Love it.

Turns out Mamma Gkika is a hulk. Edit: she's not a hulk....She just changes colors a lot.

Hard Knocks.

Other day I met a woman with working hands.

Heh.....Oops....

Almost forgot I had this.....Not much to say really, I just finished reading:

The practice of being aware, right now, every day
Buddhism
Plain & Simple.
ISBN: 978-0-7679-0332-5

Solid read. But I'm probably going to have to read it again. Another I've read is:

No Beginning, No End
The intimate heart of Zen
ISBN: 978-1-59030-811-0

Another good read and yet another I will have to re-read.I'm trying to read more stuff this year, I've got a bunch of other books I need to plow through....Up next is:

Zen Training
Methods and Philosophy
ISBN: 978-1-59030-283-5

Oh, heh...Yeah...

Oh, heh, yeah....Forgot I had this....So what’s new? Actually not much of anything really. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this but I’m Buddhist now but only in title alone, I don’t do a lot of the social things I’m supposed to but I’m working on it. I chose zen because I feel I need a lot more structure in my life and zen practice helps me along with that.


I’ve picked up art again, art in general, to help give me something to do that’ll put me mind at ease. I chose sumi-e because while it’s on the surface very simple it can go into great detail. And though it is simple it is by no means ‘easy’. Expression with sumi-e is very subtle. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.
A while ago I had purchased a drawing tablet and had wanted to use that for sumi-e however I just can’t seem to recapture interaction between brush and paper with with a pen and electronic tablet. I guess it may have something to do with them being two completely different mediums or something....Way too complex for me.

From Welcome to the N.H.K.

Classes....I haven’t really been doing very well in classes. Sometimes I’d sign up for some and then withdraw from half....That’s just me being lazy but I think I can no longer afford to be lazy. I’ve already wasted so much time....I’ve started watching myself, if that’s even possible, and have come to realize that a lot of my time just goes up into the air. I don’t really do anything with it...I’m not enjoying myself or in any kind of duress, I just move along day by day in a daze.

On the other hand I’ve got a new rice cooker, which is great because now when I cook rice I can just clean it, and leave it. When I make rice I try to do it as mindfully as possible – concentrating on the task at hand rather than letting my mind wonder off and do whatever it is that it wants to do. It’s difficult but it feels ‘right’.

From Welcome to the N.H.K.

In addition to a rice cooker I've been trying to cut out a great deal of the meat I eat. And to help me with that I took the liberty of getting a slicer, you know those long knives that are normally used for slicing meat. Here are the knives I have now:


Cutting out a lot of meat is only half of it. The other half is cutting out sugars, to help with that I've found Japanese "Umeshu" which is about 87% sugar, the rest is alcohol.

From Welcome to the N.H.K.

So monday....

Classes start....So I'm excited and disappointed about that. I've been reminded that I am not the smartest person I know; I signed up for a class that I've already taken and passed - by the time I realized what had happened it was too late......However this'll save on books as I've still got the book....That let me finally get around to getting something that I've always wanted; a white board...But now I don't know what to do with it. I suppose I can use it for planning and homework or whatever



I've been browsing youtube a lot recently and have come to realize that there are few/no channels that explicitly go over my field of study (linguistics) however there are a lot of exhibitionist omniglots and some of them are actual linguists and one of them comes close in that he showcases various language however he doesn't really talk about the science behind it all. No one has made a video version of the wikipedia entries revolving around linguistics and I thought: Maybe I can? I'm no where near an authority on the subject but I figure if I do my homework then it can't hurt so long as I cite my sources, present the pot, and keep my hands out. I donno...I've already reserved some channels now I just need to set out a lesson plan and so on.

I don't think I have a good TV voice/personality.



A friend of mine has been doing a little thingy where they draw sleeping people on the train. Their goal was 1,000 drawings. Today they got to 1,000 so I'm interested in knowing what they'll be doing after that.

I've been looking at more languages and have found hindi. Hindi will be the hardest language I'll have to tackle. The alphabet is a syllabary that kinda acts like an alphabet....A syllabic alphabet? Hold on, gotta figure out what it's called...Hindi uses Devanagari which is an "abugida alphabet" which, in laymans terms, is an alphasyllabary which is kinda what I said it was.....You're gonna have to look that stuff up on your own....Or maybe I'll make a video about it. Most/all of the alphabet, in this book, is described using linguistic terms and that's what sparked the search of youtube for linguistic videos and the idea to make my own.....The language also has sounds that I don't think exist in English, this'll make listening practice "difficult". Despite this there are a lot of slow paced videos online to listen to.



I've been trying to live without the phone for a couple weeks now. So far so good. I just use it as an alarm and then ignore it the rest of the time. Don't really think I miss it but I still know i have it with me in case I need it....I need to go all the way with it.

Lately I've not been cleaning my house.....I've kinda fallen into a stupor that I need to get out of. I did do dishes yesterday though...

Mad lootz

Yesterday, in the mail, I got about two-and-a-half-fuck-tons of loot. As you can see I'd already begun to "sample" some of the things I received before I took the photo.



The yellow bag one to the right is okonomiyaki flavored puff balls. They're like cheetos except okonomiyaki flavored instead. They're also much much better. If they have them hereI can see these being a problem for me in the future....the ones labled "Just Pack" are also very good. top most one is cheese, the brown one is little fish (sardines) with almonds mixed in with them. and the other is some sorta fried breaded...something...I wanna say squid. The red package is peanut puffs and the green next to is is soybean pod shaped/flavored puffs. They're also very good. I've had these before and had almost forgotten about them until I got this. I don't know what the brown back above that is but it's also very good. The blue mug has the kanji for various fish. I don't know if they're antiquated kanji or not as I'm unable to find some of them. The packages in the red/tan box are sento treats my buddy steals. I love these to death. And I don't nkow what the two cups are.

What's really noteworthy here is the black'ish outfit underneath everything. That's a jinbei. I'm wearing it now. It's comfy. It also came with a matching fan.



But yeah, did I tell you? I signed up for classes. All of my classes are online this semester so that'll give me more time to do....less things...fewer things, whatever. Either way I don't have to go outside nearly as much as I did last semester and that's always a good thing for me as I'm staunchly against going outside....I'll be taking another Spanish class, an linguistic anthropology class and a math class. Skimping on total classes this time because they didn't have a class I really wanted to take. Classes start on the 30th so I guess I gotta get my books soon....



Aside from all that not much else has gone down. I've taken up C, which so far is interesting. I'll be able to dodge a lot of the OOP stuff even though I've gotta learn it in the future anyway. But at least this way I'll have more fundamentals under my belt before I hit C++. That's what I wanna tell myself.

I've done mostly procedural programming in php, if that's even programming....That's just scripting. I've also done a bit of C#, I didn't like C# at all. I don't know if it was me or the language or the situation. I hope it was just the language or situation because if it was just me I'mma have just as hard a time this time around with C# as I did last time around with C++.

I've got a solid idea I just need to work at it. "I won't tell you what it is because I don't want you to steal it!". It's not easy, it's not easy to do alone, and it's especially not easy for me at all.

Gyudon

Its normal style gyudon, not kai style.