Ending

ひとつの終わりは以外とあっけないものだ。
命であっても、恋であっても、学生生活最後の授業であっても。
後悔はいっぱい残るが、いまさら言っても仕方のないことばかり。
執着するものがなくなってしまったら、逆に楽になるのだろうか。

Vacation

I have been on my 2-week vacation since last weekend, so my mother and her friend were visiting me. It's been about a year since last time I saw my (biological) mother.

I took them around downtown Columbus, German village, and Amish country. I already took my mother there twice, but she insisted she wanted to go back there.
So this time, we actually stayed at a B&B for one night.
It was beyond my expectation!
The place we stayed at was actually more like a cottage, and we were staying at the 2-bedroom floor with a huge living room and kitchen. We had everything we need such as a coffeemaker, some bread and juice for breakfast, cooking equipments, a Whirlpool bath in each room, an entertainment center, a nice deck with chairs. At last but not the least, we had a great view from the deck. There is a Amish family's farm and their house right in front of the hotel, and we could see horses eating glasses right below our deck.

It's a great place to stay to get away from the life in a city. I really wished I could stay there one more night so that I could do nothing but reading, cooking, and maybe taking a walk.

If you ever have a chance to come to the Amish country in OH, I strongly recommend that you should stay at Holmes with A View.

Today's Quote

"We are afriad of losing what we have, wheterh it's our life or our possessions and property. Buth this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."
--Excerpts from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Just a small thing

Just a small thing can fill your heart.

電話を切った後、思わず顔がほころんでいる自分に気づいた。
出合った頃みたい。
まだ大丈夫だと思った瞬間。

Work, work, work!

When I have tons of things to do at work, I tend to forget why I work so hard. My only goal becomes to get things done, not to create the best results I can make.
And when I get back home, all I wanna do is just to eat, drink, watch TV for a while, and sleep. You don't need to use your brain whole a lot for any of these activities. It's pretty much the same or worse than when I was in school, except that I am making money out of it.

I value my career a lot although I made my career decision based on my personal satisfaction.
I always have thought that I have to be able to have some meanings of working hard, such as accomplishing something that you have never done, pleasing your clients 100% (even though they don't know what the heck they want....), or growing up as a person.
Past a few weeks, I was getting work one after another. It's ridiculous considering the fact that I had almost nothing to do a few weeks before that. Upon that, I have been trying to accommodate my work volume into the latest company's policy: minimize all expenses including overtime payment. As a result, my goal became finish everything without working over time.
Every minute is precious, so I sometimes skip my lunch break and eat in 5 minutes while proofreading my translation. I leave my desk only when I go to the bathroom or when I go and get some coffee or tea.

Then I suddenly realized I am loosing myself. What do I want out of my life? What are my goals? What kind of person do I want to be?

I couldn't answer any of these questions...

If finishing everything gives you a huge satisfaction, that would be OK, but not for me.
I have to be able to enjoy the process or I have to be able to learn something and accomplish something meaningful.

To be ironic, I have to submit my evaluation form for my annual goals by next Wednesday. (This is gonna affect my bonus salary!)
Although I know what my annual goals are, they don't really mean anything but money to me right now.
It's sad. Really it is.

This weekend, I think I am going to re-think about my life and myself a little more.

26th Birthday

I'm finally or already 26 years old.
Every year when I turn one more year older, I get strange feeling.
--Am I really growing up?

I feel I am more childish than ever recently.

When I was small, I wanted to get married by 26. I somehow thought that would be the appropriate age.
Many of my friends and classmates from college are getting married or got married recently.
I bet none of us imagined this would happen 5~6 years ago...How could they get married so young!? That's a huge commitment to make!
I still prefer to be a single not only because I don't believe in marriage so much but also because I still have so many things that I want to do as well as things that I need to learn as a person before being a part of or responsible for someone else's life.

Regardless whether I am growing up or stuck in my teenager mind, I had another great birthday thanks to my friends and loved one.
It's really rare to have a b-day on the weekend, so I'm glad that I got to spend whole day just really "enjoying" the fact that I am still alive.

The best thing of my b-day this year was probably my birthday present.
I got a porcelain bowl as one of my b-day presents, which was what I had been wanted but I was hesitated to ask for for a long time. I didn't even think I would be able to get one for my birthday. I still don't think I deserve it!
I don't know if the gift sender read my mind or just realized that I looked desperate every time I see porcelain or ceramic artifacts at stores or art festivals...but that was really a surprise gift to me and that was really sweet.

