Even though I change

*eye twitch*

There is a lot that can be said about the US government, but I'll leave that to other people who can stomach reading into the situation more. *holds head and sighs* When did the world get to juvenile?

Instead I shall deal with my disgust by proposing they should all be subjected to a marathon of small children's shows.

Originally I was going to propose that they bring Barney the Dinosaur in person to interact with everyone and give them a workshop in the basics of getting along, but he is a dinosaur, and you never know when wild animals will return to their instincts. As frustrating as the situation is, I cannot advocate resorting to violence, so that idea was scrapped.

Just having them watch small children's shows with lots of singing and dancing and working together to solve problems and resolve differences for every hour they are not actively working on said skills seems appropriate. I've likely got hours and hours worth of recommendations.

And they should trade off bring drinks and snacks every day this goes on. Tea time is together time, so they should at least work together to prepare a combination that would be palatable together, even if it's not one party's favorite. Maybe they can compromise bringing something to suit that when its their turn, because as most of us learned from small children's shows, it's polite to take turns and compromise. And everyone gets a snack! (Paid for out of their own deep pockets, please.)

Been thinking a lot about vegetarianism and why it appeals to me and doesn't appeal to me. I caught myself going down the "morally superior" train, and stopped--moral superiority should absolutely not be a reason for doing anything. That is empty. There has to be a reason it is morally superior, and then you should do something for that reason.

So I had to ask how much good my going lacto-ovo-vegetarian would do, and most anything I find that isn't published by a vegetarian organization suggests you're really not doing any good unless you go vegan, and you have to think about the environmental impact of all the plant-and-otherwise based products you're eating, and then you're not really doing any good unless you only buy from local farmer's markets, because the real enemy of all things good in the world--whatever those are--is the whole agriculture business, and you're really just doing the world a favorite by learning not to require any sustenance at all.

*holds head and sighs*

Switch to the expensive organic and range-free eggs. Got it. Avoid pork. Got it. Shimane beef is likely better than most American beef. Eating chicken kills excessively and makes poor poultry miserable. Eating fish will ruin the whole fragile ecosystem of the entire world, and give you mercury poisoning. Never eat white rice or white bread, though there is little choice about that here. Just stop eating carbs altogether, according to diets of the ancients we don't even need them, and we probably need them even less with such sedentary lifestyles. Skip the tofu because those soy beans had to be raised through monoagricultural methods and required fossil fuels to prepare and ship. Don't buy any vegetables here because they all come wrapped in plastic, which is choking the planet.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

A little personal philosophy of why we must take care of ourselves not for ourselves, but for others:

It's very obvious to say a pregnant or nursing woman must take care of herself in order to take care of her child. Later on, parents are also told to take care of themselves when they are stressed out, otherwise they won't be able to take of anyone else around them.

What about children? What about when they grow up and don't necessarily have their own families to take care of? How could they possibly pay their parents back for all the sacrifices they made?

They don't. Instead, on a physical level they must show they appreciate them by taking care of the bodies their parents worked so hard to feed and keep healthy and grow. Traditional Chinese culture emphasizes how we physically would not be in this world if not for the physical contributions of our parents, which is why we owe them and our ancestors such reverence. A rather extreme example of this is a minor character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Xiahou Dun, who was shot in the left eye by an arrow. He pulled it out and proclaimed, "Essence of my father, blood of my mother, I cannot throw this away!" and ate it.

Not to say we should take to those extremes when injuries happen to these vessels we should be treasuring. Also, not to say we owe every bit of our physical bodies to our parents and ancestors.

About a year an a half ago, on a completely normal day in the office, I was walking through the hall and suddenly struck by the awesomeness of having a sentient, physical form. Sure, I've always known that all the matter in my body previously existed before Earth even supported life. But let's think about that a little more--of all the possible ways these atoms could have been arranged, they came together from all over the universe to form the form known as "me." I am not a rock, nor am I a camel, though in all likelihood my atoms might previously have these forms or might someday become these forms. I am capable of human levels of thought and making decisions to guide the temporary destiny of these atoms I have been bestowed with.

All these atoms are on loan. We break them down into energy and we pile them together to form our cells. Our cells! Even those are just on loan. The cells we have now are not the cells we were born with. They die and new ones replace them, but even so they retain the memories of the body as a whole--a scar will not disappear just because it has new cells. The whole organ works together; that is how a multi-celled organism works. That's me! I'm a multi-celled organism! Wow, cool! Of all the odds!! No, seriously-----what were the odds?

