides a little bit of shopping to try to get a Halloween costume together, I can't think of anything in particular.

So I have been just sitting here all day at this computer. Watching a loooot of youtube.

Uggghh...

I've been entertaining myself by complaining about stupid things. I like doing that. With the head cold, the things I come up with to complain about are even more pointless and silly.

I kind of want to do something, but at the same time, I don't think I'll get better if I push myself too much today. Maybe I'll find a movie to watch. I watched Something Wicked this Way comes last night because I finished the book yesterday and I just happened to stumble upon the fact there was a movie. I liked the book --a lot-- better.

"achoo!" says my nose. I do not appreciate that comment.

"How dare you, nose!" I say and I slap it across it's face.

Except not.

The "Something Wicked This Way Comes" movie is from the 80s- for some reason quite a few of the movies I've watched lately are from that decade. I am not quite sure why. I guess I just don't care if a movie is old or not when I choose to watch it.

Where is this blog going?????

I want to post funny blogs again... or whatever those older blogs were. I almost spelled "blogs" as "brogs"- so Japanese. X(

I can't decide if I feel more gross or bored. -_-

About ambition and the like

I had a well written blog in my head just seconds ago, I even started using Google Notebook so that I could write it down before it goes away again. The ideas are still there but the structure has pretty much gone to hell. Let's see what I can reassemble.

Hm... it seems a lot of things seem structured in my mind, but aren't quite so when expressed to other people.

I have a lot of ideas about what I want to achieve in life, but I don't really know for sure if I can actually do these things. I don't know exactly where my limits are- I just know that day to day I go from believing I could conquer the Earth blindfolded to wondering how it is that I am breathing without choking.

Both of those extremes were exaggerated, of course.

(Although I'll admit to having choked on my own saliva a few times... *sigh*)

But I try to hang on to the same goals no matter how I am feeling about myself. Sometimes I feel like it would be easier to just change my goals to something easier- that way the thoughts that plague me at times that I can't be all that I want to be would not be a problem. I could do this, but the high ambition, high confidence side of me would never be happy with it.

That side wants to keep moving up until it finds just the right place. It does not want to stop at the ceilings set by the not-so-confident side or by other people. It wants to stop only when it reached the top of it's ability to climb- wherever that may be.

That side wants to prove the not-so-confident side and the not-so-confident people wrong.

"Wait..." someone might ask "People who are not so confident in you?"

I am not sure why I tend to believe that people don't see me as qualified. I have really no basis to believe this other than silly things like bullying during childhood. I can really only say that I think that part of the assumption is based on the confident/insecure dynamic in my mind. Something in my mind wants to prove itself and it somehow only makes sense to me that I would be proving something to someone else.

It helps me push myself along to believe that I need to prove something, but having a few choice people in my life to overwhelm me with their confidence in me is great for balancing that out. That's pretty much the way my life is now and I think it works well for me.

People also inspire me with their own strength and ambition- regardless if it's something that I could do easily, I still really admire people who keep trying at something even if it's difficult for them. I worked hard as a student, but I never quite had any challenges that seemed to impossible to solve.

Or maybe I have- I don't really take a lot of time to reflect on my achievements usually because I'm usually thinking about the next thing by then. As a consequence, I tend to think pretty little of them. They're just steps and there are large number of them ahead. Yes, it's possible I have been challenged like that, but I still think that I haven't. I -think- I would remember it.

Anyway--- the people who keep trying at things make me want to find and conquer my own blocks, but at the same time, they make me afraid that I would instead walk away from said "blocks" and pretend they don't exist. I get discouraged and afraid of failure. I am a pro at talking myself into things and I am even better at talking myself out of things. It's possible that I might just come across the road block and decide it's just not worth trying to pass and then coming up with a different route. I know what I might whine, complain, and consider giving up, but I like to think that in the end I would suck it up and give a good effort. Then, if I fail... be a vegetable for a day, a week, or until I can come up with a new plan.

Either way, I guess I'll be fine. Even the part of me that lacks confidence doesn't believe I will ever be down and out for long.

I have a bit of a dislike for metaphors, so I am inwardly cringing as I continue to rely on them in this blog entry.
I also don't like how my vocabulary seems to have escaped me at many points while typing this. I'm feeling a tad too stubborn to consult a thesaurus, so sorry for that.
I kind of feel like I am reiterating the same things over and over so, I think I'll end this entry here.

hats are for everybody

I want to build something with gigantic Styrofoam blocks. Curse adulthood.