Seducing the Boys Club

Last 2 times when I was at a meeting as a interpreter, I did a pretty bad job even though the Japanese engineers were extremely grateful and thanking me after the each meeting.
I am extremely ashamed about myself, so I decide to do the old-fashion interpreting practice that I used to do when I was taking a beginners' interpretation course for interpreting back in Japan.
It's called shadowing.
You repeat what a speaker said a little later than he or she said and keep following that person. It' like simultaneous interpreting except you don't interpret but you speak exactly the same sentences. When you got used to "shadow," it's time to practice actual interpreting sentence by sentence.

Since I don't really have any recordings, I am using podcast news. They are really good materials. I also downloaded a free software called "Audacity" so that I can record my voice and listen to it.

Anyway, I just happened to find a program that recorded an interesting interview with Nina Disesa, who wrote a book titled "Seducing the Boys Club." The book is basically about how to deal with people and how to be successful at work.

I don't really have a time to talk about the book in detail right now, so here's her book's website.
http://www.seducingtheboysclub.com/

Also, the interview that I was practicing with:
Good Morning America Now at http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Podcasting/
(I assume this interview will be replaced with new one sometime soon...)

By the way, I like the title of the book :P

Sad News

Happy Belated New Year to all!

I had a long vacation over the holidays and spent pretty much entire vacation at other people's houses. It was relaxing and tiring 2 weeks for me.
I could spend a good time with my friends, American family, and the last but not the least, with my loved one. There, however, were some sad news around the Christmas Day.

One of my closest friend's Dad has passed away on the Christmas morning. It was really shocking news since I was actually looking forward to see my friend's Dad as much as seeing my friend. We were even supposed to have dinner together on the next day at his place. His Dad is still in his late-50s...pretty much same as my Dad...and my friend was back at home from Japan where he works now for the first time in this a year and a half or so.
It was also really painful to see my friend and his family are so down. All I could do was being at the wake and church service...

A day or 2 days after I received the sad news, I received another news from my Mom via E-mail. It was news that my Grandpa is in the final stage of cancer and he may or may not have 3 months left. He is my Dad's side Grandpa and I am not close to him, but he's still my family and I will not be able to see him for the last time since I can't leave the States for my Visa status. Grandpa doesn't know that he has cancer all over his body and the family is not going to tell him either. He will not take any medication other than removing pain. He's in his 90s, so I think that's the best thing to let him have a quality time...but if I were in his position, I would rather know what I am dealing with...and how long I have left. He lived long enough and I think he would know when his time is almost up though.

Life is so fragile. These sad news reminded me that we all have limited time in our lives and makes me realize how lucky I am that I still have so many people that I love around me.

RIP Mr. Maskey. I will miss your jokes worse than your son and your tricks.

Another Effect of Sleeping

When I was in a college or grad school, I always hated the fact that human beings have to sleep at least 7-8 hours a day. I really wished people wouldn't need to sleep. People have only 24 hours a day and sleeping is one of the things I had to cut to spare time for doing homework readings, which was actually wrong thing to do.

The other night, I was reading a magazine article talking about how to be a smarter person.
According to the article, one of the factor is sleep.
The study showed that people could memorize things better when they were getting enough sleep.

I remembered I could remember a lot of things up to high school without any problem, which made me realize that was the time when I started to become "always-lack-of-sleep" state. (Brain age is also another factor, but sleep may help me slow down my aging speed. )

Now I got another reason why I should try to get enough sleep besides healthier skin and stronger immune system.

Where Is My Career Going?

My astrology was all about my career today, so let's talk about career.

My career has just started 3 months and 2 days ago.

I used to wanted to be a classical singer or music teacher, then my dream was directed to a ground staff at an airport. Then I decided to go for world politics. I wanted to work in the UN or some kind of international organization. After I started realize that what I love to learn may not be suitable to me as a job, so I went to a grad school for a practical reason -- getting a job. I studied translation through academic and business point of views at probably one of the best schools for translation, which I figured that out after I started the school.
Now, I'm working as an in-house translator.

I gotta say I am still not sure where I am heading to.
I like my current job, but this is not the kind of job that I want to do in the rest of my life. I can see myself working in a translation agency or localization department of a private company. I am also interested in the documentation center in the UN. I might be interested in freelancing if everything works out. Or I might go for another Master's degree or even Ph.D!

Maybe....my current career goal is doing everything I can. It's definitely not a model answer for a job interview though:D

When I was a kid, I thought I would find a solid base of my life by the age I am now. I, however, still feel the same way when I sort of moved to America about 5 years ago: I can go anywhere I want to.