And where did I get the matter for these cells? A lot of them came from what I ate. I ate a lot of animals, and in all likelihood they were animals that weren't treated well. I've eaten their stressed cells, and those stressed cells have become a part of me. I ate a lot of plants as well--some of which continue giving and giving, and others which died complete so I could eat their roots. All of those plants created energy energy from sunlight--a process to which we owe our sustenance and which those of us on the Animalia kingdom cannot hope to recreate on our own. But they did not just have sunlight, they had water and soil, and that soil was fertilized by bugs. Someday our atoms will likely become fertilizer again, and the process continues.

This is why we should be grateful for our food. There's a natural process of its existence our of our control but to which we owe our physical being. What are the sacrifices of those animals worth if we don't take them and live stronger? By blatant disregard for our own health, we disregard all the physical beings that came before us that were required to make the forms we know as food.

The other side is the human chain of food and getting it so conveniently prepared and distributed. That avocado from Mexico had to pass through a lot of hands to get to my plate. I don't know anything able farming, I don't work in the food industry, and I'm not the best of chefs. I would be dead if not for all the people it took to get food to a place where I can purchase it. I would be an ingrate if I didn't appreciate this.

That takes us back to taking care of ourselves within human society. We have to eat and take care of our bodies to show that we appreciate everything everyone has even done for our bodies. What an insult it would be to our parents, doctors, and gym teachers if we make no effort to take care of that which they try so hard to take care of? What of our friends and social circles, full of people who would be inconvenienced or worried if our health were to deteriorate. Is causing them worry any way to show your friends you love them and appreciate their love for you? Even when it comes to basic hygiene, that's not just a matter of our own health on the line--we do it to fit into society--social beings that we are--and not offend the strangers around us.

This is just about physical philosophy, but it easily extends into taking care of ourselves emotionally. We can only properly appreciate and thank the people who have sacrifices for our happiness--soldiers, teachers, even entertainers--if we do not CHOOSE to be happy.

We can't choose our circumstances in life, or the genes and fundamental health that makes up who we are. The only thing we can choose--which every human can only choose themselves, as much as the people who love them might try to force it upon them--is to take care of ourselves.

These are the things I remind myself of when I fall into ruts of not exercising, sleeping enough, or watching what I eat. It's not just for me. I take care of myself as a way of showing I'm grateful to the world and to the people who helped guide the universe in a way that I even have a body to be entrusted with. I do it to show I care about the people around me who emotionally support me, and who I don't want to cause undue worry for. For as long as I'm blessed with good health--a matter than could very well be out of my hands one day--I shall do my best not to squander it.

That's the very here-and-now, and easy enough to talk about while I'm single and have the freedoms that come with it. If someday in the future I have a lover, my body in some ways no longer just be mine--I'll want to take care of it for that person's health and well-being as well. If I were to become pregnant someday, that would take disownership of my body to a higher level. Even taking responsibility for someone else someday--be it a child, a pet, or a whole orphanage---their well-being will be dependent on my well-being.

When I die, I am certain I want to be an organ donor. My inner economist has a major distaste for inefficient use of resources. If my organs are viable, and if someone needs them, by all means, why just get rid of my usefulness!? It's not even a matter of me living on through them--you can't take it with you, and if a soul exists, then its connection with the physical matter in my care will be severed once I die. I will be gone, but the matter I worked so hard to raise will be and healthy and as ready as possible to try to support the health of someone else. I will take care of these organs so they can be as useful as possible.

But of what's leftover after the viable parts are taken... well, I heard about a burial method which results in your remains being used in the soil for planting a new tree. That sounds amazing. I want to be a tree. I want to photosynthesize and make oxygen to support the ecosystem around me. Only it won't be me--I'll be gone. My matter will remain and it will remain for as long as the world does. Even if it's only temporary, how wonderful would it be to have my matter used to support a tree? This goes off more into the realm of fantasy than the here-and-how reasons for taking care of myself, but I still love the idea.

For right now, I'm going to take care of myself physically and emotionally--not just for me, but for everyone who loves me, and everything that is indirectly affected by my well-being as well.

Just a political head-desk moment here.

There's a controversial bill about abortion and a giant filibuster in Texas. Yes, and? ANYTHING having ANYTHING to do with abortion is controversial. This isn't new.

Why yes, it is obvious that they mean to close clinics by raising standards. This isn't new. But if we could just step away from the heated slaughtering-babies arguments for a moment...

Do we really want women undergoing invasive procedures in clinics that aren't up to surgical standards?

