always hungry

5/3/17 Hello! My blog is generally a place for me to share things I find online that are inspiring, interesting, or important to me and a place for me to vent, discuss, laugh or cry about my everyday life. I don't really edit my text posts and usually my brain is working faster than my fingers, so sometimes I make mistakes. Bear with me, please. I have had this blog since October 2010. Although, I have just started using it again after a long hiatus. My ideas and beliefs have grown a lot in these past years, and I probably have posted some things I no longer agree with. If you have an issue with something, let me know and I'll review it. Hungry is my middle name. こんにちは！ このブログに最近の悩みや嬉しいことなどを書いたり、インタネットで見つけた面白いや大切や感激されることをポストしたり、時々タンブラーのコミュニティと色々を相談したりします。ブログのタイトルの意味は「いつもお腹ペコ」です。料理や食べる事や食べ物が大好きのですから。私の自己紹介はこちらです。 Background image is my own photo.

[goma0nigiri]

I’ve been thinking about this little blog for a while now. I haven’t posted it in a long time, and my thoughts and beliefs have changed a lot since I first started this in 2010. When I think about this blog and the strong community I once had here, I can’t help but think about my early 20s in general. And the torrible (my mom’s coinage - terrible x horrible) depression I was going through during most of that time. I also think about all the goofy things I did and all the friends I could spontaneously hang out with. The good ol’ college bubble that burst when I dropped out in 2013. Though, I had that little cushion that I fondly call “the summer of bliss.” 

I am about to finish my penultimate semester in university (with a 3.9 GPA for this term!). It’s been 10 years since I started this trek to getting my bachelor’s. I never imagined the university I am currently attending would be such a good fit. I do know that it wouldn’t have been a good fit before. When I returned, I was set on studying global sustainability (a mix of global studies & conservation management), but like my entire life history so far, it didn’t go as plan, and I’m graduating with a degree in Japanese Language & Culture. 

Anyway, if any of you (if there are any of you who still use this) want to say hi, I’d love that! I think I’m going to start using this again. 

[goma0nigiri]

Imma: I think Scott Walker won because he cleans his own--

Me: Butt!

Imma: Noo, his gutters. But I don't think he really cleans them because he doesn't want people watching.

Me: Watch what? His butt? Ewww.

[goma0nigiri]

Hello! Long time no see.

I've moved on from Tumblr, as you may have noticed from my total lack of posts the last several months year (it feels like it's been a year, anyways). I hope all of you are doing well!

I don't plan on using this tumblr much anymore. During the three-ish years that I posted and shared here (2010-2013), I feel that I grew and learned a lot - in small part because of the community I was a part of here on tumblr. I will be forever grateful to for that and for those of you who supported me in small ways over the last few years. 

I am working on several projects right now before going back to school in January. First, I'm working on two fun, interactive books Japanese language-teaching books for children (or perhaps, adults who like interactive learning... like me). I hope to sell them on Amazon or eBay for around eight dollars. I want them to be fairly accessible to anyone who is interested. 

Second, I've started a new blog on WordPress. It is a mix of my obsession with Kagoshima, teaching Satsuma dialect to English speakers, and personal journal (though not as emotionally personal as this tumblr ever got). 

Third, we are finally nearly finished our garden expansion that I was working on last year before I found a job. So excited for grapes and such!

Being willfully, mostly unemployed again has definitely given me the time to be creative and work on hobbies that I am unable to when I have a job. 

And my last project is finding a job I like and that treats me better than my last job. Really, I'd like it to be meaningful (in the tikkun olam sense) too, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of that in the radius I can bike or walk to (I still don't drive). 

Also, if you might recall me going back to Japan earlier this year. I made a little compilation video of it and put online. So if you are interested in that, go ahead and watch. 

That's all for now!

Thank you all for inspiring me, connecting with me, and helping me grow.

I'll be sharing my WordPress posts on this tumblr. 

[goma0nigiri]

Some updates...  I haven't been regularly posting in so long. 

