[Good evening Tuesday] Full Moon

Today is full moon.

Not sure how popular in other countries, but using the "lunar power" is getting quite common in Japanese... or let's say among Japanese ladies.

Even you're not so accustomed to those female-magazine type of things, you should have heard some effects that the moon gives to human (like birthrate increases on full/new moon, or someone turns into wolf on full moon...).

Full moon is... "full", basically it signifies "culmination" or "completion". And I heard it's a good time to start using new wallet or clean your wallet (because it 'fills") and doing emotional/physical cleaning, because now it reached the peak, and you release whatever no longer necessary.

And new moon is "new" (duh). It's a starting point and I heard it's the best timing to start something new (like start going to gym) and make wishes. (I do make a wish on new moon day.. but, that's for later)

Whether you believe these effects or not, new moon and full moon comes regularly. And I use this cycle to make my routine. It's quite handy, because it's printed on most of the calendar. So... I'm going to dive and tackle clutters in my room and my mind tonight. By reading this, I hope you're convinced enough to remove those receipts from your wallets :)

Have a nice full moon day.

[Good evening Tuesday] It hurts

I couldn't do a forward upward circling.

In PE class at my elementary school, one of the teachers often finished the class saying "you can go back to the room once you make it" and I was always the last one to leave the field. Not because I could make it finally, but because the teacher needed to go back.

I was SO bad at it, and after several times the teacher changed the rule to "you can play with other equipments once you make a back-hip circle" so that there would be plenty of time for try. However it turned out that this rule is much more cruel than before, I needed to try again and again with a sideways glance at other kids happily playing swings or jungle gym. The teacher mocked at me, kids mocked at me, I hated it, I hated the teacher, I hated the other kids, I hated the school, I hated the world, I hated myself not able to do this damn thing. 

But I gotta do something with this damn thing, otherwise this living hell continued.. so I decided to go back to school after everyone's going home, and asked my ma to be my coach and practiced and practiced. And yeah, once I made it I got the knack for it and I could just keep doing it. Oh that sensation of accomplishment...! utterly indescribable. I couldn't stop smirking by imagining myself doing a perfect back-hip circle and climb onto the jungle jim... mwahahahaha....

However the long-awaited next PE class went differently. When the teacher found out that I could do it, he said "Everyone, try just one back-hip circle and we'll play soccer afterward" And I was really not good at soccer.... Haa.... (but this time I just gave up. I just needed to avoid a ball, that's all)

...All of this, I suddenly remembered while I was taking a bath. And yesterday, I went to the park just to see if I can still do it. I was around 95% sure that I could still do it, but actually I was worse than before and I barely do a normal circling. I had no idea where to put my legs and everything and I just tried like 5 times and my arms were already aching..

Waking up this morning, I'm sore all over. And now it hurts. It hurts so much that I even have trouble lifting my chopsticks. This clearly tells me that my youth is gone and I'm still a loser. But now I can laugh about myself, and I have Internet.

Mwahahaha...

[Good evening Tuesday] Language Switch

The other day I had a conversation with my friends about “language mode switch”. Well the topic was started around “When you speak English/Japanese, do you consciously change the way of thinking to meet English/Japanese culture and grammar?” Some said they consciously switch and some said it’s totally seamless. That was interesting to know. I haven’t thought about this before, but this got me thinking many things. 

Though some people have pointed out that I look like a different person when I switch languages and sometimes I do feel like that, I think I don’t or I no longer feel this “switch” moment.

In my daily life I think in Japanese and English, but I don’t mix languages when I speak. When I write… now I’m writing this in English so I think in English, otherwise it gets tough. (I know I’m dragging Japanese way of writing even when I write in English but that’s how I am) It’s really not fun to precisely translate what I wrote. English-Japanese are not word by word translatable language set, and if I have something I want to say in my mind, it’s easier for me to write it from scratch with another language. But well, maybe I’m more straightforward when I speak English and I think that’s quite normal (due to the grammatical structure and my lack of vocabulary etc)

In my dreams, I use Japanese, English and sometimes French. I do remember which language I used to communicate and sometimes I took notes of exact phrase the person in my dream said to me. But recently I realized that when I recall them later I remember most of them in Japanese.

In fact, not just dreams. I realized that for most of the conversation I had in English or French in real life I remember them in Japanese. In a way that I interpreted and translated in my mind. In my memory, he or she speaks fluent Japanese with his/her mannerism. And to me, this is the sign of “I got it” or “Connected”. Because there are some conversation or certain phrases that I remember in original language. And most of these things are what I couldn’t fully get the real intention and impossible to bring into Japanese, or something which will lose its real meaning when translated.

I guess I take things in this way because I’m not natural bilingual (here I mean someone who consider and be able to use 2 languages equally as their mother tongue) or I don’t know…

[Good evening Tuesday] Autumn playlist

Here we are in October, autumn is definitely started. I love this October to December season the most, it's chilly but not too cold and the nights are getting longer, birds are getting fluffier, stars are getting brighter (looks like it).

One of the things I like to do when we enter Autumn-Winter is to make new music playlist. Something slower and mellower. Now that I started to use streaming service, the selection process will be tougher than before, because they have vast playlists and collections.. maybe I don't even need to make my own playlist anymore...

Call me old-fashioned but I've been very skeptical about these type of services, but most of them offer free-trial so why not, I finally gave it a shot some weeks ago. And so far I've been enjoying it, it's a great way to discover new music/artists (I'm using Apple Music). And if you do some ballet stretching at home, there are various ballet class albums so you can switch it every day, that's cool.

If you have any recommendations for autumn night music/playlist, let me know.