That doesn't seem very pro-woman or empowering at all.

Logical though this seems to me and as much as I care about the issue at large, I lack the courage to post this on Facebook where people will leap and attack me from all my social circles for being against "women's rights" and I just don't like to see pointless drama if I can avoid it. Despite years of being involved with it and still holding conviction, I am burnt out by this issue. Though I suppose I'm not really doing anything to help women by keeping my mouth shut, and silence is about the same as consent of things you don't support.

On a drama-driven social network, I kind of think people wouldn't want to hear it anyway, or if they're a conservative friend, they'll just happily agree with me because it conveniently fits what they already believe. America will achieve the impossible the day abortion can be treated as a human issue instead of just a "GOP hates women" and "democrats hate babies" issue.

I recently stopped following a pro-life group that consistently posted good content and tried to keep things open for sane dialog (though that inevitably requires skillful moderation), and insist that the pro-life movement stop being so divided over religion and other issues. I didn't even get a response, however, when I suggested posting something along the lines of working together with pro-choice people who are working for women's rights.

There are a lot of sane, compassionate people who sincerely believe they are helping women by making abortions easily available, but unless they are invested in the abortion industry, I'm pretty sure they don't want more abortions to be performed. Everyone's main interest is in improving the lives of women, and there are many, many ways to work together on that, on a very broad scale, before abortion even becomes a question. Unfortunately, as long as proving that you are "right" is most important, this won't happen.

Argue all we want politically, there is more that can be done on a person to person basis to give women support and choices. With how charged the issue is, it's either be judged for being a irresponsible mother or be judged for having an abortion.

Either way, it's going to make women feel a little trapped.

Last week I plummeted into an emotional, self-defeating hole, with many discernible sources for my rational and irrational sources of fret. Lived up to plans involving other people, but quit halfway on things I met to do myself over the weekend just for lack of being in the mood. Persistent headache, not really feeling rested after sleeping, and general lack of enthusiasm for my everyday work and activities I love because I was ruminating on how not-good-enough or awkward I am. Nevertheless, I was rational enough to recognize I was being silly and needed to snap myself out of it.

In the accumulative point of trying to get some energy back, yesterday morning I had a little cup of coffee. I am highly, highly caffeine sensitive, so this worked magically---I had energy and enthusiasm and the ability to focus all day!! Weeeeeeee!!!!

Was still on that emotional high all the way to my tea ceremony lessons in the evening, and I prepared my first cups of tea~~~! And downed a few myself, though I've flushed my system out with water after returning home previously and managed to sleep...

...and got back past the bedtime I usually aim for, started to feel a little loopy on all the stimulants...

......but still practiced a bit of a Russian song with my neighbor anyway, and we got into terrible giggle-fits because we were both so out of it by that point. The giggling was quite enjoyable, but it didn't help to settle my mind down...

.........and then I didn't sleep all night because my mind was racing around and processing things over and over and over in a caffeine-induced state of awareness, though my body had had it.

..............and today I have the first of a series of classes I'm teaching about American cultural geography that I've been stressing myself out preparing for. It will require being genki until rather late at night.


...................and I didn't prepare my lunch last night, though I should use some of those ingredients right away, so I should do it now in the morning, but instead I'm procrastinating by sitting here and complaining about how it sucks to me right now (though it really doesn't, on the whole).

.........................all I need is for my period to start sometime today just to top everything off, but with all the stress lately, it's probably going to get pushed out a bit and I'll be stuck playing the "here it comes! No... Today! No.... Tomorrow! No... JUST HURRY UP ALREADY" game. ~__~;; What's more, I can't self-medicate my persistent headache until I get the really bad headache on the first or second day, otherwise nothing I do that day will have any effect.

UNNGHHHH So many points where I just wanted to cry last week and have some relief, and my body just won't.


asdiuoaudoayfiydfE.


Okay. Enough whining. Time to go make my lunch for today... not to mention the rest of my breakfast. ~__~ I gotta get some genki in me.

The cardiologist figured out what's wrong with my mom and the condition isn't harmful. ;v; *so relieved* But she just received all the soba I sent her anyway. Eat it anyway, Mom!

Today the weather was so pleasant... no wind, and I could see stars and the moonlight tonight on my walk home from kimono practice.

Something funny has been happening this week. I wake up without feeling groggy, and I don't get sleepy at work. I can focus, and feel alert. Is it the red ginseng my coworkers and I finally decided to open up and try?

