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visions of clarity...do as infinity

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Eight Clues to Happiness

A little cheesy perhaps, but some do ring true ^_^

EIGHT CLUES TO HAPPINESS
By- KHUSHWANT SINGH

Having lived a reasonably contented life, I was musing over what a person should strive for to achieve happiness. I drew up a list of a few essentials which I put forward for the readers' appraisal.

1. First and foremost is GOOD HEALTH. If you do not enjoy good health you can never be happy. Any ailment, however trivial, will deduct from your happiness.

2. Second, A HEALTHY BANK BALANCE. It need not run into crores but should be enough to provide for creature comforts and something to spare for recreation, like eating out, going to the pictures, travelling or going on holidays on the hills or by the sea. Shortage of money can be only demoralizing. Living on credit or borrowing is demeaning and lowers one in one's own eyes.

3. Third, A HOME OF YOUR OWN. Rented premises can never give you the snug feeling of a nest which is yours for keeps that a home provides: if it has a garden space, all the better. Plant your own trees and flowers, see them grow and blossom, cultivate a sense of kinship with them.

4. Fourth, AN UNDERSTANDING COMPANION, be it your spouse or a friend. If there are too many misunderstandings, they will rob you of your peace of mind. It is better to be divorced than to bicker all the time.

5. Fifth, LACK OF ENVY towards those who have done better than you in life; risen higher, made more money, or earned more fame. Envy can be very corroding; avoid comparing yourself with others.

6. Sixth, DO NOT ALLOW OTHER PEOPLE to descend on you for gup-shup. By the time you get rid of them, you will feel exhausted and poisoned by their gossip-mongering.

7. Seventh, CULTIVATE SOME HOBBIES which can bring you a sense of fulfilment, such as gardening, reading, writing, painting, playing or listening to music. Going to clubs or parties to get free drinks or to meet celebrities is criminal waste of time.

8. Eighth, every morning and evening, devote 15 minutes to INTROSPECTION. In the morning, 10 minutes should be spent on stilling the mind and then five in listing things you have to do that day. In the evening, five minutes to still the mind again, and ten to go over what you had undertaken to do.

RICHNESS is not Earning More, Spending More Or Saving More, but ...
"RICHNESS IS WHEN YOU NEED NO MORE"

Last thoughts for Thanksgiving?

In other news, I made a wholesome dinner yesterday (garlic and thyme roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes with lots of vegetables), a wholesome brunch this morning (apple almond oatmeal pancakes with honey), and a wholesome dinner just now (vegetables cooked in chicken soup and aforementioned chicken soup). Perhaps this is redemption from all the feasting and overeating that Thanksgiving brought with it...


Apple almond oatmeal pancakes with honey and apple slices~

This marks the start of a week-long attempt to eat healthy, finish all the wholesome vegetables and herbs in the fridge and clear it out before heading to Chicago next weekend! It's not going to be very hard but I will be very pleased if we really do manage to finish everything because having stuff in the fridge that's been there for ages is not quite my idea of a good time... One thing I love about farmer's markets though, is that it seems like the vegetables and fruit last longer than if you bought them at the grocery store (unless it's things like 白菜 or 高丽菜 which seem to last forever...). ^_^ All the better for us!

To farmer's markets and vegetables!

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : 瞳の住人 L'arc en Ciel]
[mood : restless]
[food : honey!]

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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving and Black Friday have both come and gone. In a flash, as usual. It's strange that time always passes so quickly and even though you've lived through that fast-paced time, you never seem to realize it till its already past. At least, that applies to me.

Although I celebrate Thanksgiving for all the wrong reasons (no, I'm not thankful that my ancestors settled here and met the kind native people who shared their food. Why? It's not my history that's why...), I think that it is a wonderful time to actually reflect and think about what it is that we have in life that we can give thanks for. I have this vague memory that I think and say this every year since coming to the US but it's good right? There was never a day when I sat down to reflect what I was thankful to have when I was young.

In fact, I was probably more pre-occupied with thinking of what I wanted to get rather than thinking of what I was thankful to have.

Ah, growing up.