I work about 27-32 hours a week as a cashier at one of the main grocery stores that services my community. About 20/30 of those hours, I spend on the express lane (under 15 items). During an average day during an average eight hour shift, I deal with an average of 600 customers. Most days, I'm pretty much on automatic, though I am extra careful with the elderly (a good chunk of my customers).

I still make less than 8 dollars an hour at 7.90/hour. I will make 8.10 once I've been there a year in mid-November (really it should have been mid-October but I was gone for a month). I think about finding new work but most days I am so exhausted from talking (for me it's basically shouting because most of my customers are elderly), standing all day, and lifting heavy things (like those 35 packs of water bottles that people like to buy and then put on the conveyer belt for some reason). 

I get one 15 minute break if my shift is less than 7 hours. If it is more than 7 hours, I get two 15 minute breaks. Really it is a ten or twelve minute break because I have to punch in and out and that machine is like a ~90 second walk away from the break room. I also have to wash my hands because they feel so disgusting after touching money, people's trash, and badly wrapped raw meat for the last 2-4 hours. 

This week I trained two new cashiers, which means I will most likely be getting my hours cut. We've been understaffed since I got back in April and I've been getting a good amount of hours (at least 27 every week). I also for the most part get the shift I want (7am-afternoon most weekdays and one weekend day). I've also asked my manager about me becoming a customer service representative (upon encouragement from the other CSRs (my supervisors), but no word back yet. 

I'm going back to school in August to finish my bachelor's degree. I am going back to Japan for a month or so again early next year (with what money? I don't know, I just know I will make it happen). I don't see myself staying at this job past the end of the year, but probably will if I don't start looking for work. 

I got paid almost $12/hour on Memorial Day since it was the first holiday I've worked since I've been there for longer than 6 months (we get time and a half on holidays if we've been there longer than 6 months). That was wonderful and I wish I just got the 11.85 in the first place. I feel like I could actually afford to live.  

I knew people were wasteful before working at this store. I have been a cashier twice before in my life, but never at a major conventional grocery store. The amount of waste that goes on (hello 35 water bottle packs) is ridiculous. I've read about these zero-waste grocery stores, and I want at least one to exist in every community. My store throws away so much that is recyclable or compostable, and it is outright shameful (something I have expressed to my supervisors and managers so many times, I think I need to express it to our CEO).  

[goma0nigiri]

By winning the right last month to host the Super Bowl, the committee added that “we have guaranteed that [more than] 100,000 visitors will descend on this community, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity.”

NFL had a long, pricey and secret Super Bowl wish list for Minneapolis | Star Tribune

Sure, in the middle of a Minnesota winter. That makes sense. 

I agree with this thread on this MPR Blog - especially since that new stadium cost Minnesotans hundreds of millions of dollars. 

[goma0nigiri]

Thank goodness tomorrow is my day off. These eight hour shifts are killing me more than I would have thought. I used to do twelve hour shifts and only take a five minute break, but that was when I was 19. I can't believe how much tougher standing and lifting stuff all day is on my body in just seven years. 

[cocoacallalily]

Bring socks!!!! #homeless #donate #homelessness

[betterthandarkchocolate]

As are toiletries!

[oh-snap-pro-choice]

I would also advice NOT to buy wool socks because yes, they are warm, but wool shrinks very easily, some people are allergic to wool, and wet wool is one of the most uncomfortable things in the world.

Thick cotton socks would be best, they’d last the longest and be the easiest to take care of and clean.

- Jane

[bethelionqueen]

Cotton is best. Always cotton

[intrudaimpala-deactivated201406]

I feel the need to STRESS the necessity of socks. For the event AMOK through Random Acts this year, we went to DTLA to pass out donations. At one point we basically ran out and some of us broke off from the group to buy some more items. We ended up at a convenience store that had two boxes of cotton socks. We bought them and as we were walking one man asked us if we had socks. And we said “Yes.” and gave him a pair and then suddenly we were surrounded by individuals all asking for socks. We were out of socks in a few moments. I can say from personal experience that socks were the most important article of clothing that they wanted. And as far as toiletries go, tampons. TAMPONS AND PADS. One woman was so excited, gracious, and thankful to receive tampons and pads, as it is a donation that seems to be overlooked. So please, of donations that could be given, while all articles of clothing and food and other necessities are more than welcome, socks and tampons and pads are largely needed.