No, it's more likely that I've been forcing myself to bed earlier.

It dawned on me this past weekend when I was filling in a medical form at the dentist's office that I felt the need to lie about the number of hours I sleep every night. I thought about it and realized that with the time it takes me to fall asleep, the short hours I actually spend in bed, and how lightly I sleep to begin with... well, damn! That's a big sleep debt!

I exaggerated by writing down "six hours" on the form, but even at the end of the appointment, the hygienist came out to remind me to get more sleep.

Eep, it's 10:02. TIME TO TURN OFF MY COMPUTER!

Today I'm mute with my first cold in nine months--a pretty good record for me, and not terrible timing this week, but it hurts a lot. My first time getting swollen lymph nodes too, which had me a little freaked out at first, but I'm mostly fine for now besides my throat--stuffy nose will probably start tomorrow.

My mom mentioned in an email that she's developed some health problems and is waiting on test results this week. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, but I don't like it. My mom is the one who exercises regularly and eats well--it's my dad's health, not hers I'm supposed to worry about, right? Even though I just signed up for a second year out here, in the back of my mind I always feel I need to be prepared for the worst case scenario--which means I should have enough money in my bank account to pay any fees that would ever be associated with breaking my contract, and to get myself back home to start caring for my siblings there.

I feel I'd have to do that if something were to happen to either of my parents--which, with so many of my siblings still so young--is one of the most horrific things I could imagine happening in my life--though not quite as horrific as something happening to one of said siblings. There's the thought that my older sister would of course have the immediate means to care for everyone directly (and grievances though I have with her I fully trust that she would), and I perhaps could keep my job here and send money, but I know that I would ultimately just want to give up my adult freedom ASAP to get home and be there for them. That would mean infinitely more, though I hope that day will never come. It scares me more than anything.

Anyway.

My grandpa died a little less than five hours ago.

As planned well in advance, I'm not going home, and I have cards to send and flowers to order. For now I'm just gonna cry a bit--not so much for my grandpa at the moment, but for my parents.

My throat really, really hurts right now. I might not be able to speak again tomorrow.

It's the example everyone always comes back to, even though there were ones before it, but I clearly remember being a 4th grader and hearing about Columbine. I remember my mom looking worried as she told me about it when she picked me up from school, but explaining it clearly and calmly. "I hope they catch the guys who did that" I said, and my mom replied, "They killed themselves."

That was the first I was ever conscious of suicide. Come to think of it, the first I ever heard the word "murdered" was also a very clear memory, from when my mom told me her cousin had been killed.

I care about shootings in public places. My ears are just as drawn to those kinds of news as anyone else's. I took a special interest in Columbine when I was a teen, and kept mental track of any accounts I ever heard of it to try to piece together what happened--and didn't happen, whether that was differing survivor accounts or confessions from classmates who spoke of how they stopped going down the same path and what it was that stopped them from wanting to bring others down with them.

Since Columbine, however, all the others just have to fit themselves into a single category in my head. They're all sad. They're all too frequent. They're all far too glorified in the media and inspire others who want to go out in a memorable way. Though they all melt together, in some sense I always feel driven--that I have some personal responsibility to prevent these kinds of shootings.

I don't believe we should put the surviving offenders to death. Not to say they should be treated in inhumanely or unpunished, but we need those people around as case studies to see what went wrong--and if anything, not only how these people's outbursts can be prevented, but how these people can be healed, or assisted so that they can live in some peace. Mental health absolutely needs to be on the forefront of discussion on how to prevent future massacres.

Holding the media accountable for how much they feed the grieving but inevitably curious public is also an important step. This leads to copycat crimes. Public massacres have been around since the dawn of our country, but media fascination with them is more recent, which I believe is part of why these events are no longer so isolated.

Of course there are valid arguments in favor of liberal gun rights, but frankly, I AM SOLIDLY PRO-GUN CONTROL.

While of course I've been feeling a little down with the recent news and reading articles about it as they come out, I still didn't know anyone in the Newtown community personally--nor have I ever known anyone personally affected by other high-profile shootings, although the Batman movie shooting came pretty darn close and I'm grateful a handful of friends changed their plans for the evening. Even today at work I noticed I was feeling a little down, and I figured it was because this was on my mind, as usual when news like this comes out.

Then I came home and read an article about President Obama's more active stance on this discussion, and I cried--tears streaming down my face for a few solid minutes.