What do I have to be thankful for this year? The usual certainly, which is my family and friends all of whom have made me who I am today. Even those people who aren't exactly
friends but have been there in my life regardless. Then there's all the stuff I have and am lucky to have because I have the resources to obtain and keep them. (Like the shoes I bought during the sales? Yup. Those.) Food is another important part of my life, and having the time to cook and share what we have is another great part of Thanksgiving.=)

The list of what one is thankful for is pretty much endless but there are always things that stand out to you. Like memories that have etched themselves into your mind. And the thankfulness you feel when you're comfortable in a group of friends where you don't need to
socialize and can just be yourself, however you want to be.

Recently, I've been hooked on the TV series called Lie to Me, which is about a deception expert who observes microexpressions to read people and figure out what kind of emotions they are experiencing. I started watching the show because I heard it was good and it sounded intriguing but as the series progressed, it made me think about my psychology degree and how it can actually be useful if I were to pursue psychology and microexpressions. And that's another thing I have to be thankful for. If I weren't here, I might not be studying psychology, and I certainly wouldn't be watching Lie to Me, and I wouldn't then be thinking of how I can use my degree for something more useful than just a means to obtain a job or move on in life.

Education is something I'm thankful for. I've learned so many different things being here and learning throughout all these years...

To prevent further rambling on, and also to get some shut-eye before sending GL off to the airport... I think it's time to stop. But before that, I think that friends are not the only thing I'm thankful for. It's friends who understand me and accept whoever I am. Something like that can't easily be gotten.

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : When You Were Young The Killers]
[mood : reflective]
[food : Pancakes!]

CL: I might be migrating soon...

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Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Some Chinese poems...

Just because Prof Lin Shuen Fu went through them in class today and they sound awesome in Chinese~ =)

Considered the best example of all time in terms of 七言律诗 (heptasyllabic regulated verse from the Tang Dynasty), beating even Du Fu and Li Bai's poetry.

崔颢 - 黄鹤楼

昔 人 已 乘 黄 鹤 去,
此 地 空 余 黄 鹤 楼。
黄 鹤 一 去 不 复 返,
白 云 千 载 空 悠 悠。
晴 川 历 历 汉 阳 树,
芳 草 萋 萋 鹦 鹉 洲。
日 暮 乡 关 何 处 是,
烟 波 江 上 使 人 愁。

And apparently, Li Bai went to same restaurant as Cui Hao and he saw the poem that he had written and was so moved, he wanted to write something too... But then he couldn't! So instead, he left this response:

一 拳 捶 碎 黄 鹤 楼,
一 脚 踢 翻 鹦 鹉 洲,
眼 前 有 景 道 不 得,
崔 颢 题 诗 在 上 头。

And then, Li Bai went to Nanjing and there, he was inspired to write a poem that was very similar to 黄鹤楼.

李白 - 登金陵凤凰台

凤凰台上凤凰游,凤去台空江自流。
吴宫花草埋幽径,晋代衣冠成古丘。
三山半落青天外,二水中分白鹭洲。
总为浮云能蔽日,长安不见使人愁!

Haha... When Prof was telling the story in class it was really funny. =P But I think having learnt the story with the poems makes them that much more interesting! Even though I can't really read the words COUGHS. (It's too hard ok. xP)

Then we were introduced to one of the great love poems of the Tang Dynasty! Apparently Li Sheng Yin writes extremely profound and difficult poetry - so difficult in fact that some scholars in China can't interpret them well either. Apparently.

李商隐 - 无题

相见时难别亦难,东风无力百花残。
春蚕到死丝方尽,蜡炬成灰泪始干。
晓镜但愁云鬓改,夜吟应觉月光寒。
蓬山此去无多路,青鸟殷勤为探看。

I er, can't really read it either but it sounds brilliant in Chinese!~ ^_^ Or rather, it's not so much that I cannot read the words in any of the poems - occasionally there are words I've never seen before - but more that I cannot read the poems in that nice Chinese way that you're supposed to use when reading the poems... Like GL said, I seem to read each word individually like they are unconnected ;_;

It's ok... At least Professor sings poems for us in class =P

And there you have it, my contribution to thinking for the week!

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : ソラニン Asian Kung-Fu Generation + flower L'arc~en~Ciel]
[mood : ~_~]
[food : 绿豆汤!]

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Monday, November 08, 2010

Sweet November

O November November, have you come already? Time is moving along without me noticing it and before I've awoken, it's all already gone. Halloween has passed in a blink of an eye, and so has the Singapore Food Festival.