[byron130]

18.05.2014 I learned yesterday that when you see a bee on the ground that isn’t moving, it’s not necessarily dead, it’s probably just dead tired from carrying lots of pollen and needs re-energising. So if you mix a tiny bit of water with some sugar and let it drink it will give it the boost it needs to continue on its way. Bizarrely, this exact thing happened today! I found a knackered bee, mixed up some sugar water, gave it a drink and watched it guzzle and guzzle then suddenly come back to life. It was amazing! Thank you patrick, it was an excellent tip that i’ll never forget and will continue to pass on to others!

[goma0nigiri]

I work 38 hours in the next five days (including today's 8 hour shift) all because I requested off for this weekend for my younger sister's wedding. Every time I request off, my manager gives me a ton of hours (like 30 hours in the three days before I left for a month). I wish she wouldn't. Like I appreciate the extra money, but I don't like how hungry I end up after these shifts (thanks to our nonexistent meal breaks, only 15 minute break). やっせん。

[goma0nigiri]

I work in customer service, and a lot of people call me ma'am, but I'm always a little taken aback when it is someone a lot older than me. I know it's a sign of respect, but respecting elders was really pushed by my parents as a little kid and then strengthened even more so growing up a little in Japan. When I went to university, a lot of professors wanted us to call them by their first name, and I never could - it just felt wrong to me. Going to high school in Japan, that would never happen, but I know some of my siblings had teachers in high school who did the same thing. Anyways, this customer about my mom's age called me "ma'am," today, and I just started thinking about how I really need to get used to this. I did a little living in the middle of nowhere Virginia, but just like calling older adults just by first name ((no Uncle/Aunt(y) like when I was growing up or living HI)... even ones I'm working with, it just feels wrong.

But maybe using their first name makes them a little more comfortable, so I try my best. My thought when being called ma'am or Ms. Goldie by elders is, "I haven't even earned your respect yet." 

Woken up by lightening or something so up at 4 am thinking about how we show respect, etc. This is the first week in a while that I don't have a jam-packed work schedule. Hopefully, it doesn't rain all week!

[goma0nigiri]

I'm going back to school to finish my Bachelor's... if you have a degree and think finding a full-time job is tough, let me tell you, with no degree, it's impossible.

[goma0nigiri]

Forever Summer - Anuhea

[goma0nigiri]

I am so sick of being jet lagged. It's 3am and my cat is hungry and scratching at my door. I was asleep (because I am trying my best to sleep during the nights even though my body is like it's afternoon, let's do stuff). But the sleep was like an easily stirred afternoon nap kind, and now I am awake. And I have to go to work today at 7am, so no middle of the day (here) sleeping like I did yesterday (my day off) when I was up from midnight til 9am (11pm Japan time) after sleeping for 2 hours. For the first time ever they are giving me more than 30 hours at my cashier job and giving me early morning shifts I asked for six months ago (I can set my hours for other two jobs and I'm not doing a whole lot til my brain is in the right time zone). I wish they'd start this in like 10 days instead of 2 days after I got back,

[goma0nigiri]

I really like the later part of the video, but can't figure out how to embed it with the time set as is, so just posting in link form for me to watch again later. I just really like these instruments. I used to play the djembe and similar drums, and I would love to learn how to play this. http://youtu.be/w0CxCtO0Mmo?t=4m18s

[goma0nigiri]

[goma0nigiri]