I don't know if it was sorrow for the victims and their families, sorrow for my country in general for getting to this point where--as he said--we have no choice but to confront this more seriously or expect it as a more and more normal occurrence, or relief and gratitude that maybe gun control will stop being pushed aside--and maybe there will be good news for helping those with mental illness, too--and helping the people who help them.

Thank you, President Obama. Let's see some real action. You have my full support on this issue.

I posted some weeks ago about sort of wanting to try out the boyfriend thing now--as in actually pursuing it. There is more I could say on that, but I don't want to. I know I am a little crush-prone, but I don't like to appear that way.

One of the historical shrines in the area is famous for matchmaking, and is frequented by many young, single women. There is a pond where you float a piece of paper with a coin on it, and how far it floats and how long it takes to sink predicts how long it will take to meet your match. There were some sad papers left floating there which never sank, but most take a few minutes and don't float terribly far.

Mine, however, began sinking immediately and was down within about thirty seconds. My maiden's heart took pleasure in that, and in the fact that no one who knew me was around to witness it and tease me.

Off to go make some pizza, which hopefully won't result in any more surprises from my microwave oven!

It's hit the point where I'm emotional. I'm not only about to move to Japan for some indefinite period of time, I'm attaining a dream.

I've been making the most of the time still here in Colorado. I love my home state, but this has been a very rough summer. Watching my city burn was emotional, and I'll never forget the sight of the flames from my neighborhood, and the days of anxiety, and the extent of the damage. In the grand scheme of things, the damage can hardly compare to other natural disasters, but it was still a disaster that will cause flash floods for years to come. Even last night I had a nightmare about the fire acting up again. Still, perhaps what makes me most emotional about it is how my community responded. I am thoroughly amazed by how much the firefighters and local authorities were able to accomplish, and how many people they managed to evacuate in short notice, and how many homes they were able to save. I still get choked up when I see the thank-you signs posted for them, and read about every way the community has reached out both to our heroes and the victims.

Then there was the shooting in Aurora a few days ago. Unfortunately in America, it's just one of many high-profile rampages. I can still clearly remembered the day the Columbine shooting happened and the aftermath in the following days, and that was in another Denver suburb--heck, I've gone sledding right next to the high school. In this case, I had friends who had planned to go to that showing but plans thankfully fell through. Again, what makes me most emotional is the outpouring of community response, and the rush to go give blood, and rush to provide post-trauma support.

Nevertheless, somehow I think I was happier to be here for these events than to hear about them from abroad. When the tsunami struck Japan, I felt very emotional about it, but also very powerless. Even though I'm not able to do anything directly to help the victims of the shooting, I'm still close enough that I know I could get there if I needed to help anyone involved. Even in the case of the fire, we were very fortunate not to have to evacuate, so we provided as much support and normalcy as we could for the people who had to leave, and we all followed the local news together, and everywhere you went people were discussing it. It was the kind of thing everyone needed to talk about, and sharing the experience has made it easier to process for everyone. Whereas with the disaster in Japan, I still can't even imagine it--I only remember how it felt to see the images on TV from a hotel room in London.

Even though the fire was a disaster, it wasn't as catastrophic as it could have been, and there were at least some warnings. Nevertheless, it made me a lot more ready to stay prepared for any kind of disaster I might face in Japan.

But... ahhhh! JAPAN! It's getting easier and easier to imagine my life there--not just a far off fantasy, I'm actually going to do what I always wanted to. Granted, I know it won't be quite as rose colored as I pictured it--I've managed to accomplish a lot of things I've dreamed off, and none of them were quite as wonderful as imagined--but I still did them.

It's a little strange to put it this way, but I've been rereading Please Save My Earth all month, so I'm going to say it: I feel like I'm going to experience a rebirth. Going through every page of the binders I kept from my teenage years, and seeing all the old drawings and how little I knew then but how much passion I had makes me happy now instead of cringing. I know a lot more now, but I still have so much I have yet to learn. I want to rekindle the passion I had then. I will having trying experiences, but I will love my new life, and appreciate the one I'm leaving behind, too. I will make the most of my future on behalf of the person I was in the past.

So this hair cut didn't turn out the way I expected. I had trouble recognizing myself like this. But that's okay. I'm going to embrace it along with my new self in my new way of life. My new self is calm and wise, but she will burn with the passion of the person I used to be, and rather than craving love, she will give and give and give love. It's much easier to do that when one forgets one's ego. With passion, I'm not afraid to love, and to serve. I will do my best for the new community I will be in. My heart is brimming with anticipation not just for my new life--that sounds so self-centered--but for the new person I will be there.