I got an idea from a vlog I watched some time ago although I am not sure how well it would work for me. Basically, you go through the alphabet and write a blog about something you like starting with each letter of the alphabet.

Maybe I'll try that. I've been tired lately, so it's been hard to even get myself to start listing things.

Gravity seems to be working on overdrive today, I saw someone trip and/or fall for the 5th or 6th time today. It's a wonder I am still standing.

Obviously, this was a boredom induced blog, but I am really too tired to really make it into anything.

I just want to get myself back into this... even if it means posting some really uninteresting and probably hard to read entries.

Bethany, sometimes you make me want to join Livejournal again. Weird.

(all of my blogs this month have had titles starting with "H")

Here and there

My brain was basically filled to the brim with blog ideas for most of the day today, then I finally get around to logging in here and I draw a complete and total blank.

I would I could telepathically blog. Like if I could use a computer in my head anytime, anywhere.

Wow, I think I just chose my super power of choice. Screw teleportation! :)

It's been an uneventful weekend- other than a party I went to on Friday evening, I've spent pretty much the entire time sitting around at home, doing laundry, cleaning, etc. Tomorrow, I am planning on going to the city and shopping a little bit- it's a holiday, after all.

Tomorrow is also the Ijuin town sports festival, but (like last year) no one thought to invite me for anything, so I don't see any reason to go. So, I think I will go shopping tomorrow instead. Believe me, it will be a lot more appropriate for "Heath and Sports Day" than what I did last year- I spent the entire day in front of my computer.

The weather has been absolutely wonderful lately- I know I need to enjoy it while I still can. It's going to get very, very cold again soon, after all. The sky has been a pretty amazing blue color and the clouds have been awe inspiring (this, of course, coming from someone who LOVES clouds.)

Best of all, it's sweater weather. Sometimes I can even get away with wearing a light jacket or even just a short sleeved shirt- I LOVE weather that allows that much flexibility.

(Of course, I do, I'm from Salinas/Monterey...)

Sadly, it won't last.

My mood has been kind of odd these days, I've been feeling pretty good about myself appearance-wise- I've been experimenting with make up and just having fun with it. I honestly don't feel like I really need it, though. On the other hand (this is the odd part), my overall confidence is not exactly gone, but I'd say it's at least been tipped over onto it's side. My confidence feels a little ill, I guess. My Japanese flute, which I can barely put down after picking up usually hadn't been touched in days (I started feeling like I'll never get good at it) and just thinking about grad school is kind of freaking me out.

I'm still going to the gym across the street from my apartment- maybe not as frequently as I should be, but I do enjoy it. It's just across the street, so it's not a big deal to decide randomly to push myself to get over there at around 8:30 pm and exercise for about an hour. Having an ipod, of course, makes this 10 times easier.

This blog has been just about everywhere, so here's a random tidbit-

Apparently every blue eyed person can be traced genetically to one person who lived less then 10,000 years ago.

Hello window

Who reads this blog now?

I guess it's hard to remember to check when I update so rarely.

I posted kind of an odd sequence of tweets. It's funny how tweets are ALMOST like blogs, but they still lack so much. They're almost meaningless after you forget the details or stories behind them. So, here's a little meaning-

"Here's to that flaky thing we like to call self confidence."

Just a little while ago, I felt ready to attack grad school and eager to use it to learn all I need to move onto the next thing in my life. I have high aspirations. But lately, I've been doubting my ability. As bad as it could be, it won't make me give up. If I want to deserve something enough, I strive to become the kind of person that deserves it. Just... boy, I miss the confidence when it decides to take a break.

"Here's to traits you can always rely on- sense of humor and flexibility."

People exist in this world who lack those things... I've met people like that. I wonder how they can possibly cope with the crazy things in life. I don't know if I could do without them.

"Here's to this body that doesn't ever seem to do what I want it to do... yet it has done everything I've needed it to do."

Feeling sick, sore, and then having that-time-of-the-month. Oh, and acne doesn't exactly make me feel great about my image. I'm not as strong as I would like to be and it's hard for me to sit in proper Japanese "seiza" with my legs folded under my body. But my body did a marvelous job fighting off whatever I was suffering from earlier this week, it would be scary if I didn't have a time-of-the-month somehow, and breathing, eating, and walking seem to be doing just fine.

"Here's to annoying people with consecutive tweets."

I seem to think what comes out of my brain like this is interesting. I take care to remind myself fairly frequently that what is meaningful for me isn't necessarily what's meaningful for others. In terms of being meaningful, this was a really, REALLY meaningless tweet. :)

...I'm up too late tonight.