Accent isn't an issue unless it prevents your listeners from understanding your spoken English. If that's the case, then you can't claim spoken fluency. "Bilingual" can have both a restricted and an unrestricted meaning. My 16-year-old son is trilingual, but Mandarin Chinese is his best and "native" language; Southern Min (Taiwanese from Fujian Province) is his "mother tongue" because he grew up speaking that every day with his grandmother, uncles, aunts, friends, and mother, but he doesn't use it as much as he uses Mandarin (all school classes are taught in Mandarin); and English is what he uses with me and has since he was born, but it's his third language. For the most part, he sounds like a native speaker of American English, but because he's never lived there, he knows little or nothing about American culture, and I haven't gone out of my way to teach him. He watches and listens to American movies and to American YouTube videos (comedians etc.) and understands some of the jokes, but he's not bi-cultural and not totally bilingual because he doesn't have native fluency: He often has to translate words and ideas from Chinese and I often have to ask Google Translate to express some ideas and English words in Chinese when we talk. If you can think in English as well as you can think in Swedish, and if you have a deep understanding of the culture as well as the written and spoken language of an Anglophone country -- one that would allow you to be, say, a simultaneous interpreter at the United Nations -- then you can probably claim "native or bilingual proficiency". You'd be able to simultaneously translate current slang and topical references and jokes from English into Swedish or Swedish into English. I knew a young Japanese-American woman about 30 years ago who was bi-cultural and bilingual in Japanese and American English. When she spoke English, she acted like an American woman, but when she spoke Japanese, she changed personalities and acted like a Japanese woman. Quite different. If you can easily discuss the major and minor topics in your field of work in English in minute detail, just as you would be able to in Swedish (I'm assuming that you can do that in your native language), then you can claim "full professional proficiency". You probably wouldn't need to use an English dictionary any more often than you'd need to use a Swedish dictionary for arcane technical terms in or related to your field. You wouldn't necessarily be able to translate current slang and topical references and jokes from English into Swedish or Swedish into English. I'm sure that I'm missing something here, but this is my impression of what those terms mean.

Difference between "full professional proficiency" and "native or bilingual proficiency" - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange Reading this and thinking about my Japanese language skills (where it is at now). I just got back from Japan. When I first arrived in Tokyo, my Japanese was where it was for the last two years or so (since I stopped tutoring)... I could understand 90% of what was being said or written but couldn't reply very well. After a week in Tokyo, my Japanese hadn't changed because I was speaking English the whole time with my friends from university (all Japanese but have a good handle on English). Then after arriving in Kagoshima, somehow I pushed through and was almost immediately able to start speaking normally (not as well as I did when I was 16, 17, 18... but still pretty fluently) Maybe the last two years I could have spoken normally too, but I had no reason to so I didn't push myself. Anyways, I spent the next two weeks only speaking Japanese, thinking in Japanese and dreaming in Japanese. I was trying to figure out whether I am conversational, business level (which I don't think I am because I don't speak keigo very well), or bilingual/fluent. I know that my voice, body language, and mannerisms change to when I am speaking Japanese or English... like this line, "When she spoke English, she acted like an American woman, but when she spoke Japanese, she changed personalities and acted like a Japanese woman." I was just told this by my friends who have known me for 9 years when I was in Fukuoka. Definitely am a Satsuma-jin as my friends and I call ourselves. I feel like while I can speak at a fast and fluent pace and talk about a lot of different issues and tell jokes/use slang, the fact that I don't know kakikotoba or keigo very well (I used to but I haven't used it)... I dunno. I feel like I am maybe just conversational level? I can definitely rule out business level because I feel like business level probably revolves around those two things I've just started studying again. Maybe I am bicultural? But not quite bilingual? The reason I am thinking about this is I am looking for work in Japan and they categorize language skills in this way. I am not sure where to put myself. Maybe after re-studying keigo + kakikotoba (which I started doing yesterday), I can be comfortable with saying I am fluent. Ooh, I need to restudy grammar too. I feel like I have just been using dialect + slang lately, so my grammar is not currently up to par.

[goma0nigiri]

So I have this bookmark on my bookmark bar thing that is just a picture of flan. I put it there like 3 years ago and haven't thought about it in 2 years. I just clicked on it by accident and my eyes opened wide and I gasped, 'flan.' It made me feel very happy, and now i remember why I put a bookmark on the bar that is just a picture of flan.