All that awaits now is the dratted JLPT exam that is coming up in December in Chicago... That and you know, classes... papers... and so forth.

Previously I had adopted a
rather blase attitude toward the JLPT exam. After all, I'd always studied for Japanese before and emerged unscathed (usually) so surely it couldn't be that bad... But of course, life has decided (once again) to prove that such an attitude can never be rewarded. Because this silly JLPT is all about testing your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, more than whether you know how to express yourself in a coherent manner. How Asian. [And I can totally say that because I'm just discriminating against my own kind.] But the main reason I protest this method is because, obviously, those are pretty much duds in my Japanese learning career.

Look at this homework I'm doing right now. Is it worthy of my attention? Yes, because I need to hand it in soon. No, because unless I use these regularly I'll probably never remember them. And let's be honest here, they are surely useful and marvellous when used appropriately but will you really deliberately construct sentences that make use of all these vague and precise grammar? Of course not. That would make for sentences that go at whale-pace, referencing Finding Nemo.

Then again, I really should be adopting the attitude of yes! I will learn all this grammar, internalize everything and dole them out appropriately in my Japanese discourse with other people just like my classmates do! But I really don't work like that... rote learning has never been my strong point and memorization is like hitting me with a book - painful and it really doesn't do anything in the long-run (except cause brain damage probably).

Then there's the vocabulary. It is not possible, at all, to learn every single word in any language. Not only are there too many, there are also a gazillion obscure words no one will understand, and words that are being created all the time by movers-and-shakers like Ris Low. But at the same time, in order to read Japanese books or watch Japanese dramas without having to stab in defeat at my 電子辞書 (denshi jisho or electronic dictionary) or type repeatedly into dictionary website, I probably do need to brush up on my vocabulary skills. I did learn a ton of words in Kyoto which I cannot remember off the top of my head but I'm sure I did. Like テンション! Which no one ever taught me before.

And no one ever taught me useful words like 試食 (shishoku or sampling food) or 試着 (shichaku or trying on clothes) which would have been so useful in you know,
daily life, as opposed to words that I'll never use.

Then again, I'll never know which words I'll never use so I might as well learn as many as I can. It's not like English or even Mandarin [which I'm
terrible at but is still considered a first/second language for me] which is much more internalized and I won't sound too off speaking it, but Japanese.. Gosh. It's a new language and no matter how much anime/drama I watch for listening practice, sounding Japanese is going to be really hard.

Not that that is an issue since the JLPT has no speaking component. Woohoo. I'll just practice more on my own. And in class since we have to. But still grammar! (T_T) Vocabulary! (T_T) These are depressing topics...

But yes. Internalization! I need to achieve this over the next month. Does that mean I can watch more anime and dorama as practice? If I pretend to not read the subtitles, it might actually be useful because honestly, they speak wayyy faster on shows than in those listening comprehension passages.

And as I strive to complete this soon so I can sleep...

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : Millennium Actress soundtrack!]
[mood : sleeeeepy]
[food : vegetables!]

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Welcome

visions of clarity...do as infinity
by witchstone

My Emotible!
starry-eyed: filled with such youthful hope and optimism that one's eyes twinkle even when it's dark

Wish List

ie: motivation to save money!
- clothes
- shoes [heels! boots!]
- the perfect tote
- coats/outerwear! [Soïa & Kyo, Burberry...]
- Gackt - nine*nine
- Gackt Photobooks:
1 The Gift The Sixth Day & Seventh Night Tour Document (2004)
2 Crescent Photobook (out of print)
- Cookbooks!
1 Thomas Keller The French Laundry Cookbook
2 The Nobu Cookbook
3 Emily Luchetti A Passion for Desserts
4 Alice Medrich Pure Dessert
- Anime/Manga
1 Rurouni Kenshin
2 xxxHOLiC
3 Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-
- Proficiency at Japanese!
- Learn French for Food!

Links

My Flickr Page
spoonerisms*inc a food blog (by wendy & I)
my translation blog

witchstone...
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Checklist: EAT!

The Common Grill, Chelsea
The Black Pearl, Ann Arbor
Good Girls Go To Paris Crepes, Detroit
Bella Ciao, Ann Arbor
Craft, NYC
Momofuku, NYC
Alinea, Chicago
The French Laundry, California
Goto, Singapore

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